Jack's Mannequin - Everything in Transit (10-Year Retrospective)

It's late April 2010, but the weather is so glorious outside that it feels like it's already June. Rain was threatening earlier, but now, the sun is beating down overhead as I pack the final items into my car for the three-hour journey home. I've just finished my freshman year of college and closed out a great semester, and my roommate and I are saying our goodbyes in the parking lot of our dormitory, after having handed over the keys to the room we'd shared since September. It's a bittersweet moment, but I'm happy to be headed home to the resort town where I grew up for some much needed vacation. I climb into the front seat of my '98 Honda Civic, plug my iPod into the FM transmitter, and briefly debate which album to choose. I smile as my thumb finds Jack's Mannequin's Everything in Transit—one of my favorite albums of all time, and a record that has been my definitive "summer soundtrack" since I first discovered it four years earlier. I press play and the sounds of "Holiday from Real" come coursing through my speakers. "Fuck yeah, we can live like this," Andrew McMahon sings. I put on my aviators, shift the car into first gear, and drive. This is going to be the perfect summer, I think to myself as I pull away from my first year of college. I can feel it.

By the time I was playing Everything in Transit on that road trip five years ago, I'd already heard it hundreds of times. It was (and still is) my go-to fourth favorite album of all time, after Springsteen's Born to Run, Butch Walker's Letters, and Jimmy Eat World's Futures. Yet somehow, even though I already had so many memories and emotions wrapped up in those songs, that three-hour drive home ended up being my definitive listen to Everything in Transit, if only for how prophetic it was. Driving home, with the windows down and the sunroof open, the 75-degree air whipping through my hair, and the sun-soaked sounds of songs like "I'm Ready," "La La Lie," and "MFEO" filling the car, I somehow knew that this summer was going to be special. And it was: over the next four months, I would start a relationship with a girl I'd had a crush on for ages. By the time I left home at the end of the season, I was in love with her. Fast forward to today, and she's sitting next to me on the couch, in a house we own together, with the ring I bought her on her finger and a gold wedding band on mine. Suffice to say that summer 2010 wasn't just the perfect summer: it was the most important four months of my life, and on that unseasonably warm day in late April, Andrew McMahon and his five-year-old piano-pop songs seemed to know what was in store even before I did.

Looking back at all the memories I've shared with this record, it's difficult to believe that it's already 10 years old. Written as a concept album about a whirlwind summer spent in California, Everything in Transit arrived on August 23rd, 2005. Coincidentally or not, that date was just two days shy of the 30th anniversary of Born to Run, and McMahon's first album under the Jack's Mannequin moniker actually has quite a lot in common with Springsteen's foremost masterpiece. Sonically, there are numerous albums from around the same time that sound more like Born to Run—The Hold Steady's Boys & Girls in America and The Killers' Sam's Town both arrived in 2006, and The Gaslight Anthem's The '59 Sound was just three years away. But none of those albums capture the visceral feel of Born to Run—of being young and full of life, with limitless possibilities waiting just a few miles down the highway—quite like this one.

Everything in Transit was also a big personal gamble for McMahon, just as Born to Run had been for Springsteen. The legend is that Jon Landau, Born to Run's producer, had to hide the studio bills from Columbia to avoid giving all of the higher-ups at the record label strokes over the cost. McMahon, meanwhile, believed so thoroughly in his vision for this album that he reportedly spend $40,000 of his own personal savings to bring it to fruition. (It's unclear how much of that money went toward hiring Motley Crue's Tommy Lee to record the drums.) Unfortunately, McMahon didn't get to enjoy the release as he would have hoped: on the day that mastering was completed for Everything in Transit, McMahon was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He began chemotherapy immediately, which meant canceling tours and ending the promotional cycle for the album before it had even really started. Still, McMahon wanted to release the record as scheduled, on August 23rd, and his label remarkably went along with his wishes.

The decision to release Everything in Transit at a time when he couldn't really promote it and couldn't tour could very well have been career suicide for McMahon—though, it wasn't like he didn't have more important things to worry about at the time. Suddenly, his personal gamble looked like it was in danger of going against him. But the record sold well in spite of everything, and by the time McMahon had gotten back on his feet, his story—and the album that had nearly been his swansong—were already the stuff of scene legend. A decade, two Jack's Mannequin records, one album as Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, and one solo EP later, Everything in Transit is still regarded as Andrew McMahon's seminal work, and as one of the greatest albums of the new millennium by the users of this very website.

I was personally late to the party on this record. Though it dropped in August 2005, I don't think Everything in Transit really landed on my radar until January or February 2006. I remember hearing gems like "The Mixed Tape" and "Dark Blue" as soundtrack songs on one or two TV shows and being impressed, and I remember digging up a few other tracks and downloading them from various Myspace music profiles (blast from the past, right there), but it wasn't until May or June that I bit the bullet and bought a used copy of the CD off Amazon for three or four bucks. Looking back, that was some of the best money I ever spent.

Part of the issue was that I had no idea who Andrew McMahon even was until late 2005. I was familiar with a number of artists in this scene—I'd obviously had a huge genesis moment with Jimmy Eat World in the fall of 2004—but Something Corporate evaded me until my brother came home for the holidays with a copy of North in hand. I liked that record so much—particularly the atmospheric piano loop opening of "As You Sleep"—that I picked up Leaving Through The Window for myself, and I played those albums on repeat through the winter and spring of my freshman year of high school. For whatever reason, though, I held off on Everything in Transit until the weather warmed up. What a serendipitous decision that was.

Where most of Something Corporate's music is chilly, moody, and sad, Everything in Transit is almost the complete opposite. Shedding any emo influence he may have had in the SoCo days, Andrew turned to classic power pop here, and the result was a warm, upbeat, and celebratory record full of sunny piano chords and huge sing-along hooks. When my CD finally arrived in the mail, I think I had just gotten out of school for the summer, and this record was just waiting to be the soundtrack to the new season. From the carefree slacker vibes of "Holiday from Real," to the huge feeling of badass-ery I got whenever I listened to that spoken word section on "I'm Ready," I quickly internalized every moment of this record and made it my world.

Looking back now, I can tie moments of every single summer since to these songs. Uptempo jams like "La La Lie" and "Bruised" encapsulated my last days of youth and pure innocence in the summers of 2006 and 2007, when I still didn't have a car or a job, and was free to do pretty much whatever the hell I wanted between sunrise and sunset every day. Later, as I grew older, I tied heavier emotions into these songs, like "Rescued," the record's one true piano ballad. Probably Everything in Transit's most sterling moment, "Rescued" was a classic end-of-summer song, and I personally tended to relate it to the bittersweet melancholy of watching my siblings (and later, my older friends) head off to college as the hazy heat of August gave way to the colder air of September.

I suppose that sense of sadness was appropriate: to me, Everything in Transit always played like the chronicle of a summer fling, one which begins with giddy excitement and romance on "The Mixed Tape," but seems to stutter to a reluctant conclusion by the end of "Rescued." "There this was, hiding at the bottom of your swimming pool, some September," Andrew sings on the verse, before asking "Don't you think I wish that I could stay?" Some relationships simply aren't meant to outlast the warmer weather, and as I grew older and the end of summer became increasingly about saying goodbye and moving on to the next chapter—first temporarily, and then eventually for good—the connection I had with "Rescued" and this record as a whole only deepened.

More than perhaps any album in my collection, Everything in Transit elicits a cocktail of different emotions. On one side, it's as thrilling and euphoric as "Thunder Road." Suffice to say that my first college summer was not the only one whose arrival was heralded by this record. Every year, when the weather warms up and winter finally disappears, I make a point of taking this album for a drive and singing along at full blast. In the early days, that tradition was almost like a ritualistic effort to try to summon summer a little bit earlier than usual. As the end of a school year got closer and closer, I would bring this record back into regular rotation, both as a walk down memory lane to summers past, and as hopeful anticipation for what another summer might bring. "My life has become a boring pop song and everybody is singing along." That line was like my battle cry: as spring crept on, life would be starting to become stagnant and monotonous again, and getting out of school and back into a season full of long nights, parties, and loud music just seemed like the only solution.

Nowadays, things are different when I listen to this record. I'll always remember those carefree summers and how much they meant to me, but they just don't apply to me anymore. I grew up and moved away, and all too many of the friends I had in those days fell out of touch. Somewhere along the road, between that hopeful drive home in April 2010 and today, my youth evaporated, leaving only memories in its place. But when I listen to Everything in Transit, I can still feel the electricity; the hope of a thousand summer evenings and all the possibility they might hold; the chance that, one of these nights, it's just going to be me and you, and the whole town is going to be underwater, and there will be nothing we can do except to turn up the stereo, shout that chorus at the top of our lungs one last time, and live like there really might not be a tomorrow. Because sure, I may be getting older. But the feeling this album inspires in the pit of my stomach, that invincible anything-can-happen feeling? That's something that is going to keep me young for a long time—even when, inevitably, I'm not anymore.

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness - Self-Titled

Going through a crucible has the tendency to change a person and make them stronger. That was the case for pop-punk/piano-pop songsmith Andrew McMahon when he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005. The Something Corporate frontman, already the mastermind behind a pair of exceptional LPs with his former band, finished mastering his greatest record, 2005’s Everything in Transit, the day he was diagnosed. Remarkably, the CD still released on schedule, despite the fact that McMahon had to cancel his tours and undergo chemotherapy. Because of that fact, it became the kind of record that transcended its genre. For fans, it was simultaneously an album that could be a personal soundtrack as well as the soundtrack to McMahon’s inspiring rise-from-the-ashes recovery.

The result of the Everything in Transit phenomenon—aside from the fact that the record skyrocketed quickly into all-time top fives for fans everywhere—was that it made sure no one would ever again have rational expectations about what Andrew McMahon could accomplish as a songwriter. For most people, the rest of McMahon’s time performing under the moniker of Jack’s Mannequin followed a law of diminishing returns, and it’s likely that his self-titled LP under a new moniker—the annoyingly unwieldy name, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness—will continue the trend of his records being criminally underappreciated.

In pre-release interviews, McMahon said that the new record was continuing where Everything in Transit had left off. That’s not necessarily true, as Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness actually has more in common with 2008’s The Glass Passenger or 2011’s People & Things than it does with McMahon’s seminal 2005 classic. There are flashes of EIT’s slick, streamlined power pop sound here and there, from the rousing chorus of album highlight “All Our Lives” to the wistful closing track, “Maps for the Getaway,” which echoes melodic lines from “Rescued.” For the most part, though, McMahon is mining a lot of the same classic rock and Americana sounds that he explored on Passenger, and especially on Things. “Halls” is a dancier rewrite of “Amy I,” while "See Her on the Weekend" and "Driving Through a Dream" both bear a resemblance to "Orphans," Passenger's penultimate cut. Meanwhile, the Tom Petty/Bob Dylan folk influences that People & Things had (on songs like “Amelia Jean” and “Restless Dream”) are absolutely here once more, whether we’re “dancing to someone else’s song” in “High Dive” or cruising down a midnight road under the “Canyon Moon.”

As you might expect from the last paragraph, almost everything on Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness feels downright familiar. Even when McMahon does try relatively new things on songs like “Cecilia & The Satellite” (the post-fun. lead single) or “Black and White Movies” (a song that moves from melancholy piano-driven verses to a dancefloor-ready chorus), he’s not reinventing the wheel. McMahon’s Pop Underground EP from last year, even though just about no one loved its synth-heavy 1980s sound, took more risks in four songs than this record takes in 10. Probably most irritating, McMahon retreads melodies he’s used before on more than one occasion (particularly with that "Halls"/"Amy, I" comparison)—and the melodies already aren’t nearly as razor sharp as the hooks on Everything in Transit were.

For me, though, there’s never a moment when the familiarity of the proceedings detracts from the overall enjoyment of the record. Like I’ve often said about my favorite artists, hearing a new Andrew McMahon album at this point feels like reconvening with an old friend, and Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness is especially welcoming given that it’s probably his most consistent front-to-back set of songs since Transit.

The biggest difference between this record and that one is that, where Everything in Transit was driven primarily by huge choruses that you just had to sing along to, this one thrives on McMahon’s effortless sense of craft as a verse writer. Granted, this guy has always been someone who could make verses and pre-choruses as memorable as the actual hooks. From “I Woke Up in a Car” (“I met a girl who kept tattoos for homes that she had loved/If I were her I’d paint my body ‘til all my skin was gone”) to “Konstantine” (take you pick), all the way to more recent stuff like “Hammers and Strings” and “Television” ("And what if you could move the needle to a more forgiving song?"), McMahon has been able to write songs that are compelling from the very first note and the very first word.

That happens here more than once. “All Our Lives” is arguably the best example, a tightly-wound piece of storytelling that details an encounter Andrew had with a friend who ended up on the wrong side of the American dream. “There’s only one mistakes that I have made,” the friend remarks in the first pre-chorus: “It’s giving up the music in my fingertips/By trying to get to heaven through my veins.” The words and melody fit together like they’ve always been there, and the payoff from the anthemic chorus is even more powerful given the struggle and adversity evident in the verse.

A similar thing happens again on “Halls,” a song about a relationship that ended long ago, but which still lingers with the narrator. “When I left town we were heading for the altar, and I told you I’d be back before too long,” McMahon sings. “Cut my hair and found me a new girlfriend, thought a broken heart could writer a perfect song/And it did and I was right, so now you’re gone.” It’s a knife twist of a lyric, one that you wouldn’t quite expect from a song with the skittering synths and crisp drum machines this one utilizes. And just like with “All Our Lives,” it lends weight and personal meaning to the more universal statement taking up residence in the chorus: “You echo in the halls.”

Arguably the best writing McMahon does here, though, is on “Maps for the Getaway.” One of my very favorite things about People & Things was how “Casting Lines” ended the record with a homecoming. Since Everything in Transit had begun by striking out for the West Coast and a “Holiday from Real,” “Casting Lines” felt like the natural conclusion for the narrative that had begun there. McMahon said as much in his explanation for why he decided to retire the Jack’s Mannequin moniker after that record. The story was done, and it was time for him to move on.

Here, he’s starting a new story: it’s not about a whirlwind summer on the West Coast, or about McMahon's battle with cancer. Instead, it’s about his family. “Cecilia,” obviously, is about his daughter. “Maps,” meanwhile, is evidently about his wife and everything they’ve weathered together. It’s a beautiful testament to a relationship that doesn’t break down when times get tough (“The balcony, the hills, the pain/The years of hope, the months of rain/Now that we’re outside it, I guess we survived it after all” almost has to be a reference, in part, to McMahon’s struggle to beat leukemia), but one that keeps going and going, like a reliable automobile. “No cash in the bank, no paid holidays/All we have is gas in the tank, maps for the getaway/All we have is time,” rings the chorus, awash with a synth line that sounds like the melody from Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen.” It’s one of the best songs Andrew has ever written, and it feels like an incredibly appropriate ending point for this poignant and personal collection of songs.

Some will wish that Andrew had decided to be a bit more adventurous with this record. Others, probably, will balk at the lyrics about kids and family and wish for the day when Andrew was singing about Jimmy Eat World and those nights in his car when the first star you see may not be a star. But Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness is the sound of an artist who is completely happy and completely comfortable in his life, and that’s a beautiful thing. Over the past few weeks, I’ve really come to understand, in a new way, what family means to me. There are things in life that we can choose to make the foundation of who we are: work, religion, family. I choose the latter, and from the sound of this record, Andrew does too. It’s not a perfect album, but the core sentiment--of always cherishing the people you love--has been particularly resonant to me lately, and the songs are catchy and effortless enough for me to fall more and more in love with them every time I press play.

Luke Leighfield - New Season

Luke Leighfield - New Season
Got Got Need Records, 2012
Three stars

Piano rock has become a bit of a tired genre over the years, so often plagued by repetition and cliché that many listeners have gotten to the point where they write off anything with that label on association alone. I personally have always had a soft-spot for records where the piano takes the lead role, and I have loved or marginally enjoyed almost every band or artist you could name in the genre, from the classics (Billy Joel, Elton John), to the modern mainstream players (The Fray, Augustana), all the way to the relative obscurities (Wakey!Wakey!, Embrace). From the first moments of Luke Leighfield's fourth full length solo record (entitled New Season), the English-born troubadour recalls a slew of the songwriters that have gone before him in the genre. Leighfield is a Do-It-Yourself artist, but you could hardly tell from his latest record, which plays out as a fully orchestrated, exquisitely produced set of songs that ring, echo, swell, and fall at all the right points. And that makes sense, since Leighfield runs his own record label (Got Got Need Records), has a long list of notable friends in the music industry, and is a fantastically accomplished pianist and violinist, having worked as a sessions musician on both instruments.

The piano serves as the backbone for each of the ten cuts on this record, and while the combination between that instrument and the British-accented lilt of Leighfield's voice will instantly earn him endless comparisons to acts like Coldplay and Keane, his overall sound generally lands closer to that of some of today's most prominent American piano rockers. For example, the presence of Ben Folds floats through many of Leighfield's most dynamic vocal snippets, while the influence of Andrew McMahon (Jack's Mannequin, Something Corporate) can be felt in many of the album's soundscapes and arrangements, especially at the album's best moments.

And there are a lot of great moments here, from the slow burn opening of the aptly-titled "Slow Down" (with a piano riff that could have come straight off of a Something Corporate album), to the summerish pop rock of the title track, all the way to the ringing guitar intro of "Patience," which drew me in immediately. Gang vocals burst in the background of "The One Thing," eventually subsiding into a gentle piano tag, while Leighfield's rock 'n' roll aesthetic is evident in the power chords and the incessant build-up of "Live For More," which also collapses into a luminous, echoing piano outro. A series of arpeggiated piano notes open album highlight "Garde Ta Foy," recalling Adele's massively successful flagship single "Someone Like You", and much like that song was, "Garde" is probably the album's most subdued and emotionally striking number. The delicate accompaniment allows Leighfield's voice to really shine here, gliding over the arrangement in a simplistic but moving fashion that results in one of the most gorgeous songs I've heard all year. As the song moves forward, an ambiance of strings and back-up vocals swell around Leighfield, building as drums enter and crescendo, and ultimately exploding into a wall of guitars. It really feels like a closer, but that honor belongs to "Do Not Settle," a commencement speech of a song that proves itself to be both entrancing and inspirational. Next to the massive scope inherent in the climax of "Garde Ta Foy," the build here feels a bit truncated and restrained, like the song (and the album, which loses steam after its opening but regains it in the final quarter) ends just as it is starting to reach greatness.

Leighfield doesn't entirely escape the usual trappings of the piano pop/rock genre on New Season, but he does tend to transcend them. To be sure, there are lyrical clichés here and there, and Leighfield isn't the most original melodist, causing his songs do run together on occasion, but his vocals have a warm and welcoming familiarity about them, and his songs very often build and grow as they move forward (and with subsequent listens). I don't suppose that the record will win many new fans for the piano rock scene, and the naysayers will very likely find that they have the same problems with Leighfield that they do with genre's biggest stars, but for me and for many who find a certain degree of pleasure in this type of music, guilty or otherwise, this record represents a treasure trove of earnest lyrics, well executed arrangements, and light, beautiful melodies. He doesn't have the hooks that McMahon has, or the lyrical brilliance that Folds manifests every so often, and no one will ever be calling him Billy Joel, but Leighfield is a solid songwriter and an even better musician, and New Season deserves to be heard.

Butch Walker - Drinking With Strangers (Book Review)

"Your youth is the most important thing you will ever have. It's when you will connect to music like a primal urge, and the memories attached to the songs will never leave you. Please, hold on to everything. Keep every note, mix tape, concert ticket stub and memory you have of music from your youth. It'll be the one that might keep you young, even if you aren't anymore. Let the music play..."

The above words sound something like the thoughts that have shot through my mind on thousands of occasions, listening to my favorite songs or albums, or to songs that have become so connected to a time of my life that they become an actual part of me. I didn't write those words though, they come from the final moments of Butch Walker's brand new memoir, entitled Drinking With Strangers. I've written a lot about Butch already on this blog: he's probably at the top of the list of those artists mentioned above, the artists who make music that becomes a part of me, and I've been a huge fan of his since that day nearly seven years ago when I stumbled upon a live version of "Mixtape" on Limewire. Since then, his songs and albums have not only become favorites of mine, but they've become soundtracks for so many important (and not-so-important) moments of my life that it's impossible for me to imagine where I'd be without them. Butch's music formed my foundation: it took me from loving music to being absolutely insane about music, it inspired me, countless times, to pursue music myself, and is pretty much the reason that I'm where I am today. Obviously, I've read a lot about Butch and about his story over the years, but reading it all in one place, from his youth all the way up to his 2008 masterpiece Sycamore Meadows (and even a hair after), proved itself to be one of the most enjoyable reading experiences of my life.

I wish more of my favorite artists would do something like this. Hearing Butch tell his own story makes it funnier, more honest and more heartfelt than it possibly could be if it were written by anyone else, and even though there are plenty of biographies for the likes of Springsteen, I would kill to read him tell his own story like Butch has here. The stories behind his songs and albums are only the beginning: it's his experience in the music industry in general, both with his own bands and with others, that provides the meat of the story. Butch was screwed over by the major label system not once, but twice (with a few more stumbles along the way), so it's no surprise that a cynicism towards the industry pervades most of the book. At it's heart though, Drinking With Strangers is about one man's struggle to overcome countless obstacles in an unforgiving industry, and that he somehow manages to battle through everything thrown his way and create both a successful career as a producer/songwriter for hire and as a true-life artist with one of the most fiercely loyal fan bases on the planet is nothing short of triumphant.

Butch has encountered a lot of people throughout his years in the industry, and unfamiliar readers will be especially surprised at just how many big music names make an appearance in his story. Many of my favorite artists have their names turn up somewhere in this book, from Springsteen to U2 to Sister Hazel (and even Andrew McMahon), while many of pop's biggest stars play even bigger roles, since Butch has produced and/or written for the likes of Pink, Avril Lavigne, Weezer, Dashboard Confessional and Katy Perry, and even played at the Grammys with Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks. Butch tells all these stories with a comedic slant that makes them not only entertaining but, in many cases, laugh out loud hilarious. There are actually quite a few funny moments in this book, from nightmare studio sessions, to adventures with a few of Butch's childhood idols, to anecdotes about just how clueless the recording industry has become, all the way to the stories that give the book it's title, while his tendency to be quite blunt about his views on some of popular music's worst trends and bands make the book feel that much more honest and real. Butch covers a lot of emotional ground here, describing perfectly the fear that comes with following your dreams to unfamiliar territory, the strange euphoria of hearing yourself on the radio for the first time, or the betrayal and rage he felt when a song he wrote got stolen by the guy who's become the biggest songwriter in pop.

However, perhaps the most striking moments of the memoir hit with the tragic loss of Walker's home and all of material possessions in a late 2008 California Wildfire. Fans will be familiar with the story: how his house burned to the ground, taking with it everything he'd ever owned, from master tapes to his home studio to his collection of guitars, but the way he writes about how he first heard about the fire and about everything that happened in the days following is both moving and heartbreaking. The fire functions as the book's climax, with the album it inspired, Sycamore Meadows, named for the street on which he lived, painted as a true rise-from-the-ashes moment. It's a confessional chapter, one where Butch ponders the devastation as a transformative and life-affirming experience, and reading it made me tear up a bit. Meadows has always been an album that I've loved, but reading Walker's story adds a new personal depth to those songs: it's not hard to see why he still plays them regularly.

Overall, it was pretty much a given that I was going to love this book. Butch Walker is my favorite guy in the music industry. He's someone who I've always thought of in terms of his songs and his ridiculous live shows, but not one I ever expected to write a book. The fact that he actually sat down and got his entire story down on paper makes me respect him even more. Drinking With Strangers has a few grammatical missteps every now and then, but I almost think that's how it was supposed to be. It's unpolished and raw, ridiculously honest and so instantly enjoyable and accessible that it feels (probably intentionally) more like a conversation with him at a bar than it feels like a book. Butch writes with a great voice, alternating between raucous humor and genuine heart and offering a ton of advice and insight on one of the most challenging industries out there. It goes without saying that this is a must read (probably multiple times) for all Butch fans, hardcore and casual, but I'd also recommend it to all music fans in general, or to any musician who's thinking about trying their hand in the music industry. Once again, I wish more of my favorite artists would do something like this, but if I had to choose one, Butch would probably be at the top of the list, so I'm absolutely thrilled to have this book: I'm sure it's one I will revisit, time and time again. 

"The restless dream we left behind."

 Jack's Mannequin - People And Things

Sire Records, 2011

Four stars

The last time Andrew McMahon released a record, it was the first new music he'd made since he'd been diagnosed with leukemia (and beaten it). That record, called The Glass Passenger and released in 2008, was his statement: an emotional, powerful set of songs from a guy who'd gotten a new lease on life, and I loved it from my first listen. As the years have gone on, I've recognized a few things I would change about that record: it's inconsistent, both in quality and mood, and the slew of b-sides from those sessions, released on a series of EPs (The Ghost Overground, In Valleys and Dear Jack) suggested that McMahon had a much better record on his hands than the one he released. McMahon took a lot of chances on that record though, writing songs that were completely different from everything he'd ever released, ranging from an ambitious symphony of a pop song ("Caves"), edgier rock than he'd written since the early Something Corporate days ("Bloodshot"), or a clever twist on his usual piano balladry ("Orphans"). Sometimes though, the risks didn't pay off, like on the big rock song "Suicide Blonde," which should have been left as a b-side, or the amalgamation of songs that was "American Love" (McMahon wrote that song by combining a bunch of different leftover lyrics that never fit into other songs), which remains my least favorite McMahon song released to date. Both of those tracks should have been left off in favor of some of that album's b-sides, like the infectious "Doris Day" (which would have been one of the three or four best tracks on that record), the acoustic "At Full Speed," or any of the tracks from the Dear Jack EP, all of which dealt with Andrew's cancer directly. With a few key track exchanges, The Glass Passenger could have been one of my favorite albums of all time. As is, it's still a very good album with a handful of the best tracks McMahon has ever written; a flawed near-masterpiece that was more than a worthy follow-up to Everything in Transit, which remains a top five all time album for me.

Jack's Mannequin's third record, entitled People And Things, dropped last week, and has been one of my most anticipated records for this entire year. Lead single "My Racing Thoughts," an extremely catchy pop song that finds a middle ground between the slick power pop of Transit and the more folk inspired sound of Passenger, only boosted my expectations. For the most part, People And Things is a contrast to The Glass Passenger in that it is a very safe album. It's sound generally plays things very close to where he was musically on the last record's more straightforward cuts, delivering quick, snappy pop songs (no track on the album cross the 4.5 minute mark) or folky, roots-rock tinged numbers (McMahon clearly spent a fair amount of time with his Tom Petty records while making this album). Gone is the adventurous spirit of The Glass Passenger, and while that arguably makes for a more cohesive and consistent record, it also makes for a decidedly less involving one. There are no climactic two-part songs on this record, no really striking or chilling moments, which McMahon seemed to deliver on half the tracks on Passenger (how could he not, given the circumstances?), but the hooks also lack the same infectious quality that the songs on Transit had. That album had at least half a dozen perfect pop choruses, hooks that latched themselves onto your brain after a single listen. While this record tries to find middle ground between Andrew's last two records, and does so admirably, it also ends up being undoubtedly the weakest of the three.

The weird thing is, that doesn't even disappoint me. Andrew has never released a record I didn't love, and this one is no exception to that rule. Straight out of the gate, it delivers four killer songs. The extremely catchy "Racing Thoughts" is the lead-off, and is right in line with the way McMahon has opened each of his albums: anthemic tracks that promise great things to come. "Release Me" is a glorious pop-rocker, while "Television" is a gorgeous, slightly more subdued moment, but has a kind of epic sweep to it that is nothing short of addicting. Pre-release track "Amy, I" sounded better in it's live setting than it does on record, and it's big hook might actually be it's weak point next to the verses, but it's still a solid pop song. "Hey, Hey, Hey (We're All Gonna Die)" and "Platform Fire" were both written around the time of The Glass Passenger's release, and live videos of both have been floating around the internet for several years now. The latter is a big Something Corporate-esque pop song (think North) that falls just short of great, while "Hey, Hey, Hey" sounds so much like a Passenger b-side (that album's title actually comes from the verses) that it's presence on this album ends up feeling a bit jarring. It's the weakest track here, in my opinion, but many will love it's big, shout along chorus, and the verses are gorgeous, both musically and lyrically.

With "People, Running," the album transitions to it's second, stronger half. The song is one of the album's finest, a mid-tempo rocker with a bright hook and fantastic lyrics that could have fit on Everything in Transit. Album highlight "Amelia Jean" is a gorgeous piano driven number that showcases Andrew's folk/Americana influence on this album, and sports one of the album's most instantly memorable and highest soaring choruses, drawing a great vocal from McMahon: this is the kind of song that made me fall in love with Andrew's music in the first place. "Hostage" is just as good, and is one of the biggest and purest pop songs Andrew has ever recorded. He gives one of his best vocal performances to date on this song, belting out the pitch perfect chorus with gorgeous tone. His voice on these past two records has changed notably from the higher, brighter tone he employed on Everything in Transit, and whether that has to do with production, the songwriters he's emulating or actual vocal changes is hard to gauge, but it draws a clear dividing line between these past two records and the first. While I miss the more power pop driven sound, it's hard to fault his vocals on this record, especially on songs as good as "Hostage" or "Restless Dream," an acoustic guitar driven song that qualifies as the album's only true ballad. Singer/songwriter Brandi Carlisle adds a nice dimension with her light, sensitive backing vocals, accenting the song's thoughtful lyrics (some of Andrew's best), while the cello accompaniment near the end is exquisite. 

The climactic "Casting Lines" ends the album on a hopeful note, but is over far too soon for my taste, as it's one of the album's three or four strongest compositions. That, however, is my main complaint with People And Things: it's just a hair safer and a hair shorter than it should be. The handful of b-sides that Andrew released on the iTunes deluxe edition reveal that this brevity was in no way due to a lack of solid material, as any of those four tracks could have easily found a place on this album. The Something Corporate-esque piano ballad, "No Man Is An Island," would have been especially welcome, as this album's lack of a signature Andrew McMahon piano ballad is one of it's biggest weaknesses. This is, after all, the guy who wrote such classics as "Konstantine," "Cavanaugh Park" and "Rescued," so the lack of another possible addition to that pantheon of greats is disappointing. Other than that though, it's hard to fault People And Things for much: it's a great pop album with a bit of a folk/rock flavor, and the fact that it falls a little bit short of McMahon's previous work is still no reason for me to not completely love it. I'm just hoping that next time out, McMahon takes a few more risks: I think he still has another classic in him, and I'm willing to wait around for awhile to hear it.

"If you left it up to me, every day would be a holiday from real..."

Jack's Mannequin and Guster

Live at the Frederik Meijer Gardens

Grand Rapids, MI, 8/31/11

Andrew McMahon, the mind and voice behind the project Jack's Mannequin, has been one of my favorite songwriters ever since my brother bought a used copy of Something Corporate's North off Amazon at the end of 2005. I instantly loved that band's emotional brand of piano pop, with it's big hooks and McMahon's soaring vocals, and I quickly picked up their other full length, the even better Leaving Through the Window.  It wasn't until the following summer, however, when I finally checked out Everything in Transit, the first record from McMahon's side project, Jack's Mannequin. The record was born out of a few songs that McMahon had written that he felt didn't fit with the style of SoCo, so he wrote and recorded a complete, semi-autobiographical album apart from his band. That record, to this day, remains my definitive summer album and one of my top five favorites of all time, but until last night, I'd never seen McMahon live, either as a part of Jack's Mannequin or Something Corporate.

Needless to say, finally getting to see one of my favorite bands in concert was a dream come true, and the setting was nearly perfect: the last night of August at an outdoor amphitheater, on a warm night, the perfect way to close out what has been a tremendous summer. McMahon and co. were proceeded by openers Lady Danville, a talented group of musicians with vocal harmonies reminiscent of Band of Horses and a set of killer songs to boot: I hadn't heard of the band before this week, but after their excellent opening set, I will certainly be checking out their EP and watching for them in the future. 

By the time Jack's Mannequin took the stage, I was in high anticipation, and they certainly didn't disappoint. The sound quality in the amphitheater was excellent, and I knew it was going to be a great evening as soon as the synth opening of "My Racing Thoughts", the first single off of McMahon's new album People and Things (due out October 4th) echoed through the summer evening. Next was "Holiday From Real", the anthemic opening track from Everything in Transit, which started off with just McMahon on piano but quickly built into a showstopper. The slow piano lines and soft harmonies of "Annie Use Your Telescope" brought a lovely autumn vibe to the proceedings before McMahon rocketed into a pair of hook-filled, upbeat numbers ("Crashing" and "The Mixed Tape").

Next up was "Amy I", the second and last track McMahon would play from his upcoming record. The song was lovely, sounding even better in it's live setting than it's studio one, and it made me wish he'd delve a little further into his new material, since People and Things is probably my most anticipated release for the remainder of the year, but it's hard to complain with a set of songs as solid as the one the band played. "Last Straw," a b-side from the Everything in Transit sessions, was a concert highlight, and made me wonder once again why the song didn't make that first album, whereas "Swim," a track from 2008's The Glass Passenger, was one of the night's most emotional moments. "Bloodshot" was another highlight, featuring McMahon climbing on top of his piano during the song's intro, only to jump off as it exploded into it's first verse. The song, which has never been a favorite of mine on record, reached exciting new heights in it's live format, justifying it's spot on the setlist in favor of superior songs. 

 

By this point in the night, I was getting a bit restless. McMahon was giving his all onstage, but the setlist wasn't wowing me so far, and the crowd was quite possibly the worst and least responsive group of people I've ever been a part of at a concert, remaining seated in their lawn chairs despite McMahon's best efforts, and getting up to go get more beer every two or three songs. Thankfully, the end of McMahon's set was the highlight of the night: five straight songs from Everything in Transit, and finally, this concert felt like what I had hoped it would be. Hearing these songs that had defined my summers for years at the tail end of a particularly great one felt like a perfect bookend. The two-part track "Made For Each Other" went on for over ten minutes, but not a single one of those was wasted. The song, which functions as the penultimate track on Everything in Transit, used to be my least favorite song on the record, but has grown on me immensely over the years, from the supremely catchy first half to the more subdued "You Can Breathe" section that leads the song out. The segue into the second half also supplied McMahon's best piano playing of the night: the man has a terrific songwriting talent and has a great voice (proven even more so in a live setting), but his piano playing has always been the thing about his musicianship that has set him apart from so many other "pop-punk" or pop-rock bands, and that held true last night, especially on this song.

McMahon forgot the intro and the first words to "Bruised," but recovered in time to deliver the enormous chorus, still one his best, which rang through the theater like almost nothing else did all night. Afterward, he wondered aloud how he could forget the words to a song that he's played "almost every night of his life for the past six years." It didn't matter though, as the gorgeous "Rescued" came next. That song, perhaps the most subdued ballad in his discography, is also one of his very best, and it resonated particularly well with me last night. It's always been a song I associated with the end of summers: something about that line "hiding at the bottom of your swimming pool, some September", and hearing it as the light dimmed on my one last hurrah of the season chilled me to the bone. The stadium-ready "Dark Blue" began to tie up the set, and it brought me to my feet, even if most of the audience did not extend the same courtesy to the band. That song's bridge has always been one of my favorite moments of Everything in Transit, and it was certainly one of the most moving moments of the set. I expected "Dark Blue" would close out the set for Jack's Mannequin, but they remained for one more number: a rousing take on "La La Lie," where members of Lady Danville and Guster joined Andrew and his band onstage to close out the set.

***

Guster, the other co-headliner, is a band that I've known for years, ever since they had a pair of hit singles on the radio back in 2003, and I'd even seen them live before (at Interlochen during my summer there), but I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of theirs the way I am for Jack's Mannequin. Still, I was excited to see them again, and their live show was just as great as I remember it being. They took the stage with "Barrel of a Gun," a catchy track from their 1999 release (and still their best), Lost and Gone Forever. "Architects and Engineers" was the first of six cuts the band played from their latest album, Easy Wonderful, a record that I haven't given much time to yet, but one I plan to listen to a lot more after seeing this concert, as the tracks they played from it were the kind of breezy summer pop this band has been churning out for almost twenty years now. "Demons," one of the band's most well known songs, was a highlight for me, bringing back memories of when I sang it with one of my buddies at a high school back at the end of junior year. Singer Ryan Miller sounded better than I've ever heard him sound on that song, suggesting that he may have gained some vocal range since I last saw the band. "Center of Attention," another track from Lost and Gone Forever and another favorite of mine, was also a welcome addition to the set.

A breezy acoustic guitar and an eerie synth line heralded the arrival of "Satellite," a single from 2006's Ganging Up On the Sun, another great record I haven't given enough time to. The song sounded massive as it cut through the night air, and became one of my favorite moments of the concert. Another cut from Sun, the soaring closer "Hang On" marked the beginning of the best segment of the set, providing a terrific showcase for Miller's vocal prowess before launching into "Come Downstairs and Say Hello," a slow build of a song that sits among my personal favorites from the band, and the song's massive climactic moment was one of my favorite parts of any show I've seen this year. "Do You Love Me," the lead single from Easy Wonderful, has arguably one of the biggest hooks the band has ever written, and was probably the best part of their entire set: my girlfriend and I got on our feet and danced and sang along, and it felt like a perfect summer concert moment.

"Amsterdam," the band's biggest hit from the Keep it Together record from 2003, was a big crowd-pleaser: the chorus remains one of the band's best, and it's no big wonder that the song was a hit, it just makes me wonder why they haven't been able to score any big singles since that record (or why they weren't ever able to break into the mainstream before that, for that matter). "Happier," the last track from Lost that would appear in the setlist, closed the main set, and was undoubtedly a highlight, providing a showcase for the harmonies between Ryan Miller and guitarist Adam Gardner, something that was a cornerstone to the band's sound on the first few albums, but has faded with their most recent work. "Happier" sounded great though, with layered vocal lines and harmonies locking perfectly, and it made me wish for a few more old classic to make an appearance in the encore: "Two Points For Honesty" or "Either Way," perhaps. They didn't.

The band dispensed with the tradition of leaving the stage for the encore, instead opting just to dim the lights so they could switch instruments. They played through "This is How it Feels to Have a Broken Heart," another cut from their latest, where Ryan Miller put a disco ball on his head,  an exercise that seemed rather pointless, but was hilarious nonetheless. Sadly, I wasn't able to get a good picture of it. Andrew McMahon joined the band onstage for "Careful," the band's other hit from Keep it Together, playing piano and singing the choruses. He also joined them for their cover of Peter Bjorn & John's song "Young Folks," the strangest choice for a show closer I've seen at any concert I've ever attended. I was hoping that the band would play "Parachute," the title track and closer from their first album, and probably still their best song. As the band approaches the end of their summer tour, I can't figure out why the idea to play that song hasn't come up: it would be a treat for fans to hear something off the debut (which almost never gets any representation in their live sets), and would work perfectly as an end-of-summer closing track. It would have worked particularly well in the outdoor environment the band was presented with last night, but alas, I was left feeling a little unsatisfied by their encore.

Guster is a band known for their live shows, and despite my gripes over their set encore, it's not at all hard to see why: Miller is a great singer and a charismatic frontman, while Gardner and Luke Reynolds (who recently joined the band) are both multi-instrumentalists who augmented the band's songs with everything from banjo to trumpet last night. And then of course there's drummer Brian Rosenworcel, who's always fun to watch, if only because he plays most of the band's songs with his bare hands. And on top of all of that, the band has six good to great albums to draw material from: it's no wonder that they have so many die hard fans. On the other hand, Jack's Mannequin is essentially Andrew McMahon, who's prowess and a singer, songwriter, frontman and pianist makes the music, and all though he didn't have many die-hard fans in the audience last night, he still, in my opinion, put on the better show. In my perfect world, Guster would have gone first and Jack's Mannequin would have closed things out (and gotten to do a few more songs), but that's a small complaint for what was a great evening of music. Either way, I'm glad I finally got to see Jack's Mannequin, and I'm glad it was with a pair of acts as good as Lady Danville and Guster. Bring on that new album, Andrew.

 

People and Things drops on October 4th.

Jack's Mannequin


1. My Racing Thoughts
2. Holiday From Real
3. Annie Use Your Telescope
4. Crashing
5. The Mixed Tape
6. Amy, I
7. Last Straw
8. Swim
9. Bloodshot
10. Made For Each Other/You Can Breathe
11. Bruised
12. Rescued
13. Dark Blue
14. La La Lie

Guster
1. Barrel of a Gun
2. Architects & Engineers
3. The Captain
4.Center of Attention
5. On the Ocean
6. Airport Song
7.Satellite
8. This Could All Be Yours
9. Hang On
10. Come Downstairs and Say Hello
11. Do You Love Me
12. Ramona
13. Manifest Destiny
14. What You Call Love
15. Amsterdam
16. Happier

Encore
17. This is How it Feels to Have a Broken Heart
18. Careful
19. Young Folks (Peter Bjorn & John Cover)