other ephemera

As I’m listening to the new Ted Leo this morning on the way into work—finally—it occurs to me that it’s a solid album, nothing great, but there’s some excellent tunes on there, especially A Bottle of Buckie, because, admit it, we all love it when Ted pulls out the old Celtic routine.

Sure, at over an hour the thing’s far too long, and too many of the songs cross the 5:00 minute mark, especially The Lost Brigade, which includes about three minutes of needless guitar repetition at the end, and indeed this is a bit strange, as Ted has previously been a marvel of succinctness, especially with the gloriously 40-minute long Shake the Sheets, and, yes, it does seem like Ted had too many ideas this time out and didn’t know exactly how to channel them, resulting in his placing 15 songs on the record, which is at least three too many, plus five more on the bonus disc, for about an hour and 30 minutes of music, and, I agree, we need to introduce Ted to Jeff Tweedy, who could likely teach him something about how it’s often better to leave even some of your best songs off the album (see: Shakin Sugar, Venus Stop the Train, Cars Can’t Escape, The Thanks I Get)—that’s what EP’s are for, Ted—but as all of this swirls around in my head, the one thing I can’t stop thinking is, Ted, Why did you invite the newly reunited Rage Against the Machine to record a song for your record? Bomb. Repeat. Bomb. I mean, what the hell, Ted?