PLAYBACK:stl

april

2005

play

ack

www.playbackstl.com

fiery furnaces profiles: captured! by robots, okkervil river, andrew sean greer reviews: sxsw wrapup, kings of leon previews: the golden republic, razorlight

free

THREE YEARS...DAMN. The PlaybackSTL Third Anniversary Show OFF BROADWAY• APRIL 22 $6 /8 /21+ ADV

HOSTED BY YOUR OLD UNCLE DAVE ALANS

DOOR

GIVEAWAYS, LOVE, AWESOME ENTERTAINMENT MORE INFO: WWW.PLAYBACKSTL.COM

PLAYBACKSTL: CELEBRATING THREE YEARS — FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM PLAYBACKSTL: GET USED TO IT! After 36 issues, hundreds of interviews, and thousands of reviews in its first 3 years, PlaybackSTL is only just beginning. PlaybackSTL is the free monthly available in nearly 500 locations in the U.S. We cover music, movies, books, and the arts. We are the affordable, independent, and smart choice for bands, labels, and all types of companies. Rates starting as low as $100 for print advertising and great deals on Web advertising.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PLAYBACKSTL AT

WWW.PLAYBACKSTL.COM/SCREAM or CALL 314.630.6404

play

ack

APRIL 2005 This Magazine Is Your Magazine

PlaybackSTL: Get used to it.

and BALLWIN 15355A Manchester Rd. 636-230-2992 4/2 - Marvin Cockrell 4/9 - Gene Operle 4/16 - Sidekick 4/23 - John Maxfield 4/29 - Josh Rocha BRENTWOOD 1519 S. Brentwood Blvd.

314-918-8189 4/2 - John Maxfield 4/15 - Barefoot Jones 4/16 - Brendan Bradley 4/29 - Isis “MustardSeed” Jones 4/30 - Auset

PLAYBACK– TALK

Singing Our Praises I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love Playback! Just wanted to tell you how great the mag has been of late. It’s one of the few things I read these days pretty much cover-tocover, in one sitting, with my calendar and pencil nearby. Love that Delirious Nomad, always find something to add to my “to be read” list from Stephen Schenkenberg...oh, yeah, there’s music too, right? Thanks for the quality work y’all do.

—Amanda Doyle Editor, TheCommonspace.org

Even Young Opera Singers Love Us My name is Anna Young and my long-term goal is to be a professional opera singer. I spent a semester in Boston and I am currently studying at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. As a singer, I have very high goals for myself, one of which is to have something to do with your magazine! As a loyal devotee of PlaybackSTL, I will wear my Playback T-shirt in a Vanity Fair photo shoot if given the opportunity (or if I’m ever on Letterman).

And since I am in K.C., I will climb one of those gigantic Shuttlecocks at the Nelson and have someone photograph me.

—Anna Young

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS 6611 N. Illinois 618-397-6097 4/8 - Josh Rocha 4/9 - Isis “Mustardseed” Jones 4/15 - The Gordons

4/16 - The Harpers 4/22 - Nancy Lippincott 4/30 - John Maxfield ST. PETERS 1320 Mid Rivers Mall Dr. 636-278-5000 4/16 - Josh Rocha SOUTH COUNTY 25 South County Centerway 314-892-1700 4/9 - MapleJam 4/15 - Sidekick 4/16 - Marvin Cockrell

The Way Music Should Be Thanks so much for the article and the kind words regarding my music [March 1 Events Page online]. Glad to see that others share my quirky sense of humor and outlook.

Your comments and observations truly made me laugh out loud—it is nice to read a music piece/review that extends beyond cliches.

With any luck, the review will get some people to skip American Idol for a night and venture out to hear some “live” music...played by a band in a bar—the way music should be!

—Kurt Crandall

We’re Scorching...

Bryan A. Hollerbach: Were you the person who did that great Jason Ringenberg Empire Builders review? Love your publication! music@gnashvillesoundsrecords.com

Cosponsored Events CREVE COEUR 11745 Olive Blvd.

314-432-3575 4/2 - Auset 4/8 - Mick Byrd 4/9 - John Maxfield 4/15 - Marvin Cockrell 4/16 - Micah Gray 4/23 - Josh Rocha 4/30 - Gene Operle

I did indeed praise Empire Builders for both the magazine and the Web site some months ago. Two years ago, I also had the pleasure of seeing Ringenberg live at Twangfest 7 here—what a dynamo!

In any event, on behalf of PlaybackSTL collectively, thanks for your kind words. We strive to make each issue better than its predecessor, and feedback from readers always helps to keep us honest. —Bry, Sports Desk

SUNSET HILLS 10990 Sunset Hills Plaza 314-909-0300 4/2 - Micah Gray 4/9 - Marvin Cockrell 4/15 - Josh Rocha 4/16 - Gene Operle

*All shows 8-10 pm unless noted

LETTERS POLICY All letters to the editor are subject to publication. Letters may be edited for clarity or space. Letters are of the opinion of the writers and do not necessarily represent the beliefs of PlaybackSTL.

MOLLY HAYDEN

In March, six of us packed up and drove to Austin for the annual music and film industry rite-of-passage that is South by Southwest.

What you hold in your hands is a record of our experiences: photos, memories, films to watch, and bands not to be missed. We can only fit so much on these pages, so be sure to check out www.playbackstl.com for complete coverage, including a photo gallery and show reviews.

This month, we invite you to celebrate the third anniversary of PlaybackSTL with a show April 22 at Off Broadway. We’re bringing Cameron McGill and Punsapaya from Chicago and adding our town’s The Lab and host Dave AlanS to create what we promise will be an amazing night of music.

If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you know that we’ve grown...a lot. We’ve continued to pour not only the advertising revenue back into the magazine, but a lot of our own funds (and financing), as well. PlaybackSTL is family-owned, not corporate-owned. We don’t have a pool of investors telling us what to do, or giving us money to do it.

We began PlaybackSTL because we loved music and the arts—and, frankly, St. Louis needed a publication to point out its highlights and opportunities, rather than put our town down for all we didn’t have. Over the years, we’ve broadened our horizons to include a national distribution; though we cover acts from across the country and around the world, we still maintain a local feel and focus.

If you enjoy reading PlaybackSTL each month, we invite you to help us out with some of the expenses. Purchase a subscription for yourself or a friend, buy a T-shirt, come to our shows. We’d love the help!

Finally, “Elliot Goes” has a new look, thanks to the help of illustrator Carlos Ruiz, to whose talents we are grateful. (Also check out Carlos’s original “Record Store Guy”; both comics are featured on page 31.) Check ’em out!

1

CONTENTS FISH IN A BARREL .............................3

FESTIVAL

PROFILES

SXSW – Film ....................................... 26 SXSW – Music..................................... 28

Captured! by Robots ................................4 Okkervil River ..........................................5

PLAY BY PLAY.....................................7 Mahjongg, Brendan Benson, Berry, The Blue Van, The Decemberists, Nic Armstrong and the Thieves, Regina Spektor, Luke Temple, Steve Vai

QUICK HITS .......................................13 Abateria, Bughummer, The Juan MacLean/ LCD Soundsystem/Black Leotard Front, Reigning Heir, Toyy, Sunshine

LOCAL SCENERY ..............................30 PRETENTIOUS RECORD STORE GUY ........................................31 ELLIOT GOES .....................................31 CURMUDGEON ..................................32 COME OUT AND PLAY ......................33 TAKE FIVE ..........................................34 Minus the Bear

BACKSTAGE PASS............................14

PAGE BY PAGE

Alison Kraus + Union Station, Kings of Leon, Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers

THREE TO SEE ..................................15

Profile: Andrew Sean Greer .................... 35 Reviews: Jonathan Safran Foer, Curtis Sittenfeld, Ma Jian ................................................. 36

YOU ARE HERE .................................16

DELIRIOUS NOMAD ..........................39

Review: Greater New York 2005 Preview: Dzine

ON THE COVER .................................20 The Fiery Furnaces

NOW PLAYING Cinema: Sahara, Dear Frankie, Sin City.... 24 DVD: Morrissey, Dig!............................. 17 Our Filmy Substance............................ 27

WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? .............40 The Golden Republic, Eisley, Glenn Tilbrook and the Fluffers, Razorlight, The Click Five, Nomeansno, The Forty-Fives, Mary Alice Wood

PORTRAITS ........................................44 Peter Venezia

JEMINA PEARL of BE YOUR OWN PET performs at SXSW. Festival wrapup begins on page 26. Photo by Jim Dunn

NEVER MISS A COPY Avoid the rush and make sure you get your copy of PlaybackSTL every month in the convenience and comfort of your own mailbox. For just $35 you get 12 months of great reporting on arts and entertainment, along with our monthly events listings, columnists, interviews—all in big, bold color. You will also receive the special edition PlaybackSTL T-shirt and two discount coupons for Now Hear This music store in Kirkwood.

Name __________________________________________________ Address _________________________________________________ City/State/Zip______________________________________________ E-mail ______________________ Shirt Size______________________ PAYMENT METHODS: Credit (Pay Pal - We will e-mail you instructions)• Check (enclosed)

PLAYBACKSTL • PO BOX 9170 • ST. LOUIS, MO 63117 • 314-630-6404

Playback Pop Culture playSt. Louisack Publisher Two Weasels Press LLC Managing Editor Laura Hamlett Associate Editor/Art Director Jim Dunn Contributing Editor Bryan A. Hollerbach Book Editor Stephen Schenkenberg Film Editor Pete Timmermann Live Music Editor Brian McClelland Theater Editor Tyson Blanquart Editors-at-Large Rob Levy, Kevin Renick Editorial Assistant Kimberly Faulhaber Office Manager Angela Pancella Interns Jordan Deam, Kate Merwald Contributing Writers Sid Andruska, Lauren Beckerle, Tyson Blanquart, J. Church, Chris Clark, Thomas Crone, Sean Douglas, Kimberly Faulhaber, Nora Fitzgerald, Adam Hackbarth, Laura Hamlett, Bob Hammond, Joe Hodes, Cory Hoehn, Bryan A. Hollerbach, Byron Kerman, Mike Kinworthy, Jeff Knubley, John Kujawski, Derek Lauer, Sarah Lenzini, David Lichius, Dave McCahan, Brian McClelland, Sean Moeller, Jon Rayfield, Kevin Renick, Aaron Richter, Andrew Scavotto, Stephen Schenkenberg, Emily Spreng Lowery, Pete Timmermann, Mike Wachsnicht, Rudy Zapf Cover Photograph Steve Gullick; Courtesy Rough Trade Contributing Illustrator Carlos Ruiz Advertising Sales Jim Dunn • 314-630-6404 Jim@playbackstl.com Distribution Two Weasels Press LLC PlaybackSTL is published monthly.

Current circulation is 18,000. © All content copyright PlaybackSTL 2005. No material may be reproduced without permission.

For advertising rates and submission information, please check our Web site at www.playbackstl.com or send e-mail correspondence to contact@playbackstl.com.

Submit calendar information to events@playbackstl.com. Manuscripts for consideration must be typed and e-mailed to editor@playbackstl.com.

We want your feedback! write to contact@playbackstl.com.

Subscriptions are available for $35/ year (12 issues) prepaid and include a free T-shirt. Send check or money order and T-shirt size to: PlaybackSTL P.O. Box 9170 St. Louis, Missouri 63117-0170 314-630-6404 Y Y Y Check out our Web site & additional content at www.playbackstl.com

APRIL 2005

NATURAL SELECTION AT WORK? An unspecified mystery illness, characterized by vague medical-sounding symptoms like “exhaustion” and “dehydration,” and often leading to hospitalization, has become a mini-epidemic among musicians and celebrities, striking down the A-list and D-list alike with no discernible pattern or regard for those busy, busy schedules. Is some supreme being trying to thin out the herd, or do the rich and fabulous just like the paper gowns and fruit cups that come with a hospital stay? Only God and their agents know for sure. Victims thus far include Michael Jackson (flu), Jessica Simpson (stomach virus), Whitney Houston (food poisoning—Bobby, we’re looking at you), Lindsay Lohan (exhaustion again), and Jennifer Lopez, who was not hospitalized but had to cancel her European tour on her doctor’s advice. (She bravely soldiered on to tape a Pepsi commercial the next day.)

Be careful out there, all you Timberlakes and Federlines: You could be next…

HOW TO DISMANTLE AN ATOMIC TOOL: FIAB’s fave target, The Fly (who will grace STL with his humble presence on December 14), has been getting a lot of press lately for his “leaked” second Nobel Peace Prize nomination. Because Ravi Shankar, best known for playing the sitar, siring Norah Jonezz, and ruining The Beatles, is also on the list, we wondered exactly what the nomination process is for this prestigious award. Time for some investigative journalism, a lá Inside Edition. Turns out that since 2003, the list of nominators has been expanded to include university chancellors and professors of social science, history, philosophy, law, and theology, along with various members of national assemblies and governments. Damn you, Tony Blair. Damn you.

THIS OUGHTA BLOW: Rather than maintaining a shred of dignity and letting the ten-year anniversary of her craptacular debut, Jagged Little Pill, slink by unnoticed, Alanis Morisette is reteaming with Glen Ballard to record an acoustic version of the set. The album will be available exclusively at Starbucks on June 13, and probably at your local resale store later that day. If that doesn’t satisfy your craving for emotionally retarded musings, there’s a greatest hits album slated for Xmas, and Morisette reports that she’s “very pregnant” with new songs. Feel free to insert your own tasteless Roe v. Wade joke here.

WASTIN’ AWAY AGAIN IN WRIGLEYVILLE: As if Cubs fans needed another excuse to get

FISH IN A BARREL MUSIC NEWS

THE CRUE ring the bell on their collective ability to do the bad-boy boogie

blind drunk at Wrigley Field, the Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee has approved two Jimmy Buffet concerts at the historic ballpark over Labor Day weekend. The concerts, a “onetime exception” to Wrigley’s baseball-only policy, may be an attempt to break the Cubs’ curse (Buffet bellowed “Margaritaville” at drunk frat boys in Boston’s Fenway Park last year, and we all know how their season ended up). We think this totally scientific and well-thought-out plan is practically foolproof. Good call, Cubbies.

NATURAL SELECTION AT WORK, PART 2: Send over some chicken soup and an Us Weekly. Sir Elton John is the latest victim of the mysterious celebrity illness currently making its way through major recording studios. (See above.) An undisclosed condition caused the Rocket Man to cancel several performances on his current U.S. tour. Perhaps his sickness can be attributed to his stomach-turning, David LaChapelle–staged Vegas gigs, which our spies say conclude with an enormous set of breasts descending from the ceiling and squirting something on the first two rows. Reason enough for a couple of sick days right there.

MY AIM IS WAY, WAY OFF: Elvis Costello continues to blatantly lame up his rock ’n’ roll legacy, announcing that his next project will be a staged song cycle, The Secret Arias, based on the love life of fairytale writer Hans Christian Anderson, which will premiere at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen this fall. Costello is developing the cycle into a fully staged opera, due in 2006. Because he is still so dear to us, we choose to blame this development on his wife, deadly boring jazz singer Diana Krall, who has apparently managed to sap any rock energy Elvis may have had left. You’re killing us, dude. Seriously.

“TROUBLED ROCKER” DESCRIPTOR USAGE ON THE RISE: We find Pete Doherty’s slow descent into Courtney Love–style madness much less amusing than that of, well, Courtney

Love. Maybe because he didn’t fuck Trent Reznor. Anyhoo, on the heels of a shortie, tattoo-highlighted relationship with Kate Moss and a mysterious arrest for blackmail and robbery in London, the ex-Libertines, current Babyshambles frontman has been recruited

by Mick Jones to star as Ray Speed in Clash City Rocker, a film Jones co-wrote. We’re not sure if a foray into “Hollyweird” is really the best move right now for tiny, delicate Pete, so we’ve decided to indulge our bad-boy complex and offer him a spot on the official FIAB rollaway. Pete, it’s not fancy (sorry about the cat hair!), but we’ll fatten you up with our hearty American cuisine if you promise to keep the robbing/blackmailing to a minimum. Phone us!

JACKO TRIAL WATCH, GIRLIE MAGS, AND MONKEY LOVE EDITION: While the details of the case against Michael Jackson are increasingly unfunny, the man himself continues to amuse us. Incidents of note include the defense team’s use of the old “boobies = innocence” defense in their opening statements, painting for the jury a portrait of the oh-so-masculine singer relaxing at home with favorite Neverland reading materials Playboy and Hustler (he’s a guy’s guy, see?).

Elsewhere, a 1993 interview with former Mr. Janet Jackson, James DeBarge (Remember him? “Rhythm of the Night,” y’all!) has surfaced, in which DeBarge claims to have witnessed inappropriate behavior between Michael and his chimp, Bubbles. Back in the courtroom, the judge in the case threatened to issue a warrant for Jacko’s arrest when he was late for court due to a trip to the emergency room (yes, again) for back pain treatment. (He said he fell down while trying to put on pants.

We have no further comment.) No arrest was made, sadly, as Michael arrived at court later that morning, hobbling and in his pajamas.

Back pain (or good old-fashioned lunacy) continued to be a problem for Jackson, disrupting court with further tardiness, bouts of sobbing, and rushed trips to the bathroom for apparent barfing. For more details, go ahead a try to sit through the daily courtroom reenactments on E! We dare you.

The above are the opinions of Fish in a Barrel, and not necessarily those of the editors of PlaybackSTL. Just the funny ones. And the ones with balls. Contributors: Kimberly Faulhaber, Sarah Lenzini.

3

PBSTL PROFILE

CAPTURED! BY ROBOTS

ROBOT LOVE ALWAYS A BAD IDEA ans of creepy comics and unintentionally retarded sci-fi films from the ’50s, take note: Bad, and sometimes fantastical, things happen to regular Joes every day. Take musician Jay Vance, former bassist of Skankin’ Pickle and The Blue Meanies, for example.

You’ve heard stories like his before: Boy, loving rock ’n’ roll but hating the tanked-up musicians required to make the rock ’n’ roll, creates his very own robot band. Things quickly turn ugly—as they often do in these stories—when the robot band turns evil and enslaves him by implanting a biocerebral mind-control microchip into his skull. That’s right. He is now indeed Captured! by Robots. [Cue creepy theremin music] Intent on forcing him to tour the country as they humiliate him in front of his flesh and blood brethren, the mission of these dastardly robots is simple: Letting the humans in the audience know that they could be next.

These aren’t bullshit Chuck E. Cheese lipsynch bots, either. GTRBOT666 plays his built-in guitar and bass with a clackity precision, and the spastic percussion is provided by the built-in hammers and pedals attached to DRMBOT0110 and AUTOMATOM. And when these three aren’t making a hellacious racket, they’re just plain mean, hurling juvenile obscenities and electric shocks (via the biocerebral microchip, of course) at Vance—or JBOT, as they have re-christened him. And, as if he didn’t have it bad enough, JBOT is also forced to wear bondage headgear and a shirt with fake guts pouring out.

The band’s bots aren’t all evil, though.

JBOT eventually created a sweet ape robot, the comforting and always kind THE APE WHICH HATH NO NAME (and later, a smaller, equally sweet ape called SON OF THE APE WHICH HATH NO NAME, natch), who he turns to for support. “I do sometimes hug TAWHNN when I’m feeling down in the dumps,” he says during a break from his current Greatest Hits tour. “He always makes me feel better.”

The new Greatest Hits CD—a double CD set consisting of songs from the 2003 Ten Commandments and 2004 Get fit With Captured!

by Robots tours—is due in stores in April.

Touring with such angry band mates must be unpleasant. Are the long rides in the van very uncomfortable?

Not really. The bots go into a sort of hibernation, where I can do almost whatever I want,

F

4

By Brian McClelland

and they recharge. Driving actually calms me down a lot; I find it to be very Zen. I do all the driving, and no, I will not make a “Drivebot.” All of you in readerland who say that to me must realize that I hear that like a thousand times a day. C’mon, come up with something better.

I am so tired of hearing that. “What about a Roadiebot?” Ha! Oh, that’s rich. Fuck you.

It must get lonely on the road. Is robot/ human love always wrong?

Yeah, basically. I had a guy once come up to me and asked me if I was into sex with robots, and I was like, “Dude, you want to have sex with The Ape Which Hath No Name?” That is so wrong. TAWHNN preaches platonic love of all mankind, not some dude’s penis in TAWHNN’s robotic orifice.

You’re in a robot band. Is your audience frighteningly male?

No, actually. If I were doing ’80s metal, I would expect it. But we are a different animal.

We have the mix in music styles that keep the lovely ladies around. We change from metal, to old school funk, to techno, to reggae... Plus, we have lots of humor, and drama.

What can audiences expect from the Greatest Hits tour?

We will be playing songs from the last three tours—Captured! by Funky Robots, The Ten Commandments, and Get fit With… We will be putting on a very energetic show with an empha-

road?

Iowa jump on my back at a show, and he wouldn’t get off. He was

was audible over the loud robot rock happening. It was a gut reaction thing, and I wish I hadn’t done it later. I apologized to him, but I could’ve broken the little guy’s back. Note to everyone: JBOT don’t play. If you knock me down on purpose, or jump on my back, I will go medieval on your ass. I’m sorta crazed about that shit.

Mean drunks hate robots. Ever get beat up at a gig?

Who me? Nah, people are generally scared of me. I don’t know if it’s the mask, or the guts, or maybe the odor—the guts smell pretty bad; I think they’re infected. Like I said before, I don’t take too much shit. If someone is stupid enough or drunk enough to start shit with me or the bots, I will stop the show and deal with the problem. I am very fair, and will usually just deal with the situation by being nice and speaking to the person. If being nice doesn’t work, then I get mean, and verbally humiliate the jerk. The bots are always on board for helping in that way.

Usually when there is a problem, security deals with it. If security isn’t around, then usually the crowd at the show lends a hand in controlling the idiot. If no one is dealing with it, I have no choice but to throw down. That has only had to happen a few times, and when it has, it has been pretty quick and the drunk either passes out, or is carried out.

How do you think your songs have

APR

LE

SOFT SONGS ABOUT HARD TIMES

ER

By Sean Moeller kkervil River lead singer Will Sheff cannot relate to you—or to me, for that matter.

He would be the last guy you’d want to call were you to have a pesky, unknown, yet recognizable melody—which so happens to be the refrain to that song about the darkness of matinees, refectories, and Terry Wogan that you heard when your friend put his iPod on shuffle the other night—shifting around upstairs. Forget about getting any clarity from him. He’s never heard of Franz Ferdinand.

He’ll quickly rattle off others that he swears he’s never treated to a listen. He’s never heard anything by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Fiery Furnaces, TV on the Radio, or The Bravery.

Oh, and here’s a big what-the-fuck: He’s never, ever heard a Modest Mouse song.

“Like I said, I’m sort of out of the loop,” Sheff said. “I just hear what other people say about them.”

But really, what does he need with a song off Blueberry Boat or Good News for People Who Love Bad News? We need them because

O

we can’t come remotely close to writing such brilliant songs about Charles Bukowski—ultrasounds to lives within lives, in which it’s possible to hear a second and third heart beating, just by holding them tighter and listening with our eyes shut. We can’t do without songs like that. Sheff can already do all of those things himself. He needs no stencil or guidebook, no example to slide a sheet of carbon paper between for a trace-over. His ideas sleep alone, grow alone, and live alone, apart from those of his would-be peers.

“I know the big famous bands and I know my friends’ bands, but we really aren’t coming from any of the same places,” Sheff said. “I see what they do, but it’s not like we’re on the same team.”

The sleepy-eyed Texan was being told by others of the stylistic similarities between his songs and those of The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy. He’d never heard anything the Portland band—and current touring mates—had done.

When he finally did hear the band—before they became Pitchfork darlings and four-star-getters in Rolling Stone—he wrote Meloy and told him he liked what the antiquarian was doing.

“I respect Colin’s work and he respects mine. It’s similar, but parallel,” Sheff said. He can’t even totally relate to Colin Meloy!?! How the hell could he ever relate to us?

When Okkervil River released Down the River of Golden Dreams two years ago, Sheff showed a great ability in creating thoughtful songs about hardship and the turmoil living deeply within hearts and bones. Taken as a whole, they made an aural montage of dark dreams and mystical turbulence, not unlike In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the eerie, but beautiful master-work of Neutral Milk Hotel’s eccentric Jeff Mangum. If crapping on the living room carpet makes a bad dog, then crapping on Down the River of Golden Dreams made a bad person in 2003. It was received with lasting hugs and offered honorary spots on countless year-end lists as an epic piece. Voicing any sort of negative peep about it could have caught you the steeliest of stares and cost you some serious cool points.

But next to sophomore album Black Sheep Boy—released on Jagjaguwar the first week in April—it is nothing. It was just Sheff warming his hands, tinkering, and testing the winds.

Black Sheep Boy, 11 tracks inspired by the imagery of 1960s folkie Tim Hardin’s song of the same name, showcases a Sheff infused with more spirit and ingenuity. He wails in Black—“Though I told you twice before/That you should wreck his life/The way that he wrecked yours”—like he was John Davis ask-

OKKERVIL RIVER (L to R): Howard Draper, Travis Nelson, Jonathan Meiburg, Will Sheff, Zachary Thomas. Photo by T. Goodie.

ing us who sucked out the feeling. He then speaks to us, so eloquently, detailing all of the beauties that come from inside sorrows. It’s amazing that pain can bring such wonder.

“A lot of people say that Okkervil River songs are so depressing, but that’s not at all how I see it or how I intend it. There is a lot of joy in my songs. I’m doing the best that I can to convince people that it’s great to be alive.

Well, not great, but it’s good to be alive,” Sheff said. “To me, art is the thing that sustains me. It’s all I care about in a certain way.

It’s my bread and butter. It has to be to the point where you’d rather die if you didn’t write this or that song. If it’s not, then you should step aside because there are other people who believe that. It’s so depressing, the art that was created just because…for no other reason. It should be a life or death thing.”

Sheff, you get the feeling, has merely scratched the surface. He has not yet written his In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, despite what critics said about Down. He will be re-inventing himself for a long time, unlike Mangum, who, since the Aeroplane tour has not performed publicly for seven years. His mysterious living—working on bizarre sound mish-mashes on his computer and attending Bulgarian folk music festivals with a field recorder—has led to rampant speculation about the recluse. Not surprisingly, the person to whom Sheff may be most able to relate musically doesn’t interest him.

“I don’t really have any curiosity about him. We know friends of his and we’ve had run-ins with him. You go through a period of wanting to know who that guy is. But I’ve come to understand that he lives in the same world of Subways, department stores, planes, Styrofoam, and crap like that,” he said. “When someone makes something that you love, you really want to tell that person how much you love it. And when you make something that you want people to love, you want people to tell you that they love it. But I’ve had that happen a little bit and it’s weird. It doesn’t work right and you don’t know why.”

Okkervil River plays Columbia’s Blue Note with The Decemberists April 4 and St. Louis’s Way Out Club with Waterloo and Berry April 11.

O

O

&UDIW $OOLDQFH

'HOPDU %OYG ZZZ FUDIWDOOLDQFH RUJ

Fair Trade & organically grown coffee air-roasted on site Live acoustic music Saturday nights Free wireless internet Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner Patio seating Iced coffee, frozen frappes and fruit smoothies

3974 Hartford Avenue • St. Louis, MO 63116 (314)771-JAVA www.hartfordcoffeecompany.com

Ç6SHDNĂˆ E\ .D\ .KDQ

0DWHULDO &RQWHQW %DVNHWU\ 6FXOSWXUH LQ WKH VW &HQWXU\ FXUDWHG E\ .DWH $QGHUVRQ

0DUFK 0D\

APRIL 2005

PLAY BY PLAY

MUSIC REVIEWS

MAHJONGG: R AYDONCONG 2005 (C

OLD

You love Mahjongg.

You love how the band’s Machinegong EP, with its brief hints at something better, presented a taste of a band seething with potential that needed to buckle down and harness its creativity and cut out the bullshit.

You love how Mahjongg’s full-length debut, Raydoncong 2005, is everything you could have possibly desired and encapsulates exactly what you would want a band to sound like, if only a fairy would grant you the ability to build a rock quintet out of Play-Doh. You love how the band channels the ghosts of Brian Eno, Johnny Lydon, David Byrne, and Fela Kuti so effortlessly that it almost makes you forget that three-fourths of the people just mentioned aren’t even dead.

You love how the band has pretentiously abandoned the rules of spelling and capitalization—and not in a cute hip-hop way—for the album and song titles, which, for the rest of this review, will be cleaned up nice and proper from how they appear on the back of the album, for sanity’s sake.

You love how the first song title makes absolutely no sense until a female voice mutters the jargon digits “BBG-9298” faded beneath aggressive polyrhythmic percussion, and suddenly you don’t care what it means anymore.

You love how “The Rabbit” begins like a hyper version of “Rapper’s Delight” and bursts into leg-numbing bass, and then there’s the guitar—oh, the fucking guitar—that lets loose like a savage animal attacking its prey.

You love how “Hot Lava” could make this album a monster on the charts if only the band would release it as a single with a video, but Mahjongg won’t get on MTV, yet, and that makes you love it even more because, as of

right now, “Hot Lava” is yours to treasure without a million TRL clones screaming the lyrics.

You love how the album sounds like a group of friends who all listened to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts stoned one night and decided that not only did they want to start a band, but the world needed them to start this band.

You love how the ninth song, whatever the fuck it’s called, will run your mind in circles as you try counting out the beats per measure, but the band members always know exactly what they’re doing and lock in like clockwork.

You love how “Bismoc Ux” ends the album with a gentle bell-driven melody that sounds nothing like anything you’ve listened to for the past 40 minutes, but you don’t really mind because you’re exhausted, and the last two minutes of ambient, shuddering guitar tones is exactly what you need.

Most of all you love how this moment, right now (look at your watch), is the perfect moment for Mahjongg to exist, and listening to this album heightens your senses and makes everything you’ve been listening to for the past three, make it five, years seem irrelevant.

—Aaron Richter BRENDAN BENSON: ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE (V2) After major-label bullshit infamously delayed the release of Brendan Benson’s 2002 critical darling Lapalco—the follow-up to his debut, 1996’s power-pop sugar rush One Mississippi—Benson soon discovered that indie-label bullshit (Startime International, to

CRUSH) be precise) can be piled just as deep. Luckily for fans, Benson’s strange luck finds his long overdue third record being released by V2, the European branch of Virgin Records—the same label that unceremoniously dropped him after One Mississippi didn’t sell a million copies.

Confused? No matter. More than two long years later, music nerds and record store clerks are sort of smiling and exchanging knowing hipster nods to celebrate the release of the stunning (and stunningly late) new Benson record, Alternative to Love.

The great news for fans is that Alternative to Love sounds exactly like a Brendan Benson record. The melodies are instantly catchy, the vocals are helium-hyper at times, and the songs are deeper than you realize on the first listen.

And it feels like a fully realized album, unlike Lapalco, which often felt like a jarring mix of two great EPs—one of lo-fi acoustic ballads, one of up-tempo power-pop gems—after the pure, spiky adrenaline shot of One Mississippi.

While AtL has just as many acoustic-based ballads as its predecessor, the new album’s assured and adventurous production remains a cohesive element throughout.

The album’s opener and first single, the upbeat new wave guitar rocker “Spit It Out,” is pure pop bliss—all clever lyrics, huge choruses, and insanely memorable hooks.

The cleverness extends to the sparkling production as well, as a theremin and an alarm clock both make memorable appearances.

That song and the next, “Cold Hands Warm Heart,” were featured prominently in Benson’s last appearance in town—an acoustic set at The Pageant opening for Badly Drawn Boy this past October—and hearing them again on the album felt like a welcome call from continued on next page

7

PLAYBACK STL Play by Play

from previous page

LOCAL MUSIC Tuesday thru Saturday 4/13: Closed at Sunset (NY), The Greenhouse Effect 4/8: Buddy Entwistle’s Fundraiser for Leukemia 4/16: Wasted Days (IN), Mirror Image, Amp-Inc. 4/23: Divide by Zero (Chicago) w/Ruby Armada

CATERING: 636.397.5383 BAND BOOKINGS: CALL MON. & TUES. 6 MAIN STREET • OLDE TOWN ST. PETERS, MO WWW.SALLYTS.COM/SHOWS.HTM

8

FOR ALL YOUR LEGAL NEEDS

ELLINGER& ASSOCIATES, P.C. 797 WEST TERRA LANE O’FALLON, MO 63366 636.978.8833 2324 N. FLORISSANT AVE. ST. LOUIS, MO 63106 314.436.7611 FAX: 636.281.1504 • E-MAIL: roryelling@aol.com www.lawofficeofroryellingerpc.com

an old friend. The reoccurring keyboard motif in the latter is insidious, and the stickiest of melodies. I know what you’re thinking: This is a great start. And it keeps getting better. Next is another obvious single—or, in the current market, the next obvious Volkswagen jingle— “Feel Like Myself Again,” which could be a spiritual sister of Lapalco’s best track, “Tiny Spark,” awesome moog intro included.

Benson produced and recorded this album entirely at his home in Detroit, and the intoxicating freedom that comes with unlimited studio time is no more apparent than on his Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound production of “The Pledge.” Sounding like a revved-up “And Then He Kissed Me,” it’s an instant classic—and as powerful as any of the songs that inspired it.

Eschewing a guitar solo for a verse of ecstatic ba ba bas, this is a lighthearted but completely sincere mash note to love songs circa-1964.

Some of Benson’s best moments appear in AtL’s less hopped-up tunes, most notably on the moody piano and synthesizer–driven pop of “Biggest Fan.” Opening with the line “Electric eyes and a seesaw brain/The ghost of you and a phantom pain,” and ending with a haunting chorus of sha-shays, this is heartbreak at its most vivid. And a perfect pairing with the next song, “Flesh and Bone,” an oddly groovy sad song about chasing that proverbial girl who always gets away. As he sings schoolyard-esque rhymes in a delicate, John Lennon–dipped harmony—“Little lamb that you are/Now you’ve stumbled too far”—to this girl, a wash of mandolin and timpani creeps into the mix, and the results are gorgeously epic.

Alternative to Love doesn’t sound frontloaded in the least—something Lapalco suffered from slightly. These are 12 songs made to be listened to 12 years from now. Reserve space in your iPod today; there should be plenty of room once you clear out those Bravery tracks. You remember them, right?

—Brian McClelland BERRY: MARRIAGE (self-released) When Greenville, Ill., quartet Berry lists The Beatles as one of their influences, they must be referring to the White Album–era experimentation, as

evidenced by the several-minute, “Revolution 9”–ish noise collage that brings their debut full-length, Marriage, to its cacophonous end. It manages to work, although the song ends a few minutes after the song ends, if you get my drift, which feels a bit indulgent in a look-we’re-making-serious-art-here kind of way. Ballsy experimentation like this runs throughout the album, with four lo-fi recordings—sparse arrangements recorded live in a Greenville College dorm bathroom, directly to a two-track tape machine singer/guitarist Joey Lemon bought for $30 on eBay—mixed with more polished studio tracks. The album’s opener, “Dreams Bleed,” is one of these primitive bathroom recordings, consisting of nothing more than a quiet voice, a delicately picked acoustic guitar, and a few scattered (and oftentimes abrupt) banging noises— sounding like Lemon might have recorded the song at his kitchen table while his wife did the dishes (perhaps grudgingly) nearby.

When you release a heartbreakingly sad record titled Marriage, this image seems fitting. And when most bands today are front-loading CDs with their most accessible stuff, frightened of an audience with little attention span and an itchy “eject” finger, this kind of sequencing is a daring move.

Skipping back and forth between these two recording styles certainly adds some diversity; but the songs from the bathroom recordings are so strong that one can’t help feeling that they’re underserved by their lo-fi presentation. Because, make no mistake, these songs are thoughtful, well crafted, and surprising in the best way—filled with serpentine arrangements, deliciously enigmatic lyrics, and gorgeously fragile melodies. And the low-key “Dreams Bleed” provides an exciting transition to the next track, “Middle Man,” which kicks in with a fully realized studio production, and the band firing on all cylinders.

And what a band. The first thing that knocks you out when you see Berry live is just how competent each member is on their respective instrument. And it’s refreshing that, although these guys have chops to spare— most notably drummer Paul Goodenough, whose ability to casually shuffle between time signatures borders on sublime—they’re mature enough as musicians to know that while kickass solos get old, kick-ass songs are forever.

None of Marriage’s ten tracks are marred with overplaying, or settle into a standard groove continued on page 10

APRIL 2005

9

?D:?; CKI?9 D;;:I ?D:?; <7DI D;;: ?D:?; CKI?9$ 7bbem ki je _djheZkY[ oek$

?DH7:?E$9EC

PLAYBACK STL Play by Play or familiar pattern. Adept at shifting a song’s meter or rhythm on a dime while keeping the arrangement a cohesive whole, this is a band more focused on supporting their singer’s soaring voice than wanking on their own. And while the mix of Lemon’s ethereal vocals and complex, sometimes prickly arrangements may draw comparisons to late-era Radiohead, the band fits more comfortably next to Grandaddy (minus the spacey keyboards) and one of their stated influences, Pedro the Lion, without sounding derivative or forced.

Berry celebrates Marriage’s release on April 9 with a 4 p.m. signing at Vintage Vinyl and 9 p.m. performance across the street at the Red Sea. —Brian McClelland

10

THE BLUE VAN: THE ART OF ROLLING (TVT) Before last week, when I thought of Denmark, I thought of the danish. Not the people, the pastry—especially the ones with fruit. Yeah, those are good.

Now when I think of Denmark, I’ll think of The Blue Van. Named for the vehicle that transports mental patients in their native country, The Blue Van is so much fun they should have their own cartoon show. Their debut album, The Art of Rolling, is a virtual explosion of toe-tapping, head-bobbing, and all-around positive vibes.

The Kinks and Who–influenced quartet delivers a lively brand of 1960s garage rock.

The band built their reputation in Europe with a dynamic live show, including successful stints in Copenhagen clubs and a slot at the Spot 9 (comparable to SXSW). Building off the successes of similar bands Jet and The Strokes, Rolling is the band’s U.S. introduction.

The first track, “Word From the Bird,” is an energetic song highlighted by a Hammond organ. It’s followed-up by “Product of DK,” complete with sing-along yeah yeahs and a handful of woo hoos.

“I Want You” is a pounding song, highlighted by a honky-tonk guitar and some slick organ work by keyboardist Soren Christensen.

“Baby, I’ve Got Time,” the album’s obligatory ballad, combines Christensen’s bluesy slide guitar with frontman Steffen Westmark’s understated vocals.

The influences of Pete Townsend and Jack Bruce are especially apparent on tracks like

from page 8

“Revelation of Love” and “What the Young People Want.” So full of energy and bombast, you can’t ignore them.

The final two tracks of Rolling are the album’s peak. “Coeur de Lion” exhibits Christensen’s talents as both a frontman and guitarist alongside thundering drums and organs. The final track, “New Slough,” is pure drum-driven rock.

There’s a sense of timelessness to The Blue Van. This isn’t just another European collective stuck in the ’60s; they surprise you with great hooks, impressive musicianship, and outstanding rock songs.

—Mike Wachsnicht THE DECEMBERISTS: PICARESQUE (Kill Rock Stars) You know, in the liner notes of the new Decemberists album, Picaresque, it says that the album was produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla in a Baptist church in Portland. Maybe I can use that as a lead, now that all of the “[The Decemberists’ lead singer] Colin Meloy sounds like Jeff Mangum” and “Man, The Decemberists sure have a big vocabulary” comments have been used within an inch of their life by every music critic reviewing any of their albums. Or maybe I could start by mentioning, for some unexplained reason, that they thank Dav Pilkey in the liners, author of the popular Captain Underpants series of children’s books. Why? Did he help write the lyrics?

Picaresque continues in the direction that The Decemberists began moving into with Her Majesty, The Decemberists—toward more coherent narratives, stranger sonic soundscapes, and next-to-no hooks (not that they ever incorporated that many in the first place).

The album kicks off with “The Infanta,” a song not far removed from Her Majesty’s opener, “Shanty for Arethusa,” in terms of announcing the album’s uniqueness. With its odd nautical noises that I can’t seem to identify from the liner notes’ list of instruments and lyrics about a prince’s fiancée, it quickly informs the uninitiated of The Decemberists’ predilection toward the obscure.

The album progresses with a bunch of instantly forgettable songs, save “The Sporting

Life” and “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” which are both nice combinations of the band’s newer adventures into detailed storytelling and their older style of just writing pleasant songs (such as “Leslie Anne Levine” or “July, July!” from their debut, Castaways and Cutouts). As if in an effort to balance out these successes, though, there is “From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea),” which is annoying enough to begin with, but then gets even worse when Meloy whines, “Mr. Postman, do you have a letter for me?” over and over.

While “The Infanta,” “The Sporting Life,” and “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” all prove handily that the deeper The Decemberists get into their own sound, the more complex and satisfying their songs can be, I still can’t help but lust after another “Legionnaire’s Lament,” or “California One Youth and Beauty Brigade,” to which we haven’t been treated since 2002.

Is it willfully ignorant of me to wish The Decemberists would return to more straightforward songwriting? Yes, it is. Even so, when a band proves it can write a song as good as “Grace Cathedral Hill” on their debut album, but then refuses to on future albums, one can’t help but be disappointed with their newer efforts, good though they may be.

—Pete Timmermann NIC ARMSTRONG AND THE THIEVES: THE GREATEST WHITE LIAR (New West Records) Nic Armstrong is really into early and mid-1960s British rock. His debut album, The Greatest White Liar, is instantly reminiscent of at least half a dozen different artists from that time and place.

That’s not to say Armstrong is unoriginal; he’s not. As a singer, the 25-year-old Englishman has a voice all his own, and he and his band have a real knack for the simple, stripped-down tunes of that era. His songs instantly reference The Byrds, The Who, The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles, among others.

Recorded at the currently hip Toe Rag Studios and produced by Liam Watson (The White Stripes, The Zutons), Liar is a fullfledged retro-pop album that nicely mixes varying styles and tempos.

The first track, “I Can’t Stand It,” is a lively rock song with great guitar hooks. It’s followed continued on page 22

APRIL 2005

ABATERIA: ABATERIA (self-released) The self-titled release of the six-piece, Columbia, Mo.–based Latin group Abateria is a faithful recreation of the smoky intensity emerging from the ’60s New York Latin jazz performers. Tight instrumentation, gluteus palpitating rhythms, and sultry, sensual vocals (provided by Costa Rican–American Melenia Bruner) showcase the piquant flavor otherwise nonexistent in heartland American music. Each instrumentalist contributes vocals to the album, shaping rich call-andresponse sections and dense harmonic choruses. All the music is originally composed, yet stays faithful to the Latin jazz aesthetic, possibly attributed to percussionist Johnny Finn’s close study with conga conquistador Ramses Rodriguez. But it doesn’t end there: Each instrument is performed with technique and skill, with a groove that is authentic and organic, begging the listener to jump up and form a conga line. Abateria manages to capture some of the essence of live performance on the album, making you actually want to hear them perform, which you can do in Columbia on Friday nights at Music Café. (JR) BUGHUMMER: THE GETAWAY WITH (Lovitt) Perhaps I haven’t been paying enough attention, but I can’t think of a single band that has ever come out of the Rock Mecca of Savannah, Ga. Well, my ignorant ass can be damned because this sucker is really good. Bughummer disbanded in 1998. Their first and only LP, The Getaway With, was self-released by the band in 1998 and is now seeing a right and proper pressing via Lovitt Records. Featuring current Engine Down vocalist Keeley Davis, The Getaway With has a very heavy Shellac edge without being as jagged and disjointed.

Integrating a lot of moody elements (“Comes Off Clean,” “Sweet Life,” “America”) and some top-notch stop-and-go postpunk (“Fashion, Cocaine,” “Mood Swing,” “Rocket Science”), The Getaway With succeeds through its avoidance of easy melodies in favor of tunes with a much more angular touch. As fresh and relevant as anything that will be hatched in 2005, The Getaway With is not your normal reissue. It serves as introduction to a band that skipped by the radar towers of this country in their heyday and has popped up as proof that a really great indie record can come from anywhere—even if you have to go back seven years to find it. (DL) Contributors: Laura Hamlett, Cory Hoehn, Byron Kerman, David Lichius, Jon Rayfield.

THE JUAN MACLEAN: “I, ROBOT,” “LESS THAN HUMAN”/LCD SOUNDSYSTEM: “YR CITY’S A SUCKER”/BLACK LEOTARD FRONT: “CASUAL FRIDAY” (DFA) Praise to the cooperative at DFA Records.

Not only are they focused on musical melodious innovation, but they they’re also a bighearted horde for letting the samples of recent nuggets rain upon the land. It’s because they believe in what they yield. The Juan MacLean’s “I, Robot” relies on the trusty 16th-note blip that made Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” into a milestone for electronic music. The razor-sharp samples, although mildly distorted, are carefully concise and instigated throughout. “Less Than Human” showcases less intensity and starkness but is another exhibit of strategically placed bleeps and blips.

Mastermind James Murphy decided to make “Yr City’s a Sucker” into a gleefully blatant stroll emulating numerous organic sounds like tin cans, half-full glasses of liquid, and hand claps. Each has its place and stands at attention to the funky bass line. Murphy’s roguish lyrics in the majority of his pieces have been brutally frank while taking the high road of tongue-in-cheek. He even knows how to mockingly laugh to the rhythm without sounding like a complete schmuck.

Black Leotard Front sprawls out “Casual Friday” into what seems like three parallels.

The first is recognized as a simple question of daily outerwear, the second involves an oddly warped dialogue of the same woman in distress, and the third is a lesson in friendly greetings in French surrounded by unsettling shrieks. All of these facets are wrapped around a disco-laced guitar and bass, making this into one of the more curious tracks that seems like it should explain itself a little more on each listen.

“I, Robot,” “Less Than Human,” and “Casual Friday” are available on DFA Compilation 2; “Yr City’s a Sucker” is available on iTunes or LCD Soundsystem’s self-titled CD. (CH) REIGNING HEIR: BREAK THE CURSE EP For some time now I’ve fantasized about hearing a large Baptist-church choir performing the greatest hits of Ronnie James Dio. Will my “Dream Evil” ever come true? Probably not, but at a much smaller scale, I can take solace in Reigning Heir, a four-piece metal act with a female African-American lead vocalist.

RH has released Break the Curse, a five-song EP with smooth vocals by Nicole and plenty of good riffage by tattooed, energetic guitarist Paul. Reigning Heir’s CD is cool, but I hear their live show really rocks. The band should

QUICK HITS

consider working on their song titles, though: “Warning,” “Fragile,” and “Selfish” sound a bit bland. Why not turn up the metal with something like “Cybernetic Asswhipping” or “Confrontation in the Mead Hall”? (BK) TOYY: TOYY STORY (Mansion Studios) In a genre saturated with misogyny and male dominance, enter rapper Toyy Davis, younger sister of legendary St. Louis duo Bits & Pieces. Toyy Story.., a preliminary look at her impending Many Faces of Toyy LP, is already in really good shape. Recognizable beats from Lil’ Jon, 3-6 Mafia, and Jazze Pha, as well as original production by Stoney Rock, J. Marty, Vandalyzm, Naushus, and Jubei, are all perfect compliments to Toyy’s hard-hitting lyrical style.

Exhibiting versatility with her range as rapper and singer, Toyy ignites tracks such as “Jess Dance” and “Lou Ni**az.” But really, every track is a potential hit single, there is hardly a lull on the entire disc. Story.., already contains drops from family members Jia and Geo Davis, as well as Committee members Santone and Marco, but the full album is set to feature Honors’ English as well as D-Mac, Rockwell Knuckles, and more. Don’t sleep on Toyy; her story will likely be a great one. (JR) SUNSHINE: MOONSHOWER AND R AZORBLADES (Custard) The cover image on this CD is reason enough to pick it up: front man Kay stands in a narrow doorway, his bandmates behind him.

He’s got tattoos, a white t-shirt, and jeans, a scarf pulled up over his face like a bank robber’s mask; in his hand, what looks at first to be a small gun is, in fact, a black bird.

Thankfully, what’s inside is worthy, as well.

While the Czech Republic foursome began as a metal act 11 years ago, Moonshower’s a crunchy mix of fast beats, racing guitars, keyboards, and punk rock. Kay’s delivery shows Johnny Rotten influences, but he has a nice singing voice, as well. The dark techno sound of “Victimisanothernameforlover” will have you dancing in your seat. “Vampire’s Dance Hall” is a shower of axe riffs; “Never’s Always Never” would be a perfect dance floor track on Fetish Night; and “Miss Kkarma Kkoma” blends the best of both dark rock and dance.

You’ll hear elements of Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, and PiL, for sure, but it’s a good mix of sounds, not merely derivative. Put on your shades and give Sunshine a spin. (LH)

PLAYBACK STL

BACKSTAGE PASS CONCERT REVIEWS

Alison Krauss + Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas

C O

O R

14

Fox Theatre, March 1 Alison Krauss + Union Station often tend to blow by the average listener without truly registering. AKUS might just be a victim of its own virtuosity; songs so smooth, so spoton sweet and understated, they tend to get dwarfed by the countrypolitan, midriff-baring, cookie-cuttered hometown swiff of the week flopping around like a trout in tight jeans on a rural porch.

While she’s gorgeous, you’re not likely to see Alison Krauss splaying herself over a saddle wearing leather chaps in her next video. More than likely, you’re going to get bluegrass-infused, melancholy songs delivered with depth, emotion, and astonishing musicianship (It’s notable that Alison plays fiddle with the band, and seems as comfortable whipping off a sonofabitch of a solo as she is singing the hell out of a ballad).

Fans of the deeper side were in for a hell of a time March 1 at the packed-to-the-rafters Fox. The band is touring in support of their newest release, Lonely Runs Both Ways, another album crammed with fantastic songs and that particular brand of sweet sadness for which Ms. Krauss is known. Comprised of Kraus herself, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Barry Bales on bass, Dan Tyminski on guitar and mandolin, and Ron Block on pretty much every stringed instrument recorded by man in the last 30 years, AKUS is most likely one of the best instrumental bands touring today in any genre, without being overly flashy or ponderous in their soloing.

The show began unassumingly enough, dropping through note-perfect, hell-the-entireband-must-be-synching-to-an-album versions of both familiar and newer material. Loose and

happy, fully a fourth of the entire performance was stage banter between Krause and the band.

It kind of felt like the band had come over to play your backyard barbecue. The hits were well in evidence, with “Every Time You Say Goodbye” and “When You Say Nothing at Aall” garnering absolutely huge crowd reactions.

More surprising is the amount of giveand-take of the spotlight that goes on within the band. Guitarist/vocalist/instrumentalist Tyminski is probably better known as the singing voice of George Clooney in O Brother, Where Art Thou? Jaws dropped and people screamed their heads off when the band ripped into “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” with Tyminski taking lead vocals. If it’s possible, AKUS pulled off a version better than the recorded one. Douglas is the rock star of the band—if it’s possible to be a rock star on a dobro. Mid-set, the band left and Jerry whipped off some solo pieces with enough “Holy shit, what was that?” virtuosity to rank him up there with instrumentalists of any genre, any instrument, any time. Every member of the band sings, and each is a world-class player of their instrument. In the current climate of sparse three- and four-piece bands, it’s sometimes hard to really assimilate four- or five-part harmonies with instruments going at the same time.

The group’s newer material was roundly well-received, with tunes like “Gravity” and “Wouldn’t Be So Bad” predestined for CMT’s top ten countdown. Thrown in seamlessly were bluegrass standards and gospel tunes that, when taken together, would give the uninitiated a working knowledge of contemporary country and bluegrass music.

As if all that weren’t enough, the band did two jaw-dropping a capella songs as encores.

No instruments, no key reference, nothing.

INTERPOL photo by RYAN HAMLETT; review by TYSON BLANQUART online at www.playbackstl.com

And they were spot-on, absolutely perfect.

Makes you wonder why half the musicians working today even bother; the job’s obviously already taken.

—Chris Clark

Kings of Leon Mississippi Nights, March 8 Kings of Leon may be one of those bands that you just have to see live in order to fully appreciate. I hate to say this for a couple of reasons: First of all, if you missed their March show at Mississippi Nights, it’ll be a long time before you get another chance to pay 15 bucks and see this band headline a club. They’ve been selected as the opener on U2’s Vertigo tour, which means they’ll be busy for awhile, battling indifference for 40 minutes a night in huge domes across the world.

Second, I don’t want to imply that their recent release, Aha Shake Heartbreak, is disappointing. Filled start to finish with creative, riff-heavy rock songs, the recent Kings’ release lives up to all of the expectations created by their critically acclaimed 2003 debut, Youth and Young Manhood. Once again, the band fits classic rock traditions into short, catchy packages, sounding like what you might expect from The Allman Brothers or The Black Crowes if they were coming up in today’s modern rock environment.

The Kings came out strong with the two lead singles from Young Manhood: “Molly’s Chambers” and “Red Morning Light.” It became obvious that they’re an incredibly tight rock band, and they were completely at ease as a unit. This makes sense, because three of them are brothers and the fourth is a cousin. Caleb (vocals/guitar), Nathan (drums), and Jared Followill (bass) grew up together on the road, roaming the South with their father, a traveling continued on page 19

APRIL 2005

Three to See Here are just three great, original St. Louis bands that play around town on a regular basis. Check them out as soon as you can.

One Lone Car—It’s always nice when a local band has the kind of sound that really takes you somewhere. The first time I saw this band perform, I was drawn into their set after just one song. Lead singer Dei who is able to play great tunes on both the piano and guitar.

Dei does well taking center stage and keeping the audience’s attention. The songs are fairly melodic, and the melodies are irresistibly catchy. The band’s cover of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” offers a great guitar part you won’t hear on the original.

Murder Happens—Shame Club’s Jon Lumley said he couldn’t think of any other local bands right now that sound like Murder Happens. After seeing them perform live, I have to agree with him. Murder Happens is a band with a sound that is sure to satisfy fans of both gothic and heavy metal music.

Musically, the band’s super-heavy guitar sound stands out; as soon as their set begins,

they’re likely to stop any frivolous chatting at the bar. The music is impossible to ignore, with brutal guitar rhythms and high-impact guitar riffs that send audience members to the dance floor. The recent addition of a female vocalist brings a melodic and distinct vocal style to the stage.

Catatonic—Catatonic still a fairly new band in our local music scene. The members hail from the small town of Cape Girardeau, but after seeing them perform, I have to say that big things are in store for the group. The band certainly qualifies as having a great modern rock sound, bringing an overwhelming amount of energy to the stage. Guitarist Jeff Prost plays through several great guitar melodies without effort, as he leaves the stage frequently to join the crowd. In addition to the energy, the songs hold up well.

Singer Aaron Walker has a natural stage presence, but also noticeable is how well he sings. His vocals are perfectly suited for the high-energy guitar sound; if they’re well recorded, Catatonic should have no trouble getting radio airplay.

—John Kujawski

T

P tio lo si A ou S

15

LIVE MUSIC FIVE NIGHTS A WEEK • PITCHERS ARE ALWAYS $5

SHOWS NOT TO MISS! fri apr 1 — Happy April Fools Day! w/Skulls, Pixels and Unknown Pleasures (dynamiteconcerts.com)

fri apr 8 — Trailer Park Travoltas, Homewreckers and 12 oz. Prophets

EVERY MONDAY IS OPEN MIC HIP-HOP (tell a friend to tell a friend!)

sat apr 9 — Roman Numerals (dynamiteconcerts.com) sat apr 16 — Lisa’s Birthday Bash! Twistin Tarantulas and The Silvermen $1 cover! $100 grand prize Go-Go Girl contest

fri apr 22 — NIL-8 and The Pimps

1001 MCCAUSLAND AVE. • (314) 781-4716 FOR ADDITIONAL LISTINGS, PLEASE VISIT US ONLINE AT WWW.HI-POINTE.COM

PLAYBACK STL

YOU ARE HERE

GREATER NEW YORK 2005

GREATER NEW YORK 2005 PS1 CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER March 13–September 26

by Rudy Zapf

M

O

O

issed The Gates by Christo and Jeanne-Claude—after all, they were only up for 16 days. Instead, caught the PS1 Greater New York 2005 show in Queens. PS1 is parented by MOMA, and the building looks every bit the gangly youth that it is: Huge space, all bones and ruptured skin, awkward and defiantly proud of its unkempt look, a badge of honor, a wink to those who are cool enough to recognize it.

Like the museum itself, the GNY show is bursting out of its seams, spilling out of galleries, down halls, windowsills, stairwells, out the door and into the courtyard. Spread out over 45,000 square feet, it was actually too much to try to take in on a single visit—an exhibition of this scale is best doled out in smaller slices.

Essentially, it is a celebration of youth; the selected artists—all 167 of them—give off a fragrance of enthusiasm, energy, and, perhaps surprisingly, admirable skill. Though not institutionalized by museums and posterity, these are not school-days dilettantes. The proficiency needed to successfully present their ideas is a component that not every artist recognizes as a necessity; fortunately, the curators at PS1do recognize this, so the general air is one of confident competency.

First impression: Drawings, anthropomorphic art, and videos screens claim the day.

There is a new appreciation for drawings in and of themselves; they are no longer seen merely as preliminary sketches to paintings or sculptural plans. The intelligence of the representative drawings demands attention.

Videos are another big player; TV monitors and images screened directly onto walls were everywhere—stairwells, corners, passing through doorways—the feeling being that the audience was also being observed.

Videos demand a certain span of attention, the amount of time prescribed by the length of the loop, anywhere from 20 seconds to 20 minutes. Videos, often depicting the artists themselves, are ersatz performance pieces; if the audience cannot make it to the one-time

16

DZINE: PUNK FUNK at CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST. LOUIS EXHIBIT THROUGH JUNE 12/ ARTIST RECEPTION APRIL 22 CALL: 314-535-4660 As I approach the stalwart concrete compound, standing gray, cold, and silent as this March morning, I am quickly drawn not to the entrance but to the Spring Street–facing windows where within hums the Punk Funk.

The 14’ x 42’–foot colorful abstraction resonates a slick, ambient vibe; its layers of imagery crawl and vibrate with life amid the still of the museum walls.

Now through June 12, the Contemporary

event, then the artist arranges to be there for continuously repeating performances.

Memorable among the many notable artists: Ian Burns, Peter Caine, Anne Conway, Amy Cutler, Benjamin Degen, Peter Rostovsky, Daniel Zeller. Conway and Cutler breathe life into the ancient bones of painting.

Conway’s A Pound of Flesh (2004), is reminiscent of M.C. Escher and Rene Magritte, rolled into one. There is a breathtaking realism of style crawling with a moody surrealism just under the skin. A grove of pines is reflected in the formal pool that it surrounds, while the prone figures, laying with their heads in the water, would be easy to miss, were it not for their white truck in the distance, shining like a beacon amid the layers of gray and brown. By contrast, Cutler’s work seems more like Kay Nielson illustrations gone awry. The flawlessly detailed gouaches are fairytales that would fit neatly into the fantastic “omitted” tales of the Brothers Grimm, wherein peasant girls carry their wares on extended rails of hair, and Pinocchio noses wobble sausage-like between one face and another.

The initial reaction to Benjamin Degen’s works is “Etchings!”, which solidifies the assertion of skill displayed by attendant artists.

Degen’s two drawings perfectly match the texture and characteristics of wood. Sympathetic Neighbor, in shades of gray and brilliant red, gives us an empty, rustic cabin in a crazy-quilt of planks, each one chosen for its color and grain pattern; nestled next to its neighbors with such care, one sees Degen as a carpenter who loves the materials of his craft.

Another set of drawings that causes a sense of wonder is created by Daniel Zeller.

His Collateral Dispersion is too beautiful to describe—like many other pieces in the show, it is amorphous, a shape-shifter. Before the eyes it alternates between aerial landscape,

Art Museum St. Louis will house the Chicago-bred street artist turned internationally acclaimed painter Dzine. His envirotexcoated and glass-beaded eye candy are sure to please and inspire visitors to unimagined heights, while teamed with the downbeat, hip-hop beats of the Parisian minimalist DJ CAM, whose new CD, Punk Funk: The Lost Kingdom, was produced and made available by the Contemp to accompany the current show and limited-edition artist book.

On Friday, April 22 at 6 p.m. at the Contemp, there is a reception with the artists.

Dzine will give a lecture followed by a special spinning with DJ CAM. For more info, visit www.contemporarystl.com.

—Jeff Knubley

Rohrshack test, and tribal map. His attendant pieces, blue with sirens of yellow, are more aqueous, navigating the ever-changing fluctuations of swampy tides.

Of the several artists who have the chance of making things happen as a result of the PS1 show, Peter Caine is the one to watch. An expat from St. Louis, Caine has already begun to be noticed in New York, with prospects growing each day. A connoisseur of junk and the bizarre, he collects trash from all over the city, though eBay is a resource when he has something specific in mind. His installation Overseer barely fits into a room of its own. It’s Macy’s Santa’s Wonderland gone south to Hades. Hybrid mountain goat–reindeer graze on piles of snow while the abominable snowmen/slaves tend the fields, watched over by a bunch of squat domes that emit multicolored beams. Though much of it is beautiful, it is equally terrifying—this would be the world recorded by Bosch were he on the Scott expedition to the South Pole.

These life-size mechanical figures begin their performance when triggered by motion sensors set off when audience members enter the room. Sprouting horns and ferocious teeth, they appear threatening, but do nothing to escape the complacent overseers, who seem almost sleepy in their tranquil state of superior power.

Caine’s works are frightening and absurd.

His greatest feat is not the assemblage of fullscale, moving dioramas worthy of Disney’s admiration (and this by an artist who has no engineering degree); rather, it is the musings of the audience, reflecting on the ludicrous malignancy of society and history.

DZINE, PUNK FUNK, 2005: Acrylic, Envirotex, and varnish on wood mount attached to wall, 14 x 42 feet. Courtesy of the artist, Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, SCAI the Bathhouse/Shiraishi Contemporary Art Inc., Tokyo, and realized with the assistance of Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.

APRIL 2005

MORRISSEY: WHO PUT THE “M” IN MANCHESTER? (Attack/SVE) To see Morrissey succeed—and, let’s face it, Morrissey’s comeback album You Are the Quarry was a rousing 2004 success—means, in some small way, that we, too, have succeeded. We’ve achieved the right to be who we are, to live our awkward, messed up lives in isolation or despair or perhaps, as Morrissey seems to have done of late, with some small measure of dignity or (dare we say?) enjoyment.

Watching this DVD, then—Morrissey’s triumphant return home for a sold-out 2004 birthday show at the Manchester Evening News Arena—is the consummate thrill, good enough to rival actually being there. While the live show has its own electricity, you’re never close enough to the action to really see what’s going on. In M, the videographers capture Morrissey lovingly, unflinchingly, and up close: every expression, movement, pose, and uncomfortable gesture. It’s worth the price of admission, and then some.

Onstage, Morrissey’s name—spelled out in ten-foot-high letters of light—illuminates and the man (and his band) takes the stage.

I’ve long maintained Morrissey to be my generation’s Frank Sinatra: The man could sing anything and I’d listen. As if to prove this connection, Morrissey takes the stage with a few lines of “My Way” before dipping into “First of the Gang to Die.” The show itself is a comfortable retrospective of his career—heavy on the newer songs, but incorporating healthy doses of older solo and Smiths material, as well.

Not only does he look classically dapper in a silk shirt, blue blazer, and blue jeans, he’s got an aura of self-acceptance, a quiet assurance mingled in with his discomfort, that wasn’t present a few years back. When the camera zooms in, we see the detail of him furrowing his brow so precisely, every hair perfectly controlled in its place.

“How very nice and natural it feels to be back in the British top ten,” he remarks following “Irish Blood, English Heart.” You smile, anticipating the caustic barb sure to follow, but he surprises you by saying, “I’m really privileged.”

The concert is a well-staged affair: crafty lighting, including the aforementioned stagespanning, color-changing “MORRISSEY” bulbs; large video screens; even a song-ending gong. The Smiths songs (“Barbarism Begins at Home,” “Rubber Ring,” “A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours”) are well-received—but then, that could be said of all the songs. The crowd is lapping them up, singing along, emoting passionately as they try desperately to grab a piece of their idol.

Morrissey may have had a few regrets, but this disc has more than a handful of highlights.

There’s that moment when, during the funky, warped guitars at the end of “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday,” Morrissey stares at the ceiling as if stargazing. There’s the brilliant camera shot from behind the stage, through the “O,” when, as the music winds down on “The World Is Full of Crashing Bores,” Morrissey sinks to his knees and crumples.

There’s the awkward rendition of “A Rush and a Push…,” following which Morrissey asks, “That really was just a bit wobbly, wasn’t it?”

For an encore, Morrissey offers the Quarry tour’s usual standard: “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.” The song is beautiful, the instrumentation haunting, the singalong transcendent. One by one, the band members finish playing and leave the stage. Breaking this morosely lovely song down to its individual elements is a powerful way to end this stunning show.

—Laura Hamlett DIG! (Palm Pictures, Not Rated) Those who have never been in a band secretly want to know what it’s like behind the scenes; those who are musicians need to know that other artist are just as fucked up as they often feel.

Filmmaker Ondi Timoner’s Dig! is the quintessential consolation prize for both parties. Seven years in the making and winner of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Dig! documents the disastrous and farcical relationship between two artistic-driven frontmen, Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols’ Courtney Taylor.

In the beginning stages, the extremely productive musicians were each other’s muse.

Then Newcombe’s creative output outshined and overshadowed his own band and the Dandys. Taylor began to appear more like admirer and less like an equal counterpart.

But the self-appreciating and self-destructOL’ BLUE EYES: MORRISSEY

NOW PLAYING DVD

ing Newcombe, untrusting of the corporate machines that courted both bands in the mid’90s, sabotaged his professional career so that he could retain his musical integrity. Taylor, on the other hand, was able to harness the volatility of the emotional rollercoaster that navigates a band into stardom. The Dandy Warhols were signed to Capitol Records while BJM jaunted from studio to studio on borrowed—and sometimes stolen—time and money.

Dig! is not just the harrowing tale of competitive musicians, but a composite of the real and perceived evils of corporate music.

In an industry where up to 90 percent of the product fails or merely breaks even, one may wonder what still entices musicians to take the plunge into monetary—and sometimes spiritual—bankruptcy.

We see Taylor on the phone, emphasizing to a corporate flunky the band’s need for Capitol to support the radio play of a second single. But lackluster sales had dimmed the company’s hope for the band; Taylor could get neither help nor a straight answer.

A verbal battle ensued between Taylor and fashion guru David LaChapelle, who directed the Dandy’s first feature video and put the band in the hole for $400,000. Taylor was upset by the comic-book visuals used in the video and by the pretty façade LaChapelle used to illuminate Taylor’s sexuality. As Dandy guitarist Peter Holstrom put it, “I didn’t know it was going to be a GAP advertisement.”

However, Newcombe remains predominantly the focus of the feature-length documentary and, oddly enough, an inspiration to Taylor, who joined BJM on tour while the Dandys were in a whirlwind. Newcombe’s interaction with friends, the law, band members, and family was most often condescending and sometimes violent. During a gig at the Viper Room, virtually on the eve of a record deal, he kicked and punched his fellow musicians in front of record executives, thus staining, literally with blood, any hopes of a deal.

The band rotated members, got arrested, blew off more record deals, consumed drugs, and chastised the Dandy Warhols for doing what they could not. In the years he kept BJM alive, Newcombe continued to believe that he was a prophet sent to “destroy this fucked-up system.” Tragically, it appears he only destroyed what was in front of him.

—J. Church

17

COMING IN MAY:

5/2, 7:30, $8/$10: Of Montreal, Tilly & The Wall, + TBA • 5/10, 7:30, $7/$9: Appleseed Cast, Chin up Chin up, + TBA • 5/30, 7:30, $8adv/$10dos + $2 minor surcharge: The Fucking Champs, Zombi, Boy Jazz, Riddle of Steel

Shall We Dance 4/5: Dysrhythmia, My Beloved Hatred, Waxwork of a Dynasty 4/7: Pitbull Daycare, Society One, Devil’s Play Things, Thanatos Eternal 4/9, Late Show, Doors@9:30: Femme Fatality, Bel and the 4/21: NomeansNo Dragon, Polarized Mind 4/10: Days Like These, Rose Blanche, Iwillfuckingstabyou 4/11: The Red Death, Arsis, Accursed Dawn, Akathisia 4/16, Early Show, Doors@6: The Higher, Still Life Projector, The Secret Handshake, Novella 4/18: Terror, Remembering Never, Acacia Strain, The Warriors 4/21: NomeansNo, Corbeta Corbata, Steerjockey 4/23: Atmosphere 4/23: Atmosphere, P.O.S., Grayskul 4/24: The Independents, The Adrenals, The Haddonfields, Hot Atomics, Fifth Row Felons, Planeside

412 N. TUCKER - ST. LOUIS, MO 63101 314-851-0919 - www.creepycrawl.com

APRIL 2005

Backstage Pass Pentecostal minister. Raised on gospel music, tent revivals, and any secular rock they could sneak in, the brothers Followill developed their Southern musical influence in a strict environment that left them hungry for rebellion.

Rebellion came quickly: Legend has it that the Kings took a trip to Nashville, played some music for a few people, and scored a record deal before anyone had ever seen or heard of them. They look like pretty boys who just stepped off the set for That ’70s Show, and they’ve become fixtures in the U.K. tabloids.

Fueled by tales of hard partying and carousing with supermodels, their rock-star legend is growing, and the Kings have become the latest poster boys for sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.

Aha Shake Heartbreak is driven by humility, however, and features songs that address topics that aren’t very rock ’n’ roll at all, such as balding and erectile dysfunction. The band insists on substance over style, and this really came through in the live setting, where they exhibited a unique style of rock ’n’ roll bravado by exuding confidence without visibly craving attention.

The sound was incredible, the band was mixed perfectly, and every instrument had a vintage, classic rock sound. The Kings covered the new disc thoroughly, tearing through intense versions of “Taper Jean Girl,” “King of the Rodeo,” and “The Bucket.” Although lead guitarist Matthew was boxed into short album versions of the songs, he still put on a hell of a show, proving that you don’t need an extended jam to shine if you’ve got incredible tone and perfect note choice.

I’d heard rumors that the Kings had stoic stage tendencies, but this was not the case.

The crowd responded early, and the band was highly energetic throughout the set, which climaxed with a frenzied version of “Trani” and a well-deserved encore featuring “Holy Roller Novocaine” and “Spiral Staircase.” The crowd wanted more, but it was tough to complain: The Kings delivered a great-sounding set, and the majority of both albums had been covered.

They’re a great band to see live, and they sent a strong message: When you read about all of the high-end parties, vices, and skirt-chasing, don’t forget that they’re a kick-ass rock band.

—Andrew Scavotto

Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers The Way Out Club, March 10 Surfing the web one night, I happened upon a Swedish rockabilly site touting a mile-

from page 14

long list of MP3s. I clicked on the silliest song title: “Bullfrog Blues.” What I heard blew my mind four times over: the pernicious squawking of a blues-harp getting the life sucked out of it, preternatural screaming like that of a meth-smoking lunatic, and a beat so fierce it could light its own fuse. Whoever they were, they certainly weren’t rockabilly. Psychobilly perhaps.

The cacophony of sounds revealed itself as none other than Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers; they had played Off Broadway in October 2004.

Come to find out that Robert Plant—yes, of Led Zeppelin—chose the Shack*Shakers as his opening act for this year’s South by Southwest appearance.

So when news broke that KDHX 88.1 and PlaybackSTL were sponsoring a Shack*Shakers show at The Way Out Club, I pounced on that shit. After hearing Believe, their latest release on Yep Rock Records, and overplaying the precursory Cockadoodledon’t (Bloodshot), missing their show again was a no-way-in-hell option.

As foreplay for the grand occasion, The Maxtone Four [full disclosure: frontman Brian McClelland is an editor for this magazine], local lads who were nominated Best Pop Band by The Riverfront Times 2004 Music Poll, opened the show with an impressive succession of catchy grooves and climaxed with something unpredictable: the bassist dropped trou and broke into a pumping rendition of Electric Six’s “Gay Bar.” Everyone was officially fired up.

When the Trip Daddy’s climbed on stage, cheers escalated into roars. And I, half tanked on whiskey and Diet Coke, reapplied my lipstick and saddled up next to the tattoo-laden guitarist of the Shack*Shakers, David Lee, who was sitting at the bar alone. Attempting to be hip, I approached and asked him, “So, are the Shack*Shakers psychobilly, or what?”

Suave, huh? Lee looked at me disapprovingly and shook his head: “Carnival punk, not psychobillly.”

I followed up: “Well, are you into rockabilly and stuff like that?” Lee shook his head again and described today’s neo-rockabilly scene as a bunch of superficial foofaraw. Wincing, I finished with: “Can I buy you a drink?” “Nah,” he said. “The Club’s got us covered.” Strike three; time to go back to my seat.

But I didn’t leave empty-handed; Lee drafted me a copy of their play list for the show. Good thing, too. Because once the unwieldy four-

some took over, it became a motley sideshow for a crowd of raving maniacs with no breaks allowed. Scorching hot, one song melted into the next with new drummer Jerry Roe hammering the tempo and bassist Mark Robertson slapping his upright.

Frontman Col. J.D. Wilkes, looking like a darling bespeckled farm boy, stripped off his shirt, threw his glasses somewhere, and unbuckled his belt; his hand roved south, and everyone including myself stepped up for a closer look. The antithesis of a sluggard, Wilkes is brilliant madness, a cyclone of constant movement and untiring emotion, writhing and hollering and violating his harmonica until it was screaming. Four songs into the show, his entire body was soaked in sweat; midway through, the audience was coated in it as he spun around, dizzying himself, pausing only briefly to trifle with coquettes in the audience and to stain our shirts with water and god knows what else.

The number of times something wet smacked me in the face: I lost count. At one point though, I noticed Wilkes’ thumb bleeding. Back away now and you’ll look like a pussy, I deliberated. So I stayed, and witnessed the farm-boy-turned-fanatic masking his eyes shut with gray duct tape, winding it around his head and ripping it off just as quickly, as if to say, see how f-ing insane I am? Yes indeed.

I counted a total of 14 songs but I couldn’t tell you how long they played. The lights flicked on at 1:30 a.m. and I left drenched and partially deaf with a new understanding of the word “legendary.”

—Sid Andruska

IT DOESN’T STOP HERE. Every week we load up our Web site—www.playbackstl.com—with reviews, interviews, and previews that you can’t read anyplace else. For example, this month, we’ve got reviews of live shows by Interpol, Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers (above; photo by Sid Andruska), Devil in a Woodpile, Snmnmnm, Tristeza, Crooked Fingers, and Octopus Project.

19

PLAYBACK STL

ON THE COVER

THE FIERY FURNACES

Sibling Spats and Grandma’s Habitat

By Aaron Richter att Friedberger doesn’t mind the idea of novelty because, whether he likes it or not, he realizes his band is drenched in it.

Let’s start with the simple stuff. Matt’s band, The Fiery Furnaces, is composed of two people. His musical counterpart is his younger sister, Eleanor. Together, they make beautiful music that fits together like intricately cut jigsaw puzzle pieces.

M 20

In the early winter, the two borrowed their grandmother from her duties as a church choir director to record an album of make-believe stories about a Greek-American woman living in Chicago from the 1920s through the 1950s.

The album has only three stops, teeters at about an hour in length, and contains lyrical sentences that Grams corrected for improperly ending in a preposition.

Take a breath, and continue.

The Fiery Furnaces have plans to release PHOTOS COURTESY ROUGH TRADE RECORDS

three full-length albums this year (the grandma project being one of them). The siblings have also tossed around the idea of making a concept album in which Eleanor performs in the character of a ship. Another male vocalist (not Matt, gross) plays a pirate who commandeers this Eleanoras-ship vessel. The songs would, of course, be love songs from the captain to his ship and from the ship to its captain.

Matt can’t deny the novelty here, and, frankly, he doesn’t care to.

“I hope it’s a novelty,” he says with confidence. “I hope it’s something different.”

Novelty is often pegged as a gimmick. Thoughts of Wayne Coyne’s giant hamster ball or Gruff Rhys’ Yeti jam sessions tarnish what some critics would label artistic integrity, but Matt’s right. When used properly, novelty doesn’t have to feel cheap; it can simply describe a band that’s having a grand time doing something completely different.

Much of the difference in The Fiery Furnaces’ music stems from Matt’s approach to songwriting. Having found themselves in a position where people not only want them to record music but will also give them money to do so, the Friedbergers have entered a mindset where creation is a limited-time offer that needs to be embraced now, and as much as possible.

“It’s not like, ‘What else do I have to say?’” says Matt, his mind cycling through, and subsequently scrapping, the reasons other musicians choose to compose songs. “It’s

like, ‘Better keep going until you can’t make records anymore.’”

Following the release of their sometimes bluesy, sometimes spastic, always random debut, Gallowsbird’s Bark, The Fiery Furnaces plopped Blueberry Boat into listeners’ laps in 2004. The album was much more refined as the band began exploring electronic textures hinted at previously but maintained the core absurd playfulness in its songwriting. It was a challenge to get through—the first four songs jump moods like crazy and span more than 30 minutes—which is why 2005’s inappropriately titled EP comes as such a relief.

Collecting b-sides and remixes from the Furnaces’ already extensive back catalog, the release plays like a perfectly sequenced pop album with short songs, crisp melodies, and enough liquor references to leave listeners tipsy.

Even with such productivity, Matt has difficulty thinking of himself as a songwriter. He is more comfortable saying he just makes these songs up, almost as if they weren’t songs at all but rather pieces that keep him amused.

Matt relates this to the band’s recent studio sessions and recalls telling Eleanor to mine through an old book of Russian folk songs to collect phrases. The two pieced the phases together to make a chorus and built the rest of the song based on the pattern of the particular folk song they were using.

“Stuff like that is a little exercise which is fun to do,” Matt says. “It’s an easy little assignment slash game. Sometimes you just

APRIL 2005

make stuff up, and sometimes you just do stuff like that to force the song to happen.”

With such games, one might assume The Fiery Furnaces are an extension of the childhood happiness that Matt and Eleanor experienced together. The truth is, their partnership didn’t start until Matt, who had played in bands throughout high school, had all but given up music and Eleanor, who never had enough confidence to perform in front of people, finally worked up the nerve to step on to the stage with the support of her older brother.

Matt and Eleanor interact like you expect a brother and sister would—sibling spats are frequent and expected. By blurring together the band and family relationships, Matt is able to overcome disagreements that would normally be detrimental between bandmates.

“You feel comfortable with the way you dislike a sibling,” Matt says. “It’s harder to have a break with your sibling after a fight.

If you have some ridiculous fight about something really stupid but maybe there’s something real to it, if that’s with someone else, you can say, ‘Well, I’m not going to deal with this idiot anymore.’ With a sibling, you already knew they were an idiot. I’m sure Eleanor already knew I was an idiot, or at least she’s not too shocked.”

21

“With a sibling, you already knew they were an idiot. I’m sure Eleanor already knew I was an idiot, or at least she’s not too shocked.”

For Matt, performing with his sister is not out of necessity. He is hesitant about saying the two should be playing music together and leans more toward the practical ease of the setup. He even laughs (justifiably so) when asked if he’s learned anything about the importance of family from performing with Eleanor.

But after politely dismissing the question, he proceeds to give a fairly long-winded, but enlightened, view of the whole situation.

“You can be interested in these people who you’re related to, or you can find fault with them,” Matt says. “It’s much more amusing to be interested in them. God knows you’re not going to have much in common with them, and the things you do have in common are going to annoy you. That’s just the way it is with family, but it’s much more pleasant to not think of that and just think of their eccentricities or the little quirks that they have.

Then you can find that all of these people are strange characters even when they’re trying very had not to be.”

People will listen to The Fiery Furnaces simply because the group is a feuding brother and sister who work with grandma to create music about fictitious characters based on Russian folk songs. The true test is getting these listeners to realize that the novelty of the music they’re listening to isn’t a cheap gag. Matt and Eleanor really are a brother and sister who sometimes don’t get along.

They really are putting out on an album with their grandmother, not because it’s weird, but because their grandmother is a great musician. They really do have a desire to record like crazy until the doors of opportunity are closed. And they really do enjoy being a little different from the pack.

“Other people will say, ‘What are they trying to pull with this pretentiousness?’ or ‘They’re trying hard to be artsy,’” Matt says.

“It’s just a song; I hope it’s not stupid.”

The Fiery Furnaces play the Gargoyle with Dios Malos on April 18.

PLAYBACK STL Play by Play

22

nicely by “Broken Mouth Blues”; true to the album’s title, Armstrong does his best to imitate the black artists that influenced the likes of Lennon, Jagger, and Clapton.

A cover of the Leiber/Butler song, “Down Home Girl” (also covered by the Stones, among others) is a feisty rendition. “Back in That Room” appears to be Armstrong’s best stab at Zeppelin. “Too Long for Her” and “She Changes Like the Weather” could pass for pages from Harrison’s and McCartney’s song books, respectively.

The melody of these songs is instant.

“Scratch the Surface” exhibits Armstrong with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and bass drum, and the result is a catchy tune. “The Finishing Touch” is a mid-tempo pop song that gives a nod to a major influence of Armstrong’s idols, Buddy Holly. The album ends with a taut rendition of Chuck Berry’s “I Want to Be Your Driver.”

Armstrong sounds polished and refined on his debut. Each song flows smoothly to the next, deftly utilizing the great sounds and feel of a bygone era. The songs are simple and uncluttered, with good songwriting and great hooks.

—Mike Wachsnicht REGINA SPEKTOR: SOVIET KITSCH (Sire) Regina Spektor’s debut album, Soviet Kitsch, is characterized by the relationship between her piano and her voice. The two most dominant characters on the record, both instruments are approached differently. Spektor studied classical piano since the age of six, dreaming of being a concert pianist long before she ever dreamt up her first lyric. Her training is evident in her playing on the record, but her expertise is not proven through complexity. Instead, her piano parts are clean compositions that establish a strong structure to hold her songs together. Her classically informed dynamics and arpeggios move the songs along beautifully.

Spektor’s voice, on the other hand, is much more human. The solidity of her piano allows her to be more indulgent and experimental vocally. Her voice climbs over her solid piano like a child exploring a jungle gym. Although Spektor has a distinct sonic personality, she shares Björk and Joanna Newsome’s penchant

from page 10

for schizophrenic swings between near-operatic clarity and quirky, baby-talk singing.

Soviet Kitsch is not dominated by performance, however. Spektor communicates strong melodies and stories in songs like “Ode to Divorce” and “Carbon Monoxide,” whose unusual lyrical content confirms Spektor as a unique artist, afloat in a sea of female singer-songwriters, most of whom blend together in the brine. The Strokes’ producer Gordon Raphael’s dry drum sounds and spare arrangements allow the artist’s compositional and performance ability to propel the record.

Occasionally, that space and freedom tempts Spektor’s adventurous voice into repeating sounds or fragments of melody that amuse her until she is ready to move on through the song. This works for her at times in a Thom Yorke–ish way, but in general she does it for herself instead of the song, and it shows.

On Soviet Kitsch, Regina Spektor has minor struggles negotiating the balance between style and substance, but, in general, her debut is a great success because she draws on a deep supply of both.

—Sean Douglas LUKE TEMPLE: HOLD A MATCH FOR A GASOLINE WORLD (Mill Pond Records) There’s something about a male voice reaching for the highest register its owner is capable of (whether via falsetto or otherwise) that evokes a compelling vulnerability; when the notes are nailed, a powerful emotional charge often results. Luke Temple, part of a new generation of singer/songwriters energizing the Seattle area these days, demonstrates the beauty of a vulnerable voice—and plenty of other things—on his superb new album Hold a Match for a Gasoline World. For examples of high-note heaven, check out “Mr. Disgrace”—a charming song rendered sublime by the combination of a flawlessly plucked acoustic guitar and a melodious flute (or flute-like synth) adorning Temple’s sweet, Neil Young–like pipes. Or the hypnotic “Private Shipwreck,” on which Temple gets maximum mileage out of his brightly recorded strumming, steady rhythm track, and, yes, delicately high delivery.

The press so far has referenced Paul Simon, Jeff Buckley, and Elliott Smith as inhabitants of

the musical universe through which Temple steers his craft, and while the aptness of such comparisons varies, a better touchstone is Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle, who Temple uncannily evokes at times. If “Shipwreck” contained a few smidgens of quirky synth, the uninitiated could easily mistake it for a new Grandaddy track.

But let’s not bog the truly gifted Temple down in unsatisfying comparisons. This guy is a terrific songwriter and an ace musician with an ear for detail. The jaunty opener, “Someone, Somewhere” is a smashing tune that a lesser talent would have junked up with unnecessary production frills; by keeping it lean and uncluttered, Temple and co-producer Troy Tietjen (The Shins, Death Cab for Cutie) get things off to a rousing start. “Radiation Blues,” “In the End,” and “Old New York” are exceptionally strong songs with classic rock elements (there are echoes of Eric Clapton on “End,” and you may think of The Beatles or The Moody Blues during passages in the other tunes). These latter two tracks feature tasteful piano here and there, and “Old New York” sounds like something Paul Simon might have come up with early in his solo career.

“Make Right With You” proves Temple can fingerpick his little heart out and keep the lyrical content captivating at the same time.

“Get Deep, Get Close” is another gem with its train-chugging rhythm, thoroughly captivating vocal, and, in a quite unexpected flourish, a nearly classical interlude right in the middle.

“All those ways you might have tried/To keep yourself alive/Build mountains in your mind/ Build mountains every time,” sings Temple as guitars, bass, and drums carry tune and singer forward in a most beguiling manner. Get deep, get close, indeed!

There’s not a bad cut on this album—in fact, it’s one of those rare recordings in which the sequencing and overall production seem to reflect an uncommon level of thoughtfulness and care. But it’s the music that brings the real splendor here. Melodic, rich, and warmly emotional, Hold a Match for a Gasoline World is one of the finest recordings of the year so far. Let’s hope Luke Temple burns his way into a few hearts with this peerless debut.

—Kevin Renick STEVE VAI: REAL ILLUSIONS: REFLECTIONS (Epic) This disc is another long-awaited masterpiece from one of the greatest musical minds of our times. (I hope I didn’t understate that.)

I instantly felt that bipolar energy that

APRIL 2005

knocks me down the first time a milestone recording like this enters my life: inspiration and depression.

First hits the inspired feeling of possibilities of creation and imagination, followed immediately by that sinking feeling of how effortlessly he plays like that. Vai’s writing transcends from just good guitar playing to an experience that can become a part of your life, memories, and understanding. This is music that can teach you things, if you listen…

The opening with Tony McAlpine on keys is sick. The main groove is heavy and has some straightforward shredding that you want to hear from Vai. Billy Sheehan’s bass sound is incredibly fat—the whole mix is tight and powerful, right from the start.

Vai draws from many sources in generating the sound that is undeniably his through

rich harmonic movement. He references early 20th century composers in the vocal melody and chord changes. Dark tones and solemn atmospheres are created using dissonance in the manner of Bartok or Shoenberg. The piece evokes the expressionists’ interpretation of the industrialization of their time, but now we see our world changing through a screen of technology.

He builds chords with quartal harmony, where he stacks fifths to get the ninth in the voicings (a good stretch for most of us). Then comes a warm, slow guitar riff that reminds me of Hendrix. This tune is beautiful; I couldn’t get it out of my head. Up comes a crazy vocal intro where they sing a drumbeat. There are Tower of Power–style horns and some great hits; this song is a blast. Next is the colossal fusion tune that is full of chops, odd-time meters, altered scales, and more sickness than you can handle.

It’s along the lines of Return to Forever or Mahavishnu, on espresso.

Then Vai plays along with a symphony— and it’s so well done you will cry. For contrast,

there’s a goofy little piece in which they sing a Chinese pentatonic melody through a wah and a talk box. Totally strange, but somehow they make it groove. There’s an acoustic tune in an alternate tuning similar to Michael Hedges; I’ve decided to start every morning by listening to this song.

The last song of the disc is the most epic and conveys an all too accurate reflection of the chaotic world in which we live and the illusions we believe are real.

In Real Illusions: Reflections, Vai shows us that the world can be a very fun and very sinister place. Through the use of musical references to many cultures and times, he reminds us that within us all lie the memories of past lives through time.

Vai is proof of God. If you don’t believe me, buy the disc.

Steve Vai plays The Pageant April 10 with Eric Sardinas.

—Derek Lauer

Sponsored, in part, by PlaybackSTL

PLAYBACK STL

NOW PLAYING CINEMA

SAHARA (Paramount Pictures, PG-13)

24

From its intriguing prologue and engaging opening credits sequence to its joyously preposterous conclusion, Sahara is an enjoyable action film that successfully translates to the screen the Dirk Pitt series of adventures by author Clive Cussler.

Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) is the lead agent for a group of ex-military treasure hunters. Working in the Niger River delta in Africa, Pitt saves a World Health Organization doctor (Penelope Cruz) from some villains who appear to be rejects from the Temple of Doom.

Pitt and the doctor join forces and head upriver together: she to gather data on a plague, he to investigate the possible wreck of a Confederate ironclad from the American Civil War that fled before the South fell. After the local dictator, desperate to conceal the plague, moves to kill the doctor, Pitt and his sidekick—played with childlike glee by Steve Zahn—abandon their quest and ride to the rescue, linking up with an army of rebel fighters along the way.

Sahara’s strength is the interplay between the leads. McConaughey and Zahn have an engaging chemistry, and their boisterousness puts us in the proper mood for the ridiculous action sequences. On the other hand, there is little romantic chemistry between McConaughey and Cruz; they placidly take turns saving each other and tossing off oneliners.

In this regard, McConaughey’s hero is a far cry from Cussler’s Pitt, who thought to bring spare sheets for a stateroom on the resurrected Titanic for a romantic tryst in Raise the Titanic. Indeed, Cussler’s Pitt feels like James Bond with an American accent and a maritime bent, while the film’s Pitt is an anti-Bond—a NASCAR secret agent—more at home in cutoff shorts with a hunting knife strapped to his shin than in a tuxedo filled with high-tech gadgets. Pitt’s boyish optimism and Boy Scout ethics are a far cry from Bond’s suave complexity. Bond saves the day accompanied by high-

concept pop music by big name artists (Paul McCartney, Tina Turner); Pitt’s soundtrack is pure ’70s Southern rock.

Although Sahara succeeds as a diverting action film, it is unclear how much credit director Breck Eisner (son of the former Disney head) and the platoon of screenwriters deserve.

Continuity errors and odd editing choices distract throughout. The script overflows with lines like, “He puts the ‘war’ in ‘warlord’,” and clichéd scenes from a dozen other films: “our heroes enter the rebel camp” and “comic character stumbles on key plot device.”

Despite the filmmaker’s occasional carelessness and tendency toward the formulaic, the actors make this one work. Once you’ve exhausted the Oscar nominees, Sahara provides an excellent antidote to the horror films and kiddie fare currently dominating the screens.

—Joe Hodes

Dear Frankie (Miramax, PG-13) In a film that proves strong moments can also be quiet ones, Dear Frankie tells the story of Lizzie Morrison (Emily Mortimer), who is on the run from an abusive husband with her nineyear-old son Frankie (Jack McElhone) and her caring, chain-smoking mother (Mary Riggans).

Determined to protect Frankie (who has been deaf since he was a baby) from the truth about his dad, Lizzie concocts a romantic story about his father sailing around the world on the ship HMS Accra and maintains the charade for years by writing Frankie beautifully descriptive letters, supposedly from his father.

The correspondence creates a bright spot in the boy’s difficult life, as he diligently charts his father’s course around the world and immerses himself in marine biology and stamp-collecting. Lizzie is so determined not to disappoint Frankie that even after receiving news that the real HMS Accra is scheduled to dock near their most recent home on the Scottish coast, she refuses to come clean and decides instead to hire a handsome stranger (Gerard Butler) to play the role of a perfect father for one day.

The stranger’s genuine kindness makes an impression on both Frankie and Lizzie, and they fall hard for this new (and certainly improved) “father.” But with deceptions come complications, and the difficulty of Lizzie’s situation is emphasized when Frankie’s real dad (Cal Macaninch) makes an appearance of his own, mixing in plenty of charm with his sizzling temper. Dilemmas that we all face—such as distinguishing the fine line between protecting those we love and lying to them—are skillfully dealt with throughout this powerful movie.

Screenwriter Andrea Gibb is the film’s real MVP, taking an idea that could have tipped the scales in terms of sentimentality and keeping it firmly rooted in convincing family relationships. Meanwhile, director Shona Auerbach expertly guides the talented cast, making sure that humor shines through the characters’ difficulties.

Mortimer, who has most recently appeared in Young Adam (along with McElhone) and Bright

APRIL 2005

Young Things, portrays Lizzie with the perfect mix of strength, determination, and unspoken grief. Young McElhone also deserves plenty of accolades—because Frankie rarely speaks, he must rely on body language and facial expressions to convey the full-size personality packed inside of the precocious youngster.

Frankie provides plenty of laughs as well, such as when he befriends a classmate by cheerfully correcting the spelling of “def boy” he scratched on Frankie’s desk as an insult.

The film also offers a peek at life in small-town Scotland—both through the scenery and the colorful characters who live there—and its beauty is only magnified through Frankie’s observant eyes.

—Emily Spreng Lowery

Sin City (Dimension Films, NR) “Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.”

So goes one of the taglines for the new movie by Robert Rodriguez based on the graphic novels by Frank Miller. And it is absolutely true, so long as the anything you are looking for is dark, seamy, or violent. Oddly enough, though, at its heart, Sin City is essentially a series of love stories—ultra-violent, disturbing love stories, but love stories nonetheless. Composed of partially interconnecting tales, the film follows three determined and dark men: Bruce Willis as Detective Hartigan, Mickey Rourke as Marv, and Clive Owen as Dwight, each vowing to protect or avenge the

PLAYBACKSTL PRESENTS

GOODING

LEO

women in their lives.

Yet Sin City is much less about those individual stories than it is about the flawed qualities of its heroes and the city’s own shadowy existence as a whole. It is a direct descendant of the film noir classics of the 1930’s, ’40’s, and ’50’s—films like Out of the Past or Touch of Evil.

Films in which the heroes are tough and on the exterior and motivated by much of the same things that motivate their enemies, but for one thing: a conscience. Though it is often veiled in a thirst for vengeance, it is that glimmer of something more important than self-interest or self-preservation that separates the two.

What takes Sin City to the next level is the comic-book styling. The violence is amplified beyond comparison with gunshot wounds spurting translucent blood, limbs blown and sliced off, victims wholly and partially cannibalized, and a mounting body count throughout. All of this is rendered in mood-setting black and white with just traces of color here and there, much of it red—blood splatters, an evening gown, a racing convertible—but also glowing blues or yellows of a particular object or character. And on the rarest of occasions, there is even a glimmer of full color when something decent or virtuous—most often a woman—graces the screen.

Rodriguez resigned from the Directors’ Guild of America so that he could share directing credits with Miller. In doing so, he brought the artist’s vision onto the set and therefore directly to the screen, making the transition from comic

book to movie one of the purest and, frankly, the best of its genre. Capturing the language, mood, and style of its source, Sin City succeeds in every sense that films like Batman failed: by being faithful to the very origins that drew an audience to it in the first place.

—Dave McCahan

IT DOESN’T STOP HERE. Every week, we load up our Web site— www.playbackstl.com —with reviews, interviews, and previews that you can’t read anyplace else. For example, this month,read Pete Timmermann’s review of the DVD-only release of the Alain Resnais film Not on the Lips starring Audrey Tautou.

“EKe, not only a band name but three letters that mean passion for music and the ability to deliver the music in a way that causes fans to lose themselves in the stories that make up the songs of EKe.” —KEN WILLIAMS Host, River Home Grown WVRV — 101.1 The River, St. Louis, MO

APPEARING: April 8 @ Mississippi Nights (w/Madahoochi & Remedy)

w/LEFT SETTER

APRIL 23, 9PM @ CICERO’S $5/18+ 6691 DELMAR • IN THE U CITY LOOP • WWW.CICEROS-STL.COM

April 29 @ Off Broadway (w/Brain Regiment & Jupiter Jazz)

Sponsored, in part, by PlaybackSTL

25

PLAYBACK STL

FESTIVAL

SXSW – FILM

SXSW FILM WRAPUP

By Pete Timmermann and Bob Hammond

26

Although the South by Southwest film festival doesn’t get the big premieres that Cannes, Sundance, or Toronto do, and has yet to gain backing by press outside of Austin, Texas, it is one of the five or so film festivals worth trying to hit every year. For starters, Austin is just a fun town in general: the weather is nice there this time of year, they have one of the best movie theaters in the world (the Alamo Drafthouse), and the populous is young and like-minded about their tastes in cult films and noncommercial radio. The biggest reason, though, is that the music festival overlaps with the end of the film festival, so that if your ass starts to hurt, you can just go see some bands instead of sitting through more movies.

The world premiere of Doug Pray’s follow-up to his 2001 film Scratch, called Scratch: All the Way Live, was screened at SXSW, which follows the acts from Scratch as they tour, amounting to what is more or less a straightforward concert video. After a morning screening of the new Scratch, the audience was invited to an art gallery to see one of Scratch’s four performers, Z-Trip, DJ an opening (which included works by street artist Shepard Fairey), illustrating perfectly the way SXSW programmers can successfully dovetail the film and music festivals.

One of the aforementioned alumni from another festival was the winner of the documentary best director award at Sundance, The Devil and Daniel Johnston. For those unfamiliar with Johnston, he’s a folk rocker who appeared in the Austin music scene abruptly in the ’80s and flirted with mainstream popularity and acceptance (Kurt Cobain was a huge fan), despite being an ultra-religious and arguably mentally handicapped outsider. Again, the same night as one of the screenings, Johnston played a rare live set on the University of Texas campus.

An outsider who couldn’t make it to the festival despite having an in-competition documentary about his life was the old Frank Zappa protégé, Larry “Wild Man” Fischer, whose film Derailroaded was one of the festival’s highlights. Wild Man was a street musician who gained a massive reputation among people who paid him his fee of ten cents a song on the streets of Los Angeles, which eventually

led to his working with Zapp as well as Barnes and Barn (the musicians behind Demento classic “Fish Head All of this he quickly aliena on account of his manic-de sive paranoid schizophrenia caused him to often behave than socially (Zappa wouldn’t with him again after he nearly a baby Moon Unit). The down this documentary was that i you want to pick up Wild Zappa-produced debut album, An Evening With Wild Man Fischer, which is long out of print (as is his entire back catalogue) and worth upwards of $100.

Even the documentaries that didn’t involve musicians had good Austin-based crossover appeal, such as the Michael Blieden–directed The Comedians of Comedy, a concert video/ road movie with Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Zack Galifianakis, and Maria Bamford. Most comedy concert videos have really stupid framing devices that were clearly written by people other than the comedians themselves, but Comedians does a good job of making it feel like you’re hanging out with the comedians when they aren’t performing, which, in this case, involves a lot of time spent at comic book stores and arcades. The night after the film’s SXSW world premiere, the four comedians took to the stage of Emo’s, one of Austin’s biggest rock clubs, which resulted in one of the best nights of comedy one can reasonably expect to see. The Comedians of Comedy is a Netflix production, and can be rented exclusively through their Web site.

Another good comedy concert video was Sarah Silverman’s Jesus Is Magic, despite the fact that it had the dreaded bad framing device, and that even though Silverman was in town, she didn’t perform. Regardless, Silverman is a familiar enough face in Hollywood for her many supporting roles in School of Rock, Mr. Show, and There’s Something About Mary, so it’s nice to see that the masses will soon be able to recognize her for her unbelievably dirty and offensive standup.

Wild Man Fischer and Frank Zappa seem that all of the good films at SXSW this year were documentaries. There were, in fact, quite a few good narrative features as well, but most of them screened at other festivals prior to SXSW. Falling into this category is the new Todd Solondz abortion drama Palindromes, Lukas Moodysson’s scary amateur porn shoot A Hole in My Heart, the ridiculously entertaining Stephen Chow–directed Kung Fu Hustle, and Chan-wook Park’s revenge drama Oldboy. A few more notable documentaries that screened at other festivals, most notably Don Argott’s Rock School, Harry Alex Rubin’s doc about quadriplegic rugby, Murderball, and Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza’s dirty joke, The Aristocrats.

While the festival had its share of bad movies, the only one really worth mentioning is the new Elijah Wood movie, Hooligans. The working title for this movie could well have been Frodo Fight Club, although I’m not sure that that quite does justice to how stupid and derivative Hooligans really is. Even more disheartening is the fact that it won both the audience award and the jury award for narrative feature. One would think that people intelligent enough to patronize film festivals would know better than be suckered into formulaic, unentertaining, retarded crap, but Hooligans is proof that they’re no better than giggly, hormonal 13-year-old girls.

The failure of Hooligans and the success of the numerous concert documentaries points at what SXSW is really known for: the music festival. Even so, the way the programmers piggyback the film festival to the better-known music festival results in an unparalleled festival experience.

APRIL 2005

OUR FILMY SUBSTANCE

BY ADAM HACKBARTH Before I start blurting out local happenings, then sing his praises at The RiverRun Film I would like to address something that has Festival in Winston-Salem. been Riverdancing in my lower intestine for the last couple of weeks. I think it is pathetic how the film industry combs the Internet for torrent-loving teenagers and spends money trying to crack down on theater-lurking criminals, yet they continue pushing their films to many of the major hotel chains. As long as movies continue to reach hotel rooms weeks before their DVD release dates, there will always be room for bootleggers to make a buck or three. The bootlegger rents a room for $40, PUSHING UP DAISIES IN NC sets up his recording equipment, and then can rent (and poorly record) a movie weeks before The St. Louis Filmmaker Showcase it reaches DVD. Sure, it isn’t the cheapest way marathon is now underway.

Visit to bootleg, but open your freaking eyes! This www.cinemastlouis.org for film submission method is being utilized. The solution? Switch details, and be sure to peek at the list of 2005 from current films to time-tested classics.

Cinemaspoke finalists.

DHTV has finally changed their name to Image Entertainment has entered the KDHX TV. Not to get all Ian McDiarmid, realm of Wicked Pixel. Proof that Eric Stanze but this has certainly been their destiny. has fans in all sorts of places, IE has thrown a ForeSolutions Inc. reports that the feature few gold pieces into re-releasing a few titles Death of a Healer nears completion. With from the WP catalog. For more information, final production being overseen by William visit www.wickedpixel.com.

Jennings and the production team of Tom Want to hear something freaking crazy?

Bennett and Brett Hanavan, Death of a Inbred Redneck Alien Abduction has already Healer was written by Dr. Paul Henry Young, become something of a cult “hit” for Sub Rosa based on his novel of the same name.

Studios. Sub Rosa head honcho Ron Bonk Kevin McKeown invites all to visit reports that the DVD has already smashed www.stabsteer.com and volunteer their ser- previous studio records and has found itself as vices for some of his upcoming productions. one of Sub Rosa’s all-time best sellers. The lesI have yet to explore the son to be learned? For every critic who site, but come on—he’s turns his nose up at a movie, there will kicking around a pirate always been a few thousand cult movie adventure comedy! fans who will drool and check that critic Kristy McNichol would for boogers. Visit www.b-movie.com be so proud. and remember: There’s no such thing What Madness as bad press. That reminds me, I might Productions has a DV as well erase those six messages from feature in the works. Visit my answering machine. www.forevercursed.com First Look Home Entertainment for more information. has announced that April 26 will be BLESS YOU, KEVIN McKEOWN There are three the official DVD street date for Larva, “givens” in life: France loves Jerry Lewis, the Missouri-lensed horror flick that debuted Germany loves David Hasselhoff, and North earlier this year on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Carolina is simply crazy about KDHX TV’s The Midwest premiere of St. Louis–made Doug Whyte. His funeral director documen- The Game of Their Lives, that film about the tary Pushing Up Daisies is being distributed 1950 U.S. World Cup soccer team, is April 17 by 7th Art Releasing (www.7thart.com) and at the AMC Esquire. It will then begin a limit has been embraced by the North Carolina ited nationwide run starting April 22. festival scene. His NC groupies will surely Adam Hackbarth is a St. Louis–based swoon in ecstasy over his latest work at the screenwriter. He seldom explains in-jokes. Send Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington, and your news to stlfilmwire@yahoo.com.

PLAYBACK STL

FESTIVAL

SXSW – MUSIC

SXSW MUSIC WRAPUP By Laura Hamlett When it comes right down to it, I’m the traditional type. 1,500 bands over 4 days, and all I want to do is a make a list...or three. Read on.

The Best KAISER CHIEFS—Hands down, Leeds’ Kaiser Chiefs were the best live show. Despite a severely strained ankle, frontman Ricky Wilson was the most manic performer of the festival, hopping, jumping, skipping, sliding, even stage-diving. Taking the stage before a packed house at La Zona Rosa, he effused, “You have no idea what kind of big deal this is for us. We’re just a bunch of idiots.” During hit single “I Predict a Riot,” Wilson literally walked off the stage into the crowd.

C O

O R

BLOC PARTY—Believe the hype; this band has the goods. If you enjoy Franz Ferdinand, you’ll love Bloc Party. Lead singer Kele Okereke is charming, and the music’s a perfect blend of dance, pop, and ’80s wave.

IDLEWILD—With a new album (Warnings/ Promises) expected to launch them into the major leagues (though out in the United Kingdom, it doesn’t see a U.S. release until August), singer/songwriter Roddy Woomble looked every bit as uncomfortable as always.

Still, the songs—both new and old—blended together seamlessly and sounded spot-on.

ED HARCOURT—Finally, a chance to see the tour-de-force that is Ed Harcourt! His show at

SXSW+REGULAR NAPPING=RnR NIRVANA 28

Music critics across the nation recently returned from the SXSW2005 music festival and conference in Austin, Tex.—weak and jaundiced from bad food and free beer detox— with one pressing concern: How the hell can you describe four days of non-stop rock carnival action in 600 words? You can’t, actually. But here’s a cheeky best-of list, if you can dig it.

BEST VENUE FOR CHATTING ANNOYINGLY ABOUT EVERYTHING BUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ONSTAGE: Every venue, apparently. It was appalling to see smarmy badge-wearers glide past a hella long line of wristbanders who’d been waiting for hours, only to ignore the band once they’ve secured their space in front of the stage. Do your schmoozing outside, Jack! And tell Jill to learn how to text message, ’cause her screechy cell-phone chatter is un-earplug-able. Ouch.

BEST WHITE CANADIAN RAPPER: Canada’s coolest rapper, the unassuming, blokey Buck 65, played to a packed house at Emo’s Main Room. Standing alone on stage with twoturntables-and-a-microphone (try saying that without doing the robot), Buck 65 spun raspy rhymes to Beck-worthy beats, and told a great story about being a kid when his dad decided they would draw pictures together. His dad drew a flaming skeleton on a motorcycle.

BEST PLACE TO GET AUSTIN’S FAMOUS TEXMEX: You tell me, ’cos all I could find around the main drag was window walkups peddling pizza by the slice and that dude with the pushcart proudly emblazoned with the omi-

nous phrase “Bad Ass Fajitas.”

BEST PLACE TO CATCH WILLIE NELSON HANGING OUT: SXSW! Almost. Willie Nelson impersonator Almost Willie tricked more than a few of us with his casual walking-down-thestreet-and-smiling-like-he’s-super-high shtick before we noticed him later boarding his very own Honeysuckle Rose—a crappy RV with Almost’s face and moniker painted on the side, right next to a purty American flag. Suckas!

BEST PERFORMANCES BY CANADIANS OTHER THAN BUCK 65: Teeny Tegan & Sara’s late afternoon show at Emo’s Main Room was packed to the rafters and enthusiastically received by a younger than normal crowd for the festival, a good sign for T&S’s continuing buzz. We passed the tiny twins on the sidewalk before their show, just after passing lil’ guy Ben Lee, dressed for the 80-degree weather in a ubiquitous tiny blazer.

WEIRDEST PERFORMANCE: Apples in Stereo’s Robert Schneider performed solo in front of a tiny but wildly enthusiastic crowd at Exodus. Well, he started solo, anyway—on a stool with an acoustic guitar—but finished out the set as his new alter ego: Marbles. Picture Neil Diamond with zero stage presence or sex appeal (and fear-of-eye-contact issues), singing awesomely over-the-top outer space love songs.

But in a good way, like a Har Mar Superstar for the Buck Rogers set. The transition from meek to space geek occurred on stage in hilarious fashion, as Schneider’s Judy Jetson girlfriend helped him change into a shiny silver outfit,

Antone’s was everything we’d hoped: a bit personal (Harcourt solo, accompanying himself on piano), a bit starstruck (joined onstage by not only his band, but by fellow musicians, including Paul the Girl—who is one hell of a guitar player—and members of The Golden Republic), and a bit outrageous (as the compositions swelled with sounds, eras, ebbs, and flows).

THE FRAMES—I almost felt guilty going to see The Frames—twice—as I’ve seen them before. Still, I found myself drawn to this Irish quintet; each time, no matter the setting (outdoor day showcase, indoor trade show appearance), they completely captivated.

Not only is Glen Hansard the world’s most

By Brian McClelland complete with matching flip-flops. (He wears black boxer-briefs, by the way.)

LAMEST CLUB: Exodus, for charging $7 for a mixed drink. That’s like two Bad Ass Fajitas!

Or three ice cream sandwiches from that market across the street! You know, the place with the taxidermied Armadillos-drinking-Lone Star things. And those were $150 bucks each!

Austin, cut me a freaking break, here!

SHITTIEST P.A.: During a lethargic early evening set from Brooklyn’s The Rogers Sisters and an insane beer-swigging, pompadourcombing rock spectacular by Japan’s insane Guitar Wolf at La Zona Rosa, the sound mix included nary a hint of vocals coming through the main speakers (although a trace could be heard from the stage monitors) and a muddy mix of everything else. And these bands were only trios! How freaking hard is it to make sure that drums, bass, guitar, and vocals are reasonably audible? Good thing those Polyphonic Spree retards weren’t in town.

BEST OVERALL PERFORMANCE (THAT I SNUCK MY WAY INTO VIA REUSED LAMINATES TUCKED IN AN ISSUE OF PLAYBACKSTL): The Futureheads performed a smoking set for the barely interested music elite gathered for Spin magazine’s party at Stubb’s. Free beer, free BBQ, and free haircuts. And a sea of posing rock boys trying to look cool and eat free potato salad at the same time.

BEST-KEPT SECRET TO ENJOYING SXSW: Naps. And avoiding Bad Ass Fajitas.

APRIL 2005

perfect frontman, but bassist/backing vocalist Joe Doyle, with his self-deprecating smile, is a classic counterpart. If you get the chance to see them, do; and pick up their latest, Burn the Maps (Anti), while you’re at it.

THE FUTUREHEADS—The album’s good, but all the three-minute fast-paced songs blend together after a while. Live, though, this band was nothing but impressive. The four-part (yes, four) harmonies, their awkward stage presence, the way none of them look like rock stars.

We were singing their cover of Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love”—performed as an audience sing-along—for days. Truly memorable.

THE SHOUT OUT LOUDS—This band was probably our greatest discovery. We went to the Filter showcase expecting Rob Dickinson; we got this Swedish quintet.

The music resembles early, poppier Cure, and singer Adam’s voice is a gorgeous mix of Robert Smith and Conor Oberst. Their songs come off like joyful noise, especially the all-out jam (with keyboards and triangle) at the end.

THE SNAKE THE CROSS THE CROWN—The last show of the showcase, upstairs in a small club, performed in front of a small crowd.

The music was at times soaring, other times exploratory and intriguing. Though the four members are the furthest thing from rock ’n’ roll, they make beautiful, intelligent music.

29

The Missed Of course, there were bands we wanted to but couldn’t see; these include ex–Catherine Wheel frontman Rob Dickinson (skipped out, the louse), Trashcan Sinatras (we caught one beautiful song, but not enough), Mike Peters/The Alarm (running into him at Denny’s over breakfast isn’t quite the same as seeing him in concert), Dogs Die in Hot Cars, Statistics, Ambulance Ltd., and I Am Kloot (schedule change).

The Worst Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the most-overhyped, least deserving acts: The Bravery (they’re just too, too smooth—and too, too ’80s synth), Louis XIV (maybe they resemble The Fall on record, but live they’re more Ozzy Osbourne and offensive), Hot Hot Heat (the new album’s a sellout; to make matters worse, they’ve taken the heart out of the old stuff, as well. And what’s with Steve Bays’ hair??), and Ordinary Boys (named after a Smiths song, I expected more than just a Jam ripoff).

Austin Visuals: Among the 1,300 official bands playing SXSW this year were: 1: The Shout Out Louds; Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney; Elvis Costello; ROW 2: Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson, both off- and onstage; ROW 3: Bloc Party; Louis XIV; ROW 5: Long-View; The Frames; and ROW 6: The Futureheads.

ROW

Photos by Jim Dunn.

PLAYBACK STL

LOCAL SCENERY

EDITED BY J. CHURCH

30

Following their departure from Island Records, Greenwheel have opted to re-release Soma Holiday. The CD contains the original 11 tracks, all remixed and re-mastered. The band also has a new Web site coming soon.

Sonic Temple’s name exemplifies what it is. Among the studio’s latest offerings: Ludo is tracking new material and Dionysia is starting a new CD, both with Jason McEntire producing; Prisonshake is working on a new album for SCAT Records with J. Christopher Hughes and Robert Griffin producing; Six

by Silver (formerly Fused) mixed a new CD, produced by Malcom Springer (Greenwheel, Sinch, Full Devil Jacket) and engineered by Hughes. Other projects by Hughes include 12oz Prophets’ new EP, new discs by Steve Bequette and LO-FREQ, a six-song EP by Wydown, The Formula Kid’s new material, and the first-ever recordings from The Lab. Mark McKay has signed a digital distribution deal with Europe’s Blue Rose Records.

Urban Jazz Naturals will be releasing two new tracks on Large Music (Chicago) featuring remixes by Demarkus Lewis. On April 16, UJN performs live at Venus Envy. Mo and Dawn jazz it up every Thursday at Monarch (7401 Manchester Rd., Maplewood).

Lojic’s new CD The Manual (produced

by Steve Ewing from The Urge) is available at Vintage Vinyl and online at www.vintagevinyl.com Guitarist Dave Collett—whom we (oops!) inadvertently excluded from a March item about The Love Experts—reports that the debut of the powerhouse quintet will bear the title Cuba Street and that Undertow Records has officially slotted the EP for release on May 3. So far this year, Undertow has released The Amazing Pilots’ Hello My Captor and Milton Mapes’ The Blacklight Trap.

Mississippi Nights is featuring a triplesponsored bill on Sun., April 3. KSHE, KPNT, and Miller Brewing all want you to listen up and drink to Modern Day Zero, Shaman’s Harvest, and Stendek.

Lord Baltimore is back to claim the throne.

The trio will perform at Cicero’s, Sat., April 16, with Nashid, Missile Silo Suite, and The Lab. First Flight will be releasing St. Louis band The Floating City’s newest album, Entering a Contest, in the middle of May. On separate days in April, St. Louis acts The Hatch, The Cruel Cuts, and The Maxtone

Four are all playing the International Pop Overthrow festival in Chicago. But probably the more surprising festival news is the reunion of The Sun Sawed in 1/2.

Bockman has been nominated for a “Jammy Award” at Madison Square Garden for “Best New Groove of 2004.”

101.1 The River will be launching an alternative online radio station in the next couple of months that will be fully supported by the radio station; stay tuned for details.

360 Smile fans should be happy. Not only has the band become a “Budweiser True Music” band, but their new CD Change Your World is due in May. Also with a new CD in the works is Sofachrome, who will have their new recording mixed on April 15.

Arguably St. Louis’s most dangerous band, The Misses, invites you to the release party for The More You Drink...the Better We Sound on Sat., April 9, at the Skatium. Strange venue? Sure—but only an idiot would expect predictability from the women behind songs like “Manhunt” and “Blonde.” The $8 cover includes the new disc, free skate rental, and a raffle ticket for a mysterious grand prize. This, frankly, should be a blast—Misses Lay Low (guitar), Misses Olota Luv (bass), Misses Robinskin (drums), and Misses Sikki Nixx (vocals) should see to that.

Jeff Nations, Brian Schaeffer, and Dave Seithel—respectively the lead vocalist/ guitarist, drummer, and guitarist for Essence of Logic—spent spring break playing acoustic gigs in Panama City Beach, Fla. Rough Shop has finished recording and mixing its first CD, currently being mastered

by Jack Petracek. John Wendland fronts the band with drummer Sean Anglin, keyboardist Nate Dahm, singer/guitarist Andy Ploof, bassist Mike Tiefenbrun, and singer/guitarist Anne Tkach.

Nico Leone has become the station manager at local radio oasis KDHX (88.1 FM), having previously served as music director. Depending on his sense of humor and reflecting on the station’s spring pledge drive—occurring even now—Leone might applaud a gentle suggestion from Your Local Scenarists: Tune in, turn on, cough up. KDHX matters.

The Breakers just wrapped up sessions with engineer James Lott at the famous Sun Studio in Memphis; check out www.thebreakermusic.com to listen to new tunes. The band is also featured on BreakThrough Audio’s St. Louis Sampler CD. Mike Fitzsimmons has reformed The

SIDE OF FIVES

Homewreckers with an all-new lineup, including Ray Leach on bass and former Earl members Chris Keale and Dan Niewoehner. The band is gigging locally and working on a CD. Twelve new tracks by El Mail Boxo are being mixed at Mirror Image Studios (Minneapolis).

The CD, tentatively titled Thai Surprise (which signifies one of the members’ move to Thailand), should be available by May. Five local bands will hold a benefit concert for the families of the Wheeler and Alexander shooting victims at The Pageant on Sat., April 2. Headlined by Field of Gray, the concert also features Fragile Porcelain Mice, Side of Fives, Soul for Silver, and Brett Daniels. The event will be emceed by Lin Hart (DJ DEBO), with Blank Anthony spinning between sets.

Brain Regiment’s Ancient Spacemen will be released in May; for a sneak preview, catch the band at three-1-three April 15 or at Off Broadway April 29, or visit www.myspace.com/brainregiment.

Tom Wood, leader and founder of Westernsoul, is writing songs for a new album; mastering of final mixes is scheduled for August. www.mongomon.com When Mourning Comes is heading back into Alchemy Sound to record its debut fulllength CD. www.whenmourningcomes.com William and Joseph Press is seeking personal essays for its next book, tentatively titled Down, Out, and Hip in St. Louis, intended for hipsters living in STL or visiting on a budget.

For info, e-mail editor Allison Trombley at allison@williamandjosephpress.com.

In memoriam: Harold Lazaroff, vice president of the Michelson Realty Company and alto saxophonist, has passed away. Over 40 years ago, he began to cultivate jazz events with Mary Bearman in local homes. Eight such J.A.M. events were cohosted/co produced with Dawn DeBlaze since 2002.

Additional contributions by Bryan A. Hollerbach, Mike Kinworthy, John Kujawski, and Kevin Renick.

APRIL 2005

Elliot Goes

31

by Bosco (with illustration help from Carlos Ruiz)

www.scifiorpolysci.com

LEAVING HOME IS NEVER EASY: There comes a time in your life when you need to take a trip, move on, leave home. Time to hop through the fields, go hiking...

... and smell the flowers. Have banana/raisin/peanut butter shots with starlets whose hearts are big. The key, they say, to immortality is first living a life worth remembering. It also makes coming home that much sweeter.

PLAYBACK STL

CURMUDGEON

BY ROB LEVY

32

It seemed like ages, but finally the St. Louis Symphony is back on the job. The nation’s second-oldest orchestra almost brought itself down with a lengthy work stoppage that tarnished not only the prestige of the orchestra but the integrity of its intrepid performers.

Don’t get me wrong; I am all for a brother getting paid. But when that brother is fighting for a few grand more than the 70k of Monopoly money they already take in, it gets hard to sympathize. Likewise, it is bad business for a symphony to engage in a scrappy street fight with its members. Still, we should all let bygones be bygones as we hold our heads up to rally around our stellar, world-class orchestra. In better news, the SLSO has a great new conductor in David Robertson, who is really going to be terrific. The orchestra also has a high profile gig next month at Carnegie Hall with Paul Newman narrating Copland’s Lincoln Portrait.

The Cocteau Twins recently scrapped their reunion appearance at Coachella Festival, as well as the subsequent fall tour. I guess they do really hate each other after all.

A collection of writings, interviews, and general musings from Tom Waits has been compiled for a new anthology, Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader.

Fannypack has recruited several emcees, including dancehall icon Mr. Vegas, for their next record, See You Next Tuesday.

That walking freak Courtney Love is contributing a cover of Judy Garland’s “Love, Love, Love” to the Adam & Steve soundtrack.

This month sees a batch of expanded reissues from The Cure. Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography have been cleaned up and expanded with a second disc of live tracks, rarities, and demo recordings On a sad note, the remnants of NYC’s vital punk movement are taking another big hit as the legendary CBGB’s appears to be on life support until at least August. Rising rent, landlord tussles, and Soho’s gentrification are all conspiring against the landmark’s survival.

Soon the street named after Joey Ramone will lead only to an office building and a store that sells nothing but vintage tweed jackets.

The long overdue return of Teenage Fanclub comes Stateside this June when Merge Records releases their new album on June 2. Their latest record, Man Made, is produced by John McEntire of Tortoise.

Dead Can Dance has resurfaced for a spring European tour.

Morrissey is releasing his cover of Patti Smith’s “Redondo Beach” as a single.

After 22 years, Megadeth has called it a day.

Keep an eye out for Nine Black Alps. They have just released a new single, “Shot Down,” and are prepping their debut album for release this summer.

In honor of his 80th birthday, BB King is releasing an album of duets this September.

Sting, Van Morrison, and Bono, with whom King worked way back in 1989, are among the artists featured on the album.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems people are too busy focusing on U2’s induction into the R&R Hall of Fame and overlooking the brilliance of the O’ Jays, Pretenders, Percy Sledge, and Buddy Guy. Patti Smith has been named curator for this year’s prestigious Meltdown Festival.

It looks like Mr. Hewson won’t go to Washington after all: Bono recently declined an invitation to lead the World Bank.

Bob Mould has remixed “Length of Love”

by Interpol. The track will appear on the Remix EP for their next single “C’Mere.”

That born-again guy from Korn isn’t fooling anyone; he’s still an idiot.

The hype machine hasn’t really been turned on yet, but Bloc Party are already reaping the benefits of their success. The critically hot U.K. band has already begun recording new songs for their sophomore album, which could come out before the year’s end. Tickets for their current U.S. tour are being gobbled up.

Another band at work on new material is the Manchester three-piece I Am Kloot, who are readying their third LP, Gods & Monsters, for an autumn release.

It is not very cool that our fair metropolis is hosting concerts by Vanilla Ice and the Backstreet Boys. Stupid stuff like this makes you want to roll your eyes and hide in Fenton.

The Dandy Warhols have come down with their fifth album, Odditorium or Warlords of Mars, scheduled for a late summer 2005 release. If you can’t hold out until then, the Dandys will next be seen in 9 Songs, the new film from director Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People, Wonderland).

Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler had a really nasty parting of ways when they were in Suede. That’s why it is surprising to see the duo at it again, working under the moniker The Tears. The duo is currently touring Britain and recording their new album, Here

Come the Tears.

Demon Days is the aptly titled new release from Gorillaz. It should be a headtrip because Damon Albarn and Danger Mouse have recruited Ike Turner, De La Soul, Shaun Ryder, MF Doom, and Dennis Hopper for guest vocalist duties.

Laura Cantrell has signed to Matador Records and is currently at work on a new record featuring members of Calexico as her backing band.

Lots of bands reform as a last gasp for success or simply to just cash in. For every crap reunion that comes along, a few good ones rise to the surface. Such is the case with Dinosaur Jr., who has reformed with their original lineup for the first time in over 15 years. The band is following up the reissue of their back catalog with appearances at the Download and Fuji Music Festivals.

Bassist Mark McClelland has been booted from Snow Patrol.

Photographers Jay Blakesberg and J. Michelle Martin-Coyne recently released a photo book about The Flaming Lips called Waking Up With a Placebo Headwound. The book is a compendium of photographs if the band, in its many stages, from 1987–2004.

Hide the kids and lock the doors. New Age megastar George Winston is coming to the Sheldon next month. If you suffer from sleep deprivation, this may just do the trick.

BLOC PARTY’S KELE OKEREKE photo by Jim Dunn

Imitation is the fondest form of flattery. Case in point: How interesting it is that there are so many bands these days (from The Rapture to Louis XIV to The Killers) that sound, in both large and small parts, like The Fall.

In closing, embrace the spring for its sunshine, baseball, and new great music, but be cognizant of the large caches of crap music hiding on the airwaves, in the malls, and in the record stores. Popular doesn’t always mean good. With that in mind, tally forth and delve deep by exploring new sounds and supporting local music as often as possible.

APRIL 2005

AUDITIONS The Metro Theater Company is accepting resumes for Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Kling. Available roles are Dad (male, 25–40); Mom (female, 25–40); five teens, male and female; and Lilly, a very spirited young girl. Performances Jan. 14–Feb. 6, 2006, at the Missouri History Museum. Send resume and photo to Carol North, Artistic Director, 8308 Olive Blvd., St. Louis, Mo. 63132 or via e-mail to carol@metrotheatercompany.org.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis will hold general auditions for its 2005–06 season for actors, both Equity and non-Equity, Apr. 10–11. The season includes: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, All the Great Books (Abridged), I Am My Own Wife, Pirandello’s Henry IV, Witness for the Prosecution, Take Me Out, Bug, and This Is Our Youth. Actors will perform contemporary monologues and/or songs from a standard Broadway musical. Auditions held in The Rep Rehearsal Hall, 17 South Old Orchard, Webster Groves. For appointments, sides, and perusal scripts, call Cathie at 314968-7340. Stephen Woolf has casting authority. The Rep operates under a LORT contract with AEA (B+/D); EEOE. www.repstl.com Kirkwood Theatre Guild is seeking directors for its 2005–2006 season. Contact Executive Director Kathy Flood Figas at 314-821-9956 and leave your name, phone number, and address, and an application will be mailed out.

The season includes Dearly Departed, Death Trap, Over the River and Through the Woods, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

The Alpha Players will hold auditions for Nunsense on Tues., Apr. 19 at 7 p.m. at the Florissant Civic Center Theater. Five lead roles are available for strong female actors/singers/dancers. Performances July 8–10 & 15–17. For information, email Eugene Pierce at aepcrocker@aol.com. The Players are also seeking directors for their 2005–2006 season, which includes Fiddler on the Roof, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and Auntie Mame. Send a letter to Alpha Players, 9 New Hope Court, Florissant, Mo. 63033, stating which show(s) you are interested in directing. For more information, call Colleen Heneghan at 314-830-3554.

The Broadway Center of Arts in Belleville is searching for production designers for their summer production of The Rocky Horror Show; Armand Vasquez will direct. Vasquez is looking for people to bring fresh, new ideas to the script; contact him at 773-209-6816 or ajvasquez02@hotmail.com.

Runs With Scissors Theatrical Productions will hold auditions Apr. 17, 1–4 p.m. at the Maryland Heights Centre, Room #4 (2344 McKelvey Rd.) for improv artists, stage combatants, singers, dancers, and musicians for their new show, The Dragon’s Keep. Auditions will consist of improv games, scene work, and learning a short choreographed piece. Bring headshot and resume.

For more information, contact Susie at auditions@thedragons-keep.com.

On Apr. 11, Act, Inc. will hold general auditions for its season, which includes Alice Sit-by-the-Fire by J.M. Barrie, Separate Tables by Terrance Rattigan, and The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni, adapted by Tim House. Bring a headshot and resume and prepare two oneminute contrasting monologues. Call 314-889-4561 for an appointment, or e-mail actsummerrep@sbcglobal.net.

First Run Theatre will hold auditions Apr. 9–11 for Family Fugue by Don Weiss, and Apr. 30–May 2 for an evening of one acts with plays by Wayne Crome and Jerrold Rabushka. For updated info, go to www.firstruntheatre.com.

Floodstage Productions will hold auditions for Grease Apr. 2 at 1 p.m. at St. John Hall (corner of 5th St. & Tompkins, St. Charles). Auditions are open to men from 30–40 and women from 20–30. Prepare an appropriate song, bring sheet music or a prerecorded accompaniment, and be prepared to dance; no appointment necessary. Additional info by e-mailing fsprod@charter.net.

THEATER NEWS Spot Bar, home of the Spotlight Stage theatrical venue, was raided recently by undercover St. Louis police officers after they received a tip that the venue’s production of the comedy play Making Porn contained full-frontal male nudity. The performing theater group has been touring the show throughout the country without incident.

The Alpha Players of Florissant are currently seeking directors for their 2005–2006 season. The season will include Fiddler on the Roof, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and Auntie Mame. If interested, contact Alpha Players, 9 New Hope Ct., Florissant, Mo. 63033, or call Colleen Heneghan at 314-830-3554 for info.

Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis will be holding auditions for The Tempest in a Flash, based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. SFSTL is looking for one non-Equity male actor over 21 and one non-Equity stage manager for its touring production, which performs at local schools Feb.–June, with a possible extension. Call Education Director Christopher Limber at 314-361-0101 for an individual appointment; these are salaried positions. www.sfstl.com First Run Theatre is looking for set designers who would also serve as construction crew chiefs for its 2005 season; previous experience in set design and stagecraft a must. College students might qualify for credit for work as a set designer. Contact Donald Weiss at 314-680-8102, or by e-mail at d_weiss@firstruntheatre.com. www.firstruntheatre.com West End Players’ Guild will hold auditions for three male roles in Yasmina Riza’s Art Sat., Feb. 12 at 1 p.m. at the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union Ave. in the CWE. The show will be directed by B. Weller, and will run April 8–17. Auditions will consist of cold reading from the script. More info: 314-367-0025 or elknowsall@sbcglobal.net.

COME OUT AND PLAY

THEATER

COMPILED BY TYSON BLANQUART If you have an audition, show announcement, or other news of interest to the theater community, please e-mail theater@playbackstl.com no later than the 15th of each month.

Also be sure to visit www.playbackstl.com for weekly updates.

SHOWS OPENING The St. Louis Black Rep continues William Shakespeare’s Macbeth through Apr. 10 at the Grandel Theatre. Tickets ($25–37.50) can be purchased at the box office, by phone at 314-534-1111, or online at www.metrotix.com. www.stlouisblackrep.com The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis continues Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero in the Studio Theatre through Apr. 10 ($29–44). The Rep will also present Regina Taylor’s Crowns through Apr. 15 on the Mainstage. Sounds of gospel, jazz, and other musical styles enliven the stories and traditions of strong, elegant, and inspiring black women. Tickets ($12–58) available at the box office or on The Rep’s Web site (www.repstl.com).

The Second City, one of the most influential improv/sketch comedy companies in the nation, brings their touring show to the Lee Auditorium in the Touhill Performing Arts Center on Apr. 1–2, with two shows each night. Performances at 7 & 10 p.m. on Fri., Apr. 1, and 5 & 9 p.m. on Sat., Apr. 2. Tickets $26–35 for general admission. Past members of the touring company include Bill Murray, Chris Farley, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Visit www.touhill.org for more information.

Floodstage Productions will present Picnic

by William Inge Apr. 1–10. Performances Fri. & Sat. at 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. The show takes place at St. John Hall, located at the corner of 5th St. & Tompkins in St. Charles. Tickets are $12 general admission, $10 students/seniors. www.floodstageproductions.com Ragged Blade Productions presents Jerrold Rabushka’s Tattoos Apr. 1–10 at the Theatre at St. John’s; shows Fri. & Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. The theater is located at 5000 Washington Pl. in the Central West End. Tickets are $12 general admission, $10 students/seniors. www.raggedblade.com The Theatre Guild of Webster Groves will present an original musical revue to benefit the Special Education Center Apr. 8–10. Defying Gravity includes music from shows such as A Chorus Line, Wicked, Cabaret, and Chicago. All tickets are $15, and showtimes are 8 p.m. Fri. & Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Performances will be in their space, located at 517 Theater Ln. in Webster Groves. For directions, go to www.theaterguildwg.org.

33

PLAYBACK STL

TAKE FIVE

MINUS THE BEAR

DEEP IN CONVERSATION WITH MINUS THE BEAR By Laura Hamlett

34

You can’t take these guys seriously.

Sure, this Seattle quintet features five amazing musicians in Dave Knudson (guitar), Jake Snider (vocals/guitar), Erin Tate (drums), Cory Murchy (bass), and Matt Bayles (keyboards). And the music they make—richly layered indie rock, with textured beats and smooth, sexy vocals—is both energizing and pleasantly relaxing.

But take a look at the song titles: “Thanks for the Killer Game of Crisco® Twister” and “Get Me Naked 2: Electric Boogaloo” as but two examples from their Suicide Squeeze full-length debut, Highly Refined Pirates. The band is anything but serious. (When asked about the nonsensical titles, the boys blithely replied, “Whatever do you mean?”)

Following a 2004 EP, They Make Beer Commercials Like This on Arena Rock, Minus the Bear have returned to Suicide Squeeze. As they prep their next full-length for summer release, they’re staying busy on the Alternative Press/ Vans tour with Straylight Run, Gratitude, The Honorary Title, and Spitalfield. (The tour hits Misssissippi Nights April 9.) In advance of the tour, PlaybackSTL took up an e-mail correspondence with Tate and Murchy. Our advice? Don’t believe a word.

You guys pulled a Wilco, where you left a label and then re-signed. How did that come about?

ET: Well, we never “signed” to Arena Rock; it was a one-off from the start and we all knew it.

We had talked about maybe doing another record but our deep love for Mr. David Dickenson (I mean deeeeeeeep love) made us stay on Suicide Squeeze.

CM: It’s funny you mention Wilco...I’ve never really listened to them. Heard they were pretty good. Are they the guys that are supposed to be carrying on the whole Graham Parsons ’70s country stuff? I watched that movie Grand Theft Parson the other day and I was sooooo disappointed. I mean, come on! It was basically a shitty comedy. How can you laugh at trying to bury Graham Parson in the desert? Whatever you do, don’t watch it, no mater how stoned you are.

Your songs have always been brilliant reflections on girls, driving, and water. Any new topics for the upcoming album?

CM: I used to go to my grandparents’ house every summer as a kid.

It was cool because I could walk around in the woods and make forts and pretend I was Robin Hood and stuff. Then I discovered girls and it pretty much ruined the rest of my life. Just kidding…sort of.

ET: Jake has a style in the way he writes, so some of the new songs have stuff about girls, some songs have the word “driving,” some songs have the words “the bay” but he has been changing up his style a bit. A few pretty different songs, vocal-wise. (I think it’s his best work yet.)

What does success mean to Minus the Bear? Sold-out amphi-

theaters and major-label backing, a faithful following and indielabel backing, or somewhere in between?

ET: I really have no idea. Do I wanna be able to eat? Yes. Do I wanna drive a fancy car? Ummm....I don’t know. Yeah, sure I do. We haven’t signed to a major label or a bigger indie, due to the fact that we love our label and we seem to do somewhat well without the help of the “major label push.” Might be nice someday to not have to worry about money, but really at this point we just care about making the music we wanna make, and do it how we do it.

CM: It’s a good thing you’re all sold out of amphetamines. I’m taking it easy these days anyway. My cab driver last night was telling me about his favorite drink. It involved some crazy concoction of five different coffees, creams, teas, and sweeteners. Dude was a little flighty. I tipped him really well, though.

What inspires/motivates you?

CM: Magical things, mostly.

ET: As a person, I’d say weed. As a band, I have no idea.

What’s the best part about playing the upcoming Vans/Alternative Press tour?

ET: The bottle of whiskey, vodka, and case of beer we get every night. Well, and I guess meeting new people? Does that sound lame? Maybe just the booze then...

CM: I try to go into as many gas station/truck stops as possible. It’s always nice to pick up something for loved ones back home. The Flying J is a menagerie of gifts that truly speak the language of love. I hate it when gas stations don’t have magazines. “What? A gas station with no magazines? In this day and age?” Sheeya, that’s what I say. Plus it’s really cool to eat at gas stations, too.

Minus the Bear plays Mississippi Nights April 9 with Straylight Run, Gratitude, The Honorary Title, and Spitalfield.

APRIL 2005

PROFILE

ANDREW SEAN GREER

ANDREW SEAN GREER: MAX FLIGHT By Nora Fitzgerald One day you’re a young, little-known writer, getting up each morning to labor over a few pages, have coffee with friends, live your life. The next day, Details magazine is sending someone out to shoot a photo of you for one of its full-page spreads. It’s published with NEXTWRITER over your picture and credits for the designers of the clothes they’ve put you in.

Such was the experience of Andrew Sean Greer, author of the novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli, published early last year and recently released in paperback. The 35-year-old Greer, though considered one of last year’s hot new “debuts” in fiction writing, had, in fact, already seen two books into print. Max Tivoli received serious attention, however, when John Updike wrote a very favorable pre-publication review for The New Yorker. If you want someone to point out you’ve written a good book, you can’t do much better than that.

“Who’s going to argue with him?” says Greer, laughing.

Greer is friendly, sincere, enthusiastic—barely fit for the pages of Details—and he calls the attention he’s received “a wonderful curse” for someone who doesn’t want distraction from the difficult work of writing. The hot young author writes in what is actually a refreshingly old-fashioned style. But there is also a decidedly nontraditional aspect of his novel.

Two things stand out in Max Tivoli. One is the rich, historical detail in the story, which takes place over a 60-year span (1871 to 1930), much of it set in San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake. Critics marveled over the author’s grasp of the subtleties of ladies’ undergarment fashions of the Victorian era. The other is Greer’s literary conceit of having the title character born in the body of a 70-year-old man who grows physically younger, toward an infancy that will signal his death. (His mental and emotional development, however, follows the usual trajectory.)

A literary conceit, while in some sense a device, is not completely that, not just a writer’s tool. It’s more of a personal vision or notion, a turn of thinking that pleases the artist for his or her own reasons.

Greer, in fact, would prefer that the gimmick—if you will—not attract overmuch attention (although the sales his book has enjoyed from the science fiction crowd must be welcome).

“I didn’t want to divert the story [by this novelty], because my inten-

tion was to look at plausible relationships of all kinds at different points, not to make it a satire of sorts,” Greer says. “I purposely stayed away from going to that point where he’s just a cell.”

The story is largely taken up with Max Tivoli’s love for Alice Levy, whom he adores Lolita-style early in his life as an old man, she a child; whom he manages to make fall in love with and marry him in middle life; and with whom he enjoys a motherly relationship in his final preadolescent years. Alice is unaware he’s the same person throughout.

This multitude of intersections between Max and Alice and a few other characters allows Greer to contemplate devoted love that isn’t dependent on the traditional formula of two people moving through life together. Public love, hidden love, selfish and selfless love, the love between friends, parents, and children—all are explored using a relatively small number of characters who develop within a matrix of dimensions that include historical period, relationship to each other, and age differential. It’s rather a neat trick.

As is true of most enduring works of art with love as a central theme, Greer’s book doesn’t come to any particular conclusions. “Actually, I’m still full of questions,” says Greer. “I’m confused about all of it! I started with a question that kind of got deeper as I went in. I didn’t really expect to find answers.”

Where does NEXTWRITER go from here? In the short term, on the tour circuit. And he’s working on another novel, this one also set in San Francisco, but in the middle of the last century. Greer lives in San Francisco, and he says he inevitably writes about where he is, because that’s where the details are.

“I think [as a writer] you need to be a careful and patient enough observer that you see things that aren’t noticed by everyone,” Greer says. In Max Tivoli, however, he set himself a difficult task: writing an atmospheric novel set in San Francisco before an earthquake and fire completely altered the town to the point that, as he says, “We’ll never really know what it looked like back then.” Fortunately, between the author’s capacity for close observation and a willingness to undertake no small amount of research, we have a little better idea.

35

PLAYBACK STL

PAGE BY PAGE

BOOKS

The Searcher

36

JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER: EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Houghton Mifflin; 386 pgs; $24.95) Like his breakout debut novel Everything Is Illuminated—comic, tender, winning, and coming to theaters this summer—Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is about a search. A precocious nineyear-old named Oskar Schell—he writes to Stephen Hawking and makes bracelets based on Morse code messages—has lost his father in the 9/11 attacks. But he’s since found a key in a vase in his father’s closet. As our little narrator Oskar would put it, “What the?”

He’s off, scouring New York City to search for the lock that fits the key. Such a plot might be enough for most authors, but for Foer it’s a starting point for looking backward. As he did in Illuminated, the young author sacrifices narrative momentum in order to track back for decades of family history, this time handing off narration—often through letters—to Oskar’s grandparents. On the novel’s pages, photographs and colored ink layer the story’s layers, to mostly interesting effect.

In Oskar, Foer has created a fully developed and memorable mini-hero, one who’s eccentric but who sounds authentic. Here’s the boy remembering a walk with his grandmother: “One day I wandered away from her and hid.

I liked the way it felt to have someone look for me, to hear my name again and again. ‘Oskar!

Oskar!’ Maybe I didn’t even like it, but I needed it right then.” There’s another fine moment after Oskar had been arguing with his mother, who’s grieving in her own way. “We cracked up together,” he says, “which was necessary, because she loved me again.”

Foer is clearly a writer with a big heart— one page near the close of Illuminated sports 17 “I love you”s in a row—and it’s again an earnest compassion that drives this new novel to a close. There are times, though, when the prose starts to feel over-hugged. “What about microphones?” Oskar, a junior inventor wonders. “What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls?” Later in

the novel he designs a set of wedding rings, “where each one takes the pulse of the person hearing it and sends a signal to the other ring to flash red with each heartbeat.” These are imaginative, and it makes sense that they’re on the mind of a nine-year-old boy whose life has been so shaken up. But as the book progresses, the compounding of many of its main elements—Oskar’s compassionate inventions, the war-borne separations and reunions of his grandparents, the search for the lock—make the novel feel a bit top-heavy with big moments, big feelings. “Everything moved me,” the grandmother writes in one letter to Oskar, and it may be that the sentiment echoes so often in the book that when it comes to being moved, the reader isn’t necessarily near the front of the line.

That said, Foer is clearly a thoughtful talent, and he’s written an admirably sincere and direct book about 9/11. I’ll long remember Oskar Schell, and particularly one of the novel’s many questions, one which reflects Foer’s interest in the human heart in the midst of history: “How could anything,” one character wonders, “less deserve to be destroyed?”

—Stephen Schenkenberg CURTIS SITTENFELD: PREP (Random House; 403 pgs; $21.95) Prep has the power to fully envelop the reader in the prep-school experience: the prefects, the dorm rooms decorated by professionals hired by daddy, the rituals of the young and rich.

There’s no use denying it—we can’t resist the allure of the alien rituals of the young and rich. Throw in an adolescent deflowering, a few standoffs between teacher and student, and ruminations on the monstrous, unbidden, formative impact of high school, and you might even have a bestseller.

That’s what Iowa Writers’ Workshop grad Curtis Sittenfeld has with Prep. Her memoiras-fiction (she went to Groton) is hotter than the annual jewelry markdown at Saks—and all despite the vexing passivity of the tale’s

protagonist.

Lee Fiora is a freshman at the fictional Ault Academy. She’s anxious to hide her origins—she comes from South Bend, Ind., where her father owns a mattress store—and her classmates are mostly scions of more glamorous empires, it seems to her. Instantly, Lee cloaks herself in an ironclad shell, afraid to speak, afraid to express her opinions, afraid someone will notice her. It’s a frustrating and unlikable image, for Lee, and to the reader, too—the young woman remains as tight as clam (except, um, sexually) for the four-year duration of her prep-school experience. As a result, she’s practically friendless.

The novel begins with Lee’s freshman year and ends with her graduation. What Sittenfeld is able to do with the four-year interim is a real achievement. The way smart-assed, vulgar teenagers speak to one another; the way a high-school crush can rise from abject nothingness to the very precipice of drama; the descriptions of the effortless posturing by teenage golden girls and big-men-oncampus—the author has a pitch-perfect ear for these moments, characters, and feelings, so fleeting and yet so integral to how each of us is shaped. At one point Lee flashes forward to her adult life, to suddenly smelling the shampoo once worn by teen queen Aspeth Montgomery (yeah, it’s a Proust moment).

Years later, the adult Lee can’t help herself— she has to buy the shampoo, to live inside the beauty she once ascribed to a bitch who drove her mad with jealousy.

The ending of the book is a puzzler. Lee is ostracized by her fellow students for making some pointed comments about class differences at Ault to a New York Times reporter.

When the story is published, the already nebbishy Lee is driven even further into her little corner. The book has coasted along on Lee’s neurotic imaginings and her very furtive couplings with a guy on the basketball team (in an unoccupied dorm room), and suddenly Sittenfeld throws reality into the mix. This final crisis for

APRIL 2005

Lee plays like a deus ex machina; her escape from imaginary problems in the form of a real one, and the reader’s escape from Lee’s godawful passivity, too little and too late.

Prep is a fast-paced beach read and a juicy look at the formative rituals of the ruling class. Its wide-eyed observations of how high school hardwires each of us for the rest of our days are resonant, too. For some, the teen angst may seem to have been poured on way too thick, but for others, Prep’s lightning pace and realistically hued tales of getting your ears pierced at a seedy mall, sneaking out after curfew, and having a clandestine teenage fling will prove irresistible.

—Byron Kerman MA JIAN: THE NOODLE MAKER (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 181 pgs; $21) I have this friend—she has come to live in St. Louis by way of New York and, originally, China. While I have always admired her considerable intellect and perception, and she seems to enjoy my friendship as well, we have struggled through conversations that are tortuously limited by my ignorance of Chinese and her budding English. Often one or the other of us will pitifully end discussion of a subject with the phrase, “Very interesting,” both of us painfully aware the phrase is shorthand for “I really want to communicate my ideas with you and I am sorry that this language barrier prevents me from doing so.” What I’d like to do is ask her to read The Noodle Maker and then extract her appraisal on how much of it rings true. Problem is, the twin-posted gate of language limitations and polite formality prevent me from gaining a native’s insight.

This novel opens with two friends sharing a meal—savoring food, wine, and intellectual sparring, as they do every Sunday. The professional blood donor produces the delicacies from his largess, while the professional writer provides the stories from his hunger. As they drink, insult, and mollify each other, stories that the writer will never commit to paper trace the ghostly outlines of a truly foreign culture. It is not remote because it is on the other side of this sphere, but rather because the contents of these lives are flavored with a vigorous fatalism that is so far removed from the complacent stare of a wealthy democracy.

Those who travel to China might glimpse poverty and helplessness at the fringes of carefully selected neighborhoods through which they are toured. They will not see the fragmented lives that cower and rebel against the wall of history.

The professional writer, who belongs to the Party about as much as a splinter belongs to the cart, unravels his days trying to gain approval for his pro-Party propaganda novels about Revolutionary heroes, hoping his name will be entered into the Great Dictionary of Chinese Writers.

His friend the professional blood donor blesses the day when Premier Deng Xiaoping opened the door to reform, enabling him to become a pint-sized millionaire.

Accused of wasting his time on worthless dregs that he hates, the writer defends his storytelling, stating, “I want to transform their lives into a work of art,” which he painfully accomplishes. The drink-soaked stories of happy cremationists and suicidal actresses drip from his mouth, but his lifeblood is not collected into clean plastic bags. The dustbin lives that he examines from his aerie on the eighth floor are transmuted into enticingly bright keyholes.

We Westerners have no clue of the struggles of a people who involun-

tarily defend the right of the Party to control every aspect of their foundering lives. Ma Jian’s construction of overlapping character sketches allows us a view of the Chinese situation, however dated and restricted our window might be. His books were banned in China shortly after his hasty departure for Hong Kong in 1987, and the English translation of The Noodle Maker appeared 13 years after the original text was first published.

Often his characters take desperate measures to create a sense of selfdetermination. The heartbroken actress, writing the script of her public suicide, must petition a club manager to let her perform. In a twist that seems unreal, the eager audience and instrumental tiger are easy to find.

Key to her act is the performance, which extols the virtues of aiding the People’s Liberation Army. In another chapter, her insensitive artistlover becomes despondent when his secretly kept dog, a three-legged survivor, is discovered and killed. The arguments they’d had over the superiority of dogs’ morals over those of humans allowed the painter an intimate friendship that could never be reproduced with another human.

With another human, the risk of open discussion about politics and the social miasma was simply too dangerous. The characters are driven by affection for all things Western, yet they cannot prevent themselves from quoting Communist maxims and praising the bureaucracy, even while watching the gang-rape of a girl down in the street.

I want to ask my friend if lives were/are really as shackled by the system as Jian depicts; she would know the truth—she was there. If her English were more fluent, and if I weren’t such an obtusely ignorant American, would we be able to discuss the massive weight of politics as openly as the painter and his friend the dog?

—Rudy Zapf

37

APRIL 2005

DELIRIOUS NOMAD COMPILED BY BYRON KERMAN

HYDEWARE THEATRE brings POONA to the SOULARD THEATRE April 22–30.

Apr. 1–2: Bobcat Goldthwait at Funny Bone – Fairview Heights (www.funnyboneusa.com) Apr. 1–2: Sleeping Under the Arch Film Festival focusing on homelessness at SLU’s Tegeler Hall (314-652-8862 ext. 243) Apr. 1–10: Spotlight Theatre presents Frankie & Johnnie in the Claire de Lune at The Spot (314-918-8424, www.spotlighttheatrestlonline.org) Apr. 1–May 7: New works by Cheryl Wassenaar, Jeff Aeling, & Tom Reed at Philip Slein Gallery (314-621-4634, www.philipsleingallery.com) Apr. 2: Quincy Troupe signs new children’s book Little Stevie Wonder at Urban League (314-367-6731) Apr. 2: Poet Nikki Giovanni & Poet Laureate of Queens, N.Y., Ishle Park perform at COCA (314-7256555, www.cocastl.org) Apr. 3: April Art & Family Fun Fair at Shaare Emeth Congregation (314-568-0506) Apr. 3: Alfred Hitchcock silent Blackmail with live music

by Alloy Orchestra at Webster Films (314-968-7487, www.webster.edu/filmseries.html) Apr. 4–12: Greater St. Louis Science Fair at North County Rec Complex (www.jracademy.com) Apr. 6: Photographer of women-on-the-margins Susan Meiselas speaks at St. Louis Art Museum (314-7210072, www.slam.org) Apr. 8: Archaeological Institute of America lecture on “The Phoenicians and the Maccabees: Excavations at Tel Kedesh, Israel” by Andrea Berlin at St. Louis Art Museum (314-721-0072, www.slam.org) Apr. 9: Poetry & Gardens featuring poetry, storytellers, & booksignings at Mo. Botanical Garden (314-5779400, www.mobot.org) Apr. 9: St. Louis Effort for AIDS Carnivale Internacionale at America’s Center (314-645-6451, www.stlefa.org) Apr. 9–10: Spirit of St. Louis Marathon & Family Fitness Weekend (314-727-0800, www.stlouismarathon.com) Apr. 10: Classic 99 From the Garden Live concerts featuring St. Louis Symphony Orchestra brass at Mo. Botanical Garden (314-725-0099, www.mobot.org) Apr. 10: Pianist Giuseppe Scotese performs music of Ives & Busoni at Washington University’s Whitaker Hall (314-935-4841)

Apr. 15–17: Educator Appreciation Weekend at all area Borders locations with local-author signings & discounts (www.bordersstores.com) Apr. 15–23: SLCC–Florissant Valley Theatre performs gay/Holocaust drama Bent at school’s Terry Fischer Theare (314-513-4488) Apr. 16: Career Day at the Butterfly House with entomologists, beekeepers, etc. (636-530-0076, www.butterflyhouse.org) Apr. 16: 80th Birthday Celebration with jazz saxophonist James Moody at Sheldon (314-533-9900) Apr. 16: Astronomy Day with telescope making & “Sky Tonight” program in planetarium at St. Louis Science Center (314-289-4444, www.slsc.org) Apr. 19: Screening of documentary Calling the Ghosts with appearance by director Mandy Jacobsen at University City Public Library (314-727-3150) Apr. 21: Author of The Mermaid Chair Sue Monk Kidd reads from her work at St. Louis Public Library – Central Branch (314-367-6731) Apr. 21: Ciné 16 free 16-mm academic films screened at Mad Art; “Animal Magnetism” program tonight (www.afana.org/cine16stlouis.htm) Apr. 22–23: Dan Hurlin performs macabre puppet show Hiroshima Maiden as part of Ovations! Series at Washington University’s Edison Theatre (314-5341111, www.metrotix.com) Apr. 23: Live ambient music by Yo La Tengo accompanies surreal French undersea documentaries by Jean Painleve at Webster Films (314-968-7487, www.webster.edu/filmseries.html) Apr. 24: Bach at the Sem concert at Concordia Seminary (314-726-0882, SemRelations@csl.edu) Apr. 24: Poetry magazine editor Christian Wiman leads St. Louis Poetry Center Workshop at University City Library (www.stlouispoetrycenter.org) Apr. 28: Bagpipes demo at St. Louis County Library – Mid County (314-721-3008, www.slcl.org) Apr. 28: Behind Enemy Lines film on Palestinian conflict with commentary by Prof. Leonard Suransky at Webster Films (314-968-7487, www.webster.edu/ filmseries.html) Apr. 29: Trivia Gone Wild at St. Louis Zoo (314781-0900, www.stlzoo.org) More listings online at www.playbackstl.com/Events

Grossed out by rats? No matter—Robert Sullivan’s Rats: Observations on the History of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants is such a fun and engaging read, you may develop your own fascination with New York’s state rodent at his book signing/ reading at Left Bank Books (Apr. 13, 314-367-6731, www.left-bank.com). Sullivan is the guy who sat in a New York City alleyway popular with foot-long rats for a year, recording the social mores of vermin.

Venus Envy has evolved into one of the area’s biggest and wildest art festivals, and this year’s party is two-day affair. Men and women are invited to the estrogen-soaked extravaganza of visual and performance art, music, booze, and snacks in the 4100 block of Manchester (Apr. 15–16, www.venusenvy.org).

Put your money where your bladder is at St. Louis Green Drinks, a new happy hour with speakers and networking on a variety of pro-environment topics at the Schlafly Bottleworks. April 19’s topic: green rehabbing (krista@bgb.org).

39 Chicago artist Dzine talks about the colorful 39 39 mural he made for his Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis exhibit, and his partner-in-art DJ Cam lays down a set or two at the Museum April 22 (314-5354660, www.contemporarystl.org).

The sheer madness of Poona the Fuckdog & Other Plays for Children oozes forth from the stage at the Soulard Theatre, courtesy of the Hydeware Theatre Co. The surreal presentation includes a bit where an audience member is dragged off to a theatrical “Hell.”

(Apr. 22–30, www.hydewaretheatre.com) Book bargain hunters rejoice: The biggie has arrived. The Greater St. Louis Book Fair at Westfield Shoppingtown West County turns much of the mall’s parking garage into a paradise of one million used books, CDs, records, magazines, postcards, etc. Bring your checkbook and your antibacterial hand cleanser (Apr. 29–May 2, 314-533-0671).

Eat a sack lunch while enjoying a presentation by Phyllis Kornfeld, author of Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America, at UMSL’s Monday Noon Series at the JC Penney Conference Center. The depth and variety of artworks created behind bars is astounding; it’ll make you wonder why our justice system so focused on punishment, as opposed to rehabilitation (April 11, 314-516-5699).

King Diamond’s death-metal corpsepaint is totally outta hand, and his voice scrabbles up the sides of the church all the waaaaaaay to the belfry, driving the bats mad. Will he bust out some Mercyful Fate oldies at his April 29 concert at Pop’s? The demons tell us it is so. (www.popsrocks.com)

PLAYBACK STL

THE GOLDEN REPUBLIC w/AQUEDUCT & THE MAXTONE 4 at CICERO’S April 21, 9 p.m. • 18+ TICKETS: $7/10 • CALL: 314-862-0009 Remember when Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo lived in an apartment with black-painted walls, writing and tearing up song after song meant for the band’s long-anticipated comeback record? During that period, he and the rest of the band tried to lie low, playing unannounced club shows under the descriptive alias Goat Punishment.

The Golden Republic’s Ben Grimes never experienced one of those dark, creepy episodes where he holed himself away, but his Kansas City band—formerly The People—did do the pseudonym. And it still does, using the deceitful trick as a constructive tool.

“A couple times a week we’ll play at the same club in Kansas City under a fake name,” Grimes said. “We play as Dynamite Explosion—just the dumbest name 40 we could think of. It’s become a cool, intimate thing with our friends. We just play new songs, and we tell the people [in the audience] to be brutally honest.”

All of the feedback must be calling for more nervous energy and huge, backbreaking guitars, jangly and trill, traversing through and around Grimes’ scratchy vocals. The feedback is demanding more old-timey guitar rock of the late ’70s, and the kind of adolescent amour that only lasts for weeks but bears questioning for months. That explains the Joe Szabo photographs used for the covers of their debut EP and LP, showing teens in the tight grips of public displays of affection.

“We really got into his work, and since they were coming out so close to each other, we kind of wanted to connect them a little bit,” Grimes said. “That young, teenage romance is kind of what informs a lot of our songs. It seemed like a fit.”

At the end of March, the band joined up with former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon for a short tour of the East coast. “When we found out he was signing to Astralwerks, we said if there are any opportunities to play with him, let us know,” Grimes said. “They were kind of, for me, what Nirvana was for most of my friends.” And his band is like Goat Punishment to most of his friends.

—Sean Moeller

BAHA ROCK CLUB

BLUEBERRY HILL

305 N. Main St. • St. Charles, Mo. 63301 636-949-0466 • www.baharockclub.com Wed & Thur: Big Daddy Rob 4/1: No Celebrity 4/2: Rev 4/5: Short & Sweet & Craig the Weak 4/8: Here & Now 4/9: Ben Wah Bob 4/12: Genre 4/15: Uncle Billy & Mandown 4/16: Brittle Jim 4/19: Process Organic, The Devils Flat Things, Walk the Earth 4/22: Jagertyme 4/23: Deep Six 4/26: Silent Page, The Adrenials 4/29: R.I.P. 4/30: Knucklehead

6504 Delmar Blvd. • University City, Mo. 63130 314-727-4444 • www.blueberryhill.com 4/1: The Lift w/The Great Crusades & Ghosts in Light 4/3: Arvin Mitchell 4/7: Adstock VI 4/9: Lithium: A Tribute to Nirvana 4/17: Clem Snide w/Bobby Bare Jr. & Langhorne Slim 4/21: Chuck Barry 4/27: Mosquitos 4/28: Aqualung w/Cary Brothers 4/29: Martin Sexton 4/30: Heartsfield & Commander Cody

700 S. Broadway • St. Louis, Mo. 63102 314-436-5222 • www.bbsjazzbluessoups.com 4/1: Leroy Pierson 7p; Arthur Williams Blues Masters 10p 4/2: Tom Hall 7p; Pennsylvania Slim Blues Band 10p 4/3: Brian Curran 7p; Anthony Gomes Band 9:30p 4/4: Sessions Jazz Big Band 8p; Bootigrabbers Delight 11:30p 4/5: Pennsylvania Slim Blues Band 9p 4/6: Cryin’ Shame Blues Band 9p 4/7: Leroy Pierson 7p; Bill Perry Blues Band 10p 4/8: WC Spencer 7p; Chris Beard Blues Band 10p 4/9: WC Spencer 7p; The Bel Airs 10p 4/10: Kim Massie Band 7p; Brian Curran 11:30p 4/11: Sessions Jazz Big Band 8p; Bottoms Up Blues Gang 11:30p 4/12: Alvin Jett & Phat Noiz Blues Band 9p 4/13: Cryin’ Shame Blues Band 9p 4/14: Leroy Pierson 7p; Rich McDonough Blues Band 10p 4/15: Leroy Pierson 7p; Bennie Smith & Urban Blues Express 10 p 4/16: Larry Griffin & Eric McSpadden 7p; Soulard Blues Band 10p 4/17: Kim Massie Band 7p; Rebirth Brass Band 9:30p 4/18: Sessions Jazz Big Band 8p; Bottoms Up Blues Gang 11:30p 4/19: Cryin’ Shame Blues Band 9p 4/20: Alvin Jett & Phat Noiz Blues Band 9p 4/21: Leroy Pierson 7p; Rich McDonough Blues Band 10p 4/22: Leroy Pierson 7p; Patti & The Hitmen 10p 4/23: Tom Hall 7p; Bennie Smith & Urban Blues Express 10p 4/24: Kim Massie Band 7p; Brian Curran 11:30p 4/25: Sessions Jazz Big Band 8p; Bootigrabbers Delight 11:30p 4/26: Alvin Jett & Phat Noiz Blues Band 9p 4/27: Cryin’ Shame Blues Band 9p 4/28: Leroy Pierson 7p; Chris Cain Blues Band 10p 4/29: Leroy Pierson 7p; Billy Peek Band 10p 4/30: Tom Hall 7p; Alvin Jett & Phat Noiz Blues Band 9p

BLUE NOTE 17 N. 9th St. • Columbia, Mo. 65201 573-874-1944 • www.thebluenote.com 4/2: KCOU Fashion Show 4/4: The Decemberists w/Okkervil River 4/5: The Itals 4/7: Modern Day Zero 4/8: Tom Morgan memorial w/Dr. Zhivegas & Gary Fleming 4/9: Something Corporate 4/14: Big Wu 4/15: Badfish: A Tribute to Sublime 4/19: The Fiery Furnaces & Dios Malos 4/20: Crossfade Strata 4/21: Finch, Vendetta Red & Nurses 4/22: Luck Boys Confusion 4/23: Pomeroy & Ludo

EISLEY w/REGGIE and THE FULL EFFECT & NEW FOUND GLORY at THE PAGEANT April 13, 8 p.m. • all ages TICKETS: $17.50/20 • CALL: 314-726-6161 Obsessed with Radiohead, maybe shortshorts– and sharpie mustache–loving Reggie and the Full Effect wasn’t the keenest of touring partners for Eisley. But then again, you can’t reason with kids. This quintet of young Texas sensations—three sisters, a brother, and a lifelong neighbor—are fronted by 15-year-old (20 years too young to even apply for chanteuse status) Stacy DuPage; big sis Chauntelle is the band elder at 22. Their debut full-length Room Noises, reminds you of the gentlest hands and lazily slapping laundry strung out to sun-dry on a clear summer day. They don’t cry about tough childhoods or sk8ter bois, but instead craft an intricate balance between ether and earth, subtly harmonizing and coming off as breezes more than people. The band’s been playing coffeehouses and clubs for seven years, starting with their parents’ Christian-themed joint. They are mature beyond reason and road-tested, definitely packing varsity potential. Good luck with Common Denominator.

—Sean Moeller 4/24: Iron and Wine, Horses, & Eric Johnson 4/26: Ozomatli & 40 Thieves 4/27: Goldfinger 4/29: Little Feat

BOTTLENECK BLUES BAR Ameristar Casino – St. Charles 1260 Main St. • St. Charles, Mo. 63301 636-940-4966 • www.ameristarcasinos.com 4/1-2: Dr. Zhivegas 4/8-9: Atomic Punks 4/14: Gallagher 4/15-16: Ralph Butler 4/22-23: Gargoyle Reign 4/28: Gary U.S. Bonds 4/29-30: Pat McGee Band

BROADWAY OYSTER BAR 736 S. Broadway • St. Louis, Mo. 63102 314/621-8811 • www.broadwayoysterbar.com Mon: Soulard Blues Band/Tues: Big Bamou/Wed: Brian Curran 5-7pm/Sat: Brian Curran 6-9p 4/1: Johnny Goodwin 5p, Dangerous Leftovers 9p 4/2: Gumbohead 10p 4/3: Tiny Cows 3p, Brian Elder Project 8p 4/6: Logan, Graham, Schaeffer & Murdick 4/7: Johnny Fox 5p, Bennie Smith & The Urban Blues Express 8p 4/8: Alvin Jett & the Phat noiZ Band 6p, Dogtown Allstars 10p 4/9: The Zonkeys 4p, Jakes Leg 10p 4/10: Patti & The Hitmen 4p, Logan & Griffin 8p 4/13: Rich McDonough Band 3p, Not Quite Nashville 8p 4/15: Johnny Goodwin 5p, Rosie Ledet & The Zydeco Playboys 9p 4/16: Thos 10p 4/17: Dirty Dozen Brass Band 8p 4/20: Brian Elder Project 9p 4/21: Alvin Jett & the Phat noiZ Band 3p, Bennie Smith & The Urban Blues Express 8p 4/22: Johnny Fox 5p, Gumbohead 9p 4/23: Shakey Ground 4p, Hudson & The Hoodoo Cats 10p 4/24: Tiny Cows 4p, Tim Sessions 8p 4/27: Baker McClaren Band 3p, Otis 8p 4/28: Bootigrabbers Delight 5p, Bennie Smith & The Urban Blues Express 8p 4/29: Tom Wood 5p, Public Display of Funk 9p 4/30: Morgantown 10p

CABIN INN the City Museum 16th & Delmar • St. Louis, Mo. 314-231-2489 Mon: Traditional Irish Jam w/Tom Hall/Tues: Acoustic Jam w/Dave Landreth & Friends/Wed: The Blackeyed Susies/Thurs: The Sawmill Band 4/8: The Bottoms Up Blues Gang

CICERO’S 6691 Delmar Blvd. • University City, Mo. 63130 314- 862-0009 • www.ciceros-stl.com Mon: Madahoochi & Friends/Tues: The Schwag/Wed: Helping Phriendly Band/Fri: Jake’s Leg/Sun: Open Mic 4/2: Naked Groove & Joe Mack 4/3: Afternoon: Pacific Dream & Logan 4/7: Soma and Busker’s Trio 4/9: Neptune Crush, Movie Star Kiss & Eqostatic 4/10: Hated Nixon, Roi Elam, Singapore for America 4/14: Tiffany Christopher Band and EKe 4/16: The Lab, Nashid, Missile Silo Suite & Lord Baltimore

APRIL 2005

GLENN TILLBROOK & THE FLUFFERS at MISSISSIPPI NIGHTS April 30, 8 p.m. • all ages TICKETS: $15 • CALL: 314-421-3853 4/17: Poetry Open Mic 4/21: The Golden Republic, Aqueduct & The Maxtone 4 4/23: Leo w/Gooding 4/24: Afternoon: Holding Cell 4/28: The John McKay Band w/Alabaster Brown 4/30: Cornmeal & The Station

CREEPY CRAWL 412 N. Tucker • St. Louis, Mo. 63101 314-851-0919 • www.creepycrawl.com Mon: Fetish Night 4/1: Short and Sweet, Sex Robots, Ephemeris, Cats not Dogs & The Front 4/2: Yellow Herald 4/3: Gatsby’s American Dream, Bear vs. Shark, Novella & Shall We Dance 4/7: Pitbull Daycare, Society One 4/9: Femme Fatality, Bel & The Dragon & Polarized Mind 4/10: Days Like These, Rose Blanche & Iwillfuckingstabyou 4/11: The Red Death, Arsis, Accursed Dawn, Akathisia & Lye By Mistake 4/16: The Higher, Still Life Projector, The Secret Handshake & Novella 4/18: Terror, Remembering Never, Acacia Strain & The Warriors 4/21: NomeansNo, Corbeta Corbata & Steerjockey 4/23: Atmosphere, P.O.S., Grayskul 4/24: The Independents, The Adrenals, The Haddonfields, Hot Atomics & Fifth Row Felons

FAMOUS BAR 5213 Chippewa • St. Louis, Mo. 63109 314-832-2211 4/1: Marsville 4/2: Serapis 4/8: Mark Moore & The Smokers 4/9: Baker McClaren Band 4/5: Michael Schaerer Band 4/16: Dogtown Allstars 4/22: Chia Band 4/23: Falling Martins 4/29: Visions Jazz 4/30: Albert & The Einsteins

FELIX’S 6655 Clayton Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63139 314-645-6565 4/1: Tiny Cows 4/2: Tim Sessions 4/7: Michael Schaerer 4/15: Tiny Cows 4/16: Michael Schaerer 4/22: Tim Sessions 4/23: Dogtown Allstars 4/30: Michael Schaerer

After 25 years fronting influential power-pop underdog icons Squeeze, Glenn Tilbrook shocked fans by following the final (for now) Squeeze record, 1999’s rather disappointing Domino—recorded under duress during a rocky patch in his often strained relationship with longtime writing partner Chris Difford—with a stellar and inventive debut solo record, 2002’s The Incomplete Glenn Tilbrook. He wrote Incomplete’s follow-up, Transatlantic Ping Pong, during the two years he spent touring the United States and United Kingdom as a troubadour for hire, driving himself (and a couple acoustic guitars) from town to town in a dumpy RV. In the process, he re-invented himself as a highly entertaining and personable singer/songwriter—a period that became the subject of a documentary, One for the Road, soon to be released on DVD. Tilbrook recently collaborated on a book with Difford, Squeeze Song by Song, an experience Tilbrook has found illuminating. “I think, reading the book,” he says, calling from a hotel in rural England, where he’s currently working

FOCAL POINT 2720 Sutton • Maplewood, Mo. 63143 314-781-4200 • www.thefocalpoint.org 4/2: Duddybreeks 4/8-10: Mississippi River Celtic Music Festival 4/9: Jimmie Dale Gilmore 7 & 9p 4/15: Schlafly Tap Room Benefit w/Alain Gatay & Dennis Stroughmatt’s Creole Stomp Cajun Band 4/15: Susan Shore w/Scott & Michelle Dalziel 8p 4/16: Lou and Pter Berryman 8p 4/23: Tempest 8p 4/30: Ray Bonneville 8p

up new material—including a long-distance collaboration with Fountains of Wayne’s Chris Collingwood. “I learned more about how Chris felt about things than I did through the time I was with him.” As for the fans that inevitably ask about a possible Squeeze reunion, Tilbrook says that while he’ll never say never, he doesn’t think about it much. “My heart and soul was in Squeeze the whole time I was in it, and now my heart and soul is in what I’m doing.”

Tilbook’s RV might be a bit less comfortable during his current trip across the states—his first extensive U.S. solo tour to include a full backing band, a trio dubbed The Fluffers. So what is a Fluffer, you ask? “It’s the person that prepares men in the adult film industry to be ready for their on-screen shots. So they’re in a state of readiness,” Tilbrook laughs. “They didn’t choose the name, I chose it for them.

‘Cause it made me laugh.”

Read the full interview at www.playbackstl.com.

—Brian McClelland

4/1: Roundups, High Marks, Dead Weight 4/2: Secret Cajun Band, Swiftkixx, Bantum League 4/7: The Hatch, The Rogues, Wydown 4/8: Art Ghetto, Reigning Heir, Lungdust 4/9: The Scarred, The Bureau 4/14: Killjoy4fun, Hated Nixon 4/15: Black Fire Revelation, The Electric, Unmutuals 4/16: Captured! by Robots, In Medias Res, Hell in the Cannon 4/19: The Apes, Phonocaptors, Sybilline 4/21: Bagheera, Shall We Dance 4/22: The Drip, The Choir, Aces & Eights

FOX THEATRE 527 N. Grand Blvd. • St. Louis, Mo. 63107 636-534-1111 • www.fabulousfox.com 4/1: Classic Slow Jam 4/3: Bob Costas Benefit Gala 4/12-24: Big River 4/30: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

THE GARGOYLE @ WASH. U. 1 Brookings Dr. • St. Louis, Mo. 63130 314-935-5917 • http://gargoyle.wustl.edu 4/7: Ben Lee w/Har Mar Superstar & Maria Taylor 4/18: The Fiery Furnaces w/Dios Malos 4/19: Further Seems Forever 4/26: Sparta w/Thieves of Always

GEARBOX at LIL NIKKI’S 1551 S. 7th St. • St. Louis, Mo. 63104 314-621-2181

HAMMERSTONE’S 2028 S. 9th St. • St. Louis, Mo. 63104 314-773-5565 Mon: Tim Albert/Tues: Lucky Dan & Naked Mike/Wed: Park Avenue/Thurs: Rondo’s Blues Deluxe/Fri: Uncle Albert/Sun: Voodoo Blues w/Bennie Smith 4p, Erik Brooks 8:30p 4/9: One Kindred Soul 3p, Fairchild 9p 4/2-16-23-30: Rondo’s Blues Deluxe 3p, Fairchild 9p

HI-POINTE 1001 McCausland Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63117 314-781-4716 • www.hi-pointe.com 4/1: Skulls, Pixels, Unknown Pleasures 4/9: Roman Numerals 4/16: Lisa’s birthday w/Twistin’ Tarantulas & Silvermen 4/17: The Forty-Fives 4/22: N.I.L.8. w/The Pimps

FREDERICK’S MUSIC LOUNGE 4454 Chippewa • St. Louis, Mo. 63116 314-351-5711 • www.fredericksmusiclounge.com 4/1: The Rounders w/Roger Hoover & Whiskeyhounds 4/2: Nice Peter & Graham Lindsey 4/5: The Dirty 30’s & Aintry 4/6: The Grackles & The Megahurts 4/7: Open Mic w/Brian Marek 4/8: Abileen w/Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands 4/9: Mary Alice Wood 4/12: The Vultures, Palookaville & Victoria Vox 4/13: The Gaslights & Braefoot Jones 4/14: Open Mic w/Tommy Halloran 4/15: Milton Mapes & Grand Champeen 4/16: The Rounders & Moonshine Sway 4/19: Spouse & Languid 4/20: Alcohol Stuntband & Brian Jones 4/21: Open Mic w/Bob Reuter 4/23: The Debonaires & Tommy Halloran 4/26: The Sundresses & Moss 4/27: Healthy White Baby w/tba 4/28: Open Mic w/Brian Maek 4/29: Tin Horn & Black Diamond Heavies 4/30: Mark Bilyeu & Cindy Woolf

4/23: Cobra Verda, Water Between Continents, Prison Shake 4/26: Bang Sugar Bang, Bonobos 4/28: Far From Finished, The Holy Handgrenades 4/29: Ava Raders, Bi-Level, Operation Rock 4/30: River City Rock ’n’ Roll Revival w/Bad Wizard, Last Vegas, Broadzilla, Vibrollas, The Spiders, Valliant Thorr, Bible of the Devil, LoFreq

RAZORLIGHT w/MUSE/MTV-U’s CAMPUS INVASION at THE PAGEANT April 26, 8 p.m. • all ages TICKETS: $18 • CALL: 314-726-6161 In case you haven’t noticed, the current wave of Britpop—basically, anything of a pop or rock nature coming out of Britain these days—is extremely hot. With all the 2005 releases getting the hype (Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, anyone?), it’s easy to almost overlook Razorlight’s fantastic 2004 garage-pop debut Up All Night. Frontman Johnny Borrell has an ego the size of London—he’s made outrageous claims about his band taking over the world, comparing the quality of his songwriting to that of Dylan—but he knows his shit. The album’s a gem of steady beats, pop singles, and rock ’n’ roll swagger. In Borrell’s words, it’s about “living with passion, spirit, spark, and desire in the dirty old city.” Don’t miss the swagger when Razorlight makes a rare STL appearance as part of the MTV-U Campus Invasion Tour April 26.

—Laura Hamlett

JACKSONS 6655 Manchester • St. Louis, MO 314-645-4904 Tues: Joe Garnier/Thurs: Rhythm Rockers/Sun: JackSons’ 5 4/1: Presentation Band 4/8: Naked Grove 4/15: Billy Peek 4/22: Joe Merletti & the Working Blue Band 4/29: The Bottoms Up Blues Gang 4/30: All Over The Road

JAZZ AT THE BISTRO 3536 Washington Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63103 314-531-1012 • www.jazzatthebistro.com 4/8-9: Realty All Stars 4/13-16: Brad Mehldau 4/22-23: Dena DeRose 4/27-30: John Scofield Trio

LEMP NEIGHBORHOOD ARTS CENTER 3301 Lemp Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63118 314-771-1096 • www.lemp-arts.org 4/1: Ad Astra per Aspera, Kelpie, Target Market 4/2: Detholz!, Danger Adventure, Conformists 4/9: The Hate Crimes, Step on It!, Whitehurst, This Charade Is Over 4/10: The Gunshy 4/12: Bellefea, The Panty Assault 4/14: Jesse Kudler 4/15: Bent Left, Softer Than Yesterday, Born to Die

41

4/16: Junius 4/21: Mahi Mahi 4/24: Peter B w/Sejayno, Caleb Johnston as Organ Pumper 4/26: Instilled, Guns Up!, Step on It!, Cross Examination 4/27: V9R9D, Emperor X, So Many Dynamos 4/29: The Crashing Falcon, The Shroud, My Virgin Eyes, The Romans Were Right 4/30: Fuiguirnet

4/13: Moot Davis & the Cool Deal w/Randy Burk & the Prisoners & Last Train Home 4/14: Emily Katz w/Mary Reynolds & Louis Goldberg 4/15: Myshkin’s Ruby Warblers 7p, Papa Doria 10p 4/18: Melissa Ferrick w/Garrison Starr & Sam Shaber 4/22: PlaybackSTL anniversary party featuring Cameron McGill, The Lab, Punsapaya, & host Dave AlanS 4/23: The Crazy Beats w/Animal Love 10p 4/28: Barefoot Jones 4/29: Justin Carroll w/Plum Tucker

MAGEE’S

THE CLICK FIVE w/ASHLEE SIMPSON at THE FAMILY ARENA April 14, 7 p.m. • all ages TICKETS: $37–20 • CALL: 636-896-4242 Boston’s The Click Five have had an impressive first year by any standards—and they haven’t even released their debut album yet. The right managers, and friends like Fountains of Wayne producer Mike Deneen, hooked the band up with some stellar pop uncles—FoW’s Adam Schlesinger (co-writer of “That Thing You Do”) wrote two of their songs, KISS’s Paul Stanley co-wrote a song with the band, and even Elliot Easton from Boston’s own new wave royals, The Cars, contributed lead guitar on one track. That’s a lot of lucky costars and coincidences for a band’s debut album, a fact not lost on drummer Joey Zehr. “Yeah, dude,” he laughs, calling 42 from Denver on a rare day off from opening for Ashlee Simpson’s two-anda-half-month arena tour. “Our whole band is like, stars aligned and shit.” As for the tour, “It’s been absolutely crazy, going from playing 400-capacity clubs in Boston to doing like 5,000 a night, sold out.” He chuckles at the absurdity, deadpanning the understatement of the year: “It’s been cool.”

Connecting the dots from a band this in love with sugary power-pop to the man who wrote The Wonders’ big pseudo-hit is easy enough. But Paul Stanley? Apparently, C5’s manager was “an assistant-assistant road manager 20 years ago for the no-makeup KISS tour,” and after a surreal meeting at a local gig—when “halfway through the first song, in this packed dive bar, in comes Paul Stanley and crew, taller than everyone with their curly hair”—Stanley became friendly with the band and invited their primary songwriter, keyboardist Ben Romans, to write with him “at his L.A. mansion, with gold statues everywhere.”

The Stanley sessions led to more recent co-writes in L.A., this time with famed (if somewhat dated) pop hitmeister Desmond Child. Of those songs, Zehr says, “It’s too late for them to get on our record, but it’s nice to know we have these really solid Desmond Child hits on the side, just waiting for when we need them for something.”

Indeed. Now if only they can get their own reality show…

—Brian McClelland

4500 Clayton Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63110 314-535-8061 Mon: Open Mic w/Heather Barth/Thur: Jake’s Leg 4/1: Dogtown Allstars 4/5: Racketbox 4/6: Johnny Fox 4/7: Jake’s Leg 4/8: The 88’s 4/9: Big Star Kadillac, Native Fiction & Team Tomato 4/12: Two Tomatoes 4/13: Riverside Blues 4/14: Jake’s Leg 4/15: The Round Ups 4/16: Naked Groove 4/19: Confluence Benefit w/Bootigrabbers Delight, Anna Roland & Tom Wood 4/20: Johnny Fox 4/21: Jake’s Leg 4/22: Scene of Irony w/A Bit Sihfty 4/23: Soma 4/28: Jake’s Leg 4/29: Dr. Rob

MANGIA ITALIANO 3145 S. Grand Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63118 314-664-8585 • www.dineatmangia.com Sun: Reggae Dub Spin w/Gabe and Dino/Mon: Open Mic Hosted by Kieran Malloy/Wed: Eightyfourglyde DJ Spin/ Fri: Dave Stone Trio 4/2: Swing Set 4/7: Long John Thomas 4/9: The Good Griefs 4/14: Jimmy Griffin 4/16: The Highway Matrons 4/21: Chris Johnson 4/23: Brian Sullivan Quartet 4/28: Tom Wood & Friends 4/30: The Transmitters & The Gentleman Callers

MISSISSIPPI NIGHTS 914 N. First St. • St. Louis, Mo. 63102 314-421-3853 • www.mississippinights.com 4/1: Drive-by Truckers 4/2: The Schwag 4/3: Modern Day Zero 4/8: Eke w/Remedy 4/9: Straylight Run w/Minus the Bear, Gratitude, The Honorary Title & Spitalfield 4/10: Steve Gadd 4/12: Galactic 4/15: Losers Luck w/Blinded Black, Centerpointe & Lowercase 4/16: The Big Wu 4/28: …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead 4/29: Ludo & Lucky Boys Confusion 4/30: Glenn Tillbrook & The Fluffers

MOJO’S 1013 Park Ave. • Columbia, Mo. 65201 573-875-0588 • www.mojoscolumbia.com 4/1: The Wilders & The People’s Republic of Klezmerica 4/2: Bruce Poe Band 4/5: Videology w/Jerusalem & The Starbaskets 4/7: The Confident Years, This Day & Age, Down to Earth Approach w/Carmine Red 4/8: Bait Shop Boys 6p, Electric 6 8:30p 4/9: The Forty-Fives, The Maxtone Four 4/13: Drums and Tuba

NOMEANSNO at THE CREEPY CRAWL April 21, 7:30 p.m. • all ages TICKETS: $8/10 • CALL: 314-851-0919 For over 25 years, Nomeansno has been a slab of granite in the wild and wily world of punk rock. However, Nomeansno is not your normal punk band. In fact, one might argue whether calling them “punk” is a little misleading. Sure, they were on the quintessential punk label Alternative Tentacles for over 15 years, but musically, NMN has transcended mere punk with their endless creativity, versatility, and talent. Hard, fast, or slow, NMN has done it all. In a career spanning roughly 14 major releases, there isn’t a single NMN album that can be classified as a carbon copy of another.

Headed up by the brothers Wright (John and Rob), Nomeansno has never had the mass following in the States that they’ve rightly deserved, but what they lack in mass media approval is more than made up for by a rabid, obsessive fan base (myself included) that fills clubs wherever they go. For St. Louis, this show is a true rarity, as NMN doesn’t often tour the United States. So for the obsessed, April 21 is an unofficial holiday because this is the day that Nomeansno passes through town. For those of you still unfamiliar with NMN, this night provides what may be the last time the Wright Brothers pass through our city. So get the lead out and see what you’ve been missing all these years. —David Lichius 4/15: Primitive Soul 4/16: Clem Snide 4/18: MC Chris, Schaffer the Dark Lord & Coolzey 4/21: Magnolia Electric Co., Viva Voce & Foundry Field Recordings 4/23: The Doxies, White Rabbits & Wormwood Scrubs 4/24: Sun. Night Blues Jam 4/26: The Mosquitos 4/27: The John McKay Band & Alabaster Brown 4/29: Bottoms of the Boot Bluegrass Band 6p, Paradise Vending, Spanish for 100 & Emperor X 8:30p 4/30: The Helping Phriendly Band

OFF BROADWAY 3509 Lemp Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63118 314-773-3363 • www.offbroadwaystl.com 4/1: Titan Moon w/Wydown & Steve Bequette 4/2: Core Project w/40 Thieves & Dub Kitchen 4/8: Seldom Home w/The Meramec Jets 4/9: Jamie Shields, Pike Station, Panic Attack, Stone Cat

THE PAGEANT 6161 Delmar Blvd. • St. Louis, Mo. 63112 314-726-6161 • www.thepageant.com 4/1: Adam’s Off Ox, The Rhyme Commission, Forty ’til Five & Sac Lunch 4/2: Field of Grey, Fragile Porcelain Mice, Side of Fives, Soul for Silver & Brett Daniels 4/4: Papa Roach 4/6: UMB Bank Pavilion Rock ’n’ Roll Auction & Preview 4/7: Steve Earle & The Dukes w/Alison Moorer 4/8: Michael McDonald w/Billy Peek 4/10: Steve Vai w/Eric Sardinas 4/13: New Found Glory w/Reggie & the Full Effect, Eisley 4/20: Steve Winwood 4/21: Younder Mountain String Band 4/22: Patty Griffin 4/23: Chris Botti

POP’S BLUE MOON 5249 Pattison • St. Louis, Mo. 63110 314-776-4200 • www.popsbluemoon.com Tues: World’s Most Dangerous Open Jam 4/1: Dave Black & Matt Kimmick 4/2: Tiffany Christopher Band 4/4: Irene Allen Acoustic 4/6: Tim Moody 4/7: Maybe Tango 4/8: Eric Nassau 4/9: Tabla Rasa 4/11: Fab Foehners 4/13: Brian Curran 4/14: Wayne Kimler Jazz 4/15: Flying Mules 4/16: Reggae Ruffin 4/18: Johnny Fox 4/20: “420” w/The Bottoms Up Blues Gang 4/21: Riverside Acoustic 4/22: Naked Groove 4/23: Brothers Green 4/25: Open Mic Acoustic w/Shane Maue 4/27: Stendek 4/28: R&R Trio 4/29: Green Lemon 4/30: Brian Curran Trio

RADIO CHEROKEE 3227 Cherokee St. • St. Louis, Mo. 63118 www.radiocherokee.net 4/2: Potomac Accord, Kite Pilot 9p 4/14: Wrack 8p 4/17: Camp Climax for Girls, Coliseum 8p 4/22: Target Market, Viva Voce & Bunnygrunt 4/29: Skarekrauradio, Warhammer, Jerusalem & The Starbaskets and Cable

RIDDLE’S PENULTIMATE 6307 Delmar • U. City, Mo. 63130 314-725-6985 • www.riddlescafe.com Tues: Jeff Lash/Wed: Ptah Williams/Sun: John Norment Quartet 4/1: Jazz Renaissance 4/2: SWIRL! 4/7: The Uncle Albert Band 4/8: Diesel Island 4/9: The Bottoms Up Blues Gang 4/14: The Bottoms Up Blues Gang 4/15: The Zydeco Crawdaddies

4/16: SWIRL! 4/21: The Uncle Albert Band 4/22: Salt of the Earth w/Lynn Reif 4/23: The Uncle Albert Band 4/28: Brian Curran & Friends 4/29: Keith Doder & The Blue City Band 4/30: The Flying Mules

SALLY T’S 6 Main St. • St. Peters, Mo. 63376 636-397-5383 • www.sallyts.com 4/1: The Grooveahoolics w/Ardentyes & Big Star Cadillac 4/5: Open Mic w/Matt Lilley 4/6: Murder in a Tuxedo, Orange Punch Warfare, Staying Up Late 4/7: Eric Nassau, Logos 4/8: Buddy Entwistle’s Fundraiser for Leukemia 4/9: Soul Service, Invasion 4/13: Closed at Sunset, The Greenhouse Effect 4/14: Neo Geo, Panhandle 4/15: The Barnacles, The Reebs 4/16: Wasted Days, Mirror Image, Amp Inc. 4/19: Southerly 4/21: Tiffany Christopher Band, Raw Silk, Sam Greg 4/23: Divided by Zero, Ruby Armada 4/27: Park City 4/28: Dwyer 4/29: The Affair, The Colony of Watts, Fist in the Air, Soma 4/30: Fusion Blue, Salt Vision

WANT TO BE SEEN BY THOUSANDS OF MUSIC AND ART LOVERS EVERY MONTH? JOIN PLAYBACKSTL AS AN ADVERTISER OR EVEN SPONSOR A WHOLE SECTION. CALL JIM AT 314-630-6404 OR E-MAIL AT JIM@PLAYBACKSTL.COM. 4/30: Alsop Grossi Haley 4p, Tom Wood 9p

SHELDON CONCERT HALL 3648 Washington Blvd. • St. Louis, Mo. 63108 314-533-9900 • www.sheldonconcerthall.org 4/1: Marcia Ball 4/5: John Covelli 4/6: The Spirit of Spain 4/8: Peter Osroushko Trio 4/9: Jazz Singers & The Mississippi River Celtic Music Festival 4/16: James Moody 4/19: Chris Jackson 4/26: Althoff Gospel Crusaders 4/29: Audra McDonald

SQWIRE’S 1415 S. 18th St. • St. Louis, Mo. 63104 314-865-3522 4/1: Pierce Crask 5p , Mo & Dawn 9:30p 4/2: Mo & Dawn 10p 4/3: Mo & Dawn 8:30p 4/4: Bill Murphy Duo 8:30p 4/8: Tom Hall 5p, Dave Black & Sandy Weltman 8[ 4/9: Tom Byrne & Erika Johnson 8p 4/15: Pierce Crask 5p, Mo & Dawn 8p

4/16: Dave Black & Sandy Weltman 8p 4/22: Tom Hall 5p, Lucky Dan & Naked Mike 8p 4/23: Tom Byrne & Erika Johnson 8p 4/29: Pierce Crask 5p, Mo & Dawn 8p 4/30: Blue Monks Unplugged

STUDIO CAFÉ 1309 Washington Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63103 314-621-8667 4/1: Simmons w/Modern Red 4/2: Jimmy Kennedy (Earl) & friends 4/8: Robbie Hart w/Brooke Ashley 4/9: State Sanction w/DJ Pocahontas 4/15: Ashborne w/Reservation for Two 4/16: Alma Mater w/John Maxfield & Geoff Koch 4/22: Haviz Huda 4/23: Domani w/Ninekiller 4/29: Team Tomato w/Plum Tucker (acoustic) 4/30: Monte & the Machine

THREE-1-THREE 313 E. Main St. • Belleville, Il. 62220 618-239-6885 • www.three-1-three.com Mon: Park Avenue Trio/Tues: DJ Rob Gray/Thurs: DJ Kelly Dell, Just J, Andreas Ardesco 4/2: EarthSol 4/7: Sponge w/Even the Odd 4/16: Sunspot

TOUHILL PERFORMING ARTS CTR. 13375 Olive • Chesterfield, Mo. 63017 314-878-3886 Thurs: The Perry Woods Experience/Sat: Jeff Gwantley 4/1: Perry Woods Experience 4/8: Eddie Randell Trio 4/15: Todd Keller Band 4/22: The Bottoms Up Blues Gang 4/29: Jeff Gwantley

SCHLAFLY TAP ROOM 2100 Locust. • St. Louis, Mo. 63103 314-241-BEER • www.schlafly.com 4/1: Salt of the Earth 4/2: Raven Moon 4/3: Stuart Johnson 4/8-9: Celtic Music Festival 4/10: Tom Hall 4/15: Alain Gatay w/Dennis Stroughmatt’s Creole Stomp 4/16: Augusta Bottoms Consort 4/17: Frank Heyer 4/22: City Folk 4/23: Otis 4/24: Dave Black 4/27: St. Louis Rival Arch Comedy Improv 4/30: Orbits

THE SHANTI 825 Allen Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63104 314-241-4772 Tues: Open Mic w/Heather Barth 4/1: Bob Case 9p 4/2: Alsop Grossi Haley 4p, Mark Gorden 9p 4/6: T-Bone Blues 8p 4/7: Paul Jarvis 8p 4/8: Troubadours Of Devine Bliss 9p 4/9: Pick’n’Lickin’ 4p, Steve Bise 9p 4/13: Bootigrabbers Delight 8p 4/14: Pat McLellan 8p 4/15: Stuart Johnson 9p 4/16: Alley Mutts 9p 4/20: Ravaged Hearts 8p 4/22: Devon Allman 9p 4/23: Pick’n’Lickin’ 4p, Monte & The Machine 9p 4/27: Mary & Margaret 8p 4/28: Racket Box 9p 4/29: Kevin Lucas Orchestra 9p

THE FORTY-FIVES

photo: MICKEY BERNAL

APRIL 2005

University of Mo. – STL • St. Louis, Mo. 63121 314-516-4949 • www.touhill.org 4/1-2: Second City 4/7-9: Pippin 4/11: Des Lee 4/12: Tsunami Benefit & University Singers Concert 4/13: Women in the Arts 4/14: East Winds Ensemble 4/15: Cantus 4/16: Steel Magnolias 4/17: Porgy and Bess 4/18: UMSL Jazz Combo Concert 4/19: Natural Bridge Theatre & Dance 4/20: UMSL Cello Choir Concert 4/21-22: St. Louis Jazz Festival 4/27: Dennis DeYoung 4/29: Dixie Classic

at THE HI-POINTE April 17 • all ages CALL: 314-781-4716 Much of today’s rock is spurned on by emotional highs and lows. It’s vital to balance these extreme messages with the more whimsical, CAFÉ hedonic, and aesthetically pleasing foundation VENICE 1906 Pestalozzi • St. Louis, Mo. 63118 on which this musical genre was founded. 314-772-5994 Translated, stop taking yourselves and your Mon: Open Mic/Tues: Late Happy Hour & Movies music so damn seriously. At least, that’s the 4/2: Zonkeys Ellipsis stance The Forty-Fives take. Guitarist and singer 4/6: 4/7: Troubadours Of Devine Bliss 9p Bryan Malone declares, “It’s all about the enter- 4/8: Not Quite Nashville tainment and having a good time.” The promo- 4/9: Dangerous Leftovers tion of their recent release, High Life High 4/15: Tom Wood & Friends The Bottoms Up Blues Gang Volume, is the band’s third round at expressing 4/21: 4/22: Tiffany Christopher Band their distinctive Jew’s harp, Hammond B3, 4/23: Public Property post-British invasion/Americana-diffused (or 4/28: Languid drowned), ’60s soul-injected, junk-food rock 4/30: The Domino Kings style. It almost surfaces a spark of sympathy for the folks in Amazon’s niche-marketing WAY OUT CLUB 2525 S. Jefferson Ave. • St. Louis, Mo. 63118 department. Lighthearted and sometimes silly, 314-664-7638 • www.wayoutclub.com their lyrics give the finger to painful, personal 4/1: Fifth Row Felons, Troops, Pomonas & The Maxtone 4 details and overbearing depth. However, don’t 4/2: Lupe’s Big Hair Show be so quick to group them with the Wham-esque 4/5: Gore Gore Girls, Cripplers & 7 Shot Screamers 4/7: Casey Reid & Tomko high on life persuasion; they’re renowned as 4/9: Jones Street & Dear Calamity brawling, hardcore Atlanta rockers. Their style 4/11: Okkervil River w/Waterloo & Berry spirals more into the old-fashioned swirl of sex, 4/15: Billy Coma, The New & Kurtis Gay drugs, and rock ’n’ roll—combined with some 4/16: Holy Hand Grenades, Meh & Semi OK 4/19: Link Wrav & The Cripplers classic reconstruction and modern renovations. 4/20: Jones Street —Lauren Beckerle 4/21-24: Emergenza

MARY ALICE WOOD at FREDERICK’S MUSIC LOUNGE April 9, 9 p.m. • 21+ TICKETS: $7 • CALL: 314-351-5711 Spring here might remain unsprung without a visit home from singer/songwriter Mary Alice Wood, our ambassador of goodwill to Nashville—so local music fans should circle the second Saturday in April on their calendars and make plans to hit Frederick’s that night.

Since relocating to Tennessee roughly a year and a half ago, the South Side’s favorite daughter has continued to perform and network with characteristic energy. “I’ve gotten to hang out and play with Gillian Welch at a party and Nancy Blake at my weekly old-time jam,” she reports by e-mail, referring in a single sentence both to an undisputed rising star of Americana and to the cello and mandolin player who ranks as one of country’s grandes dames. 43 “There’s music everywhere here.”

Some of that music will accompany her to Fred Friction’s storied Chippewa honkytonk; backing her there will be Wood’s regular Nashville guitarist, Paul Zahn, and his Crazed Cowboys. “They rock—they’re political, intelligent, and definitely unique,” she notes. “They’ll play a few tunes, and then I’ll take the stage and open up the can of whupass.”

Beyond numbers from Daisies in My Hand (Wood’s fine 2003 fusion of rock, country, and folk), likely enlivening her visit will be new works like the wry “Self-Appointed Expatriate.” Amusingly, regarding the inclusion in her set of other new works involving the fiddle, an instrument on which Wood’s been apprenticing for some time, she turns almost demure: “Maybe… I may or may not be able to practice live with the guys before the gig. Fiddle tunes are very different from rock ’n’ roll, so we’ll see how far we get.” Local fiddle fans should keep their fingers crossed, though—her “Dogtown Reel” would really rock the joint.

—Bryan A. Hollerbach

GET YOUR CLUB LISTED IN WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? FREE! We want to be the number one source of events for our readers. To do this we need your listings.

You send it in and it will be here. Just send us your monthly schedule by the 15th of the month via one of the following methods: e-mail: calendar@playbackstl.com fax: 877-204-2067

PLAYBACK STL

PORTRAITS

BY THOMAS CRONE

PETER VENEZIA: ATOMIC COWBOY

44

Since closing up shop at the original Atomic Cowboy last autumn, Peter Venezia has been logging long hours at the still-onthe-way location of the Cowboy. Slowly but surely coming together at the corner of Manchester and Talmadge in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood, the new facility will be distinctly different from the old.

Though incorporating some of the same design touches as the Maplewood venue, the new space will be tailored to suit the rehabbed building it’s in, as well as the Quonset hut out back, an outdoor bar which will be dubbed the Neon Lounge. Expect a bigger, wraparound bar inside, a full kitchen, some intriguing lighting, and lots of artistic metalwork.

On a recent afternoon, Venezia and partner/ building owner Chip Schloss were working on the space’s interior. The process was slowed by this interview, plus a visit from a real estate investor looking to buy into the emerging block—something that’s happening with increasing frequency these days. Meanwhile, all the work stopped when the dumpster driver carting off old concrete was stopped out front by the police, guilty of carrying too large a load.

Oh, well. During an extensive rehab like this, every day, if not every hour, can offer its own challenges and quirks.

It’s a different city and a very different part of Manchester Road, but Venezia seems jazzed about the upcoming possibilities.

When you were originally opening in Maplewood, what drew your interest to that block?

Opportunity. The right demographics, the young people living in the area that didn’t really have a place to go to. The old buildings, the architecture and facades of that street. I thought it was really beautiful and should be preserved, rather than being boarded up

like it was. That’s basically why I went to Maplewood, to see if we could start a little area with restaurants and shops coming in.

And that’s been going along for the past three years now, which is really cool. I was obviously bummed to leave Maplewood. I was on the design review board there; I lived in Maplewood. You never know, I might go back

Photo: THOMAS CRONE

there and do something. But Atomic Cowboy needed a bigger place. Now we’ll have a fullservice kitchen, a “Baja fresh”–type of menu, a 3 a.m. liquor license, a smoking area. It’ll be a lot bigger than the other one.

Same kind of thought: What appealed to you about this area? What exactly caught your eye?

Even when I had the Atomic Cowboy in Maplewood, I had looked at this building.

Tommy Carr of Atomic Neon came in and I had gotten interested in it. He came in with Jeff Miller and said, “Aw, you should come down and buy my building,” in that crazy voice. A couple years ago I did some photography in this area and I could see it

coming back eventually. It was just the right timing when Chip approached me with these buildings. Novak’s moved to a new building, Don Bellon’s fixing his buildings. I saw this as close enough to the city, close enough to the county, close enough to South Grand to be a great location. Lo closed, Tangerine closed, and a 3 o’clock license is hard to get on Washington, so there’s got to be a place like this for people to go.

What are the fun components of a time period like right now? What makes this, if not enjoyable, at least interesting to you?

The fun component of a build-out is taking that old building and creating something.

Tearing brick out, tearing old walls out. Just being super-creative with a blank canvas.

Basically, I get to make it look however I’d like on the inside. So it’s going to be way funkier than the old Cowboy. It’ll still have the feel of the vintage furniture and the art, but it’ll be more industrial with steel and brickwork, crazy plexiglass. Eventually a fireplace and a waterfall inside, things that’ll happen in the next year and a half, or so, after we’re opened.

Plus we have this great outside patio. We had a little deck in Maplewood; now we have a huge, outdoor smoking area. You can eat outside and there’s even a little bar out there. Like having two bars in one.

Do you allow yourself to dream about opening night?

Yeah…a little bit. We’re sort of far out. We thought April, then mid-May or the beginning of June. There’re little hurdles you hit as you do a mass of construction. But I do see it as being cool. I think people will really dig it. I’m totally looking forward to opening up. We really hope to open by June, so that people can enjoy it all summer long.

DON’T STOP HERE: On www.playbackstl.com you will find new content each week, including photos from SXSW, expanded articles, a listing of the week’s events, theater news, information about our upcoming shows, and free stuff! While you are there, don’t forget to sign up for the Events Queen’s weekly email.

The Nationals at SXSW

Lunch Monday – Friday, 11:30–5 Dinner (nightly specials) Daily 5–10 Lunch Buffet ($5.95) Monday – Friday, 11:30–2:30

Open ’til 3 a.m. Nightly Reggae Every Sunday Night Dave Stone Jazz Trio Every Friday at 10:30 p.m.

COME FOR THE FOOD, but stay for the eclectic atmosphere featuring beautiful artwork, live music most nights, and the charm that only tradition can offer.

3145 South Grand Ave. 314-664-8585

www.dineatmangia.com

Serving the Finest Fresh Pasta in St. Louis for 20 Years

Gear Box Booked by Suburban Booking.

Contact Elvis @ 314-537-5456 or dedelvas@aol.com

APRIL at THE GEAR BOX in LIL’ NIKKI’S EVERY MONDAY AND THURSDAY CHEAP BEER NIGHT! 4/1 ROUNDUPS, High Marks, Dead Weight • 4/2 SECRET CAJUN BAND, Swiftkixx, Bantum League 4/7 The HATCH, The Rogues, Wydown • 4/8 ART GHETTO (L.A.), Reigning Heir, Lungdust 4/9 THE SCARRED, The Bureau, tba • 4/14 KILLJOY4FUN, Hated Nixon, tba 4/15 BLACK FIRE REVELATION, the ELECTRIC, UNMUTUALS 4/16 CAPTURED! BY ROBOTS, In Media Res, Hell in the Cannon 4/19 The APES, PHONOCAPTORS, Sibylline 4/21 BAGHEERA (Asian Man Records), Shall We Dance 4/22 THE DRIP (Chicago), The Choir (formerly The Spiders) , Aces & Eights 4/23 COBRA VERDA (Ohio), WATER BETWEEEN CONTINENTS (Ohio), Prison Shake 4/26 BANG SUGAR BANG (L.A.), BONOBOS, tba • 4/27 tba 4/28 FAR FROM FINISHED (Boston), The Holy Handgrenades, tba 4/29 AVA RAIDERS (Chicago), Bi LEVEL, The Morning After 4/30 4 p.m. RIVER CITY ROCK-N-ROLL REVIVAL BAD WIZARD • LAST VEGAS • BROADZILLA • VIBROLLAS THE SPIDERS (Austin , TX) • VALLIANT THORR • BIBLE OF THE DEVIL LoFREQ • SHAME CLUB • TBA