CD Reviews
Various Artists | Rose Maddox | Umlaut | Uncle Earl
The most explicit CD release of 2007 comes not from Eminem or 50 Cent, but from two long-suppressed collections of wax cylinders. Audio smut simply doesn't get more old-school than this.
No fewer than five of George Carlin's "seven words you can never say on television" are represented on these 43 brief spoken-word comic recordings from the 1890s. Highlights include a reworking of Hamlet's soliloquy to describe the effects of VD ("To pee, or not to pee, that is the question. ... Thus gonorrhea makes cowards of us all"), the retelling of then-President Grover Cleveland's wedding night as a naval encounter ("The Grover managed to strike the Frances with two balls between wind and water, intending to impede the action of her pump") and assorted one-liners ("Who was the first carpenter? Eve. ... She made Adam's banana stand"). The piece de resistance is "Dennis Reilly at Maggie Murphy's Home After 9 O'Clock," with diarrhea and menstruation jokes plus sound effects of squeaking bedsprings.
The thorough liner notes describe how these recordings were originally confiscated under the Comstock laws, and also how many early recording stars (including Cal "Uncle Josh" Stewart) moonlighted on them. Originally meant for male stag events, the comedy on Actionable Offenses retains its ability to shock over a century later. Play "The Tapeworm Story" — an Aristocrats-worthy anecdote involving excessive drinking, chicken guts and Vaseline — at your next sensitivity training seminar and find out who your friends are.
—Andrew Milner
Rose Maddox At the peak of her career, Dolly Parton frequently named Rose Maddox — lead singer of the "most colorful hillbilly band in the land" — as one of her childhood role models. Beyond popularizing colorful fancy western suits and boots, the Maddox Brothers and Sister Rose were country to the bone. Rose continued to perform up to her death in 1998, and her sound remained the same: from the heart and the hills. This is Rose Maddox appeared as an LP in 1981, now reissued on its original Arhoolie label with updated liner notes. Vern Williams' West Coast bluegrass band, with the addition of some hot electric guitar, recreated the sound of the Maddox Brothers' heyday with surprising authenticity. Maddox chose to re-record one her early hits, "Philadelphia Lawyer," with the band even faithfully reproducing the brothers' trademark comic asides.
—Mary Armstrong
Who knew the eerie, psychedelic Golden Ball had such beautiful robots in its ranks? Or that the 'bots sang in German? Es ist zutreffend! Amy Swenson, Eric Van Osten and Andrea Fleegle busted out of G-Ball, teamed up with Angela Fleegle (War on Drugs) and Jayme Guokas (Snow Fairies) and started making ticklish synth-pop. Umlaut's got a democratic approach to vocals (everyone sings!) and gracious layered arrangements. There are mean and icily spare songs ("Get Out of my Face") where the boys take the lead and the girls sing behind, and there's Andrea's chatty German-language stuff ("Love in the DDR," "Drunken Love Song"). But while the latter track is something Madonna'd kill for, Umlaut takes on even bigger bloopy melodies on Eric's sweetly messy "Telescope," the sleepily discordant "Les Etudes Etrangeres" (Angela and Amy in French, yet!) and the weirdly grand "Constant Reminders." Here, with an accordion's wheeze and a piano's pounding, Amy makes a gorgeous vocal noise that, like so much of Umlaut, is something you'd never expect.
—A.D. Amorosi
The Umlaut CD release party/Sugar Town with Boyskout, ILL Ease, Maple Rabbit, DJ Silvia La Chica Ye Ye, Sat., July 28, 9 p.m., $7, Tritone, 1508 South St., 215-545-0475, www.tritonebar.com.
That Led Zep-meets-old-time tag is right on the money. John Paul Jones serves Uncle Earl well as producer of Waterloo, respecting their sound — even paring it down in places to nothing more than four voices. The four young women in Uncle Earl affirm their old-time string-band roots with a joyous version of the square-dance classic "Black-Eyed Susie." That opening track lasts just long enough (under two minutes) to set an impression, giving way quickly to several contemporary songs of love gone wrong before calling another uptempo dance tune. The other Waterloo — Napoleon's — gets a haunting Sacred Harp/shape-note-style a cappella setting, segueing quickly into a modern string-band treatment of another song of Bony's time in St. Helena, followed swiftly by a short fiddle/clogging track. Uncle Earl makes sure they hold onto the tradition while loosening its stays, like calling a square dance in Chinese.
—Mary Armstrong
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