It is too easy to marvel at the genius of Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip. The stuff of legend is so basic that it stood out from the rest of the Sunday Funnies at its inception and any of the 17,897 strips published from 1950-2000 still elicits magic today. It is also too easy to limit the authorship of (any) comic strip to its own space away from where novelists grapple with social problems, artists quantify streams of feelings through one painting or sculpture, and filmmakers use a limited vocabulary to capture a period's emotional accuracy. If anything, "Peanuts" longstanding still-cool-with-everyone draw is due to the latter. Overarching the entire run, Charles "Sparky" Schulz's life taught him that it was the space around his characters that allowed readers like you and me to paint in the backdrop of our own lives.
Schulz's life in Minnesota began as an outsider. The child of Norwegian immigrants, his childhood was as lonely as Charlie Brown's. Sure, he could play with his friends in the yard. However, no one remembers entering the house thanks to his dog, Spike. His father cut hair as the local barber, so he had his own social life to maintain. His mother whom he dearly loved would become ill. Her sickness and necessary detachment would fill Schulz with all the neuroses that still dwell within his creation Charlie Brown.
Schulz took comfort in drawing - but it was a private skill for him. As his mother became more consumed with sickness, Schulz entered the service. Just days before 20-year-old Schulz shipped out to Kentucky, someone finally told him that she was suffering from cervical cancer. From here on out, Schulz would mask his extraordinary pain by leading an ordinary life.
When the war ended, Schulz returned home with the idea, "What if I could just draw for a living?" His art school education came from correspondence with The Art Instruction School. However, his innate talent won out and Schulz was accepted to the faculty of that entity in Minneapolis. His education came from sitting in the room with all those other artists judging the assignments mailed in. Occasionally, Schulz and his closest ally, Linus Maurer, would steal a few moments to merely draw "something funny." Shared laughs would follow, but then it would be thrown away.
Privately, those tossed ideas were being drawn and inked for submission to publications. Seventeen untitled cartoons were accepted by The Saturday Evening Post between 1947 and 1950, and Schulz's jokes as "Sparky" (his childhood nickname, after a "Barney Google" comic strip character) were appearing weekly in the nearby St. Paul Pioneer Press. Redubbed "L'il Folks," Schulz took his work to United Feature Syndicate who renamed it (against his will) "Peanuts." While its following started slowly, "Peanuts" gained favor with children and parents alike. Schulz perfected the four-panel layout which he could easily repeat in form with a different melody for each strip just like his mother's Beethoven that once wafted throughout his childhood home. The characters being rudimentarily drawn left room for volumes of self-expression. Even, the little red-headed girl Charlie Brown could never talk to was a part of his life. While at the Art Instruction School, Schulz was dumped by then-girlfriend Donna Wald. Of course, in the conversation, Wald left open the possibility of changing her mind. After Schulz left dejected and with Wald still crying, Schulz returned 30 minutes later to ask "Did you change your mind?"
Where "Peanuts" differed from all the other strips and still stands out today is that it grants these children a dual existence. First, most children cannot wait to be adults. So Schulz personifies them as "great communicators." Yet, as children, they wield a lot of words (and silences) with greater power. Charlie Brown asks a girl, "Do you like me?" She responds "My friends and I talk about you all the time." Brown jokingly and slyly retorts, "I bet you say so many bad things about me." Then he laughs steadily, and then sporadically. The girl stays silent. As painful as that is, in just four panels, Schulz proves he understands the mercury of life. Some say "Peanuts" still works because it understands the "cruelty" of the world. However, a better word may be "reality."
Second, these children are never devoid of hope. No matter how far Linus may drift from the flock as Schulz's venerable outsider/philosopher/poet, his passion for a better world fuels his journey back. Every year Charlie Brown hits the pitcher's mound for another season, his mantra is repeated - "This will be my year." Fifty years of self-validation drifting into failure does not matter. It will never matter. Like novelists, artisans, and poets who staked their claim on the earth before him, when Schulz writes it, we feel it.
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
THE BLACK KEYS - Ohio Players [RED LP/CD](Easy Eye) • Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are at a turning point. As the album's initial reintroduction single "Beautiful People (Stay High)" announces they are still hitmakers - not yet ready to be exiled to the run of album/TOUR/album/TOUR legacy acts. Beyond the on-paper AAA/Alternative/Rock #1 of "Beautiful People," The Black Keys are ready to take some chances. Enter Noel Gallagher. Yes, that one. Gallagher is here to inject Beatlesque melodies into their tough Sixties-based soulful Rock. Next up, the newly minted song doctor Beck Hansen. Beck knows a thing or two about revamping your music but staying consistent. On "Ohio Players," he joins co-producer Dan The Automator to push The Black Keys in different directions both needed ("This is Nowhere") and maybe not (appearing with Juicy J on "Paper Crown.") Thankfully, "Ohio Players" is about sustaining the band and it shows.
VAMPIRE WEEKEND - Only God Was Above Us [INDIE LP/CD](Columbia) • Five years later, Ezra Koenig has eyes on evolution. Part travelogue, part ode to isolation, "Only God Was Above Us" dangerously toes the Vampire Weekend of the past (former member Rostam Batmanglij returns to co-produce) and future (his replacement, producer Ariel Rechtshaid.) The most notable course correction is that Koenig and his bandmates Chris Baio and Chris Tomson are contributing ideas. As a result, "Only God" is everywhere. "Classical" is the messiest Pop song they have ever created. Nineties big beat, Pavement-like leads, and classical guitar thunder all come at you like you are listening in a tube. "Mary Boone" goes even further to show the sum of its parts with Manchester's big beat and slinky bass. In short, there is no refinement of sound like "Father of the Bride." "Only God" moves like rapid transit, yet feels gentle and poetic like "Modern Vampires of the City" (still their best.) At their most surprising, Koenig drifts on waves of delay on the Bowie-esque surprise "Capricorn" which carries all the hallmarks of Rock classics filtered through the modern eye of pulling disparate parts to make a collage of your life.
PHOSPHORESCENT - Revelator [YELLOW LP/CD] (Verve) • THE PERNICE BROTHERS - Who Will You Believe [CLEAR LP/CD] (New West/Redeye) • A view of the damaged older male singer/songwriter. Voices that wish to be heard. However, they are drowned out by the fountain of youth-driven, WISE (in a good way) female Pop stars. Matthew Houck a/k/a Phosphorescent writes songs like he wants you to absorb every word. "Revelator" dips and dives like Eighties Dylan thanks to his crack band of Jack Lawrence and Jim White. Houck wants to be a Sixties singer/songwriter. The songs here are trimmed with strings, steel guitars, and lush pianos (thanks to his partner Jo Schoriknow.) However, it is all a mismatch. "Impossible House" could be a Robbie Robertson-style beauty but Houck's lyrics cannot carry the weight of implying that the journey is somehow well-traveled.
On the other hand, longtime writer Joe Pernice could not sound like he cares less about fitting into any facet of the crowded streaming world. Over 25 years, Pernice has toiled in obscurity counting a handful of famous fans as his own. "Who Will You Believe" is his record and his alone. He ruminates on loss and it strangely opens him up to seeing the beauty of the real world outside. First, he duets with Neko Case on "I Don't Need That Anymore" and magically shows her powerful voice up. Then, he dares to take a Folk song-like meditation and turn it into a rousing anthem. Going even further, calling this bold closer "The Purple Rain" (clearly in tribute to the Purple Mountains/Silver Jews genius David Berman.) Like a brilliant novel, this one has moments of true solemnity and high hilarity. While Phosphorescent admirably uses all the tools at his disposal to get his message across, the Pernice Brothers take the path of least resistance to find what is missing from all music today - being truly human.
Reissues This Week
BILLY JOEL - Cold Spring Harbor/Streetlife Serenade/Turnstiles/52nd Street/Songs In The Attic [LP](Legacy) • To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Billy Joel's first hit record, the pieces of the catalog that fit around multi-platinum stalwarts "Piano Man" and "The Stranger" are finally back on wax. Now that the speed issues have been corrected on his Family Productions debut "Cold Spring Harbor," it is worth grabbing for "She's Got A Way" and the snarky "Everybody Loves You Now." "Streetlife Serenade" was meant to capitalize on the success of "Piano Man" and "Captain Jack" (from the 1973 album.) Instead, it and the follow-up "Turnstiles" still feel like fish-out-of-water routines. "Streetlife" (turning 50 this year) still boasts some great songs in "The Entertainer," "Root Beer Rag," "Roberta" and the underrated "Los Angelenos." 1976's "Turnstiles" at least returns him to New York. For that accomplishment, Joel writes several of the best songs in his canon so far. "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" is a Spector-ian wonder, and "Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out on Broadway)" is both epic and satirical. "Summer, Highland Falls" remains a stunning ballad, and what can you say about "New York State of Mind" Here, even the deep cuts like "James" and "Angry Young Man" show Joel fitting his songs together around his persona and his excellent band. When Phil Ramone takes over the producer's chair on 1977's true classic "The Stranger," Joel becomes a megawatt star seemingly overnight. With the Joel/Ramone formula in play, 1978's hurried but tough "52nd Street" pumps out a classic first side ("Big Shot," "Honesty," "My Life" and "Zanzibar") before running out of steam. 1980's "Glass Houses" hits even harder as he dips into Rock. Its success freed up time for his first live album, 1981's "Songs In The Attic" which today functions as an excellent starting point for his Seventies non-hits.
ELLIOTT SMITH - Either/Or EXPANDED/New Moon EXPANDED [COLOR 2LP](Kill Rock Stars/Redeye) • Before he walked out on the stage at the Oscars holding hands with Celine Dion and Trisha Yearwood, Elliott Smith was the most vulnerable confessional singer/songwriter we had. Cutting his teeth in the supremely underrated Heatmiser, Smith was planning a serious transition from sparse, hushed fingerpicking to bright Beatlesque songs that shattered your heart ("Ballad of Big Nothing.") "Either/Or" is quite possibly his best album still to this day. At the time, no one could slip into "late night" mode and hook you with a story like "Angeles" or decimate with the pure honesty of "Between The Bars." While his stock soared after "Either/Or," paired today with the studio outtakes collection "New Moon" - this is Smith at the height of his intimacy with the audience. Any one at that ceremony would have held his hand.
FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM - Elizium [BRICK RED LP](Beggars Banquet/Redeye) • With their black knee-length dusters and enough fog machines around them to make the floor of the stage invisible, Carl McCoy and the Fields of the Nephilim emerged from the fruitful Goth/Post-Punk scene in England in the late Eighties. Preaching dark narratives over atmospheric guitars and driving beats, The Nephilim punched through enough almost-hits ("Power" and "Psychonaut") to arrive on the crest of the Nineties as one of its most promising new acts. 1990's "Elizium" was meant to trumpet their arrival but ended up shattering the lineup. Years later, as Goth music continues to flourish as a subgenre and the bleak narratives of its artists were absorbed by Metal, The Nephilim merit closer examination. Working with Pink Floyd producer Andy Jackson, "Elizium" is outstanding in its layered mixture of dark mesmeric ("At The Gates of Silent Memory") and glammy Rock ("Submission.") The depth here makes the previous records (especially the underrated debut "Dawnrazor" from 1987) seem black and white. Finally, there is a minimalism here ("Wall of Sumer") that was never present before which really opened up their promise. This new deluxe version adds four never-before-released bonus cuts.
