Andrew Jackson Jihad (photo: Lisa Johnson)
Still not fully recovered from our first Album Club last month, the Rice and Bread team soldiered on and this time we took a close look at Christmas Island, the latest album by Phoenix folk-punks Andrew Jackson Jihad.
While AJJ didn’t get nearly as much hate as Koo Koo Kanga Roo did in our previous instalment, they did have a polarizing effect on the club, as you’ll see below.
The album club:
Jason Schreurs, Rice and Bread Magazine
Megan Cole, Rice and Bread Magazine
Greg Pratt, Rice and Bread Magazine contributor
Blake Morneau, Rice and Bread Magazine contributor
The album: Andrew Jackson Jihad’s Christmas Island
Jason: Today we’re going to talk about this band Andrew Jackson Jihad’s new album, Christmas Island, and I have no idea what that title means. So, truthfully, guys, how many listens did everyone get in on this one?
Greg: Two over here.
Blake: I listened to it about a half a dozen times. It was a real struggle. I was really bothered by what I call “indie voice.” The singer just has that whiny, indie rock voice that really turned me off, but I kept listening and I think I like it.
Jason: Yeah, I think I like it, too. I’ve listened to it probably a dozen times, but I’ve had it for longer than you guys. It’s a weird album, definitely, and it’s sort of hard to get a handle on.
Megan: I only got a couple of listens as well, but I was immediately drawn to the “Linda Ronstadt” song. That was the pull for me right at the beginning because I grew up with her as a child.
Jason: Featuring the classic line, “Today I lost my shit in a museum.”
Blake: It’s funny, that song… I absolutely hated it when first heard it, but now that I’ve listened to the record a bunch of times I really love that song. It’s a very emotionally naked song and I appreciate it.
Jason: The band is strange. They remind me of other similar bands like The Front Bottoms and The Weakerthans,but they’re out there in left field.
[Silence]
Greg: Well, I would dispute The Weakerthans. As you know, Jason, I’m a huge fan of The Weakerthans. To me, this band, having only listened to their album twice and not really given them as fair a shake as they deserve, they had a lot of that ironic, “haha, look at us, aren’t we clever?” stuff happening. They’d be on the verge of something deep, moving or emotional and then they’d say something silly because they just couldn’t stand the thought of being serious for more than two minutes, which bugs the hell out of me. When it’s between humorous and serious all of the time, you can’t help but think, “What am I supposed to be getting out of this?” So I hard a hard time connecting with it.
Megan: I didn’t really hear The Weakerthans, but I did hear Modest Mouse, especially the song “Coffin Dance,” which had the Modest Mouse style of vocals. But I kind of agree with what Greg’s saying. There were these moving melodies, but the lyrics were bizarre in some spots. In “Getting Naked, Playing with Guns” I didn’t understand why there was a gerbil in the microwave, and all I could think of was frying bacon naked and how you shouldn’t do that either. So I didn’t really get the message behind a lot of the songs.
Jason: What, you guys didn’t like the line, “I’m a blank page in a notebook waiting to be filled with countless drawings of cocks”?
Blake: I loved that line! That line made me laugh sooo much!
Jason: In a song called “Angel of Death,” which unfortunately was not a Slayer cover.
Greg: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. And again, the lyrics, especially, there were many points on the album where they were just about on the level of profoundness, profundity, I believe, might be the word… I was just about the have some sort of epiphany, and then he’d say something dumb like “and then I peed everywhere” or something, and it was about to be really good, but it was like they couldn’t handle being serious for too long, so they’d say something silly. And because I like my music more serious, I guess, it totally ruined it.
Blake: I also found it a bit jarring the way they jumped between the serious stuff and the absurd, winky sort of stuff. But, unlike a lot of hipster, indie sort of bands, they didn’t have the mean-spirited winking of a lot of that stuff. It seemed really positive, even when they were being silly, which I appreciated.
Jason: Yeah, the band does have a crusty punk sort of background. They’ve put out five albums, numerous splits and EPs and been on a bunch of compilations. They’re definitely rooted in the punk scene and their drummer was telling me that they’re getting backlash from their fans for this album because they brought in a big producer and this would be their “sellout” album or whatever. But I listened to some of the older stuff and it’s very folk punk, like two guys with beat-up guitars just going for it. So I guess you could say this is the album that they are trying to be a “real band,” or whatever you want to call it.
Blake: Kind of growing up a little bit…
Greg: I could tell there was a punk background with the Man Is the Bastard lyrical reference, which I got quite a bang out of. I liked that. My overarching feeling listening to this album is that I just can’t connect with it. There would be points where I’d be thinking, “This is really cool, I’m about to really like this,” and then it would just be six-year-old bathroom humour or something. And that’s not what I listen to music for. I get the feeling, though, that for what it is, whatever genre or scene this is, I barely even know… that this is probably top-notch stuff. I could tell it was good, just not really my bag, musically.
Megan: I almost thought they were making fun of indie folk rock. I don’t even know if they were taking it seriously themselves, or if they were just doing this album to give the finger to the whole folk-rock indie movement that’s going on right now. You wonder how serious you can be about some of these lyrics.
Laughing with us, not at us: Andrew Jackson Jihad (photo: Lisa Johnson).
Blake: But with all of absurdity, there are some real powerful moments, so I think they had to be taking it somewhat seriously. There are some incredible lines and verses on this record.
Jason: Yeah, and they’re talking about some important issues on this album as well. It’s not just toilet humour, by any means. I don’t know, I guess they’re just weird, goofy dudes. If you look at photos of these guys, they’re pretty awesome. Actually, they remind me of that band Akron/Family; they just look dudes that should be swimming in a river somewhere between Phoenix and their show in Denver, Colorado. They’d just stop in the mountains somewhere and go for a swim.
Blake: Did anyone else find the “red as the asshole of a dog shitting” line upsetting? It was really upsetting to me.
Megan: Who’s looking at a dog’s asshole. I can barely look them in the eyes when they’re doing that.
Greg: When I hear lines like that, it just ruins it. I just roll my eyes and it takes it down to the level of a third grader or something. It’s totally me being a party pooper, I realize that. I just don’t want to be listening to stuff like that.
Jason: I think that’s part of their plan, in some ways, it to be this band that’s jarring and abrasive. I mean, the song “Do, Re and Me” is two minutes long and it basically runs through the musical scale, and it’s as annoying as fuck.
Greg: I actually thought that was a great song, musically.
Jason: Okay, so what I think we are saying here is this is a polarizing band. We’re debating over individual songs and some people like certain ones, and others don’t. I thought “Linda Ronstadt” was the most painful song out of all of them. Any ideas why the album might be called Christmas Island?
Greg: It made me think of children’s music. I couldn’t shake that the whole thing might be the local elementary school band gone haywire.
Jason: Maybe this is what Koo Koo Kanga Roo should have been?
Greg: There were similarities between the two, for sure. The band it actually reminded me of, in a lot of ways, was Victoria’s Frog Eyes, with the quirkiness and the inside jokes, but I like Frog Eyes a lot more. But the vibe reminded me of it. And I’d also like to add that the “indie rock guy talking weakly” kind of vocals that Blake mentioned; I couldn’t stand that. The sound of this guy’s voice was very grating and maybe it was on purpose, or some kind of ironic thing, but to a guy like me who listens to death metal all day, the vocals did nothing for me.
Jason: I don’t think he’s being ironic when he’s singing. It’s just who he is and he’s a weird dude. The vocals seemed pretty genuine; they just weren’t that genuinely good. I don’t think he’s putting it on, though.
Blake: It’s just unfortunate that that’s the way he sings. I think his voice took this record from an 8.5 out of 10 down to a 7 for me. He cut off a whole point or two. It was a little much.
Megan: I just think a lot of these songs missed out on opportunities. Like the song “I Want to Rock out in My Dreams”? I wanted that to have a rock-out moment, but it just had cellos and organ in the background. You’re talking about wearing leather, but it’s like you’re in church listening to orchestral music. It was bizarre.
Jason: I just really wanted “Angel of Death” to be a Slayer cover… Well, I guess the verdict is out on Andrew Jackson Jihad. I think I like them…
Blake: I like it. It has its missteps and I think they could grow, for sure. But there’s a pretty solid base if they’re going to keep making music.
Greg: I don’t think I like them, but I think that they’re doing what they do just fine, and I can tell they’re doing what they want to do.
Megan: I’d rather listen to this than Koo Koo Kanga Roo any day.
Jason: I think we should all go listen to some Linda Ronstadt, and then Slayer’s “Angel of Death.”
Andrew Jackson Jihad‘s Christmas Island is out now on SideOneDummy Records.
No Comments