Curmudgeon

34

CURMUDGEON BY ROB LEVY

Don’t you love the spring? The allergies, the baseball (complete with Redbird thirdplace antics), the inevitable playoff collapse of the Blues, and an end to the indoor soccer season. However, one groovy thing about the spring is that it marks the arrival of some really good shows. I am not just talking about the big large, overpriced, scary LYDON Riverport/UMB / Galactic Empire shit. No, I am talking about lots of good bands and respected artists gigging out in smaller venues. With that in mind, the next two months are going to be off the hook. In the next few months, there is a flurry of great live music action: Dressy

Bessy, The FortyFives, The Starlight Mints, Guided by Voices, Stereolab, Bob Dylan, Keb’ Mo’, Lucinda Williams, Henry Rollins, Liz Phair, Grandaddy, Ben Kweller, Death Cab for

Cutie, and the Stereophonics are all coming to town. Plus, if you figure in larger shows like David Bowie and Missy Elliott, then the spring is indeed going to be crazy. All of this is happening before the summer heat sets in, bringing with it humidity and stupid tours for dumbass Limp Bizkit assclowns, skater kids, and mundanes with no sense of musical propriety. So get out and see some bands or read a book, but don’t just sit there!

If everyone who made a fuss over Janet Jackson’s boobie would spend as much time and energy thinking, reading, and being creative, we’d live in a much better place. Ultimately, it is sad that her nonspeaking body part was much more interesting than any of the actual performers at the SuperBowl halftime show. The show itself was a collection of current and future hasbeens. Maybe next year they could get Gerardo or Monie Love.

Elbow has covered Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” as a B-side for their next single.

Just when you thought it was safe to come out into the world, Billy Corgan has announced he is working on a solo album.

Czech fetishists British Sea Power are releasing “A

PLAYBACK

ST. LOUIS

Lovely Day Tomorrow” as a single in STEVE EARLE the Czech Republic. The exclusive single will be released in both English and Czech.

Steve Lillywhite, the man responsible for the sound of U2’s first two albums, has again reunited with the

Irish band. After helping out on some previous albums, he is back to fulltime production for their next album, slated for a late 2004 release. In the meantime, the Edge has recorded the

“Batman Theme” for the new Dark

Knight animated series. for a new QOTSA album before the end of this

Johnny Lydon caused quite a stir in the U.K. year. on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here. He drew Steve Earle is the subject of a new documenflak for being incredibly profane and belligerent tary, Just an American Boy. The documentary to the cast and crew. Things got so literal and lensed by Amos Poe features an in-depth look intense that Lydon abruptly quit the show. at Earle’s career and his 2002 tour.

Carnegie Hall hosted a Tibet House Benefit Down-tempo chillsters Frost hail from last month featuring Ray Davies, David Byrne, Norway. This in itself is not enough to make

Yo La Tengo, Phillip Glass, and Keb’ Mo’. you jump up and down with glee, but when

Maybe it’s just me, but the new Webster you consider that Frost is the latest in a string

Film Series people don’t seem to be offering of Scandinavian bands to infiltrate Europe and programming as daring or interesting as their North America, then that should make you take predecessors. notice. This duo makes pop music in the vein of

Urge Overkill had reformed and played a Club 8 or a calmer Portishead. Frost’s good buds series of West Coast dates. Royksopp have remixed “Endless Love” for their

The Pixies are releasing a 22-song retrospeclatest album, Melodica. Melodica offers anything tive, Wave of Mutilation, to coincide with their that a purveyor of trip-hop or down-tempo could reformation. Their British tour sold out in less want. It is full of sweeping back melodies, lush than 30 minutes. They are headlining this year’s vocals, and beats that melodiously move about,

Coachella Music Festival with The Cure and fitting snuggly under the vocals.

Radiohead. Astor Piazolla was the world’s most famous

Together We’re Heavy is the title of the clunky tango musician. He made some amazing records second album from The Polyphonic Spree. The with melodies hour-plus-long CD, due later this spring, again and harmonies NICK DRAKE features serious orchestration. that zipped,

Krist Novoselic is abandoning his plans sang, and to run for lieutenant governor for Washington angled their

State. His former Nirvana compadre, Dave way into your

Grohl, recently recorded a track for the new subconscious.

Garbage album, which is due out next year. Now Milan

Which brings me to this point: could anyone Records has more boring than The Foo Fighters or No honored his

Doubt win a Grammy? work with

Also idiotic is Sean Combs’ interest in buyAstor Piazolla ing the Orlando Magic of the NBA. Remixed, fea

It has been about five years since Ghost turing contemBRITISH SEA POWER released an album. Their new album, Hypnotic porary artists like Koop and 4hero reworking and re-pastichUnderworld, is a sweeping, ing Piazolla’s tangos into new electronica-tinged massive movement of feedcompositions. back, noise, and textured Despite the recent back problems that sidesound overtures. tracked Guided by Voices’ recent tour, Bob Bassist Nick Oliveri Pollard is at it again. GBV spent February reschedhas left Queens of the uling tour dates and recording new material for Stone Age. Earlier last their next album, due later this year. Meanwhile, month, Mark Lanegan left Pollard, in the guise of Fiction Man, is releasing the band to finish work on his new solo project later this month. his solo album. Despite the Underachievers Please Try Harder is the fine lineup shenanigans, look new album from Glasgow’s Camera Obscura. It

March 2004

is a resplendent thing, laden with quiet melodies, sultry, calm vocals, and dynamic, sweeping orchestrations. If Nick Drake made a record with Belle & Sebastian, it would sound like this.

The Alarm recently re-formed and pulled a fast one on the often-daft U.K. music press. Using the moniker The Poppy Fields, they recorded a single, “45 rpm,” then put young, hip kids in the video to fool people into thinking they were someone else. Very few outside the band were in on the gag, which was done to show that the U.K. music business is only interested in looks and image. The single cracked the U.K. charts.

I am very tired of this Courtney Love person. Can’t she just go away?

It has been over two decades in the making, but Mission of Burma is back! The re-formed lineup is playing the U.K. date of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival as well as this month’s South By Southwest shindig. This May, they will release their new studio album, OnoffOn.

Behind the Decks is the title of the new record from DJ Bad Boy Bill. Can’t he come out in front of them? This way, we would all be spared his cacophony of bad techno tunes.

The new Beastie Boys album should be out by the end of June. OutKast is making a film, Speakerboxxx, with director Bryan Barber and actress

Rosario Dawson.

Paul McCartney and James Brown are headlining this year’s Glastonbury Music Festival. Such a fuss has been made over Mel Gibson’s Passion movie that I wanna nail his BEASTIE BOYS Braveheart pansy ass to a cross for being in so many bad movies lately. He should be lashed for being on TV way too much, shilling this thing. At least it isn’t a Cody Banks flick. Norah Jones’ Feels Like Home feels like a handful of useless crap and sounds like ass. The Descendants have re-formed and released a new EP entitled ’Merican. Look for them to tour later this year. The planned collaboration between Coldplay’s Chris Martin and The Streets is nevermore. However, a scary collaboration is under way that is both frightening and weird. Dead or Alive’s Pete Burns’ new single, “Jack & Jill Party,” is written and produced by the Pet Shop Boys. Done & Never Again is the title of the nice new Wormwood Scrubs EP. The band is setting off for an East Coast tour in April. Way too much is being made of The Darkness. Finally, a bit of culture and refinement...Last month, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra named conductor David Robertson as its new musical director. He will help out next year as music director designate before taking the baton full-time for the 2005–2006 season. For a symphony that desperately needs to draw a younger audience, he is an ideal choice. Here are three quick reasons why. First he brings to his repertoire a familiarity with our orchestra and its programming. Second, Robertson’s grasp of traditional classics is strong enough to withstand the leering and scowling of even the namby-pambiest of symphony diehards. Finally, his command of Twentieth Century composers won’t be so far out there to alienate the average concertgoer. This is important because, in the past, SLSO supporters have scratched their heads at the many new or avantgarde compositions. You can get a smattering of his style when he conducts the St. Louis Symphony the weekend of April 24. On that program. he will handle Brahms’ eloquent and soft “Violin Concerto” and +’s sweepingly pleasant “Sixth Symphony.” That should do it for this time, get out and see the world, smile often, and please...don’t buy any more Sting albums.

Every Monday:

Open Mic with Heather Barth 3.2 Jazz Trio 3.3 The Moonglades & The Unmutuals 3.4 Jake’s Leg 3.5 Jackhead 3.6 Murder City Players 3.9 Tim Fahy & Randy Furrer 8-11/Ali & Emily 11-1 3.10 Earl & Leadville 3.11 Jake’s Leg 3.12 Racket Box 3.16 Benefit for Confluence 3.17 The Whole Sick Crew & The Spiders 3.18 Jake’s Leg 3.19 Slipstream 3.20 Jalopy 3.23 Racket Box 3.24 Mega Hurtz & Bloodletters 3.25 Jake’s Leg 3.26 Team Tomato 3.30 Ali & Emily 3.31 Palmers Room & Big Star Kadillac

Drink Specials Every Night Please Call for Schedule Updates

35