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OUR WEEKLY COLLECTION OF SHORTER REVIEWS
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Live at the Blue Room,
Supagroup,
The-Allies,
Hacksaw,
The Clientele,
La Buena Vida,
Shark Quest,
Swayzak,
End Transmission,
Sergio Vega,
Five Eight,
Joan of Arse,
Richard Davies,
Weights & Measures,
Zulu as Kono,
The Gazillions,
MadCaddies,
Outside Toy,
AVAIL,
Arab Strap
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Various Artists / Live at the Blue Room / Yanstar (CD)
Upon receiving this album I thought “Yeah, this is a really cool idea that more venues/theatres should look into”. Then I actually listened to it. It’s not that Live at the Blue Room is bad (either in sound quality or content) by any stretch of the imagination, but it just seems rather unnecessary. The Blue Room is an arthouse movie theatre in Chico, California that also books assorted bands/artists. Supposedly they show Warriors every single Tuesday of the year, holiday or not, which if true is pretty damn cool in and of itself. The bands on Live at the Blue Room are most likely a mix of those you know and those you don’t. Perennial favorites Braid, Burning Airlines and The Dismemberment Plan all appear twice for that extra dab of Emo goodness, but I found the album’s most inspired performances to come from groups who I had never even heard of before. The Imps’ “Artichoke Heart” and Farewell Bend’s “Rumors About Lightning” were both ferociously intense and memorable. Edith Frost, Ant Farm and Stinking Lizaveta also turn in fine efforts. Movie clips directed by Dylan Latimer are placed haphazardly throughout the album and in the end amount to several short-but-pointless musical pauses. As good as the majority of the performances on Live at the Blue Room are, it is never really able to shed its "useless live album" stigma. -- jj
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Supagroup / We Came to Rock You / Chicken Ranch
(CD)
If you're still hiding behind your keyboards, hoping that you can eke a few
more years out of the 80s revival, realize that this retro-music-trip has
tumbled back into the 70s -- you know, Marshalls, solos and reefer! The
Supagroup sets out upon a 70s-tinted mission -- a lowly one at that, but a
noble one nonetheless. Riff after riff descends upon your ears as Chris
Lee's vocals break apart somewhere between Thin Lizzy, The Supersuckers and
Iggy and guitar notes relentlessly penetrate your ear drums. I immediately
sing praise for any band that can pump out song titles like "Rock and Roll
Tried to Ruin My Life," "We Came To Rock You" and "Roll in Smoking." Now
that’s classic brilliance. This was recorded live, and it sounds like there's no other proper
way to experience the Supagroup, except with sweat pouring out of your
every pore as these bare chested guys barter their power chords for your
pumping fist -- and let me tell you, it's by all means a fair, one-fer-one
trade! For those about to rock, Supagroup is ready to salute you! -- am
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The-Allies / D-Day / Asphodel
(CD)
The head-space that used to be occupied by guitar gods has been taken over
by turntablists. At the front line of this blitzkrieg is the six-man
invasion force The-Allies, who boast more medals and awards than an entire
battalion. Cutting up beats faster than a caffeine addict with a set of
brand new Ginsu knives, the crew provides a steady rhythm to bob the head
while simultaneously dancing circles around the pulse. Although vocal
snippets and a machine-gun rap by Mayhem pop up, for the most part the
maestros use piano riffs with dive-bomb buzzes to knock you out. This crew
blasts the competition into rubble and will leave your head spinning like a
piece of smoking vinyl. -- rd
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Toronto’s Hacksaw offer up ten blistering tracks, some of which also appeared
on their first 7" single. The band plays straightforward (post) hard (core)
rock and take their lead from past greats like AC/DC, MC5 and Swiz. The CD
drives at full speed from start to finish with gruff, non-apologetic vocals
that fit perfectly inside just-melodic-enough 4/4 timed hooks. The press
materials that came with the record tell the story of a band
progressing, moving from hardcore to hard rock. Hacksaw definitely have a
knack for what they’re doing, but they strut it best when they add a touch
of noise and groove that’s at times reminiscent of the glory days of San
Diego greats Drive Like Jehu. Let’s hope the band's progression doesn't trade this in for the slightly more mundane and straightforward
numbers on the CD. -- av
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The Clientele / A Fading Summer EP / March
(CD)
The title's very accurate: these four tunes will put you in mind
of the last days of summer, filling your mind with thoughts of
gorgeous sunsets, turning leaves and the first few chilly autumn
breezes. The music is blurry, male-vocal psychedelic Britpop --
Syd Barrett or late Beatles, but played from the depths of a
semi-flooded cellar and further obscured by a haze of feedback.
It's pleasantly lulling, if a little monochromatic. If you
can't find any Nick Drake CDs to play in your Golf convertible,
A Fading Summer should do the job quite nicely, while helping
you elude accusations of yuppiehood. -- gz
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La Buena Vida / Eureka / Siesta (CD)
The most popular group on Siesta is also the best. Since their classic
Magnesia, a CD which showed off their love for New Order, few
indiepop bands have been as consistently enjoyable as La Buena Vida. Their
female and male singers are terrific, and the music continues to evolve and
transform itself into new shades of loveliness. Last year's Panorama,
a personal favorite, blended the famed El Records sound with wallop of
Spanish emotion, while Eureka has them returning to the days of
Magnesia, but with a preference for acoustic guitar. The first song,
"Otra Vez Tu", certainly lives up to my high expectations, displaying beauty, emotion and utterly exquisite playing. The remaining four songs,
particularly "H. Powell", also deliver enough goods to keep their fans
pleased. However, if you don't know Spanish, I'd have to say this is a
slight step down from Panorama, as the music is less eclectic and
the songs tend to blend into each other. The music conveys the same
melancholy emotions while presenting the same non-English words! -- td
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Shark Quest / Man on Stilts / Merge (CD)
I was very pleasantly surprised by Man on Stilts. Everything about
it -- the band name, the cover art, the liner notes and even the press release -- smelled of generic, regional, vanilla
surf band...until I actually listened to it (despite my best efforts I'm still guilty of prejudgment, I
suppose!). The moment the disc cued up on the spindle, I was impressed by its originality. Even after a couple of listens I find this music to be fresh and exciting. The best thing
about Man on Stilts is that there are no vocals to be found anywhere. In the tradition of early
surf music it is purely instrumental only. But Man... transcends simple surf music. It draws upon bluegrass
and other folk musics as much as Dick Dale. The result is vast, expressive music that captures the
imagination and tells stories without words. Even the song titles are descriptive. "Clocks in the Artic",
with its neo-classical form and perky tempo, has a saucy story to relate; it's just that the details
are up to you! -- nw
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British deep housers Swayzak are big-concept men. Eighteen months in the making, Himawari has an international flavor and imparts a sense of movement as surely as Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express did over two decades ago. The cover photo and a collection of pictures used in the insert were all taken by the band during their travels over the past two years. It all strikes me as post-post-modern: rather than referencing and re-referencing themselves, kids today are globe-trotting, melding cultures and finding connections where other generations failed. If there can be such a thing as a bright underbelly, then this is it: the upside to global capitalism. For those of us who are mostly stuck at home rather than dancing the night away at a rave in Thailand or watching a sunrise in Spain, Swayzak’s comely mix of ambient, techno, and dub gives us a pleasant soundtrack to brighten the familiar. -- bl
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End Transmission / 1234567890 / Congregation (CD)
Recently, I had the occasion to see a band whose the singer yelled, at the
top of his voice, about the horror of seeing day turn into night. Hey, this
is subject matter even babies get used to. Among normal people, eventual
darkness is one of the happenings in life which you simply expect...so when that singer treated the night like a slap on the face, what could a music fan to do but concentrate more on his beer? While it's fine and dandy to be emotional, doling out false emotions is bad. Happily, End Transmission are
level-headed in their passion and as honest as they come. In all their best
work, like "Oceans to Glaciers...", the drama seems legit, and allows for
their screams ("You say it's all been done!") to appear as pleading and true
as when Grant Hart said "You can live at home now". Their six-song EP,
while far from stunning, has a lot going for it besides their honest
bellows, such as their willingness to break from form. Track after track,
the tempos go from fast to slow and high to low, ultimately making End
Transmission the deliverers of more variety over six songs than most emo acts
will ever offer. It is hopeful their future releases will continue this
course, and that they never show up onstage one night bummed out
by the moon's existence. -- td
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Sergio Vega / The Ray Martin Sessions / GrapeOS
(CD)
Only five songs here, but damn are they good. Ex-Quicksander Vega's tasty,
crunchy power pop tunes sound, at various times, like modernized
Cheap Trick, classic Monkees, good Lenny Kravitz and
vintage Cracker, with additional ingredients thrown in as the
occasion warrants. I don't know anything about Sergio Vega beyond vague
awareness of his hardcore roots, but
he appears to be one of those artists who can cull his tunes
directly from our collective musical unconscious, choosing hooks
and riffs that are almost primaevally pleasurable. Timeless pop
conventions are employed left and right (trust me, if you've
spent any time near a radio, you'll catch 'em) but never in a
manner that seems derivative. Listen for the heavenly keyboards
(and, I'm prepared to swear, the harp) in "Off the Top",
or the slightly off-key group chorus that ends "Everybody Loves
Love". See if they don't grab you by the heartstrings (or, for
those of you who insist on anatomical accuracy, by the aorta).
-- gz
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Five Eight / The Good Nurse/ Deep Elm (CD)
The Good Nurse is a concept record about mental health and physical
illness. The songs are intricate and sometimes very long with lots of extras
(accordion, fluegelhorn, bugle, euphonium, violin, etc) to go along with the guitars and drums. But even with the additional instrumentation, the experimentation with wild time changes and strange jam juxtapositions, the
music itself is pretty standard territory. File this with bands like
Mineral, The Gloria Record, Brandston, etc. Lyrically, The Good Nurse is
knee deep in the personal/emotional/I’m-still-sorta-just-a-boy situation.
Vocally the record’s on shaky ground, making me wish bands like this still
screamed every word rather than trying to sing. -- av
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Despite their hilarious name, Irishmen Joan of Arse are actually as dark and moody as you imagine the North Sea might be in mid-winter. No accident then that this, their debut, is titled as it is; no surprise, also, that the insert contains a page supposedly excerpted from a journal found at sea. They're a gloomy lot, which then makes it logical that they would be collaborating with Gloomboy himself, Songs:Ohia’s Jason Molina, on an upcoming release. My lack of wonderment at all of these things does not betray a dislike for the record, or for its style (No one likes sad, intense music more than I do). More than anything, I’m surprised by the record, which probably reveals some sort of racism on my part -- largely Irish myself, I think of the Irish as generally being miserable, but in a joyful, minstrelly sort of way (á la the Pogues). Rather than being miserably happy, Joan of Arse are happily miserable. My only complaint is that their unhappiness is not quite so articulately and artistically rendered as Molina’s, or Will Oldham’s. Given time, however, it will probably will be. -- bl
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Richard Davies / Barbarians / Kindercore (CD)
Ray Davies has nothing on Richard Davies. Sure, the Kinks leader might have penned a few more tunes in his day, but only a select few songs from that massive canon can match the sheer beauty and precision of Barbarians. On his third solo outing, the former Moles frontman delivers on the promise he proffered with his first two solo releases, There’s Never Been a Crowd Like This and Telegraph. With Barbarians, Davies swaps the punky weirdness of his first band for a lavishly ornate landscape of brittle-yet-detailed pop, though “Great Republic” has moments of Moles-ness -- especially with its rough-and-ready guitar-work and distorted vocals. Elsewhere the album is very much a paean to the days when the aforementioned Ray Davies, as well as Beatles, ruled the charts. A glowing fragility permeates the acoustic guitar driven “May”, while a heady strum and ghostly echoes propel the breezy “Palo Alto”. But nowhere are Davies’ pop charms more apparent than on “Kissinger’s Banjo” -- its warbling backing vocals, thrift-shop melodies and wistful lyrics combine to form Barbarians’ defining moment. Davies has crafted a shimmering classic analog pop album in a defiantly digital age. -- jj
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Weights & Measures / s/t / Matlock (CD)
Okay, more alt.indy.post.instrumental.rock from our fine friends up in
the less-balmy regions of our little continent. This time it's just
guitar, bass and drums, although with the damn noise they all make you'd
swear there was an ill tempered cat and a pissed-off moose or two in
there somewhere. Which is just a dorky way of saying that this isn't
mellow, hazy, guitar noodling dreck, but rather a nice and loud,
precise, crunchy chunk of guitar-based racket. The all-instrumental vibe
does get a little tiring after awhile, and this sort of thing isn't easy
to pull off when you limit yourself to just the three standard
rock-and-roll instruments (I think the Weights & Measures sound could
really use an organ or bagpipes or something...). No worries, though,
Weights & Measures make a go of it, and it turns out to be pretty good.
Plus they actually seem to have a sense of humor of sorts ("When Robots
Fall In Love" is followed two songs later by "When Robots Attack"),
which can't help but help when you're trying to make an instrumental
rock record. Which is what they're done. Successfully. Yeehaw. -- ib
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Zulu as Kono / Watching the Head Grow / Bent Over
Cowboy (7")
Austin prog-punkers Zulu as Kono seem to have no problem
with dishing out the weird in buffet-restaurant-sized
portions. Of the two tracks here, the nominal b-side --
"Frank-N-Stein" -- is superior. Scuttling around the
musical landscape like a brain-damaged prarie dog, the song
changes tempos, tunes and directions so many times that I
had to listen to it over and over before I was comfortable
that my turntable was still in proper working order. An
unexpected coda suggests that the Zulu boys might have a
keyboard in their bag of tricks (or a healthy set of effects
pedals, anyway). A-side "Current Electric Genius" is a
little bit less inspired; it's shorter, and lacks the energy
of "Frank-N-Stein", sounding more like Primus during a rare
moment of tolerability. Even if you don't particularly care
for this 7", it holds the promise of years of fun -- just
take it to a friend's house, have him/her play
"Frank-N-Stein" and say "I don't get it...it sounds fine on
my turntable." Hilarity will ensue. -- gz
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The Gazillions / Have Landed / Round
(CD)
Maybe I’m just in a bad mood. Or perhaps I’m perpetually grumpy. The Gazillions are undoubtedly talented. They write catchy songs. They have a well-developed sense of humor. But I’m not laughing, not at all. Funnypunk bands nearly always leave me cold. Either my sense of humor just doesn’t work in that way, or else it gets overwhelmed. One funny song is great. Two is even better. But fifteen? I’m on overload. Songs like “Jimmy Carter Meets the Killer Rabbit” and “Hobbit Love” are funny, hooky and well-done; they'd probably pack more punch as singles, instead of jostling side-by-side with thirteen not-quite-as-funny siblings. -- bl
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MadCaddies / The Holiday Has Been Cancelled / (CD)
It's hard not to appreciate this so-called "punk-skacore" band from Santa
Barbara, who titled their first release Quality Soft-Core. They're lighthearted, funny guys, and the liner notes to their new
EP continue to confirm their charm and immediate appeal. They're far from
punk, though, unless groups like Green Day really define that genre now. In
all these new MadCaddies songs, the satisfaction is gained from radio-friendly melodies, great singing, and more than adequate
playing. The ska parts are not irritating in the least, and help lift their
great take on an Abba classic to a level as high as those Swedes, while
originals like "Something's Wrong at the Playground" have cool choruses
that'll keep you singing along in the car. While the five songs cannot be
said to break any new musical ground, it's not like every record
needs to, and this one's undeniably fun. Hopefully, radio programmers will agree. -- td
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Outside Toy / Inner Child / Self-Released (CD)
Things of note: Album’s title is Inner Child. Sound clip song title
replaces an “S” and a “Z” for plural. Linear notes say Ron Lettofsky plays a
“5 string fretless bass.” The tenor and bamboo sax get quite the workout. A
“No Thanks” list is included and no thanks go to “Mr. Jim Beam, Esq.” If
after reading this you don’t feel you know enough about the music of the
band, please listen to the clip provided. I think music students will say
“Yeah, but they’re good musicians.” -- av
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Jeeeeez, these guys rock hard. I don't know what the punk/hardcore scene
is like in Richmond, Virginia (AVAIL's hometown), but if this CD is any
indication, I'd guess it's pretty um, robust. This is hardcore DC style,
much more pissed off, working class Fugazi than chick-mackin' suburban
Offspring. AVAIL's tunes are faster and harder than Fugazi's ever
were, which can be both good and bad, but they're also less funky, which
isn't so good. And while there's more variety here than on many of the
other punk/hardcore CDs I've heard recently, the not-so-catchy melodies
and general sameness of tempo and dynamics makes it hard to really get
sucked in to these songs. Still, what the tunes lack in catchiness, they
more than make up in emotional energy and spirit, and there's no denying
that this CD delivers about 1,123,581,119 joules of pure sonic
ass-kicking. AVAIL is on tour all summer, and I'm willing to bet that
their live show is pretty darn intense. Check it out if you get a
chance. -- ib
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Arab Strap / Mad For Sadness / Jetset
(CD)
The title is appropriate; Mad For Sadness is one of the
most intimate and morose live albums you'll ever hear. Somewhat tainted by
the scent of a Fulfilled Contractual Obligation, the disc is
frequently beautiful but almost painfully downbeat. The Strap's
slow-moving, feedback-drenched guitar rock works nicely here,
adding a palpable air of dejection and sadness to the dark and smoky pub ambiance.
The typically reserved British audience seems downright sedated -- which some of the more
depression-prone might actually be, as there are moments here
so forlorn that confiscating shoelaces seems merited. As live
albums go, Mad For Sadness is a fine but ultimately
unnecessary artifact, adding context to Arab Strap's music without
really furthering their cause. -- gz
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gz - george zahora | nw - noah wane | am - andrew magilow | ib - irving bellemead | jj - jason jackowiak
td - theodore defosse | rd - ron davies | bl - beth lucht | av - adam voith
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