PLAYBACK:st June 2003

june 2003

1

An Alternate Country Grammar

By Bryan A. Hollerbach A city perennially betwixt and between, St. Louis makes an ideal hotbed for country music.

That assertion might well nonplus those who pigeonhole the Lou as nothing more than Nelly’s hometown. With all due respect to the hip-hop hierophant behind Country Grammar, however, many other sounds resonate hereabouts— and many of those sounds involve the genre once defined by the late, great Harlan Howard as “three chords and the truth.”

Consider, then, St. Louis as country hotbed.

In that consideration, appropriately enough, the city’s often infuriating indeterminacy, which has helped to relegate it to the status of a metropolitan also-ran during the past century, has made it a prime locus for fostering such music. In a nutshell, the metro area still retains enough of its rural roots to inhabit the traditional content of country, while enjoying sufficient urban amenities to satisfy formal demands of mass production, promotion, and distribution.

From a sociopolitical perspective, this seems apt, given the probable (or, at a minimum, possible) reasons for country’s continuing popularity. In Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’, his 2002 tome on the genre and the working class, scholar nonpareil Bill C. Malone discusses the attraction of that genre in terms of its abiding authenticity: “This taste for ‘authenticity’ in music may have been part of a larger quest made by baby boomers to reconnect with the simpler, hands-on culture that was being lost in America’s rapid acceptance of technology and in the flight to homogeneity in suburban shopping malls and neighborhoods.”

The firestorm impact of technology (with its myriad corporate ramifications) and the homogenizing effect of suburbia: surely few other factors have more defined St. Louis in the past four or five decades. To be sure, other cities have suf-

fered the same or similar depredations without, perhaps, embracing country to such an extent.

Also to be sure, St. Louis has never had the reputation for fostering that genre enjoyed by Nashville, Bakersfield, Austin, or even Springfield, Missouri (which once might have rivaled Music City, a recent two-part article in The Journal of Country Music argues). That said, a quick review of the evidence suggests Nellyville has nevertheless acquitted itself respectably.

By way of example, the Country Music Foundation’s monolithic Country: The Music and the Musicians notes in passing that a Grand Ole Opry–style radio program entitled the Old Fashioned Barn Dance originated circa 1930 from none other than the self-styled “voice of St. Louis,” KMOX. The same source reports that as early as 1931, a trio called the Vagabonds decamped from St. Louis to Nashville to perform on WSM, “where they became, next to Uncle Dave Macon, the Opry’s most popular act.” Over time, various country artists have been born here as well, among them songwriter and guitarist Kenneth Ray “Thumbs” Carllile (now all but forgotten) and producer, songwriter, and musician T-Bone (né John Henry) Burnett.

Somewhat more recently, the Gateway City also gave the world the Kendalls, who rose to prominence during the ’70s with the Grammywinning single “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away” and other works. (Notably, just this past February, the surviving half of that father-daughter duo, Jeannie Kendall, released her first solo CD, an eponymous effort from Rounder Records.)

More recently still, the metropolitan area has produced such country-oriented performers as Belle Starr, the Bottle Rockets, Chris Mills, Nadine, the New Patrons, One Fell Swoop, Raven Moon, Bob Reuter, Son Volt, Wagon, Mary Alice Wood, and (an almost obligatory reference) Uncle Tupelo, and even newer acts have

PROFILE begun to attract attention of late: Fred’s Variety Group, Magnolia Summer, the Roundups.

Regarding the alternate country grammar being codified even now hereabouts, these and other musicians number among the grammarians.

Abetting that codification has been the tendency of certain local venues to cultivate authentic country from here and abroad; in particular, Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room, Frederick’s Music Lounge, and Off Broadway support performers in the genre, as do the Pageant and the Sheldon Concert Hall & Ballroom. With such programs as Keith Dudding’s Down Yonder, Fred Gumaer’s Mid-Day Jamboree, and Kip Loui’s The Back Country, meanwhile, FM radio oasis KDHX remains a strong source of music for devotees of that genre.

Finally and perhaps most signally, for the past seven springs, St. Louis has hosted Twangfest, a nationally heralded celebration of Americana that runs this year from June 4 to 7. Regarding this last proof of the city’s sub rosa devotion to country, of course, cognoscenti will mark an irony: Twangfest 7 will rock St. Louis roughly concurrent with Nashville’s annual Fan Fair. The former will feature acts like the Rockhouse Ramblers (profiled in this issue of Playback St. Louis); the latter, Brooks & Dunn. “A word to the wise guy,” quoth Mr. Burroughs.

Nadine, Bottle Rockets pictures: Steven Vance Kenneth Ray “Thumbs” Carllile

WHEN THE

CULTURE POPS

Playback St. Louis Pop Culture

In June...we’re there Publisher Two Weasels Press LLC

GLOSSARY June 5, Off Broadway Last October, we piled into Frederick’s in response to an EP sent to us from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts contained five very convincing reasons to see Glossary; by the end of the night, we had found many more.

That night, the sextet played the five songs of lonesome want and need, and roughly a dozen others that equaled the EP’s quality in both music and writing. Now that the EP has become an LP, How We Handle Our Midnights (reviewed on page 9 of this issue), you won’t want to miss this talented band.

SONIC YOUTH

June 17, the Pageant Borrowing heavily from the free-form noise experimentalism of the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, and melding it with a performance-art aesthetic borrowed from the New York post-punk avant garde, Sonic Youth redefined what noise meant within rock ’n’ roll. Sonic Youth rarely rocked, though they were inspired directly by hardcore punk, postpunk, and no wave. Instead, their dissonance, feedback, and alternate tunings created a new sonic landscape, one that redefined what rock guitar could do. (All Music Guide) As their career progressed, their more free-form songs began to feel like compositions and their shorter works began to rock harder. Last year’s Murray Street continues in their tradition of greatness.

Contents Profile An Alternate Country Grammar . . . . . . . . . . .1 Scott Miller . . . . . . . . . .3 On the Road Coachella Festival . . . . .4 The Faint . . . . . . . . . . .5 Play by Play . . . . .6 Trey Anastasio, Arab Strap, Blue October, Blur, Blue October, Boomkat, Glossary, Ed Harcourt, the Honeyshakers, Idlewild,

Ilya, the New Pornographers, Nothingface, Serengeti, Spring Clock Wonder, Gillian Welch, the Yardbirds Quick Hits . . . . . .9 The Floating City, Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham, Sevenstar, Tomahawk, Wydown Backstage Pass . .10 AFI, Guided by Voices, So Many Dynamos, Tonic, Patty Larkin, Ween,

Elliot Goes . .

Concrete Blonde, AllAmerican Rejects, Robert Local Scenery Randolph and the Family Band Curmudgeon . .

Three to See . . . .12 College Radio Cover Story . . . .14 Confessions . .

Rockhouse Ramblers Take Five . . . . .

Now Playing . . . .16 Jason Ringenberg Bruce Almighty, Finding Page by Page . .

Nemo, L’Auberge Espagnole Don DeLillo, Play’s the Thing .20 William Rivers Pitt City Players’ You Are Here .

The Homecoming Crossing the River

. .20 . .21 . .22 . .23 . .24 . .25 . .26

Managing Editor Laura Hamlett Associate Editor/Art Director Jim Dunn Contributing Editors Bryan A. Hollerbach/Kevin Renick Contributing Writers Amy Bidz, Jim Dunn, Rick Eubanks, Becky Gehling, Jessica Gluckman, Laura Hamlett, Dan Heaton, Bryan A. Hollerbach, Jeremy Housewright, Mandy Jordan, John Kujawski, Joel Lapp, Rob Levy, Jon McSweeney, Wade Paschall, Kevin Renick, Stephen Schenkenberg, Pete Timmermann, Ross Todd, Rev. Mike Tomko, Michele Ulsohn, Taylor Upchurch, Ben Weinstein, Mike Zapf, Rudy Zapf Contributing Photographers Jennifer Carr, Danielle Giessmann, Joel Lapp, Steven Vance Cover Photograph by Steven Vance Printing by Kohler and Sons Inc. Nancy Allen • 314-428-9800 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.

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june 2003

3

Southern-Fried Fun Scott Miller and the Commonwealth Get Set to Rock Twangfest 7 Into the History Books

By Ross Todd Singer. Songwriter. Fighter of Floods?

Clearly, Scott Miller is a modern-day renaissance man. As we talked, Miller sopped up the temporary well also known as his basement in Knoxville (pronounced knocks-vul in East Tennessee).

“Yeah, we had about six inches of rain in 36 hours. They said all our reservoirs are full, so I decided to keep as much as I could in my fuckin’ basement,” said Miller in his playful Southern drawl.

St. Louis can see Miller at work sopping up the last moments of this year’s Twangfest on June 7, at midnight at Blueberry Hill.

Wise Guy Miller is equal parts jester and genius. Before graduating from William and Mary with a degree in Russian and history, Miller put his college’s career services department to the test. “I walked in there a few weeks before I graduated and I was like ‘Hey, how do I get a job with the post office?’” Miller said with a chuckle.

At the onset of his musical career, Miller put this gruff wit to use delighting audiences on the singer/songwriter circuit across the Mid-South.

Early in his career, Miller joined forces with a talented group of Knoxville musicians to form the V-Roys. Critics and radio programmers struggled to find a category for the band. Equal parts bang and twang, the V-Roys found their home in the alt-country bins like countless other bands that defied labels. (Let the record state, Scott Miller does not own a single Uncle Tupelo album.)

The band eventually signed to Steve Earle’s ESquared label and produced two solid LP efforts, Just Add Ice and All About Town, and a live swan song, Are You Through Yet? The band faded into Knoxville’s collective memory with a marathon farewell concert at the turn of the millennium.

Miller considers the whole V-Roys experience a time of learning. “That was the first rock ’n’ roll band I was in. Before that, I was solo, the obnoxious singer/songwriter guy. I learned how to plug in the guitar,” said Miller. “A lot of how the business is screwy was pretty quickly learned. Didn’t faze me, though.”

A Commonwealth of Knowledge Since his time with the V-Roys, Miller has progressed as a songwriter and frontman. He now records and tours as Scott Miller and the Commonwealth. “It’s all on my shoulders now,” Miller says. The Commonwealth’s latest incarna-

tion consists of Miller on guitar and vocals, Shaun McWilliams on drums, Eric Fritsch on keyboards, and Clark Chisholm on bass. Upside Downside finds the ensemble creating a body of songs that, Miller said, “sound more like me than anything I’ve ever done.”

Miller continues to grow more comfortable with his niche. “I didn’t make it for radio; I tried to make a record you can sit down and put your third eye on, listen to and it’ll take care of you,” said Miller “It’s an album you can let go in the background and make spaghetti to.”

The album features a guest appearance by singer/songwriter Patty Griffin. “She can still write better than anybody,” Miller said. “Then she can sing it better than anybody.”

In addition, Miller got legendary fiddle player Tim O’Brien into the studio again. “You know, I worked with Tim on my last record,” Miller added. “For years I was a pure knucklehead about him, bumper sticker and all. Still, I’m always like, ‘Gaw, you’re so good.’”

After yielding some creative control to producers in the past, Miller took a seat alongside bandmate Eric Fritsch in the producer’s chair for this latest recording session. “This was finally a chance for me to show my limitations right out there in front of everybody,” says Miller. “I tried to model it after my two favorite Neil Young records: On the Beach and American Stars and Bars. It’s as analog as it can be in this day and age.” Miller later poked fun at himself, noting, “Here I model after albums that are Neil Young’s lowest-selling.”

The album should provide enough sad songs to fill beer mugs and enough rockers to peel paint in the Duck Room. “Can we turn our guitars up loud and have a good time there?” Miller asked. When he found out Blueberry Hill is a regular home to Chuck Berry, Miller quipped, “Fuckin’ A. Then we’ll be fine.”

The Road Ahead In spite of the bumps in the road, Miller is hopeful for the future and excited to tour behind the new record. He admitted, “I still don’t think I’ve written my best songs, and I still think there are better ways to produce me, and I am hoping that I get a chance.”

Miller admits if, given his druthers, he would have the career of Shakira. “I would just stare at my own ass,” he joked. But he’s quick to ask, “She writes her own songs, doesn’t she?”

Miller also has an ingenious recipe for an artist who would make it to the mainstream.

Take one unnamed part of Shakira, add one part Avril Lavigne for attitude, and a little Jerry Lee Lewis to “keep it real.” The result is a new subgenre Miller dubbed “pure-ass porn rock.”

“Forget alt-country,” he said, laughing. “I wanna be porn rock.”

“I’d like to think it’s all about good songs,” Miller later conceded, “no matter what genre.”

Labels aside, Scott Miller and the Commonwealth will close out Twangfest 7 on Saturday, June 7, at midnight in Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room. The new album from Scott Miller and the Commonwealth, Upside Downside, is due out June 10.

PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS

4

Coachella Festival

MEG WHITE of THE WHITE STRIPES

Soakin’ Up the Desert Sun

By Joel Lapp Playback St. Louis hit the road to run around the desert at Indio, California’s Coachella Festival this April. Every time you see an act on one stage of the annual event, you miss four others…but here’s a taste of what Joel Lapp saw and heard while the sand wasn’t in his eyes.

Ian Mackaye (FFugazi, Minor Threat) hosted two Q&A sessions that were both well-attended, considering the fact that four live acts were onstage at the same time. He fielded questions from the audience on topics such as the role of counterculture, the history and philosophy of Dischord Records, and even his own presence at a high-priced music festival.

The Rapture provided a resonant kickoff performance with a remarkable percussion section that actually shocked a crowd of merry hipsters into dancing.

Howlin’ Pete had the sun-soaked crowd in stitches with his mockery of their California lifestyle, and the Hives’ enthusiastic set perfectly matched Randy Fitzsimmons’ cocksure Jaggeresque stage strutting.

Hot Hot Heat were plagued by severe technical problems, yet put a lot of energy into what turned out to be one of the best (and sweatiest) shows of the weekend.

As excited as I was for Ladytron’s performance, tech difficulties pushed the performance back at least an hour, and I eventually wandered away, shaking my fist at the gods of sound and lighting.

Local hero Ben Harper, best loved for his intensely focused (and seated) live performances, actually drew a collective (albeit stoned) gasp from fans by spending the majority of the show standing at the microphone and dancing around the stage.

The Beastie Boys made it onstage without the use of walkers, then bounced back and forth between MCA’s rants on the war/Bush/imperialism situation and snippets of their hits as Mixmaster Mike impressively battled the windy conditions that literally blew records right off his turntables.

The Polyphonic Spree is a group of at least 37,142 people in robes who sing and play instruments in a very “Jim Jones told us to pick up some grape Kool-Aid” kind of way. The screeching noise coming from their direction was not exactly my cup of tea, but a lot of people seemed

IGGY POP

into it. And quite a few of them were skipping, for some reason.

The Von Bondies play great rock ’n’ roll music and look as if they do as well. Plus the legendary Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads was manning the boards and is producing their album, so expect to hear a lot from them soon.

I won’t even begin to describe how amazing Sonic Youth still is. Go to the Pageant June 17 and see for yourself.

After their set was cut short because of Ladytron’s problems, the Libertines played to an anxious crowd on Sunday afternoon. I definitely prefer this band live, and some similarity to Simon LeBon left me with “Rio” in my head for the rest of the day. It may have just been the singer’s hat. Fancy.

Perry Farrell performed a surprise DJ/vocal set at the smallest tent, distinguishing him as the

JOHN FRUSCIANTE of the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

only artist to have appeared in each of the four Coachella Festivals.

Jack White threw a quick tantrum when his monitors went out at the start of an otherwise stellar White Stripes performance, which included drummer Meg stepping out from her drum kit to sing for a bit.

The reunion of Iggy & the Stooges was easily the highlight of the festival. Iggy is 56 years old; the Asheton brothers look a bit more like computer programmers than rock revolutionaries these days. Yet somehow, it was like seeing them in the days of Fun House. With Mike Watt taking up duties on bass, they tore through the first two Stooges records. Last year at the same festival, the (International) Noise Conspiracy paid tribute to the band with their superb cover of “TV Eye,” but it paled in comparison to the real deal.

june 2003

5

Backstage Pass

O N THE ROAD

The Faint

FISCHERSPOONER’s WARREN FISCHER JACK WHITE of THE WHITE STRIPES

BEN HARPER

HOT HOT HEAT’s STEVE BAYS

THE RAPTURE’s LUKE JENNER

Thanks to great speed, agility, and well-honed mapping skills, I caught a few songs on the main stage finale by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, then sadly ran past Interpol on my way to Fischerspooner, the most perfect show of theatrical excess and pomposity one could dream of.

See ya next year!

All photos by Joel Lapp, except Fischerspooner photo by Danielle Giessman.

Agora Theatre, Cleveland, Ohio, May 14 Red stage lights signaled the imminent appearance of the Faint, Omaha’s techno-dance quintet. Behind the equipment, two screens filled the back wall, emitting a quiet blue light. The rabid audience, crammed into the Agora Theatre, screamed with excitement and anticipation.

And with good reason: the Faint are not a band to be taken lightly.

Though their music evokes an ’80s nostalgia with its keyboards, vocal distortions, and steady beats, Todd and Clark Baechle and Co. somehow manage to make it fresh, to combine the best of genres: electronica, dance, new wave, goth, punk, with perhaps a little emo thrown into the mix (this is a Saddle Creek artist, after all). More British than American in sound, the band even go as far as to use Anglicized spelling when possible. They are still touring, in a manner of speaking, on their 2001 release, Danse Macabre (Saddle Creek)—this year saw the release of Danse Macabre Remixes (Astralwerks), featuring remixes by Paul Oakenfold, Ursula 1000, Medicine, and Photek, among others.

This was the Faint’s first time in Cleveland (they have yet to come through St. Louis), and the twentysomething crowd was stoked. As the band took the stage, the blue screens behind them turned into a split-screen video projection that lasted the duration of the show, meticulously choreographed to correspond with each song. photo courtesy Saddle Creek They opened with strong dance numbers, “Glass Danse” and “Your Retro Career Melted” from Danse Macabre and “Call Call” from 1999’s Blank Wave Arcade (Saddle Creek). Singer Todd Baechle played the occasional keyboard and covered the stage, cordless mic in hand, as he delivered the words with charisma and confidence.

Throughout the show, they kept the spotlights to a minimum; this way, the band members were silhouetted by the video screens behind them. It made for captivating viewing, making me instantly appreciate All Music Guide’s description of the band’s concerts as having “a seizure-inducing D.I.Y. live light show and incorrigible on-stage energy.” During some songs, the backing images flickered and shifted rapidly, like a slide show on speed.

At times, the band had built some of its lyrics into the images; truly, these were short, artsy films in and of themselves.

During one of the newer numbers, “Paranoia Attack,” the accompanying video featured doctored newscasts in which the anchors mouthed the words that Baechle sang; it was really well done, too, not like those spoofs on latenight TV. “Worked Up So Sexual,” the Faint’s song of strippers—actually, more an inflection of guilt to those who frequent strip clubs—was backed by a barrage of male nipples, flashing onscreen left, right, left...

The band members—aside from brothers Todd (vocals) and Clark (drums), the Faint includes Joel Peterson (bass), Jacob Thiele (keyboards), and Dapose (guitar)—were all clad in black, save for Thiele, who wore a tan skeleton T-shirt. They all moved to the rhythm, especially Dapose when he wasn’t playing. In short, they all enjoyed the hell out of themselves—and the audience did, too.

The first encore song featured Todd Baechle alone onstage, lit by a lone yellow light, as he delivered “Ballad of a Paralysed Citizen.” Unlike previous deliveries, he remained stolid, microphone in its stand, his hands at his sides. Video for “The Conductor” had a theme of unrest, as riots, fires, segregation, and soldiers marching represented the intense control of the orchestra conductor. For their final song, the Faint played what is probably their best-known song, “Agenda Suicide.” As the house lights came up, the crowd was still cheering.

—Laura Hamlett

PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS

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P L AY P L AY

BY

TREY ANASTASIO: PLASMA (Elektra) In the end, it’s all about “Inner Tube,” a studio/concert hybrid composition that changes pace frenetically over 22 minutes. Phish honcho Trey Anastasio and his nine-piece orchestra have thrown together a crazy enough bouillabaisse in “Inner Tube” to beat Medeski Martin and Wood at their own jazz-funk-electronica game.

If it weren’t stashed near the end of the second disc of the double-live release Plasma, “Inner Tube” might have even had the chance to preach to someone other than the jam-band choir. Since the whole point of Plasma is to hit you with the highlights of Anastasio’s solo work in 2002—the other tracks come from various concert and soundcheck performances—“Inner Tube” really cuts to the chase in one sense with its cut-andpasted style, though in the more literal sense, it takes over 20 minutes to cut to the chase.

While Phish has done well simply to maintain their exploratory mojo since their hiatus ended in December, Anastasio’s solo progress has richly rewarded anyone who’s been paying attention. Compare the Plasma version of the Cubanboppy “Mozambique” to one from just a year earlier: Anastasio has fleshed out the horn section’s role and added extra sections with more nuances in tone, energy, and volume. Plasma is really just a benchmark in the ongoing development of the sounds in Anastasio’s head.

The biggest drawback to Plasma is also the

most obvious: there’s no visual aspect. Anastasio is a joy to watch onstage, using all kinds of sign language to direct his players (a keyboardist, percussionist, drummer, bassist, and five horn blowers). It’s one thing to listen to the lengthy jam in “Night Speaks to a Woman” and dismiss it as self-indulgent noodling, but it’s something else to realize that virtually every twist and turn comes on the spur of the moment from Anastasio’s direction. That’s self-indulgence on a whole ’nother level, but infinitely more engrossing, too.

As with all worthwhile works of improvisation, there are the inevitable missteps: “First Tube” and “Sand” pale in comparison to their Phish incarnations, and no matter what your fancy, Anastasio’s spotlight-hogging guitar style can wear thin after two hours. That’s why the instrumental arrangements of Bob Marley’s “Small Axe” and Phish’s “Magilla” make Plasma a winner by themselves: they’re short and understated, a most welcome change of pace. When Anastasio does take his hands off the guitar for even a few moments, the focus shifts to his songwriting and compositional skills. That shift is becoming more and more welcome as the years go by.

—Taylor Upchurch ARAB STRAP: MONDAY AT THE HUG & PINT (Matador) It would be bad form to write off Arab Strap as just another musical export in the so-called Scottish invasion. Like their cohorts Mogwai and Belle & Sebastian, they write lyrical, melodycharged pop songs with tongue firmly in cheek, although the Straps are a bit more mischievous.

Malcolm Middleton and Aiden Moffat are crafty buggers.

After seven years, they are misanthropic storytellers with no shame. Many of their lyrics center around the world of relationships: good, bad, and disastrous. They also write about drug hazes, gloom, and Scottish locales. They throw it all at you: cellos, bagpipes, distorted beats, doors slamming, and floods of tears. This is especially true with their new CD, Monday at the Hug & Pint. Named after a pub in their native Falkirk, the disc melds all of these things into a well-crafted, but sometimes non-contiguous, unit.

The album attempts to create the pub feeling.

You enter on a euphoria, then you drink, think, drink, mingle, talk, mingle, and drink some more. Somewhere along the line, you’re at the barstool being sad and miserable, but still reveling in it all. Arab Strap have made a record that is lyrically frank. They are honest and on point.

However, after a few rounds, they begin to spiral into sadness and decay as they banter on about bastards and evil women.

“The Shy Retirer” encapsulates the euphoria and is a brilliant beginning to the album. It fea-

tures a beat that slashes calmly along, melded with great hooks and lyrics. “Meanwhile at the Bar, a Drunkard Muses” is tinged with darkness; it has dark lyrics and weeping melodies as a backdrop. “There are rules to follow,/just a big black gaping hollow.” That about sums up the dreariness here. “Loch Leven” is introduced by a nicely distorted bagpipe solo. The song itself is a

homage to the loch in Falkirk, draped in the hopes and aspirations of dealing with somebody.

“Flirt” is also one of the album’s best moments.

This also is a record that is honest, genuine, and real. Arab Strap are heartfelt songsters with an uncanny knack for making great hooks. This is most evident with “Glue” and “Act Of War,” two really solid tracks that, along with “The Shy Retirer,” may be the best on the record.

Arab Strap never craft the same song twice.

But they have made another record with no rules or boundaries. They are captivating because they don’t care; they are relevant because they simply wear emotions on their sleeves. Stylistically, they have always been all over the place. This is OK, though, because they craft exhilarating pop.

They devise great songs out of twisted lives and bitterness.

Arab Strap are not for everyone. You have to be down on your luck to really appreciate them, as they wallow in sadness. However, when they break out of it, it is joyous. Hug & Pint offers sentimentality, irony, melancholy, and hope amid all of its muddled sounds and diverse melodies.

—Rob Levy BLUE OCTOBER: HISTORY FOR SALE (Rainmaker) “The rain always brings our heroes.”

Leave it to Justin Furstenfeld to write the nontraditional love song. From his lyrics, you quickly understand him to be a man who’s seen despair and self-destruction, who continues to battle his demons—yet who rejoices in the sunshine, the beauty of life.

With Blue October’s History for Sale, Furstenfeld gives us just that: a glimpse into his past, into the depths of his memories, for the price of a CD—and he’s selling himself short at that. History is the Texas quintet’s third album, their first since the underpromoted effort at Universal, 2001’s Consent to Treatment. And there’s so much to this disc: even aside from the tough, poetic lyrics—more than worth the price of admission alone, in my book—there’s a tremendous pop sensibility, a flow between 12 songs that will burrow into your heart and take

june 2003

up residence. Lush instrumentation abounds, as well, aided by C.B. Hudson’s carefully plucked guitar and Ryan Delahoussaye’s polished and piercing stringwork.

“So now we’ve come upon the hardest thing I’ve ever done/It’s telling you that I’m a mess/what sort of mess I mean is self-destructive gasoline.”

Opening the disc is “Ugly Side,” a beautiful, string-drenched love song in which Furstenfeld yearns to show his betrothed only his good side.

His voice is absolutely dreamy as he croons, “I’m in between the moon and where you are.”

“Clumsy Card House” is backed by light, playful guitar and drums (the latter courtesy of Justin’s younger brother, Jeremy; incidentally, the CD booklet is littered with photos of the Furstenfelds as children—truly, history for sale). This song truly highlights Furstenfeld’s range and command of his voice; his voice truly soars as he admits, “Here I am standing up/to say I want to fall in love…” “Calling You” is another delicate song of love, a single ready to happen with its singalong-ability: “I will keep calling you to see/If you’re sleeping or you’re dreaming/If you’re dreaming, are you dreaming of me?”

“How am I supposed to breathe?/I try to relax.

I touch your still frame./So I can watch you closer/And study the ways I believe I belong to you.”

7

Mandolin, strings, and a soft beat define “A Quiet Mind,” as Furstenfeld shows his hand and his heart’s desires. “Still hearing voices…from front…from behind/They’re the reason I choose…when to live…how to die,” he admits, wanting only to quiet those voices and still his mind. Blink and you’ll miss “3 Weeks, She Sleeps,” a gorgeous duet with Furstenfeld singing lead and Delahoussaye background; the strings start slow and then swell, adding simple Irish influence to the song.

“If you fail, at least you tried/to keep your aching, celebrating, wonder making heart alive.”

“Inner Glow” is Furstenfeld’s credo: it’s him embracing life, affirming his individuality and the importance of us each singing our own song.

You’ll be singing along by the end: “Yeah, we only want to sing when we want to./Yeah, we only want a dream we can flaunt to./Yeah, we only want to fly by the side, making love to the rhythm, be a Jeckyl and a Hyde.” “Come in Closer,” while a beautiful song in and of itself, is the one that just doesn’t seem to fit; there’s too much soul, too much pop. Still, it succeeds in showing the diversity and skill of Blue October, as Furstenfeld’s dreamy, screamy voice somehow fills with soul, backed by the smooth vocals of Zayra.

“A brief bout with a razorblade cut me/I freaked out, thinking people didn’t love me/I

watched closely as the you I knew forgot me.”

As fully as Furstenfeld embraces his vulnerability to love and life, he just as completely shows us his ugly side, as on “Razorblade.” As it should be, the music is harsher, louder, more in-yourface along with the message; sounds of struggle climax at the end with Furstenfeld’s shouts. On “Chameleon Boy,” the message is one of internal struggle; Delahoussaye’s violin weeps softly as Furstenfeld meekly asks for help as he laments his ever-changing façade: “Is this the chameleon boy I swore I wouldn’t become?” The next song, “Sexual Powertrip,” is just that: an admission of becoming a monster to get what he wants.

“Don’t trust my words when I’m in bed with you,” Furstenfeld warns. “Yeah, you opened your legs and maybe I promised you…/You didn’t notice that my ankles were crossed.”

“Somebody” is pure retribution, as Furstenfeld vents his anger against undeserving authority.

“Can you pretend I’m amazing?/I can pretend I’m amazing…/Instead of what we both know.”

The most painfully beautiful song is saved for last. It opens with a bleak, simple guitar and Furstenfeld asking in disbelief, “How am I supposed to breathe?” As he does on so many other tracks, Furstenfeld backs himself vocally; because of “Amazing”’s sparseness, it’s stronger on this song, somehow making it seem even continued on next page

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Play by Play more isolated.

“You can’t know…yet you have to know.”

Don’t misunderstand; truly, Justin Furstenfeld is the defining force in Blue October, with his intensely personal and opinionated lyrics and his beautiful voice, alternating between the stuff that dreams are made on and all that goes into your nightmares. But the rest of the band are accomplished musicians and songwriters, as well, and they play with a cohesion and a passion that is too often lacking in other groups. If the band’s first two discs were breathtakingly talented, History for Sale is nothing short of a masterpiece, as close to perfect as an admittedly imperfect man like Justin Furstenfeld can get.

Blue October have just announced they’ve resigned with Universal Records. Look for a Universal/Brando release of History for Sale August 5; until then, the CD is available from the band’s Web site (www.blueoctober.com) or direct from Brando Records (www.brandorecords.com).

—Laura Hamlett BLUR: THINK TANK (Virgin) When a jumbo greatest hits album comes out (as with The Best of Blur in 2000), nothing good will come of it. Bands do this for one reason: they have reached a critical juncture and have nothing left in the gas tank but some fumes.

Damon Albarn, Blur’s lead singer, reaffirmed it by spending gobs of time in Mali and then helping to launch Gorillaz on an unsuspecting planet. The band’s hurt feelings finally surfaced with the departure of founding member Graham Coxon. Blur recorded what eventually became Think Tank with the aid of studio musicians, then enlisted ex-Verve Simon Tong for their live show. (Recently, NME reported that Albarn said Coxon’s departure will not be permanent.) All of this did not make for the best atmosphere to record their first new album in four years.

Think Tank delivers, though. It rethinks the sound that is Blur and is more dependent on Albarn’s vocals, heavier production, and a few

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gimmicks that a band of this stature doesn’t really need. For the most part, though, it is the sound of a band with their eyes open, ready for action.

The album appears to have a clearer demarcation between the manic and the somber Blur than previous releases. There are sweet, almost melancholy songs, like “Good Song” (rumored to have been written by Coxon), and “Sweet Song.” The brooding “Ambulance” is a haunting song which brilliantly builds into this album’s sweetest number, “Out of Time.” Like several of the other really good songs on the disc, it crafts an airy, almost melancholy mood, fitting nicely with the quality of Albarn’s voice. He sounds a bit like a weary rock ’n’ roller with lyrics that lament life in the spotlight: “I’m a darkened soul,/My streets all pop music and gold,/Our lives are on TV,/You switch off and try to sleep,/People get so lonely.” Perhaps it comes from a realization that Blur is now officially an aging band, having been together 13 years.

The fast and funky songs are all words on a jag on Think Tank. They include the Fat Boy Slim–coproduced “Crazy Beat,” which is a bit irritating. The truly noxious, synthesized Damon voice wasn’t very cool in the ’70s and should not be allowed out of the box now. Much better is “Brothers and Sisters,” in which Albarn recites a list of drugs and their users. Perhaps this is his call for addiction recovery (though in “Crazy,” he is offering the president Ecstasy). “Brothers” is truly one of the best songs the band has done in years, heavy on Albarn and the funky beat. If the band had reached back into its bag of tricks in an attempt to re-create previous successes, “We’ve Got a File on You” would certainly be “Song 2” all over again. However, clocking in at just 1:01, it is an awful lot of fun, so who can deny them the opportunity?

Think Tank finds Blur with a fresh start. They are a band that can still rock, but they are also growing into their maturity with some dignity.

Bands at this point can go off and try reliving their earlier years, or they can mine their skill and depth. I am hoping for the latter. Blur is a band

with substantial talent and should not sell themselves short for only a hit or two more…that’s what the greatest hits disc was for.

—Jim Dunn BOOMKAT: BOOMKATALOG ONE (Dreamworks) I’m worried about Kellin Manning, the beat maker and brother, from brother-sister duo Boomkat. Taryn, the sister and singer, has a day job to fall back on when the siblings are—and for the love of ears should be—told not to quit their day jobs.

Taryn Manning is an actress, and though I missed Crossroads, White Oleander, and Crazy/ Beautiful, the 45 seconds she was in 8 Mile was enough to prove acting rather than singing.

Quite honestly, she should pursue anything rather than singing; her grating vocals sound like an 11-year-old Gwen Stefani whining for her mother to buy her some checkered Vans.

But back to my concern for Kellin; the poor fellow doesn’t appear to be able to hold a job.

Reading the sordid Behind the Music–like press bio reveals the suffering of this troubled soul’s past. While Taryn was excelling at dance, Kellin was put on academic probation. It gets devastatingly worse, Kellin confides: “I’d gotten fired from three jobs.” That tragic story makes me pour out some of a 40 oz. for the homie’s lost jobs. As tough as it is to criticize music spawned from such emotional wreckage, I will still try.

The music on Boomkatalog One runs the gamut from used bubble gum hip-hop to electrofunk lite to uninspired pop minus the hooks that make pop enjoyable. If you don’t turn the CD off when the singing begins, you will hear the lyrics co-written by the siblings. Bad vocals can sometimes be overlooked if they are singing quality lyrics (Jello Biafra or Bob Dylan, for example),

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Quick Hits but this is not the case with Boomkat. Taryn’s style is part party rockin’ rap attempts, part I’m an independent grrrl, fear my roar, and part tired sex/relationship clichés. Some songs contain all three styles, rendering them directionless (er, rather, more so). The opening line from “The Wreckoning,” the album’s first single, goes, “I came, I saw, I kicked some ass/the pain I cause it makes me laugh...the way I do my thing is strange/I just inject myself into your vein.” With that voice and those lyrics, she’d better stay away from my bloodstream.

The only bright spot (or at least not completely dark) is the song “Daydreamin’,” an ode to their deceased father, childhood, and general reminiscing. The lyrics are simple but sweet, and the track is fittingly dreamy.

A bad album is forgivable. What is not forgivable is comparing songs on that bad album to incomparable artists. Both Kellin and Taryn have done this, likening their music to that of Prince, Janet Jackson, even Motown and the Beatles. The only interesting aspect of this project is the tooclose-for-comfort (or legality) relationship the siblings seem to have. The incestuous undertones bubble over on their duet for the song “Crazy Love.”

Despite my overall dislike of Boomkatalog One, I do relate to some of the lyrics. When Taryn sings in “The Wreckoning,” “Things will come and things will go/one thing that I know for sure...you don’t give a shit about me/so I’m walking out the door,” all I can say is, “You go, girl!”

—Mike Zapf GLOSSARY: HOW WE HANDLE OUR MIDNIGHTS (Undertow) CDs in our mailbox are always a reason for excitement, but the little package from Nashville put me over the top. Inside was the brand new CD from Glossary, How We Handle Our Midnights. Last year’s EP, Dear Friends and Gentle Hearts, was a true gem. It contained five songs that covered the wide and very difficult terrain of loss, want, desire, and struggle with grace and confidence. It stayed in the player for quite some time, and with each play, a little more nuance came to light.

On their new release (which features songs from DFAGH), lead singer and songwriter Joey Kneiser unspools songs with complex thoughts that are subtle and encompassing, as in “Remember Me Tomorrow Tonight,” where he plaintively sings: “Turn the radio up tonight, so I can watch you dance across the sky,/and open up the car doors wide, so the music can feel the night,/tomorrow if I run out of life, remember me how I was tonight,/just so scared, but still alive and that makes everything all right.” He writes superb songs about the loss of youth, dreams of escape, and the desire to climb up and out of the

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THE FLOATING CITY: KING BEAR, FRIGHTENED CHILD (self-released) The first pressing of the Floating City’s EP is an elaborate affair, wrapped in red-inked wax paper and opening into a majestic pop-up of the title characters. The band has taken the local music scene by storm in the last year, impressing fans and critics alike with its dark, arsty sound.

Each of the five tracks here bears a myriad of moods with skilled instrumentation and beat fluctuations. “Violent Star” kicks off the disc in a funereal way before exploding in a mass of sounds a lá Sunny Day Real Estate as singer/ songwriter Gareth Schumacher finally proclaims, “You were born with the sun in your eyes.” “I’m Leaving” has an achingly slow beginning before swelling into a melange of sound; Schumacher’s voice rises to a scream to be heard over the din.

“Say You’ll Stay” is a gently optimistic track, offering hope amid the despair.

Comparisons to Radiohead’s more somber material can certainly be made, though Schumacher’s voice is far flatter than Thom Yorke’s. Still, his vision is commendable and his lyrics equally poetic. (LH) BRITTA PHILLIPS AND DEAN WAREHAM: L’AVVENTURA (Jetset Records) The voices of Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips were first linked on the song “Mermaid Eyes” from Luna’s 2002 release, Romantica. Many people, myself included, wondered if there might be more to come from the pair. L’Avventura is the answer. The 11 songs feature their unique voices, both together and apart, on an album produced

by Tony Visconti. Visconti, who has worked with a veritable “who’s who” of performers over the last 30 years, fills out the sparseness of their vocal styles with some truly inventive arrangements.

The obvious reference of the CD is the music produced by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin in the late ’60s, and Phillips and Wareham fill the roles perfectly. Like that music, theirs is sly, silky, sexy, and very romantic. It reveals the ache of the heart and the foolishness that is passion.

Wareham’s voice has always been an acquired taste, but the selection of the material on this CD is well-suited. I especially liked “Moonshot,” the Buffy Saint-Marie song, which offers an expressiveness, somewhat buried in a cynical whine, that perfectly relays the song’s message. Two of Phillips’ solo efforts on the disk sound classic.

“Out Walking” and “Your Baby” (both written by Phillips) have a retro sheen that makes them timeless. I could have lived without hearing “Random Rules” and “Indian Summer” (both covers), but they do no harm to this great album for summer lovers. (JD) SEVENSTAR: SUPERSTARWRAPAROUND (self-released) Though their demo disc was recorded in lead singer Grant Essig’s bedroom, the lack of produc-

tion did not detract fro the essential truth—the band has talent and a sound all its own.

Superstarwrap-around, a six-song EP, moves the band ahead in quality of production and musical direction without diluting the band’s charisma one bit.

The pop songs SevenStar make do not stray far from themes we are more than used to: love, love lost, chicks, etc. They are solid, and Essig delivers them in the breathy voice of someone relating a story from the next barstool—calm, but always on the verge of excitement. The other members of the very cohesive band include Jaclyn Mayer (bass), Jeremiah Miller (drums), and Dustin Keller (acoustic guitar). Keller’s playing, espeically on the standout track "Blue," is essential to the band’s fluid and promising sound.

Superstarwraparound (produced solidly by Jason McEntire and Essig) is a great move forward for the band. But to fully appreciate SevenStar, you still have to see them live. Their performances are much looser and more fun. The band members enjoy themselves and you will, too. When this project expands to a full-length, I hope more of that fun makes it in to the “professional” mix.

(JD) TOMAHAWK: MIT GAS (Ipecac Records) On a trip one night through the back roads of Missouri, I came across some strange creatures sitting in the bars and alongside those roads. I remember drinking with these people I came to call hill folks. As I got back into my car, I shoved in the selftitled first release by Tomahawk and stepped on the gas to find my way back to civilization.

After listening to the Mit Gas, the newest release by Tomahawk, I get the feeling that Mike Patton has been down this same road and is not afraid to take listeners down it also. It is a place where half-breeds and incest are the norm. I am not sure if Patton is trying to scare the fuck out of his listeners or just wake them up to the real freaks that inhabit our lands.

On this second release, Tomahawk operates more as a cohesive force that is not afraid to further expand the parameters of metal. The aggression that this creature spews forth on tracks like “Mayday” and “Rotgut” is enough to turn most posers running for their mommies. Ending the CD is the combative and melodic “Aktion 13F14,” which instructs the listener on the basic principles of hand-to-hand combat as the band judiciously marches you forward until the time comes and you must release all your built-up tension on the unwilling victim. (RE) WYDOWN: ROCK ENDS (self-released) “Welcome to a spirited rock odyssey,” it says on the sleeve of Wydown’s EP, a statement that, I have to say, is pretty accurate. There is a range of emotions that these seven songs seem to come from, as well as some interesting instrumentation. String arrangements are used throughout

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B A C K S TA G E PASS

Many of AFI’s older fans at the show mourned the departure from their earlier punk sound. Yet for each disappointed fan, there were at least 50 enthralled ones who bounced and sang along to the set with a cult-like fervency.

Overall, it was a good time provided by performers who truly know what they are doing.

—Amy Bidz

AFI w/the Explosion

Guided by Voices

Mississippi Nights, April 19 As I shuffled into the sardine-tight throng gathered at Mississippi Nights on April 19, the first thing noticeable was that just about every type of person was represented: punks, goths, norms, metalheads, young-uns, thirtysomethings—everyone was there. All types of people gathered to support AFI touring their sixth album and major-label debut, Sing the Sorrow.

The show sold out well in advance, despite sharing a weekend with Pigface, Thrill Kill Kult, Bile, and Ministry performances at nearby venues.

AFI vocalist Davey Havok said it best himself: "Luckily, we have a lot of people who just focus on the music and appreciate us for what we are.

So we get fans from all different genres of music: the jocks, the spooky kids, skaters, college kids, punk rockers, hardcore kids, metal kids, all that."

Indeed they do. I walked in with no preconceived notions, and walked out feeling truly impressed with the energy and professionalism of their live show.

Upon my entrance, the Explosion had the stage. In reality, they neither exploded nor fizzled, but plugged away somewhere in between.

The music was good, straightforward punk rock but the frontman seemed frazzled when momentary technical difficulties forced him to interact with the crowd longer than anticipated.

In sharp contrast, AFI hit the stage like the seasoned pros they obviously were. Simple yet effective white and blue lighting and smoke created a tightly choreographed ambience which was maintained throughout the band’s performance. This four-piece put out as much energy as expected from a band which came out of the hardcore punk scene, although the sound was undeniably mainstream, polished and overlaid with a gothic veneer.

Drummer Adam Carson pounded for all he was worth. Guitarist Jade Puget and bassist Hunter were entertaining to watch, with their synchronized Euro-smart suits and style of sharing a stage, constantly playing off the audience and each other. Havok ripped out the lyrics as of his life depended on it and gave one hell of a show, alternating expertly between screaming and singing. With his long black hair and pale face, he looked like a goth girl’s wet dream yet had the endurance of a machine and the agility of a monkey. Half the show he spent swinging from the ceiling pipes.

Mississippi Nights, April 25 You’re at a concert in St. Louis. Beatle Bob, wearing his vintage best, introduces the band with gusto. Five men in black shirts play a series of rock anthems, free of electronic elements, girlie vocals, or anything notably trendy or now.

A guitarist raises his fist triumphantly between power chords. A man in his 40s downs beers with ease, executing drunken novice-style karate kicks and swinging his microphone on its cord in between slurred deliveries of husky, sometimes unintelligible vocals. And in the audience, rock hands are lifted, choruses are sloppily accompanied, and the band’s name is chanted rhythmically as beer sloshes onto the ground.

Are you at a classic rock revival show on the Landing? Close: it’s the seminal indie band/rock star fantasy camp, Guided by Voices. Following an angry set by the kids of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, musical elders Bob Pollard and Sons closed the night with a set that demonstrates that people still make rock music that, at the risk of being unimaginative, rocks.

Guided by Voices’ umpteen-song set was heavily concentrated with the longer, tighter songs from their last three albums, including crowd favorites “Teenage FBI” and “Glad Girls.”

But GBV fans eager to hear older short songs from the band’s lo-fi albums such as Bee Thousand were not disappointed. Perhaps one of the best parts of seeing GBV live is hearing songs like “Watch Me Jumpstart” and “Echoes Myron” pulse with an energy not found on the original home-brewed recordings. Occasional bsides (“Beg for a Wheelbarrow”) and a Robert Pollard solo track (“I Drove a Tank”) were tossed into the set list. The band also previewed some excellent songs off their upcoming album, Earthquake Glue, including “My Son, My Secretary, My Country” and “I’ll Replace You With Machines.”

Evidently, Guided by Voices doesn’t veer into foreign territory on this summer’s release. But there’s no reason they should. As they proved at Mississippi Nights, Guided by Voices likes what it does and does it damn well.

—Jessica Gluckman

So Many Dynamos Rocket Bar, April 30 So Many Dynamos could have been any ordinary lyrical punk band, but instead the foursome

cultivated their instrumental talent with a fearless creativity that will keep them floating in the vast pool of punky kid-next-door garage rock.

Opening for Riddle of Steel and the Brooklynbased Panther at the Rocket Bar, the young Dynamos stole the show with their solid sounds and transparent love for performing the music they create.

At first glance, the local Dynamos appear to attempt a level of cultural trend, clad in slightly too-small tees that accompany that dang shaggy hair, driving the girls to swoon. However, missing the mark slightly (though perhaps premeditatedly), they seem too pure to really care about their looks as long as their jeans have a little dirty fray at the heels.

With the start of their set, I stopped the image debate in my head and was turned on to one of the best things that could have come of two St. Louis band breakups. Composed of members from the defunct Children’s Audio and Saving Boy Wonder bands, the Dynamos create in each song their own sharp rhythms and styles, consistently keeping your attention with a speed change or intricate drumbeat, never allowing your mind to drift offstage. They showcase their mixture of musical movement in “This Can Be Useful in Rocketry” by utilizing multiple voices to create a choppy, a cappella echo effect toward the end of the song. All heads turned to the stage for the multilayered artistic effort.

Another standout stage performance was “Airtight,” from their forthcoming EP, Are We Not Drawn Onward to New Era? The song blends retro guitar sounds with strong lead vocals by Aaron Stovall, who also physically puts all of his being into the beat of his synthesizer throughout the length of the song. Stovall’s voice is easy to listen to and easy to fall in puppy love with, particularly when he holds onto notes for a melodic word or two while remaining within the punk persona.

After a short tour, the Dynamos will return for another show at the Rocket Bar on June 26.

—Becky Gehling

Tonic Pop’s, April 30 Back in the late ’90s, it was rather difficult to listen to radio stations like the Point, the River, or KSHE for more than an hour without hearing a song by Tonic. As one of that period’s most popular and highest-charting modern rock groups, Tonic’s ability to consistently churn out hit after hit appeared to be virtually unstoppable.

After their first two releases, however—1996’s platinum-selling Lemon Parade (A&M) and ’99’s Sugar (Universal)—the band faded into semiobscurity. But just as many of their fans had assumed that they disbanded, Tonic released their third CD, Head on Straight (Universal), in late 2002. Still maintaining their signature sound

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Emerson Hart of Tonic does his thing at Pop’s.

Photo by Jennifer Carr. as well as most of their original lineup (drummer Kevin Shepard had left the mix), Tonic has officially become a trio, utilizing studio musicians on drums and keyboards for recording purposes.

On their current headlining tour, which recently stopped at Pop’s, Tonic performed in typical rock band formation as a quartet (with a drummer), just as they always have done in the past.

The first half of their 75-minute set featured primarily new material, including the disc’s first two tracks, the current hit “Take Me as I Am” and the slightly more aggressive-sounding “Roses.” One of the older songs that did surface near the beginning was the song that originally put Tonic on the map, their first hit, “Open Up Your Eyes,” a great little power-pop tune that sounded just as strong as it always has. Lead vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Emerson Hart (who

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now sports a completely clean-shaven look) did very little speaking during early in the show, other than that almost obligatory band-posed concert question, “How’s everybody doing tonight?” During the set’s second half, however, he became much more communicative and explained to the audience that the three-and-ahalf-year lapse between their second and third CDs was mainly due to the band’s desire to take their time writing and recording what they felt was the absolute best material they could create.

The band then began to serve up crowdpleasing hits such as “You Wanted More,” as well as a few non-hit selections off of their first (and still best) CD, including the title track “Lemon Parade,” “Wicked Soldier,” “Celtic Aggression,” and my personal favorite, the epicsounding “Mountain.” Then things shifted into audience-participation mode as the band launched into a Name That Tune–type game: they would play a few beginning notes of songs

by Skynyrd, Def Leppard, Van Halen, and the Beatles, and the crowd had to shout out the original band’s name. Thankfully, just as this game was becoming annoying, the set closed out with energetic versions of two of Tonic’s biggest hits, “If You Could Only See” and “Casual Affair.” A two-song encore included the evening’s only cover, Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way,”

after Hart explained how the Rumours album was one of the most influential records of his younger years.

Canadian four-piece Dakona opened up the evening with what the ruggedly handsome lead singer appropriately referred to as “a bunch of songs that you’ve never heard before.” Their style was similar to that of the Calling, only slightly edgier. Look for their debut CD to be released in July on the Maverick label.

—Michele Ulsohn

Patty Larkin Generations, May 6 If there’s one thing that bums me out, it’s having a great artist come to St. Louis and get the absolute wrong impression. And if Patty Larkin got any kind of impression of our fair city on her May 6 tour stop at Generations in Sunset Hills, it wasn’t the right one. Or a good one. In fact, I almost feel compelled to offer Ms. Larkin an apology on our city’s behalf. First of all, she was booked to play on a Tuesday. (Okay, so that’s not our fault.) Second, there was borderline tornado weather on this particular night.

(Suppose there’s nothing we could’ve done ’bout that, either.) Third, she was booked to play a venue that doesn’t suit her musical style. (Not

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Backstage Pass that I have anything against Generations; they seem to be great people and were genuinely enthused to be hosting Larkin’s show. But the place has a dance floor in front of the stage, for cryin’ out loud, and beyond that, railings in front of the seating. With Larkin’s songs and musical style, it’s like trying to have an intimate conversation while standing on opposite sides of a river.) And yeah, I know, the choice of venue is not St. Louis’s fault, either. But the fact that less than 30 people turned out for this show is our fault and worthy of an apology.

Patty Larkin is one of the most gifted

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.

Magnolia Summer—Summer is certainly on the way, and it’s nice to know that there are cool groups like Magnolia Summer to go and see. This band offers a unique blend of country and rock, often with three guitars going at once and a violin, playing melodies that easily draw the audience in. The group is not afraid to break a sweat as they burn through their set, and Chris Grabau’s voice fits perfectly over the haunting melodies and overall solid sound. Magnolia Summer is certainly one of the hot new bands in the local music scene.

Earl—When one thinks of the name “Earl,” they probably think of a person down the street they can go and see anytime. This is true of the band Earl as well, but it isn’t hard to see why they play so many gigs. It’s hard not to have a great time at one of their shows. They offer a great mix of southern rock and punk with a country feel. The band can be seen wearing cowboy hats, and the singer is a high- energy vocalist who also tears it up on harmonica. This, along with their electric guitar sound, tends to send audience members to their feet. If you want to be entertained, this is a good band to see.

Monica Casey—It’s hard to forget Monica Casey’s songs once you hear them. This singer/songwriter/acoustic guitar player plays a mix of country and folk which is sure to satisfy anyone who enjoys the genre. There’s no shortage of great hooks and strong guitar work, and her voice is perfectly suited for her sound. Along with advice in her songs suggesting that people go and “buy a new pair of shoes” if they are feeling down, she offers a variety of cover tunes to her set and is very personable with the audience. So put on a new pair of shoes and go hear her play.

—John Kujawski

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singer/songwriters out there today, not to mention an incredible guitar player. And she is great live, even when having to overcome far-from-perfect conditions, as she did on this seemingly cursed evening. Larkin and her backing band are out on tour in support of her latest release, Red = Luck (Vanguard), an album that was written half before and half after September 11, 2001, and is, as she describes it, about “a loss of innocence.” Although my favorite song on the new album, “Italian Shoes,” didn’t make the set list, a number of the other songs did, and all sounded great. Larkin also threw in a few fan favorites from previous releases, such as “Angels Running” from the 1993 album of the same name (Highstreet) and “Book I’m Not Reading” and the beautiful “Coming Up for Air” off 1997’s Perishable Fruit (Highstreet).

Last time Larkin was in town, she played the Sheldon, so fortunately for us, this was not her only St. Louis experience. Still, if we are so lucky as to have her grace us with her presence again, I hope more of St. Louis comes out to show her our support. Unless, of course, we all want to start driving to Chicago to see great live music.

—Wade Paschall

Ween The Pageant, May 7 New Hope, Pennsylvania’s finest oddballs returned to the Pageant on May 7 for one of their predictably unpredictable performances. Dean and Gene Ween are musicians who are difficult to pigeonhole because they are extremely talented, but they choose to write songs about things like spinal meningitis, a pony with a bad leg, and crustaceans. It’s wonderfully amusing to listen to Ween; they don’t really sound like anyone else, and they can rock your ass off, but their approach to songwriting causes some to dismiss them as stoner-rock goof-offs. Not this listener, though. I love these crazy kids.

The show at the Pageant had no opening act; it was just Deaner and Gener (as the two sometimes refer to each other) for two and a half hours. They opened with “Exactly Where I’m At,” from their most “conventional” album, White Pepper. Right off the bat, Dean delivered a fiery guitar solo, the first of many which showed that this guy can channel Jimi Hendrix when he wants to. He may be one of the most underrated guitarists around, actually, and he plays with genuine passion and ferocity. Several songs from The Mollusk, arguably the most balanced of Ween’s works (between the weird and the accessible), were performed, including “She Wanted to Leave” a rockin’ “Ocean Man,” and “Buckingham Green,” on which Dean played one of his most fluid, tasteful guitar solos.

The dance contingent up by the stage went nuts on rhythmic numbers like “Voodoo Lady” (extended into a lengthy jam that showcased not

only Dean’s fuzzed-up guitar but the fine drumming of Claude Coleman, back with the band after recovering from a serious car accident), the stoner glory of “Piss Up a Rope,” and the truly incendiary “Dr. Rock,” which struck me, in this performance, as one of the most deliriously, darkly ecstatic songs about rock ever written.

The distorted vocals and repeated chant of “Dr. Rock!” were thrilling. The Prince tribute “Roses Are Free” (from Chocolate and Cheese) found the two Weeners standing at the edge of the stage together, getting as intimate with the audience as they were going to all evening; the vocals and playing were terrific. So was the hilarious “HIV” song, a carnival-like sonic joke whose sole lyrics are “AIDS! HIV!” In Ween’s world, it’s perfectly acceptable—and damn funny.

Other personal favorites included “The Stallion Pt. 3”; the tongue-twisting lyrical hypnotics of “The Going Gets Tough From the GetGo”; the category-defying “Frank,” on which Gene Ween showed what a daring vocalist he is, doing the strangest things to his pipes to alter or modulate the sound; the primal rejectedboyfriend raunch of “You Fucked Up” (which had the crowd in an adrenaline-charged frenzy); and a similarly themed “Nan,” from their first album.

“Bananas and Blow,” a Caribbean-themed goof from White Pepper, was played with great relish, and it sounded better here than on record.

The band has just finished their new album, Quebec, which is to be released on Sanctuary Records July 22. Presumably, new songs like “Zoloft” (a wonderfully vibe-heavy, psychedelic piece) and an unnamed number where the boys sings about “happy colored marbles,” with Gene and Dean blending high and low vocals the way 10cc used to do, will end up on the record.

Throughout the concert, the band seemed to be having a great time; nothing seemed to be performed merely by rote. “We’re ready to fuckin’ party!” Dean said at one point—and they did.

Encores included the overlong “Buenos Tardos Amigos” (Ween seem to have an obsession with Mex-American culture), “Poppa Zit,” and “The Homo Rainbow,” a song written for the TV show South Park. The audience loved it.

The sound at the Pageant was pretty good this night; I was immensely grateful that some of the group’s more raucous numbers did not reach ear-splitting proportions. If there was anything to be said on the downside, it was perhaps that the show seemed a little inconsistent and didn’t reach the giddy, balls-out heights of their previous St. Louis appearance at Mississippi Nights.

The audience, too, seemed a little restrained (except the fanatics up front). But overall it was a fine evening of Ween-tertainment, a nice appetizer for what will hopefully be a stellar new album this summer.

—Kevin Renick

june 2003

Concrete Blonde The Pageant, May 8 When I saw Concrete Blonde perform ten years ago, they were amazing. Johnette Napolitano performed like a true rock star, tearing through songs on her bass guitar, distancing herself from the audience, and interacting with guitarist Jim Mankey to create a solid, three-piece rock performance that easily carried through the venue. This show at the Pageant was not quite as good, but it was still enjoyable and made for some good early ’90s nostalgia (which made up most of the set).

The band kicked their set off with a cover of “Take Me to the River” and then tore into “God Is a Bullet,” which was just as strong and hardhitting as ever. Napolitano’s vocals sounded perfect over Mankey’s guitar, which is more aggressive in concert than on any of their recordings.

The two performers kept their distance, with Napolitano on one side of the stage and Mankey on the other.

The audience seemed to enjoy the show, and certain glaze-eyed audience members sang along to the oldies between sips of beer and various other alcoholic beverages. Songs like “Days and Days” and “Caroline” were well-played and inspired people to bob their heads to the songs.

Along with the highlights and great flash-

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backs, there were a couple downsides to the concert. The band played far too many covers and wasted time playing songs by the Kinks and the Rolling Stones when they could have been playing numbers like “Still in Hollywood” and “Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man,” which never even made it into the set. Plus, Napolitano’s chatter between songs was pretty hard to take. I can’t imagine anyone in St. Louis wanting to hear about how Hollywood is “one of the most important places in the country.”

Still, when the band finally performed songs like “Everybody Knows” and “Joey,” there was no denying that Concrete Blonde are a great band. I’m just not sure it was $25 worth of great.

—John Kujawski

All-American Rejects Mississippi Nights, May 15 The crowd of nearly 500—consisting of mostly young teens—sang along with lead singer Tyson Ritter for most of the band’s 55minute set. The young crowd was particularly noticeable when Ritter asked who had taped the season finale of Dawson’s Creek. He then proceeded to tell what had happened on the show.

Songs such as “My Paper Heart” and “Too Far Gone” used the perfect mix of harmony and gritty lyrics. Coming from an era of bubble gum

pop, it could be expected that a band like the Rejects would be a bunch of wannabes and sound like ’NSync with a guitar. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Rejects used heavy, sometimes hokey pop beats with boisterous guitar riffs, and that appealed to the youth at the show. Proving that the Rejects’ music isn’t just for teens, many of the concertgoers’ parents were on hand and seemed to enjoy the band as well, as they clapped to the beat and sometimes sang along.

These days, it is rare that a parent and child share the same musical interests.

The group’s hit single, “Swing, Swing, Swing,” which they performed as an encore, is reminiscent of old-school Beach Boys rock. It is destined to be found on a “NOW, That’s What I Call Music” compilation album. To close out the evening, the group performed their new single, “Last Song,” proving that although they might be rockers, they can still write a good ballad.

Despite the fact that the band members are not old enough to buy alcohol, the Rejects showed that, when it comes to making good rock music, age is not important.

—Taylor Upchurch

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etween Kool-Aid and cognac yawns a gap as wide as the one dividing most contemporary commercial country music and the Rockhouse Ramblers—to the delight of that band’s fans, who relish them for something more potent by far than the aural equivalent of a quick sugar fix.

Such fans should have a field day with the band’s schedule for the next two months. During June and July, that is, the Rockhouse Ramblers will stage almost a dozen performances, one of the first (Friday, June 6) occurring at Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room as part of Twangfest 7, St. Louis’s acclaimed four-day celebration of Americana.

The inclusion of the Rockhouse Ramblers on the Twangfest bill will surprise no one who knows their music. Quite simply, regarding neo-traditional country, the band (bassist Dade Farrar, lead guitarists John Horton and Gary Hunt, drummer Danny Kathriner, and rhythm guitarist Kip Loui) can boogie with the best.

In roughly three years, in fact, their artistry has earned them diverse accolades and attention. Playback St. Louis has praised the quintet variously, and local music maven Steve Pick profiled them last fall in No Depression, the main magazine devoted to alt-country. Moreover, in 2002, the Rockhouse Ramblers won in the “Best Honky-Tonk Band” category in the Riverfront Times’ annual music poll (in the 2003 incarnation of which they’re again nominated, under “Roots/Americana”). Otherwise, St. Louis journalist Thomas Crone once noted that they “sound (and look) oldtimey, like they just stepped out of a downtown Chattanooga juke joint in 1957, their Levi’s and shirtsleeves rolled up.”

The Rockhouse Ramblers themselves would likely not quibble with that characterization; a love of country from the ’40s to the ’60s infuses their own work. “I think if you took a musical sample from jump swing, bluegrass, hillbilly, rockabilly, even a little blues from that era,” Hunt mused during a recent collective interview conducted by e-mail, “you would have a pretty good idea of our sound.”

Loui expanded on that catalog: “I’d say the Rockhouse Ramblers enjoy and are influenced by almost any kind of pre-’70s country music styles, which include honky-tonk, rockabilly, western swing, Bakersfield or West Coast style, bluegrass, and hillbilly boogie stuff. We don’t really get too much into ’70s styles, even though we can appreciate Waylon [Jennings] and Willie [Nelson] and Merle [Haggard] from that era.” With characteris-

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tic self-deprecation, he continued, “‘Outlaw’ country is cool by us, but we kind of consciously don’t go there so as not to bite off more than we can chew.”

Conversely and perhaps predictably, the members of the band expressed a general lack of interest in the sort of contemporary commercial country popularized by rock wannabes like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. Farrar referred to such country as “the watered-down new stuff,” and Hunt confessed, “I try to listen to the mainstream once in a while, but it’s mighty hard to keep it there. Not much holds my interest.”

Loui concurred: “As for the majority of what’s played on commercial radio, well, it doesn’t sound much like the hard country music we prefer, so we don’t pay much attention to it. Which is not to say we’re total purists or Luddites or anything like that, ’cause we’re not. But in terms of what we most dig and what we play, our interests are rooted in the older stuff.”

Among such “older stuff,” in specific, the Rockhouse Ramblers cited as inspirations artists like Johnny Cash, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Buck Owens, Johnny Paycheck, Ralph and Carter Stanley, Hank Williams, and many others. All such citations made perfect sense: the spirit of classic country galvanizes not only the band’s live performances but also their two CDs from Tempe, Arizona’s Hayden’s Ferry Records, Bar Time (2000) and Torch This Town (2002).

Those discs, which together feature more than two dozen numbers, should satisfy anyone interested in the best the genre can offer. They include two covers: Charlie Feathers’ “One Hand Loose” on the former CD and Frankie Miller’s “Truck Drivin’ Buddy” on the latter. “Dade brings in these great songs, which he sings the hell out of,” Hunt related, “and we work up some guitar parts and arrangements, play them out at gigs, and they turn up on the keeper list.”

Although the Rockhouse Ramblers perform memorably on the covers, however, they approach the unforgettable on the originals, regarding which Farrar, Hunt, and Loui split the songwriting and singing duties. Capsule

Photos by Steven Vance

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ON THE COVER descriptions of a sample of their songs should prove instructive. On Bar Time, Farrar’s romping “Bloody Williamson” deals with labor unrest, Loui’s “Here and Gone” meditates on contemporary deracination, and Hunt’s “Hillbilly Bound” swings with a city mouse–country mouse narrative. On Torch This Town, meanwhile, Hunt’s “Learning How to Live With the Blues” makes heartache sound fun, Farrar’s “Between Home and the Honky Tonk” makes loneliness sound ennobling, and Loui’s “Making It Up as I Go” makes loss (whether past or prospective, accidental or intentional) sound like a gain.

As the preceding hints, the presence of three accomplished singer-songwriters gives the band an impressive range, and indeed, Horton specified that as one of the Rockhouse Ramblers’ strengths: “Dade, Gary, and Kip all have their own material with their own different style or flavor to their songs.”

More philosophically, Loui enlarged on the interaction of the quintet: “I’d say the Rockhouse Ramblers are the first genuine democracy I’ve ever played with, where everyone has an equal say and there are three singersongwriters sharing the stage. And I really like that about the group. We’re all a little older and have lives and stuff, so I think there’s less ego involved than if we were all snot-nosed kids. And this is all to our benefit, I think.”

In any event, Farrar joked about the response to Bar Time and Torch This Town from critics and consumers alike: “They seem to be sniffin’ around like there might be something worthwhile goin’ on.

Kinda like an old, hungry dog checkin’ out somethin’ on the side of the road. If they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat it.”

“From the reviews we’ve seen and from what we’ve heard,” Loui noted less jocosely, “everyone seems to really like the band and our two records. Mostly it’s fans of hard country that discover us, but I’ve also had people come up to me and say, ‘You know, I don’t really care for country music, but I like you guys!’ That makes me feel really good when that happens.”

The discussion of the band’s first and second CDs led naturally to an inquiry about a third. Hunt responded cagily: “Everybody has new material floating around, just a matter of time to get it together and record again.” Farrar, meantime, sounded almost like a Zen master on the matter: “We’re probably preparing right now. We may be planning now. We just haven’t talked about it.”

Happily enough, Loui clarified: “I think we want to record a third record, certainly.

But we’d like to find a situation where someone can give us an actual recording budget this time. We paid for the recording sessions ourselves for our last two records, and now we’re like, ‘Damn, we’re poor, we can’t afford to keep doing this!’ So hopefully, some label somewhere will give us a mod-

est advance so we can start work on a follow-up to Torch This Town.”

More immediately, beyond taking the stage at Twangfest 7 as featured performers, the Rockhouse Ramblers are anticipating that event as fans of Americana themselves. “I haven’t seen Bob Reuter’s new project, Palookaville,” commented Horton. “I’m looking forward to that, Dale Watson, Tim Easton, and Bobby Bare, Jr.” Similarly, Loui (who also numbers among the “Twang Gang,” the volunteer board of directors guiding Twangfest) expressed enthusiasm for honky-tonk hero Watson, who will perform at the nonprofit festival the same night as the Rockhouse Ramblers: “Dale’s records are good, but live, that’s when you can really see what he’s about.” He added: “Joy Lynn White plays on Thursday, June 5, I believe, and I’ve long been a fan of hers.

She kind of reminds me of a grittier Linda Ronstadt, if that makes any sense.”

After Twangfest, as stated earlier, the Rockhouse Ramblers will remain busy, according to a schedule provided by Loui. They’ll play the following dates in the following locales: June 7, Maplewood’s Maple Days fair; June 8, the Riverfront Times Music Awards Showcase, Riddle’s Penultimate Cafe & Wine Bar; June 12, Riddle’s; June 26, Riddle’s; June 28, Blueberry Hill; July 12, Off Broadway; July 18, Frederick’s Music Lounge (tentative); and July 26, Schlafly Bottleworks (the “Rockhouse Trio”—Farrar, Hunt, and Loui). As a result, opportunities to see and hear the Rockhouse Ramblers will abound for music fans who can’t attend Twangfest but who remain interested in or curious about them.

Such fans won’t regret the effort. In conversation, Loui (who customarily functions as the P.R. point man for the band, as previous paragraphs should suggest) neatly impersonates a codger; according to him, the Rockhouse Ramblers can’t possibly appeal to anyone who doesn’t also belong to the AARP. On the stage and on disc, however, he and his cohorts make music so fresh, vital, and true it steals the breath away. Such music exudes assurance enough to border on the fundamental: one can almost hear Ralph Peer’s car, laden with recording equipment, rumbling into Bristol, Tennessee, in the summer of 1927.

In that regard, if indeed the Rockhouse Ramblers’ brand of country qualifies as the musical equivalent of cognac, it ranks as an Extra, a Napoléon, an X.O.—heady stuff indeed.

For more on the Rockhouse Ramblers, Scott Miller and the Commonwealth, Jason Ringenberg, and the other 16 acts playing Twangfest 7, as well as the festival itself, visit our Web site, www.playbackstl.com!

PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS

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NOW P L AY I N G BRUCE ALMIGHTY (Universal Pictures, Rated PG-13) If you had a chance to play God, what would you do? Cure the world’s evils? Seek revenge on those who wronged you in the past? Make wondrous things happen with the opposite sex? Such are the challenges faced by Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) in the new Universal Pictures release Bruce Almighty.

Nolan is a local TV news reporter in Buffalo,, where he’s known for doing folksy, funny human interest stories, like one about the world’s largest cookie. The job is unfulfilling, and Nolan dreams of becoming a real news anchor, an opportunity that may be within his grasp when a co-anchor retires. But then it all seems to slip away on what appears to be the worst day of Bruce’s life.

Despite the patience and support of his girlfriend, Grace (Jennifer Aniston), Bruce has an emotional meltdown after being late for an important meeting, missing out on the co-anchor job, getting fired, getting beaten up by some toughs, wrecking his car, and various other lesser indignities.

He rails against God for his rotten luck, wondering why the Almighty has forsaken him.

Summoned to an address where a mysterious job prospect awaits, Bruce encounters a grizzled old janitor (Morgan Freeman), who Bruce takes to be a practical joker of some sort. But this is no mere trickster; it’s the Lord God himself.

God’s a little tired of Bruce’s continual whining and challenges him to see if he can do a better job as the creator. There are only two restrictions, one of them being Bruce can’t interfere with free will (a dilemma that will haunt him later, when his relationship takes a downward turn). Naturally, Bruce is skeptical at first, but when he tries out his newly bestowed powers

Morgan Freeman hands the power over to Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty. Photo courtesy Universal Pictures. (parting the “sea” in a bowl of tomato soup, dramatically upgrading the car he’s driving), he soon realizes that yes, indeed, he’s “got the power.” His first move is to prepare an evening of mind-blowing carnal ecstasy with Grace. Then, how about a little payback? He demands apologies from the toughs who pummeled him, prompting one to declare, “Sure, I’ll apologize…when a monkey flies outta my butt.” Easy to guess what’s gonna happen there. And in one of the film’s funniest scenes, Bruce causes his rival at the news station (Steve Carell) to start babbling idiotically during a live newscast, a sequence that only the most humorless viewer will fail to be tickled by.

The thrust of the movie is Bruce’s struggle to find his true self in his new circumstances and to learn the lessons about life and love that God really intended for him. It doesn’t come easy, and when Bruce seems to have lost Grace, he finds that all those incredible powers mean nothing to him. It’s an archetypal Hollywood scenario, one with which Carrey and director Tom Shadyac do reasonably well.

One thing should be said: Jim Carrey gets a lot of flack for being his rubbery-faced self. Critics have rarely praised him, except perhaps for The Truman Show and, to a lesser extent, for his portrayal of Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon.

But not just anybody can contort his face and body the way Carrey can and still create a char-

acter you feel for. We need our visceral comic actors, and Carrey at his best is pretty damned entertaining, using every part of his body to work a scene. He’s in full-bore funnyguy mode here, and although I thought Liar, Liar (a previous Carrey-Shadyac collaboration) was a bit more balanced character-wise between the goofy and the serious, Carrey has a great time with the premise here, and audiences should as well. Jennifer Aniston can truly nail “the girlfriend” roles by now, and though Grace doesn’t challenge her abilities the way The Good Girl did (except perhaps in one brief scene that nods to Meg Ryan’s classic fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally), being consistently believable is deserving of respect, even when the role is a bit thin. As for Morgan Freeman, this man can do no wrong. He’s an actor with remarkable authority, and after his nutcase role in the recent Dreamcatcher, it’s a pleasure to see him back doing what he does best—acting with wit, charisma, and, in this case, the kind of ultimate authority the role of God demands. It’s almost enough to make me start praying more often, thinking that maybe Freeman could be the guy on the other end.

If there’s a problem with Bruce Almighty, it’s that it’s not quite the transcendent character study it would like to be. The idea of an egotistical whiner who must learn to be a better, more unselfish person was handled with more depth in Groundhog Day. And the openly sentimental streak this movie displays is often at odds with Carrey’s stylized physical comedy, which here and there grows a tad monotonous. But the positives ultimately outweigh the negatives, as the number of well-staged scenes and big laughs keep the energy going almost to the end. And in these horrendously violent times, the theme of this movie is one that audiences should be reminded of as often as possible. Bruce Almighty isn’t quite a classic, but it’s often hilarious and touching both, and in the idea-starved conference rooms of Hollywood, that’s a minor miracle unto itself.

—Kevin Renick

june 2003

Marlin, Dory, and Bruce the Shark in a scene from Pixar’s Finding Nemo.

FINDING NEMO (Walt Disney/Pixar, Rated G) Although the films of Pixar have always been deeply rooted in the human experience (as well they have to be, to keep most kids’ interests), the bulk of them have created a very distinct universe for their characters to live in outside of that which we as humans reside. To put them in the context of their parent company Disney’s films, one could say that the films of Pixar are much more Dumbo than they are Sleeping Beauty. Pixar has gotten so dependable in creating the alternate existence of our world for nonhumans that they might as well name their films for whatever critter the film focuses on: i.e., we had A Bug’s Life, so Toy Story might as well have been A Toy’s Life and Monsters, Inc. could have been A Monster’s Life... The newest installment in Pixar’s oeuvre is Finding Nemo, the franchise’s A Fish’s Life.

As the title suggests, the bulk of the film concerns a clown fish named Marlin who is searching for his son Nemo, stolen by a dentist while Nemo was disobeying his father. At this point, the film branches off into two stories: Nemo’s getting stuck in a dentist’s aquarium and his subsequent attempts to escape with the aid of a host of quirky fish, and Marlin’s quest to save Nemo, with help from a Leonard Shelbyish companion named Dory, irritatingly voiced by Ellen DeGeneres.

While the story is engaging enough and the humor is plentiful (which is another thing at which Pixar never seems to fail), the majority of the enjoyment that comes from Finding Nemo is viewing the world that the animators create for their heroic fish. Most of the sprawling grandeur and massive palette of beautiful colors of the underwater landscape resembles a Discovery Channel show on the Great Barrier Reef, which was likely the direct reference point for the animators when they were creating it (the film is set off the coast of Sydney, Australia). In addition to the pretty colors and hordes of fish, the underwater world is nicely thought out and given many throwaway details, the most memorable of which finds Marlin swimming up to the surface of the ocean to better see which direction a boat is speeding away to, and after spending a few seconds partially out of the water, he dives back into the water, takes a deep breath, and returns to the surface to continue looking for the boat.

When the time comes, the obligatory moral of

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Finding Nemo is aimed more at adults than it is at children, which is borderline incredible coming from a film that is as mainstream as animated films can get. You see, the dentist caught Nemo only because he was disobeying Marlin, and Nemo was only disobeying him because he was being way too overprotective (the first act of the film establishes why Marlin is this way), so the fact that Nemo disobeyed and got himself into trouble is shown as falling, in large part, on the head of Marlin. Hence, the moral of the story is for parents to not be overprotective of their children, a footnote to which is for kids to not be too offended and act out if their parents are being overprotective. It is interesting that Pixar and its writers can match the revolutionary quality of their trademark animation with such bold moves as to have a strong lesson for the adults who bring their kids to see the film, rather than doing the same for the kids themselves.

—Pete Timmermann L’ AUBERGE ESPAGNOLE (Fox Searchlight, Rated R) It doesn’t help the inherent pretentiousness of foreign films when the distributors decide to hold onto the original, foreign-language title; it makes for some awkward moments at the box office for those of us who don’t speak the language. Maybe this is why ordering tickets online is getting to be so popular. Meanwhile, snotty rich kids who can pronounce the title without difficulty will bring dates that they want to impress with how cultured they are. It’s a big mess.

Anyway, L’Auberge Espagnole proved to be quite a success in its home country of France when it was released there last year, and it is easy to see why. It is one of a handful of films that successfully finds itself in that elusive category of motion pictures that successfully simulate the feeling of hanging out with a bunch of people that you like for the duration of the film’s running time (previous examples include Dazed & Confused and The Breakfast Club). It went on to be nominated for six Cesars, the French Oscar equivalent, including “Best Picture.”

What will likely draw the first group of people to the theater to see Espagnole is the presence of international treasure Audrey “Amelie” Tautou, even though people who come to see her will probably be disappointed with her decidedly uncute and relatively small supporting role (might I take this opportunity to add that Tautou is proving to be the French Cameron Diaz, what with her constantly switching back and forth between entertaining mainstream fare and edgy roles in weird films that show her range; a national treasure indeed). This clump of Amelie hounds should be enough to get the word of mouth cycle going at least to a small degree, which will eventually lead to people going to see Espagnole because it is supposed to be good

Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou learn about human nature in L’Auberge Espagnole. Photo courtesy Fox Searchlight. (how novel), as opposed to seeing it for Tautou or to demonstrate foreign dialect proficiency.

The loose plot of Espagnole concerns a Frenchman named Xavier (Romain Duris) who moves to Spain with the Erasmus program, which allows its pupils to study abroad with a mixed bag of students from all over Europe to enhance both their education and their pleasure; this program really does exist and gained much popularity after the success of the film. Xavier intends to learn about Spanish economics, but winds up in a house with a fluctuating number of soon-to-be really good friends. Much learning about human nature and falling in love with one another ensues, and the rest of the film is spent dreading the impending day when all the fun will end and they all have to go back to their home country.

There isn’t a great deal to be learned from any of the goings-on in L’Auberge Espagnole, but that’s okay, as the fact that it is like a mainstream film in an art house theater will help counteract the pretentiousness of the fuckers who go and see it. This way, those who frequent art houses as well as multiplexes will get the best of both worlds, which is exactly what the film is all about.

—Pete Timmermann

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Play by Play depths…said depths of poverty, depression, loss.

Kneiser is ably backed by a fantastic band featuring Bingham Barnes (bass), Greg Jacks (guitar, vocals), Kelly Smith (vocas, percussion), Todd Beene (guitar, piano), and J.D. Reager (drums).

The standout effect on this album, though, is Kneiser’s voice. Like Neil Young (whom they covered in an appearance at Frederick’s last winter), Kneiser uses his voice to ably communicate and give his words a stark dignity and a weight that is shattering in many places. He delivers lyrics like knives, whether they are meant to hurt or defend. On several songs, he is balanced nicely by Smith. “Lonesome Stray” paints Kneiser as a vagabond searching for love, and Smith, with honey-sweet vocals, offers a home, even if it requires some compromise.

Glossary is southern rock at its best—a hybrid that holds fast to the attributes of classic country music while not so much celebrating the southern lifestyle as pointing out the holes that are there. They do so with a poetry that is not seen as often as it should be in music. How We Handle Our Midnights offers the warm southern breezes of lazy back roads and the allure of escape. It is a world etched in love and despair.

—Jim Dunn ED HARCOURT: FROM EVERY SPHERE (Astralwerks) It is alleged that Ed Harcourt has a backlog of over 300 songs. It is this sort of work attitude that sets him apart from other singer-songwriters.

For some musicians, the creative muse can be something that has its ups and downs. For others, it is just a way of staying alive and communicating with the little voices that dance around in your head. Ed Harcourt belongs to the second group. His music is a combination of Jeff Buckley and Sparklehorse. He is a serious songwriter in the vein of Buckley and is an experimenter of sonic landscapes and odd uses of instruments, as is Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. This unique blend of lyrics and music works to create lush, atmospheric, sonic meditations on love, solitude,

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and other esoteric topics.

“Making an appearance at the club tonight, playing some songs I think are alright./I’m not post-modern, just a man who can bark, and bite with teeth that leave a mark.” —“Jetsetter” When listening to the new songs on From Every Sphere, you get the feeling that Harcourt lives in a dreamy and literate world filled with dark moments and flashes of blinding light. This is not the world of a tormented soul; instead, it is the world of someone who finds the best way to express his feelings is through his words and music. One of the shortcomings that plagues the work of Harcourt is that he seems to let his ego override his artistic visions. At times, his lyrics border on being almost simplistic, to the point of being cheesy. At such a young age, he has many more years to work and perfect his vision, From Every Sphere is a step in the right direction from his first release, Here Be Monsters.

—Rick Eubanks THE HONEYSHAKERS: THE HONEYSHAKERS (self-released) I was tired after I listened to the debut album by local folk/pop trio the Honeyshakers. But then, I was tired before I played the album, so I’m not holding the gals in this group—Heidi Dean (who sings lead, plays guitar, and wrote all but one of the 11 songs here), Danielle Lindsley (vocals), and Mary Ann Russum (vocals)— responsible for my exhausted state. I was just feeling tired of life’s continuing struggle: relationships that are needlessly complex, past regrets that keep surfacing, too damned many cars on the road, and not enough time to get things done and go where I wanna go.

Dean sounds tired of all this stuff, too—most of these songs are clear expressions of weary sadness that alternate between a tear and a shrug. In “Finished,” one of Dean’s more distinctive tunes, she addresses an apparently soon-tobe ex-partner: “You with your very quiet mind/Me with my kinda loud life/Didn’t know that these things would add up/To a sum

between zero/And not quite enough.” The lyrics are generally thoughtful and compelling; there’s a degree of care and craftsmanship that invites closer listening. Dean tends to avoid the simplistic and allow the listener to wonder a bit. Take “ I n s i d e ,” one of the album’s standout tracks. Over lovely three-part harmonies and a simple melancholy chord progression, Dean’s words talk about the struggle to contain one’s emotions: “Inside is where I keep my love safe/Inside is where I know what you’re thinking/Inside is where everything happens/Along with that, something more…”

The “something more” is repeated several times, and an unexpectedly poignant cello comes in, telling the listener everything the lyrics don’t need to spell out. “Chicago” is also nicely ambiguous; the effectively concise lyrics let us know that the windy city holds some great significance for the narrator; it’s either a place to hurry and get to on a road trip or a place to leave behind (or both). A sense of real sorrow not quite shared is palpable.

On the lighter side, the opening “Breakup Dress” wryly recites a litany of objects needed to put a relationship out of its misery: “I need a breakup dress, breakup shoes/Breakup makeup and of course/Some breakup lingerie…6 breakup CDs/A breakup leather jacket…” It’s a comparatively spry little tune that is probably a real rouser in concert. Stylistically, Dean, Lindsley, and Russum are mining Indigo Girls territory, although without that outfit’s tendency to meander (and their apparent inability to end a tune in three minutes). They also reminded me at times of a less ethereal Hank Dogs (Scottish folk trio). The music is pretty sparse, though, in that folkie way; beyond Dean’s acoustic sixstring, there is little instrumental adornment other than the minimal accompaniment provided

june 2003

on the aforementioned songs. And some songs, such as “You Make Me” and “Somewhere Across Town,” sound like little more than wellrecorded demos; the former cries out for some sort of musical detail in t h e arrangement that simply isn’t there. These songs rise or fall on the strength of the harmonies (pleasant but not necessarily stellar, except on “Inside”) and Dean’s songwriting (solid and sometimes remarkably poignant).

The Honeyshakers have the ingredients necessary to refine the raw craft they display here; they already have promising musical instincts, and their voices blend nicely. Most significantly, though, Dean seems very thoughtful in her selfexpression; songs may reflect weariness or cynicism at times, but nothing sounds lazy or tossed off. As Dean sings in “Cars on Sunday,” “I don’t need any help with my melancholia/It’s doing fine…” I’d bet on even better things for this outfit in the future, especially if they add a little more variety to their repertoire and maybe plug in once in a while. As for me, I’m gonna take a nap. All this contemplatin’ and stuff can sure wear a body down…

—Kevin Renick IDLEWILD: THE REMOTE PART (Capitol) I thought Idlewild’s last release, 2000’s 100 Broken Windows (Capitol), was amazing, with not a bad song. For that reason, I approached The Remote Part with something resembling trepidation. Surely they couldn’t put out anything as catchy and dreamy as Windows, could they? Surely they would let me down.

Well, I was wrong. “You Held the World in Your Arms” kicks off the new disc with just as much heart. Interestingly, Roddy Woomble’s Scottish accent is audible on this track, especially as he sings one of his trademark thought-provoking lines, “Is consideration more like an exception of consideration?” Behind his words, a string arrangement builds on melodic guitars (Bob Fairfoull, bass, and Rod Jones, guitars) and a solid drumbeat (Colin Newton). The heavy guitar intro to the next track, “A Modern Letting Go,” tells you right off that this isn’t a wimpy Idlewild, contrary to what you’ve read in NME; in another Woomble-ism, he gives us, “If I know what I know, losing isn’t learning to be lost/It’s learning to know when you’re lost.”

“American English” sounds more European than American and is lyrically an anthem against selling out to the American Dream. As he chastises a friend for losing his values, Woomble jabs, “The good songs weren’t written for you,

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Idlewild photo courtesy Parlophone/Capitol. they’ll never be about you.” On “(I Am) What I Am Not,” the intentionally contradictory poet opens by saying, “Calling places, collecting careless/Sentences I write them down/So I ignore them, and you should too, you should ignore every word.” The rocking melody and catchy refrain may well take this song to radio.

Already a single, “Live in a Hiding Place” sounds as if it could have been an outtake from Windows. It’s a simple, scaled-down modern rock song with a backing chorus and a swelling bridge: “And you’re full of facts but not things that could add up to words/Think about meaning more as an after word/As in afterward.” “Century After Century” has an epic feel. Musical swells are met with more of Woomble’s wisdom as he sings, “Isn’t it romantic, to be romantic/When you don’t understand what you love/Or if a word like that could ever mean anything.”

The simple, straightforward “Tell Me Ten Words” is a gem as Woomble pleads, “Can you tell me ten words that you’d use to describe the world/To people, though people never seem to know.” Closing the album is the grandly scaled dual track, “In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction.”

The first half begins with Woomble singing against a single guitar accompaniment; the latter half swells musically as poet Edwin Morgan reads the words to his poem “Scottish Fiction.”

Maybe I like Idlewild because Woomble’s singing style still reminds me of Morrissey with the Smiths. Maybe it’s the Scottish accent that still slips through, a lá Stuart Adamson of Big Country. Or maybe it’s the fact that they continue to put out albums that are poetically written and musically well-crafted.

—Laura Hamlett ILYA: POISE IS THE GREATER ARCHITECT (Second Nature) When doing a large jigsaw puzzle, each person involved usually brings something different to the table. One may hold a piece of the sky, the land, the people, or the scenery, but each person’s individual part is just as important to the whole. This is the mentality that San Diegan

continued on page 27

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THE P L AY ’ S THE T H I N G The Homecoming

By Harold Pinter Performed by the City Players May 9-25 Directed by William Whitaker Meet the family. There’s Max, the aging, capwearing, cane-using father ("Stop calling me Dad") who gripes and snipes from his official living room chair. There’s Uncle Sam, the chipper chauffeur whose job-ingrained courteousness finds no match in this home. There’s son Lenny, the thick, woman-popping pimp apparently struggling with life’s larger questions ("Do you detect a certain logical incoherence in the central affirmations of Christian theism?"). There’s son Joey, a thick-necked boxer-in-training who wears the expression of a clueless caveman who’s just smelled something nice. And son Teddy, the long-away philosophy professor who’s returning to north London from America with his confidence bemused, his condescension in reserve, and his wife (Ruth) of six years, whom no one’s met, on his arm. (She’s not quite on his arm, actually. And who knows if she’s really his wife.)

The Homecoming begins with familiar familial hostility (think of a crusty-humored sitcom, then pull the laugh track), the men tugging down the others’ lives. But with Teddy and Ruth’s introduction—the couple enter in the morning, then talk like strangers—the hostility gives way to sexual creepiness. The family’s other men, long used to their lives of rugged desperation, are forced, literally overnight, to deal with this woman—this pretty, odd, mysterious woman who wears dresses, philosophizes about the crossing of her legs, and enunciates like she’s speaking the language for the first time.

by Bosco (with illustration help from Jessica Gluckman)

www.mentalsewage.net

Elliot Goes

So how do these other men deal?

With a kind of sick tenderness and with schemes. But are they to be blamed entirely? After all, Ruth is game for some Act I flirting with Lenny, then opens Act II serving each of the men tea (in a compelling interpretative add-on to the published script): slowly, silently, cup by cup, reaching down to the coffee table, legs straight, rear raised, offering all a long look. They take it and, as they say in some circles, it’s on.

There’s dancing, there’s cuddling, and way more, none of it involving the man with the matching wedding Carrie Hegdahl as Ruth and Jason Cannon as Lenny in the City Players’ production of Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming. Photo band. courtesy City Players.

The Homecoming is loaded with stage, unlit, staring out the window, holding the issues of family, class, sex, sexuality, power, and clock up to his ear. We get a long look at this manhood, and its unsettling power exists mini-scene, and as it’s one of the only private because the playwright offers few, if any, revelamoments any of the characters has, its meaning tions. Just as the play disallows a summing-up, —or rather its hint at meaning—resonates. The so do the characters. What kind of pimp, you ask second involves Max, the aging father. Sitting in from the audience, uses the phrase je ne sais his designated chair—one of Teddy’s first midquoi? What kind of father moves from bitter to night lines, to Ruth: “That’s my father’s chair”— beaming and back to bitter so quickly? What Max hold his cane horizontally, across each of kind of young man like Joey, who seems mostly the chair’s arms, up close to his chest. As he sweet, describes with pride what was probably a grills the world (“It’s funny you never got marrape? The answer is: this kind. And it’s a simple ried,” he sneers to his brother), the supportive answer because the actors—particularly those cane takes the image of a protective bar—someplaying Max and Sam (Paul Rogers and John thing that holds him in and to which he holds, Normington, respectively)—handle the characon some sort of end-of-life amusement ride that ters’ contradictions with such skill. The effect is never leaves the living room. By the end of this that throughout the play and well after it’s over, challenging, troubling play—the brothers and we’re left not nodding, but wondering. father surrounding Ruth, Teddy departed—the Despite the power of much of the dialogue— father’s lost his cane, his chair. He crawls. from long stories to decades-buried questions— —Stephen Schenkenberg what I remember most from this City Players production are two visual moments, one very much City Players’ next production is The staged, the other more tucked away. The first Underpants by Carl Sternheim and adapted by occurs when Lenny, having told Teddy of his Steve Martin; it opens their new season sleeping troubles—“Something keeps waking October 10. www.cityplayers.org me up. Some kind of tick”—appears alone on

It’s the beginning of summer, and we’re first to hit the pool.

As ferrets are heat-intolerant, we Once our fur gets the slightest bit hot, have a lot of experience in staying cool. it’s cannonball time. Bombs away!

june 2003

LOCAL SCENERY Show up at Frederick’s Music Lounge from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, June 7, and be a part of TwangClips. Presented in conjunction with Twangfest and hosted by No Depression contributing editor Barry Mazor, the event features over 70 full-song film and video performances, many of them from private collections.

Chicago’s TwangOff, the battle-of-the-bands show that has continued to draw eyes and ears since the September 2002 start, has expanded to St. Louis. The St. Louis schedule, to be held at Off Broadway (3509 Lemp Avenue), is as follows: May 29: Mary Alice Wood and the Southsiders, the Roundups, and Jackhead; June 26: the Saps, Cumberland Gap, and TBA; July 30: TBA; and August 21: the first series of St. Louis TwangOff finals.

Missile Silo Suite will perform a rare acoustic set at Mangia Italiano (3145 S. Grand) on Thursday, June 12. Rich Williams, formerly of Fly From August, will be the opener. For more information, call 314-664-8585.

Tied2Art, the second annual Father’s Day tie show sponsored by vintageneckties.com, takes place from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. on Saturday, June 14. The first exhibit is a fiber show at the Art Loft Gallery. There are over 60 artists, some of whom are following in the footsteps of Salvador Dali by handpainting ties. The second exhibit is a multimedia event at the Syberg Gallery in the City Museum. A Hullabaloo-sponsored fashion show will take place at 10 p.m. at the Syberg Gallery, followed by a performance from the Floating City.

E-mail chris@vintageneckties.com for info.

Earl is currently in the studio recording the follow-up to their debut CD, Used. The album, yet to be titled, will be released later this summer. The band is once again recording at the Broom Factory with Mike Martin Tinhorn), who most recently finished recording Jay Farrar’s upcoming (T release, Terroir Blues (June, Artemis). Look for Earl playing live to get a sneak peek at the new material.

The Eric Ketzer Experiment (eKe) is currently finishing a new CD, Left Side of the River. Rob Woerther is producing it; he also produced Ketzer’s previous solo CDs, Lost Angel and Unfulfilled Desires. In typical Ketzer style, the CD includes a spoken-word poem; this time, however, it’s a ghost track at the end of the CD so it doesn’t affect the flow. Mark your calendars now for the CD release party on Saturday, August 16, at Cicero’s. In other eKe news, Joe Sherrell has parted ways with the band.

What’s new at the City Museum, you ask? For starters, did you know the City Museum is now open until 1 a.m. on weekends? Romp through St. Louis’s largest playground as you savor a bit of our city’s history. Over the summer, the museum’s parking lot will turn into an outdoor movie theater on the third Friday of every month. Finally, to book concerts and events, contact Steve Smith at ssmith@citymuseum.org for information.

Fairview Heights native Bradford Smith won top honors at the 2003 “Musical Echoes” Native American flute playing competition in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Smith performed his rendition of “Amazing Grace,” along with his original “Antelope Dance” and an improvisational song. For performance schedules and info, go to www.bradfordsmithmusic.com.

It’s showtime once again as the dancers take to the stage to dance for the animals in the concert production of Animeux de Danse, a joyous, energetic celebration of dance that is family-oriented and culturally eclectic.

This one-time performance takes place June 21 at 8 p.m. in the Saint Louis University High School Theater. Its purpose is to provide a platform for local choreographers to showcase new works and assist in bringing a broader insight into concert dance to the St. Louis area while providing financial assistance and awareness of the many programs offered by the Humane Society of Missouri. Purchase tickets by calling 314-951-1568.

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Cinema St. Louis’s Andrea Sporcic is still trying to pay off those credit card bills after making her acclaimed short film, Wedding Laine. Join her for a fund-raiser on Monday, June 30, at the Bar Italia patio, where she’ll be hosting a trivia night on TV, music, and film. Tickets are $15, with lots of door prizes; you can bring your own drinks and food or partake of the cash bar. Call Andrea at 314-413-2634 for reservations.

Calling local artists: Art Coop needs a 30- to 50-foot outdoor sculpture for the back wall and some of the sky above its new home at 1620 Delmar.

Entry to all Art Coop events will be from the back, and the work will visually identify the Art Coop space and its entrances from up to two blocks away. If you want to be considered, visit the site and submit a preliminary sketch or model by June 15. Questions should be directed to Don Erickson at artcoopstl@hotmail.com.

On June 18, the Mad Art Gallery is pleased to be bringing Found magazine founder Davy Rothbart back to St. Louis to read from his critically acclaimed book of short stories, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas.

Joining Rothbart will be Devon Sproule, whose songs tend to the poetic side of things.

Ed Golterman (the Kiel Man) has won his battle—partially. The Kiel Opera House will, indeed, be renovated and reopened. Rather than the open booking Golterman was advocating, however, the Opera House will be booked by Clear Channel/Fox. My Two Planets’ Jim Ousley missed a couple of dates with the band due to extracurricular activities: playing Han Solo in the Magic Smoking Monkey’s production of The Star Wars Trilogy in One Hour—Live!

Llewellyn’s Pub in the Central West End has brought live music downstairs again on Sunday nights, with no cover charge.

Webster University professor David Clewell has a new book of poetry out: The Low End of Higher Things (University of Wisconsin Press).

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Backstage Pass

CURMUDGEON

By Rob Levy Lollapalooza darlings Jane’s Addiction have their first new material in over a decade due out this July. The album, entitled Hypersonic, is being released on Capitol Records. Speaking of Lollapalooza, Perry Farrell’s traveling road show has recently added the Music and 30 Seconds to Mars to the festival’s side stage.

The ultra-mundane Mansun have split up after almost a decade together. Though they crafted a few nice pop songs and had some interesting hooks, they never really got it going.

The return of Courtney Love is near. She recently recorded a cover of “Bette Davis Eyes,” which may be used as a B-side for one of her new singles.

Björk is getting busy later this summer. She has a small North American tour scheduled, and she is releasing another boxed set; this one is a live collection of recordings with an accompanying DVD. She also plans to release Volumen, her entire video catalog, on DVD. Also be on the lookout for Live at the Royal Opera House, which features Matmos and a full orchestra.

There also are plans to release a Björk documentary DVD, Inside Björk, which will feature wacky TV interviews and appearances. Lastly, she’ll release Vessel, a concert, on DVD. Superdrag have decided to take a break. They will release a retrospective collection later this year with extra stuff like demos and unreleased tracks.

Elbow are set to release their second album, Cast of Thousands, this fall. This summer they will be playing some festival gigs and previewing the new material live. They recently remixed Peter Gabriel’s “More Than This.” The first single, “Ribcage,” is available for download for 99p via their Web site (www.elbow.co.uk).

Sinead O’Connor has retired from recording.

In a statement on her Web site, she claims to be “tired of being a famous person.” This is not a bad thing.

Third Eye Bland recently portrayed the Kinks on NBC. This is heinous. I cannot speak of how terrible 3EB are. They have a new album out to annoy and bother all of us.

It wasn’t enough to have Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore bore us all with his new album and terrifying new cover of David Essex’s “Stardust.”

Now we get to look forward to a new “solo” project from Dave Gahan. It is entitled Paper Monsters and features the one-verse single, “Dirty Sticky Floors.” The world is ending.

Underworld are spending the summer playing various festivals and releasing a “Back to Mine” remix compilation this July.

The Chemical Brothers are releasing a two-CD

collection of their greatest “hits” later this fall.

They are in the studio working on a new album that’ll come out in early 2004. Über-producer Nigel Godrich is off the new Strokes project. He was producing the new record but things did not work out during the sessions.

I am thrilled that the Kiel Opera House may reopen. St. Louis needs another venue for mediocre rock acts to play in. But it is great for the city to have such an important part of its heritage revived. Plus, it will bring more people into the city. I only hope that the shows and theater they bring there are not just the abysmal, boring, and terrifyingly stupid fare offered by commercial media moguls and corporations.

Could the Creepy Crawl bathrooms be any worse?

The Inspiral Carpets are releasing a two-CD retrospective, Cool As. This is funny because I don’t think they really had more than two or three good singles. Nonetheless, the retrospective has new and unreleased material.

Before & After is the newest album from softumlaut rockers the Wannadies. It is full of contradictions, fast, slow, happy, sad. Look for it Stateside this fall.

When is Clear Channel getting their own space on the Monopoly board?

Roger Eno and Peter Hammill have teamed up in the weirdest way imaginable. From 1 to 2 p.m. on April 1, 1999, they respectively worked in solitude in separate studios, miles and miles apart. They each built recorded musical improvisations and compositions for their The Appointed Hour project. Later, they infused and overlapped the recordings to make the album.

Collide have a new CD out entitled Some Kind of Strange. It features guest stars cEVIN Key of Skinny Puppy and Danny Carey of Tool. They were sonically featured in a recent episode of “JAG.” St. Louisan and Alchemy founder Pete Johnson has recorded the score to the Universal Pictures film, 12 which is going to Sundance.

Belle & Sebastian are working with producer Trevor Horn. Horn has produced weirder acts like Propaganda and the Art of Noise.

Cinerama will be touring next month for a few dates in support of the New Pornographers.

Very dead and depressing singer Nick Drake is the subject of a new documentary, A Skin Too Few. The documentary is making the film festival rounds in the U.K. The Cure will begin recording a new studio album next month. It will be their first album away from Elektra Records. The Cure recently signed with I AM Recordings. They just will never go away gracefully.

I still am in shock and awe that people paid money to see Good Charlotte perform at the Family Arena. We live in desperate times. ’Nuff said for this month!

from page 13

Robert Randolph and the Family Band Mississippi Nights, May 16 To those familiar with him, Robert Randolph can be easily identified by his Bear Bryant-style hat selection. At Mississippi Nights, however, Randolph lost his beige cap immediately due to his energetic display, like a centerfielder chasing a triple to the wall. The hat was on the floor in two minutes, leaving just a black ’do-rag, which itself eventually disappeared in favor of short cornrows. He didn’t pick up the hat until he left the stage at the end of the night.

Randolph’s style owes much to the gospel roots of sacred steel, which originally sprang from the House of God Church denomination in the ’30s; Randolph learned the pedal steel at his boyhood church in New Jersey. The idea is for the steel to mimic the human voice via call-andresponse, and Randolph has the jaw-dropping dexterity and chops to keep up with anyone.

Randolph and his workmanlike Family Band strayed from that formula liberally, though, for this two-hour-plus Friday night set, choosing instead to mimic various guitar styles—hard rock, blues, and scratchy swamp-funk. Among the covers, teases, and references that reared their heads were J.J. Cale’s “Ride Me High,” Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” and an epic hard-rock voyage that wove together one part Black Sabbath and two parts Jimi Hendrix. And it would be an understatement to call these impressions convincing.

It made for an intriguing spectacle, but the show’s real heart lay in the more traditional gospel stylings. Trading vocals with his astounding bassist, Danyell Morgan, Randolph was most at home in the driving one-two gospel beat that allowed him to scrape the sky over and over again, nearly falling out of his seat with exuberance each time. Only then did Randolph go from sounding like an extraordinarily wellhoned Hendrix or Duane Allmann knockoff to sounding like Robert Randolph. After all, who could imagine Hendrix or Allmann playing your Sunday mornings?

And the best part? This guy’s just getting started. Randolph was discovered at a Sacred Steel convention in 2000, and this was his first time to make it to St. Louis for a gig. The Family Band’s only live release is last year’s acclaimed Live at the Wetlands. And both Randolph and his band made a giant splash at last year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival, both in their allotted set and as an omnipresent guest star. Exposure at Bonnaroo worked wonders for Jack Johnson and Norah Jones a year ago, and even though the gospel-jam format doesn’t suit your local radio station very well, rest assured critics and industry types alike know this man’s name. It’s only a matter of time before it gets around to you.

—Taylor Upchurch

june 2003

I Think I’ve Said Too Much: College Radio Confessions

By Rev. Mike Tomko

Episode 2: “Shedding Your Baby Fat; Is It Time?”

In a time when the economy is at such a low point, it is becoming increasingly hard for bands to make it big. In the last five years, countless good bands have either been dropped by their labels or found themselves in insurmountable debt to pay back their recording advance (i.e., St. Louis’s Colony). Preparing for this month’s column, I immediately thought of a line from Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.”

That, for me, personifies the struggle of one in a penniless industry. In no way am I trying to discourage those who yearn for a career in the music industry, but many fail to realize that behind all the glitz and glamour is a faceless and ruthless industry.

In the early ’90s, new artists had to sell between 150,000 to 250,000 records in order to avoid being dropped by their record label; nowadays, that number is upwards of 400,000. In his book, Black Coffee Blues, Henry Rollins states, “I got three letters today telling me that I am God. Why can’t I pay the rent?” This comes from

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a man who, while regarded by many as a legend and a success, has never sold 400,000 copies of anything in his life.

Once you get past the sad truth about how hard it is to get into the industry, let’s look at what happens behind those pearly white gates.

Ever hear of an A&R guy? Says Steve Albini, independent and corporate rock producer, in The Problem With Music: “These guys are universally young [about the same age as the bands being wooed], and nowadays they always have some obvious underground rock credibility flag they can wave. There are several reasons A&R scouts are always young. The explanation usually copped-to is that the scout will be hip to the current musical ‘scene.’ A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative rock and roll experiences.

These A&R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is present the band with a letter of intent, or ‘deal memo,’ which loosely states some terms, and affirms that the band will sign with the label once a contract has been agreed on. The spookiest thing about this harmless sounding little memo is that it is, for all legal purposes, a binding document. That is, once the band signs it, they are under obligation to conclude a deal with the label.”

Hook, line, and sinker! All the record company has to do now, if you refuse to sign a contract after signing the preliminary letter, is wait, because there are countless other bands who will be perfectly willing to sign. And since these letters never have any terms of expiration, you are now bound to sign with that label and that label only and are completely locked out of releasing any material until you do so. This is why you must get a lawyer and have him or her

COLLEGE RADIO CONFESSIONS read every single document. It is for your own protection.

Now that you’ve signed, what happens to your music after it is published? Everyone reading this should’ve caught the flaw in the previous sentence. I referred to the music as “yours,” which it is definitely not. “When you look at the legal line on a CD, it says copyright 1976 Atlantic Records or copyright 1996 RCA Records. When you look at a book, though, it’ll say something like copyright 1999 Susan Faludi, or David Foster Wallace. Authors own their books and license them to publishers. When the contract runs out, writers gets their books back.

But record companies own our copyrights forever. The system’s set up so almost nobody gets paid,” claims Courtney Love in her book, Courtney Love Does the Math.

Furthermore, provisions under the 1978 Copyright Act take the copyright issue to a new level. In November 1999, Congressional Aide Mitch Glazier, along with the Recording Industry Association of America, engineered a technical amendment ultimately defining recorded music as “work for hire.” This puts making a record in the same class as translating documents and writing standardized tests. In the past, by law, you were allowed to reclaim the copyright to a recorded piece after 35 years, so at least your work could become part of your family legacy.

Now, under the new amendment, the record company can auction off your work to the highest bidder, and their hold of it will never expire.

Do not let these facts scare you. Rather, let them wake you up to the frightening world that is the recording industry. To make it today, one must work very hard, doing all of the necessary legwork well before even thinking of signing to a label. This is where college radio comes in; take the money you make from shows and working your nine-to-five and put it into recording your demo and having it duplicated. Then get on the phones and get that record out there. Next month, we’ll talk more about the steps you can take to promote yourself and your record—steps that will put you one step closer than the rest of the pack.

Tune in next month for Episode 3: “The Art of the Demo.”

Mike Tomko is the acting program and music director for KGLX, the Galaxy, the radio station of Webster University, www.kglx.org.

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TA K E F I V E Five Quick Questions With Jason Ringenberg

By Jim Dunn As the frontman and best-dressed member of Jason and the Scorchers, Jason Ringenberg helped define (if not flat-out defined) the term “countrypunk.” The band blazed out of Nashville in the ’80s, winning the hearts of critics and a healthy chunk of the population. The seven-song Fervor solidified the band’s place in history insofar as it “rewrote the history of rock and roll in the South” (Jimmy Gutterman, Rolling Stone Guide to the 100 Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Records).

Throughout that decade, Ringenberg and the Scorchers toured and released albums. They parted ways for a while in the ’90s, reuniting sporadically over the next ten years. The last few years have seen Ringenberg release two solo albums. The first, A Pocketful of Soul (2000), came out of nowhere to become one of the critics’ favorites for the year and reintroduce Jason Ringenberg to audiences worldwide. Last year’s All Over Creation turned the heat up a notch. The album is a series of duets with some of his many friends and co-writers, including Steve Earle, Tommy Womack, Kristi Rose, Todd Snider, and Lambchop.

Ringenberg was on a tour of Europe, but he visited a rural truck stop in England to answer five quick questions by e-mail. He warned us to be merciful on his spelling and punctuation, since he “doesn’t think this contraption has spell check!”

1. It sounds like you have such a peaceful, wonderful home life with your wife and little girls. Do you find that leads to better songwriting? Then where would something like “Honky Tonk Maniac From Mars” come from?

To be honest, with two girls under five, it is nonstop action (and fun)!

Actually, I do most of my writing on the road while traveling.

2. “Erin’s Seed” (from All Over Creation) is a really interesting song, filled with a deep knowledge of the U.S. Civil War and the place of the immigrant Irish in it. How big of a history fan are you? Want to become a historian?

I wouldn’t mind being a historian, but they make even less money that musicians. I am content to be an amateur. I do stop at every historical marker/site I see, and read history all the time.

3. All Over Creation is, literally, all over cre ation. There are some awesome duets on the CD. In effect, you got to re-create the band on almost every track. Did this pose more of a problem when finalizing the album and achieving a true solo CD? Also, did all these different voices/musicians change the way you wrote the songs?

Early in the process, I decided that “cohesiveness” was not a term I was going to worry about on this one.

This was definitely the hardest record to sequence in my 20-year career. I did a good dozen versions before this one jelled.

4. A Pocketful of Soul was certainly a more personal album that you described as just songs you wanted to play for your family and friends.

What caused you to choose this other path and come out with All Over Creation? How were the processes of bringing together the CDs different?

The process couldn’t have been more different. APOS was a private, quiet experience that I really never expected the public to even hear. Funny how that little CD launched my solo career around the world.

AOC, on the other hand, was completely open and public, and I wanted it that way. I wanted to truly collaborate with my friends and colleagues. I wanted to fit into the modus operandi, not vice versa.

5. Does the suit make the man or the man make the suit?

I always perform better if I have cool duds on. My motto is if you can’t always sound good, at least look good.

Quick Hits

from page 9

this body of work, but it’s never the same thing twice and always enhances the individual vibe of each song. Nate Dewart’s voice can be at once powerful and vulnerable, sounding not unlike a tougher, stronger Tim Finn.

Lyrically, Wydown would run the risk of coming off a bit melodramatic if it weren’t for the undeniable feeling one gets from listening to these songs that Dewart believes deeply in the words he is singing. But it’s that same conviction that left me wanting many of these songs to be musically heavier: to have the same tension and edge that comes through in the lyrics and how they’re delivered. Granted, this may have more to do with the production of this EP than the band itself. Either way, Wydown are onto something good, and all signs point to the fact that it will only get better. (WP)

june 2003 DON DELILLO: COSMOPOLIS (Scribner) Near the beginning of Don DeLillo’s new novel, Cosmopolis, 28-year-old billionaire Eric Packer—a financial futurist, arrogant yet reflective and curious—eases into his marble-floored, cork-lined limousine. He needs a haircut. En route, he battles the crowd on the streets—a presidential motorcade, a rap star’s funeral procession, protesters of capitalism—and takes a series of mid-ride meetings with his team of advisors, one of whom cautions Packer on his reckless borrowing of the unpredictable yen, a currency whose patterns he is determined to uncover. Also in his crosstown path are various lovers, his new wife—an heiress-poet whom he continually barely recognizes—and, ultimately, a foaming ex-employee whose separate-chaptered notes from underground spell out Packer’s fate.

DeLillo’s prose is both imaginative and exact.

Beyond the city lie “toothpaste suburbs.” A local diner holds “the cross-roar of accents and languages.” In a rave’s blink dance, “a cult of starvelings.” A powerful mogul, whose assassination invigorates Packer, is captured in a single image: “Filthy rich, this chap. Women in his soup.” As he did memorably in his mammoth novel Underworld, DeLillo expertly portrays the public’s gallop, which contains, as he puts it here, “coded moments of gesture and dance.”

These moments are delivered vividly and with a controlled rhythm, as is this glimpse of the rap star’s mourners: “Scores of women walked alongside the limousines, in headscarves and djellabas, hands stained with henna, and barefoot, and wailing.”

Cosmopolis is a brief book that’s big on ideas: sex and death, power and wealth, and numbers.

(In a quickly passing yet lasting metaphor, DeLillo describes how massive wealth has wiped the faces from our currency: “Money has lost its narrative quality the way painting did once upon a time. Money is talking to itself.”) And while the story’s fuel is the fiscal, each of the book’s ideas is tied to its largest one: time. It’s no insignificant detail that the book’s cork-lined limo is a nod to the time-obsessed writer Marcel Proust, whose own dwelling was cork-lined.

(Packer proudly calls his limo “prousted.”)

Proud though he may be, Packer the futurist still must live by the same ticks as the rest of us, which have ticked since we don’t know when.

And what’s fascinating about this character is that while he’s a bastard egoist, he’s given the added dimension of being aware of, even awed by, the world’s real mysteries. In one scene, during his in-limo doctor’s checkup, Packer looks at the screen that displays his heart, feeling “the

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passion of the body, its adaptive drive over geologic time, the poetry and chemistry of its origins in the dust of old exploding stars.”

But the novel’s last voice could be Benno Levin’s, the foaming ex-employee, who in the final pages is given the run-in with Packer for which he’s been waiting, armed. These two, powerless and powerful, powerful and powerless, are linked by the common mysteries of the world. “There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time,” Levin had written in his journal. “Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?” He stands, in the end, with Packer, the fated futurist who’s forced to wait for the present to take place.

—Stephen Schenkenberg WILLIAM RIVERS PITT: THE GREATEST SEDITION IS SILENCE (Pluto Press) I remember I had just dropped Laura off. She had an early meeting so I took her downtown to her job before going to my own. Seconds after she stepped out of the car, I heard Carl Kasell on NPR say a plane had reportedly struck the World Trade Center. In that drive between downtown St. Louis and Webster Groves, the entire world changed for me and every other person throughout the world. I don’t think that is an overstatement. My soul cried out for the people killed in that building, but the skeptic in me never truly quieted for long. The last five years have appeared to be a battleground for the hearts and minds of Americans between conservative Christian and the liberal Green/Democrat factions. The 2000 election was a watershed in our history where the rules of proper conduct went out the window and we saw government by force, rather than by the will of the people. September 11 gave that government the mandate it needed (and did not have) to move toward a government of control.

I am not a good conspiracy theorist. I only sat through The X-Files because my friend Ellie liked it. Events in recent years have changed my attitude and led to dread that we are heading down the wrong path where return might not be possible. My concern has led me to up the amount of reading that I do each day. I try to inform myself about what happens, and I try to find allies against things I believe are wrong. One of those allies is William Rivers Pitt.

The title The Greatest Sedition Is Silence comes from a speech that Bill Moyers gave on October 16, 2001. Obviously, the timing of that speech reflects the bravery of the statement in itself. Moyers, like Lewis Lapham in Harper’s, openly questioned the actions of our govern-

PAGE

BY PA G E ment soon after the events of September 11.

Another critic joining this vocal opposition was William Rivers Pitt. Pitt is a writer who regularly writes and edits for Truthout.org (a Web-based publication). He is a political analyst and is also identified as a teacher in Boston (if only all high school teachers could be this cool). If you type in his name in Google, you will get many hundreds of entries at various locations, all of them quite readable and eye-opening. I imagine that Pitt talks like he writes: in a stream of intelligent consciousness. The Greatest Sedition takes us from the late Clinton years (at impeachment) and leads us through the election, 9/11, and Afghanistan. Pitt takes the government to task for, among other things, being willfully blind to the true threat of terrorist activity prior to 9/11, stealing the 2000 election, allowing our links with Saudi Arabia (and oil) to flaw our foreign policy, our early assistance in the creation of the Taliban, and our support of both Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. He makes a very convincing case for the corruption of the government and its less-than-justifiable reasons for being in the Middle East.

I would imagine that many who read this book will find much with which to disagree or to question. Pitt does a good job of laying down facts, though sometimes he pours it on a little heavy and uses a moral ruler that many administrations would have trouble living up to. This moment in history does not require subtlety; it requires volume. Pitt is our Thomas Paine, and like Paine, he is not about getting his point across quietly. Pitt is loud, and he is not afraid to use any verbal weapon to make his point. It makes for very interesting reading and will (hopefully) spoil many future broadcasts of Fox News for its readers. My regret with the book is that it covers subjects up to the moment of publication. The Iraq war was brewing, but had not yet been fought and “won.” Check out Truthout.org for Pitt’s latest broadsides.

I once wrote to Pitt after he wrote a particularly good Truthout.com editorial to say that I had never before been a big believer in conspiracies, but that his writing had convinced me that something was afoot. He wrote back, “This isn’t conspiracy. It’s freakin’ policy.” I think that is the beauty of Pitt. He is a firm believer and one who is fervent in his beliefs. Filled with facts and figures, he hits you like a 280-pound defenseman. He is a writer who will never be accused of sedition.

—Jim Dunn

PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS

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YOU ARE HERE Crossing the River

by Rudy Zapf This is the third of four articles about living and working for the arts in the St. Louis area.

This month’s focus is the arts community in Edwardsville.

The bridges spanning the Mississippi River are not conduits. They are dividing lines separating us from them. We (meaning typical St. Louisans) cannot fathom why anyone would want to live over there in the wilds of Illinois. It is assumed that they have nothing comparable to the Fox, the Sheldon, Powell Hall, or, as ultimate proof of uncivilized existence, Starbucks or St. Louis Bread Co. Given the spiderweb of highways and exits scrawling into a Pythagorean knot, plus local views tainted with prejudice, even the thought of driving over there brings tremors of unease. “What if the car breaks down? What language do they speak?

Will I be surrounded by torn dungarees, shotguns, and pitchforks while the opening notes of “Dueling Banjos” deliver unto me an acute awareness than I am now in their territory?”

And yet…

Over there in Edwardsville, there are about a hundred artists living and making art. Functional pieces, sculptural pieces, paintings, drawings, printmaking, and, yes, even public art. There are an estimated additional hundred in Alton and the surrounding area. These are merely the ones that are actually known to be producing; possibly there are hundreds more that are making art but have neither the confidence nor business acumen to get it into the public eye. That’s a large number of artists for a backwater. And then there’s ArtEAST. Last October, this major studio/exhibit tour showcased the work of 110 artists. EAST is an acronym for Edwardsville Alton Studio Tour, and it included 15 studios which were opened to the public as well as group exhibits in locations around both towns.

(The next ArtEAST will occur in October 2003, though final dates are not set.)

Susan Bostwick and Kathryn Nahorski are the organizing dynamos that manage to coordinate this major event. The scale of production is unbelievable. To compare planning ArtEAST with coordinating a single gallery exhibit, a person would have to imagine the difference between preparing Babette’s feast to fixing a sim-

ple dinner for a few friends. Bostwick and Nahorski corralled artists of Alton and Edwardsville into single or group shows, collected sponsors, found nontraditional exhibition venues, and contacted sources for media coverage. As Bostwick admits, it’s a year-round project. As soon as the event is over, she’s writing grant reports to send to sponsors and donors.

She volunteers for this time-consuming job because she is keenly aware of the lack of exhibition opportunities for east-of-the river artists.

Considering the strong number of artists that Alton/Edwardsville boasts, the want of private galleries is glaring.

The gallery at SIU-E is reserved mostly for students, art professors, and alumni, which allows little time to show work by other local artists.

There is the Towata Gallery in Alton, but at 20 miles north of Edwardsville, it’s no closer than St. Louis. Choices are narrow to nil for those who would like artistic autonomy. Artists and art lovers must drive elsewhere in order to see or show art. They come here much more than we go there. The gist is that ArtEAST is an essential event for Illinois artists. They receive exposure, commissions are contracted, and the public becomes cognizant of treasures to be found within their own neighborhoods.

In addition to a thousand other responsibilities involved with organizing such a large event, Bostwick and Nahorski produce a comprehensive catalog of participants. Each artist may submit an artist’s vitae/statement and one photo of representative works. The size of the binder is ponderous, and poring through it makes one aware of the diversity of talent that can be found just across the river. Bostwick, besides being an organizer extraordinaire, is an artist of some fame in her own right. Her clay works have been shown in Ceramics Monthly, American Craft, and The 1st International Miniature Sculpture Exhibition (Taiwan, 2002). She shows work at Xen gallery in the West End and LillStreet Gallery in Chicago. Earthy fecundity heavily influences her drawings and ceramics, which is not out of character for an artist whose medium is earth itself. Tubers sending out fingery roots, squinting at viewers with blind eyes. Pears seducing with smooth young skin, while hoary potatoes sprout chin whiskers. All things that grow have their own personalities. Surface textures telling life stories. Bostwick is attuned to the tales they have to offer.

Besides Bostwick, all artists presenting works in last year’s ArtEAST are worth noting. A few of the names are Nahorski, William Harroff, and Shawntá Ray. Nahorski, the other half of the event’s engine, is also a board member of the Madison County Arts Council. She specializes in drawing and painting. Her textured pastel drawing of a river bend is universal. It is a river, any river; it is the curve of the Mississippi as it elbows past St. Louis; it is the Danube wending its way to Budapest. Harroff focuses on book/digital arts, and his input to the art world is decidedly techno-savvy. With sponsorship from the Lewis & Clark Library System, he hosted an international e-book collection. Ray (metal and fiber) displays a range of proficiency from ephemeral baskets to steel and glass furniture.

Her baskets grow upward, reaching through dense underbrush toward the light, intensely alive with the complexity of nature. A welded table resembles a lattice of leafy twigs. The irony of strong baskets composed of wispy materials and welded steel forms appearing to be as insubstantial as moving shadows—only a sculptor with incredible knowledge of her raw materials could draw such unexpected results from them.

It is an epiphany for the ignorant.

The depth of emotions and intellect that dive into processes, transforming these basic ingredients into museumquality works of art, come from artists that have chosen to live in the west of Illinois. Their collective existence germinates abundant fields of creation.

Who would have guessed?

Defined by the River Susan Bostwick and Kathryn Nahorski

june 2003

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Play by Play sextet Ilya utilize in order to create their unique aural soundscapes. A fiery trip-hop opus indeed, their debut, Poise Is the Greater Architect, serves up a concoction of jazz, classical, experimental, rock, noise, and urban ideals.

Taking the best of each genre, Ilya masterfully blend thick backbeats, swirling guitars, forceful bass, dripping keyboards, and sultry vocals

into ten songs that are as enchanting as they are tantalizing. “BPD” chants about slowly pushing you away and makes you feel the pain infusing the lyrics, where “Isola,” Ilya’s signature track, grinds with seduction.

Perhaps the most impressive element of the band’s sound is its dynamics. While playing music that rises, falls, starts, stops, speeds, and slows, Ilya manages to keep each person’s role simple yet integral, thus eliminating the effect of a soloist.

This puts their entire sound into the forefront as a mature entity and doesn’t have the “stepping-ontoes” effect where everyone in the band is striving for the listeners’ attention. Such a developed element of tact and talent gives definite validity to the slew of awards that Ilya has won, naming them one of today’s hottest independent artists.

Released independently in 2002, Poise will be rereleased by Second Nature Recordings on June 17. Visit www.ilyamusic.com.

—Rev. Mike Tomko THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS: ELECTRIC VERSION (Matador) As any hipster worth his glasses would be quick to tell you, the 2000 debut of the New Pornographers, a profoundly catchy disc of unrelenting power pop called Mass Romantic, was one of the greatest indie rock finds of recent years. It was released on the Canadian label Mint Records and had just enough pseudo-rockers like Neko Case and Carl Newman (of the Sub Pop band Zumpano) attached to get at least a little interest stirred up from the outset. A few months after its release, it was next to impossible to find, as the unexpected demand for the disc put most distributors into deep back-order hell. While everyone was still scrambling to pick up Mass Romantic and discover just how intimidatingly brilliant it is, the Pornographers recorded their follow-up, this time for Matador, entitled Electric Version. It must have been ulcer-inducing for TNP to try to come up with a reasonable followup, but regardless of the trials that may or may not have gone into making the album, it is here, and awaiting the rabid consumption by the Pornographers’ many waiting followers.

from page 19

As one would assume (it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise, really), Electric Version is not as good as Mass Romantic. I would even go so far as to say that it isn’t anywhere near as good as Mass Romantic. However, speaking relatively to every other CD released ever, Electric Version is a fantastic disc that will surely bring the band more followers. Furthermore, I doubt that most people will be disappointed with it in any way, shape, or form. The only thing that prevents Electric from achieving the level of Romantic is that the debut had two kinds of songs: unbelievable rockers like the title track or “Letter From an Occupant” (the latter being my pick for the best out-and-out rock song of the new millennium) and songs that on any other album would have been amazing but got lost in the milieu of incredibility, such as “The Body Says No.” Electric Version also has two types of songs: unbelievable rockers like the title track and “The Laws Have Changed” and songs that are pretty good but don’t quite stand up to the rest of the Pornographers’ back catalog, such as “From Blown Speakers” and “Miss Teen Wordpower.”

Also, TNP created the band to allow for the maximum number of vocalists possible, and Mass Romantic seamlessly meshed them all together, whereas Electric Version’s good songs pretty much always have Case doing the howling (the aforementioned “Electric Version” and “The Laws Have Changed,” as well as the third best song on the CD, “All for Swinging You Around,” are all at least partially Case’s).

Even so, the structure of the band seems infallible, as it allows for nonstop action—they are always mixing things up and keeping it interesting with different chemistry between vocalists and freakishly addictive hooks in practically every song. It seems almost unfair that the band can hold such a monopoly on power pop, but then, after listening to how inexplicably good both of their CDs are, it seems unfair to care.

—Pete Timmermann NOTHINGFACE: SKELETONS (TVT) Nothingface’s new album is more than just the bare bones of metal; it would be hard to classify the group into one particular section of metal music. At one moment on the album, it could be all-out chaos, like “Here Comes the Butchers” which is mostly all screaming. Then along comes a song like “Patricide,” which features a lot of singing by frontman Matt Holt.

Like much of the music today, Nothingface does not shy away from letting their opinions be known. “Ether” is aimed at President Bush. It was surprising to see a metal band incorporate politics into its music, and Nothingface pulls it off nicely. Holt is the leader and best musician in the band. His ferocious vocals carry the album and make him one of the better vocalists in metal

today. Of course, it takes a good band to complement a good vocalist.

Unlike the band’s last album, Violence, Skeletons does not lose the listener’s interest.

While their debut was a good metal record, it was just not very interesting to listen to.

Skeletons is just the opposite because it is not just all metal; it goes from slow melodic openings to all-out thrash metal in a matter of seconds. Metal fans should be prepared: with Nothingface touring Ozzfest this summer, things can only get better for a band that stands out lyrically and musically from all other metal bands in the industry today.

—Jeremy Housewright SERENGETI: DIRTY FLAMINGO (F5) On the chorus to the title track of Dirty Flamingo, the debut LP from Chicago MC Serengeti, the rapper wearily exclaims, “I’m the dirtiest man alive,” in a tone that is part admission of guilt, part exasperated plea for forgiveness for the atrocities committed by his uncontrollable monster side a lá Jekyll and Hyde. Though Cage and Kool Keith, among others, might dispute the “dirtiest man” title, Serengeti gives evidence to back his claim throughout the album on songs such as “Busty Women” and “Ms. Nipple Queen,” a heartbreaking tale of love gone wrong.

With a flow reminiscent of Del the Funkee Homosapien, Ser spits about drinkin’, women, travellin’, and livin’ in a way that conjures up visual images. Each line produces a series of quick portraits that, when strung together, form a verse showing the bigger picture.

D.J. Crucial (Russell Simmons of the Lou), the in-house F5 superproducer, is straight on point with the beats on this album. Diverse and funky yet magnetically cohesive, it has the feeling of a singularly produced album as opposed to a random collection of beats. The samples are also perfectly selected and positioned. In a nod to both rapper and producer, this album would be an interesting listen as either a capella or instrumental.

There are several standout tracks. “Black Giraffes” serves up a bouncy piano riff over some laidback boom bap drums. “Serve as a Canvas” is a song that plays like a late night PBS travel show hosted by a giddy rap group on tour for the first time. On “Dirty Flames,” Ser describes his style as “Jean Michel Basquait Rap” and drops the line “to make friends I’ll write a book called Supertrends.” “Chuck Norris” features an extremely ill bass line and the hook “I’ll be Bruce Lee and you be Chuck Norris, together we can move to Rome and write a rap chorus.” The final cut on the album (there are 24 tracks in all, but only 19 listed) is a feel-good rock ’n’ roll jam that closes things nicely.

In addition to the 24 tracks, there are “secret” tracks featuring a roster of F5 all-stars scattered throughout the album. The best of these came

continued on next page

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Play by Play from local conscious heads Altered St8’s and two cats I’ve never heard before, Capo and Fiasco, who sound a lot like Mobb Deep.

In summation: Good beats? Yes. Good rhymes? Yes. Dirtiest man alive?

No. Dirtiest Flamingo? Hands-down.

—Mike Zapf SPRING CLOCK WONDER: THE GREAT PURIFICATION (self-released) I’m always somewhat surprised when a self-released local CD sounds…well, not local, and not self-released. It’s not that St. Louis doesn’t have a slew of extremely talented bands—if we didn’t believe that, we wouldn’t have started this magazine. It’s just that local, unsigned bands are on such a tight budget that the listener’s expectations of quality are reduced even before listening.

This is just the first thing that reeled me in with Spring Clock Wonder’s first CD, The Great Purification. Beyond that, the songwriting and musical style—modern rock, to be sure, with dashes of British art-pop and psychedelia—are solidly respectable. Ian Baird’s vocals remind me of a softer, throatier Mike Edwards of Jesus Jones fame. There are even traces of Sunny Day Real Estate and Caroline’s Spine.

“I Haven’t Much to Tell You” begins gently before exploding into a U2like guitar riff; if “Evereal” is a heavier, darker number, “Number for a Name” is downright hard rock. “Sand Swallows Earth” is a floaty, ethereal song, with Baird’s breathy voice reaching across guitar landscapes. “Drive the River” will be a radio single if there’s any justice (and just think how well it would work as a theme song of sorts for FM 101.1 the River, yes?), as it has all the necessary elements—catchy beat, memorable hooks, and words to sing along: “Leave your baggage at the door/’cause you can come just as you are/there’s no religion within here at all.” “Out in Dawn” sounds like a British rock song (though Baird’s Greenville is nowhere near the U.K.).

On “Ghost,” Baird gives us a lovely falsetto; the title track, meanwhile, is majestically rocking and very, very British (honestly…how do they do that?). “See You at the Show” slows the pace with fret-heavy strumming and a gentle beat. The dreamy “Arjuna’s Conversation,” the disc’s closer, is where the art-pop comes in; more soundscape than rock song, this dreamy track lays gifts at our feet that sound as if they were crafted of exotic stringed instruments—and not just six guitar parts recorded on an old eight-track cassette machine. This is one of the best local releases of 2003.

The Great Purification is available locally at CD Warehouse, Vintage Vinyl, and Slackers or online at www.springclockwonder.com.

—Laura Hamlett

PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS from previous page

GILLIAN WELCH: SOUL JOURNEY (Acony Records) Gillian Welch is a folk crooner. She is that rare songwriter that combines vivid storytelling with a vocal style as unique as the Chairman of the Board himself. While breaking the girl-plus-guitar singer/songwriter mold, Welch takes her storytelling to a new level on Soul Journey.

The album opens with the sweet, sultry “Look at Miss Ohio,” a tale of a woman living her life “runnin’ around with a ragtop down.” Welch fleshes out Miss Ohio’s conflict as she growls, “She says I wanna do right/But not right now.” Here Welch shares songwriting credits with producer David Rawlings, as she does on seven of the album’s ten songs.

A talented ensemble adds to the strengths Welch and Rawlings brought to 2001’s Time (The Revelator). On “One Monkey,” a full band builds steam behind Welch’s voice as she chants, “One monkey don’t stop the show.” Greg Leisz’s dobro, Jim Boquist’s bass, and Ketcham Secor’s fiddle provide coal for the fire. “So get on board,” Welch calls. “Here comes the freight train.”

Before Soul Journey, Welch never released anything featuring just her unaccompanied voice and guitar. The stark “One Little Song” and traditional blues number “Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor” prove to be good companions to the album’s sonically broader numbers. Still, experiments are rarely complete successes; the traditional song “I Had a Real Good Mother and Father” falls short of the bar set by the rest of the album.

Welch’s talent is a gift, and Rawlings’ production always seems to put her in the right package. Soul Journey proves once again that a voice and a story can take an artist a long way, but people can go to greater heights when surrounded by talented friends.

—Ross Todd THE YARDBIRDS: BIRDLAND (Favored Nations) You probably think you’re about to read a review of a remastered counterculture favorite, but this is incorrect. No, friends, this is about the new Yardbirds album, Birdland. Having been unaware of certain musical goingson of the past decade or so, I concede I was skeptical when I heard there was a brand new Yardbirds disc coming out. But while 8 of the 15 cuts here are reworkings of tunes recorded in their heyday, this is no cynical stroll down Memory Lane.

A little background: the Yardbirds, as all legitimate rock historians know, spawned three guitar legends: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin were initially called the New Yardbirds). Beck is the only one to appear here, and he’s only on one track, the crunching, Bo Diddleyesque “My Blind Life.” However, the current lineup—original members Chris Dreja and Jim McCarty plus newer recruits Gypie Mayo, Alan Glen, and John Idan—attack this set with obvious relish. The plethora of guests, including Steve Vai, Slash, Brian May, and Joe Satriani, add plenty of spice without allowing the proceedings to degenerate into a musical wankoff.

Birdland, which is on Vai’s Favored Nations label, is sumptuous proof that the band which released its previous album of new material during LBJ’s presidency has plenty of gas left three and a half decades on. “Mister, You’re a Better Man Than I,” “Happenings Ten Years Ago,” “Shapes of Things,” and “Over, Under, Sideways, Down” are some of the best new takes on old numbers, but don’t overlook such cool new compositions as “Crying Out for Love,” “Dream Within a Dream,” and “An Original Man.” Birdland’s greatest triumph involves proving once and for all that the Yardbirds aren’t strictly a blues outfit; their sound has always featured healthy doses of psychedelia and Middle Eastern music.

On hearing this album, my reaction was, “I’d love to check these guys out live,” and I’m betting several pizzas that yours will be similar.

—Jon McSweeney

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Nonna G’s Trainwreck Saloon NORTH COUNTY Audio Express Bandana’s Breakaway Café Brewskeez Sports Club CD Reunion Corner Coffee House Custom Sounds Dale’s Music Excelsior Club Fantasy Shop Guitar Center Bridgeton Mattingly’s McMurray Music Pink Galleon Ruiz Mexican Restaurant SLCC - Florissant Valley Sound Revolution UMSL - Millennium Center UMSL - Pilot House RICHMOND HEIGHTS Aesops Einstein Brothers Bagels ST. CHARLES/ST. PETERS Borders - Mid Rivers Mall CD Reunion Drum Headquarters Fortel’s Pizza Den Glad Rags Retro Active St. Charles Guitar Exchange St. Peters Cultural Arts Center Sally Ts Slackers SOULARD/LAFAYETTE SQUARE/FOX PARK The Brick of St. Louis Great Grizzly Bear Griffin’s Hammerstone’s Joanie’s Pizza Lafayette Pub & Grill Lil’ Nikki’s Lynch Street Bistro Mad Art Off Broadway Soulard Ale House Soulard Coffee Garden Soulard Market SqWires Venice Café Way Out Club SOUTH CITY Absolutli Goosed Bellacino’s

Black Thorn Pub CBGB Cheap Trx Crusoe’s Dunaway Books The Famous Bar Frederick’s Music Lounge KDHX Lemmons Mangia Italiano MoKaBe’s On the Grid Pop’s Blue Moon Record Exchange Shugga’s Skip’s Place South Grand Coffee Shop (T.F.A.) The Future Antiques Vintage Haberdashery Wherehouse Music SOUTH COUNTY Borders - Crestwood CD Warehouse Elmo’s Generations Guitar Center Crestwood Guitar Escape Helen Fitzgeralds House of Rock SLCC – Meramec Some Other Place Streetside Records Crestwood Ten Mile House UNIVERSITY CITY/LOOP All-Star Tattoo Altered Skates Beyond the Wall Blueberry Hill Brandts Cicero’s The Delmar Front Page News Good Works Halo Bar Iron Age Market in the Loop Meshuggah Molly O’Ryan’s The Pageant Rag-O-Rama Red Sea Revolve Records Riddles Silver Strings Streetside Records Tivoli Vintage Vinyl

WEBSTER GROVES CJ Mugg’s Commerce Bank Cool Beans Cravings Ellie Forcella Euclid Records Great Clips Imo’s Music Folk Planet Smoothie St. Louis Bread Company Stratton’s Webers Front Row Webster Books Webster Records Webster Univ. Film Series YMCA WEST COUNTY Borders - Ballwin Enigma Lounge Fazio’s Frets & Friends Planet Smoothie Satchmo’s Slackers Streetside Records WESTPORT Brevé Coffeehouse CD Warehouse Duds & Suds Krieger’s Pub & Grill Llewelyn’s Pub Patrick’s Planet Smoothie Starbucks Tomatillo Trainwreck Saloon ILLINOIS BELLEVILLE/SWANSEA B&G Music Hollywood Tan Lincoln Theater Main Street Jazz & Blues Southwestern Illinois College Three-1-Three COLLINSVILLE/ EDWARDSVILLE/ GLEN CARBON Laurie’s Place Milo’s Cigar Shop Mojo’s Music Sacred Grounds

SIU-E Slackers Stagger Inn Videos Unlimited FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS Borders Dandy Inn Funny Bone St. Clair Square Food Court GRANITE CITY Vintage Vinyl O’FALLON/SHILOH/ LEBANON Coffeehouse Company Fantasy Tans McKendree College Schiappa’s Schmitt Music Slackers Starbucks at Hart Food & Drug SAUGET Oz Pop’s OUTLYING AREAS CHAMPAIGNURBANA, IL The Highdive Record Service COLUMBIA, MO Blue Note Cherry Street Artisan Café Coffee Zone II Cool Stuff Kaffeehous Café Lakota Coffee Mojo’s Music Café 9th Street Books Osama’s Coffee Zone Peace Nook Ragtag Cinemacafe Streetside Records Whizz Records SPRINGFIELD, MO Mud House