Recently, a notable Chicago "post-rock" icon wrote into Pitchfork complaining that his album did not receive "critical commentary" (read: we didn't like it). He rambled on a bit proclaiming that incidents such as this (i.e., the press not liking his records) push him closer to not releasing records in America at all. Boo-hoo. Seriously, people, what the hell is wrong with musicians? If a critic doesn't like an album, it's automatically a slam and "not well-written." You don't hear them complaining if Blackened Fingers Zine writes a one-sentence "It's awesome!" review, right? A musician needs to cope with being dissed. Mr. Ted Leo, please start coping.

I've never mentioned a press kit or "one-sheet" before in a review. Honestly, I never even saw the press kits for the records I reviewed. The loquacious one-sheet that Ted Leo wrote for his debut solo album is so ridiculously pompous that it needs to be discussed. It's time to enlighten the general reader into this world of music press. First, Ted explains why he refers to himself as "tej leo (?), Rx / Pharmacist(s)," which you note I've refrained from doing, due to its sheer pretentiousness, in addition to saving the typing time and making our database cataloging smoother. Ted writes:

"The reasons for the obscuring of my identity in all of these different names are many fold. First is simply to disallow the 'pigeonholing' of my name in a specific context... Knowing how much the music media absolutely needs to establish control over the identities of the musicians they're commenting on by means of comparisons, genre definitions, etc., to compensate for their own lack of journalistic identity, I feel it's very important to retain that control for myself, at least until the identities that I'm pushing as my own transcend the ability of any given fanzine writer to hold them (read: me) where they want them, to help forward their own masturbatory agendas... Anyway, another reason is to create a sort of palimpsest of myself or rather to expose the palimpsest that is 'myself.'"

So, to summarize, it's basically, "Hey, I'm fucking around in the studio (read: my bedroom) trying to figure out what sort of music I want to make, but won't you please, please still purchase these hissy, disjointed demos?" Whenever a musician distances himself from a project, that can only mean one thing: it's not that great. In this respect, "tej" can be seen as a sort of musical "Alan Smithee." Also, we the music press don't strive to "establish control" over the identities of musicians to further our "masturbatory agendas." We review to inform our educated readership as to whether they should plop down money to purchase the CD. There is no masturbating involved. We're not the ones releasing muddy analog mixes of unfinished demos for the price of $12 to the public. And I wouldn't go as far as describe the "tej" manifestation as a "palimpsest," when, in fact, it sounds exactly like shoddy demos of Ted's last band, Chisel, with some extra noise loops. It's more like a "lazy tracing."

Believe me, folks, this all gets even more ridiculous-- upped to the stage of ridonkulous-- when you hear the record. It opens with a collage of samples from-- yep-- the opening to Chisel's last album. Clever. These samples sound recorded off of a cheap boombox onto an even cheaper boombox. Perhaps when Ted mentioned "palimpsests" he was referring to the worn mix tapes onto which this album sounds mastered. The entire disc could have been recorded through espionage. Leo lifts other samples from sources as diverse as the Fugees, Crass, Chumbawamba, and Karate, but they're handled with dirty fingers until they all become poorly-tuned radio static. His attempts at dub and lo-fi beats also fail annoyingly. "Congressional Dubcision" might be the long-lost demos of DJ Shadow, age five, making his initial strides with a Sony My First Ghettoblaster.

There are some great pop songs buried throughout this mess, which just makes the entire process increasingly frustrated. "The King of Time" strums like early Billy Bragg with clever falsettos thrown on top before melting guitar solos blow the levels out. "Walking Through" takes best advantage of the sound quality in building a skanking beat and a dusty symphonic climax. "Set You Free" and "(none)" prove that even indie rockers who refer to themselves as "palimpsests" aspire to beautiful stadium epics. It's just too bad that the production on these songs make the first three Guided by Voices records sound recorded by Alan Moulder.

Ted does explain the recording process of the record, in which he describes the fidelity-shattering "Enchoplex" sampling process. It sounds like total junk. If musicians are going to demand pampering from the press, perhaps they should at least put forth an effort to finish the songs. Of course, this could lead into a discussion of what constitutes a "finished song," but when you've heard the outstanding Chisel, and you hear this, you know that Ted Leo can do better. In fact, he confesses the same at the end of his press releases. He writes: "I've been returning to my love of 'the song,' as opposed to 'obscuring' myself and my guitar." This album was admittedly a "learning" process. He promises his next album will work more with the "total song." Hey, great, then why did he even release this record?

-Brent DiCrescenzo, August 1999