Club Ninja Debate

[Chris Baker]

I knew I was in trouble with CN before getting the shrink-wrap off--that
ugly, ludicrous cover and lettering--and then I saw the band credits--and
then I was confronted by an opening track that sounded like a Billy Idol
knockoff, wherein Bloom finally got to sing about his dick like the rest of
the rock stars.  There was also a knockoff of "Burnin’ For You" (also missing
a "g", for that subliminal connection); Howard Stern on a song with lyrics
that were possibly the most embarrassing tripe Pearlman ever made public;
 that noted intellectual Eric Van Lustbader, whose knowledge of and
sensitivity to all things Japanese make me certain that he watched "Shogun"
more than once;  Richard Meltzer ripping off Anais Nin and (I believe) Carl
Sandburg; and the Song That Shall Be Nameless (aka Let Go II), wherein the
rhymin’ of lickin’ and tickin’ was the cleverest lyrical feint.

"Perfect Water" is a very good song and I like the guitar solo on "Spy..."
 I’ve always found the lyrics to "Madness to the Method" to be unpleasant in
a distinctly non-BOC way.  Finding incitements to violence both opening and
closing the side—coming from a band which had certainly witnessed enough ugly
behavior in their audiences—sent me away depressed with the whole misbegotten
enterprise.

I’ll have to buy the CD, though, if only to complete my collection of Arthur
Levy’s liner notes.

-Chris Baker