CapnMarvel's Payola for Playola Presents The Mineral Kings

Well, what CAN you say about three guys nice enough to send me not one, but TWO of their apparently self-produced, self-marketed CD's for review, and even just a lame little fetish site like dear ol' Capn's? I'm not even all that 'well respected' or even 'tolerated on an empty stomach' well outside our own little clique of fellow allowance-blowers here in the WRC. PLUS I say the word 'fuck' like sixteen times in each review...I say it's like handing the keys to a brand new Aston Martin to your best friend who just had a couple-three bowls of 'paralytic' weed...probably you won't like what you're gonna see tomorrow morning. Or, even more likely with an irresponsible simp like myself, you're not ever gonna see your reveiws, discs that you had to pay for out of your own pocket to make and send to me, or your precious Aston Martin ever again. Probably traded for 5 minutes with a Tijuana whore, with Metropolis providing the background music...

AhA!!! I surprise yet again (I forget when the first time was...maybe when I said I didn't like The Wall one bit) and actually forge some sort of review for these guys' record in something approaching due time. And what can I say about this San Francisco trio but, hey! Talking about spiritual forebears from the Bay Area, I like Journey, too! A whole unhealthy lot! Arena rock just got a bad name for itself with the critics back in the early 80's because they got all the chicks. I hope these guys get as many groupies as Steve Perry AND Neil Schon combined. And I like overachieving guitar players who play like 10 zillion different instruments on the album, write all the songs, and apparently all the emails, too. They're fiercely professional, built for album rock radio, and slicker than Annette Funicello dunked in a vat full of Ranch Style Baked Beans. And if you don't get it by now, 'slick' is not any sort of an obscenity on this site, not like, say...'cute' is. Now I can't stand cute too much, but the Mineral Kings have kinda grown on me....I wish I could tell you more about them, but I've got sorta scanty sources, and anyhow, if you want useful information, go listen to NPR. If you want dog 'n' pony 'n' yo mamma jokes and snappy turns of phrase resultant from me taking over 10000 mg's of Valium in the year 1998 alone, keep on readin', boyo!!!

Before I get off on actually reviewing this great shiny piece of bakery pastry, let me tell you that I had sort of a little apprehension about starting a 'Bribery Review' section, or as I've so inventively called it, a 'Payola for Playola' section. I mean, these people have gone out of their way, at no small personal expense, to send me these albums, and I'm worried that if I say something bad, I actually have IMPACT on these people's income and chosen way of expressing themselves and their chances of getting hot lovin'. Oh, they all thank their wives and children on the CD booklet, but 'cmon...a good review from the Capn always gets the pussy, its like clockwork. Just ask Roger Waters. I gave him a bunch of vinegar and he hasn't had sex since 1977.

So, back on track again, when I first put on Atomic Numbers one Sunday morn back some weeks ago, I was pretty afraid that I had stepped into The Big Mistake. The production is clear and pretty good in comparison to other selfer-albums I've heard (they obviously DID actually go to a studio, at least as far as I can tell) but there's pretty bad first-timer mistakes. The drum sound is very 'sock'-y, (where that snare drum has that artificial-sounding 'whack'), some of the reverb is very fakey, an amateurish synth here and there...generally things that would have been corrected by a more expensive production team. And the singer has a voice and vocal style which is a very acquired taste. At times, at pretty hefty volumes, he's pretty far from being in tune, and that's not even all. His timbre lacks subtlety, and while the vocal harmonies are excellent on this record, when it comes for Carv's Big Moments, like the lead for 'Love Is Always Growing', I feel a bit disappointed by this ugly echo treatment applied to his track, possibly ruining a chance to redeem oversinging on the album opener 'For Granted'. The best times come when I can just ignore the vocals altogether...I'm not all that bowled over by the lyrics, and I'm much happier wrapping myself up in the lush comfort that is Art Forte's electric string-work. I'm not here to damn the vocals...Lord knows I've heard worse, but compared to the shining professionalism that makes itself evident on the rest of the album, the vocal work is a bit of a letdown.

Songwise, sometimes I think I'm in the middle of an alt-lite album, something along the lines of Hootie and the Blowfish, (except a LOT less likely to make me want to kill Kill KILLL!!!! 'She Don't Ever' is the best country-rock ballad I've never heard on VH-1), some tracks show a charming penchant for roots-y New Wave along the lines of the Pretenders ('Where Are You Now?' quotes liberally from 'Back On The Chain Gang'), and some just sound like El Lay 1979 double-live album gatefold sleeve chiffon I Want You arena rocking. There's even a swear-to-God power ballad right there at number 4, except it sounds like a Black Crowes power ballad (with more of that insensitive singing...sorry, guys) than, say, a Loverboy ballad, praise the Dog. Tha album hits a pretty serious case of the blahs around this point, with just too much creeping exposition and not enough ripping it up. I like bands that can sound like they can take things easy and by-the-numbers, then turn right around and tear through the construction paper with abandon not seen since Animal on the Muppets, and I feel like the Mineral Kings are too willing to settle for the slow burn than just lighting all the firecrackers at the same time. They plod their way through two or three songs, with only the great 'She Don't Ever' to break up the mayonnaise. The closer 'One On One' takes the whole mess right back to 1981, though, and gives us a glimpse of what would've happened had John Lennon fronted Squeeze, yet with some fantastic guitar work. For one song, at least, it all comes together for The Mineral Kings, and even then they rhyme 'change' with 'rearrange'. Ah, you can't win 'em all, can ya?

Capn's Final Word: Pretty adept at 'bringing it down for just a minute', now must 'kick out the jams'. Right now I just wonder what they're so mid-tempo about....

Hey now, let that rootsy-freak flag fly! Much better vocal job on this one, too...Tefft actually sounds like he means it this time, and the rocking backup, straight from a Buick 6, fits like a body sock. I like the fact that they've let their inner hicks out for a walk on Metropolis...they sound a lot less inhibited, a lot less like Columbia Records 1978, and a lot more like themselves. Art Forte's guitar work is less studied and more masterful...he flashes signs of a healthy Jeff Beck/Ron Wood obsession on 'Vanish'...much better than the audial honky he represented himself to be on Atomic Numbers. 'North Beach Drifter', 'Vanish', 'Scared To Death', they're all fantastic rockers....even 'A Lot Like You' is a boozy good time about Jesus that makes me lust after cocktail peanuts and loud St. Petersburg pubs with poor food and 20c half-liters of beer. They may have thanked Jack Daniels on the last record, but that must've been a depressed drunk...this is a much more good-timey, throw-up-in-your-friends-car-and-still-be-best-friends-the-next-day sort of deal. And the hits just keep on coming. It's as if they got all their shits out of their system and now don't come across whiny at all....it's a lot more becoming to their obvious talent, and the production matches same. No more of that ugly short-reverb on the vocals, it's all just clear and blue-skies on Metropolis. Probably I don't like 'Please Don't Take It So Bad', but its still got a chain-sawing guitar solo on it, and that's enough to put good butterflies in my tummy...

The only major beef I have with this record is I still don't necessarily feel like I know what the Mineral Kings' style is...what's their particular kick, you know? Probably a lot of their individuality comes from the vocal sound, still heavy with harmonies and Tefft's open-hearted gutter style, but beyond that, I feel like it's still Name Them Influences, and when the rocking stops the songs lose interest in a hurry, maybe it's just that lack of subtlety I alluded to above, maybe I really want to review more dumb rock that didn't take a lot of thought to produce, like this did. All I feel is that, when they play slower songs (like, say, ALL of Atomic Numbers) they're straining themselves to make Artistic Statements, and when they get all loosey goosey, we see the real personalities come out from behind the artifice. Ach, but just don't give me more rusty Devo-rockers like 'Good Good Man', a condemnation of redneckism that strikes me as very, very contrived. When this band thinks too much, it's bad news...when they try to be 'ironic', it's bad news...when they just shut up and play, they're pretty frigging alright....A lot fo bands could take that same advice, lemme tell you, and probably very few of them have the integrity that The Mineral Kings have.

Capn's Final Word: On the Atomic Numbers album jacket photo they looked like they'd just gotten their shoes spat on by some raggedy, toothless Frisco bum. On Metropolis they look like they just stole the keys to Daddy's truck and are going into town for some whores and Dr. Pepper. And the music follows the lead...