Album Review/ Crappy Radio/ Awkward Moments

I got this album a while ago but really didn’t give it the listen it deserved, in my mind I guess I was sort of pouting that they didn’t decide to repeat what they did on their last album "Truth Be Told", so I almost cast aside this gem without giving it a proper chance, which is foolish considering I didn’t like their last album at first listen either or most any of my favorite albums for that matter...Over the past couple weeks the tracks have been playing randomly on my media player and I’ve discovered how layered these songs are, with each listen a new element of music becomes apparent leaving me pleasantly surprised at how fresh this is, and I keep wondering how a band just keeps getting better with age (in my opinion).
Blues Traveler has always been a very polished rhymic/ pseudo-blues band who never really broke away from their established sound at all until the “new era“ of the band, after bassist Bobby Sheehan passed away. Their last album wasn’t a huge change from the norm either but what I enjoy about it is the ‘purpose’ they suddenly seemed to discover, every song seemed carefully crafted, far more than their previous work which seemed to just build upon solos and rhythms and then became repetitious. 'Bastardos' is just as carefully crafted as Truth Be Told, but the band has also moved to the next step; adding innovation and layering. There had always been hints of experimentation in previous BT albums but it was far too safe and after a while it began to simply seem like stuff they were pulling out of their small bag of tricks; adding strange background vocals and other unnatural sounds here and there but never went far enough with them to be captivating.
Another thing that I felt their music lacked was a sense of epicness, I always felt that, especially with their first three albums, the melody and rhythm was always far too tightly compacted and quirky, the songs always often seemed hyper and the performances rushed.
The sound remains the same, this album is very Blues Traveler-ish of course, classic John Popper lyrics and vocals (which are the best they‘ve ever been), jams, harmonica solos…they’ve taken what we know and run it through a filter of excellent production, beautiful layering and surprise.
Bastardos is extremely engaging; there are parts where you expect a verse to simply enter the usual hook, and you wouldn’t have blamed them for it either, some of these songs could have played it safe and maybe been hits, but they insert a slightly off key melody or strange instrument choice that forces you to rewind and play again until you finally “get it”.
Finally, one thing different about Bastardos, that I’m not sure whether I like yet or not; the silliness is missing. I’m not sure how to describe it but in BT albums you usually expect a few songs that have extremely lighthearted, almost novelty, lyrical content that read like lists IE - “All in the Groove”, “Canadian Rose”, “Thinnest of Air”, “Felicia”, “Girl Inside My Head”, “Psycho Joe” etc. There isn’t one of those here, besides MAYBE “Rubberneck”, which is odd considering the album cover. I do enjoy the humor but there’s an air of quality that Bastardos has because of it's absense.

Anyhew, wonderful album, but unfortunately ol’ BT won’t be getting airplay again until they start riding on the wave of Coldplay‘s success or else put out a hip hop album, like one of my other favorite bands has recently done (wink wink). I’d love to see John Popper trying to sing depressing, sparse, lyrics while staring sickly into the camera. Only in bizzaro world. Screw radio play.

I give it 8.43/10 Bastardoses
and my rank of the BT albums...
1. Truth Be Told 2. Four 3. Bastardos 4. Bridge 5. Travelers and Theives 6. Straight on till Morning 7. Blues Traveler 8. Save His Soul

And in other news, there’s another mediocre radio station in town, JACKfm’s spin-off cousin, Bob radio, 97.3. At first I was excited because the station claims to play “everything”, but in playing “everything” it plays nothing. I listen and feel like, what the crap, I should be loving this, they play light semi-pop, relaxed/ acoustiquirky favorites from the early 70‘s through today, but there’s one problem, it’s ridiculously homogenous, there’s no reference points for the songs, so songs you usually love like Queen’s “Somebody to Love” has no “Princes of the Universe” to contrast it. One boring song fades into another without anything to bring up the excitement level by contrast. It’s like listening to Pink Floyd’s ‘Animals’ but without the Pink Floyd and the artsyness. And there’s not even a hint of ethnicity on the station, which means that most of my favorite artists will never be played.
And so I add this station to the list of “radio stations that got my hopes up”; the steaming pile 105.7, an adult contemporary station that is nothing more than the WBNQ (local pop hits station) archives and the other, 94.3 the smooth jazz station that has an extremely tiny play list.

In today’s "disturbing" category, I experienced the most awkward situation of my life. I was sitting in math class, listening to the teacher rattle off what seem like stereo instructions, completely lost and worrying whether or not I’ll be able to survive this class (finite math aka the most useless form of math I‘ve ever been forced to take in my life).
The teacher occasionally gets perturbed that we don’t participate more, but we honestly have two valid excuses, it’s early and we don’t have a clue what‘s going on.
So today we’re going over some word problem that happens to have the word ‘vessel’ in it, she pauses for a moment and I could see the think bubble above her head, her hyperanalytical math brain was formulating humor, hold on, wait for it...V = vessel, vessel = nautical word, nautical = pirates, pirates = funny, so apparently she though that V = funny.
I could see it coming from a mile away, so I immediately stared at the floor and clenched up like you do right before a roller coaster takes off…she says “when was the last time you used the word vessel?! (Am I right!? Am I right?!?!) -- she was implying by her facial expression, waiting for the laugh, the thunderous applause, the academy award for best supporting actress in a community college math class…
DEAD PAUSE IN THE ROOM. Not even a cough.
She continues to say something, I think, but I blacked out for a few seconds so I‘m not sure…
*Cricket…

Her golden opportunity quickly turns into our sin...
"there, I see a couple smiles" she winces *sigh "I try..it’s hard sometimes…"

There’s nowhere I can look that isn’t awkward, so I close my eyes.
In the future I will learn to recognize when math humor is on it’s way and muster up whatever fake smile I can manage.

What a day.

Oh and sorry about that word verification thing in the comments, I had to do it, every time I post now I get spam.