CD Odyssey Disc 918: Gogol Bordello

The stitches from my gum surgery came out today, and while my teeth are still tender it feels good to have that procedure in my rear-view.

That was, of course, until the dentist said we gotta do the bottom half next. Yeesh. Thankfully it’s not scheduled until December. I can amuse myself with less painful activities in the meantime, like getting another tattoo.

Disc 918 is….Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike

Artist: Gogol Bordello

Year of Release: 2005

What’s up with the Cover? The ultimate weapon of revolutionaries and 12-year olds the world over: the slingshot. Also, a lot of yellow.

How I Came To Know It: Our old friends Sherylyn and Joel bought me a later album “Trans-Continental Hustle” (reviewed way back at Disc 482). I liked it and so I sought out some more stuff by the band, and “Gypsy Punks” is where I landed, for no particular reason at the time.

How It Stacks Up:  Gogol Bordello has nine studio albums, but I’ve only got two. Of the two, “Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike” is the weaker partner, so #2.

Ratings: 3 stars

Raw energy is what Gogol Bordello is all about as a band, and “Gypsy Punk” captures the experience well, even if it is a bit too much of a good thing by the time you get to the end of it.

The album does a fine job of mixing punk and Eastern European folk music into a stew of sound. This is raw rock and roll, with accordion and violins played so hard that they must finish the show with stress fractures. Punctuating the frantic beat and thrashing guitars are bells, shrieks and screams. The whole thing is like an out of control house party where no one seems to know who the host is and that always ends with a police raid.

The music has a revolutionary fervor to it, even if you’re never sure what kind of revolution Gogol Bordello is after (one of the songs on the album is “Think Locally, Fuck Globally” so take that for what it’s worth). Music is their common tonic for helping them through difficult times.

This is particularly true on “Immigrant Funk.” This is the album’s entry into Gogol Bordello’s abiding interest in immigration, and the combination of excitement and frustration that is felt by new immigrants. “Immigrant Punk” is a punk classic, and band frontman Eugene Hutz starts the song off with a little vitriol, observing:

“Upon arrivin’ to the melting pot

I get penciled in as a goddamn white

Now that I am categorized

Officer gets me naturalized.”

With its almost reggae bass line, “Immigrant Punk” has traces of the Clash, but as with everything Gogol Bordello touches, it is with an eastern twist. There are also occasional splashes of Spanish musical forms, presumably because nothing exceeds like excess.

As I worked my way through my first listen my first thought was “oh, this stuff is all going to sound the same” but I was pleasantly surprised at how many different ways Gogol Bordello can employ so many subtle variations on similar rhythms and keep things interesting without compromising their sound.

“Dogs Were Barking” is a vision of the wildest wedding ever (Gogol Bordello can find inspiration for a song in every kind of party). In addition to the titular dogs, this weddings has monkeys, bears, girls cutting loose, cops lurking and kids ‘snarking’ There’s nothing worse than a snarky kid at a wedding.

One of the most melodic songs is “Undestructable” which shows the band is capable of reining it in just a bit and delivering something almost (but not quite) worthy of being a radio single. It is a beautiful track, marred by the unfathomable decision to repeatedly say ‘undestructable’ instead of indestructible. It isn’t just the accents either; the liner notes make it clear the spelling is deliberate.

Sometimes the songs tend to get a bit repetitive and need to end sooner. This is a general malaise of the album, which at 15 songs and 63 minutes is just too long. Taken all at once it wears you out, and you’re done with it 15 minutes before it is done with you. It is the musical equivalent of the party that goes on a little too long, where you stay for an extra hour after you ceased having fun, wishing you’d shared that final cab with your buddies after all.

Overall this is a pretty fun record, from a band who create a unique blend of west and east; of rock and tradition, and then make the resulting goulash sound great. It’s a bit rough around the edges, but I suspect Gogol Bordello would have it no other way.

Best tracks: Not a Crime, Immigrant Punk, Avenue B, Dogs Were Barking, Start Wearing Purple, Undestructable

CD Odyssey Disc 482: Gogol Bordello

Do you ever find yourself thinking from time to time about some old friend you used to spend a lot of time with many years ago, but lost touch with and hardly see any more?  Trust me, this happens more and more the older you get.  You’re always thinking of this person and how you should give them a call and say hello but you never quite do and then – out of the blue – you find out that they died a month ago and you didn’t even know.  Well that just happened to me.

Ferris Bueller famously said “life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.”  Well it’s true, and it’s not always funny.

Since regret would be wasted, and it is well past time for grand gestures, I’ll have to settle for a small and obscure one and simply say, “Go 49ers.”

Disc 482 is…Trans-Continental Hustle

Artist: Gogol Bordello

Year of Release: 2010

What’s up with the Cover?  Front-man and Gogol Bordello mastermind Eugene Hutz leans against a post.  Considering how poorly dressed, ungroomed and generally unkempt he looks, he’s got a surprisingly sexy vibe.  My wife thinks he’s quite a dish, in what I would characterize as a “You’re very forward and I’m drunk enough to like it” kind of way and I can totally see her point.

How I Came To Know It:  Introduced to me via a very generous birthday gift of this album and two others from our friends Sherylyn and Joel.  The first two were Canadian acts Mother Mother (through their album “O My Heart” reviewed back at Disc 167) and the second was Dan Mangan (through his “Nice Nice, Very Nice” album, still un-reviewed).  I’ve liked every artist enough to buy more of their work, which is a pretty nice average, but Gogol Bordello has been the best of all.

How It Stacks Up:  I have two Gogol Bordello albums; this one and an earlier effort from 2005 called “Gypsy Punks:  Underdog World Strike.”  Of the two, “Trans-Continental Hustle” is my clear favourite.

Rating:  4 stars

I could’ve reviewed this album last night but damn it, I needed the energy of Gogol Bordello’s gypsy punk for one more day.

Gypsy punk is a hard thing to wrap your head around on its own, but it helps to imagine if the Pogues were Roma from the Ukraine, instead of Irishmen in London: different local folk music of course but the same global appeal of revolutionary punk music.

The energy that Gogol Bordello delivers is exceptional, and the band is well known for its crazy stage presence.  Do yourself a favour and Youtube some of their live performances and see for yourself.  The challenge is to take that incredible energy from a live show and capture it in studio recordings; no easy task.

Enter producer-mastermind Rick Rubin, who keeps the cuts clean (rather than the sloppy stylings that regular punk sometimes slips into) while losing none of the visceral energy Gogol Bordello is famous for.

The music of the album finds its foundation in eastern European gypsy music.  They play it so well it makes me want to go out and find some of the traditional stuff, which has so many connections with the Celtic music of the British Isles that I love. (Loreena McKennitt has been exploring these links for years, by the way).  Gogol Bordello employ energetic guitar and violin, accordion and boisterous singing in unison (harmonies would just seem fake on these songs).

Infused into this are rock and punk elements that energize the whole thing and update it to a twenty-first century sound (with Rubin’s guiding hand, of course).  On my earlier album, “Gypsy Punks,” Gogol Bordello had all the ingredients as well, but on “Trans-Continental Hustle” they are so much tighter and faster.

While “Trans-Continental Hustle” is mostly about energy, the lyrics are surprisingly thoughtful, dealing with the frustration of immigration into the first world like these lines from “Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher)”:

“Frozen eyes, sweaty back

My family’s sleeping on a railroad track

All my life I pack/unpack

But man I got to earn this buck

I gotta pay representation

To be accepted in a nation

Where after efforts of a hero

Welcome – start again from zero.”

Other songs have references as disparate as Charlie Chaplin and Kafka, and use them appropriately (which is particularly rare when it comes to Kafka).  On “Uma Menina” he glumly observes “As if them birds are free/From the sidewalks of the sky.”  Combined with the power of the music, you are left with the sense that Hutz is a very insightful and intelligent guy, but that he won’t let that fact blunt genuine anger when he feels it is warranted.

Musically the album is pretty straight forward with basic riffs and chords, but just enough brilliant picking to demonstrate these guys know what they are doing, and can switch gears whenever they like.

The songs also tend to have a natural build in them.  “Immigraniada” starts with a groovy bass riff, and slowly builds in intensity and tempo.  This is even more noticeable on the brilliant “When Universes Collide” which starts with just a guitar gently strumming and (I think) an accordion, the song slowly builds into its terrible vision of civil strife reinforced with unison singing, drums and a healthy dollop of volume.  While the song is dark and menacing in subject, Gogol Bordello always manages to infuse their punk fatalism with a triumphant overtone.  It doesn’t detract from the heavy subjects, but it gives you hope that the human spirit can rise above despite the steepest of odds.

In fact, there is very little bad to say about this great record, and it comes close to five stars.  There aren’t any bad tracks, and there are more than a few exceptional ones but while it fills me with an enthusiasm for life, it falls just short of perfection.  Hey, I’m a hard marker, so even though it comes in at four stars only, don’t be bashful in going out and getting this record.  You won’t be disappointed.

Best tracks:  My Companjera, Rebellious Love, Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher), When Universes Collide, Uma Menina