A Synopsis
"Modern Dating Tips"
Chris Brougham - Executive Producer
(MMV) JB Standard Media Inc.
-Synopsis by Bradley White -
Side 1 of Jensen Bell's "Modern Dating Tips" is a timeless Rock-Pop record for the ages. But, paradoxically, that approach isn't very popular these days. It's a collection of what Jensen called, "almost love songs" and logically begins with the primary voice of the record: a "man timid of dating."
The disk begins with an acoustic guitar track. A soft, folksy rather intimate sounding song that draws heavily on a mid 60's innocence in it's style. In "Askin' You Out" our hero wonders whether his new love interests will be able to "figure out that [he's] been alone" for a while since his last relationship. Quickly the pleasures and pains of trying to make a match unfold, failures abound.
"Her City's Got A Train" is a hooky and kinetic motion picture of a song that depicts the regret of not telling a secret crush how you felt before she moved far away to a much different life. The riff is pure Jensen Bell... very catchy but very grinding. Jensen straddles the punk and pop border throughout the record but in his own unique way that dates back to his days in The Rails. The result feels uplifting and fully charged.
"Smoke & Perfume" based on his close friend's experiences, illustrates how something as stale annoying as old smoke on your pillow can mean the possibility of happiness when it is mixed with her perfume. Even after she leaves without acquiescing, the lingering mixture she blended is a recipe for longing. This song has a decidedly late Beatles quality to it even though there is loud 12-string guitar indicating the Byrds in 1965. This is a track that stays with you days after you've given your pre-release copy away to your girlfriend.
"Beauty Secrets" appears to be a celebration of a new love's charming idiosyncrasies, but if examined may be the seeds to this relationships' demise. Who wants to date little miss perfect anyway? This track has the most modern of the riffs on the record. It is as at home on Teen-Rock-Radio as "Stacy's Mom" by the Fountains of Wayne, or the most pop side of Weezer.
"Kitsch Lorraine" is less a tale of "dating out of your league", than dating out of your pop-culture tribe, this dater is lost when it comes to finding gifts both acceptably collectible and sufficiently ironic. There are images of velvet paintings of Elvis and collectable lunch pails. Rollicking, careening and Green-Day-aggressive, this track sneers at the conventional big-rock tracks of the computer era in that way that only people who have played at Raji's, Hollywood in the 90's can do.
"Side One" ends with "Up & Out". Sounding decidedly alt. country or at least "no depression" in tone, the country-ness of this song might put of younger pop fans, but it will definitely bring in the wiser seasoned music fans who have a taste for a bit of historical context for their songcraft. Though in no way a retro or deconstructive piece, the Memphis swell of Chris Bell and Big Star can be felt here just as one might sense that a bit of Gram Parsons might be lurking in the singer's heart. Lyrically, this swelling burst of heart ache is a simple release of a union that feels as if it may have been more like a stint in a prison camp. "I'm up, I'm out of your reign... someday you'll be thankin' me ... but if you don't get to thankin' me ... still I'll be free."
Side 2 arises out of a cacophony of studio noises and buzzes into a real treat for punk-flavored-pop fans. "Happy Chocolate (duet)" ( a reference to a 1980 John Lennon quote about idealism) is the second recorded version of a song about a guy who finally finds his heart's desire and doesn't want to mess it up by being too enthusiastic. The first version was a previous rough of this track with different lyrics that had circulated among fans and friends locally. On this album version, Kim Shattuck of the soon-to-be-legendary MUFFS, joins Jensen in an "Elton and Kiki" style re-do of the song. Kim re-writes each "response" line of the song with her own take on the other side of that same story... namely that an attractive girl is understandably worried that this enthusiastic suitor may in fact be the beginnings of a stalker. The track seems to honor Kim and her band as much as the Ramones and British and Irish pub songs.
In "Possible Jane Situation" a single guy is confronted with a new tenant in his building who is very attractive but all too familiar. Standing in his doorway, "daring [him] not to fall in love" this mystery girl is so much like an ex, he is almost tempted to just call her by the ex's name and push her out into the cold. All of this mismatching is taking a toll on our star crossed daters. But for the modern lyric, his is the most "classic rock" of the bunch, as the chorus could have been on a Tommy James and the Shondells single in 1966.
In the next three tracks collectively named "The Bitter Suite," The music begins in a very classical vein and breaks into that Petty/Byrds romp that makes driving a pleasure. The theme of the disk begins to all make sense as a mini-drama plays out within the three tracks. There are secrets discovered yet kept by the pair immobilizing them and causing the boy to become bitter about all girls. His bitterness becomes ridiculous. The girl is keeping her pain in a collection of trinkets hiding on some hidden shelf.
"Candy Box -him" is a piece of very baroque sounding music that describes the risk and the rejection suffered by the guy left for naught. "so he locked up his heart and he gave into sadness," we learn as we examine his decision to sing the next track titled, "The Swear-Off Song" where our male suitor graphically blames his life on problems that are cruelly visited upon him. He is clearly without his willingness to accept any culpability for his failings nor responsibility for change.
"Candy Box -her" is in fact the same melody as "-him", but with different orchestration and you hear the real Brian Wilson inspiration of the chord movement. What musician hasn't dreamed of playing with the textures of Pet Sounds or "Smile"... Jensen has visited this sacred ground with out toppling a headstone or tramping a flowerbed. Lyrically this last part of the trilogy reveals the point of view of a woman who never told him why she had to break his heart... and who keeps all those secrets and regrets in a candy box that she just puts "away"... the recording ends in an acid trip of buzzing synths, organs and flutes.
Reason and temperance finally emerge on the record in the form, "Happening (parting advice)." The Byrds and folk rock in general are in the fore with this recording as the structure appears to be in a sort of "round"...(life is but a dream) and there are plenty of (not unwelcome) "la's" to flesh out what appears to be the theme of the whole disk. This song appears to be in the tradition of "the meditation on forgiveness in love." Gwynne Garfinkle writing for "Entertainment Weekly" said of this song, "A high energy treat (with) some of the most insightful lyrics I have ever heard" ... the final line urges the heart sick break-up sufferer to "Set Fire To lover's debts, angry words and sad regrets"
Finally, Modern Dating Tips (Side 2) ends the collection with a piece of music far more daring both lyrically and instrumentally than anything on the disk in the form of the curiously named, "Love Stained Eyes." The sweeping growing ode reveals the problem with all mismatched love, namely, the terrible self-image each side of the equation suffers from as they attempt to achieve equivalence. "She says she's not worth seeing... no surprize... she says i'm blind from my love stained eyes." The swelling complex string arrangement as it accompanies an earnest piano, guitar, and cymbal, sounds ever more like an homage specifically to Pet Sounds (where is the timpani?) as Jensen tries to answer the unanswerable by offering a rather mystical solution "The truth is painful... this won't change unless I can learn exactly who I am." The last strains center on forgiveness and hope as the strings begin to harmonize along counter melodies and sub themes and the words fade out slowly... "she'll see it someday." It is clearly a very McCartney style touch to leave the disk with an open ended question.
Listening to the disk as two short pieces effected my listening and experience of the story telling and was quite enjoyable. The first track of the record is sonically very different from the rest of the record... almost like a band being introduced by a friend. "Askin You Out" was produced by Scott Gordon, known recently for co-producing the newest works for Alanis Morissette, and the debut album by Ben Taylor, son of legendary singer songwriters, James Taylor and Carly Simon, and engineering records for Ringo Starr. The rest of the disk is in the able hands of Chris Brougham, Jensen Bell and Steve Refling. The sound of the record is not what one would call sparse though there are some very delicate moments of quiet restraint. The record basically rocks. The musicians on the record have a sense of musical history and immediate passion which proves an effective combination. The arrangements are surprising and refreshing, varied but never too dense. One is struck by the pleasing flow of changing tempos and styles as the story is unfolding. This disk should remain active in a good record collection for years to come.
(this review was solicited from a writer friend of the artist... journalists may use any of it they wish for their own research. You may also click on any of the titles above to read the lyrics and hear a stream of the song)
© MMV JensenBell.com / JB Standard Media / Uncle Fleetwood - All Rights Reserved
