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People Under the Stairs “...Or Stay Tuned”, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club “Take Them On, On Your Own”

Published: Monday, August 25, 2003

People Under the Stairs “...Or Stay Tuned” OM

People Under the Stairs has always been a hip-hop group proudly against the bling bling. The duo raps about everyday life instead of big pimping in addition to keeping its music simple too, sticking to a few low-key beats and samples to prop up its flow. “…Or Stay Tuned,” continues PUTS’s hip-hop minimalism that worked on its last three albums. As Double K puts it, “It’s the art of fresh music, not that artificial crap that people call rap, – we’re getting rid of that.”

But outside of the occasional swipe at “the artificial crap,” PUTS stay nice and positive. Its raps tackle the challenges of grade school and lazy summers in the neighborhood or the tough choice between staying in bed or going to church. In “Fly Love Song” the duo touches on sex, but spends most of its rhymes on good, clean romance and fantasizing about “putting her picture in my locket.”

The beats are as laid back as the lyrics on “…Or Stay Tuned.” PUTS uses jazzy samples to make hip-hop that flows quickly but still seems to take its sweet time. It’s definitely a fitting disc for these last days of summer.

-By Alex Palmer

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club “Take Them On, On Your Own” Virgin

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s 2001, “B.R.M.C,” was a great debut record. It was loud, feedback driven, and the San Francisco-based trio backed up all that brash noise with some great bass and guitar riffs that made the music more accessible than that of the Jesus and Mary Chain – a band that also reveled in the intense feedback BRMC indulges in. It’s no wonder that BRMC is often compared to JAMC (don’t those acronyms look similar?), although members of both bands dislike the comparison.

With “Take Them On, On Your Own,” BRMC only half-delivers on the promise of its first album. There are standout tracks like “Rise or Fall,” which is anchored by a searing riff, and there are clunkers that can only be described as boring. The album was recorded in England while the band waited for the U.S. government to allow for the return of British drummer Nick Jago, who had been living in the United States on an expired student visa. Recording its sophomore album in that strange state of limbo had mixed results and perhaps not coincidently, the band expresses its dissatisfaction with the U.S. government, on “US Government.” However, like several of the other songs on the album, the song never takes off despite the band’s often effective dark imagery and a driving rhythm. Lyrically, BRMC doesn’t seem to move too far forward – there are still songs about the bad kind of love and suffering.

One of the hallmarks of the band’s first album was the crispness of the recordings, which emphasized the dynamics of the band. Only a three-piece, bassist and sometime vocalist Robert Turner often serves up thick bass riffs to fill spaces, while guitarist and vocalist Peter Hayes specializes in washes of distortion and feedback. When the drums kick in on the album-opener, “Stop,” it’s reminiscent of “Red Eyes and Tears,” or the sublime “Spread Your Love” from the band’s debut. But for every track on the new album like “In Like the Rose,” which features an interesting staccato guitar part, there is a track like “Ha Ha High Babe,” which can only be described as filler.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club puts on a ferocious live show and gained this reputation putting in hours in clubs in San Francisco and Los Angeles. One imagines this gave the band a lot of time to tweak and hone the 11 gems that made up that first album. Maybe a year of putzing around in England with the rabid British press heaping praise on the band wasn’t a good state in which to record the follow-up.

-By Daniel Miller