Rating: 5 out of 7 By Ken Micallef

Aug 27, 2000

Working a similar flower-pop vein as fellow Swedes the Cardigans, Cinnamon create picturesque ditties that indie and populist fans alike can love. 1997's The Courier dipped dollops of Bacharach-styled soul-candy, kinky space-pop, bossa nova rockers and trip-hop, all contoured to fit baby-talking singer Frida Driesen.
While The Courier was about the joy of sweets, Vertigo is more self-assured, hitting a better groove with deeper melodies and broader production. "Nothing," for example, is a swooning ballad of ethereal strings (conducted by Louis Philippe), jazz vibraphone, a chugging waltz groove--and a mandolin solo! "World Of Crime"'s marching guitar, brass and regal mood recall "Country House"-era Blur, contrasting with the bittersweet "A few grains of sand for working your while life." "Maybe In The Next Life" rocks more like the Cardigans, but replaces their absurd Black Sabbath leanings with percolating strings and a math-rock outro. The sweeping "Angel Eyes" closes Vertigo in an epic Neil Young mood, growling guitar, intimate verses and climatic choruses giving Driesen's little girl plea a theatrical flair.
A compilation tape incoporating seletions from The Courier and Vertigo could satiate a summer sweet tooth, provided cavities don't make you dizzy.

1. "CINNAMON"
   ©Quicktime 4.0 format
2. Get Your Player here

1970: The Complete Funhouse Sessions (Rhino Handmade)
Rating: 6 out of 7 By S.L. Duff Aug 01, 2000,

This just might be the all-time most unusual box set concept to ever hit the collective collector consciousness. Available on-line only through Rhino Handmade, this 3000-numbered limited-edition, seven-CD set contains every take, every false start, every engineer slate, every lead-singer-to-producer comment, virtually every recorded moment that comprised the making of the Stooges' 1970 classic Funhouse. You get to be the fly on the wall as the Stooges' masterful second album gets recorded at Elektra Studios in Los Angeles. The events of roughly a week's time equal about seven hours of rolling tape, and you hear it as it happened.
Funhouse is unusual in that producer Don Gallucci, having seen the Stooges' live show several times, decided from the get-go that the way to capture the Stooges' particular brand of sonic hoodoo was to record them live in the studio. Gallucci went so far as to set up a P.A. in the studio for Iggy Pop to sing through. The P.A. was microphoned, making it nearly the first deliberately distorted vocal recording on a rock record, predating Reznor and the like by a quarter century. So, unlike the typical rock record, in which several basic rhythm section takes would be recorded for each song until one was selected as the keeper, at which time the solo and vocal overdubs would complete that one selected track, every Funhouse take of every song is essentially complete--a final performance with solos and lead vocals. You have to pretty much go back to the 1950's heyday of Sun Studios to hear other rock records of any value that were created this way.
This raises the pragmatic question: Who in their right mind is going to listen to 15 takes of "Down On The Street," much less 28 takes (!) of "Loose?" The answer: musicians that have been influenced by these recordings, recording enthusiasts, and Stooges freaks. There should be at least 3,000 mofos that fit those categories, no problem. Frankly, on paper, the idea of all these takes of the same seven songs (and a forgotten number called "Lost In The Future" which the Stooges apparently discarded immediately following these sessions) may not sound that appealing, but it is honestly a refreshing and exhilarating listen. I navigated several long drives with only "TV Eye" and "Funhouse" playing on the car stereo, and I sang along with track 9 with even more energy than track 2.
There is a decent amount of variation from take to take, due to the open structure of the songs. The Stooges took the basic formula of their debut--simple, machine-like riffs that repeated with slight variations between verse and chorus--and expanded it into a kind of trailer park version of late-'60s James Brown. In a very real way, like James, the Stooges seemed intent on freeing music from the shackles of chord progressions and song structures, opting instead for a free-flowing, loose (if you will) approach steered by the vocal cues of Iggy. "Bring it down," "lemme in," he yells in "Funhouse," a one-riff, one-chord marathon that has nowhere to go melodically and harmonically, so it relies on dynamic/volume/intensity variations, hung on the shoulders of Iggy's movements through the vamp. It's similar in every way to "Sex Machine."
The fact that we've got a raw hard rock band kicking ass on open, heavy funk-based jams was only part of the equation. Add to that a somewhat left field love for Coltrane/Ayler/Coleman-inspired free jazz and the participation of tenor saxophonist Steven Mackay on three selections ("1970," "Funhouse," and "Freak" {a.k.a. "L.A. Blues"}), and another dimension of moods and sounds arise. As Iggy howls "I feel awl-rite," Mackay takes off to parts unknown, ripping harmonics out of his horn while Iggy, obviously feelin' it, hollers back to Mackay: "Blooooowww!" These jams also represent the mountaintop from which guitarist Ron Asheton launched his finest lead guitar explorations, stomping on overworked fuzz and wah pedals to punctuate his points. Asheton would soon be demoted to bassist when James Williamson took over the guitar position and guided the Stooges into somewhat more traditional hard rock fare. Though the Search And Destroy-era Stooges were still as on-edge and theatrically dangerous as ever, they would never again be as musically unique and focused. For his part, Asheton deserves some overdue credit. While we're slappin' brothas on the back, let's get the facts straight and place drummer Scott Asheton and bassist Dave Alexander alongside the great rock rhythm sections. Take after endless take on this set, these two drill out time with the consistency of a Detroit assembly line. Heavy, machine-like, but never mechanical, their tempos never waver, and even as they lighten the attack in order to "bring it down," they never lose focus or intensity.
In the end, a lot of critics and historians have flapped many a jaw about the crudity and the primitive approach of the Stooges, as if Neanderthal man had hunched forth from his cave and created these majestic works of beauty by mere instinct. It didn't happen that way. The Stooges, as a group, clearly had decided to make something that was different in every way from everything else around them, and although the world wouldn't immediately acknowledge this in any sort of positive way for several years after its creation, the Stooges succeeded. As to "crude," "primitive," "garage," or whatever lame tag gets attached to the legend, this set confirms that which should never have been in question. The fact is, the Stooges were and remain better than your band, your mother's band, your brother's band, and the 8 million bands that have groped around in their shadow, all trying to come up with something as perfect as "TV Eye" and failing. The Stooges are nothing short of an American treasure, and Funhouse was the pinnacle of their magic. This box set confirms that, and puts the sessions themselves in context with a small handful of other live-in-the-studio masterworks, such as Coltrane's Giant Steps or Elvis's sessions at Sun. Or, to put it another way: "Out of my mind on Saturday night. 1970 rollin' in sight."

1. STOOGES sample 1
   
2. STOOGES sample 2