Fire Fundraiser: Meow The Jewels

One Tim Livingston generously donated his piece to the cause, and his request was the first one to stray from wrestling. Now some could easily argue that I'm not really that good at writing about pro wrestling, so it does seem rather dubious that I would be good at writing about music, let alone music that its very own creator dismissed with a backhanded tweet. But Tim wanted it, I listened to the album many many many times through, so we may as well write 1500 words about it, yes?

In a tweet a couple weeks ago one half of RTJ, El-P, stated "cant wait to read the first serious review of meow the jewels by some poor bastard who thinks its a serious album", and yeah, I get that. But it's also somewhat cowardly? Kinda chicken? It's seems like a way to instantly be able to shrug off criticism instead of actually stand up and release anything you spent any sort of time to out into the world. It's a teenager trying his hand at painting and before the first person is about to see it going "It's not like it's good or anything". Strange move from a guy who's accomplished so much in the music industry. I have accomplished next to nothing in the "writing digitally about professional wrestling" industry, but would feel pretty comfortable standing up to whatever criticism somebody wanted to lob my way. You may occasionally see sheepish attitudes from me, but you won't ever see me go "here's something I wrote about CMLL. It sucks dick and I didn't try at all, so you're a dummy if you try to shit on it."

Maybe saying something like that is similar to the fine line noise rock constantly teeters on. The noise rock scene is littered with thousands of homemade hand-decorated cassette tapes that range from "somebody made awesome homemade instruments and crafted an actual haunting 30 minutes of tape with it" down to "some dickface has a pedal that he makes squawking sounds with for an hour". I've heard them all, from the greatest possible horrorscape Wolf Eyes stuff down to stuff that I could fairly easily replicate myself and felt like a doofus for purchasing. Other noise bands - say AIDS Wolf - feel like they are openly mocking you for listening to noise rock. Without ever saying it, you realize that these people are out to dupe easy marks with their brand of  couldn't-possible-practice-in-the-least noise, jabbing a laughing pointing finger at pretentious types sitting there nodding along with their eyes closed while somebody scrapes a brillo pad across a mic'd kitchen pot. Is Meow the Jewels openly mocking a fanbase?

Well, maybe, but people who love and are obsessed with cats are a fanbase that likely knows this and doesn't really mind the mocking. People - for zero reason whatsoever - wanted to hear cat noises on an amazing rap record. They raised a lot of money to make this happen. If they are to be mocked, they clearly wouldn't care. But it is interesting how this is seemingly the first crowd-funded cat-based entertainment remix of a popular anything. Why this album? Why not anything else before it? There is a wonderful band called Mew, who does not do anything that remotely sounds like cats. How have Mew fans not stood up and demanded cat remixes? Why have cat lovers not pestered Criterion to do a cat based upgrade of Don't Look Meow? Why has nobody funded Cat Fight Club? 12 Angry Cats? I don't know. This album got released, some guy somewhere came up with a cat idea, several dozen people tell several dozen girls at several parties that it was their idea, and now we are left with Meow the Jewels.

And the MVP of Meow the Jewels? Purring!! Many of the MtJ tracks utilized purring in a way that genuinely benefitted the original songs. You couldn't just throw purrs on every track of your album, make no mention of cats, and expect people to not start asking you about cats. But if Raekwon came out with a song, used some purrs as bass and went about his business, I think it would sound totally normal. The purrs just worked exceptionally well to rap over. The low rumbling purr bass on "Close Your Eyes and Meow to Fluff" or on "Lie, Cheat, Meow" and especially on "Meowrly" with its staccato purr rumbles AND their awesome purr beatboxes showed that cats may have a future in the hip hop game. "Angelsnuggler" has these warped pulse purr noise approaching Paul Leary's distorted guitar on Butthole Surfers' somehow hit "Pepper". Come to think of it, Butthole Surfers seem like a band that already should have and could have utilized cat sounds into an awesome record.

As for other uses of cats, "All Meow Life" has neat manipulated cat pops, like a cat version of the bloops and pops and syncopated lady moans in Nu Shooz' "I Can't Wait". "Lie, Cheat, Meow" has multitracked cat yowl background vox that work better than they should. We also have some playful nursery rhyme music box meows on "Creown", with a weird exasperated Eddie Deezen type character going batty over buying a whole bunch of cats. If that was sampled from something, I have no possible idea where that would be.

If I had to choose which song was the best overall use of cat, I would probably pick "Close Your Eyes and Meow to Fluff". The shrill staccato cat yelps add emphasis to rhymes and even add some sort of cat harmonies, with "Run the Jewels Fast" being mirrored by "Meow Meow-Meow Meow", harmonizing like a fuzzy Graham Nash, much in the same way that my cat son Tacos and I harmonize in obnoxious cat-to-human call and response. The aforementioned purr rumbles are just icing on this track.

"Pawfluffer Night" is probably the best remix, cat sounds or no, and really it probably has less traditional cat sounds than any of the other remixes, peppering in some tiny little kitty hiccups and slowing down and stretching out a cat yowl sooooo faaaaaar that that it sounds like a carny haunted house ambient groan. Zola Jesus builds things to a noise filled crescendo, outshouting Killer Mike with clattering and screeching and cats and industrial roar. It's like Killer Mike rapping at cats outside one of the factories in Eraserhead.

So, the question on everybody's mind: Meow the Jewels. How does it compare to the long reigning king (I assume) of cat-based novelty music: The Jingle Cats' Meowy Christmas?

Well, Jingle Cats was music made entirely by cats. I mean, the cats probably didn't sit down in the recording studio to hammer out some jams, because cats are uncoachable and a fucking nightmare to corral. Imagine the editing that would have to be done to salvage hours of cats recorded live in studio! It's a project that would turn a normal editor into Kevin Shields. Steve Fisk worked miracles patching together early Beat Happening recordings, as nobody was capable of playing through a song without messing up. But no, Jingle Cats used prerecorded meows, all octaves, from kitten squeaks to yowls in heat, and all cat sounds in between. While a photograph inside the cassette tape, the same cassette that should still be in my parent's holiday storage box as I type this, the cassette tape showed three cats, all wearing holiday sweaters, all holding musical instruments (or standing behind drums). I remember staring at the cat holding a guitar far longer than I imagine most people who owned Jingle Cats Meowy Christmas stared at that cat. Was it cheap computer graphics? Did they actually furnish the cats with cat-sized instruments? Were they all in the same room when the photo was taken?

Anyway, Jingle Cats is better. They not only have some deep cut Christmas songs sung by cats (Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring), but also attempt to involve the Jews by including Hava Nagila. That's a nice gesture. Meow the Jewels was not made entirely by cats, so in that regard it will always finish 2nd. What album will I listen to more? Well, probably Meow the Jewels 1 & 2. BUT if I ever tire of the originals or my Jingle Cats cassette wears out (it is probably near 20+ years old) while I'm driving along looking at Christmas lights, then Meow the Jewels is just fine. I'm glad it exists, even if I won't be shelling out $40 for the tawny brown vinyl release.