Words by Sean Moeller//Illustration by Jorge Tapia
People go through phases. They get into golf for whole summers at a time, playing incessantly until the courses shut down for the season and then they don’t go back but more than two times the following year. They get on health food kicks where they trick themselves that salads are leafy glories and a plate of spaghetti is Satan. They start collecting souvenir spoons from every state in the U.S., and display them proudly in their den. Children collect baseball cards (or at least did until they became priced $3 for a pack of six cards) or they choose to wear a cowboy hat for weeks on end only to forget about their John Wayne days as soon as the new Shrek movie hits multiplexes. These phases and fads come and go like mosquitoes and cicadas – seasonal and flighty. It seems, however, that Adam Green’s drug phase is here to stay and I for one think he should be applauded for his resolve to hold onto what he cherishes in life. He likes drugs. He really likes drugs. My bubble cloud fantasy is of Green in a bear suit (something that was fairly common when he and Kimya Dawson were the effervescent Moldy Peaches a few years ago, falling into a touch of mainstream fervor with “Who’s Got The Crack?” a little ditty about cocaine that apparently isn’t so ironical) sitting down on his haunches, with his furry tub of a belly slung out before him and piles of brown honey jars skewed out around him, empty. Only there was never any honey in them, just acid or something like-minded.

His brain works best when it’s lathered with stimulants and depressors, horse tranquilizers on off-days. He simply could not have the kind of fun or do the things he normally does without their aid. It’s a slippery slope, but he’s learned to man the reins on these destructive (destructive to OTHER people) manmade pollutants that spend their time tearing through his creative centers, allowing him to write lines that are insanity to a non-believer, but are beguiling to the converted. Green has a voice like a guidance counselor. No, not any guidance counselor, but Mr. Rosso from the short-changed “Freek & Geeks” series. He has this way of sounding like a guy in a green G.I. jacket, whether that’s dangerous or not is probably intrinsic, but relative to how fey you appear in it. And Green’s fey. His lyrics ride along on “Jacket Full of Danger” at a level that can be seen as complete and utter bullshit or the very thing that made Stephen Malkmus, Jim Morrison, Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston all honorary geniuses of some sort and order. He comes from every avenue to talk about cutting the cheese, the discriminatory practices against balding and conversely, hairy women and other asinine matters. It’s the ridiculousness of his writing that’s the immediate draw to this record and anything else he’s ever done. It’s witnessing a derailing, but not of an entire train, which can be tragic. It’s like seeing a caboose fall on its side, a drunk caboose full of drunk clowns and whirly birds and wall walkers giggling on the side of the tracks. He makes all of these diabolical pop songs into things that could just be elegance in disguise. There’s always a sense of proper, old-time showmanship – the crooning that grandmother and grandfather grew up on – but then there’s a hilarious seedy underbelly. Green is less Jonathan Richman – as he’s been in the past—than a perverse Randy Newman or Burt Bacharach on…well, drugs.

“Animal Dreams,” “Hollywood Bowl,” “Jolly Good,” “Drugs,” “Cast A Shadow” and “Party Line” are all standouts in different ways, working together to absolutely confound any logical bead on Green. He sings about hairy nipples. He used to sing about Jessica Simpson – without a tongue in cheek – and yet he can momentarily tap into his serious bone. Then he goes right back to talking about boning (“White Women”). It’s a dizzy case that he makes for the merit of puns and the malleability of words and phrases. He forces you to listen to what he’s saying because of it’s off-the-wall nature and at the same time, these are songs that make some people turn themselves off because they consider the lyrics to be superfluous and wasteful. I think everyone’s right. I want to hear everything he has to say. When he sings, “Bi-diddle-I-Die/I’ll never chew the outline of a pie” in “Jolly Good,” it’s as amusing as hearing him say that he was raised by zephyrs, Scorpions lead singer Klaus Meine is his best friend and he’s never met an umbrella that couldn’t drive a stick-shift. He lost me, but he got me. Go drugs!

Adam Green
Rough Trade Records