Friday, September 19, 2008

 

Reinhold Messner

Ben Folds Five


Reinhold Messner (born September 17, 1944) is a mountaineer and explorer from the province of Bolzano-Bozen in Italy, often cited as the greatest mountain climber of all time. He is renowned for making the first solo ascents of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and for being the first climber to ascend all fourteen "eight-thousanders" (peaks over 8,000 metres above sea level). That has little to do with the rest of this post.

Reinhold Messner is also the name a Darren Jesse used on his fake ID in the 1980's. Darren Jesse is the leader of Hotel Lights, a pretty cool band, but Hotel Lights has little to do with this post.

Darren Jesse was the drummer for Ben Folds Five. That band broke up after their third studio album (fourth if you count "Naked Baby Photos"- a collection of unreleased singles, concert tracks and other oddities) "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner."

Last night, the band reunited for the first time in 10 years, playing "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner" in front of a sold-out house.

I really liked "Messner" when it came out. It was completely different than the band's other releases (which I absolutely loved) and was generally panned by fans and critics alike. In the future, I plan a post about bands who after having success with a simple first couple of albums, expand musically doing different things which causes fans and critics to lose interest.

I've listened to "Messner" a number of times since hearing of the band's plans to play it live. I'm listening to it right now, in fact. While I liked it when it came out, I'll admit that I was clouded by the fact that I liked the completely different previous releases better.

"Ben Folds Five" and "Whatever and Ever, Amen" were really collections of singles. They featured, almost exclusively, just the three member of the band (one track "Emmaline" was left off of the first album because, GASP!, it had an acoustic guitar on it). They were simple albums, fueled by the band's energy and charisma.

"Messner" was not nearly as radio friendly, not really single-based. It hangs together from beginning to end with recurring themes, sort of like a Pink Floyd album (but I may say that because "Regrets" is playing right now with that kickass "Dark Side of the Moon" outro).

I'm excited about the prospect of hearing the band play the entire album live (you can see it too, see video for details), more so now that I've given it a couple of listens in the last couple of weeks. I'm excited that it will probably be released as a DVD in the future as well. Unless the performance is a total trainwreck, I'll probably buy it, I may buy it if it is a trainwreck.

BOJ

Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

The Bert Convey
Principle
Friends' Blogs
My Photo
Name:
Location: United States

I'm not telling you anything...

archives