Local Scenery

Wydown have released their first EP, Rock Ends. Song samples will soon be available at www.wydown.com; in the meantime, you can procure your very own copy by sending $10 (postage paid) to 1240A Moorlands Drive, St.Louis, Missouri 63117.

Maxtone Four (Brian McClelland, Karl Dodson, Jeremy Miller, and Chris Clark) are currently working with producer Drew Johnson on their debut recording, slated for a June 2003 release. Check out the MP3 page at www.maxtonefour.com for a preview. Based on a two-song sampler received at Playback headquarters, the music’s catchily poppy and worth a listen.

Anyone who enjoyed Shame Club’s opening set for Ghoul 5 at the Hi-Pointe will be glad to know the group’s eight-song CD, Bad Idea Realized, is now available. The actual CD release party was at Frederick’ s and, after their recent performances, it seems there will be many CDs to come.

Wedding Laine is in the National Shorts Competition at the USA Film Festival in Dallas. The festival runs April 24 to May 2, and director (and Cinema St. Louis/SLIFF coordinator) Andrea Sporcic plans to attend.

When the basement bar of Lemmon ’ s closed late last year, it meant the end of one of St.Louis’s most promising venues for music. Now Lemmon’s is going to try hosting live music upstairs; the debut show will be a CD release party for the Rowdy Cum Lowdies. Held on Saturday, May 10, the party runs from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m., with free pizza and other giveaways throughout the event.

Spring Clock Wonder have completed their first CD, The Great Purification. The disc is currently available via their Web site (www.springclockwonder.com); look for it in local record stores in the coming weeks, with upcoming CD release parties at Sally T’ s and three-1-three.

While the large crowd waited, candles burned onstage and a slide show flashed messages that proposed a somewhat fictionalized history of My 2 Planets. I wondered, did one of the members really play sax on several Metallica albums? All part of the fun of the CD release party at Mississippi Nights April 12 for The Other Side of Summer. The show, like the new CD, featured a combination of great lyrics and

MY 2 PLANETS

intelligent melodies and sounded fantastic from the big stage. The all-ages show really did attract all ages: one of the funniest and telling sites of the night was a four-year-old shaking his butt to a My 2 Planets tune…proof that good music knows no particular age, only quality. Playback St. Louis wishes them the best of luck.

The City Museum is now open Friday and Saturday nights until 1:00 a.m.

All About Fun and Entertainment St. Louis are putting on ACT One, Washington Avenue’s first street festival of 2003, the weekend of May 3 and 4. Free for all ages, ACT One encompasses art, culture, and tunes, along with a downtown St. Louis housing tour.

Mark your calendars for May 16, when yet another Ticketmaster New Music Spotlight rolls into the Pageant. The all-ages show features local rock bands Nadine, Magnolia Summer, Tinhorn, Grandpa ’ s Ghost, and American Minor. Go to www.playbackstl.com for your chance to win free tickets.

Keller Williams onstage at the Pageant. Photo by Molly Hayden.

Make Me Feel” at Blueberry Hill a week prior). Really makes a man think.

Well, maybe it doesn’t, but how about when Williams weaves back and forth between Dave Brubeck’s “Take 5” and Phish’s “The Sloth” without hesitation, as he did almost immediately after the King of Pop shenanigans? Now that’s innovative. And did I mention that he specializes in the vocal trumpet?

Williams’ secret weapon is deconstruction. He starts with one melody, be it vocal, guitar, or drums, and uses his pedals to loop it back, maybe trying again until the audience approves. Then he heads over to another instrument to add on another line. He creates each song one building block at a time, right in front of everyone. Occasionally he’ll wander over to his own little mixing board and fiddle with that. Then, when it’s all assembled, he takes his axe and solos over the whole concoction, often ending up in some other song entirely. At the end of the show, the only man Williams acknowledges is his soundman.

But nobody can sustain interest for two sets on gimmickry alone. Williams writes relatively simple songs that belie some serious chops. One more reason this guy is building a following exponentially: he can play upbeat song after upbeat song for three hours and not miss one single beat. And though he doesn’t have the reputation of jaw-dropping guitar wizardry (yet), when his spastic strumming it at its best, it wouldn’t stand out too much from the catalog of Leo Kottke. And his best shows up more often than you might expect.

For someone who performs in solitude (aside from the occasional cameo with String Cheese Incident), it’s interesting that Williams needs to be in front of an audience to really make a connection. The first reason is that his songwriting is a little one-dimensional: it’s all upbeat and bouncy, and most attempts at creative variety, such as “Spring Buds” and the idea to electronically remix Laugh into Dance, haven’t succeeded. But onstage, his talent outshines everything else. And he’s charismatic, too. He prances and cavorts about, unafraid to ham it up at any point along the way.

And that’s part of the point: not just anyone can strut around onstage all by themselves night after night and succeed. It doesn’t take just fast hands, uncanny rhythm, or a sense of humor. You need them all. That’s why Keller Williams can flat-out entertain, no assistance required. —Taylor Upchurch Backstage Pass

Cave In w/Piebald The Galaxy, April 9

The nerd rock revolution that began in ’94 with the notorious blue album that swept millions of square pegs into a bad fashion show of armyissue glasses and “nerd-sheik” culminates nearly ten years later with the maturation of Piebald. As the band members took the stage, it was not surprising to see that they were all wearing crappy Tshirts. From their greasy hair and pale skin (which has probably only seen the interior light of a tour van for the past months), they all shared the similar look of the mad scientist, toiling over unending algebraic equations. They shouldn’t be wearing guitars; they should be wearing white lab coats, fussing over calculations, buttons, and red alarms. Singer Travis Shettel performs a high-wire act between keyboards, guitar, singing, and splashing in his own infectious Costello-esque prancing. These guys really leap into their playing, teeth snapping into fleshy boredom. I was honestly not much of a fan of Piebald, but their live show has changed my mind.

Those of you who are familiar with the Boston quartet Cave In know that they have cashed in on the image and imagery of the final frontier, inadvertently cultivating a broad yet accurate description of their new sound: “space rock.” In fact, it seems only natural that they would play in a place called the Galaxy. As the lights dim, the band walks onstage in movie slow–motion, like astronauts embarking on a somber mission of exploration. His axe swinging like a star from his shoulders, rhythm guitarist Adam McGrath reaches not for a pick, but a $4.95 toy ray gun, complete with pulsating lights and sound! He presses the trigger while placing the gun over the pickups, and the amazing journey has begun. Singer Steven Brodsky is last on stage, donning his guitar with confidence and sending crashing waves of dark, looming chords that echo within the Galaxy, shaking the walls and our ribcages.

Most of Cave In’s live show is built around their ability to create sonic atmospheres and mental landscapes of feedback loops. As some of the crowd considered this weird, noisy, or—my favorite—“artistic masturbation,” let’s not forget the aesthetic value of creating walls of sound within a limited sphere. They played everything off their new RCA album, Antenna, and deafened many youths who haven’t yet learned that standing two feet away from speakers twice your size is bad. —Kevin Korinek

The Postal Service Creepy Crawl, April 10

Perhaps I set myself up for disappointment. I curled up with my best headphones and the Postal Service’s album, Give Up, for nearly a month, growing to like the imperfect balance

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between sad indie rock and bloopy electronic pop more with each listen.

However, I should have known that this kind of album is difficult to reproduce in a club setting, much less the Creepy Crawl, which is better suited for shows driven by electric guitar. The intricacies of Jimmy Tamborello’s synthesizer programming were swallowed by crowd chatter. Ben Gibbard frequently asked for more volume, more bass, more vocals, but for all practical purposes, the band still sounded like a copy of a taped copy of the CD.

The show consisted of songs off Give Up, plus the original Gibbard-Tamborello collaboration, “The Dream of Evan and Chan.” Apart from lengthy outros and extra bleeps and blips, there were no surprises on the setlist. While some indie synthpop bands revel in covers of ’80s new wave cheese, the Postal Service apparently wasn’t interested.

If you managed to wedge yourself between the merch tables and the video games on the side of the stage, as I did during the second half of the show, you were treated to an excellent visual display. You could also witness Ben Gibbard play the drums, clumsily dance to “Clark Gable,” or clap his hands like a little kid while singing “Such Great Heights” with touring female vocalist Jenny Lewis. Watching the band enjoy themselves in spite of acoustic obstacles was the most redeeming part of the show. Sadly, though, we couldn’t all stand on the side of the stage.

Gibbard apologized while attempting to adjust the sound, “Sorry about this, guys. We’re a stereo band in a mono world.” Unfortunately, that may be true. —Jessica Gluckman

Jurassic 5 The Pageant, April 17

Truly forming a bond with an audience and maintaining it for 90 minutes is a rare feat. During their dynamic performance at the Pageant, Jurassic 5 removed any boundaries and established an effective connection with the young, mostly white audience.

Also known as J5, the four MCs and two DJs of one of hip-hop’s rising groups provided tremendous vocal and musical skills throughout the upbeat performance. Beginning the show with the call-and-response fun of “I Am Somebody,” funky beats of “Break,” and inventive grooves of the 2000 single “The Influence,” they generated plenty of movement from the enthusiastic floor crowd. Mixing superbly between all four MCs and supported by a booming, ear-throbbing bass beat, J5 served notice to their unique sound. The predominant tone does borrow considerably from old-school hip-hop pioneers, but it remains fresh when conveyed with this much talent.