CD Reviews

Upshot: Return of the Corduroy Killah (upshot music, 2001)

The musically astute among us have noticed that Yo! Yo! Yo! spelled backwards is Oy! Oy! Oy! I’m not saying that Jews have cornered the market on urban music, but then again, The Beastie Boys were no fluke.

Introducing Upshot, a metro New York-based sextet fronted by Danny Steinman. While listening to this energizing, sometimes exhilarating debut, you start wondering about their pedigree. You get the answer by cut number seven called “My World,” when Steinman plays his hand and raps, “I think I funk pretty good for a white Jew.” Part shrewd gimmick and part apology, this self-mocking attitude of Jewboy-Homeboy threads throughout the 11-song CD, giving an ingratiating edge to Upshot’s tough-guy swagger.

From the opening cut, “Sucker”, a horn-heavy, driving number, this CD bops, feints and charms. These are energizing storysongs: a pure fusion of rap, jazz (urban and Brazilian) and funk. To call Return of the Corduroy Killah derivative would be churlish, especially when Upshot wears its numerous musical influences on its sleeve. And does it so well. This is music that would make both George Clinton and Gil Scott-Heron proud and owes much to both of them. When was the last time you heard a rap-driven laundry list of social ills, poverty, drug use, crime—focused more on illuminating solutions than free-floating gangsta anger? Upshot has it in abundance. The guys are just too smart to blame it all on the neighborhood hos. Corduroy Killah despite its unfortunate ersatz hip-hop title delivers again and again.

From the tenderness of “Edith” to the lamentations of “Manhattan” to the sexy naughtiness of “Pick up the Slack,” Upshot claims its piece of the city sidewalk, even if they head back to the suburbs at the end of the day. But these are not hard-luck ghetto stories that trade on feigned poverty, penned from P. Diddy’s penthouse. (Caucasian guilt is also given voice on “My World” when Brooklyn-born Steinman admits, “Born and raised in a whitebread city/Stratification make me feel kinda shitty.”) Mackie Snee’s sax and flute anchor the best of these 11 cuts, but it’s Steinman (the eponymous Upshot) and his empathetic, elastic voice that unifies this sometimes-disparate grab bag of musical styles.

On the group’s Web site (www.upshotmusic.com), we learn that they just won the Tri-State Band Search, sponsored by WLIR Radio. The prize was a November 28 gig opening for Pete Yorn (a worthy troubador in the vein of Neil Young, a friend tells me) at a Long Island club. Steinman informed fans, endearingly, that plenty of free tickets were available, and offered his home phone number in hopes of filling the club. Corduroy Killah could turn these guys into neighborhood heroes and better, so check them out while Steinman is still capable of humility of this stripe. (Order the CD on their Web site; Upshot needs the money more than the megastores do.)

—Jay Blotcher

Tori Amos: Strange Little Girls (Atlantic Records, 2001)

My love affair with fruit loop Tori Amos lasted five years as I rolled in the cotton candy rapture of her first two albums. The honeymoon was over with Boys for Pele. At the risk of having my neck snapped by Toriphiles worldwide, I found the harpsichord irritating and the piglet-suckling photo repellent. Like, what in hellsake was she trying to say this time? I dropped the idiosyncratic queen and her in-orbit lyrics like a hot rock. It just got old.

Her majesty is back on the throne, trying to make some blasted point with Strange Little Girls, a theme album of 12 cover songs originally performed by an odd assortment of male artists. Tori’s MO is to transform herself into formerly male characters, revealing a woman’s perspective on love, violence and gender identity. Regardless of Tori’s never-ending feminist manifestos, this album furnishes emotional appeals and interesting musical interpretations that burst with fruit flavor.

Here’s Eminem’s “Bonnie & Clyde,” in which a man makes his young daughter an accomplice to her mother’s murder. Tori’s macabre whispered delivery, backed by a sinister digital string loop, sounds straight off Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads. Another demonic cut is Slayer’s frenetic “Raining Blood,” now stripped and funereal. Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” is barely recognizable due to a beefed up melody and whining guitar; The Beatles’ “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” is similarly unidentifiable, a 10 minute epic with sampled political rants by Tori’s father and George Bush Jr. and Sr. Her minimalist approach and icy vocals on 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” draw attention to disturbing subject matter more than the innocuous pop original. The Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays,” Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence,” and Tom Wait’s “Time” are rendered unmistakably Tori with the sentient piano that branded her early work.

Keep in mind that this is Tori Amos, and it’s going to be dramatic and weird. So she’s not performing original work, big deal. It’s another of her creative brain farts, and a strangely redeeming one at that. Recall the first time you heard her bold interpretation of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”; this is more of the same.

The CD was released with four different covers, the booklet featuring an entourage of costumed characters. I’m reminded of the various Elvis editions that TV Guide periodically thrusts upon the public to increase sales. Whether or not this album flies with the masses, this lovable kook will still sell legions of copies to diehards who must possess each fragment of her multiple personality.

—Sharon Nichols