40 PAGES! NEW CONTENT AND NEW FEATURES! PLUS: PLAYBACK PROFILES OF PLACEBO AND KILL HANNAH • SUMMER FESTS • OUR NEW BOOK SECTION • CURMUDGEON • PEARL JAM x 23 • EVENTS: WHAT’S GOING ON? • YOUR LETTERS: PLAYBACK-TALK • NEW AND IMPROVED REVIEWS
August 2003
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Fassbinder Thanks
Welcome to a bigger, better Playback St. Louis! Since we began, we’ve been getting great feedback from our readers. We’ve wanted to do more than just acknowledge it; some of your responses are just so well put and thought-provoking; we wanted to share your ideas with the rest of our audience. In addition to the new “Playback-Talk” section, we’ve added a monthly events calendar, “What’s Going On?” (pages 34-35). We’ve named Stephen Schenkenberg as our Book Editor and expanded our book review coverage (“Page by Page,” pages 32-33). And, in general, we’ve tried to add more photos, less text-heavy pages. Sure, all the great writing you’ve come to expect is still a part of Playback; always will be. But we’re pushing the envelope in terms of content and design—something we pledge to keep doing, always raising the bar on ourselves. Let us know what you think—of the new columns, the new look, what you’ve seen in the magazine so far. Let us know what you’d like to see. If you want to get formal about it (which, by all means, we encourage), go to our Web site (www.playbackstl.com) and fill our our reader survey. We’ll send you a CD as our thanks. Also, don’t forget to support the businesses that support Playback St. Louis.
After all, they’re the ones who allow us to bring you the best music and entertainment interviews, previews, and reviews every month. Thanks for reading!
A belated thank-you for Pete Timmermann’s excellent piece on the Fassbinder series I’ve been hosting at Webster. Given that we’re competing with the enormity of the summer blockbuster releases and so few local media outlets giving much attention to serious film events, it was encouraging to see so much space given to so clearly uncommercial a set of films. Robert Hunt
Muny Food for Thought Let me have a little fun with the Curmudgeon. I’ve just finished a horrendous five-year battle preventing scumbags from gutting Kiel Opera House. If thousands flock to Riverport, choke dust for three hours, then take three hours to get out of the parking lot, if thousands fry in a giant oval in downtown St. Louis during the summer and during the day, what is your beef with thousands enjoying musical theater in the comfortable Muny Theatre in Forest Park? What bewilders and mystifies me is how this pitiful controlled hoosier town has allowed the owners of the Fox to destroy all major live arts downtown and trim the Muny down to seven weeks a year. What mystifies me is how you do not see the reduced jobs, wages, and benefits to performers and musicians of a formerly 12-week Muny season and concerts. What has been done to Kiel, to the American Theatre, to the Kiel Convention Hall to promote the street-corner crooks on Grand Avenue is doing in a city, finishing it off. Ed Golterman
An Introduction to Stenciling Hey PBSTL... Yo, the mag rocks; the content is unreal. You all must be hitting everyone up for some interviews. Your Talib Kweli interview [July, “Profile”] was dope; actually that whole issue was really
fresh. I am not real crazy about the design of the mag, but your writers are top-notch. You all need to do an article on the art of modern stenciling. I am not sure if you are familiar with the new explosion of stencil art throughout the world, but it is the new form of graffiti. I have been stenciling for a little more than a year now and am totally hype on the form. Most of the work I am doing is “off the streets.” I have a family and I can’t afford the risks involved. I have some street work but it is on the down-low. Anyway, if you are ever interested in learning more about this art form, check out www.stencilrevolution.com. Much respect, Peat Wollaeger www.peatnik.com
The Community of Venus Envy I’m spending the morning collecting all the publicity for Venus Envy 2003, and I’d like to thank you for including our event and our logo on your Web site. Keep up the great work, Playback! I hear great things all over, all about you guys, all the time. Mallarie Zimmer Founder/Chairwoman Venus Envy www.venusenvy.org
St. Louis Expat Just got the link to the Playback review of our show with the Barnacles at Fred’s. Wow. Thank you so much. I can’t wait for you to hear our new record. I mean, well, we have to make the actual record first, which we’re going into the studio to do on August 1. But the three of us are shooting for a raw, live, and pure recording of our newer sound. Marwan Kanafani Fojimoto
Contents Playback-Talk ................1
Playback St. Louis Pop Culture Take Five ......................28 Jeff Jarrett
Publisher Two Weasels Press LLC
Profile
A Placebo to Ease the Pain ..................3 My Slumber Party With Kill Hannah ....4
Summer Festivals
Lollapalooza........................................6 An Interview With Cave In ..................7
Play by Play ..................8 Lloyd Cole, Bluebottle Kiss, Rob Crow, Eels, Fog,Gang Starr, Gene Loves Jezebel, Annie Lennox, The Mars Volta, Allison Moorer, Mogwai, Anna Oxygen, Poi Dog Pondering, Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, Sixteen Horsepower, David Sylvian, Venus Hum
Elliot Goes ..................28 Local Scenery ..............30
Managing Editor Laura Hamlett
Page by Page ................32
Associate Editor/Art Director Jim Dunn
Quick Hits ........................................31
Benjamin Cavell, Joshua Furst, Alanna Nash, Dave Eggers
Contributing Editors Bryan A. Hollerbach/Kevin Renick Book Editor Stephen schenkenberg
What’s Going on? ........34 Evanescence, Joe Jackson, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Sondre Lerche, Minus the Bear, TED, We Regazzi
Contributing Writers Chris Daw, Tim Doyle, Jim Dunn, Rob Dunnett, Laura Hamlett, Dan Heaton, Cory Hoehn, Bryan A. Hollerbach, Jeremy Housewright, John Kujawski, Rob Levy, Dawn O’Neall, Wade Paschall, Andrew Rea, Kevin Renick, Jeffrey Ricker, Stephen Schenkenberg, Pete Timmermann, Rev. Mike Tomko, Michele Ulsohn, Taylor Upchurch, Anne Valente, Mike Zapf
On the Road
Pearl Jam ..........................................12
Backstage Pass ............14 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Vans Warped Tour, Placebo, X, Poi Dog Pondering, Ozzfest, Phish, Summer Sanitarium
Intern Zak Starer
Three to See ................16 Cover Story..................18
Contributing Photographers Jennifer Carr, Jil Daw, Jennifer Gammage
Now Playing ................16
On the Cover Photo By Erica Henderson ©2003
Dirty Pretty Things, Johnny English, Northfork
Curmudgeon ................26 College Radio Confessions ................27
Eddie Vedder, Pg. 12
PHOTO: Matt Heistand
The New Pornographers
Printing by The Printing Source Tim Lyons • 636-343-6400 Distribution Two Weasels Press LLC
Playback St. Louis is published Monthly ©All content copyright Playback St. Louis 2003. No material may be reproduced without permission. For advertising rates, submissions, band listings, or any other information, please check our Web site at www.playbackstl.com or send e-mail correspondence to Editor@Playbackstl.com. Submit calendar information to Events@Playbackstl.com. Manuscripts for consideration must be typed and e-mailed to Editor@Playbackstl.com. We want your feedback! write to Contact@Playbackstl.com. Subscriptions are available for $24/year (12 issues) prepaid. Send check or money order to: Playback St. Louis P.O. Box 6768 St. Louis, Missouri 63144-9998 314-630-6404 Playback St. Louis T-Shirts are also available! Send check or money order for $12 (postage paid) to the above address; specify S-M-L-XL. Y
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A Placebo to Ease the Pain By Dawn O’Neall Placebo is the essence of rock. Since their debut in 1996, they have had several hit albums, acting gigs, a mainstream radio hit, and duets with glam rock icon David Bowie. Placebo’s music is feral and raw. Their sound is dynamic and often has a great pop hook as they challenge your preconceived notions about gender, homosexuality, love, and pop culture. Their newest album, Sleeping With Ghosts (Astralwerks), is no exception. Although the disc is filled with synthetic beats, it doesn’t take away from their intense sound. In fact, these manufactured sounds add to Placebo’s music. It makes them, if you’ll excuse the phrase, seem especially bruised and broken. Playback St. Louis talked to Stefan Olsdal, the band’s bass player, before their concert in San Francisco. So sit back, relax, and marvel at my dorkiness as I try to keep my giddy screaming in check. So, it’s been three years since your last tour. What have you been doing in that time? We’ve played more dates in Europe and around England. We spent about six months recording this album. We had Christmastime off, but since then, we’ve been working and touring. Sleeping With Ghosts is an interesting title. What is it in reference to? It’s always hard to title an album. You try and find a title that captures all the emotions of the songs on the whole album. You don’t really want to fight it. That goes for song titles, too. We really racked our brains for this one. It came down to Sleeping With Ghosts and another title; Sleeping With Ghosts sounded the best. Also, we sat around with the record company and management and decided it was the best. It’s basically about the relationship with your memories. How they come back to haunt you and how they change in relationship to how you feel now and how you felt at the time. Did you expect Sleeping With Ghosts to have an electronic feel? I think the simple choice of producer Jim Abbiss and who he’s been working with—he works with a lot of electronica [Massive Attack, Unkle, DJ Shadow]. We don’t always do rock music. We do electronica, hip-hop, and so I think that comes a bit from our interest and that of the producers. It definitely ended up more electronic than our previous ones. At the end of the day, it’s still very much a rock album, an album that still sounds like Placebo. It’s not a complete turn, like we’ve become Kraftwerk all of a sudden. We didn’t do a Kid A. It’s an organic rock album, but with touches of electronica.
Are there any other genres of music that you would like to experiment with? Country Western! [Laughs] We’ve done a bit of dub and jazz, like in “Something Rotten,” for example. We’ve done a bit of hip-hop on the last album, Black Market Music, with Justin Warfield. It’s kinda genres we like that come into the music. As for the future, we don’t have a crystal ball. We don’t really censor ourselves when it comes to writing music, either. You can’t censor your emotions. We always try to be as honest as possible.
bars when you look over 21. You know, we nearly didn’t get into New York. We almost had to cancel that one. At least I haven’t fallen offstage. [Laughs] I did that a couple of tours ago and broke my wrist. I’ve heard that you like Peaches and At the Drive In. You even do a Pixies cover in concert. What else are you listening to right now? There’s a lot of stuff. Right now, Joy Division is playing. We play a lot of Har Mar Superstar and Queens of the Stone Age; uh…the new Eels
STEFAN OLSDAL: We don’t know what we’d do without music. Well, I might’ve become a music teacher or dress up in a drag show. There’s a bit of transvestite in me. Even with interviews in the past, we’ve always been quite open with people. This is also your first American tour in three years. How’s everything going? It’s better attended than the last one. Audiences have been more receptive. It’s very encouraging; we still have a cult status in America. We’re a lot of fans’ best-kept secret. In Europe, it kinda exploded. In Paris, we’re playing a show for 18,000 people. We don’t really mind that. We know that we’re not going to be as big in other countries and around the world. It’s a step back coming here, but we still enjoy it. How does it feel to have cult status? In some ways, it’s been more relaxing, playing small clubs. It’s like what we used to do a few years ago. It’s more intimate for the audience, but at the same time it’s also relaxing. Have you had any strange experiences or stories on tour so far? We nearly didn’t make it into the States because one of us lost our passport. In this country, you can’t go anywhere without ID, even in
album, Shootenanny! It’s all over the shelf, really. What would you do if you weren’t a rock star? I wanted to be a hairdresser when I was twelve. I don’t know; I’d probably be unemployed. [Laughs] The band has become a huge part of our lives. We don’t know what we’d do without music. Well, I might’ve become a music teacher or dress up in a drag show. There’s a bit of transvestite in me. Where do you see yourself in five years? Probably on the road or the studio. We seem to be doing it that way. For the past couple of albums, we’ve been touring and then recording a new album. Yeah, it’s kinda the old-school way, like how U2 and R.E.M. used to do it. I think that’s how the band comes alive. So there are more Placebo albums in the future? Yeah, we’re contractually bound to another one. [Laughs] So, at least another one, but there is an album of B-sides and cover versions that we’ve done. That should be out soon. There’s also a DVD of a live gig that is coming out.
Because the band has a new record due out in October and a steadily growing tour schedule, boys and girls everywhere will finally be able to get their hands on Atlantic’s most recent signing, Kill Hannah. The Chicago quintet, which has been around in various forms for the better part of a decade, has been a midwestern sensation. Formed in 1995 by singer Mat Devine, KH uses creative guitar work and catchy loops to create their sexy, pop-trash persona. Imagine the sound of a collision between The Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, and Garbage. Called “the cutest band in Chicago” by the Chicago Sun-Times, Kill Hannah is flogged wherever they go by legions of female—and sometimes male—fans ranging in age from 11 to 45. They’ve managed, through DIY sensibilities, to sell well over 4,000 records, maintain traffic of over 6,000 visits to their Web site per week, and consistently garner more and more fans wherever they play, all well before their signing to Atlantic. I had the pleasure of sitting down with the boys to talk about their newfound success over a casual dinner at Sundecker’s. What started as a normal interview turned into an all-night adventure, culminating in a slumber party at my house. Kill Hannah is Mat Devine, vox and guitar; Dan Wiese, guitar; Jon Radtke, guitar; Greg Corner, bass; and Garret Hammond, drums. A good place to start would be to find out where you guys feel like you fit in. Mat: That’s really hard. I don’t think that we fit perfectly anywhere, you know? Greg: We’re trying to fill the void of bands that aren’t around anymore. Like the Joy Divisions and the New Orders and bands like that. Today, yes, there are some elements in some bands that we could play with, but as far as a scene, we’ve always started our own. So, then what is your goal? Every band has to have a goal. Dan: Ask Garret! [Lots of laughter] Garret: I want to make another record! [More laughter] Hopefully we’ll do well enough with this one so that we can actually do that again. Mat: I want the cover of Rolling Stone. Greg: I want the cover of NME. Mat: We’ll do that one first.
After speaking with Atlantic, I got the impression that in the case of your recent signing, it isn’t the band that has to impress the record company, it is the record company that has to impress the band. This is a very foreign concept in this day and age. How does it feel to have a major label actually believe in your success? Greg: There are probably people that aren’t like that at the label, but it is really good to hear that at least some of them feel that way. Dan: I think there are two ways to do it; there are people who get picked up right away after doing very little on their own, and then there are
from being on the radio, but as far as winding up on Atlantic, our A&R guy actually just got a CDR from our lawyer and he listened it to it and loved it. He had no idea about all the other stuff we had done. Dan: [Interrupts] It all came about really quick. We’re always presented as this band that has a big Chicago following and that has a great Web site and great merchandise, but when they signed us, they didn’t know all of that; they just loved the music. How would you respond to criticism about using backing tracks in your live show?
bands like us, where after you go past a certain point, you have to shove it down people’s throats and do it all on your own accord. Mat: We had such a hard time getting the ears of people in the industry because our sound is so different, and I’ve heard so many terrible stories about the facelessness of the industry. Atlantic has surprised me on all accounts because not only are they very personal, but they also seem like they have good taste, and they honestly do believe in us. I think that that has to take courage because we don’t necessarily fit a mainstream stereotype. I’m amazed, our A&R guy is amazing, everyone we’ve met at the label has been extremely supportive, and to that, I say thanks. How did the deal with Atlantic come about? Was it the three songs you did previous to the record with Sean Beavan? Greg: It kind of came in several directions. We got buzz from those recordings, we got buzz
Dan: That’s a strange criticism. I mean we could hire someone to play keyboards, but we just don’t really want to do that. Greg: Hell, half the bands you see, the keyboard player isn’t playing what you hear anyway. Mat: I think you should do what best suits the song, and in our songs, the instrumentation is pretty complex, which is what I think partially defines us. I would never conform our sound to what some indie asshole thinks is cool. Dan: When we were recording, it completely opened us up because on some songs, we had two completely different drum sounds, and now we are able to use that onstage. Its great because we don’t have to settle for something we don’t like. Mat: If Radiohead had this slowed-down recording of a xylophone that they couldn’t play live, but they had it on tape, would you like Radiohead any less for doing it?
continued on page 29
PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS
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Lollapalooza 2003 By Michele Ulsohn It just wouldn’t feel like summer in St. Louis without at least one all-day excursion out to UMB Bank Pavilion for that essential concert lover’s ritual known as the summer festival. Unlike past years, which offered up a vast array of diverse choices (HORDE, Lilith, etc.), this season’s selection was rather one-dimensional (Pointfest, Warped, Ozzfest), making the decision of which one is most worthy of its high price tag almost too easy: Lollapalooza. Triumphantly returning this summer after a sixyear hiatus which allowed festival organizer and mastermind Perry Farrell to “rethink and reorganize,” the granddaddy of all American modern rock festivals boasted an outstanding two-stage lineup that blended up-and-coming talent with well-established heavy-hitters. Additionally, this year’s Lollapalooza offered concert-goers the opportunity to observe and participate in several interactive activities that surrounded the second stage, such as a batting cage, skateboarding demonstrations, and a Jelloeating contest. There were even several festival staffers dressed up in weird costumes walking around the concourse and lawn; it was not at all unusual to be engaged in conversation with someone when you suddenly notice a humansized rabbit, angel, or lobster stroll by. Although the weather forecast had predicted scattered showers, the sky was cloudless and dry, hovering over a hot yet slightly breezy 94degree afternoon, which turned into a beautiful evening. And despite the lack of some of the cooler bands that played other tour dates, such Chris Cornell of Audioslave
Photos by Jennifer Carr
as Burning Brides, The Music, 30 Seconds to Mars, and A Perfect Circle, the UMB show was only the third date on the tour, allowing high levels of enthusiastic energy to prevail among most of the performers. Here’s a brief overview of some of the acts that contributed to making the St. Louis version of Lollapalooza such a successful and fun-filled event, in chronological order: The Donnas—As this year’s official cool allfemale rock group, The Donnas are riding their recent climb to the top of the charts without any difficulty whatsoever. The fact that their set was early in the day during peak heat hours didn’t prevent them from kicking some serious butt onstage. Lead singer Donna R. danced and swung her long hair around in true rock star form, and her bandmates all played a tight and well-received set, seemingly genuinely stoked to be part of their first festival. Campfire Girls—An all-male band who surprisingly blew the heavily populated side-stage audience away, even though it’s unlikely that anyone knew anything about them, including why they have chosen such a ridiculous band name. With lots of soaring guitars, spacey melodies, and hypnotic vocals, chances are very good that we will see and hear more from these guys in the not-too-distant future. Cave In—These Boston-area boys are finally becoming well-known after years of struggling through the competition. Their side-stage set was nothing short of awesome; however, the dark and moody nature of their music would have sounded even better under a nighttime sky Donna C. of The Donnas
than it did in the late afternoon. Nonetheless, it’s great to see more bands playing this style of music recently, which seems to be becoming a replacement for that awful rap-metal trend of a few years ago. Steve-O—I didn’t see this performance by the motion picture and MTV series Jackass star and was thankful that I missed witnessing what I was told included, among other disgusting things, Steve-O forcing himself to vomit three separate times. Now that’s the kind of quality entertainment that this world truly needs more of! Queens of the Stone Age—An odd and spotty set, which haphazardly alternated between lukewarm and near-genius. During one particularly quiet moment of a lo-fi instrumental tweak-out, the silence hovering over both the pavilion and lawn was almost scary. The hits “No One Knows” and “Go With the Flow” were saved for last and managed to bring music that made sense back to an understandably somewhat confused crowd. Incubus—It’s been about three years since their last CD was released, making them the band on the festival’s bill that had the oldest batch of most recent material. Although their songs all sounded great live, especially “Pardon Me,” “Nice to Know You,” and “Drive,” it would have been nice to hear something brand-new and unfamiliar. Still, it’s hard to complain too much about a band whose lead singer is as sexy as Brandon Boyd. Audioslave—Drummer Brad Wilk faced the back of the stage throughout the entire set, while huge mirrors hung behind the the stage, creating Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction
august 2003 colorful prisms whenever Wilk hit the cymbals. The godlike Tom Morello delivered some superb solos on his guitar, which had the words “Soul Power” written on it. Chris Cornell positively ruled the stage, demonstrating how his voice is in a league of its own, especially on the acoustic beginning of the beautiful “I Am the Highway” and on “Show Me How to Live,” which ended with Cornell chanting in a crouched position. A surprisingly cool cover of the White Stripes’ “7 Nation Army” was a definite crowd pleaser. This was undoubtedly my favorite set of the day. Jane’s Addiction—Three bikini-clad women gave a brief, slightly erotic dance performance in front of the stage’s curtain before it parted to reveal the event’s headlining act. Dressed in a very glammy, sparkly red vest and pants suit, Perry Farrell led his legendary band throughout an awesome set filled with bouncy, catchy, popflavored material and trippy, spacey instrumentals. Despite some technical difficulties near the beginning of their set, hits like “Been Caught Stealing” and the epic “Mountain Song” sounded as great as they did 15 years ago, and a surprisingly cool cover of the Who’s “Tommy” overture was positively chill-inducing. The set ended with an extra long version of “Jane Says,” complete with a tribal-flavored percussion jam. Dave Navarro, looking quite sexy in his low-cut black leather pants, is one of rock’s most underrated guitar gods. And Farrell seems to be heading down the same path as Mick Jagger: a mentally, physically, and spiritually fit aging musical icon who is still able to outperform many musicians half his age. Hopefully his bandmates will be able to keep up with him.
See more photos from Lollapalooza at www.playbackstl.com.
Charlie 2na of Jurassic 5
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An Interview With Cave In Currently enjoying the success of their first major-label CD, Antenna, the Boston four-piece Cave In is far from being an overnight success. Their origins can be traced as far back as the mid-1990s, when the band released their earliest recordings on a small independent label and began playing small clubs to steadily build themselves a following in the Northeast. Over time, Cave In fine-tuned their sound, which started out as progressive metal and has now evolved into what critics have sometimes referred to as “space emo.” After opening for the Foo Fighters on their U.K. tour a few years ago, Cave In headlined their own U.S. tour last year and were then asked to become part of what has become the summer’s most highly anticipated rock festival, Lollapalooza. A few hours prior to their outstanding late-afternoon side-stage set, I spoke with Cave In’s guitarist, Adam McGrath, and drummer, John Robert Conners. Where did you get the band’s name? AM: We actually stole it from a band called Codeine, who were on Sub Pop in the early ’90s.They’re from Boston; they had a song called “Cave In” that we really liked. We covered that song in the studio recently, but we’ve never played it live. How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it? JRC: I like to say Radiohead with balls. AM: I always say loud, aggressive rock with psychedelic highlights. Do you agree or disagree with the term “space emo” that you’ve been tagged with? AM: I disagree. I think that emo is a piss-
Adam McGrath of Cave In
poor media term used to pigeonhole bands. I don’t think that in 20 years people are going to really remember emo music. Rock is more general, and punk is more general, and so is metal. Those are the terms that we can relate to and feel a connection with, and those are the true places that we come from. What are the best and worst aspects of being on a festival tour like Lollapalooza? AM: The best would definitely be all of the diversity—there’s so many kinds of music here: punk, hip-hop, rock. I think that makes people in the audience a lot more apt to paying attention to what’s going on. It gets people excited, because they’re being exposed to new and different styles and sounds. The worst part is having to deal with the heat, which really sucks the life out of us when we’re performing. But this tour is such a great place for us to be, so we’re dealing with it as best as we can. This was way too good of an opportunity for us to pass on simply because it was too hot! What do you like to do on your days off? JRC: I don’t remember a day off. [Laughs] AM: It’s true; days off in Cave In don’t really exist because we’re always doing something that’s related in some way to the band, since this is our full-time career now. What are the band’s plans for the future? AM: For now, we’re trying to make the most of what our latest CD has to offer us. Also, we’re interested in writing lots of new songs that are probably going to be a lot heavier than what we’ve done over the past two years. Maybe going back a bit to more of the metal roots of our earlier days. That’s what we’re focusing on right now. —Michele Ulsohn
Ned Brower of Rooney
PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS
Photos courtesy www.lloydcole.com
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LLOYD COLE: MUSIC IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (Sanctuary) Disc is available both as an import or directly from Cole via his Web site (www.lloydcole.com).
Lloyd Cole is a musical god. He’s got that perfectly lazy-dreamy voice, ready wit, and poetic pen. He’s older and wiser, that’s for sure, having traded his youthful skepticism for aging sarcasm (“So forgive me if I’m less than awed/by you world-weary 26-year-olds,” he scorns on “Music in a Foreign Language”). Where once were jaunty pop songs and vocal headiness, now Cole sings softly over heartbreakingly beautiful piano and thoughtfully strummed guitar. Back in 1982 in his native England, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions was born, and England embraced this articulate songsmith and his band. Five years and three albums later, Cole dis-
banded the Commotions and moved to New York to pursue a solo career. With Music in a Foreign Language, Cole has commercially released five discs (as well as a box set on his own), beginning with 1990’s Commotions-like Lloyd Cole; he’s also married and the father of two sons. These days, he’s just likely to be holed up in a dark, smoky New York hole-in-the-wall with just his guitar, voice, and wit. The alwaysjust-out-of-reach recognition he deserves isn’t even on his wish list anymore; now he plays music because it’s what he loves. And when it isn’t fun anymore, as he told me in an interview two years ago, he’ll quit. Cole’s latest offering is a gentle gem. It’s neither flashy nor loud (as is immediately apparent by its cover, black with a small, fuzzy picture of Cole in the middle); rather, it’s one of those albums that will quietly grow on its listener, revealing more to appreciate with each listen. The songs are slow and acoustic, most likely road-tested and perfected during Cole’s frequent unplugged solo gigs. It’s an understated album, lyrically poignant and instrumentally beautiful. The title track opens the disc as Cole laments, “What pale fire I ever had is gone/but you don’t want to hear that in a song.” He then offers a gentle chorus of “la’s,” a lighthearted contrast to the words. In “My Other Life,” with its constant, repetitive strumming of a series of chords, Cole hints at a hidden life of crime, eventually singing, “Welcome to my made-for-TV movie.” “No More Love Songs,” reworked as an acoustic song since its debut on 2001’s The Negatives, is even more captivating than it was the first time around; lines such as “Rather than you, she said, I prefer solitude” show off Cole’s poetic side brilliantly. “I’m Not So Sure” sees Cole’s protagonist rethinking his commitments, a hint of melan-
WIN A COPY OF LLOYD COLE’S LATEST CD!
Send your answer to the following trivia question to editor@playbackstl.com: Which then up-and-coming power-popster guested on guitar on Cole’s first solo album? Winner will be announced in next month’s issue.
choly to his voice: “Didn’t the stars shine awful bright?/ Didn’t I look into your eyes?/Didn’t I swear I’d always be there?/ Today I’m not so sure.” Behind the words, a searching piano shares the pain. On “My Alibi,” Cole again returns to poking fun at himself, an aging rock musician: “I’m freezing cold ’cause I’ve been out all night/I guess I left without my coat/I just got to walking ’round and ’round your block/Very very rock and roll.” His cover of Nick Cave’s “People Ain’t No Good” is spot on, as Cole’s rich voice lends an honesty to the classic tune. “Brazil” is reminiscent of Mainstream-era Commotions work (“My Bag,” “From the Hip”) with the notion of pharmacy as savior: “I hear they have the good drugs in Brazil/Maybe I’ll take some/Maybe I’ll feel better if I do.” Saved for last is the lovely and elegiac “Shelf Life.” Ex-Commotion Neil Clark guests on guitar (as he does on three other songs), plucking a melody as heartbreaking and catchy as the piano was in Rattlesnakes’ “Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?” In the highly personal lyrics, Cole reveals where he is in life, having long since abandoned the big dreams: “No longer waiting for my prayers to be answered/No longer waiting for my publisher’s call/No longer charming in my reminiscence/Only immersed in a faint afterglow.” Music in a Foreign Language will certainly satisfy Cole’s faithful fans on both sides of the ocean; its musical and lyrical depth may very well win him a new audience, as well. Although the U.S. distribution deal is still in the works, the disc is available both as an import or directly from Cole via his Web site (www.lloydcole.com). —Laura Hamlett
August 2003
BLUEBOTTLE KISS: REVENGE IS SLOW (In Music We Trust) This is the fourth album by Australia’s Bluebottle Kiss, and though I’m late to the party, I’m so glad I was finally invited. Revenge Is Slow is poetic, sweet pop. Jamie Hutchings’ voice is achingly sincere, scratchily pained as he sings complicated lines like “Such coincidence always befalls you/It gets so far beyond comedy that/How do I play the part/When I’m jogging in your slow lane now” (“Ounce of Your Cruelty”). “Last Cinema” is a haunting soundscape evoking a mental movie as the object of the song comes to life: “And you’re beautiful I can see you right now/Under a dim streetlight in a salt drenched town.” On the slow verses of “Hasten the Blows,” Hastings proclaims, “Sleeping in to two pm/That’s the kind of life that’s gonna kill you.” On the soft “Prussian Blue,” he tells her in a gentle falsetto, “When you fall apart you hide your own kite/And you take flight/With no one holding the strings/The sky won’t hold you.” “Let the Termites Eat Our Riches” is one of those captivating songs that gets inside a listen-
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er. Backed by strange ringing bells and clapping noises, a fret-heavy guitar keeps a steady accompaniment to the three lines, half of which are in falsetto. The piano and harp, along with Hastings’ lazy delivery of lines such as “I know that I give the impression/Of someone who’s taste is acidic/full of possession,” give an Elvis Costello quality to “Hello Stranger.” “Gangsterland” evokes a cinematic feel with its chord-heavy intro and relentless drumbeat; again, Hastings’ voice perfectly matches the feel of the music, alternately light and airy or serious and dark. As much as the voice is Bluebottle Kiss, the instruments, too, are played with precision and skill; indeed, it is very often the melody that transports a listener seaside or into someone else’s dream. Bassist Ben Grounds, guitarist Ben Fletcher, and drummer Richard Coneliano all deserve accolades. Before summer’s out, fall in love with an Australian stranger, and give Bluebottle Kiss a spin. Welcome to the party. —Laura Hamlett ROB CROW: MY ROOM IS A MESS (Absolutely Kosher) The sun shines. Birds fly. Love is inspiring. Fiber is a necessary part of a good diet. People
shouldn’t kill each other. Oh, and one more thing to add to the list of things that go without saying: Rob Crow makes a lot of music. What, you aren’t familiar with Rob Crow? You haven’t heard Pinback or Thingy or Physics or Optiganally Yours or Heavy Vegetable? Well, if you haven’t, you sure as heck should’ve. This guy is one utterly fascinating musician. He may not be a household name yet, but Rob Crow has released a stellar new solo album called My Room Is a Mess. If you’ve been bemoaning the state of the industry, you can pin your hopes on daring, devoted, dazzling indie artists like Rob Crow who have the chutzpah to do things their way and the talent to make their way a pretty damned fine one for music fans to follow. It’s hard to neatly summarize what the San Diego–based Crow has done on My Room Is a Mess because, well, it’s a mess: a mess of styles, sounds, and weird little sonic asides. But it’s the most interesting mess that any one-man music factory has produced in a long time. Throughout the course of 18 concise tracks (the whole album continued on next page
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Play by Play logs in at just under 36 minutes), Crow serves up a bewildering platter of musical curiosities, which are melodically and aurally distinct. You get the dreamy XTC-styled acoustic guitars/odd arrangements of “Beyond Him,” “Last Bus From the Che” (a haunting number that you can’t help wishing lasted longer than its 1:45 length), “When You Lie” (this definitely sounds like a great demo from Andy Partridge, and that’s a compliment), “Wants/Needs,” and the unforgettable “Kill All the Humans,” which appears to be about a rebellious robot, or maybe it’s just about feeling like a robot. “I don’t want to be a fucking robot/Kill all the humans,” sings our upbeat narrator, in a tune that manages to be rather charming even as it repeats that less-than-sunny sentiment numerous times. Recorded entirely in Crow’s bedroom, My Room has the sound of private musical ramblings being captured as quickly as possible, at the moment of inspiration. What makes the album a gem, though, is the fresh, spirited vibe of the whole affair; the pleasing, unpredictable flow from one ditty to the next; and the crisp, sensitive production. In beautiful tunes like “Iocane” and “When You Lie,” Crow manages to touch your heart and tickle your ears in tunes of great brevity, something that many longer albums fail to do. My Room Is a Mess may sound like a haphazard recording on first listen, but it’s actually the work of an inspired and disciplined musical artist, one who unquestionably has his creative shit together, regardless of what his room looks like. It’s one of the year’s greatest low-key delights. —Kevin Renick EELS: SHOOTENANNY! (Dreamworks) Every morning when I get up and hit the bathroom, I stare in awe at the mirror. It is a fact that I am getting older. Gray hairs sprout out of my brown, and that somewhat grizzled look that I have happily sported for years is now looking more shabby than chic. There is a sense that time is not there in the quantities it once was. This appears to be the concern at the core of Shootenanny!, the new Eels LP. Eels frontman E shares my observation, and as with the previous four CDs from the band, he is turning his angst into a delicious salad. Many classic Eels songs have ripped open the man’s chest and exposed the depth of his suffering and the heights of his joy (witness the torturous but brilliant Electro-Shock Blues). His best songs are the ones that give you a definite and clear emotion; the ones that are more goofy character sketches, not so. E, or Mark Oliver Everett, is
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best when he has his Howl on. On Shootenanny!, the band returns to the form that it seems to have misplaced a bit on last year’s Souljacker. The current version of the band features Lisa Germano, Kool G Murder, Joe Gore, and longtime E sidekick Butch. Most of the songs are beautiful and reflect inward. They are the thoughts of a man getting older who is wrestling with adult problems, and they range never too far from the emotions of their writer. The album travels familiar terrain from the soft apology of “Lone Wolf,” which reveals the tender explanations of a man who has trouble finding that connection with his wife, to “Numbered Days,” which is a beautiful (and simply detailed) look at mortality. Even when the album gets a little kooky—as all Eels albums do—it does so creatively and without derailing the main project. No one else in music today can write a song called “Restraining Order Blues” and make you feel empathy for its subject as E can. The part about Eels that is most intriguing is that none of the songs seek to give a conclusion. They simply give you facts—much like life. There is much to hum along to on this disk and much of it explores territory that we all must travel. In an age when much of what makes it on to radio is soulless and calculated to sell, it is gratifying to hear an artist that is willing to bare his soul and hope that you will be intrigued enough to spend some time listening. —Jim Dunn FOG: ETHER TEETH (Ninja Tune) When I heard that the new Fog album was available to review, I jumped to claim it; I really liked his first album. As my pimpedout baller appearance and crankness cause me to be often stereotyped as all hip-hop all the time, it was questioned whether I was qualified to review such heady stuff (even though, I protested, Fog is found in the hip-
hop section). The higher-ups, I believe, feared that I was of the “Whoa, that’s so weird I don’t like it” school, as opposed to the favored “Whoa, that’s weird so I like it” school. In the end, I emerged with the CD due to my young hotshot rep. Andrew Broder used to be DJ Andrew, an excellent and imaginative DJ. I saw him at the St. Louis/Midwest Regional DMC competition several years ago, where he lost to our own DJ K9 and his Roc Raida body tricks. Broder now records as Fog, mostly making acoustic and turntablebased freestyle folk-hop. His new album is reminiscent of Beck before he struck it big with “Loser” and lacking the touched-by-grief quality in the lyrics. Ether Teeth has a hazy, meandering beauty which, unfortunately, sometimes gets bogged down and turns rather murky. But there are points of subtle clarity that give flashes of brilliance such as appear in “The Girl From the Gum Commercial,” the album’s strongest track. I personally prefer Fog’s self-titled debut album, but Ether Teeth reveals the possibility of an interesting direction for Fog. Let’s hope he finds the way in his next offering. —Mike Zapf GANG STARR: THE OWNERZ (Virgin) Thirteen years after dropping their classic debut Step Into the Arena, Gang Starr is still bringing the heat and letting cats know what’s up and down with their highly anticipated new album, The Ownerz, an apt title considering the influence and respect that Guru and DJ Premier inspire in everyone in the game. No one has come with material of this quality as consistently as these architects. Gang Starr holds a unique spot in hiphop with roots and a following firmly planted in the underground, while still carrying such mainstream clout and relative commercial success. The Ownerz has the tough job of following 1998’s The Moment of Truth, and although it is
Eel Mark Oliver Everett, but you can call him E.
August 2003
not as strong as that classic, it stands on its own as an excellent album. A big reason Gang Starr has been on top for so long is producer DJ Premier, who, true to form, packs this album full of buttery beats on tracks such as “Rite Where U Stand,” “Skills,” “Riot Akt,” and the one-minute interludish “Werdz From the Ghetto Child.” That last track is one of my favorites with its melancholy piano stabs, lazy bass stroke, and bangin’ drums. Preemo builds all throughout with sweet soul samples from The Temptations, Curtis Mayfield, and Brown Sugar creating sonic backdrops and scratched-in choruses which often contain soundbites from Gang Starr’s vast discography. Preem is one of the most heavily sought-after beatsmiths today, lacing up countless rappers with nodinducing masterpieces. Premier’s longtime partner in rhyme, Guru, gets down for his on the lyrical tip, speaking on an array of issues. The Ruler Universal calls out wack MCs, vents and reports on the underhanded dealings of the record companies, and spits street poetry that deals with violent reality without glorifying it. Joining Guru throughout the album are Foundation regulars Freddie Foxxx, Big Shug, Krumbsnatcha, and M.O.P.; other guests include Jadakiss from the Lox spitting his best on “Rite Where You Stand,” newcomer Boy Big crooning on “Nice Girl, Wrong Place,” Fat Joe on the weak “We Got Gunz,” and
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a clean Snoop Dogg on the catchy “In This Life.” The variety of guest MCs shows the sway Gang Starr holds on all levels of the biz. On a heated interlude, Premier calls out mainstream radio DJs for being “robots” that let themselves “be handcuffed by program directors” and slaves to the set lists, playing the same tired shit over and over. Gang Starr has done it again; they’ve been doing it for a hot minute now and will continue to do it for some time to come. Regardless of the style of music you prefer, cop a copy of The Ownerz; it is one of the best albums so far this year by one of the best rap groups of all time. Throw some headphones on your dome and zone out to Preemo’s innovative, soulful hiphop beatscapes and learn from Guru’s deep authoritative voice and resonating lyrics. —Mike Zapf GENE LOVES JEZEBEL: EXPLODING GIRLS (Bless Momma Records) When an ’80s new wave icon makes a ’00s revival, it has to be met with equal parts old friend/new skepticism. The return of Gene Loves Jezebel—best known for 1986’s Discover—
arrived with a couple other question marks, as well. Frontman Michael Aston, who founded the group with twin brother Jay in 1980, is the only original member; the siblings haven’t spoken since 1997’s legal battle over the rights to the band name. And then there’s the fact that Aston has recorded not just any album, but a concept album: ten songs about women. But they’re not just sappy odes to women he has loved; the first track, “Exploding Girl,” is an homage to Wafa Idris, the first female Palestinian suicide bomber. “Jenin” pays tribute to the Palestinian refugee camp. And “Blue Mary” is dedicated to the fallen, Mary Magdalene. Upon first listen, Aston’s voice—flat, nasal, and very distinct—is comforting and familiar. Rather than sounding lost in the ’80s, though, the music’s contemporary and relevant, as is the message. Lyrically, Aston is still a bit repetitious, and he asks a lot of his voice—though interesting, it’s not quite enough to pull off an entire album alone (here is where brother Jay’s contrasting ranges are sorely missed). Still, he gives it his very best try, complete with vocal distortions and his own prerecorded backing vocals, which provide a bit of variety. Highlights of the disc include the aforementioned “Jenin” (“Jenin is waiting, she is waiting
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Pearl Jam x 23 Or Why I Gave a Month of My Life to the Band By Tim Doyle “Aren’t They All the Same?” It’s the question I got asked every time I told someone I was taking four weeks off work to travel and see Pearl Jam shows. “Won’t you get bored, going to so many shows? Aren’t they all the same?” The easy answer to those questions is “no.” Every Pearl Jam show is different. This is a band that has played more than 600 shows and has never played the same set twice. They have more than 100 songs on seven studio albums, as well as dozens more b-sides and covers. How does someone plan for a trip of that length? Doesn’t it get expensive? What makes each show so special? Why, why, why? These questions take a little more time to explain.
The Plan The idea was simple, really. I had to go to as many Pearl Jam shows as possible, with the majority of my shows during my slow season at work, June and July. When tour dates were released on January 23, I browsed through the schedule to see what shows I could attend. St. Louis and Champaign were easy choices; I could see both shows and not miss any work. Nashville and Atlanta made for a nice weekend trip, as did Vegas and Phoenix. Six shows down, no sweat; now for the fun part. I was allotted three weeks of vacation time at work. I could buy another week of vacation, giving me four weeks to work with. After chatting with my friends, we decided to do every show from Chicago on out. The fan club ticketing system was easy: send a money order and an index card with the necessary details to the Ten Club, and you were guaranteed one of the best seats in the house. A handful of index cards, and hundreds of dollars later, I was on my way. More shows were added, so more tickets had to be purchased. I found myself using all four weeks of my vacation. I would be on the road from June 18 until July 14. I had to miss one show for a bachelor party on July 5, so the grand total came to 18 shows in 27 days, with every place except Chicago being new to me.
The Budget A four-week road trip is bound to get expensive, but there are ways to conserve funds. Budgeting in advance really helped me out. All but a couple tickets were already paid for, so there was no reason to worry about that. As far as a place to sleep was concerned, we had planned to mostly stay at homes of friends or
family along the way. There were some nights where we would have to drive directly from one venue to the next, and even a few where we might have to stay in a hotel. Three of us crammed into a Honda Civic. For a couple nights, however problematic it may have been, we managed to fit four. The car got good mileage and was reliable. Three people splitting gas meant saving even more money. Food and drinks were a different matter. Once on the road, most of us fell into what we liked to call the “tour diet.” You become accustomed to eating one meal per day. Occasionally, you have time for two, but you could really save a bit of money, and the body could still get by, with only one meal. Coffee and other beverages for latenight driving only add to the expense. The key expense was water. The rule of thumb at shows—even more so during the summer months in outdoor venues—was, “Hydrate or die.” Water is the one thing that most people forget to budget for. Cups of water can cost anywhere from $3.00 to $5.00. Concertgoers aren’t allowed to bring outside drinks or containers of any sort into venues, so these places can get away with charging that much for a cup.
“Sliding Out of Reverse…” I left with my brother for Chicago shortly after work on June 17, cash and ticket confirmation letters in hand and a few changes of clothes in the trunk. The next five days would take us to Chicago, East Troy, Wisconsin, and Indianapolis. The Cincinnati show was canceled due to a threat of flooding near the venue. After Indy, he drove my car back home, and I rode with various friends for the remainder of the tour. What would make these shows special? It’s any number of things: the right opening or closing song, a good block of faster songs, a new song, hearing a song live for the first time, or hearing a song that hasn’t been played in a few years, if ever. What also make shows special are the friends you are there with, your interactions with them, and the time that the band is having. If the band is having a good time, you can be guaranteed it will be reflected in the music.
A Band With a Plan The rumor had been spreading for a few days. Ed Vedder had mentioned to someone that Pearl Jam was going to play all three shows in Boston (July 2, 3, and 11) without repeating a single song. “Surely this wasn’t going to happen,” we
all thought. Seven songs into the main set on July 2, Vedder confirmed it for us all, saying, “We’re gonna let you know what we’re attempting to do tonight. There’s kind of a plan, a method. Since we’re playing three shows in your neighborhood, and we’ve worked up about 70 songs for this tour, we thought we would play three nights without repeating a song, and get to every song. However, we thought we were playing about 70 songs. We are actually…I think we’re playing about 105.” So there we had it. It was an unprecedented move. Three shows, 105 songs, no repeats. The first show had 26 songs, and the second show had 24, leaving 50-plus songs to be played on July 11. We wondered aloud over the next couple days about how they could manage to play 50 songs in one show. The answer came on the 8th: Pearl Jam would play an extra hour before the opening band, Sleater-Kinney, was to go onstage. It would be a “slower” set, and would help the band get in all of the songs before the curfew. The show on July 11 was the show to be at. The show was guaranteed to be at least three hours long, and would feature an extra semiacoustic set. People made sudden arrangements to be at this show. Case-in-point: two friends of mine flew in from Seattle at the last minute, just to make it to the show, knowing all along that they had to be there. What ended up making the show on July 11 special? The band played 12 songs, mostly acoustic, before Sleater-Kinney took the stage. One of those songs, “All Those Yesterdays,” was completely new to the tour, and hadn’t been played live since 1998 in Seattle. The remainder of the show contained 33 additional songs, bringing the grand total for the three shows to 95 songs. A few songs short, one song repeated (“Yellow Ledbetter”), friends in town from all over the globe, and not a single one of them would dare complain. That’s what made that show special.
The End of the Road The third Boston show is exemplary of what made every single one of Pearl Jam shows of this tour special. Good times, good songs, good friends, and nary a single complaint to be heard. Four weeks of fun, more than $1,500 spent, and more than 4,000 miles driven make up the most fun time of my life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
The Grail of many a fan—Tim’s Pearl Jam set list from Montreal.
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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Chicago Theatre, June 21 “Blixa’s not here. He’s gone...he’s gone.” With this brief farewell to longtime friend and Bad Seed Blixa Bargeld, Nick Cave walked to his piano and began what promised to be an exceptional (and far too rare) evening: a live performance by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Bathed in a warm purple light, the band eased into “Wonderful Life.” The opening track of Nocturama, it’s a song that exemplifies the more subdued nature of much of Cave’s recent work. However, unlike the tour in support of 2001’s excellent No More Shall We Part, this was one of the few gentle moments. Cave seemed determined to prove he’s not quite ready to fade away into the land of easy listening and become the next Sting. Every song had a subtle variation and, with few exceptions, a harsher tone. Cave and the Bad Seeds crashed into a violent performance of “West Country Girl”—introduced as “A song I wrote for someone”—a song that had once been a mellow, rambling love poem. The manic pace continued as the old fire-andbrimstone Cave returned for intense, almost angry, versions of “Do You Love Me,” “Tupelo,” “From Her to Eternity,” and the Birthday Party classic, “Wild World.” Even a rendition of “The Mercy Seat” which emphasized the piano built to a chaotic conclusion. All the more stunning, then, were the quiet moments. “Loom of the Land,” “Christina the Astonishing,” and “Hallelujah” held the audience in silent awe. Following “Sad Waters,” a single voice shouted, “I love you!” Cave seemed caught off guard, but smiled and replied, “I love you, too,” then added
after a brief pause, “Maybe not as much.” Each of the two encores began with an attempt to lull the audience into submission and then overwhelm it with power. “Nobody’s Baby Now” led into a thunderous “Deanna” in the first encore. In the second, Cave’s whispers and piano on “God Is in the House” gave way to a frenzied performance of “Babe I’m on Fire.” Only slightly shorter than the full 15-minute version, the song allowed each member of the Bad Seeds to showcase his talents during this ferocious rant. As the band left the stage, there was a moment of complete silence before the audience erupted. It was an example of the rare ability possessed by this band to absolutely stun a crowd. As for the recently departed Blixa, was he missed? Very much so. For longtime fans of the Bad Seeds, a performance without him seems unimaginable. He was always the dark, detached balance to Cave. Whether he really left to focus on Einsturzende Neubauten and solo projects as claimed or there were “creative differences” with the new direction Cave seems to be heading in (as has been rumored) is irrelevant; he will be missed. However, the inspired violin of Warren Ellis (also of the Dirty Three) brings a new depth to the Bad Seeds and allows such classics as “The Ship Song” to be heard in an entirely new light. During live performances, Ellis is hypnotic. He demands your attention, although he never faces the audience. He is a complement to an already brilliant group of musicians. I drove five hours each way to see this show. Returning from Chicago, I tried to think of other bands I’d make such a trip for, and there weren’t many. The fact that I also had tickets for the show in NYC three days later says something. With only six Nick Cave performances scheduled for North America this year, it was worth it. —Rob Dunnett
Vans Warped Tour UMB Bank Pavilion, June 25 The Vans Warped Tour featured nearly two dozen bands performing over a seven-hour time span. Similar to other festivals such as Ozzfest, Pointfest and even Lollapalooza, the Warped tour is mainly targeted toward the young underage crowd, and they were out in a vengeance. To go along with the good-sized crowd was an almost unbearable temperature upwards of 95 degrees; add the fact that concert-goers were on the blacktop all day, and that made it even hotter. On a day where it was not uncommon to see kids passing out from the heat, bands played on and audience members rocked out to their favorite bands. It was also not uncommon to see many different band members walking around throughout the crowd, interacting with fans. Vendetta Red gave a worthy performance to a crowd that was actually smaller than I expected. Red has been gaining popularity with their new
single “Shatterday.” Lead singer Zach Davidson told an almost heart-touching story about wanting to play the Warped Tour when he was a young kid and now he is there. He told the crowd that they could do it too if they wanted to. Andrew W.K. performed shortly after Vendetta Red. I must confess that I have never listened to an Andrew W.K. album, but his performance was one of the most energetic performances I have seen in quite some time. His songs sounded like cheers or rants, and the crowd seemed to really enjoy his 35-minute performance. He interacted well with the crowd and came across as sort of a big kid himself, which was cool. Another band I had never really listened to but really enjoyed was Tsunami Bomb. I found frontwoman Agent M to be very cute, but she also possessed that kickass quality that is needed in a punk band. Their performance was one of the best of the day. Other bands that were enjoyable to watch were Mest (these guys are just great live; the crowd really loved them), Rancid (what else can be said for one of the most famous punk bands in the world, except wow?), Less Than Jake, and S.T.U.N. (also very entertaining to watch). The Used and A.F.I were supposed to be the closing acts of the show, but Mother Nature took care of that. After a day of sweltering heat, the rain was actually welcomed by many, except concert officials. The show was cancelled before either band could take the stage, which angered concert-goers. Some of the crowd chanted, “Rain or shine,” which was printed on the ticket stub. So after a long, hot, and fun day, it was a shame it had to end on such a negative note. —Jeremy Housewright
Placebo Club Metro, Chicago, July 9 Currently, I’m standing in a line wrapped around the block at the Metro and I feel as if I’m not wearing enough black. After what seems an eternity, they start letting people in. For such a large venue, there isn’t a lot of room. In fact, we’re packed in like sardines. I can smell the guy next to me, and I can’t escape. Then, suddenly, the lights go dim, and people walk onstage. The opening act, Ambulance, is the latest trendy rock act from New York. By their set, it’s clear they aren’t the Strokes. Ambulance lacks the pop style, catchy songs, and “New Yawk” attitude that made the Strokes a garage rock sensation. Instead, their songs sound like soft rock of the ’70s. On stage, Ambulance is as lifeless as their music; they barely spoke or danced. Placebo definitely knows how to make an entrance. A booming cheer goes up from the
august 2003 audience as bassist Stefan Olsdal walks onstage. He throws his arms back and absorbs everyone’s affections. Lead singer Brian Molko soon follows, and an even louder cheer arises. Placebo launches into “Bulletproof Cupid,” a raucous number from the current album, Sleeping With Ghosts. The first half of the set is filled with rowdy, rockin’, clench-your-fist-and-shake-it-atthe-sky songs, as they continue with “Every Me and Every You,” “Plasticine,” and “The Bitter End.” Then Molko announces that the next song is about “love in the time of pestilence”; a calm comes over the audience as the opening chords of “Sleeping With Ghosts” are played. This is a gorgeous, slightly electronic song about the idea of soulmates and fate. This song is mellower than the previous, but just as intense. During “Black Market Music,” Molko and Olsdal duel for the spotlight. As Molko seductively strokes the neck of his guitar, Olsdal showcases all his best dance moves. The audience loves every minute. The haunting “I’ll Be Yours” begins with Steve Hewitt’s dramatic drumbeats, soon followed by Molko’s familiar voice; the audience goes totally silent. Live, this song is more heartbreaking than it is on the album. The band ends their set with a hit from their last album, “Special K.” A song about everything
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from drugs to relationships, the basic principle is whatever goes up must come down. As the song ends, band members leave the stage one by one. After moments of clapping, stomping, and oldfashioned cheering, Placebo returns for an encore. As Placebo starts “Slave to the Wage,” we can’t stop cheering. This is one of the band’s most radio-friendly, poppy songs to date; it is familiar to every one of us. Live, the glistening guitar and driving beats that make this song so catchy made us want to dance. Molko slyly changes the lyrics from “Maggie’s farm” to “Bush’s farm.” “Pure Morning” is next. Although this is one of Placebo’s most recognizable songs, I must say I loathe it. This song is all about drugs and women, with lyrics so childish, it would appeal to a 13-year-old boy. This song’s only redeeming quality is that it is played well musically. Placebo once again disappears from stage. Many think this is the end of a spectacular night and clear the room. But as they say, patience is a virtue. Those of us who are patient are rewarded with a second encore. First up: the dazzling “Centerfolds” featuring only Molko and Olsdal. Olsdal has his head bowed down, in deep concentration on this superb but bruised song. Molko stands with his guitar clenched in his hand and sings the lyrics
heartbreakingly. I almost shed a tear as he sings, “So long falling star, I refuse to let you die.” Good on the album, the song seems especially thrilling live. The mood picks up as Molko introduces the next song by Francis Black: “We didn’t write this, but we wish we had.” Then they start playing “Where Is My Mind?” by The Pixies. Playing a song by The Pixies would be certain death for most bands. After all, you never want to cover a classic, as there’s no way it will be as good as the original. Placebo’s version isn’t as good as the original, but it is pretty damned good, as Molko and company stay true to every chord change and lyric. Toward the end of the song, Molko leads the crowd in chanting, “Where is my mind? Oooooh.” After our brief moment of solidarity, the lights flash on, and everyone heads toward the door. —Dawn O’Neall
X Pop’s, July 15 “I am a black and white ghost In a black and invisible dress…” —X, “Because I Do” As she took the stage wearing a vintage blackand-white dress, Exene Cervenka resembled that ghost. When John Doe, D.J. Bonebrake, and Billy
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Three to See Here are just three of the great original St. Louis bands that play around town on a regular basis. Check them out as soon as you get a chance. Orb Vroomer—For anyone tired of predictable bands, Orb Vroomer is a true mustsee. This original four-piece group mixes guitars and keyboards over a brutal drumbeat to create their own eccentric version of gothic electronica music. Just watching them perform onstage is an experience in itself. The lead singer—who takes turns playing guitar and synthesizer—and his female sidekick on keyboards have a strong stage presence and are hard to stop watching, for fear of missing anything. The vocals have so many effects that they are almost like another instrument; things get even more unusual when scary spokenword performances take the place of singing. Whoppers Taste Good —I can vividly remember seeing this band perform on the Double Helix show “Critical Mass” back when I was in junior high. After seeing their performance and the hilarious interview that went with
Backstage Pass it, I really wanted to see them play. Sadly, I left town for school before seeing any of their gigs. I finally caught one of their shows at the HiPointe last month and Whoppers Taste Good proved to be a good band, indeed. This local punk rock group has all the loud and distorted guitar sounds you’d expect from a punk band, but they have a sense of humor and theatrics, as well. The lead singer’s costume seems to be inspired by a combination of beer cans, wrapping paper, and the beloved Cardinals mascot, Fred Bird. Their show is lively and exciting, well worth your time to go see. Miss Pie—Miss Pie is a one-woman punk rock show who serves up catchy songs with the help of a drum machine, electric guitar, and some sampled excerpts she plays between songs. Going to see her play is a surefire way to get your fill of catchy songs ranging from stories of sex, popular mall girls, and a punk rock cover of “99 Red Balloons.” She’s very personable and not afraid to chat and tell stories, but the best piece of her set is a tribute to the antidepressant, Prozac. She recently has joined the band (appropriately titled) The Misses. —John Kujawski
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Zoom took their places with her and immediately tore into “The Phone’s Off the Hook,” it was as if the entire band had returned to the land of the living. Yes, they’ve toured with other lineups, performed reunion shows, and concentrated on side projects, so they’ve never really gone away. The energy thrown off by the four original members, however, was something that had been missing. Not tonight, though. They concentrated on their early (and best) material. X was never the “typical” punk band. Exene’s lyrics and the musical ability of the rest of the band always set them apart. The songs hold up remarkably well, while other bands of that era sound dated. Because of this, the show was able to avoid that whole “nostalgia” feel so many reunion tours fall victim to. The punk scene that spawned X is history, but the band still sounds as fresh as it ever did. X has the ability to blow the current MTV punklite bands off the stage. What I wouldn’t give to see Exene bitch-slap those goofy pricks from Blink-182. But I digress. Still, if you needed further proof that the “good ol’ days” are long gone, this audience provided it. Balding ex-frat boys jumping around like morons does not a pit make. You’ve missed the point there, Biff.
august 2003 Back to X, though. I was surprised (and grateful) to hear “We’re Desperate.” I think they once said they no longer perform the song because, well, they’re no longer all that desperate. Maybe they are again. Who knows? Who cares? They ripped through all the classics, from “Los Angeles” and “Johnny Hit and Run Pauline” to “Year One” and “Nausea.” Billy Zoom posed and grinned throughout, reminding people why he’s probably the best guitarist ever drawn to punk. D.J. Bonebrake never let up on the drums. John Doe and Exene harmonized in a way that can only come from such a long history together, but sang with an energy that made the songs sound as if they were written yesterday. Another thought regarding the crowd. I’ve never been a fan of bouncers. That probably comes from experience with the knuckle-scrapping goons who used to work at Mississippi Nights (you know…back when they still booked good bands). Anyway, the Pop’s staff was excellent. One of the best I’ve seen. Which is a shame, in a way. During “The Unheard Music,” some dickless wonder doused Exene with beer. She obviously wanted to dive in and rip his eyes out, but stopped herself. This would have been one of those rare times when having ill-tempered, violent bouncers around would have been a good thing. This guy needed someone to drag him outside and bounce his skull off the concrete a few times. As for the opening band…yes, there was one. They called themselves The Fags. A few songs had a Descendents-like feel and weren’t that bad. On the slower numbers, though, I swear to God the singer’s voice had a disturbing similarity to Rod Stewart. That’s just wrong. —Rob Dunnett
Poi Dog Pondering Blueberry Hill, July 15 Poi Dog Pondering serves up a music luau in the sense that their performances are a musical feast with such variety and freshness that is rarely experienced, but always enjoyed. They recently played to a packed Blueberry Hill Duck Room on a steamy Thursday night on the first stop of a three-city jaunt away from their home base of Chicago. They’ve been playing to packed houses and an adoring fan-base in Chicago the past few years and are finally taking their show outside Chicago for a full state tour this fall. Their first in awhile since it’s hard for them to tour because there are twelve of them plus crew, according to Frank Orrall in a recent phone interview. Orrall is the leader and architect of PdP and has designed the current and fifth incarnation of the group from his interest in dance-inspired music. Orrall said a lot of the players that are with them now have done a lot of work on dance records, but came out of the jazz world. The
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Susan Voelz of Poi Dog Pondering onstage at Blueberry Hill. Photo by Jil Daw. jazz, soul, and mood sounds are dominant on their newest disc, In Seed Comes Fruit, which was released in late June. The group, with nine members present at the show, played a few heartily received cuts from the new cd, as well as many songs from their previous releases, which have more of an international, folk, rock, and island sound. With such a diverse repertoire of songs and talent, the evening was filled with the rich and flavorful sounds of violin, cello, flute, sax, bass, keyboards, clarinet, guitar, drums, and vocals, just to name a few of the instruments that made their appearance. Everything was well orchestrated and tight, as you would expect from this seasoned band. After hearing 20 songs, the crowd didn’t want to let the band get away without serving up a second helping. To experience Poi Dog Pondering’s energy and enthusiasm live is a rare treat and one that shouldn’t be passed up. The joy they get from performing live is obvious from their interactions with each other and the crowd, and infects the audience with an almost spiritual music euphoria. If you can’t get to a live show, pick up one of their recordings and keep an eye out for more. Orrall says he’s been playing percussion and collecting a lot of odd percussion and, for the next record, is leaning toward an acoustic and percussion-based sound, using all really odd, strange acoustic instruments. But, as he also says, he may get into something else by the time they get there. Whatever it is, I’m sure we’ll enjoy it. As their bumper sticker queries, got poi? Yes, and you should, too. —Chris Daw
Ozzfest UMB Bank Pavilion, July 17 Ozzfest 2003 may be remembered as Ozzy’s last stand. The veteran rocker looked weary and slow during his hour and a half performance to close Ozzfest 2003. It could be from the constant touring or he may finally be slowing down, but nonetheless, he put on a great show. Battling severe laryngitis, he used long guitar solos to get
through the evening. The nearly full house at UMB Bank Pavilion cheered him on through his whole performance. For myself, it was odd seeing bassist Jason Newsted without the other members of Metallica. While Ozzy closed the evening at Ozzfest, it was Marilyn Manson who stole the show. Manson put on one of the most bizarre, strange, and entertaining shows I have ever witnessed. Manson came out dressed in his typical black leather apparel; from there, the show got stranger by every song. At one point he appeared onstage wearing arm extensions that were twice or three times as long as his normal arms. Another time, he had two dancers onstage who were wearing prosthetic body parts. He ended the show in black-and-white face paint wearing Mickey Mouse ears. Manson’s fans could be seen all over Ozzfest; teens in dog collars and dressed from head to toe in black were out in abundance. Though I used to think he was more famous for his shock value than music, I may have been wrong; I really enjoyed his entire hour-long set. Korn, Disturbed, and Chevelle were also on the main stage. I was surprised to see Chevelle on the main stage, but they opened the show well. Disturbed was also enjoyable. I have never really listened to much of their music, but they do have a dedicated group of fans, many with tattoos that honor the band. Lead singer Dave Draiman had a lot of interaction with the fans. He spoke of playing music for the people because they are what the band is all about. He also made a nice gesture by paying homage to a man he called “the godfather of heavy metal,” Ozzy Osbourne. I was really anticipating Korn, and they didn’t disappoint. Having seen them on four previous occasions, I can say their performance gets better every time. After two disappointing albums, the band is trying to make their music more raw and harder, as it was in the beginning. If their hour-long set was any indicator, Korn may be ready to once again take the metal music scene by the horns. The second stage was filled with up-and-coming metal bands, including Endo. First of all, I must thank them for the great seats; I had a great view of the main stage. “Intense” is the only word that comes to mind when defining their performance. Lead singer Gil Benton’s presence onstage is ferocious. With Benton as the driving force behind the music, the other members seemed to feed off each other’s energy, which created a brutal and intense show. This band could be destined for the main stage of Ozzfest. —Jeremy Housewright
Phish Alpine Valley, East Troy, WI, July 18 & 19 I had to be standing in the middle of a sea of 40,000 stoned mop-heads to understand: Phish is the NASCAR of American music. continued on page 36
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ith a name like “The New Pornographers,” they have to be begging for it. No matter how scholarly or how juvenile any music writer may be, you can count on the fact that he or she will be looking for ways to hit the band from the pornography angle. It doesn’t help that they speak of lesbians in their lyrics (“Chump Change”) and name songs with things like “The Body Says No.” All of their songs begin to grow subtext that is probably not intended to be there; all of their album artwork will be overly scrutinized; all of the band members will be looked at in a different light. Take Neko Case, for example. She’s been around for a while, gaining popularity by herself with last year’s Blacklisted or from as far back as 1997 with Her Boyfriends (as in “Neko Case & Her Boyfriends”), but it was only a mere three months ago that Playboy named her the “Sexiest Babe in Indie Rock” and tried (unsuccessfully) to goad her into posing for them. To be fair, the “Sexiest Babe” award was voted on by readers of Playboy, but how did they come to find out about her in the first place? I doubt it was as a result of her alt-country solo career. My guess is because of the pornography. In the end, though, and probably only because I and every other music writer don’t want to make ourselves sound like 13-year-old boys, we use the pornography lead to bring us to what a great band they are. Band member/mastermind Carl Newman, previously known for
being a member of the band Zumpano, says that he’s seen his share of reviews that say, “These guys have a stupid, terrible name; but I love them.” You know that the band has to be doing something right if the only valid criticism a rock critic can give them is in regard to their name. Besides, if it hadn’t been for that blunt-ass moniker, it might have taken a lot longer for everyone to take notice of them. After all, they are (by the most unbiased and straightforward description only) a stereotypical supergroup composed of people who were just one step away from being name musicians at the time of the group’s formation, and the style of music that they play is a very done-before brand of power pop. There wouldn’t be any reason to pay much attention to them if they didn’t have a funny name. Once they have their foot in their potential listener’s door, though, it is a different story. First of all, their songs waste no time filling in those little crevices in your brain that house catchy songs and play them back to you all day. For the most part, the band’s method is simple, and their sound is stripped-down; the songs are just concerned with putting you at the mercy of their hooks, of which no song is completely lacking, and often have upwards of two. Second, if you are listening to their CD, you will never get bored, even if you were to put it on repeat and leave it on all day (it might make you tired, though). There are four distinctive, prominent vocalists in the band (in addition to Newman
and Case, there are Dan Bejar of Destroyer and Kurt Dahle of Age of Electric), and they are rotated from prominence to backup to nonexistence in each song in such a way that the CD gels somewhere in between a really good compilation album and a release from a band made up of godlike deities. This lead singer musical chair concept was one of Newman’s many original decisions when they were still trying to decide which direction to take. Of his decision to organize the band in this way, Newman explained, “Well, if I was singing and if Neko was singing and Dan was singing, and we all have such radically different voices, I thought it would give the record an interesting feel. You get a sense of joy from a lot of people singing together.” It is really only appropriate to call the feeling that results from listening to a New Pornographers song “joy” if you listen to just one track; after an entire album, you’re aggressively happy, and everyone around you had better look out. By the way things are going, everyone is going to have to look out all the time, as the New Porn’s popularity seems to be growing exponentially with each passing week. Their first CD, Mass Romantic, was released on the Canadian label Mint Records, and it wound up a surprise success (and a massive success, at that) on the indie rock circuit back in 2001. While all of the press was eating them up and all of the fans were trying to find a retailer who wasn’t sold out of their CD, the band began recording Electric
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Version. Newman and the rest of the band never broke a sweat over having to fulfill everyone’s unrealistically high expectations for their followup, though. When asked about what it was like to have to follow up Mass Romantic, Newman said, “It was a little intimidating, but we didn’t really think about it, you know? We had no choice. It was strange because we didn’t have the surprise factor anymore. We couldn’t be the band that just pops out of nowhere; we had to live up to this record that a lot of people liked. But we were the same band, so it didn’t seem like it was a big problem. It just seemed to me like we should keep doing what we were doing.” By the time that Electric Version was completed, indie rock god label Matador agreed to release it in the United States and in the U.K. It might be because of Matador’s sway in the music world, but with Electric Version, the Pornographers have gained even more popularity than they had with Mass Romantic, including an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman in June. “I appreciate Matador because I think they have their act together,” Newman said by way of explaining how the label was able to infiltrate the last holdouts of the indie rock crowd that had somehow not yet heard of the band. Matador is now, no doubt, looking for further conquests, such as the territory of the nonindie rock crowd or those who have grown to love Case’s handful of solo albums. One of the problems of being a Pornographer (too bad I can’t start every sentence with that phrase) is that they are, in fact, a supergroup, or a band made up of members of other popular bands. This circumstance seems as if it would make it difficult to write new songs, practice, and, God forbid, tour, especially with Case’s success, which is growing at about the same speed as the Pornographers’. “The hardest part was getting Neko into town,” a not-bitter-at-all Newman explained, but he didn’t make it sound as if getPHOTO BY ERICA HENDERSON
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ting everyone together in the same room with the intention of recording an album was all that hard. With Zumpano now defunct, the only other member of the band who might be difficult to track down is Bejar, who, aside from being in Destroyer, is becoming a more and more notorious recluse who never tours or grants interviews. “Basically, all we had to do was get him to drop into town and record with us, so that was easy,” Newman said of securing Bejar for recording the album, so perhaps he is only reclusive at the prospect of having to face fans and media, and he can hardly be blamed for that. “As for the rest of us, I mean, we might do other things, but The New Pornographers is our main band.” If things keep on going the way that they have been for the Pornographers, the band will become everyone’s main band, both for the band members and for everyone else in the world. While it may look like the steadily growing solo career of Case may put a damper on the band’s ability to crank out the records and tour all over everywhere, she is, in many ways, the band’s most powerful weapon. For one thing, she has the most immediately enthralling voice of all of the many singers. Take the track “The Laws Have Changed” from Electric Version, for example. The song is split over the band’s many singers, but Case’s voice is the most resonant, and the song winds up seeming as if it was hers all along. Second, the supergroup mechanic does have its benefits, one of which is that hardcore Case fans, or Zumpano fans, or Destroyer fans, etc., will track the New Pornographers down just to see what their favorite musician is up to, and
since Case has the biggest individual fan base of any of the Pornographers, she is making the most use of this particular mechanic. And the final reason why Case is the band’s not-so-secret weapon is because, well, she is The Sexiest Babe in Indie Rock. With a note of “you are the biggest idiot who has ever interviewed me” in his voice, Newman responded to my query regarding whether Case’s growing status as a sex symbol would help or hurt the band by saying, “You think Neko becoming a sex symbol will hurt the band?” His hardly masked contempt in this case was per-
fectly valid, as when has having a sex symbol as a band member ever hurt any band? It might distract everyone from how respectively good or bad their music is, but there are worse things that could happen. Regardless, once he calmed down a little, he went into it a little further: “It’s funny having known Neko for so long, seeing her kind of morph into what people think is this indie rock sex goddess…all of what happens to us and to her are all of the old music traps, and it seems kind of absurd, you know? All you can do is just sit back and enjoy it.” Spoken like a true pornographer.
NORTHFORK The year 1999 saw the release of the first film from the Polish brothers (Mark and Michael), the cool Twin Falls, Idaho, which concerned two conjoined twins and how much it sucked to be them. In addition to writing and directing Twin Falls, the Polish brothers actually played the twins, and the resulting feeling was of a creepy, mildly surrealistic, and deeply felt psychodrama about the good and bad things that result from never being alone. The Polish brothers then released Jackpot, their follow-up to Twin Falls, in 2001, but I didn’t bother to see it, because it looked stupid and boring; despite the fact that Twin Falls was good, it wasn’t good enough to warrant my following the directors anywhere. So when Northfork, their third film, screened relatively successfully at Sundance earlier this year, I was reasonably enthusiastic about seeing it, as it looked a lot more interesting than Jackpot had, if nothing else. Well, it sucked. Whereas Twin Falls felt Lynchian without ever seeming as if they were intentionally emulating David Lynch, Northfork feels like they are trying to emulate someone who is trying unsuccessfully to emulate Lynch. The plot is scattered and nonlinear, involving the denizens of a town called Northfork who spend their time looking for angels, building arcs, and generally doing any other heavy-handed thing they can to draw broad metaphors with heaven. To be more specific as to how Northfork feels like a twice-removed Lynch knockoff, consider the fact that it (as well as the Polish brothers’ other two features) focuses exclusively on the citizens of an odd, small town, just as Twin Peaks did in the early ’90s. The characters speak in a manner that allows them to spurt forth gobs and gobs of non sequiturs and bad one-liners, the plot developments can be interpreted pretty much any way the viewer wants, and Kyle MacLachlan even turns up in the cast. I’m not sure if the Polish brothers would have been more obvious had they been making an outright parody of Lynch’s work. If there is a saving grace in Northfork, it is that the cinematography and production design
(Paramount Classics, PG-13)
are almost always interesting, creating this weird palette of black, white, and a bluish-gray shot in a Guy Maddin–esque dreamy, streaky soft focus, so that it takes a couple of minutes into the movie before the viewer is even sure that it is in color. Second, out of the large, impressive cast (and when I say the cast is impressive, I mean that it is impressive the casting director got so many name actors to be in this shit movie, not that their acting is impressive), only Anthony Edwards is worth mentioning, as the limbless and blind Happy. What is probably the most important role in the film, that of a sick orphan named Irwin, is screwed up beyond recognition by the hack child actor Duel Farnes, who only breaks up the wooden recital of his lines to occasionally emote all over the place, which makes for the most wildly irregular bad performance in some time. For all of the people who have been ripping him off lately, one would think that David Lynch’s best work would have been within the past three years or so, as opposed to the near 15 years its been since he’s released anything that has been up to par. Maybe this is all coming now because of his recent “success,” Mulholland Drive, a film that I did not like, but seemingly everyone else did. Regardless, I am almost looking forward to the resurgence of Tarantino plagiarizers after Kill Bill, because I don’t think I’ll be able to stand another Northfork. —Pete Timmermann DIRTY PRETTY THINGS (Miramax, Rated R) There are a lot of directors who like to experiment in very different genres from film to film, and most of them are well liked in the film community as a result (Ang Lee is a good example of this). However, there’s a British film director named Stephen Frears who does just that and has had a longer and more prolific career than Lee, but even the most serious film buffs don’t always recognize his name. Even if they don’t, they have undoubtedly seen or at least heard of My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons,
Duel Farnes in Paramount Classics' Northfork. Photo: Andre Blaise
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The Grifters, Mary Reilly, or High Fidelity, all of which are popular films that Frears directed. The newest addition to his overlooked résumé is Dirty Pretty Things, and it is a thriller/drama thing and therefore not a new addition to the list of genres he has worked in, as he was there with The Grifters, among other films. Perhaps the reason why Frears remains relatively unknown is that he lacks the talent of most film directors that have followed his career path. Of his 16 films, the only ones that I care about one way or the other are Fidelity and Liaisons, and this includes Dirty Pretty Things. I gave Things the benefit of the doubt when, within the first reel, Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tautou in Miramax’s Dirty Pretty Things. hotel desk clerk and the center of the film, unclogs a stopped up toilet, only to discover that a human heart was causing the stoppage. I thought that Frears and writer Steve Knight were going for a slightly surrealistic thriller, a lá Blue Velvet or something. And maybe they were, for all I know. Regardless, they failed miserably. After a while, the plot of Dirty Pretty Things reveals itself as concerning the sale of kidneys and the fellating of locals by illegal immigrants in London, as a means of getting fake documentation to “prove” that they are citizens of the country and avoiding deportation. It all feels implausible from the start, but goes over the line in the final scenes with bad writing and ridicu-
august 2003 lous scenarios involving mock hospitals and tacked-on endings. As a result, after the film was over, I felt dirty, for lack of a better word. Unfortunately for the movie-consuming masses, there are a handful of reasons to see this dreadful film. First and foremost is that it is the English language debut of Audrey Tautou, who is quickly becoming everybody’s favorite actress (myself included). Second, whoever designed the poster is a genius, as it is a near-exact replica of the poster for the great Luis Bunuel/ Catherine Deneuve film Belle de Jour, except it features Tautou looking provocatively at the poster-gazer in lieu of Deneuve. And finally, there are a few of us out here that will go and see a Frears film on his name alone, hoping that he has another High Fidelity in him. Based on the quality of Dirty Pretty Things, I shouldn’t get my hopes up. —Pete Timmermann JOHNNY ENGLISH (Universal, Rated PG) Rowan Atkinson is a genius. For two decades, his slapstick humor and glib tongue have made him a staple of British comedy. Now, the star of Mr. Bean, Black Adder, and several successful one-man comedy shows is in fine form in his new film, Johnny English. Johnny English spoofs spy films. Originally conceived as a character in a series of U.K. cred-
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Ben Miller, Rowan Atkinson and Natalie Imbruglia in Universal's Johnny English. it card commercials, English has manifested himself on screen. Parallels will be drawn with the Austin Powers films. However, unlike Austin Powers, Johnny English manages to be uniquely British. He’s a saddo who lucks into a great gig and gets wrapped up in it, then he really is oblivious that he is over his head. Atkinson plays this well. His zealous and cheeky character manages to blunder into strange situations, only to carefully extricate himself from them indignantly. Johnny English mocks the elegance, gadgets, car chases, dashing heroes, and thin plots of spy movies. English is a spy who blunders. He’s at the right place at the wrong time and has no idea what to do. This is why this film is so funny. The film opens with Atkinson’s Johnny English, a junior intelligence officer who manages to luck into the job of Britain’s top spy
through a series of mishaps. There are no better spies in all of the realm, because there are none left. With all the great Brit spies out of commission, Her Majesty must turn to her last, best hope, Johnny English. English is assigned to guard the newly restored Crown Jewels. However, fate decrees that the jewels are taken from the Tower of London and given to a villainous prison builder, played by John Malkovich, who will crown himself king and turn the U.K. into a sort of neoAlcatraz. Malkovich is amazing. He plays Pascal Sauvage, an annoying, aloof, over-the-top French criminal mastermind. His wacky accent and maniacal devilishness make him a great serious foil for the loopy Johnny English. The heroine is played by Aussie soap star and pop singer Natalie Imbruglia. She plays Lorna Campbell, another spy out to save the Crown Jewels. Surprisingly, she holds her own here, providing serious moments between comedic escapades. Rowan Atkinson drives the movie. This is a nonstop laugher with all the standards of physical comedy, plus deviant silliness thrown in for good measure. Johnny English is a smart, savvy comedy with whimsy, fun, and a cavalcade of humor. —Rob Levy
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Play by Play at her well/‘It won’t fall down,’ she says. ‘It won’t fall down.’”), the gently rolling “My Heart’s a Flame,” the raw hunger of “2 Hungry Women,” and the African beat of “Blue Mary.” The standout track, however, has to be “Aire (Buenos Aires),” a breezy dream of escape that perfectly catches the wind and soars. Fans of Gene Loves Jezebel’s “Desire” days won’t be disappointed by Exploding Girls—and with the right promotion, Michael Aston’s thoughtful musings on the second sex could very well introduce GLJ to a new legion of listeners. —Laura Hamlett ANNIE LENNOX: BARE (J-Records) If anyone found the task of assigning any sort of music to a particular color in the listener’s mind as being tedious, Annie Lennox has saved us the hassle. It’s not blue, even though it may seemingly be mistaken as such by some, while others may allocate it as a pale tan or gray to reflect the mood of Bare. The work has been done for us, and it’s colorless. It’s not monochrome but more of a diverse statement that Lennox is trying to express by taking any particular color from the record, leaving it up to our imagination. The only thing it’s not, is transparent. Lennox has used both mischievous and androgynous contradiction with her audience in Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) with the Eurthymics in 1983, she in the sharply dressed suit and cane in the boardroom, and being intentionally and exaggeratedly feminine in 1987 during Savage. In 1992, Diva stunned us with soft yet strong soulfulness, while in 1995, Medusa showed more of Lennox’s reminiscence for herself and ourselves who listened. Bare is an emotional waterfall of thoughts and images flowing into a lake of resolution and mutual conception
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with any demons that she would have dealt with prior. While some see Bare as something close to mildly dismal, with some time and attention devoted to this record, hopefully those listeners learn to see some elucidation and sweetness inside the tension. There still lives contradiction. It’s the familiar trick of the tongue-in-cheek happy or unhappy song title when the song itself displays a completely opposite mood from what the title originally suggests, such as “A Thousand Beautiful Things”: “Every day I write the list of reasons why I still believe they do exist,/a thousand beautiful things, and even though it’s hard to see the glass is full and not half empty.” Bare reminds mature listeners of a time when pop music neither had nor needed overproduction and publicity like the radio of today. It’s tastefully understated with a heart-wrenching melody along the lines of what Carole King offered us with Tapestry. “Honestly” is a song perfect for sunrise or sunset, whichever you happen to be awake for: “Fools like me get so easily taken and fools like me can be so mistaken.” Lennox has never had problems with selfassurance throughout the years, even if it seems as if her heart was broken or there was some sort of absence of intimacy. Bare touches upon some more overcast skies of gray, but the significance of the songs tells a story of a woman emerging from the wreckage of the bleak to tell a story of personal triumph. This is the same triumph that still allows her to resonate as if she is wearing the choir robe at church even though she prefers to wear leather. She knows what choice suits her best for any particular moment. —Cory Hoehn THE MARS VOLTA: DE-LOUSED IN THE COMATORIUM (Universal) Upon first listen, The Mars Volta’s premier fulllength album is jolting to the ear. Familiar with the explosive style of former band At the Drive-In, I threw this offspring group’s new project into my
CD player, expecting to hear a high-energy version of today’s standard variety of punk/indie rock. Instead, I was completely disoriented to discover a bizarre, foreign aural assault of genreless music. Panicking to fit this album into a neat, tidy box to present to readers, I scanned my mental catalogue of generic music types to find one that at least partially described this sound, let alone bands to compare it to so that I might write that always unhelpful and ultimately disappointing blurb about this being “a conglomeration of Fugazi and Jane’s Addiction, with a hint of Miles Davis.” I drew a blank. Yet this is precisely what is so fascinating about this album—in creating it, the musicians fully intended to break boundaries and defy classification. Which makes sense, considering their background—At the Drive-In disbanded once they began to gain notoriety because members Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavalas were fearful of being pigeonholed into the same sound, record after record. The two split off to create The Mars Volta, while the others formed the equally respectable band Sparta. With Cedric leading vocals and Omar on guitar, the two also enlisted former Long Beach Dub All-Stars keyboardist Ikey Owens, ex-DeFacto member and old friend Jeremy Ward, and drummer Jon Theodore. These four, along with Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame on bass, form the new and uncategorizable sound that is The Mars Volta. And certainly, De-Loused in the Comatorium is a dynamic and explosive debut that well establishes the indefinable, progressive sound of the band. A concept album from start to finish, it is a fictionalized account of the cerebral experiences of a man who lies in a coma after attempting suicide. The album is derived from the life of close friend Julio Venegas, who com-
August 2003 mitted suicide in 1996. De-Loused is a tribute of sorts from Cedric’s imagination, detailing the fantastical adventures of the mind that his friend must have experienced while unconscious. Because this is a concept album, it is difficult to pick out and distinguish particularly strong or weak tracks, all of them melting together into one fluid whole. However, I will at least say that the initial track, “Inertiatic Esp,” has a kinetic grip that will easily pull any listener into the rest of the album. “Eriatarka” also has a hypnotic hook that will most certainly remain echoing in your mind, perhaps as you are trying to fall asleep. Although the album concludes with Venegas awaking from a coma only to successfully carry out the taking of his own life, the ultimate impression is not one of darkness and letdown. Instead, it is one of great energy and hope, a homage to a dear friend that engenders an honest, ever-changing album that not even once fails to engage our undivided attention. This is not background music; it is a lyrical accomplishment that might demand concentration on its intricacies were we not already and automatically shaken to awareness, wide awake and listening. —Anne Valente MOGWAI: HAPPY SONGS FOR HAPPY PEOPLE (Matador) Since 1997’s Mogwai Young Team, Scotland’s Mogwai has brought wave after wave of post-rock crunch to the forefront of underground music and at times has popped its collective head up from the depths to flirt with mainstream trends (see the band’s last full-length, Rock Action). The genre of post-rock has tried desperately to reinvent itself over the past few years, most markedly in the hands of Chicago jazz-rock purveyors Tortoise and Iceland’s ethereal Sigur Rós. It seems as though those bands have tired of the genre’s formula of “no formula,” and who can blame them? As history has demonstrated, in less than two years, we’ll be hearing Slint’s “Nosferatu Man” on Mitsubishi commercials. But Mogwai isn’t worried about that, and they’ve never been interested in reinventing the car commercial. On their latest release, the superbly titled Happy Songs for Happy People, they do, to a point, as they have done on their past efforts, create excruciatingly melodic rock music boasting a sheet metal frame. This adherence to form is simultaneously the saving grace of the band and the force that keeps it from achieving greatness. But there are slight, yet notable, changes on Happy Songs, and frankly, it’s about time. Happy Songs is the band at its most distilled. The tracks are laconic when
Happy People: Mogwai (courtesy Matador Records) compared to those of their debut, but they are by no means minute in scope. They still carry broad strokes of power chord, boxy piano intros, and a precise amount of distortion on all instruments, including voice. But I wonder if the same effect can be reached in four and a half minutes rather than eight. Fulfilling a song’s climax, especially when the song is structured around the rise to that tumultuous epiphany, is a delicate operation. Four and a half minutes may not be enough. If the one-track, 20-minute My Father My King EP taught us anything, it’s that Mogwai’s music takes time to bloom. What’s more, Mogwai is fleshing out the band’s “sound,” adding more and more strings to their compositions, which softens them considerably, consequently stripping them of that hint of fury evident in the band’s first two albums. And the meaty synthesizer that begins “Moses? I Amn’t” sounds as though it were copped from fellow countrymen (and sometime label mates) Boards of Canada. As prolific as the Boards are, furious they amn’t. This isn’t to say that the best moments on Happy Songs are the least focused—quite the opposite. The static percussion on “I Know You Are but What Am I?” and the gentle feedback and gentler vocals on “Boring Machines Disturbs Sleep” slide easily, yet efficiently, into the listener’s ears. In fact, the whole album is very pleasant, but not exciting or moving in the same way Young Team was. Still, it is a step toward something; it just isn’t sure where it’s going yet. Is this the sound of an older, wiser Mogwai? Are the noisy meanderings of “King Herod” and “Christmas Steps” gone forever, only to be replaced by a poppier, more user-friendly postrock? These are questions Mogwai must answer definitively on their next album, because they can’t live in the gray area between jagged postrock and succinct indie pop forever. Happy Songs for Happy People, enjoyable as it is, sounds like a compromise, and if Mogwai could fulfill some of their potential, post-rock may not be destined to soundtrack auto ads just yet. —Andrew Rea
ALLISON MOORER: SHOW (Universal) If, like me, you missed Allison Moorer’s performance at Blueberry Hill last year, don’t get her new concert CD/DVD set, Show. If this performance, recorded in January at 12th & Porter in Nashville, is anywhere near comparable to her performance in St. Louis, it will just make you kick yourself one more time for missing her. Show was recorded on Moorer’s tour in support of Miss Fortune, her third and most accessible album, which showed her moving further outside her country roots without risking the label of sellout. Several notable songs from that release appear on the set list here, including the poignant “Let Go” and the rocking “Going Down.” The latter is one of three songs on which Moorer’s big sister, Shelby Lynne, provides vocal assistance. Moorer doesn’t really need it, though, and outshines her sibling, particularly on “Bring Me All Your Lovin’,” where Lynne pales in comparison for soulfulness and range. Other star power is lent by Kid Rock, who performs on “Bully Jones.” But the strongest showing remains Moorer and her voice, which manages to deliver tearjerkers without straying into the overwrought and has a suitable edginess for the harder tunes. Live shows are where singers prove that they can really “do it,” and Moorer does so without misstep. Her voice is just as rich and smoky onstage as it is in the studio. The DVD doesn’t add much to the experience compared with the CD, beyond the opportunity to see the lovely Moorer on stage. But then, the energy of seeing an artist perform live is something that’s almost impossible to capture in concert videos, which prove an inadequate substitute for the real thing. The DVD does, however, have a bonus track not on the CD, the quietly beautiful “Cold Cold Earth,” and that makes it more than just a curiosity. —Jeffrey Ricker
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Play by Play ANNA OXYGEN: ALL YOUR FADED THINGS (Cold Crush Records) I’ll be honest. I can’t write a review of this CD. I don’t know what to tell you that you haven’t heard before. So, here’s the deal: this month I won’t pretend to be a pretentious critic. We’re just going to have a talk, music geek to music geek. The CD is All Your Faded Things by Anna Oxygen, a Seattle artist on fledgling Cold Crush Records. The thing about Oxygen is that she basically sounds like everything you’ve ever heard, but different. I know it’s confusing, but I’ll try my best to explain. The first track, “Baby Blue,” is a good representation of the album—I guess the overall genre would be electroclash, even though there are many different sounds. “Baby Blue” is a slick pop song, awash with pulsating drumbeats and this “crazy” instrument called a synthesizer (I hear a lot of bands are using it these days). Oxygen’s vocal style is very…organic. It’s very warm and emotive and a lot of times operatic. This isn’t heard much in the electroclash genre. Next up is “Red Horse Café,” one of the strongest tracks on the album. The electronic beats are highly danceable, and they mesh incredibly well with Oxygen’s voice; there isn’t a point where the synthetic pandering distracts from her. In fact, the beats may give her more depth and style. In short, this song makes you wanna shake your butt. Another great song is “Aviva.” This is a pop song that anyone can relate to. The simple drumbeat and the synthesizer give it the pop swagger, while Oxygen’s voice makes it sound very human and, at times, somewhat curious. The chorus is extremely catchy. You’ll suddenly find yourself singing, “I wonder if you know if you look so…cute.” “Ponytails” is another strong contender. With more of an electronic feel, this song could be a huge club hit. “Ponytails” sounds a bit darker than the other tracks, and the subject matter is also somewhat somber. This song has a steady, ’80sfueled beat. Oxygen sounds a bit bleak on this tune, almost as if she’s been hardened by her experiences throughout the album. The chorus, however, is also very catchy; you can’t help but dance as Oxygen sings, “I don’t want to be your rebound girl/I just want to be the queen of your world.” “Nerve Angels Two” is an interesting song, reminiscent of a Jane Fonda workout video. This vision is complete with the synth-laden soundtrack and Oxygen sounding like a relaxing yoga instructor. Dare I say “Loose to the Tight” has somewhat of a hip-hop feel? I’m currently picturing Eve singing this, and it works—so, yes, it has
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a hip-hop feel. This song was an interesting break on the album; I wasn’t expecting it at all. I have to say that I really liked it. The lyrics are fairly basic, but the beat reminds me of break dancing. “Painted Yellow Crown” is one of the more ambient numbers on the album, a song about a girl who has had some hard times, but is still strong thanks to support from her girlfriends. I have to say, the jury is still out on this one. I really enjoy the music, but the lyrics make me cringe. At some points, it reminds me of Madonna. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen. While All Your Faded Things does have a few frustrating moments (only because you know Oxygen can do better), it is a sound album. However, I will leave you with a few words of warning. You may not like this CD when you first listen to it. It, like a lot of things in life, seems a little strange and foreign at times. However, also like a lot of things in life, it grows on you, and you start to like it, maybe even love it. In short, don’t knock it ’til you try it. —Dawn O’Neall POI DOG PONDERING: IN SEED COMES FRUIT (Premonition) Chicago-based Poi Dog Pondering has survived numerous lineup changes and continues to develop unique music with each successive record. Beginning with the happy acoustic sounds of their 1989 self-titled debut and follow-up, Wishing Like a Mountain and Thinking Like The Sea, they attracted a hippie-dominated cult following. Their sound progressed toward a danceinfused electronic personality with the 1995 classic Pomegranate and stretched even further with 1999’s cool Natural Thing album. Following a significant hiatus, Poi Dog Pondering continues to explore original avenues with their new release, In Seed Comes Fruit. On past records, charismatic frontman Frank Orrall has generally taken the lead role, but this time, he shares duties with two excellent female vocalists, Charlotte Wortham and Carla Prather. Both women strongly enhance the soul elements of the record, with Prather especially shining on the emotional “You Move Me” and upbeat “Daytrippin.” Orrall still plays a prominent role and conveys solid writing and vocals to opener “Had I Known” and “A Love Rains Down,” which bears a fair resemblance to past staple “God’s Galipoli.” His shining moment occurs on the album’s high point, “Simple Song,” a ten-minute epic that matches some of the band’s finest material. Over its 17-year existence, Poi Dog Pondering has repeatedly discovered ways to tackle fairly
simple messages and make them memorable. Unique grooves combine effectively with intense passion to create songs much greater than the lyrics conveyed. This delicate balance worked in the past on the classic “Everybody’s Trying,” and it continues here with “True” and “Keep the Faith,” which begins with an eerily solemn phone message. In Seed Comes Fruit may not match their best work, but it does showcase Poi Dog Pondering continuing to generate refreshing material. The new tracks should translate wonderfully to their live shows, which remain energetic celebrations of musical excellence. —Dan Heaton SEAGULL SCREAMING KISS HER KISS HER: RED TALK (Arrivederci Baby!/ Cherry Red Records) Here’s what you need to know about Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her. They are two Japanese girls who take their name from a song on XTC’s album The Big Express, and they absolutely rock. That alone should be reason enough to buy their CD, but if not, here are a few others. The band was started by guitarist, lead singer, and songwriter Aiha Higurashi in the early ’90s; bassist Nao Koyama joined in 1996 (there is also an unofficial band member drummer). SSKHKH has put out a series of EPs peppered with a couple of LPs over the last ten years. Red Talk is an 18-track compilation sampling much of this work and is the first of their releases to be remotely commercially available here in the United States. One of the best things about Japanese rock bands is their unabashed love of American rock ’n’ roll (music and culture) and the fact that most are not content to merely emulate it, but rather borrow from it while still making it their own. SSKHKH provide a good example of this blend of admiration and work ethic. Influences are plenty throughout Red Talk, ranging from British punk to The New York Dolls and The Ramones to Sonic Youth. Much of Red Talk shows the experimental nature of SSKHKH, such as the song “8” which is just Higurashi repeatedly counting to eight over a chainsaw guitar riff. “She” gives us a spoken word recounting of an overheard murder threat on a dark bed of drum, bass, and guitar, while “Sister, Sister” is light, happy track that is almost completely synth/electronic. Although most of the rest of Red Talk has the DIY sensibility of punk, it is not without depth musically or lyrically. “Pink Soda” opens with a few bars of quietly jazzy ride cymbal, finger snaps, and walking bass line joined shortly thereafter by Higurashi’s vocals, sounding more Betty
August 2003
Boop than Kim Gordon. The song then explodes into an all-out slashing punk guitar riff with Higurashi screaming into the mic. “Psycho Melody” shows the group’s ability to lay down a good groove while the album’s closer, “If I Happen To Follow Down (In Your Arms),” exposes the duo’s softer side, complete with acoustic strumming and a country-flavored pedal steel track. Red Talk may not be the easiest CD to find (it is available through Amazon.com) but Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her is well worth the effort. —Wade Paschall SIXTEEN HORSEPOWER: OLDEN (Jetset) Sixteen Horsepower comes as close to being a religion as most bands will ever get. I realized this the other day, explaining why I e n j oy / l ove / wo r s h i p them (see?) to a friend. It is not something you can easily explain. It is like explaining why cold water on a hot day, certain drugs, or a lover is so special. Like all those things, 16HP is an acquired taste. They require thought and the acceptance of the listener, as well as allowing oneself to be drawn into the world of David Eugene Edwards (the band’s founder and songwriter). Olden is a set of 18 tracks dating from ’93/’94 and two very brief interviews. For fans, they are a nice addition to your Sixteen Horsepower collection. For those of you not indoctrinated into the 16HP society, it provides a very clear example of why the band is so good (though I would purchase this along with Sackcloth ’n’ Ashes— their first and still best album). The first 12 songs are from two demo sessions recorded in Denver. They reveal the band at its earliest and most earnest. The leaner and more vocal-intensive version of “Scrawled in Sap” is worth the price of admission alone. It points out the beauty of Edwards’ voice and some of what was lost in the production of Sackcloth ’n’ Ashes (the album that broke the band nationwide). My suggestion is to go right for the live tracks recorded at the Mercury Café in Denver. They reveal the band’s strengths and intricacies. The intensity with which the band plays and the depth of their lyrics are astonishing. (Edwards has always mixed a great deal of religious imagery into his music, and though not immediately apparent in their sound, they are one of the more spiritual bands out there.) “Heel on the Shovel” and “Sac of Religion” provide the pure essence of the band—masterful words, concise and passionate playing, and an ability to entrance their audience. Whether you are adding to your collection or starting it, Olden is a good foundation. —Jim Dunn
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DAVID SYLVIAN: BLEMISH (Samadhi Sound) The majority of Sylvian’s fans are loyal ones to say the least. The former lead singer of Japan has encountered a few hits and misses over the years in making music and influencing bands like Duran Duran. It’s continually refreshing to see such artists still keeping their fans happy, although a great number of others lose interest just because airplay was next to nil. Picture this: a cave where bumpy walls are lined with glazed marble; built-in single flashing strobe lights and black lights flicker with each beat. With each turn, while sustaining the same dark but polished atmosphere, the matter of the same bumpy walls changes from granite for a series of moments, then broken glass for more. Eventually, it ends up being a journey of different textures and characteristics with the same haunting implications. Sylvian’s Blemish is this minimalist shadow-laden journey. Rich in texture, it is a seismograph reading set to musical prose. “The Heart Knows Better” is an avant-garde covered wagon ride of soft-spoken confrontation with the self in regard to the affection of another and the risk of loneliness as the viable option: “And every night is wedding night in my head,/my eyes are closed but I can see the sky stretched overhead,/the mattress on the floor, I see faces at my door.” It’s okay to be by yourself as long as you have a clear imagination of the consequences of a relationship without sounding jaded in favor of relaxed. Sylvian seemingly raided his storage locker of various musical instruments, including the mandolin-like sound for the interlude “She Is Not” and the acoustic guitar for “How Little We Need to Be Happy.” “Happy” uses the distinctive technique of the playing of random guitar chords, which ends up sounding as if a toddler was hired to play it just before naptime. It probably doesn’t sound as flattering in this review, but Sylvian makes it work because it matches the torpid vocal arrangement which accompanies. Blemish not only exhibits traditional instruments played in nontraditional ways, but also includes the well-placed usage of a sample of a rumbling shopping cart for the stand-out track, “Late Night Shopping.” This is the track to enjoy through headphones for the complete effect since Sylvian made the effort of providing the rhythm via simple handclapping. “Tell me what we need, write a list or something,/we don’t need to need a thing, late night shopping.” Sylvian still knows his way around a synthesizer as well, many will be happy to take note. Blemish is available as an import or from Sylvian’s Web site at www.davidsylvian.com. —Cory Hoehn
VENUS HUM: BIG BEAUTIFUL SKY (MCA) Venus Hum is a Nashville-based group that sounds like nothing you’d expect to come from that city. The only way “country music” can be said to be relevant to this trio is that their music seems to be influenced by being out in the country. But not the country of pickup trucks, honky tonks, and free-roaming chickens (and dogs!); rather, Venus Hum seems inspired by the country that is characterized by vast fields of wildflowers, clear starry night skies, and lazy hours spent contemplating life by the side of a beautiful lake or stream. In other words, the pastoral side of it all is what hooks this group…and ultimately the listener. Take the romance with nature (and romance!), slightly psychedelicized, that XTC engaged in on Skylarking; set it to rhythmic, keyboard-heavy electronic beats reminiscent of Depeche Mode; and add a versatile female vocalist (Annette Strean), and you have a rough idea of what Venus Hum sounds like. Early songs like “Hummingbirds,” “Soul Sloshing,” and “Alice” are pleasant, often danceable numbers; the second half of the disc, beginning with the sensual and driving “Beautiful Spain,” the group starts to hit its creative stride. “The Bells” is a haunting composition in which Strean’s passion becomes truly palpable: “I ache to hear the bells, the bells, the bells/Hold my breath, hold my chest, wait for the bells, the bells.” And Strean demonstrates her ability to reach for—and hit—the big high notes, the kind Björk often does in that dizzying way. Soft strings and a shifting rhythm track add to the overall potency of the track. Then we get several more big, sparkling songs. There’s the peerless “Springtime #2,” one of the most ecstatic pieces I’ve heard in awhile. Strean recites a whole series of lyrics that comprise a seasonal serenade: “I’m picking poppies from the sky/Lawnmowers, bees, daffodils, sunbursts and moonbeams/Dazzling dandelions,” she swoons, at one point letting out a beguiling sigh. Another lyric went “Hey you, get out here/Make music for the rest of the class,” a rather warm, inviting sentiment no matter which way you read it. The acoustic guitar that graces the track, and the immaculate arrangement, help make it one of the clear highlights of the recording. Despite similarities to other artists, there is some great material on this recording, including a couple of the best songs delivered this year. And you can count me as a fan anytime you can find a way to evoke pastoral bliss (with a good beat!) on a record that tastefully uses the technology to get there. —Kevin Renick
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By Rob Levy The broiling St. Louis summer is here at last. Fortunately there are enough boring tours, repeat TV shows, and terrible end-of-summer films to keep us all content and blissfully unaware. I am always amazed at how many people do stupid things in the heat. There are always dumb people who will endure countless stupid weather situations to see a crap band or just walk around ’til they melt. Nonetheless, everyone should get out there and try to make the best of it. Nothing beats the heat like paying a gazillion dollars to see Radiohead in a crap venue. The early ending of the Warped Tour show here was an act of mercy. This should happen more often. How tragic that The Bl ackeyed Peas had to open for Justin Timberlake and what’s-her-face. They deserve better than that. They should not have to shill their records that way. Green Day and Peaches appear on the new Iggy Pop CD, Skull Ring, due this September. But the real cool thing about the CD is that it features four new tracks with the surviving members of the Stooges, Scott and Ron Asheton.
James Iha is set to replace Danny Lohner in A Perfect Circle. I think something needs to be done about DJ Rap. That insipid TV commercial of hers is an affront to smart people. Plus she is a talentless hack. It’s bad enough she makes terrible records, but now she has to be seen on the telly spinning her terrible records. Jack White is producing tracks for the upcoming Loretta Lynn album. Lynn recently opened for the White Stripes in New York. Speaking of the White Stripes, could they possibly get any more media attention? Andy Gill of Gang of Four has produced “First Day,” the new single from Brit-band-of-themoment Futurehead. Shame on those of you who didn’t stick around to see Jurassic 5 at Lollapalooza. You should be carted off to SPIRITUALIZED SPIRITUALIZED the Congo for your sin! Spiritualized has parted ways with Arista Records. Their new record, Amazing Grace, is due out on September 9 on Sanctuary Records. Cat Stevens is lawsuit-crazy. In recent years, he has sued loads of artists for copyright infringement. This time around, he is going after The Flaming Lips. Stevens claims his song “Father and Son” was ripped off by the Lips and transfigured into “Fight Test.” A recent settlement split the royalties of the Lips’ album between the artists. A Tribe Called Quest are reforming and releasing a new record. David Bowie knew Andy Warhol; now he also knows the Dandy Warhols. Portland’s finest are slated to open for Mr. Bowie on his massive World Tour. The Dandys have a new CD out entitled Welcome to the Monkey House. Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes and legendary producer Tony Visconti produced it. Skinny Puppy will record a new album later this year. The wait is due in large part to the fact that its members have other projects at the moment. Nivek Ogre is in a new band, Ohgr, a sorta pulsing, loud, technodustrial band; their new record is called Sunnypsyop. Cevin Key, in the meantime, has made an album, The Dragon Experience, with Ken Marshall. The Libertines’ European tour has been wacky as a result of frontman Pete Doherty being MIA and not showing up for any of their gigs. They are currently tourDOVES
THE CURE
ing without him. Royksopp has remixed “Clocks” by Coldplay. Doves will begin recording their third album this fall in Scotland. DJ Rap is so terrible I had to mention it twice. 4AD has reissued the first four Cocteau Twins CDs; these would be Garland, Head Over Heels, Treasure, and Victorialand. Jewel still annoys me, but not as much this month as DJ Rap. The Cure are capitalists. They have just released a live DVD and are busy recording another studio album. Plus, they are releasing a boxed set of B-sides later this year. On top of that, they are remastering their first five albums with bonus discs of live tracks, outtakes, demos, and rarities. Echo & the Bunnymen will reissue their first five albums in 2004. Each album will have extra tracks and unreleased material. Television is also remastering their early albums for sometime in 2004. My Bloody Valentine has had several misfires at recording new material over the last 12 years. However, this time something may be up. There will be an MBV boxed set in 2004 and the band, sans Deb Goodge, has been rumored to be recording five new songs for it. These five songs were leftovers from the Glider sessions. One final note: hang in there—autumn is not quite as far off as it seems. There are loads of better shows and interesting new goings-on to look forward to.
august 2003
I Think I’ve Said Too Much By Rev. Mike Tomko
Episode 4: “The Art of the Demo: Part Two” To continue last month’s discussion regarding the making of a demo, I would like to dig further into the recording process and shed some light on some of the more commonly misconstrued issues of production. What is the difference between analog and digital? This topic is way too complex for such a short column, but we will touch on the basic aspects of these two recording media. Analog recording refers to using media such as cassette, reel-to-reel tape, or vinyl to store sound, whereas digital media consist of DAT, compact disc, minidisk, or computer hard disk. The main difference between the two is that analog recording always has a physical representation of the sound (in the case of tape, magnetized ironoxide [rust] on the tape’s surface), whereas digital recording uses binary code (1’s and 0’s) to mathematically represent the sound as data. Many feel that analog recording sounds better than digital, but with the advent of new technology, that argument is getting harder and harder to make. What is multitrack recording? What is an overdub? As you may know, all of the CDs, records, or tapes in your personal collection come in either a
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mono or stereo format. Stereo recordings, sometimes referred to as two-track recordings, contain both a left and a right track. All of the instruments are then placed (panned) across the two tracks, thus giving your ears the illusion of a live band on stage. A mono recording, on the other hand, is a one-track recording where both the left and right tracks are combined, making the sound from both speakers the same and removing the illusion as to the positioning of an instrument on stage. In multitrack recording, bands can record each instrument to their own individual track, to be combined (mixed) later into either stereo or mono. This type of recording also allows for musicians to record each instrument individually and then play over, or overdub, other instruments on top of the previously recorded sounds. Multitrack recording offers lots of versatility for recording in the studio. With all of these studios advertising anywhere from 4- to 24-track recording media, how many tracks are necessary to record my band? For the most part, the song itself dictates all aspects of production needed to record it. By this I mean that if you try to overextend your music, it will definitely show. Choosing a medium to record to that offers an ample amount of extra tracks can allow you enough margin for overdubs and any other extras you would like to add. Be careful, though; this method can often trap artists into feeling as if they have to fill all of the tracks just because they are there. A lot of bands like to purposely limit themselves when recording in order to allow them to focus on only the essentials. What is EQ? The term “EQ” is short for equalization, referring to the process of tonally altering a sound based on the frequencies that make up that
sound. Think of the “bass boost” on your car stereo or the “graphic EQ” sliders on your home stereo receiver; what these knobs and buttons do is electronically boost or cut the sound signal at a given frequency. When you push the “bass boost” button, your stereo electronically adds a significant amount of bass or low-end to the signal, thus creating the low rumble effect that you can feel in your chest. Frequencies are divided into three main categories: low-end (bass), midrange, and high-end (treble). While this is but a very bare-bones definition, you should at least have a better idea of what EQ is.
What are dynamics? What is compression? Dynamics are the highs and lows of music. A band that is described as being dynamic usually has great latitude between their softest (calmest) and loudest (most intense) parts. This is a major way that a band can capture emotion in their music. Think about it: if a band is playing a ballad at full intensity and volume, wouldn’t that confuse most listeners? In the production world, the main form of dynamics processing is termed “compression.” Compression, in and of itself, is exactly what it sounds like: Imagine a trash compressor, which takes all types of trash and squashes it down to a skinny, even lump. An audio compressor applies the same principle: it takes all of your softest playing, all of your loudest, and all the notes in between and squashes their volumes down to an even level. A compressor is used to remove or lessen the dynamics from your music. I’m not going to get into the arguments associated with using compression, but the next time you listen to the radio, listen for the sounds of compression. Notice that when the band breaks it down and becomes softer, the volume doesn’t usually change, just the mood. Tune in next month for Episode 5: “CD Spit Polish: Making Your Demo Shine.”
Mike Tomko is the acting program and music director for KGLX, the Galaxy, the radio station of Webster University, www.kglx.org. louie_zou@yahoo.com.
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Five Quick Questions With Jeff Jarrett By Laura Hamlett You wear a number of hats in the music community. Tell us what they are. I manage Nadine. I’m the booking agent for Chris Lee (Misra Records), Summer Hymns (who are part of the Elephant 6 collective), Chris Mills, and Will Kimbrough. I also help a few local bands when I have time, like the Rockhouse Ramblers and my friends in Magnolia Summer. And I’m the road manager for Jesse Harris and the Ferdinandos. How did you get into all of this stuff? I interned for Bob Andrews and Meggean Ward at Undertow in Chicago. And I made good contacts while I was there. When I moved back to St. Louis to finish school, I ran into Adam [Reichmann] from Nadine a few times. Before I knew it, I was managing my favorite band on the planet. Everything spawned from there.
Some people think the lack of a local record label has been holding the St. Louis rock music scene back. Do you see yourselves as answering this call in any way? Like I said, the label is strictly for the Nadine back catalog at the moment. And I like the state of St. Louis music. We’ve got great bands putting out records, like Nadine, Jay Farrar, and the Bottle Rockets, and we’ve got a history of amazing artists like Chuck Berry and Uncle Tupelo. Criticizing the St. Louis music scene and talking about what’s wrong with it would be counter-productive. I’m just going to keep on fighting the good fight by turning people onto great music. I was just at Jay Farrar’s two awesome gigs at the Bowery Ballroom, and Pete [Yorn] was just on MTV News talking about Nadine. I’ve got a feeling that St. Louis will be just fine.
We heard that Nadine is starting a record label, too. Yeah, Adam and Steve [Rauner] from Nadine are soon to be the owners of a record label. We haven’t secured the rights to a name for it yet, but I’d expect for everything to come to fruition toward the end of the summer. Our only vision right now is to re-release the back catalog. We can’t accept the responsibility of putting our records by other artists. Hopefully, things will go well enough so that someday that’s a possibility.
Judge a man by the company he keeps. Jarrett’s clients include (clockwise from top): Nadine—Adam Reichman and Jimmy Griffin, Chris Mills, Will Kimbrough, and Summer Hymms.
by Bosco (with illustration help from Jessica Gluckman)
www.mentalsewage.com
Elliot Goes
Nadine Photos: Jennifer Gammage
How did Nadine’s deal with Trampoline Records come about? I sent an unsolicited copy to Trampoline, which is run by Pete Yorn, Marc Dauer (Jukebox Junkies), and Rami Jaffee (the Wallflowers), because I liked what they were all about. They had a good roster (Minus 5, Pete Droge, Minibar) and could provide the nationwide exposure that Nadine have been lacking for the past six years. Marc and Rami told me that they listened to hundreds of submissions and that Strange Seasons blew all three of them away. I flew to L.A. with Jimmy [Griffin] for the Tramp show at the House of Blues, met everybody, and got a really good feeling about the whole thing. Now the record is the maiden release on Trampoline and comes out September 2. I really couldn’t ask for more. Everybody involved is great.
August is Festival time: V and Reading in the U.K., the Lot in St. Louis, the bluegrass festival in Wyoming...
This is the month we rack up the most frequent flyer miles... first class all the way, baby.
We caught a ride home with Thom, who was heading that way anyway. He works in Radio or something, but he has this really cool jet. Move over, Jonny!
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Profile: Kill Hannah With the new recordings, I have noticed a definite growing sense of maturity from the early days of the band, the standout aspect being in Garret’s drumming, I definitely feel the presence of a live drummer, with still maintaining the danceability and electronic vibe. Mat: I would agree to that; the recordings in the past have been kind of hurried, and compromises had to be made. This time what’d we take, four or five months? [Silly laughter] I also felt that there wasn’t the overproduced debut record aspect to the songs. Dan: [Sean Beavan] did a lot of the Nine Inch Nails and Kidney Thieves stuff before, so we were really conscious of that going in, because there is a fine line between industrial-based bands and guitar-based bands. Mat: I think it is funny that we could get criticized for being overproduced or for paying an unreasonable amount of time to sonic details, because I think conceptually…philosophically we are indie. When we were in the studio, we weren’t necessarily interested in bringing in giggers to play bass or string sections, we were interested in cutting corners wherever we could. We worked long hours and bathed infrequently.
from page 4
Greg: This band has always been run indie, everything we did in Chicago. We printed our own flyers and promoted everything ourselves. There was always a big-money professionalism to your shows, even though you were still poor independent artists. How do you respond to criticism that your image is more important than your music? Dan: I don’t know any other band that has done more low-budget shows, made their own merchandise… Mat: Hired friends to shoot photos… What about all of the fansites? I have seen bands with a handful of major-label records and tours under their belt not have as many or as good of fansites as you do. Mat: We kind of set the standard, and people responded. I took a lot of care in writing my journals during the recording process, and the emails I was getting back from kids were all very well structured and well written. I think with the aesthetic of the band it is the same thing, when you put yourself out there, if you show it is something you take really seriously, and I don’t think the fans really want to disappoint. Besides the production aspects we talked
about, what were some of the things you hoped to accomplish with this record? Greg: I think we all wanted something that we were proud of because in the past, we were never really proud of giving our record to somebody, saying this is us. We never liked the way it came out whether it was mixing, or the recording of it, or the songs, and whatnot. This time, we wanted everything to be perfect Mat: I want it to be like a symbol of ten years of hard work. I think it is 99 percent there. I really heard the guitars come to the forefront more as guitars than as the synth-like tones from previous recordings. Greg: Yeah, our producer and A&R guy really wanted it to be a guitar-oriented record. Mat: We wanted it to sound pretty natural, too. When we went into the studio, we were citing examples of Wilco and other records that have a very natural feel to them. We didn’t want it to come across as over-processed and phony.
At this time, the interview ended; the checks arrived and everyone was more interested in who had added their food to Greg’s bill. Visit www.killhannah.com.
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The Grammys are coming to St. Louis! The Recording Academy (the organization behind the Grammy Awards) is producing a demo review and contest for unsigned artists in Missouri. Demos will be reviewed by a panel of music industry experts, with the top ten submissions being critiqued before an audience in St. Louis on October 15 at the City Museum. A winner and two runners-up will be awarded prize packages consisting of services that will help them create an effective demo and promotional package. Entry forms are available at www.grammy.com/memphis.html; your submission fee also gets you entry to the event. Pete Yorn was on MTV recently, talking about his Trampoline Records label. The Sony subsidiary’s first signing is none other than our town’s Nadine. Says Yorn, “It’s a really great, kind of progressive alt-country band, and it’s going to be cool.” Strange Seasons, Nadine’s fourth album, drops on September 2, the same day as Trampoline Records Greatest Hits Vol. 2. The band’s first single, “Different Kind of Heartache,” will be featured on the compilation. Somnia is set to perform at the third annual Midwest Music Summit in Indianapolis August 7 to 9. This is the third time the St. Louis band has performed at the event. Now in its third year, the Midwest Music Summit is an established multifunctioning music conference that builds networking bridges between independent artists and industry representatives. This year includes over 250 artists showcasing at 22 venues, with the emphasis on dis-covering unsigned talent.
The Kevin Barry–fronted supergroup that debuted at Cicero’s last month has finally been named. Fainting in Coils features Barry on guitar and vocals, Josh Kohn on guitar, Steve Bunk on drums, and Jeff Church on bass. Also, look for a solo album from Barry in the coming weeks. What used to be called the Forum for Contemporary Art has been renamed contemporaryartmuseumstlouis. The new building, going up right next to the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in Grand Center, will be sleek and urban. Though a grand opening isn’t until September
20, you can get a sneak peek at www.contemporarystl.org. A Reasonable Place to Park lost their vocalist and are auditioning replacements. The bunch of twenty-somethings plays indie rock along the lines of Elliot and Hum. Josh Waller Contact at jwaller50@hotmail.com if interested. Radio Cherokee ’s planned Sandy Weltman reopening date of August has been pushed back. Starting in mid-September, Radio Cherokee will operate as a coffee bar (sorry, no booze permitted) with shows about once a week. On August 23, visit the Literary Corner at the Missouri Black Expo at America’s Center. Sponsored by Left Bank Books, First Civilizations, and the Missouri Black Expo, the event will feature readings, conversations, and booksignings with authors Omar Tyree, Jacqueline Powell, Crystal Wilkinson, Tricia Rose, Vincent Alexandria, John Fountain, and Mimsy Hebron.
Rockhouse Ramblers The Rockhouse Ramblers have booked recording time on their third CD next month at the Broom Factory, notes Kip Loui of the band. “I think we’re gonna try to branch out a bit on this one,” he adds, “and do some slightly more complex stuff and some things that maybe aren’t strictly country—but then, we’ve always kinda done that.” Loui (who’s also co-producing a Chuck Berry tribute CD to benefit KDHX) likewise reports that the quintet’s been invited to perform at the Americana Music Conference in Nashville in September. (“We’re pretty psyched about that,” he tells us. Understandably!) In observance of the 150th anniversary of Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival in Japan’s Edo Bay, which opened up diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Japan, (Mostly) Harmless Theatre concludes its 2003 season with Yukio Mishima’s Four Modern Noh Plays from July 24 to August 10 in the A.E. Hotchner Studio
Summerfest Crowd
Theatre at Washington University. “Savvy: Media Influence in Contemporary Society,” an exhibit by Leo Oliveira, Aline Duarte, and Mark Lockwood, runs through August 30 at the St. Louis Artists Guild. In case you weren’t around July 18 (we weren’t), Entertainment St. Louis ’s Washington Avenue Summerfest redeemed itself in the local music department, as two of the night’s three acts were St. Louis–based. Don’t miss the next two fests: Friday, August 22, and Friday, September 26. Look for the Playback St. Louis booth at both events! Harmonica virtuoso Sandy Weltman will be leading a harmonica workshop at Music Folk on Sunday, September 28, from 1 to 3 p.m. The cost is $25, and space is limited. Seating is on a firstcome, first-served basis. MetroMarket is a monthly outdoor festival at Leon Strauss Park in Grand Center hosted by Metropolis St. Louis. Held on the first Saturday of the month (through October), the festival features artwork for sale, hand-crafted by local and regional artists in the categories of jewelry, clothing, painting, ceramics, glass, metal, fiber, mixed media, custom furniture, and much more. Contact Torrey Clark at metromarketinfo@metropolitanstl.com if you are interested in participating. St. Louis quintet My 2 Planets was recently selected to perform at the second annual M.E.A.N.Y. Fest in New York City, September 20 to 27. It is one of the largest independent music festivals in New York. M.E.A.N.Y. Fest will pick one artist each year that displays outstanding musicianship, songwriting, and most potential to have a successful career in the music industry. All 2003 finalists will appear on the TV show Rockin’ Clubs on Time Warner cable NYC, where they will be seen in almost half a million households. The finalist will then go on to perform at The Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. St. Louis’s own First Flight Records has released three new discs: Anamude’s Urban Comfort, Emery Reel’s ...For and Acted Upon Through Diversions, and St. Louis group The Potomac Accord’s In One-Hundred Years the Prize Will Be Forgotten. More info at www.firstflightrecordlabel.com. Kicking off Hothouse Theatre’s 2003 season in September will be the Midwest premiere of
august 2003
Sunday in the Park With George Kimberly Akimbo by David Lindsay-Abaire—314241-1517 or info@hothousetheatre.org for info. Broadcast online at stlhiphop.com, Midwest Swang Radio features a collage of Midwest rap, hip-hop, and spoken word. Listen to Midwest Swang at http://midwestswang.stlhiphop.com. New Line Theatre will hold auditions for Stephen Sondheim’s musical masterpiece, Sunday in the Park With George, on two successive Monday evenings, August 4 and 11, at the ArtLoft Theatre, 1529 Washington. New Line is looking for adult men and women aged 17 or older who are strong actors, who sing well, and
Quick Hits ADAM’S OFF OX (4-song demo) Their sound is a blend of groove, sparse beats, world rhythms, hip-hop, reggae, Latin, and rock. Though the songs here are somewhat disparate, they suggest a range that would be worth seeing live. www.adamsoffox.com BAGHEERA: DISTANCE DIVIDED BY RATE (3-song demo) Like fellow indie rockers Rainer Maria, this male-female duo creates smart, quirky songs. Though the production’s a little flat, a nice variety of texture and sounds accompany the sassily sung vocals. www.bagheeramusic.com BIBOWATS: BREAKUP NO. 2 The new Bibowats CD is a catchy, guitardriven gem with strong vocal harmonies. The boys mix things up with their time changes and multitrack effects. Equally satisfying on headphones or blaring from the speakers of your car stereo. www.bibowats.com FIRECRACKER BLONDE: FRICTION Firecracker Blonde’s debut is a highly professional and well-produced alt-rock offering. It’s a little formulaic, a little too much of the vein of Point music—but there’s no denying their talent. www.firecrackerblonde.com KOOKS: TUNES FOR YOU (3-song demo) Despite the deceptive name, this four-piece plays jazzy, world-influenced songs with lots of
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who are willing to take risks onstage. One of the women must be able to play a young bratty girl convincingly. The music for Sunday is challenging, but strong acting is a priority for us. Sunday will be produced at the Art Loft Theatre over four weeks, October 9 to November 1. In other Web radio news, Patrick Rebmann hosts The Local Show from SIUE (http://webradio.siue.edu). He’s looking for people to listen and bands to submit music. E-mail Patrick at localmuse@hotmail.com for details. Poppies 3’s “That Stone” has been selected for the soundtrack of feature film Abdul Loves Cleopatra; the band also makes an appearance in the movie. P3 was also chosen to participate in—and be the cover art on the brochure for— the Mom’s Music Festival held July 22 to 27 at Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. Shine is going into the studio to begin recording their second CD with Darryl McClanahan at AngelFish Studios at the end of summer. It will be a full-length CD (ten songs or so). So far, the band’s new members are Mark Grilliot (bass) and Ben Pitts (drums). Shine is also seeking a second lead guitarist.
bright piano. Toss Ben Folds, Sting, and Phish into a blender and Kooks comes out. LORD BALTIMORE: LORD BALTIMORE (5-song EP) Lord Baltimore is Dave AlanS’ “rock” band, with Trey Guzman on bass and Wesley Nile on drums. The EP is a solid, straightforward rock effort, and manages the capture the energy of the band’s live set. The musicianship is skilled and tight; AlanS’ tongue-in-cheek lyrics are icing on the cake. www.lordbaltimore.net JOHN HENRY PARR: JOHN HENRY PARR This album of quick-tempoed pop songs obviously takes its cue from punk-influenced modern rock. The instrumentation, though solid, sometimes seems a bit rushed. A worthy debut. www.johnhenryparr.com SHINMA: MECHANICAL DREAMS SAMPLER (4-song demo) These four tracks do, indeed, sample lines from DJs and spoken word. The music is heavy industrial dance; the only vocals are the sampled lines incorporated into the dark techno sound. www.shinmamusic.com TOM WEHRLE: SOMETHING YOU CAN’T FIND Tom Wehrle has a high, gentle voice with which he sings earnest, sunshiny pop; you can’t help but like the guy and his music. Behind his words are soaring pianos, guitars, drums, and even kazoos. Highlights include the understated “Finding Ourselves” and the searching “Just a Boy.” www.tomwehrle.com
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THUGS AND CHILDREN
BENJAMIN CAVELL: RUMBLE, YOUNG MAN, RUMBLE (Knopf) In Rumble, Young Man, Rumble (Knopf), Benjamin Cavell’s surprisingly well-blurbed first short story collection (“airtight meditations on American masculinity,” writes Richard Price), blandly macho males enter and exit the boxing ring, pick street fights, play paintball, work out, and play the role of would-be assassins. They say things like “I never killed anybody. But I could,” and “Indecision, kid. It’s what separates us from the animals.” The book’s females are for the most part taken in, posing questions such as “Are you strong?” The answer is obvious (physically, yes; mentally, not so much), and it’s in line with what seems to be the book’s point: the stunted growth of the musclebound. But the reader understands this point the first time most of these characters open their mouths, leaving the remaining pages with little purpose or interest. Part of the problem is that Cavell doesn’t develop these characters from the inside so much as place in their mouths a series of general statements that could belong to anyone (which, of course, could be the point, but it makes for boring reading). The characters’ lines are often either instructional (“In close quarters, the pistol is ideal because of its concealability and ease of use”); inventorial (“We’ll beat them with phone cords and Spirit-breaker riding crops (two for $79.50)”); or completely incidental (“For dinner, Heather had the New Orleans–style catfish with chipotle dipping sauce”). Over the course of the book, these statements simply accumulate, rarely resonating on a larger, more meaningful level. Cavell, 26, produces a few moments of realized prose, but even these sometimes suffer from repetition. After one narrator neatly describes his intimidatingly beefy father (a dinner glass “disappears in his fist”), Cavell hits the same note a few pages later (“He picks up the tie clasp. In his hand it looks like a toothpick”). On the first page, even, there’s room for an editor’s pen: “His face is cratered with acne scars. It looks like the surface of the moon.” The book’s final story, “The Ropes,” is solid. Much more time is spent building the narrator alone, as he recovers from an in-ring bludgeoning,
then touchingly pursues an engaged wealthy girl intrigued by his fighting life. But this in-depth treatment—not held down by the side-cronies who crowded the other stories—just reminds us that the previous stories were of little depth at all. I don’t doubt that Cavell understands the plight of his characters—that their dull lives ruled by muscle-development leave little room for the development of the mind. But the book can’t shake off the characters’ inherent dullness to reveal anything moving or insightful. In the end, the characters’ deadened deliveries—their stock machismo, their lack of having anything original to say—become the book’s. JOSHUA FURST: SHORT PEOPLE (Knopf) There is so much to admire and be moved by in Joshua Furst’s first collection of stories, the brave, thoughtful, and kid-centered Short People (Knopf). It begins, appropriately, with “The Age of Exploration.” It’s summer—a time for “things that haven’t stopped growing”—and two boys inspect the ground, play in the pool, imagine, and generally ride the day, “grass-stained, kool-aid-tongued, starbursting in a limitless world.” The story’s about the boys’ parting, and their meantime adolescent activities provide surprising meaning to their wave goodbye. As the boys drop pebbles from an overpass, Furst writes that they’re “less interested in destruction, in their own ability to destroy, than in the construction that they provoke, in the mystery of creation.” Heady thoughts for kids just roughing around town, but the sentiment works because it’s not about intellect, but about wonder, which for kids is all. “This Little Light,” takes the focus from two boys to just one, Shawn Casper, a nine-year-old awaiting the baptismal pool. The author captures the wandering minds of kids (Shawn’s trying to listen to Preacher Dan, but thinking of what it’d be like to be color-blind), along with their expectation of immediacy (having just been dunked, Shawn “wonders when the feeling of transcendence will kick in”). Transcendence doesn’t, but moral condescension does, lifting Shawn to a religious high horse from which he sneers at his classmates and even his parents (“It’s called covetousness, Mom,” he says at one point). But then come the hormones. He’s handed A Christian Kid’s Guide to Sex, which is
supposed to scare him silly, but, of course, turns him on. Soon he’s steering sessions of late-night onanism, mind-exploring “his beloved—whoever she is—danc[ing] blurry and half-formed in the olive grove of his imagination.” Furst is exact in describing the boy’s interior shifts, and by the end of the long story, Shawn—having dismounted the high horse—is left feeling like something wonderfully inexact—“like a scribble that could mean anything.” Much, that is, like a kid. Furst has a gift for revealing fresh patches in familiar terrain, and he does so throughout the book’s other stories: a shady estranged father on his random drop-in dinner; the insecure character with the much cooler friend; the smothering humiliations of the picked-on. And while Furst’s narrators occasionally let slip lines that sound a bit out of place—a young narrator’s notion that “Scientists should be dispassionate” is one of only three examples in the book—the author succeeds in creating characters both believable and original. In between the stories in Short People is a series of one- or two-page case studies—ominous predictions for young people in danger. “She’ll be ten years old the first time,” one study begins, graphing the creeping onset of a father’s sexual abuse. “She’ll know something’s not right the way she knows smog’s diseased sky: by the sick feeling she has about it later.” Another study, this one on behavioral medication, begins, “He’ll gag and heave, but his parents will force him, twice a day, to swallow, and eventually he’ll appear healed.” These brief interludes—poetic, moving, and relentless—are put into context in the book’s final section. We learn that they’ve come from the pen of another character, a nurse in the second-to-last story, “Failure to Thrive.” I grew immediately angry with Furst for having this single character—a nurse who kills in the guise of love—usurp these studies that had become such a memorable part of the book. It was a surprising, bold choice, and one I’m still not certain improves the book. But credit goes to Furst for creating stories that mattered so much to me. If I hadn’t been so moved by these characters’ stories— and by the author’s penetrating prose throughout the book—I wouldn’t have cared. But I do. —Stephen Schenkenberg
August 2003 ALANNA NASH: THE COLONEL (Simon & Schuster) Every biography doubles as a mystery, and for The Colonel, her latest bio, journalist Alanna Nash has chosen as her subject someone worthy of Conan Doyle: the man known as Colonel Tom Parker (1909–97), the Machiavellian, even Mephistophelian, manager of Elvis Presley. The phrase the man known as should signal the complexity of Nash’s task here. To wit, Parker, who listed Huntington, West Virginia, as his birthplace on a 1937 Social Security form, was born Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk in Breda, Holland. Like the fraudulence of his title, that fact scarcely qualifies as new, and Nash, to be sure, doesn’t present it as such in The Colonel. Rather, she expands on existing information to sometimes astonishing effect. This should come as no surprise, in context. Nash, who covers country music for Entertainment Weekly and who’s written five prior books, devoted six years to crafting the biography at hand. In doing so, she interviewed a mind-boggling number of people, both here and abroad, and conducted research in such arcane places as the Records Reconstruction Branch of the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. (The acknowledgements to the volume cover ten pages, for pity’s sake.) Her diligence bore fruit, at a minimum, regarding two events in Parker’s life: his abrupt departure from Holland and his subsequent discharge from the U.S. Army. “The army doctor had seen this kind of psychotic breakdown before,” Nash notes of the latter. Of the former, she posits a positively Holmes-and-Watson scenario involving a Dutch murder unsolved since 1929. Tantalizing? Quite. Otherwise, Nash’s biography (which tops 300 pages and includes 24 pages of black-andwhite photos) portrays Parker as a Horatio Alger hero gone terribly wrong, a grifter and bully who hit the jackpot yet, in mismanaging Presley, still squandered his esthetic winnings between the slot machine and the door. As a portrait, in short, it’s not so much compelling as devastating. The dust jacket to The Colonel bears a twoshot of its subject and his famous client. The latter, in dress uniform from his own 1958–60 army stint, looks sharp and timeless, befitting perhaps the preeminent secular icon of the last half of the century just past. In contrast, the image of Parker, shown in profile to the sinister, blurs— equally fittingly. With The Colonel, however, Nash has focused that image, further reducing the blurriness of the kingpin behind the King. —Bryan A. Hollerbach
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Dave Eggers Left Bank Books, July 21 Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, not to mention the more recent You Shall Know Our Velocity!, turned up for a talk and signing at Left Bank Books on July 21, the first time that he has been in town since he gave a lecture at Graham Chapel back in early 2001, well before he became the hipster icon that he is today. What was likely the official reason for his book tour is that Velocity has just been released widely in paperback (it got a lot of press last fall because Eggers only made it available through his Web site and independent bookstores), but the unofficial reason for his tour— apparent from either visiting mcsweeneys.net (the Web version of the literary journal that he founded and edits) or from having gone to the signing— is that he wanted to promote the establishment of a student writers’ workshop akin to his growingly famous 826 Valencia out in San Francisco. When Eggers was at Graham Chapel, he put on one hell of a show for the scads of Wash U students in attendance, including, but not limited to, such outrageous stunts as the following: giving a $5 bill to almost everyone in the audience; having his friend, Arthur Bradford (author of the overlooked but fucking brilliant book of short stories entitled Dogwalker) come onstage, read a story, and violently smash a guitar (not in that order); and even calling a professor on stage at a student’s request and chastising him for being too tough. At Left Bank, though, Eggers was much more low-key, but still genuinely entertaining, especially in the generally boring field of author signings. He spent his time updating those in attendance on the current status of his little brother Toph (the “star” of AHWOSG) (he’s helping the disabled at Camp Jabberwocky this summer), reading a new short story he wrote about a 13-year-old who has a crush on his teacher, and explaining the mechanics of running and tutoring in 826. After speaking for nearly an hour and a half, he signed everyone’s books and headed in the direction of his alma mater, the University of Illinois Champaign – Urbana, where he had a signing the next day. The short story was genuinely amusing, as is pretty much everything Eggers has ever published, but even more amusing was the way that Eggers read it. He didn’t read anything at all in his trip to Graham Chapel, so the way that he reads stories was kind of a shock, at least to me. He has this way of reading every sentence like how a high schooler would if he was really trying to get a part in a school play. He even began making fun of himself for the way that he was saying “rabbit” (the teacher had a pet rabbit, if you’re curious), but he failed to notice that he was saying “rabbit” pretty much the exact same
way he was saying “crotch,” a word which was employed at least as frequently as “rabbit.” To while away the time for the people standing in line for autographs (there were a crapload of people there, and Eggers spent a good couple of minutes talking to each one, so the people in the back of the line were there for a very long time indeed), the folks at Left Bank put on the DVD that comes with the newest issue of McSweeney’s, which is made up of all special features and no feature. The bulk of the DVD is writers reading their pieces or something of that nature (I got to see very little of the DVD), including Jesus’s Son scribe Denis Johnson singing his contribution (don’t ask), but then it also features a “Making of the DVD,” a “The Editing of the Making of the DVD,” and even a director’s commentary by Francis Ford Coppola (even though he didn’t direct it) on “The Editing of the Making of the DVD,” not to mention a million other little Might Magazine–esque satirical ideas on the state of DVDs. In spite of all of his antics, though, Eggers’ genuine want to branch out 826 and his love of the children that he tutors at his own branch were the most resonant pieces of the night. After all, how many authors (ridiculously famous and talented ones, at that) have you come across that make an open invitation to stay as long as necessary or even go to get something to eat with anyone in the crowd who claimed to be willing to help him with his cause? If Eggers’ work does not achieve classic status (AHWOSG is already required reading for a large number of freshman English classes at St. Louis–area colleges), perhaps the fact that he founded 826 Valencias all over the United States will make him a figure worthy of studying for all of this coming century’s students. —Pete Timmermann
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WHAT’S GOING O AMERICAN THEATER 416 N. 9th St. • St. Louis, MO 314-231-7000 8/1: David Gray w/Turin Brakes
BB’s JAZZ & BLUES
TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE STARRING ANGELINA JOLIE PARAMOUNT PICTURES, RATED PG-13 NOW PLAYING AT MOST THEATERS Lara Croft is the perfect character for a complex actress like Angelina Jolie. Croft lives fast, loves hard, and is always balls to the wall. She definitely lives life exuberantly. Who’d’ve guessed contemporary film’s most notorious heroine would stem from a computer game? And who would have imagined Jolie so relishing this part? Lara Croft is a heroine in the vein of Ripley in the Alien films or Sarah Connor in the Terminator films. However, Croft has a certain panache and devilish charm that most action heroines lack. Jolie gives her style. Lara Croft thinks, manipulates, and shoots her way through her escapades. This movie would be flat if the supporting cast were not also terrific. Gerald Butler is perfect for the not-so-sure-if-he-is good Sheridan. He is devious, devil-may-care, and sneaky. His scenes with Jolie are believable; he makes this Lothario likable, which is hard to do in action films.
Cradle Of Life is an action film with all the trademarks of the genre. It has a choppy plot, a high suspension-of-disbelief quotient, loosely defined baddies, and ominous apocalyptic peril. All in all, this is a fun time. —Rob Levy
EVANESCENCE WITH COLD, REVIS, & CAUTERIZE AT THE PAGEANT AUGUST 23, 7:30 p.m., all ages TICKETS: $27.50; CALL: 314-726-6161 Though their name means “dissipation,” this band doesn’t look to be fading away any time soon. The group’s debut album, Fallen, has been a mainstay in Billboard’s top ten album chart for over 15 weeks and was recently certified doubleplatinum. Lead singer Amy Lee may only be 20 years old, but the messages in the songs she sings are dark and full of anxiety, suggesting experience beyond her years. —Jeremy Housewright
700 S. Broadway · St. Louis, MO 314-436-5222 www.bbsjazzbluessoups.com 8/1: Leroy Pierson, The Gamble Brothers 8/2: Tom Hall, Bobby Parker Blues Band 8/3: Hard Bop Heritage, Dave Black 8/4: Sessions Big Band, Hot House Sessions 8/5: Tom Hall, Cryin’ Shame 8/6: Alvin Jett & the Hired Help 8/7: Leroy Pierson, Rich McDonough 8/8: Leroy Pierson, Arthur Williams Blues Band 8/9: Eric McSpadden & Margaret Bianchetta, Bennie Smith & the Urban Blues Express 8/10: Hard Bop Heritage, Dave Black 8/11: Sessions Big Band, Hot House Sessions 8/12: Tom Hall, Cryin’ Shame 8/13: Alvin Jett, Arthur Williams Blues Band 8/14: Leroy Pierson, Renee Smith & Solo Blue 8/15: Leroy Pierson, Arthur Williams Blues Band 8/16: Arthur Williams & Larry Griffin, The Bel Airs 8/17: Hard Bop Heritage, Dave Black 8/18: Sessions Big Band, Hot House Sessions 8/19: Tom Hall, Cryin’ Shame 8/20: Pennsylvania Slim Blues Band 8/21: Leroy Pierson, Oliver Sain’s R&B All-Stars 8/22: Leroy Pierson, Soulard Blues Band 8/23: Tom Hall, Michael Burks Blues Band 8/24: Hard Bop Heritage, Dave Black 8/25: Sessions Big Band, Hot House Sessions 8/26: Alvin Jett & the Hired Help 8/28: Leroy Pierson, Oliver Sain’s R&B All-Stars 8/29: Leroy Pierson, Pennsylvania Slim Blues Band 8/30: The Fab Foehners, Bennie Smith & the Urban Blues Express 8/31: Hard Bop Heritage, Dave Black
BERZERKER STUDIOS 3033 Locust · St. Louis, MO 314-652-7300 • www.berzerkerrecords.com
Minutes too Far, Tom Foolery and the Mistakes, Open Mic 8/25: Madahoochi and Friends 8/26: Kind Tuesdays with The Schwag 8/27: TBA 8/28: Olospo w/Riker's Mailbox 8/29: Jake's Leg 8/30: Diggler's Lounge 8/31: Afternoon Show: Losers Make Good w/Hyphen 0, Title Dictates, Open Mic Night
CITY IMPROV 1820 Market St., #250 • St. Louis, MO www.cityimprov.com
ROCKET TO REGAZZI WE REGAZZI AT THE ROCKET BAR AUGUST 15, 9 p.m., 18+ The Chicago trio returns to St. Louis in support of its sophomore release, 2002’s The Ache (SelfStarter Foundation). There’s a bit of Joe Jackson in Anthony Rolando’s voice, and a bit of Prince and the Rolling Stones in Colleen Burke’s bass and Aliana Kalaba’s guitar. The result is an appealing mix of ache and urgency that will get you moving. —Laura Hamlett
BLUEBERRY HILL 6504 Delmar • St. Louis, Missouri 314-727-0880 • www.blueberryhill.com 8/1: Jesse Harris & the Ferdinandos w/Dan Darrah 8/2: Murder City Players 8/13: Jimmy Chamberlain drum clinic 8/14: Chuck Berry 8/16: Steve Davis & the TCB Band 8/23: CD release party: Brandy Johnson & TED (formerly of Colony) w/Kevin Barry 8/28: Kindred the Family Soul
CICERO’S 6691 Delmar • University City, MO 314-862-0009 • www.ciceros-stl.com 8/1: Jake's Leg 8/2: Pepperland 8/3: Afternoon Show: Dead Roseboys 8/4: Madahoochi and Friends 8/5: Kind Tuesdays with the Schwag 8/6: John Mancusso Productions Presents 8/7: Mountain of Venus w/Metaphysical Jones 8/8: Jake's Leg 8/9: Just Add Water, Leo w/Thos 8/10: Afternoon Show: Yur Mom w/Essence of Logic and Supervillian Zero, Open Mic Night 8/11: Madahoochi and Friends 8/12: Kind Tuesdays with the Schwag 8/13: Wayland Sphere w/Cresent Moon Connection & Mr. I 8/14: Lojic and Heiruspecs w/Liquid Groove Theory 8/16: EKe (CD Release w/Dark Water & Cactus Smile) 8/17: Afternoon Show: IQ 22 w/Loser's Luck, The Drive Home, Point of Failing Poetry, Open Mic Night 8/18: Madahoochi and Friends 8/19: Kind Tuesdays with the Schwag 8/20: Midwest Avengers w/TBA 8/21: Doze Mary Pool, Blind Shepperds, Johnny West 8/22: Jake's Leg 8/23: Supercrush w/Greenscene w/Flynova 8/24: Afternoon Show: 4th and Long w/Maralyn High,
JUST TED TED WITH BRANDY JOHNSON & KEVIN BARRY AT BLUEBERRY HILL AUGUST 23, 9 p.m., 21+, $6 Last fall, Colony’s Ted Bruner moved to L.A. to complete the new Colony album. Doing most of the work himself, he found the music heading in a more acoustic direction than Colony fans had grown used to, an “early R.E.M. sound,” according to Bruner. He’s since renamed the band TED—rounded out by drummer Matt Hickenbotham and bassist Steve Nowels—and will be back in town for the CD release. With two other of our town’s finest singer-songwriters on the bill, it’s sure to be a great night of music. —Laura Hamlett
THE CREEPY CRAWL 412 N. Tucker • St. Louis, MO www.creepycrawl.com 8/1: Early Show: Planes Mistaken for Stars, End Game, Riddle of Steel, The Drive Home; Late Show: Inimical Drive CD Release Show w/Wounds, Spatik, A Moment Gone 8/2: Hey Mercedes, Sense Field, Damone, Sountrak 8/3: Early Show: One Last Hope, Proof of Purchase, 4th and Long, Fed Up; Late Show: Bombs Away, The Adversary Workers, Sweet & Easy, 12 Summers Old 8/4: Peelander-Z, The Order Of The Fly, Frankenhookers, Saw Is Family, Hit By A Semi 8/5: Evelynn, This Runs Through, Sine Nomine, Small Town Tragedy, Five Story Fall 8/6: Glasseater, Bayside, Celebrity, Parkridge, The Apology Clause 8/7: Mae, Armor For Sleep, Westcott, Losers Luck 8/10: Dying Fetus, Skinless, Divine Empire, Misery IndexNuclear Blast America Recs, Ornament of Disgrace, All Will Fail 8/12: Neptune, Pat Sayack Assassins, TBA 8/13: A Life Once Lost, One Cycle Occur, Stain of Mind, Scream For Silence (last show), Lack Halo 8/14: 105.7 The Point Presents Year of the Rabbit, Codesven, Ring Cicada 8/15: Early Show: Snobank, Moderndayhero, Saved From Tomorrow, Stateside (formerly 5th Man Down) Late Show: Tree of Woe CD Release Show w/ Sine Nomine, A Picture Book of Saints, 12 Summers Old 8/19: Soilent Green, Black Dahlia Murder, Lickgoldensky, Byproduct 8/20: Brian Jonestown Massacre, TBA 8/30: The Lyndsay Diaries, Casey Reed, TBA 8/31: Sophmore, Bi-Level, Failing English, The Skyline
ENIGMA LOUNGE 15480 Clayton Road • Ballwin, MO www.enigmalounge.com 8/21: TED
FREDERICK’S MUSIC LOUNGE 4454 Chippewa • St. Louis, MO 314-351-5711 • www.fredericksmusiclounge.com 8/1: Snakebite Orphans, Two Cow Garage 8/2: The Swabbies , The Returnables 8/4: FREE MONDAY MOVIES featuring Mel Brooks’ The Twelve Chairs (1970) 8/5: The Ragtime Serenaders, Nobody's Perfect (Kalamazoo, MI), Arcade 8/6: Ragtime Pianist Gale Foehner (no cover), TBA, Scott Follmer 8/7: TBA, Free Noiseday Hootenanny, Open Mic & Jam Session, Host: Jonathan Baer 8/8: Rex Hobart, Mary Alice Wood 8/9: Ray's Vast Basement, John Vecchiarelli 8/11: FREE MONDAY MOVIES 8/12: The Ragtime Serenaders, Spot, Ben Hanna, Jay Goettlemann 8/13: Ragtime Pianist Gale Foehner (no cover),TBA, Squint 8/14: Free Noiseday Hootenanny, Open Mic & Jam Session, Host: Tommy Halloran 8/15: Rowdy Cum Lowdies, Fred's Variety Group 8/16: The SIlvermen, The Leghounds 8/18: FREE MONDAY MOVIES 8/19: The Ragtime Serenaders, The Terranauts, Goldenboy 8/20: Ragtime Pianist Gale Foehner (no cover), Pala Solution, Robert Collins 8/21: Free Noiseday Hootenanny, Open Mic & Jam Session, Host: Bob Reuter 8/22: Diesel Island, Jackhead 8/23: TBA, Citizen's Band 8/26: The Ragtime Serenaders, TBA 8/27: Ragtime Pianist Gale Foehner (no cover), TBA, Tractor Kings 8/28: TBA (no cover), Free Noiseday Hootenanny, Open Mic & Jam Session, Host: Bob Camp 8/29: Honky Tonk Chateau, Pitchfork 8/30: TBA, Rockhouse Ramblers, North Country 8/31: "Bring your jukebox money"
HI-POINTE 1001 McCausland Ave. • St. Louis, MO 314-781-4716 • www.hi-pointe.com 8/4: These Arms Are Snakes 8/20: The Format, The Rocket Summer
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OUR ROUNDUP OF WHAT’S AHEAD FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST Want to SPONSOR next month’s calendar? Call 314-630-6404 for details.
LEMP NEIGHBORHOOD ARTS CENTER
ROCKET BAR
3301 Lemp Ave. • St. Louis, MO 314-771-1096 • www.lemp-arts.org 8/1: Valient Thorr, The Kickass, TBA 8/2: Edipis, Fork Knife Spoon, Deface, Nineteen 8/3: Shitgeist, Sadistic Kids 8/5: Amorous Radio, Bullet Train to Vegas, So Many Dynamos, Tree of Woe 8/7: Wormwood 8/8: Sadaharu 8/9: Karlheinz 8/10: Failing English, Parkridge, The Requiem, National Fire Theory 8/12: Primordial Undermind, Bahrain, Julia Sets, Tone Rodent 8/13: I Collide Orchestra, TBA 8/14: Plan of Attack, a18 8/15: Thousandaire, TCMC, An Albatross, The Sick Lipstick, She Notes the Chariots 8/17: Anchors for Architects, Potomac Accord 8/18: Modern Day Urban Barbarians 8/21: In the Socket 8/22: Becky Stark & Xander Marro Operetta, TBA 8/29: Viki, Mammal, Brain Transplant, TwoLips
2001 Locust St. • St. Louis, MO 314-588-0055 • http://rocketbar.net 8/2: Rye Coalition 8/15: We Regazzi 8/16: Jesse Malin & Rocky Votolato 8/16: The New Amsterdams 8/23: Minus the Bear
MISSISSIPPI NIGHTS 914 N. First St. • St. Louis, MO 314-421-3853 • www.mississippinights.com 8/1: Surreal w/Brian Curran 8/2: Reggie & The Full Effect 8/5: Ziggy Marley 8/7: KSHE Presents Dicky Betts & Great Southern 8/8: Les Nubians w/ Schoolz of Thought & Zap Mama 8/9: Pomeroy CD Release Party 8/10: Nickel Creek 8/15: Panic Attack CD Release Party 8/16: Joe Jackson 8/22: Flynova 8/23: Javier Mendoza 8/25: Stretch Armstrong w/Norma Jean, The Bled, & The Takeover 8/28: The Big Wu 8/29: Side of Fives
SALLY T’S
MINUS THE BEAR AT THE ROCKET BAR AUGUST 23, 9 p.m., 18+ Part jam band, part modern rock, part experimental, and all pleasing, Minus the Bear began as a side project when five members of popular Seattle bands wanted to try something new. Three years later, it’s still going strong, and growing stronger. Nearly a year after the release of Highly Refined Pirates (Suicide Squeeze), a swirling alt-rock gem of sound, voice, and mood, CMJ has named Minus the Bear as a band “on the verge.” Who ever knew songs about girls, drinking, and driving could sound so good? —Laura Hamlett
OFF BROADWAY 3509 Lemp Avenue • St. Louis, MO 314-773 3363 • www.offbroadwaystl.com 8/1: Old Man Joe CD release party 8/2: Joe Hipperson & Steve Kramper w/TBA 8/6: The High Strung w/Dignan 8/7: Dark Water w/Tangerine & My 2 Planets 8/8: Panic Attack w/Spent & The Zeroes 8/9: Nadine w/Gingersol 8/13: Showcase of the Bands 8/15: 7:30 show: Pieta Brown w/Bo Ramsey; 10:00 show: Celia's Big Rock Band 8/16: 7:30 show: Bradley Cole; 10:00 show: Corey Saathoff + The Brain Regiment w/TBA 8/20: The Blazers w/Anchondo & P-Nuckle 8/21: NSAI Songwriters in the Round w/special guest Pat Liston 8/22: THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS 8/23: 7:30 show: Darryl Purpose w/Tim Grimm; 10:00 show: Kip Loui & the Town Criers w/Salt of the Earth 8/29: Pernice Brothers w/Peter Bruntnell & Larissa Dalle
THE PAGEANT 6161 Delmar Blvd. • St. Louis, MO 314-726-6161 • www.thepageant.com 8/1: The Missouri Black Expo Gala w/Boney James 8/2: Weird Al Yankovic (two shows) 8/3: G. Love and Special Sauce 8/5: Jason Mraz & Liz Phair w/Sondre Lerche 8/9: Core Project, Lojic, Anchondo 8/11: The Human League 8/15: Sister Hazel 8/22: Little Feat 8/23: Evanescence, Cold, Revis, Cauterize
POP’S 1403 Mississippi Ave. • Sauget, IL www.popsrocks.com 8/7: Kottonmouth Kings 8/8: Anthrax 8/9: DVD Release Party w/The Brews 8/12: Type O Negative
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6 Main St. • St. Peters, MO 636-397-5383 • www.sallyts.com 8/2: Aaron James Band w/Maxtone Four & Two Cow Garage 8/5: Girls Acoustic Open Mic Night 8/6: Westscott w/Start December 8/7: Another Kind of Hero, So Called Something, Until Tomorrow 8/8: Em Grueve 8/9: Auk, Inimical Drive 8/12: Mental Floss 8/13: Decluded, TBA 8/14: Spring Loaded, Where's Waldo 8/15: B. Koolman, The Barnacles, Jonny Fox 8/16: Spring Clock Wonder, Failure to Thrive 8/21: Gammits, Anti Dyer, Straight to Your Brain 8/22: Doze Mary Pool 8/23: Supergod Showcase 8/29: Parts Per Million, Lung Dust, Garden 9
SAVVIS CENTER 1401 Clark Ave. • St. Louis, MO www.savviscenter.net 8/9: Cher 8/15: Fleetwood Mac
SHELDON CONCERT HALL 3648 Washington Blvd. • Saint Louis, MO 314-533-9900 • www.sheldonconcerthall.org 8/1: Steve Brinberg is…Simply Barbra 8/8: Fontella Bass 8/15: Aska Koneko and Friends 8/21: Kevin Spirtas from Broadway to Hollywood 8/22: Kevin Spirtas from Broadway to Hollywood 8/23: Jazz Explosion
THREE-1-THREE 313 East Main St.• Belleville, IL 618- 239-6885 • www.three-1-three.com 8/1: Bear Claw, Helicopter Helicopter 8/2: Jeffery Simmons and the Symptoms, Amsterdamband 8/9: Mandown 8/13: Piedmont Charisma, Spring Clock Wonder 8/29: Burn Disco Burn
UMB BANK PAVILION
PHOTO: DUNN
HE’S THE MAN JOE JACKSON AT MISSISSIPPI NIGHTS AUGUST 16, 9 p.m., all ages TICKETS: $30, CALL: 314-534-1111 The original Joe Jackson Band—Jackson, Graham Maby (bass), Gary Sanford (guitar) and Dave Houghton (drums)—has reunited for a new album and tour. In part, this is to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the band’s formation and the recording of Look Sharp. However, this is not just an exercise in nostalgia, since the band has recorded a whole album of new songs, Volume 4. Playback St. Louis saw them in Austin at SXSW and was thoroughly impressed by this quarter-century-old band that sounded more vital than many of the new bands out there today. —Jim Dunn
14141 Riverport Dr. • Maryland Heights, MO 314-298-9944 • www.riverport.com 8/1: Toby Keith 8/8: 311 8/9: Chicago 8/10: Neil Young & Crazy Horse w/Lucinda Williams 8/16: James Taylor 8/23: Sammy Hagar w/Michael Anthony & Montrose 8/24: Radiohead
THE WAY OUT CLUB 2525 S. Jefferson Ave. • St. Louis, MO 314-664-7638 • www.wayoutclub.com 8/1: Leadville, Palookaville, Wormwood Scrubs 8/2: Hail Marys, Sonic Reducers, Hearts of Darkness 8/6: Aintry 8/7: Bug 8/8: Thee Fine Lines, Gentleman Callers, Thee Lordly Serpents (all-day event) 8/9: Kings of Pop, Patcee Decline (all-day event) 8/13: Eyes of Space 8/15: The Round Ups, The Outlaw Family Band 8/16: El Mail Boxo 8/19: The Whole Sick Crew 8/20: Squint 8/21: Pitchfork 8/23: Trip Daddys, Dead Celebrities 8/26: Countach
SONDRE LERCHE WITH JASON MRAZ & LIZ PHAIR AT THE PAGEANT AUGUST 5, 7:30 p.m., all ages TICKETS: $20, CALL: 314-726-6161 Bergen, Norway, is unquestionably one of the most exciting musical cities on earth right now, Norway is quietly exporting one delightful, dazzling artist after another, each distinct from the rest. Meet Sondre Lerche, the 20-year-old singersongwriter whose debut, Faces Down, has been hailed as a remarkably rich, sophisticated song cycle for one in such an early stage of his career. The praise is justified; the album is a peerless example of assured musical (and literate!) craftsmanship, with a blend of warmth and wisdom (and plain old-fashioned tunefulness) impossible to imagine coming from any American popster in Lerche’s age bracket. Reached by phone between tour dates, Lerche, who speaks in perfect, fluent English, expressed gratitude for the acclaim his work has earned so far. “It’s very nice that they realize the difference between me and…whoever else is popular at that age,” he said. “My music is based on my references and my discovery, on what I really love and cherish.” Creating his debut, the boyishly handsome Norwegian drew inspiration from the multi-layered craftsmanship of veterans like Elvis Costello. “At the time I was planning this recording, the songs were very influenced by Elvis Costello—I was fascinated by all of his different projects, from the Bacharach record to his early stuff to the Brodsky Quartet. The focus for him is always on the delivery of his songs—his telling of the story, and the performance. But the arrangement surrounding it could be anything from his guitar to a whole orchestra.” In comparing the massive amount of press given to Swedish bands versus the more erratic attention accorded Norway’s artists, Lerche commented, “I think Sweden has a more advanced music industry. The bands [have] been able to get their name out there. But the best music, or what is most appealing, is not always what the media…or the audience sees. The people who scream the loudest are not always the brightest.” It’s a fitting sentiment for a remarkable young songwriter who has no need to shout—his music has the kind of sparkle that is sure to illuminate the ears and hearts of fans far and wide.
www.sondrelerche.com —Kevin Renick
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PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS
Backstage Pass The fans are overwhelmingly white. The parking lots outside the events tell of a gigantic subculture formed around lore and memorabilia (and, in Phish’s case, nitrous oxide). And even though they sell out enormous venues in such burgeoning metropolises as East Troy, Wisconsin, you wouldn’t learn much about them from anyone in standard media. (Incidentally, there was one other major gathering in that neck of the woods the same weekend; it went by the name of “Country Thunder.”) Despite their popularity, nobody thinks of them as mainstream. I’ve heard Phish described, in fact, with the exact same phrase that one of my Alabama relatives once used in regard to stock-car racing: “Either you get it or you don’t.” In the interests of disclosure, I seem to be one of those that gets Phish. Don’t, worry though; I’m not going to try to explain it to you. Many Phishheads are defensive about their band and love to preach their gospel, but it just doesn’t work that way. Phish’s music—a weird amalgam of classic rock, jazz, funk, classical, reggae, and bluegrass—rewards affection and close scrutiny (hence a fan base that loves to discuss the relative merits of the 12/6/96 “Weekapaug Groove” and the 6/28/00 “Bathtub Gin”) but deflects advocacy. If I spend this review trying to convert you, not only will it not work, but also I will soon discover a scarlet “PH” on my forehead that earns me the eternal scorn of self-respecting music critics everywhere. So I won’t do that. One thing, though: their most clichéd defense is true. First you have to see them. Literally. Seeing lighting director Chris Kuroda at work is a joy unto itself. By interacting so skillfully with the intricate turns of a song like “David Bowie,” he undoubtedly becomes a fifth band member. That he can anticipate the second-by-second whims of a band so opposed to scripted performances that they don’t preplan their set lists is nothing short of amazing. The cacophonous vocal jam at the end of this weekend’s “You Enjoy Myself” would be worthless on CD, but in person, one could see that they were simply following Kuroda’s lead. Hands-down, the best light show in the business. As for the music itself, it’s pretty clear that Phish’s main attraction is its utter lack of predictability. My favorite moment from this weekend came in an overcrowded men’s bathroom before the first show, playing call-the-opener with 30 or so full-bladdered guys who all seemed to know which songs kicked off each of the past six or seven shows. Nobody guessed “Axilla Part I,” though. I’ve still never heard anyone correctly call a Phish opener. Spontaneity is a difficult trait to maintain over 18 years, but the Vermont quartet—who used to come off as egalitarian but are now clearly led in every way by guitarist Trey Anastasio—seems to have it down to a science. There was something for everyone this weekend: the quirky brilliance of “The Mango Song,” the seamless segue from the Velvet Underground’s “Rock and Roll” to their own “Seven Below,” the steadily building radiance of “Bathtub Gin,” and the 20-minute-plus navigations of “Down With Disease” and “Piper.”
from page 17
Phish’s neatest improvisational trick is to careen into dissonance as a way of building anticipation. To an untrained ear, it might sound at first like they’re stumbling badly, all four members at once, but they tug it back to the original theme, one by one. Kuroda follows suit, sending the lights in disarray to feign confusion before rejoining the band with a flourish. They call it “tension-and-release” playing, aptly enough, and the crowd eats it up. No other band I’ve seen does this (although Widespread Panic tries). It was during such a moment in “Reba,” the second song on the second day of this gorgeous weekend at Alpine Valley, that I spotted a girl about 15 feet in front of me in the tightly packed crowd receiving medical attention. Not an uncommon sight at so-called jam band shows: a bad trip resulting from excess of one drug or another, or a mixture of too many. Blah blah blah, kids these days, blah blah. But my question: for a band whose charge is to make every show memorable (as they did this weekend, helped in part by a solo rendition of Kansas’s “Dust in the Wind” on vacuum—seriously), why medicate oneself past the point of being able to remember? —Taylor Upchurch
Summer Sanitarium Tour Edward Jones Dome, July 25 It would be nice to say that the last big summer rock show to roll through St. Louis was the best, but in truth, it was far from that. The Deftones were the most disappointing act of the night. The band played for a mere half hour and the music was just plain boring. If not for lead singer Chino Moreno jumping around and flailing out high-pitched screams one after the other, some of the crowd may have fallen asleep. Linkin Park was the only band that performed to my expectations. The group played an hour-long set and the crowd really got into it. Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington both have a certain powerful presence on stage that is engaging to watch. After Linkin Park, it seemed that business would pick up, as Limp Bizkit was back in St. Louis for the first time in nearly three years. I had to admit; I had looked forward to this day for a long time. As an avid Limp Bizkit fan, I had been both nervous and anxious to hear new material since the departure of guitarist Wes Borland. As the group took the stage, with new guitarist Mike Smith in tow, Fred Durst appeared to have hit the weights in his time off—in addition to his much-publicized fling with Britney Spears, which he mentioned at the show. Smith's guitar added a much-needed heavier metal sound to the group's music. Limp Bizkit sounds more like they did early in their career, which is a good thing. Durst pulsated with anger and fury throughout the group's whole performance. I have to admit, though, I was a bit disappointed with the performance. Left off the set list were noteworthy songs "Rollin'," "Boiler," "Counterfeit," and "Stuck." Also, there was no new music, only a sign that read "New Album Fall 2003." After Bizkit left the stage, there was a 60-minute break until Metallica actually appeared. The group played for nearly two hours, and many of the older fans sang along to every song. It was almost like being with a group of cult followers—very unique and memorable, to say the least. I enjoyed hearing the older songs, such as "One," "Master of Puppets," and "Sanitarium." However, Metallica played only two songs from their new album, St. Anger. All in all, it was a disappointing night of music. Deftones and Limp Bizkit did not live up to my expectations and, truth be told, the Ed is just not a great concert venue; a metal show like the Sanitarium tour is meant for an outdoor place, not indoor. Despite one of the poorer performances I have witnessed from Bizkit, I still consider them to be my favorite band. Still, their new sound is promising; metal fans should be ready for the "old" Limp Bizkit to return this fall. Metallica showed why they are one of the biggest bands in the world, and that also may have had something to do with the high ticket prices. For a tour with so much promise and hype, it was mostly a letdown. —Jeremy Housewright
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