Olden Daze

Here's a review of our first record from the distant past by the glorious Tris McCall (he makes us feel good about ourselves):

Thursday, March 04, 2004
The Multi-Purpose Solution
Title: The MPs

From: Essex and Passaic Counties. That's what it says on the album, anyway -- the address listed in in Clifton. I know the guitar player was living in Newark at the time of release, but he's not there anymore.

Format: Full-length LP.

Fidelity: Jersey indie. Jersey independent studios and engineers have a tendency to want to isolate instruments when recording even the most ferocious rock bands, or, when isolation isn't available, to still chase after the clean sound of isolated instruments. More on this in the "what's not so good" section, but now let's get to what's good.

Genre: Post-punk/indie-rock. Multi-Purpose Solution shares many formal features with the turn-of-the-decade New Brunswick coterie of groups that spent Saturday nights at the Court Tavern and Melody Bar, and late May at the Wilmington Exchange. Think Aviso'Hara.

Arrangements: Two guitars -- one distorted electric razor of an instrument playing big chords, and another scrawling single or double-note lines over the top. Rock and roll bass and drums, some guitar processing (including a particularly effective phaser on "Combiner", and a great sci-fi sound effect at the tail end of "Superman's Flying, The Guns Are Shooting"), and backing vocals on a song or two.

What's this record about?: Lots. Destructive relationships, bodily functions, weapons, automobiles, capitalism and culture, the liminality of the artist. The Multi-Purpose Solution can't decide if their artistry and passion makes them criminals, or if it's the other way around. The lyrics spring out of the speakers with the chaotic urgency of internet rants: words are coined ("insanefulness", "sansparachuting", "freeopoly"), syntax garbled to liberating effect, screeds suddenly break into articulate Italian. Singer Jim Teacher swears, gets sarcastic, intentionally misquotes classic rock songs, talks about his major and ponders slitting his own throat. If he's wallowing, he's having a great time doing so: trying to figure out whether to participate in the modern culture or to tear it down, and letting us all in on those ruminations. "It would be so much fucking simpler/just to be criminal", he ponders, before declaring himself and his peers "jackals or businessmen", anyway. The individual tracks have the feel of open-ended intervierws with a loose-lipped poet -- clearing his throat, speaking his piece, enjoying the cadence and feel of his prose even when he's saying the most desperate things, periodically pressing "pause". Inspirational verse for all you Jersey cats: "Life's not like the Hackensack/where all the human shit gets dumped and don't come back/Life's not the Passaic/just rooting around for its own sake/there's a little American Revolution in everything we do."

The singer: Aggressive music requires an assaultive tone by the frontman. Yet I don't think I've ever heard a singer take the path Jim Teacher does. He attacks, for sure, but not in the time-honored K-ROCK fashion. Instead, he presents his narratives in a voice somewhere between a punk-rock Louis Armstrong and Tom Waits committing hari-kari. I don't know whether or not he gargles with ground glass, but Teacher's guttural ranting sounds positively painful. Did I imply I didn't like it? I love it. It makes the listener sit up and pay attention to the stories; it's ugly, fascinating, and it suits the songs and subject matter perfectly. Jesse Fuchs used to say that the trick to singing is to create a vocal sound that matches what you have to say. Jim Teacher has done that. If his performances make you think the Multi-Purpose Solution routed an articulate street crazy out of Washington Square Park, stuck him in front of the microphone, and let him do his thing, well, they've probably made their point.

The band: The guitars scrawl and stutter while the rhythm section sticks to the basics. The bass guitar plays eighth notes on the roots, the drummer keeps four-on-the-floor, and the lead guitar shoots oscillating sixteenth-note patters through the fog like signal flashes. Cymbals: big, splashy, and frequent.

The songs: Unusual; songs without a clear center but never without musical focus. Many of these compositions feint toward verse-chorus structure, but substitute tag lines for releases. Teacher's narratives don't move forward in even paces, and the music follows suit: guitarrist Brother Stephen likes to introduce musical themes and then develop them and frequently works with reoccurring patterns, but they don't always develop according to expectation. Multi-Purpose Solution songs build toward foci rather than resolutions -- toward moments of heightened intensity. Sometimes these happen at the intersection of a repeated line and a harmonic resolution, and sometimes they don't. My favorite: Teacher breaking from a black meditation on a woman's breasts to count, gruffly, from one to forty-eight.

What distinguishes this record from other records of its genre?: "Phagocyte", "scholastomy", "ontology", "trilobite": The MPs has got more ten-cent words than the last Decemberists record. The drunken, shambling intellectual is not an unusual figure in certain forms -- the blues, for instance, is loaded with them -- but there aren't many in indie rock. And there are even fewer musicians willing to follow down the thicket-filled paths Jim Teacher is determined to travel.

What's not so good?: I strenuously doubt that these drums were close-miked, but they still feel awfully separate from the rest of the group. They're either too quiet, or they hit with that "ping" so characteristic of Jersey rock production. The electric rhythm guitar and bass are often way too sludgy: they don't exactly melt into each other, they're just occasionally diffuse. The MPs is a long album -- fourteen tracks, many of which break the four-minute mark -- so a little arrangement variation would also have been useful. Hey, I'm not asking for calliopes and optigons, guys; a simple acoustic track would probably have sufficed.

Recommended?: Is there any doubt? Could I hear a stanza like "last night, everything sixty-nined/last night, all the vegans stepped in line/and I was not unkind" and not want to share that with the rest of the world?

Where can I get a copy/hear more?: Alas, the Multi-Purpose Solution no longer exists. The group called it quits in autumn 2003, and North Jersey lost one of their most interesting and unique projects. The website is still up, though, and you can download several of these songs (plus a surprising number of remixes) right here. Drop them a line at your own risk. 

The Essentials, Part 1

We here at the multi-purpose solution hate lists. Making a list of the "best" of anything is the most facile way of imagining the universe--structured, hierarchical, orderly, sensical. But fuck it, we're gonna make some lists anyway.

In this case, we're making lists of the records each member of the group things is essential. One surprise: Some band members, such as Jim Teacher, listen to some real crap, and it will probably turn you off to the mps as a band if you learn this information. But as with Judgment Day, the truth must out, so here you go.

TOP 10 OR SO RECORDS TO USE IN ORDER TO BECOME JIM TEACHER

1. Iggy & The Stooges, "Raw Power" -- This one was a toss up between this record and "Fun House." I settled on "Raw Power" because of the sheer insaneness of some of the beats. I habitually listened to these albums during my senior year of high school, and, since I am a regressive fuck, this occupies my number one spot.

2. The Stones, "Exile" -- A great album to listen to while drinking and dancing with the pretty girls. Sounds like a bunch of abusers making blues-like music in a basement, which is pretty much what it is. Never gets old.

3. Hellacopters, "By the Grace of God" -- What the fuck? Why is this so high up? Because it's awesome, that's why. Shredding riffs, weird musings about God and drunkeness.

4. Urge Overkill, "Exit the Dragon" -- Again, a battle between this and "Saturation." I don't know why I can't shake this group, as some of their songs sound lazy, as if they couldn't be bothered to finish them. Opted for "Enter the Dragon" because of the dope song "And You'll Say."

5. Hot Snakes, "Suicide Invoice" -- Like cutting through shit. Utter destruction.

6. RFTC, "RFTC" -- This one's in just because of the monkey-beast on the cover.

7. Pixies, "Doolittle" -- I sometimes wonder if this band deliberately tried to make this album so awesome, or it just happened that way. I prefer to think the latter, because it's more magical.

8. Beastie Boys, "Check Your Head" -- Yeah, I listen to this shit way too much. Still have the cassette tape. "Stand Together" is some shit.

9. Alice Cooper, "Billion Dollar Babies" -- Oh Alice. This album smells like high-school vengeance.

10. Ramones, "Rocket to Russia" -- Another one of those things I included because I was obsessed with it in high school. Drama. "I Don't Care."

11. The Slackers, "The Question" -- If you can't get the awesomeness of The Slackers because "They're a ska band" (barely), you've missed out on life. This record, and "Redlight," contain some glorious songs. Ruggiero and Co. know what the fuck is up. Check "Knowing."

12. Bruce, "Born to Run" -- It's illegal to not love this album and live in Jersey.

13. Blur, "Parklife" -- I'm a sucker for some of this Brit pop shit. Again, a demonstration of how my infantile mind has never really emerged from the '90s.

14. The Clash, "London Calling" -- When I first heard this, I thought it kind of blew. But then I listened a second time, and, Oh Snap! "Jimmy Jazz," fuck you!

15. Tom Waits, "Small Change" -- One of those records that makes me feel deranged. Makes me think of Flannery's on 14th Street and Elmer T. Lee and elegant melancholy. Ugh. Did I just write elegant melancholy? See what I mean.

16. Belle & Sebastian, "Boy with the Arab Strap" -- Another example of my sad, strange love for Britpop. I blame my girl. Still, "Dirty Dream Number Two."

17. T Rex, "The Slider" -- This don't count as Britpop, right? Holy shitmother!

And that's it. Listen to these records ad infinitum (and throw in the Ghostbusters soundtrack for good measure) and you are bound to turn out a Jim Teacher.

Up Next: The rest of them

Posted by Jim Teacher

Thank You + Awesome

A million thanks to all our fans, friends, and family who came out to the mps reunion at Maxwell's the other night. It was a triumphant night. Cheers to la familia Mejias, the Circle, and the various crews from Philly and New York City (and Staten Island, even) who made this the awesomeness that it was.

If you couldn't attend, get a sampler of the magic courtesy of the Indomitable Phil Ritz, who selflessly took video of some of the songs (see below).

Until next time, perhaps...

50 Bullets


Superman


How Can a Man Be Tougher Than the World?



Jackals


Rivers of Water, Rivers of Mud


Bitch, Why?


Good Thing


Running Away from Melissa



P.S. We love you all.

Posted by Jim Teacher

Tiger Lady!

That horror in Zanesville got me thinking...there's a "missing" mps track that few people have out there. Listen to and download a rarely heard track from the rarely-found Weird New Jersey Local Heroes, Villains and Artists compilation--gratis!!


This was recorded during our second session with King Django, maybe around 2004, and would have been the last song on "In Bed." For completists, consider this the final, missing tune from the "In Bed" EP, which you can buy on ITunes.

Tiger Lady! CLICK HERE for the tune.

Posted by Jim Teacher

MPS Reunion Show

This shit is on. We'll be playing at Maxwells in Hoboken on November 4, as part of Fairmont's 10-year anniversary show. Get your dancing shoes out and start saving up those tips for the bartender.

Friday, 11/4/2011

with

Those Mockingbirds
Theodore Grimm
Fairmont

Time: Late-ish P.M. Cost: $Cheap-ish

Posted by Jim Teacher

An Interview with David Caldwell, Part 1

By Jim Teacher

JT: What influenced your musical stylings?

DC: I've always had a love of music for as long as I can remember. I guess my first musical influences came from the little radio that would play in my kitchen when I was eating my cereal before school. My parents would always have CBS 101.1 on, and I would be sipping the sugar-milk out of my bowl listening to the likes of Stevie Wonder, James Brown, the Beatles, the Temps, Cream, and tons and tons of great music.

My sister was also a pretty big influence, as in the day, she was all about the 80's...R.E.M., the Cure, Duran Duran....loads of stuff that I can't even start to list. I made fun of her for some of it back then, but I now look back and realize that these bands have totally molded the way I look at music, and I have many of the cassettes she had on CD now, so I guess the joke's on me now.

Somewhere in middle school, I started listening to a lot of hip-hop....don't ask me how, but it just kind of happened. Groups like De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Pharcyde....pretty amazing beats and a ton of originality....DEFINITELY had an effect on my drumming style.

A few years later, I met some rather unique guys ...yes, I'm talking about the MPS crew, to name a few....and had the opportunity to play drums for about five or six bands. While learning how to play, I was surrounded by various rock influences, with everything from Metallica to Rocket from the Crypt to the Bosstones....so many bands, so many great guitar licks, so many awesome drum fills.

People ask me a lot about my drumming influences..."who's your favorite drummer??".....I guess I can't start talking about drumming without talking about Rush....Neil Peart is amazing....Dave Grohl is also a big influence on me...he played hard, and he didn't make it look easy. I used to get mad at some of the drummers I would see live....drummers who would struggle but still try to make it look simple...drummers that smiled a lot.....don't do that. Don't try and make it look so easy, because I know better.

I think what's been the best influence on my music is not being closed off to different styles. I can appreciate an Iron Maiden guitar solo as much as a Slick Rick break beat. I can zone out to Coltrane one minute and rock out to Weezer's first (and best) album the next. I love music, and I think I take it for granted a lot. Answering this question tells me that, and I miss playing right now more than ever.

the multi-purpose solution on iTunes

You can now get all our records on iTunes, thanks to Neil Fairmont and Mint 400 records.

Just CLICK HERE or search for the multi-purpose solution in the iTunes store.

Dance like it's 2005.

Posted by Jim Teacher

An Interview with Stephen Mejias, Part 1

By Jim Teacher

JT: What influenced your musical stylings?

SM: Well, early on, I listened to a lot of Top 40 stuff because that’s all my mom ever listened to. I spent lots of time in cars with my mom, so I heard a lot of Top 40 radio. I also remember spending many weekend mornings listening to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdown. I was into the stuff that was playing on Z100 and Hot 97. My dad’s family, being Puerto Rican, listened to a lot of salsa, and I can clearly remember the many awesome album covers from bands on the Fania label. Much later in life – just a couple of years ago – I gained a new appreciation for all of that NYC salsa, but I think aspects of the music (especially the choppy chord progressions, which are evident in the piano vamps of most salsa) are also evident in the MPS.

I think growing up in Newark, a very urban environment, also influenced my taste in music. Throughout most of my high school years, I listened, almost exclusively, to R&B and hip-hop. It’s sort of weird to think of now, but those were great times for hip-hop. You had Black Sheep, A Tribe Called Quest, Leaders of the New School, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, KRS-1, the Pharcyde, Digable Planets, De La Soul, and lots more.

The big transformation for me came during the summer before my senior year in high school. I spent a couple of weeks in Puerto Rico with my cousins, who were into a very different sort of culture, and I was happy to soak it all up. They introduced me to Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, the Pixies, Mercury Rev, and several other indie bands. The most influential of all was Sonic Youth. I don’t know why exactly, but Sonic Youth really touched me and I devoured everything I could. I guess I always had something of an outsider’s mentality, and Sonic Youth’s experimentations brought that aspect of my character to the fore.

In college, then, I met Maya Moksha and Todd Steponick. We played together in a band called Genie Boom, and created an independent study course in “experimental music.” We researched guys like John Cage, La Monte Young, the entire Fluxus movement, and we made lots of noise around campus. We were fortunate to have professors who allowed us to indulge our curiosity.

Also around this time, I got into Jon Spencer’s band, Pussy Galore. Through Pussy Galore, I got into Royal Trux and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Through the Blues Explosion, I got into RL Burnside. And through RL, I got into a lot of the old Delta Blues guys. Now, I think this bit was very important in defining my own guitar style, which is basically a combination of Delta Blues single-note riffage and Sonic Youth’s repetitive, phased-out melodies. Also, all of this music has deep grooves – it’s all dance music, ultimately – and I liked that a lot. I think you can hear a deep groove in much of the MPS.

It wasn’t until our final year in college that I really got to know Jim Teacher. Jim Teacher introduced me to Fuzzy and Dave, and we formed the MPS. For the next five years or so, my musical stylings were really formed around the band. I learned to play with other people. Fuzzy was a huge influence. Basically, I wanted to create stuff that he’d be able to use – I just wanted to hang the framework which would hold his masterstrokes. Similarly, hearing the words that Jim Teacher brought to our music was an incredible joy.

Much later, when Alan joined the band, I learned to do less and listen more, which I think is not only a huge part of being a good musician, but a huge part of being a good person.

An Interview with Jim Teacher

By Jim Teacher

JT: So what type of things contributed to your musical stylings?

JT: Well, first of all, church music. Fuzzy and I were brought up in a hyperreligious environment, so that's where Fuzzy gets his aficion for those type of baroque guitar riffs. Lots of old hymns and such. Growing up like that we really didn't get exposed to a lot of pop music, and although you'd catch snippets of it from TV and movies, we still tend to have gaping holes in our musical knowledge.

So then when I finally started listening to music it was your basic shit on the radio, Peter Cetera type of shit, until my friends got into rap and metal. So there was this time where basically all I listened to was Metallica and some Megadeth and G'N'R and old Aerosmith, and I tried to be metal and hung around with that crowd. But I still relished pop-like things. So that was when my friend Richie B. told me I ought to check out this band the Ramones, so I did and that was the end.

I could get away with this idea in my mind that the Ramones were somehow metal 'cause of how they dressed and shit, but the music itself was a throwback to '60s bubblegum pop, which, in retrospect, was the shit I really liked. By the end of high school that's pretty much all I listened to, the Ramones and shit like Iggy Pop and old Alice Cooper (the latter two on the recommendation of my friend Black Metal Mike, who I worked with at a bookstore and who I guess took pity on me and introduced me to the writings of Lester Bangs.)

Then I sort of segued into the whole pop punk and ska scene of the late '90s, although in general I was not into the music, more the idea of playing shows, do-it-yourself, on the fly. The mps was never fully accepted in those scenes, later on, I guess 'cause we didn't conform with the three-chord shit. At the same time, I just never got into hardcore, 'cause it was so musically uninteresting. Again, looking back, the main shit I liked at the time was I guess what you would call post-hardcore: Fugazi, Dismemberment Plan, etc. And I got into ska by way of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones [Stephen winces and shudders], which, at first, I basically assumed was metal with a horn section, but that introduced us to ska and superior products like the Slackers and the Stubborn All-Stars, which hearken back again to '60s pop and especially soul. Besides borrowing the vocal stylings of Dicky Barrett (who does the Cookie Monster but in a way that suggests the blues and soul, which is something I wanted to exploit), I also took from them and the ska scene in general this idea of dressing up. I guess I just liked the idea that, you know, you were stepping out, getting dressed up to go out and dance, and so on, which is a throwback to an older era of American music. And at the time I liked the irony, of this ferocious sounding band that is lead by a guy who is suspiciously overdressed and maybe even ritzy looking--but yet there was still this solid dance aspect to it all, like big bands and jazz.

Then in the early days of the mps we started really listening to shit like the Stones and Bruce and AC/DC and Tom Waits and UO and the Smiths (I told you there were huge gaps in my music knowledge) and especially soul, which I had unwittingly always loved, but had no idea that it existed as a separate genre altogether. When I was a kid on the playground I used to run around and sing in my mind that "Na na na na" from Wilson Pickett's "Night of a Thousand Dances." Although I didn't know the name of the song, I would say that was one of my favorite songs on earth at the time, it played in my head incessantly, along with shit like "Stand by Me" (for the obvious reason, the time period). So later, finding shit like Otis Redding and Bill Withers and James Brown and Stevie Wonder, was like unearthing this treasure you had been looking for your whole life. And that obviously influenced the mps a lot.

So when you look back, you really find all these elements flowing into the mps: the metal riffs, the complex chordage a la classical music-cum-post-hardcore "angular" guitars (Stephen brought the whole Sonic Youth thing in there), the '60s bubblegum pop and punk and a little '70s glam-like shit, and of course the dance aspect and the beats of soul and the blues. All rolled into one.

Music for Spaces

Evan Wilder sent me this awesome video with David Byrne talking about how architecture influenced music.






I figure the MPS made music for CDs. And for certain basements in and around Philadelphia.

Go figure.