Anyway the kids got together with veteran producer Norman Robinson last night to cut their first record which you can check out here. You may have to restart a few tracks more than once to get them to play properly. I blame the DRM. Here's a quick review.
Thematically, The Candidates don't take too many chances. Mostly they banged out industry standards like LEADERSHIP, ACCOUNTABILITY, PUBLIC SAFETY, and TRANSPARENCY although at times it appeared that some of the bandmates were trying to drive the material in a more experimental direction (POT and AMISH PEOPLE). It isn't clear which way these kinds of creative conflicts will eventually pull the group, but it's enough to keep us listening... for now.
Lyrically, The Candidates displayed a tendency toward stream-of-consciousness with, well, mixed (and sometimes confusing) results. For example, here's Leslie Jacobs on CRIME.
"There is no reason New Orleans has the crime rate it does"Sounds enticingly mysterious but we're not exactly sure what it means. Especially when a few minutes later she busted out this line
"It is very important that we engage our non-profits, our churches, people sitting on the stoops, in partnering with us in crime"Is Leslie Jacobs really looking for partners in crime? It would be a bit of a departure for her since the rest of her work here seems decidedly un-gangsta.
On the same cut, Nadine Ramsey briefly appears to confuse CRIME with AFGHANISTAN as she suggests what we need is "a long-term commitment". After that, she starts free-styling
"So it has to be that we listen to our neighborhoods. That we take into place with the police department what the neighborhoods are doing to make their lives better."No idea what that means. We're checking with the record label to find out if either Sarah Palin or Miss Teen South Carolina wrote any of Ramsey's material for her. We're pretty sure she wasn't lip-synching.
Jerry Jacobs (noted sidekick of bandmate John Georges) cultivates an edgy image and adds something to the band's look with his unusual black bowler hat. His riff on CRIME, "Legalize it!" is unabashedly pro-weed. He plays the rebel quite effectively but almost takes it too far in his deadpan antagonism of Robinson. During RACE, Norman tries to lead Jacobs back to familiar territory giving him an opportunity to suggest that more pot smoking will bring blacks and whites together. But Jacobs bucks his producer with a humorless, "If it would not hurt my political image I would laugh with you" The obvious tension there clearly marks Jerry Jacobs as the "bad boy" of the group.
Troy Henry dabbles in Yoko Ono-esque conceptual art as he describes to us his vision of a "5 legged stool" It's a bit strange, given his engineering background that Henry would choose to add two more legs than most folks will tell you are necessary. Perhaps he's favoring stability over efficiency... or maybe it's just poetic license. Anyway, Henry, in somewhat unorthodox verbiage, describes the legs of his stool as 1) "Reengineering of city government" 2)"addressing the crime problem proactively as well as on an enforcement standpoint" 3)"infrastructure" 4) "economic development" 5)"around housing and blight" Because 5 Legged Stool presents some fairly mainstream concepts in a slightly new format, it has potential to be a sleeper hit for the group.
Meanwhile, the label is pushing frontman Mitch Landrieu's new single. The hook, "I know what to do and I know how to do it" is classic Mitch. Its compound structure recalls, perhaps too well, his 2006 hit, "We only get one chance and our margin for error is zero" The trouble there is that fans of the former tune are hoping these days that those words weren't as prophetic as they once sounded. Most of us hope to God at this point that he was wrong on both of those counts since there have been many errors and we would very much like another chance. And if no one wants to believe the old line any more, how much credibility does this new one really have? On the other hand, Mitch proposes to focus on 3 things (crime, jobs, and schools) which at least makes a more sensible stool than Henry's so maybe he's got something left in the tank after all.
Also recycling some of his older material is Manny "Chevrolet" Bruno as he reprises his 2006 anthem, "Let the Amish Come to Remove Our Blight". If you've seen Bruno's act before, there isn't anything new to get excited about but his timing and polish are as reliable as ever. He adds a touch of the soulful philosopher to an otherwise bubble-gum ensemble.
Ed Murray's "Mayor's Office of Education" sounds a bit ominous, particularly among fans of TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY but after a few listens is far more appealing than Leslie Jacobs' cover of EDUCATION which has been criticized for its confounding lack of FAIRNESS.
So there's some promise with this bunch but there also are some major problems. One thing that certainly needs work is The Candidates' sloppy stage show. Leslie Jacobs seems unable to perform without gripping and twisting her own fingers distractingly while Nadine Ramsey sways rhythmlessly in mid solo. And for God's sake, won't somebody do something about Ed Murray's blinking habit? He's never going to connect with an audience that way.
A few of the tracks should have been cut altogether. Georges' "You need a leader who can come up with a plan to find the bright people to lead us" doesn't seem to go anywhere. Troy Henry actually belted out "I believe the children are our future" at one point. Surely Norman should have known better than to let that onto the final mix.
Speaking of Robinson, his work here is also hit-or-miss. He badly misdirects new talent Thomas Lambert who at one point is asked by Norman how he would "tackle transparency" which sounds really difficult. Lambert also is completely unprepared when Norman asks him to riff on Charity Hospital.
Norman chooses to ask The Candidates "How would you generate revenue for the city's economy?" which is a nonsense query they all struggle with (particularly Ramsey, "We need to see whether or not there are any millages or any other revenue sources that are out there that we can pull in" and Lambert, "I'm sure there's enough Federal money laying around here to fix all these problems"). He also puts them through a pair of poorly worded and dubiously relevant questions about tax revenue and bonded indebtedness that just end up making everybody sound bad.
But the absolute lowlight of the entire release is Jonah Bascle. The advance publicity bills Bascle as a "comedian" but he's actually just a smug, unfunny asshole. If he wanted to segue from "accessible streetcars" on St. Charles Ave (The St. Charles line pre-dates ADA and is on the National Register of Historic Places) to "TRANSPARENCY" at City Hall, he could have suggested moving City Hall to a red streetcar. That would have been closer to funny than what he's doing which is basically just hoping people think it's cute that he's running. It's not... unless you're funny. Nadine Ramsey comes accross as an unintelligible moron. At least that's funny. Bascle is just a smug douche whose only shtick is that he thinks it's adorable that he's even running. It isn't, and the gag doesn't work especially when contrasted with Bruno's superior execution of a similar genre.
Maybe without the superfluous Lambert and the cloying frat-prank of Bascle, the group will be able to put out some entertaining work. The Candidates 2010 project will be on tour all month and into Carnival.
*Because this post is musically themed the title comes from a song called People In Honey performed by our favorite NOLA rock band.
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