2008 Woodie Awards
Vote Absentee
Clinic's new album worth hearing loss
Mark Green
Issue date: 4/15/08 Section: Features
So, I was walking around campus listening to Clinic's newest album, "Do It," on my headphones - not the lame, tiny iPod earbuds, but some big, black studio headphones - when this girl comes up and stops right in front of me.
"You know," she says, "I can hear your music from across the sidewalk. You should turn it down if you want to keep your hearing."
"Well," I told her, "if going deaf is this much fun, do you have a Q-tip around to finish me off?"
No, I didn't make that story up. It happened. I'm a fan of instant gratification and besides, some foreign army or global warming will probably do me in long before old age ever does. But while I remain a citizen with the full liberties to impose deafness on myself, I'll be happy to let Clinic do the work.
Clinic is a British band that defines itself as "like nothing you've ever heard before," and while most bands are blowing smoke when they define themselves, this time the band is right.
Oh sure, you can hear some late-1970s Joy Division or Wire influence in the dirty, biting guitar sounds.
Or the demonic noise freakouts the Velvet Underground created on "White Light, White Heat" or even the free-form jazz elements that made Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" a landmark.
But then what about the easygoing doo-wop sound on songs like "Free Not Free" or the acoustic guitar at the beginning of "Tomorrow" that sounds straight out of a Simon and Garfunkel song? It's not that Clinic's sound has never been heard before; it's the way the band seamlessly blends its influences to create music that truly stands above 99 percent of its peers.
Oh, did I mention Clinic used to tour with The Flaming Lips and Radiohead? If that's not a watermark of true quality, then what is?
Formed in 1997, Clinic surfaced during the post-punk revival of the early-2000s and became known for Ade Blackburn's clench-jawed vocal style and for wearing surgery masks whenever in public.
But while its peers from that movement either fell off the map or started to suck (see: Interpol), Clinic has been chugging along, reinventing its sound every two years with innovative albums. The newest addition to its catalog has the trademark jungle-drum backbeat behind twangy off-scale chord progressions and guitars that sound more like a sitar than another jerk-off rock guitar solo.
The vintage organs, maracas and harmonica solos only serve to make it all the more brilliant, not to mention all the weird noises that pop up throughout the album. Halfway through "Mary and Eddie," I swear there's the sound of a WWII-era fighter engine humming. Now when was the last time you heard that in a song?
I was going to give this album four stars (to keep my street cred), but when I realized there was really nothing wrong with it, I figured I'd give it the golden five. I'd love to tell you more about it, but I got to head off to an appointment with my audiologist about this weird ringing sound in my ears…
markgreen@dailynebraskan.com
"You know," she says, "I can hear your music from across the sidewalk. You should turn it down if you want to keep your hearing."
"Well," I told her, "if going deaf is this much fun, do you have a Q-tip around to finish me off?"
No, I didn't make that story up. It happened. I'm a fan of instant gratification and besides, some foreign army or global warming will probably do me in long before old age ever does. But while I remain a citizen with the full liberties to impose deafness on myself, I'll be happy to let Clinic do the work.
Clinic is a British band that defines itself as "like nothing you've ever heard before," and while most bands are blowing smoke when they define themselves, this time the band is right.
Oh sure, you can hear some late-1970s Joy Division or Wire influence in the dirty, biting guitar sounds.
Or the demonic noise freakouts the Velvet Underground created on "White Light, White Heat" or even the free-form jazz elements that made Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew" a landmark.
But then what about the easygoing doo-wop sound on songs like "Free Not Free" or the acoustic guitar at the beginning of "Tomorrow" that sounds straight out of a Simon and Garfunkel song? It's not that Clinic's sound has never been heard before; it's the way the band seamlessly blends its influences to create music that truly stands above 99 percent of its peers.
Oh, did I mention Clinic used to tour with The Flaming Lips and Radiohead? If that's not a watermark of true quality, then what is?
Formed in 1997, Clinic surfaced during the post-punk revival of the early-2000s and became known for Ade Blackburn's clench-jawed vocal style and for wearing surgery masks whenever in public.
But while its peers from that movement either fell off the map or started to suck (see: Interpol), Clinic has been chugging along, reinventing its sound every two years with innovative albums. The newest addition to its catalog has the trademark jungle-drum backbeat behind twangy off-scale chord progressions and guitars that sound more like a sitar than another jerk-off rock guitar solo.
The vintage organs, maracas and harmonica solos only serve to make it all the more brilliant, not to mention all the weird noises that pop up throughout the album. Halfway through "Mary and Eddie," I swear there's the sound of a WWII-era fighter engine humming. Now when was the last time you heard that in a song?
I was going to give this album four stars (to keep my street cred), but when I realized there was really nothing wrong with it, I figured I'd give it the golden five. I'd love to tell you more about it, but I got to head off to an appointment with my audiologist about this weird ringing sound in my ears…
markgreen@dailynebraskan.com
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