November 23, 2008
Double Review: Talk Show & 12 Bar Blues
Talk Show
Talk Show
1997 | Atlantic
C
Scott Weiland
12 Bar Blues
1998 | Atlantic
B+
After releasing their third record, Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, the shit hit the fan for Stone Temple Pilots. Singer Scott Weiland was busted for drugs yet again, and this time the other three guys in the band were fed up. Both camps (the instrumentalists vs. Weiland) decided to work on something else for awhile, and over the course of the next 2 years, those “something else’s” released commercially disappointing records.
The first to arrive was the eponymous debut record from Talk Show. Talk Show was the non-Weiland Pilots – drummer Eric Kretz, bassist Robert DeLeo and guitarist Dean DeLeo joined by former Ten Inch Men singer Dave Coutts. The brothers DeLeo were outspoken in their want to be in a more stable band, and one in which they could give more direction to the lyrics and vocal melody (Weiland was notoriously reticent to let anyone work with his vocals), and. Coutts was apparently only too happy to oblige.
The record doesn’t feel too different from a STP record at first – many of the same elements are present – Kretz and the DeLeos were not looking to reinvent their style as much as amend it with a new vocalist (reportedly, this record and Tiny Music were written concurrently). The difference lies in the vocals.
Dave Coutts appears to be a competent vocalist, but compared to Weiland, he just seems junior varsity. The melodies are pretty run of the mill, and the lyrics don’t leave anything to interpretation or imagination – they are simply dull. “Everybody Loves My Car” may be one of the stupidest songs ever released by a credible band and represents the lowest point of the album.
There are a few bright spots throughout, especially the memorable and melodically strong “Peeling an Orange” and the hard-hitting “John.” However, overall the album is missing the charisma that Weiland brought to the group – he is certainly not the world’s most gifted vocalist, but he brings a unique approach to his role in the band. He manages to be both an equal part of the sonic equation and the center of attention. Coutts, not for his lack of trying, just simply melts into the background.
If Talk Show takes no chances, 12 Bar Blues has no anchor. Weiland embraces every facet of the recording studio – working with electronics, copious overdubs, string sections and various forms of studio chicanery. I honestly can’t tell you if “Desperation #5” and “About Nothing” are well-written songs – but I can tell you that they are sonically fascinating. The basic tracks are drowned in swirls of distortion, interesting backing vocals, and massive amounts of percussion. Weiland hasn’t met a synthesizer or drum machine he doesn’t like, and his experiments are truly enjoyable, if not terribly memorable on a song-by-song level.
“Barbarella” is a confessional, textured paean to the classic sci-fi heroine of 1969, and was the lead single for the album. Perhaps a more fitting choice would have been “Mockingbird Girl,” a sure-fire hit if the world were a fair place to make records. Beatles-esque with a strong melody, this track on an STP album would’ve been huge – instead, it flounders here at the tail end of the record. “Barbarella,” on the other hand, with its melody and strummed, open chords recalling Bowie’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” eventually gives way to a Hawaiian slide-guitar solo and an a capella final verse. It was far too sophisticated for rock radio in 1998, and probably for 2008.
It is also the first (of two) lyrical references to masturbation, which is an appropriate metaphor for this album – Weiland appears to be trying to please only himself. This sounds like Weiland let loose to do exactly what he wanted to do, unhindered by the restraint of his band-mates or focused at all on the meshing of tracks to make a cohesive album. Instead we get the marimba/drum machine/Latin percussion marriage of “Divider” right next to borderline Industrial “Cool Kiss.” And therein lies its charm. This is a fun diversion to the Stone Temple Pilots catalogue and stands as a unique, over-stuffed experiment mostly gone-right.
Perhaps in part due to the fact that neither record was commercially very successful, the reunited Stone Temple Pilots would not draw from the 12 Bar Blues sea of inspiration and put them through the refinery by the Talk Show machine. They simply churned out a truly flat, mediocre record that would make many fans, myself included, turn away for good. These two records, taken together, reveal the truly incendiary nature of a great front man’s relationship to his band-mates. In the best situations, his exuberance is tempered by the solidity of his cohorts, and magic happens. Here, we have the front-man in left field making interesting if inconsistent songs, and the band left to their own pedestrian devices churning out riff after riff. If only these two could play nice.
by Brian Salvatore
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