Eleven 11.6 July 2015

ISSUE No. 6-JUL ’15

THE LINER NOTES OF ST. LOUIS

NOAH’S ARC Union Tree Review’s TAWAINE NOAH Takes The Long Way Home

A DUTY TO YR BOOTY INSIDE: VERUCA SALT • JUDGE NOTHING • RAEKWON & GHOSTFACE • JAILL

BUMP & HUSTLE Celebrates 3 Years of Shakin That Thang

THEY’RE AFTER YOU AMERICAN PARANOIA SOCIETY Tries To Pin Down BAD DATES world of you

>>

ELEVEN MAGAZINE VOLUME 11, ISSUE 6

COMPLIMENTARY

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 1

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DEPT. OF

PERIODICAL LITERATURE ST. LOUIS, MO

Volume 11, Issue No. 6

FRONT OF THE BOOK 5 Editor’s Note 6 Where Is My Mind?

COLUMNS 8 Points East

by ALEX TEBELEFF Babe City Records, DC

9 Watcherr

by CURTIS TINSLEY Jaill

10 Puzzles

by PATRICK BLINDAUER Crossword and MusiCryptogram

11 American Paranoia Society

by DENMARK LAINE Bad Dates

FEATURES 12 Tawaine Noah Returns to STL

by REV. DANIEL W. WRIGHT 14 A cross the (Parallel) Universe: The Aerovons‘ Plunge into History

by JORDAN HEIMBURGER 17 There’s a Place: the Story of Abbey Road Studios

by JORDAN HEIMBURGER 18 In the Aerovons, Over the Sea: Ferd Goes to London, Meets George Freakin’ Harrison

by EVAN SULT

July 2015

FEATURES (CONTINUED) Grateful to the End 22 Brad Sarno and Trey Anastasio ELEVEN’S MUSICALENDAR Recommended Shows 24 Bump and Hustle’s Third Anniversary

BRING ON THE NIGHT Show Previews and Reviews226 Tame Impala, Wanda Jackson, Yankee Racers, A Tribute to Anne Tkach, Raekwon & Ghostface Killah, Veruca Salt

HOT ROCKS Album Reviews2 29 Judge Nothing, Barn Mice, The Fog Lights, Vomitface, Titus Andronicus, Smokey, Joshua Powell And The Great Train Robbery, Carlson, Netwurk, Prinzhorn Dance School, Little Wings, EZTV, Superchunk, White Reaper, Active Child

Mean Scene

by SUZIE GILB

.

Singles for Singles2 30

by IRA GAMERMAN .

THE WAY BACK PAGE Bargain Bin 34

by JACK PROBST .

Datarock

.

ON THE COVER: A very early version of The Aerovons. Front to back: drummer Gary Goelzhauser, bassist Brian Cass, Tom Hartman, vocals/guitar, Bob “Ferd” Frank guitar. Photo by Larry Kuban.

• • • •

MUSIC RECORDING PRODUCTION ENGINEERING MUSIC BUSINESS

METRIC AT ALLSTATE ARENA. PHOTO BY LEE KLAWANS.

LEARN ALL ASPECTS OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY:

Eleven Magazine Volume 11 | Issue 6 | July 2015 PUBLISHER Hugh Scott EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Evan Sult SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS EDITOR Paige Brubeck WEB EDITOR Hugh Scott ART DIRECTOR Evan Sult CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Grant Barnum, Caitlin Bladt, Patrick Blindauer, Paige Brubeck, Ryan Boyle, Sam Clapp, Raymond Code, Melinda Cooper, Jenn DeRose, Jeremy Essig, Ira Gamerman, Suzie Gilb, JJ Hamon, Jordan Heimburger, Ducky Hines, Jake Jones, James Kane, Gabe Karabell, Sean Kelly, Nelda Kerr, Chris Keith, Denmark Laine, Josh Levi, Rob Levy, K.E. Luther, Geoff Naunheim, Jack Probst, Jason Robinson, Jeremy Segel-Moss, Robert Severson, Alex Tebeleff, Michele Ulsohn, Robin Wheeler, Rev. Daniel W. Wright PHOTOGRAPHERS Nate Burrell, Duane Clawson, Seth Donnelly, Jarred Gastreich, Jon Gitchoff, Kelly Glueck, Jess Luther, Adam Robinson, Adam Schicker, Bill Streeter, Ismael Valenzuela, Angela Vincent, Theo Welling, Carrie Zukoski

ILLUSTRATORS Paige Brubeck, Sean Dove, Tyler Gross, Lyndsey Lesh, Curtis Tinsley PROOFREADER Tracy Brubeck PROMOTIONS & DISTRIBUTION Suzie Gilb Ann Scott CONSULTATION Clifford Holekamp Derek Filcoff Cady Seabaugh Hugh Scott III FOUNDED in 2006 by a group including Jonathan Fritz, Josh Petersel and Matthew Ström ELEVEN MAGAZINE 3407 S. Jefferson St. Louis, MO 63118 FOR ADVERTISING INQUIRIES Hugh Scott advertising@elevenmusicmag.com CALENDAR LISTINGS listings@elevenmusicmag.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR deareleven@elevenmusicmag.com We welcome your comments. Please let us know if you do not want your letter published.

HAVE A QUESTION FOR US? info@elevenmusicmag.com ONLINE elevenmusicmag.com twitter.com/elevenmag facebook.com/ElevenMagazine COPYRIGHT 2015 SCOTTY SCOTT MEDIA, LLC

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Editor’s Note by Evan Sult

Resurrected

EVERY SUNDAY FOR the last dozen or so years, there have been only three things I’ve needed: a cup of coffee, a pencil, and the New York Times crossword puzzle. It’s a simple pleasure but a profound one.

That’s why I’m very pleased to introduce to you the new Puzzles page in this issue. It’s not just that it’s a crossword, or even that it’s a Imusic WAS theme.

AT my friend Tim’s house when Patrick I first heard The Aerovons.

The crossword’s author, Blindauer, is a word- I forget what sort musicwho talkhas we’d been talking, when he decided trickery freak ofof nature published over 50 puzzles in that that was publication time to blowwhere some Iminds.

Hemy putfix. on a few songs, but the very it same go to get I mean, I don’t want first I definitely remember was “HeyinGeorgia.” to getone carried away, but the man’s a star my book.It starts with a stylish andWe then becomes — when well, itmy becomes “Oh! Darling”

He’shorn alsoblast, a friend. met recently band Sleepy Kitty by The Beatles. not. But so muchof like it! And wasAncient from St. was working onBut a theatrical version “The Rimethis of the Louis, from...

1969? Ed Well, which one came first?

Mariner” (seewhen? last month’s Note for more about that; in short, it wasThe answer to that question is thrill), definitely the pleasure a huge challenge and a bigger andpart thatof whole cast and of learning Aerovons’ amazing tripto into rock history. crew turnedabout out toThe be nothing but a pleasure know.

Though they onlymaking a footnote in the big story, these St.

That’s theended thingup about art and music for a living: it’s a Louis teenagers a musical experience that in literally millions of very intense set had of relationships, built on faith each other’s skills, musicians since have you daydreamed about.

What would have been and respect for what each make.

Essentially all ofitmy strongest like to be at were Abbeyforged Road when The Beatles were recording the White friendships by working together in bands, publications, Album?

How much wouldthe youtheatrical give to have access to the piano that or art projects (I’ll admit, presentation was a first).

Paul played “Lady OrCab the For microphones

That’s also theMadonna” way I met on?

Death Cutie, way and backtechniwhen. I cians who made theand guitars sound way infor “And I Lovemagazine, Her” — the was playing music writing andthat designing a music same guys whoand helped record both Revolver Pink Floyd’s Dark a lot like now, stumbled across their veryand first demo cassette, Side of it the Moon?

Theeven Beatles didn’t We actually play on(IThe Aerovons’ before was actually released. met, talked think I wrote album, but thestory guestabout starsthem), on theand album were musical celebrities the very first eventually my band took them nonetheless: all that recognizable gear! out on their very firstbeautiful, tour, andinstantly they’ve been doing justtone fineand since then, I’ve been looking forward to learning more about The Aerovons thankyouverymuch. ever since I started of Eleven, and I’m pleased to

It’s a funny kindas ofeditor pleasure to be editing a very different music present this geekcity, freakout the July issue.

My thanks magazine in music a different manyinyears later, and find myselfto still Jordan Heimburger suchmy careful listening and scholarship, and to spreading the wordfor about friends, still happy for their accomFerd for taking time to givetoustheir the backstory. look forward plishments, andthe still listening new albumI— their eighthto talking with himInext learn more about hisatdays now, amazingly. look to forward to their show the backing Pageant.a young John Mellencamp!

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find a pencil.

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 5

This Month in the History of Now

AND THE BEAST

Now through August 4, The Dark Room in Midtown is showing a powerful exhibition of photographs by Santiago Blanco. The show, called Chronicle Ferguson, is meant to be a prelude to a book of images by dozens of photographers documenting their view of past and present upheaval in that city.

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PHOTO BY JESS LUTHER

WHERE IS MY MIND? Speedy Ortiz at Firebird , June 2.

IDEAS AS MY MAPS HOW IS IT THAT sometimes the coolest things can stay hidden from you for far too long? ROCK’S BACKPAGES (www. rocksbackpages.com) has been around for some 15 years now, and somehow I’m just finding about this now. If your shelves look anything like mine — books filled with music articles, dozens of rock biographies, endless back issues of Rolling Stone and Spin and Mojo — you’ll be just as shocked as me at what a crazy cool resource you’ve been missing out on. Maddening!

But so it goes. Fortunately, my consternation didn’t prevent me from getting sucked right down this rabbit hole for a few days, reading all kinds of amazing stories from the last 60 years of popular music from every major music publication that ever put print to paper in both America and in the United Kingdom. So much free content

— and a simple subscription process! Once you’re hooked in, you can read which would then include interviews and criticism about, say, Adam Ant from 1984, or The Band from 1971, a conversation with My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields from 1992, or a previously unpublished 1975 essay on The Doors by the original music maniac Lester Bangs.

There are hundreds of free articles covering every genre and every era... and there are thousands more behind the paywall.

The free stuff is a great resource, but it’s just a gateway drug for true music journalism junkies like myself. The subscription price is fairly steep ­— $90 for 3 months, $200 for the year — but when they promise “over 27,000 classic articles on artists from Aaliyah to ZZ Top,” you know that you’re getting the good stuff straight from the dealer. HUGH SCOTT

A GOOD REPLICATION REPUTATION THEY MAY HAVE just opened their doors in March, but already Music Record Shop in The Grove has begun to leave its mark on the St. Louis music community. Owner Mark Carter opened the shop with much more in mind than just a spot for vinylheads to gather, listen and shop for new wax.

Carter arrived in St. Louis from Southern California, where he spent 15 years in the recording replication business pricing out and streamlining the physical manufacturing of CDs, records, and various music-based projects. This is an often-overlooked but crucial detail for independent musicians. How, for instance, do you weight price against quality when you’re trying to decide who to have replicate your CDs — or even more crucially, your vinyl? Who knows which companies have the most reliable reputation, the best (or worst) customer service, real quality control, key special offers?

Mark Carter may be your guy. In an effort to get STL pumping out the best possible musical products, he is now offering up his expertise and experience to local artists to help them navigate this often overlooked, but very important, aspect of the music business. His goal is to help bands find the right replication services for the right price, and helping them maximize their efforts – like using overruns on CDs or tapes as a bonus offer with concert tickets for their fans and other similar giveaways. Smart!

And, in addition to the consulting on duplication, the shop is also assisting artists in printing and packaging. This all fits into the Music Record Shop mission of making things easier for St. Louis bands to succeed. Already, the shop buys local music outright, rather than on consignment, and they carry as much St. Louis-born music as they can fit into the cozy shop. Taken together, these efforts can help give STL bands a leg up over other cities. Nice. HUGH SCOTT

nebulastl.com

.com

Unconventional workspace for the unconventionally employed

mobile • web • branding

located on Cherokee Street in STL 815-535-7908 elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 7

Points East What’s happening on the coast by Alex Tebeleff

Welcome to Babe City related. It’s a grey area.

Why did you recently change the name of your label from Chimes Records?

To quote our Peter Lillis of Babe City Records: “We’ve been living double lives.

Babe City, our home, and Chimes Records, our business, were always closely aligned.

Chimes bands played our basement, recorded on our equipment, put their unwashed dishes back in our cabinet. It was fine for a while, because we knew Chimes and BCDC were synonymous. But you know what? Fuck synonyms. We want THE SAME. Our home, our name, our bands, our records; your money. What could be better? Babe City Records: Because It Just Makes Sense.”

Witch Coast.

ONE OF THE BIGGEST missing pieces in the DC music scene is current, active, and ambitious labels. Influential labels from the past like Dischord focus mostly on reissues, promising labels like Sockets Records have disappeared, and though there are a few labels that really help DC musicians put out records, most tend to be geared towards the local audience.

BABE CITY RECORDS, formally known as Chimes Records, is the newest label from DC, and certainly the most ambitious at the moment. I spoke with Babe City Records founder Jon Weiss, a musician himself in the DC scene in bands like The Sea Life and Witch Coast, to get an idea of what Babe City Records is all about.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL ANDRADE

What gave you the idea to start Babe City Records?

Babe City Records originally started out as an idea with my good friend Homero Salazar from Go Cozy while we were working and living together in late 2014. We were talking about all the different record labels we respected and admired, fantasizing about which ones we would want to represent our bands, and realized at some point that if we had the capacity to do it ourselves, why shouldn’t we? Coincidentally, around the same month our good friends in the band Young Rapids expressed discontent with shopping around their unreleased LP they spent two years recording, and wanted to work with a label internally, and one they could trust. The alternative being to signing off their pride and joy to a foreign label with crossed fingers. In some form or another, the label was launched to promote the Young Rapids LP Pretty Ugly, which we released on March 7 of this year. Since that campaign, we expanded to a team of seven,

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have three releases in the pipeline by fall, and expanded to a roster of six artists, that will continue to grow as we do. I also run the label with our label manager and co-owner Erik Strander.

Do you view your bands, house venue, and label as separate entities, or as closely related parts of a whole musical enterprise?

First off, I wouldn’t exactly say we’re an “enterprise,” or a corporation, or barely even a business. Our model doesn’t exactly reflect any of these; our goal is sustainability with a growing roster. Our house venue, Babe City, is a practice space for our bands, a recording studio for analog, incubation center for new music and artists, and a place to offer show swaps with out-of-state bands to help build connections in other cities while showcasing DC. The bands I’m in are mostly on the label, but that’s because I love all the music so much, it would be hard picturing any of our bands being released through another imprint. So I guess to answer the question: they are separate, but they are all directly

Tell us a bit about the specific bands on the label and why you chose them.

To make it simple, we curated our roster so every band offers something different, but only to the extent that every band would always make sense on a bill together, aurally and aesthetically.

How’s the music scene in DC? What role do you see for Babe City in that scene?

The music scene in DC right now is blossoming more than ever, with many bands beginning to tour out of state and receive national attention. I think the DC scene is incredible, but in order to grow further, DC needs to make noise outside of our scene, which is why I think out-of-state growth is so crucial to the success of bands in DC, and the perception of DC as a music hub in general. Babe City is one of the many house venues in DC, and we try to foster growth of our artists just as much as providing The thing that excites me the most about Babe City Records is that you are an active musician running the label. Any advice to other musicians who are thinking about starting their own label?

My only advice is be aware that you can’t start a record label without it affecting your own band’s time and growth. I neglected a lot of my own music getting the label launched and during heavy moments of campaigns, so it’s easy to lose sight of your own goals for your artists’ goals. Besides that, it’s been an incredibly trying, fun and difficult ride, and I wouldn’t take back one day of it. I’ve learned so much in the past six months since starting the label, and I know this is just the beginning. I also think a vital element to the success of our first campaign was the fact that I was pushing for a band that wasn’t my own — this gave me incentive not to let them down, because sometimes letting yourself down is easier.

Futurism

WATCHERR

by Curtis Tinsley

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 9

Puzzles

Style Sheet

by Patrick Blindauer

54 The planets, e.g.

ACROSS

1 Frame part 5 Most-wanted guests 10 “The Four ____” (“Tell Me Why” singers) 14 Edison’s middle name 15 Casserole pasta

1

55 C omedian who said, “How many people here have telekinetic powers? Raise my hand”

17 Informal group discussion 19 Maui feast 20 Fury 21 W hat some opinions are worth?

3

4

5

14

6

17

23

64 Speak of the devil, maybe

31

65 The Jets or the Sharks

36

10

24

21

25

34

35

58

59

30

32

33

37

38

39

41

42

23 Makes, as dough

1 Tipping point?

26 Italian city whose name is the basis for a brown color

2 Tenn. neighbor

47

27 Oolong or pekoe

3 A thletic standout, for short

51

28 Minor ruckuses

4 Sink bowls

54

55

29 Sporty transportation

5 S emicircular part of a church

60

61

62

6 Guitar hero Paul

63

64

65

31 “____ Semper Tyrannis” (Virginia motto)

13

27

29

44

48

12

22

26

43

11

19

40

DOWN

9

18

28

63 Put into piles

8

16

20

61 Divide evenly

7

15

60 False facts 62 Song for Sills

16 ___ tie

2

45

46

49

50

52

53 56

57

32 “Hogwash!”

7 O.K., in a way

33 Bonnie’s partner in crime

8 Misled

36 “Starpeace” performer

9 Wood joint parts

30 “Bingo ____ Yale” (Porter song)

38 Part of PETA

10 Equipped

32 Magnum, for one

46 You might pick it up on the way to Europe

40 “My Fair Lady” track

11 Private golfing facility

34 Intimidate

47 People people

41 Confederacy color

12 Cheer greatly

35 Santa’s crew

48 Collectible

42 Informal Valentine word

13 March composer of note

37 Winning tic-tac-toe line

50 1976 charge for G.W.B.

43 Ladies’ man

18 IV sites 22 Like some tunes

38 Redhead who colonized Greenland

52 “Over here!”

46 ____ Carter Cash (Johnny’s wife) 47 Here, in Tours

23 Unchallenging course

39 Eastern philosophical ideal

56 Low-ranking GI

49 Pale purple color

24 “Farewell, amigo”

41 Breakfast cereal

50 They’re outstanding

25 Extreme sport participant

44 Cab Calloway catch phrase

57 “I Got Rhythm” lyricist Gershwin

51 Burdened with

26 Concerto highlight

53 “King ____” (Steve Martin song)

29 Series of performances

45 Roberto with 10 Gold Gloves

MusiCrytogram

by Patrick Blindauer

©2015 BY PATRICK BLINDAUER

Decode this lyric by Wanda Jackson, in which every letter has been substituted for a different letter. The title of the song that the lyric is from is also given.

_ _ _ _ , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _’ _ _ D T N N , H F T S U J R N Z E H U G N R W Z H V U U N / N T H W U A J M AW P K U D W U A’ J T _ _ _ _ _ _ ’_ _ _ _ _ — “_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _” KUCUXW’E QUUN — “FUH XUM HFRH SRXT FZS SRX” Answers to both puzzles will appear in next month’s issue of Eleven.

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53 You, biblically

58 Green marker?

59 Droop LAST MONTH’S ANSWERS

I C E I C A T HO I N SO L P A CH A I N ROD T OOMP H WH I T E D A T A S T S R I H P E R F E AMOE B T I NWA S T Y R

O D E S S A H O L E C A R D

N E S S I N F T OR OU DD E A R T S S E A

P L A N E

T A N G I B A L S E S T R H CO I D T E I S

S K I N N Y S N E E R S A T

AM I E B E D MA T E O T E S E D T E SMOG T A F F A D A L AGA L ME T E A Y SO R S U P L E T

I’m not bossy, I’m the boss. Shooter, not the shot...

Captain, not a crony. So if you wanna row you better have an awfully big boat. – “Raising the Skate”

American Paranoid Society Spouting off and listening in by Denmark Laine

The real kids in the street

PHOTO BY JOHN WILLEY

BAD DATES and the St. Louis rock scene, too small to fail CHEROKEE STREET HAS always been a hoard of rags, riches and outright weirdness. Among the pearls and swine that Cherokee had to offer in the recent past was the late, great Apop Records, a music mecca for the audiophile with a flair for the fringe, selling back catalogs of used vinyl, snuff VHS tapes, rare band collectibles and other underground ephemera.

Apop catered to being in with the out crowd, so it only made sense that the record shop became a petri dish for vandals with instruments, dangerous, off-the-radar and definitely not FDA approved.

The core members of Bad Dates, Gabe Karabell and Mark Willey, originally met while Karabell was working at Apop and Willey was living in a rented room upstairs. They were introduced by Mark’s roommate, Apop’s former owner and operator, Tiffany Minx. The guys bonded over the fact that they were both fans of the Kim Fowley-produced L.A. glam band The Quick. A later incarnation of Bad Dates would actually perform a cover of The Quick’s hit song “Pretty Please,” placing them in a long punker tradition of other bands, like The Dickies and Redd Kross, who have also covered this tune.

Most of their musical influences at first seemed pretty straightforward: Reagan Youth, The Unseen, Slade, Johnny Thunders. However, when we met to talk about the band, every other name they dropped threw a serious curveball into my preconceived notions of what a punk band listens to: Sparks, Roxy Music and other oddities that seemed too lightweight, too swish for a bunch of garage rippers out to wreak havoc on their amps. Then again, Iggy Pop revered bubblegum girl groups seemingly as divorced from the harsh realities of rock as you can get, like The Ronettes and The Shangri-Las; so did the Ramones and The Jesus And Mary Chain. They cast wide the net, and cultivate an appreciation for different musical genres of every feather and stripe.

Bad Dates has been together in one form or another for three years now, and have yet to produce so much as an EP. The only merch offered on their website, donttouchmyrecords.bandcamp.com, is a demo cassette tape with four songs. You heard me: three years and all they have to show

for it are four songs recorded on such an obscure medium they might as well have put them on an 8-track. Don’t misunderstand, my frustration comes from the right place: I love their music. I want more of it. I want it out there for the frenzied masses to consume like pigs in zen. They’re the kind of band that I want to see more of around town. However, in our conversation I discovered that my ambitions for the band stood in sharp contrast to their own total lack of interest in going to the next level.

“We work in bars during the day, go to shows at night,” said Karabell. “We only play because we like to rock.” Bad Dates’ natural environment is a sweaty basement charged with teen pheromones that scuttle off the walls faster than the silverfish that permeate the dank recesses, and they are perfectly content to stay there. They’re more interested in performance than career advancement, in free beer than the standard-issue rock fantasy of fame and money.

They’re the disenfranchised face of a tragic after-school special, yes, maybe even a little pissed off (on stage at least), who are all about putting the FU in fun. They’re here to ride the high, throw monster live shows and party with friends.

Thus, for all their ramshackle appeal and aggression, they have yet to make a lasting dent outside of South City.

And that’s ok, but it’s like Rocky Balboa saying he doesn’t want to fight. These kids are the real deal. Heavyweight champs in the making. They could be contenders. I want them where they belong: in the ring, no holds barred.

Bad Dates has got the goods to become a true mainstay in the strata of St. Louis

punkdom, and would serve as a welcome cold-cock in the face to this folk-enthused hamlet that musically never got over the Great Depression. Need proof of their legitimacy? Bob Reuter himself gave his stamp of approval when he asked them if his Alley Ghost could close their first gig at CBGB on September 10, 2012.

That said, Bad Dates’ demo tape is as powerful as a stainless steel hard-on. At the epicenter of its vintage sound is their retrofitted 1970s roots, which lends their gutted, muscular rock its full-throttle authenticity. They harken back to a prehistoric era when savage beasts in black leather roamed in packs outside Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco, looking for booze or a brawl, leaving broken dreams and various bodily fluids in their wake. Karabell’s raunchy electric guitar comes on like a hand running up a skirt. They combine the brute strength of The Dictators (via “Slow Death”) with the propulsive energy of the Dead Boys live. The agile, destructive potency coursing through these tracks is a tribute in blood, sweat and raw nerve.

What’s next for the band? My vote is for someone (someone more musclebound and menacing than me) to hog-tie them, lock them in a studio, and force them to crank out a killer LP.

This is music that lives in a tough, dirty, sleazy, hard town. No one thinks of Napoleon when it comes to punk rock manifestos, but the French Emperor returning from war sent a note to his wife which displayed the prototypical punk rock attitude toward life: “Dear Josephine, home in three days, don’t wash.”

Give it to me dirty, is the message; don’t hold back or try to clean it up.

Bad Dates aren’t trying to cop any particular trend; as a matter of fact they pride themselves on being a bone in the throat to status seekers in the more established venues. They’ll sooner throw a 4am gig or play to a half-empty basement before they’d pretty up their image or kowtow to big promoters. With their graphic, pull-nopunches performance and pure, uncut mojo, they represent a return to the very godhead of punk.

Unite and conquer, boys. Bring this city to its knees.

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 11

PHOTO BY JARRED GASTREICH

The Big Comeback After winning hearts with Union Tree Review, TAWAINE NOAH slipped out of the hot seat. Now he’s back in the saddle.

by Rev. Daniel W. Wright

PHOTO BY JARRED GASTREICH

TO BE BLUNT: I blame Tawaine Noah. I blame him for sending me down the rabbit hole that is the St. Louis music scene.

I remember distinctly that moment when he invited me to come see his band at the time, Circus Window, at this place down in the Delmar Loop called the Red Sea. They were opening for some shitty nü-metal wannabe band with a lead singer that was trying to look like Fred Durst and a bass player that had a GIT-R-DONE sticker on his bass. Who would ruin such a beautiful instrument with such an atrocity?

But before this nü-metal band hit the stage, Circus Window went on, playing a weird, not yet fully developed variation on electropop. The defining moment was when they played a song (unfortunately never recorded) called “Feet.” Noah’s charisma approached James Brown levels. He was clearly stealing the show. A few days later, I was still riding the high of that show and went to see them again at Cicero’s. From

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that point on, I never looked back.

I first met Tawaine Noah in high school during my senior year, which was his freshman year. I really didn’t know who he was (what senior really gives a crap about a freshman?), but he did stand out in my mind, mostly because I was busy being a curmudgeon and hating everything and somewhere along the course of the day, he would say hello and wish me a good day. Goddammit,

can’t the world just let teenagers hate the world in peace?!

But I’m glad he didn’t leave me alone, because over the years I’ve gotten to know a great person, fantastic songwriter and good friend. Through the years, be it as a member of early bands The Cast and Circus Window, brief side project It Could Only Be Dynamite, early solo project Acrobatic Bear, to his run as front man of Union Tree Review and drummer for Amen Lucy Amen, Tawaine Noah has grown as a songwriter and a musician. His is definitely the journeyman’s path.

Now, after a brief excursion to the Pacific Northwest, Noah is back home and ready to stand on the shoulders of his own name and show the world what he’s fully capable of.

Since Noah got back to St. Louis this May, rumors have being trailing him. The main one is elegantly, frustratingly simple: that he’s “planning something big.” I’d tried getting in touch with Tawaine, but he can be awfully slippery; things were touch and go until we finally arranged for me to visit the spot near Off Broadway where he’s been practicing.

When I arrive, I can hear the band

playing through the door, and the familiar Tawaine twang of his guitar. After knocking on the door for about twenty minutes, I’m finally let in and he, drummer Steve Larson, and bassist Nick Horn are listening to a demo Tawaine recorded, called “We Never Land.”

A year ago, Tawaine had played me a demo of just the melody, expressing his desire to be more experimental with his songwriting.

That desire seems to have come to fruition.

As I sit in the cramped practice space that is otherwise headquarters for Traveling Sound Machine, I have one question: how the hell do six people fit in here for practice? Seriously, it’s got to be like the state room scene from A Night at the Opera. One part Gorillaz and one part Death Cab, the song is a clear harbinger of a new direction Noah is taking — one where he bows to no person or social pressure, making music that is increasingly personal and personable.

After a short break, everyone reconvenes to learn another new song, titled “In Distant Cities.” It’s a much shorter song, at just over a minute long. As of this rehearsal, it’s what Tawaine wants to open the show with. The next song, “Here Is the River,” is to be the second song in the show, and both the lyrics and music evoke the finer moments of the Kerouac novel Big Sur, of driving to the sea and feeling at one with the world. Next up is “Electrify,” a song that Noah briefly performed live during the few solo shows he played last year. With each song, Larson and Horn bring the music to life, lifting the songs from words and melodies into the “something big” that has been promised, and there’s all the potential in the world crammed in that tiny practice space.

The last song they work on is the Union Tree Review song “In a Puddle,” from that band’s final EP, Enjoy the Weather. It’s good to learn that Noah hasn’t disowned his previous music, and is keeping a connection to the work that established his reputation in St. Louis.

With a recent spot at the RFT Showcase in the Grove, and the unveiling of his next musical iteration at Off Broadway on July 23, Noah’s definitely carving himself a new place in the St. Louis scene. We sat down for a conversation about what it means to leave a place, and what it means to return.

How does it feel to be back in St. Louis?

It feels great. It feels comfortable. Right now, I’ve been staying with family and friends, but it feels comfortable, and to get the love back from people I’ve missed is so fantastic. Makes me all the more glad I came back.

What was your reasons for leaving St. Louis?

(Laughs) The reason I left is probably the same reason I write music. It was just a need to release some tension that I had definitely built up over some time. Some tension that I oddly enough couldn’t release through music.

Also, there was just this desire to remove myself from a situation that I’m so used to being in, and so love being in, and just go off into the unknown. Portland, as odd as it might be to some, was the unknown for me.

You’ve somewhat avoided the limelight since the demise of Union Tree Review in late 2013. What were the reasons that brought about the end of that band and why did you back away from the limelight?

I wouldn’t say I stepped away from it but… I guess I did. But it was to recollect myself as a musician and as a person. I knew when the band was over I wanted to keep going, but I kinda had to lick my wounds for a second. I had told a lot of people months before the end of the band that the band was ending because, y’know, I just felt it.

Union Tree Review, to me, was a very personal project because it was everything

Tawaine Noah, Elevator Museick, F.L.Y. Thursday, July 23 OFF BROADWAY

I’d wanted to do since I started playing music. When the end came, it fizzled away very slowly. First we lost a bassist, and then a drummer. He had quit because he and I had sort of become at odds creatively, so we just decided to part ways, more or less. Then there was just me, Jenn [Rudisill, violin], and Jordan [Howe, guitar, now in Bo And The Locomotive], and I think from there the dedication just wasn’t there. We bounced back with a new bassist and a new drummer, who I knew was mostly temporary.

When it was over, I knew I had to start again but I didn’t just want to jump straight back into it. So I wanted to step back to relaunch myself the way I wanted to.

While you were regrouping, you became the drummer for Amen Lucy Amen. How did that come about, and what were your experiences in that band?

I’ve always wanted to try my hand at being a drummer. It was a cool invitation in the first place to be offered to do that, and Amen Lucy Amen was a good thing for me because the rhythms were simple. It was a two-piece kit.

(Laughs) It was easy for me to jump into the role of a drummer and for once, I could just enjoy myself. I didn’t have to be the decision maker or the songwriter. I didn’t have to get people together. I could just come in and do it, which was a complete 180 from my time in Union Tree Review. If I had gone right back into writing after Union Tree Review, I wouldn’t be as prepared as I am now. I needed a break from my own thing.

You did a handful of low-key solo shows in 2014. Do you feel you gained much from doing those shows?

Yeah. I knew I still wanted to do my stuff so, it was kinda like I was putting my toe in the water. I wanted to still stay in people’s minds and besides all that, I just love playing live. Plus, since Union Tree Review broke up right as our last EP came out, we never really got a chance to play any of those songs live, and I really love those batch of songs. Those five songs especially were a case of my being able to hone in on a particular sort of sound that I have been going after for such a long time. Those songs were so meaningful to me and really were a benchmark for me. They were and are still very special to me.

What made you decide to go solo this time around instead of just starting a new band?

(Smiles) It’s easier. (Laughs) The thing I love about having a band is being able to collaborate. I love collaborating. I love seeing things take off in directions I never would have thought of. I love spending so much time writing out these songs and then running them through the filters of two or three or four or five other people, and letting them interpret it too, and then put all those interpretations together and pick out the best parts and make a song better.

Those years in Union Tree Review were really great. The band really didn’t end on the best of terms but those times were really great. One of the great words in the English language is “perspective.” Perspective is everything! It’s so interesting to me to work on a project for so long and then get a different perspective on it. And even though I’m not in a formal band with a name and all that, I love just getting good players together and working on things.

You’ve stated that you want to do “something big.” What is this thing, and what brought about the desire to do it?

When I was in Portland, I was already planning on coming back around this time. Then I got nominated for an RFT Award, so that kind of expedited things. I’ve never really had a better crowd for my music than in St. Louis.

It’s given me so much love over the years. But I didn’t just want to come back and just do a show at the Firebird and do a show at Off Broadway and quickly just fall sort of back in line with things. I want it to be a bigger deal.

I want to make it count. I don’t want to give people “just another show.” I want people to come and remember it when they leave. I want people to get their money’s worth.

It’s going to be 17 original songs. It’s going to be theatrical. There’s going to be a change of wardrobe or two. There will be a visual aspect to it. It’ll be more than just “come on out and see me play.” We’re going to transform Off Broadway to a 360 degree spectacle.

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Across the (Par Even if you’ve never heard The Aerovons’ Resurrection, you know all the tones from The Beatles’ catalog. How did four kids from St. Louis get access to the world’s most enviable studio at the height of its powers?

by Jordan Heimburger

ABOVE: The Aerovons at work in Abbey Road Studios. RIGHT: The Aerovons on their first trip to London in February 1978, freshly outfitted in their Carnaby togs. From left: Nolan Mendenhall, Bob “Ferd” Frank, Tom Hartman, and Mike Lombardo. Manager Maurine Hartman is almost certainly the photographer.

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IN 1969, The Aerovons, a band of four St. Louis teenagers, walked into Abbey Road Studios and recorded an album that sounds today like it came from an alternate reality.

They were drawn to London by their love of The Beatles’ music, evident in the sound of their recordings and songwriting, and they walked through doors opened as much by their talent as they were opened by the resolve and acumen of singer/guitarist Tom Hartman’s mom, Maurine Hartman, acting as their manager.

If you haven’t heard this story before, you’re not alone. Almost no one knows the tale of The Aerovons’ adventures in the most famous studio in the world at one of its most significant moments: the tumultuous but historic recording process that resulted in the White Album. And they weren’t just present — this foursome of St. Louis high schoolers were

rallel) Universe on site to record their own debut album in the same rooms, with the same engineers, on the same instruments, through the same mics as their heroes The Beatles.

So how did this singular moment in St. Louis music history slip out of the history books? The short answer is that, following the completion of that album, the label decided not to release the music, the band split up, and the record was shelved indefinitely ­­— until finally, in 2003, a division of EMI called RPM Records released The Aerovons’ sole album under the title Resurrection.

For any committed Beatles fan, listening to Resurrection is a surreal series of doubletakes: the actual sonic palette of Beatles-era Abbey Road is as obvious as the influence of The Beatles’ actual songs on the Aerovons’ songwriting and arrangements. The stories

these St. Louis teenagers lived are mindboggling — running into George Harrison in the halls of Abbey Road and getting his advice on guitar tones, goofing around with Beatles roadie Mal Evans, sneaking into the gear storage room to play The Beatles’ own instruments, borrowing a guitar cable from John Lennon, peeking through a window to watch the end of a live take of “Yer Blues,” and other impossible rock and roll dreams come true.

LANDING THE DEAL THE FIRST TRACK on Resurrection, “World of You,” is also the song that landed The Aerovons three recording contract offers.

Having established themselves in the St. Louis area playing high school dances and American Legion gigs (which had mostly

been booked by Maurine Hartman), the band — Tom Hartman on vocals and guitar, Bob “Ferd” Frank on guitar and backing vox, Mike Lombardo on drums, and Nolan Mendenhall on bass and backing vox — were encouraged by their mom-manager to write an original song to shop to record companies. So Tom, who was primarily a guitar player but had a background of childhood piano lessons, sat down at their basement piano and wrote “World of You.” Maurine arranged time for them at the cheaper of the two professional recording studios in St. Louis at the time, Premier, and the band cut their first demo.

Maurine had proven herself a more than capable manager by booking the young band on the high-profile radio-station promotional event known as “The Last Train to Clarksville,” a round trip by rail from St.

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RECORDING THE ALBUM

Tom Hartman with Beatles roadie Mal Evans.

Louis to Clarksville with bands playing in each train car. At another gig, when the promoter didn’t honor their financial agreement, she pulled the band off stage mid-set in front of a packed house and they walked.

So when the phone rang some weeks after the Aerovons recorded their first demo, with a rep from Capitol Records on the other end expressing interest in the band, it’s only somewhat surprising that Maurine said thanks anyway, we’d like to go to England, and managed to get the surprised label rep to give her the name of a contact at EMI in London.

After some fundraising adventures, Maurine and the band got themselves to London in February of 1968 with an appointment at EMI. Young — at the time, most of the band was on leave from high school — naive, and essentially a cover band from middle America, the band benefitted from their manager’s brashness and the element of surprise: the staff of EMI were far more used to British bands demanding to go to America to record than fielding requests from Americans to record in England. By the time Maurine was done, the boys had secured a $30,000 recording budget for their coming album, taken a tour of Abbey Road, met George Harrison and Pink Floyd, visited Carnaby Road and Apple Records, and slipped into the infamous hipster joint the Speakeasy, where they met both Paul McCartney and Jimi Hendrix. On their second London visit — only Tom and Maurine could make the second trip to ink the deal – Tom heard the strains of “Sexy Sadie” on playback in the studio’s halls, and had a pint and a jam session with The Hollies.

Then Tom, Ferd, Mike, and Nolan returned to Bayless High in St. Louis to finish the school year and write an album.

They were due in a few months at Abbey Road, after all.

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WHEN THE BAND DID return to London to record, the lineup had changed. Mike Lombardo’s brother Billy had been swapped in for Mendenhall on bass. They were also down another significant member: guitarist Bob “Ferd” Frank, who feared he was about to be drafted and didn’t want to ruin The Aerovons’ chances at success by having them rehearse with him if he couldn’t be at the actual sessions.

So they arrived in England with Phil Edholm on guitar instead.

Their adventures in the studio were many. They had three months to record the album, which started at a leisurely pace but sped up as their deadline approached. They recorded mostly in Studio 2, decamping to the much larger Studio 3 when The Beatles showed up (which was rarely on schedule or with any warning) to claim their favored room. They worked around The Beatles, which often meant at night and at overtime rates for their engineers, but included the benefit that they would occasionally get to hear playback on Beatles songs in progress.

In addition, since they worked with the same engineers who were working with The Beatles, they were sometimes able to bend the rules enough to gain access to the instruments they knew well from their favorite records.

Edholm didn’t work out, so the band had to make allowances and get the music finished without him. Meanwhile, they had their share of adventures in the legendary landscape of Swinging London in 1969, including a jam session with The Hollies, and getting to see The Beatles singing in the studio. But most importantly, they got to work with Emerick, Jarratt, and Parsons, who had been working with The Beatles through their huge learning curve that changed the course of popular music.

THE SOUNDS THE IMMACULATE SONIC fingerprint of late ’60s Abbey Road is impossible to miss from the first notes of “World of You.” It opens with a melancholy piano figure followed by an unmistakable sound – a double-tracked vocal, massaged by the circuits of a Neumann U-67 condenser mic, through Abbey Road’s custom EMI mixing console and into a 3M eight-track tape machine. The Aerovons’ sessions at Abbey Road were engineered by Geoff Emerick, Jeff Jarrat and Alan Parsons, all of whom worked with Beatles production guru George Martin, and helped to invent and refine the recording techniques that created The Beatles’ signature sounds — and

were, in fact, recording The Beatles on the days they weren’t recording The Aerovons.

As Hartman finishes the second line of vocals, drummer Mike Lombardo starts in on a syncopated marching rhythm around the kit, panning from right to left in the stereo mix, achieving an effect that can only be described as Ringo-esque. That drum fill leads into the next section of the song, supported by a wonderfully familiar bass tone and a prominent string arrangement.

On this song, the strings are the most noticeable sonic divergence from the Beatles’ palette, filling more space and with a more melodically driven arrangement than The Beatles would tend to have when the full rock band is also playing, aside from perhaps the Phil Spector additions on the original release of the album Let It Be (later removed on the Beatles-approved Let It Be...

Naked). As a song, “World of You” doesn’t so much evoke the Beatles’ songwriting influence as much as it uncannily summons the sounds of the Abbey Road recordings, but the Beatles’ songwriting influence is more obvious on the following tracks.

Title track “Resurrection” opens with a double-time feel, dominated by what sounds like a Mellotron on the French Accordion setting, before settling into a song structure and melody highly evocative of “Across the Universe.” Frequent transitions between the double-time feel and a 4/4 rock beat pair with a bouncy, melodic bassline, the hallmark of the McCartney style, played by Bill Lombardo, punctuated by jangly acoustic guitar and tambourine hits.

On the Aerovons’ website, Tom Hartman tells the story of running into George Martin during a session at Abbey Road and asking to borrow a tambourine. Martin replies that he’ll have to ask “the boys” about it, meaning The Beatles of course, before returning with the instrument to lend. I have to wonder whether this is the track it ended up on. “Resurrection” fades out under the sound of an airplane landing, and I could swear it’s the same plane that lands at the beginning of “Back in the USSR.”

“Say Georgia” is a 12/8 blues rocker that’s a dead ringer for the White Album’s “Oh! Darling,” if a little faster and lacking the bridge, and plus an aggressive horn section. Now, lots of bands have taken inspiration from “Oh! Darling”s earworm melody, but those bands didn’t have access to the same piano, drum mics, and vocal tones that The Beatles were using at the same time.

So even though you might well know “Oh! Darling” way down in your bones, the sound of the horns and the keys and the backing vocals makes you question reality, because it’s not just the melody you know well, it’s everything about the song tonally. The effect is so severe as to be disorienting — it feels authentic because it is authentic.

The sound of seagulls and rolling waves

open the song “With Her,” followed by an acoustic guitar line closely related to the one that defines The Beatles’ “And I Love Her.” The harmonic structure of “With Her” is equal parts Beatles and Beach Boys to my ear, moving quickly from key to key under a relaxed and introspective-sounding doubletracked vocal.

“Quotes and Photos” is another swinging 12/8 feel, with a well-crafted bassline that at one point mimics the high descending line Paul rips on the outro of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, with bluesy guitar leads panning from right to left and back throughout the tune.

Seagulls get the honors again at the beginning of “Words from a Song,” a three-feel ballad carried by steady piano arpeggios and lush vocal harmonies, with a brief guitar solo and a layer of strings. Piano, bass and cymbals transition to 4/4 for the ending section, a classical-feeling progression of arpeggios, until a final, string-supported chord that fades along with lingering gulls and metronomic cymbal bells to what would likely have been the end of side A.

Side B of Resurrection opens with an elephant trumpeting and the gasp of a crowd before launching into “Bessy Goodheart,” a backbeat ragtime that fits somewhere between “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” and the fast section of “You Never Give Me Your Money,” although faster in tempo than either. It’s playful and full of vocal adlibs like those heard on some of The Beatles’ later recordings.

The rest of the album plays out in a similar fashion. I hear bits of “Michelle,” the uptempo section of “I’m So Tired,” the extremely charismatic piano of “Lady Madonna,” the acoustic guitar tones from “Bungalow Bill,” and a number of other familiar melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and production elements that are quintessentially Beatles.

But: it would be a mistake to reduce Resurrection to just being a Beatles knock-off. The Aerovons were teenagers making their first album, experimenting with the sounds of the time, riffing on the innovations made by The Beatles musically and their approach to using the recording studio as an instrument. With so many striking similarities between The Aerovons’ songs and those of The Beatles, it’s obvious The Beatles’ music had an overwhelming influence on Tom Hartman and the Aerovons’ songs — but the same susceptibility can be said of the early Beatles, who owed as much to Chuck Berry and Little Richard when they were starting out.

Resurrection was written and recorded at a time in music history when bands started with what they knew and were given time to develop a voice of their own. The Beatles played six-hour-long nightly cover gigs for a month in Hamburg, honing their craft before developing original material, and the Rolling Stones’ first five albums have a max of one or two original songs each. After the Aerovons split up and EMI shelved Resurrection, Tom Hartman was invited back to London to make another record, as well as to LA to continue his career as an original artist on another label. His path led him in a different direction, but The Aerovons’ record is by no means a throwaway or a novelty: more than anything, it’s an amazing document of a St. Louis band’s Through the Looking Glass experience. To judge the album by its similarity to the music of The Beatles is to miss the point: Resurrection is incontrovertible proof of a dream come true — a dream shared by millions of fervent musicians and music fans across almost 50 years of loving the band who lies at the very heart of modern Western music. Through a combination of bravado and sheer luck, the young members of The Aerovons were granted a dream it isn’t even possible to wish for anymore: to write and play music in the halls of the music gods, playing with the same tools that they were using to invent the vocabulary of contemporary pop music.

And if the Aerovons had stuck together and Resurrection had been released, who knows what the next evolution would have been for them? If Tom Hartman had chosen to pursue a career as a recording artist, rather than following a career producing music for film and television, again, who knows? What’s certain is that these St. Louis boys lived something countless Beatles fans have dreamed about, working next door to their idols during some of the most iconic recording sessions in rock music history and living the fantasy of countless musicians and music lovers world wide.

Tom Hartman tells a story on the richly entertaining Aerovons website, aerovons. com, about sneaking into The Beatles’ studio late at night with Alan Parsons, their engineer for that and many late night sessions, to “borrow” their electric piano.

There’s only one song with electric piano that I can pick out on Resurrection — “She’s Not Dead” — and it’s the back story that makes listening to that song, and the rest of the album, an especially thrilling and fascinating experience.

There’s a place: Abbey Road Studios ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS is one of music’s most legendary places, best known today as the studio where The Beatles changed the face of popular music, transforming the recording studio from a place that merely captures performances to a place where new sounds and textures in music were created that couldn’t have existed before. But before it was the epicenter of a musical revolution, Abbey Road Studios was created to record the high art of the day.

3 Abbey Road in the St. John’s Wood neighborhood of North London was originally a nine-bedroom mansion built in the 1830s.

It began its transformation into the world’s first custom recording studio, EMI studios, in the summer of 1927 under the vision of Captain Osmond “Ozzy” Williams. It wasn’t until 1970 that it was officially renamed Abbey Road Studios.

Its first recording session in November of 1931 was a performance of “Land of Hope and Glory” by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the piece’s composer, Sir Edward Elgar. It’s a remarkable recording, and English to the bone. After receiving applause on his way to the conductor’s podium, Elgar preps the orchestra for Abbey Road’s first recording: “Good morning, gentlemen. Glad to see you all. Very light programme this morning. Please play this tune as though you’ve never heard it before...”

During its early years, EMI Studios recorded mainly classical music. The atmosphere was serious and professional: men in white lab coats running in and out of various rooms, prepping equipment, operating the machine that cut direct to phonograph, only later transitioning to the industry standard from the late 1940s - 80s, magnetic tape machines.

It was at Abbey Road that Alan Blumlein developed the concept and implementation of modern stereo sound, submitting a patent application in December of 1931 which was accepted in 1933. Among the processes in his patent application was what has come to be known as a “Blumein pair”: two microphones set up at a 90 degree angle to each other in order to capture a sense of auditory space. These two audio sources would then be cut into two “walls” in the groove of a phonograph, at a 45 degree angle, reproducing the stereo image on replay. In 1934, Blumlein put his stereo techniques to use in a recording of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony at Abbey Road, and the “Blumlein pair” is still a familiar technique to recording professionals.

In 1939, King George VI delivered the famed “King’s Speech” from Abbey Road,

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In The Aerovons, over the sea Guitarist Bob “Ferd” Frank remembers his days in the life ence as a teenager in London.

Though he didn’t end up in the Abbey Road recording sessions, he did visit the studio on the band’s first trip to London, accompanied by their determined manager, Maurine Hartman — or “Mrs. Hartman,” as he calls her, befitting the mother of his friend. We sat down in his gallery to talk about the young band’s journey from the small clubs of St. Louis to the center of the music-recording universe.

PHOTO BY FERD

How did you come to join The Aerovons?

by Evan Sult ST. LOUIS MUSICIANS know the Crestwood patch of Watson Road well: it’s the path to Guitar Center, for better or worse one of the only instrument shops in St. Louis. But there’s no way to know that, when you drive pass one of the many automotive-themed strip malls on Watson, you pass a man in possession of three gold and one platinum records, a legacy of the time he spent as a guitarist in John Mellencamp’s band.

Bob “Ferd” Frank proves to be a man of many talents. He owns and runs Dent Squad, a “paintless dent removal service,” which also includes a small glass-fronted room labeled Ferdworks, which is where he displays a small selection from his decades of photography (many more of the images are visible on ferdworks.com). And he has an interesting past — even before he found himself in Mellencamp’s band, he was playing guitar in The Aerovons.

In person, Frank’s more friendly than either the life of an auto man or former pro guitarist might suggest. He’s charming and quick to laugh, and his gravelly voice has a characteristic Missouri inflection — when he refers to the time he met the guitarist of The Beatles, the name comes out something like “Jiarge Harrison.” He just recently hung

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his gold records on the wall, and placed a reproduction of a clipping from his Aerovons days on his desk. “We were seniors in high school,” he says, pointing at a photo in the clipping. “That’s me, that Harrison, that’s our drummer, and that’s Hartman.”

His time in The Aerovons doesn’t come up much, but he does remember those days well. Frank was born in 1950, and started working early at his dad’s body shop, in the days when cars were made of thick steel sheets. He learned to played guitar in middle school when he wasn’t at work. Like pretty much everyone else in the world, he was enthralled when he heard The Beatles on the radio, and he seems to share the sense of shock and awe that any listener experiences when he describes his experi-

ABOVE: Bob “Ferd” Frank at his photo gallery, Ferdworks, in Crestwood. RIGHT: One of the few surviving snapshots of The Aerovons’ first conversation with George Harrison. Hartman saw him in the booth above Studio Two, took a risk, and waved him down. When he learned they were booked to record at Abbey Road, Harrison obliged. The photos, they discovered upon their return to the US, had been overexposed. Maurine Hartman was so determined to have evidence of the trip that she consulted an FBI forensics specialist to get the best image possible.

I was going to Bayless High School, and Hartman came to Bayless from Mehlville.

He started a band. I already had a band named The Generations, after “My Generation” — we were Who freaks. My band was not a very serious band. Most of the players didn’t really want to work on it.

When Hartman put the Aerovons together, I wasn’t in it right away. And I just loved the way he played. I was like, “I’m gonna play with this guy. I’ll step down from lead and play rhythm with this guy.”

Then he approached me and I said I’m in.

I was a junior then. And then a year later we started playing out heavily. The Aardvarks and us, we were both sort of Beatle clone bands. The Aardvarks had Chuck Conners who managed them, and they definitely had a better known name than us. And in fact, Hartman was a fifth Aardvark for a while.

But everybody was shootin for that fourpiece Beatle thing. So then he left Melville, came to Bayless, and eventually him and I got together.

What was the writing process like for The Aerovons?

Hit and miss. Somebody’d come up with a chord, you know, and we liked the chord, so you’d write a progression around that chord, and then melodies would come. The hardest part was always the lyrics. I always struggled with that side of it. We were more musicians than lyricists.

So what happened next?

He came to Bayless, we started playing out all the time. Mrs. Hartman, his mother, was our manager. And she was good! She got us places. She got us in places. She’s the one who blew off the first [KXOK DJ] Johnny Rabbitt.

Yknow, back then we were doing the Batcave, Castaways, and all those clubs.

Well, Johnny Rabbitt was tied into Batcave, and he would advertise on KXOK, but then he’d come to your gig and you’d have to

give him all the money you made. So it was a little payola thing — and Mrs. Hartman ratted him out. We never played the Batcave again. I mean, we were kids, man! Why you taking our money?! We had thousands of dollars of money that we saved all our lives in all this equipment — our Rickenbackers and our Gretsch Country Gentlemen and our Hofners, all that stuff. And you know, you didn’t make any money playin! Maybe a hundred bucks? And he’d come and take

told everybody that we knew that we were going to England. And nobody believed it anyway. Now we don’t have the money to go to England. So we played and pooled our money until we had enough, and we went anyway.

And Maurine — pardon me: Mrs. Hartman — had wrangled a contact at EMI?

The whole goal of making this trip was to showcase us to EMI and meet people. And she had her gift of getting in places. So I mean, the first two nights we were there she got us into this club called Speakeasy.

And that’s where all the stars hung out. So here we are, Jimi Hendrix, McCartney… We’re standing in this little bitty club! With gods!

And you know, I’m a senior in high school — Hartman’s a junior! We’re just little kids!

So the third or fourth day there, the president of EMI Studios takes us on a tour through Abbey Road.

And while we were there, you know — Studio #1 is the little studio, and there’s Pink Floyd in there, recording. Studio #2 is the one the Beatles always used. And there’s Ringo’s drumkit. Now, if your heart doesn’t start beatin when you walk into that room! [laughs] And lucky enough, Harrison was recording an instrumental album called Wonderwall. And he was in there. That’s when that picture was taken. The booth was way up on a second story, and there was a long flight of steps. So he came down the steps and bullshitted with us for a good hour. Yeah.

“So here we are, Jimi Hendrix, McCartney… We’re standing in this little bitty club! With gods! And you know, I’m a senior in high school — Hartman’s a junior!” that.

So she blew him out. And at about the same time, we started writing. Hartman really started writing hard, and we sorta quit playin out. And we had a reel-to-reel, and we would sit in the basement of his house and we would write and arrange songs and record em. And Mrs. Hartman finally said, “You guys look like you’re gettin pretty serious. What’s your goals?” “We wanna record at Abbey Road!” [laughs] Why not have the biggest goals?

And so she got a deal with — back then Regal Sports was a big concert promoter.

And somehow she got tied in with them.

So there was a Bill Cosby show that was supposed to — profits from that show was gonna send our band to England. Well, nobody came to see Bill Cosby, and they didn’t make any money. And by then, we

And you guys —

We were no one. We were a high school band that did Beatles songs! [laughs]

So that was the purpose of that trip —

a live radio broadcast declaring Britain’s entrance into the second World War, recorded for posterity using the studio’s equipment.

The studios remained open during WWII and the bombing of London, and that era’s recordings including the big band swing of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

In 1950, EMI hired producer-to-be George Martin fresh out of music school. He would oversee classical and comedy sessions, taking the reins of EMI’s Parlophone imprint in 1955, on his way to becoming the worldfamous producer who signed and nurtured The Beatles.

The 1950s were a period of musical change at Abbey Road as they were across the UK and America, as American rock and roll began to dominate radio and the charts.

Martin had expanded Parlophone to include baroque music, original cast recordings of hit plays, and regional British and Irish music.

In 1958, Cliff Richard And The Drifters recorded the first rock and roll hit at Abbey Road, “Move It.” In the early ‘60s, other rock artists The Hollies, The Shadows, Gerry And The Peacemakers and, of course, The Beatles would join EMI’s roster.

The 1960s saw the recording studio evolve from a place where live performances were simply captured, to a place where sounds were layered and manipulated to create entirely new possibilities in music.

These innovations developed in parallel in Britain and the US. Guitarist and inventor Les Paul experimented with tape machines through the early ’50s, leading to the invention of the process of overdubbing, in which multiple performances can be overlaid through subsequent takes.

When The Beatles began recording at Abbey Road in 1963, the first generation of four-track recorders had just entered commercial production. The possibilities of overdubbing were just beginning to be explored, using two tracks to create the stereo backing track and recording vocals on the remaining tracks.

In order to make room for overdubs, studio engineers would have to record two or three tracks together onto an open track, called “bouncing down” in the US and “reduction mixing” in the UK at the time. In early Beatles stereo recordings – produced in both stereo and mono – you hear, for example, bass and drums on the left side, guitars and percussion on the right, and vocals balanced in the center of the stereo field.

The spirit of exploration and discovery in rock music was constantly expanding the existing boundaries of known recording conventions. Guitar amps were being turned up loud enough to distort, and vocal parts were being double-tracked to create a fuller sound. Through the relative ease of re-recording and editing tape, which could be cut and taped back together as desired, new ways of

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 19

rehearsing with me anymore because by the time you get to England I won’t be in the band and all this rehearsal, my parts are gonna have to be played by somebody else.” And I’m sort of vague on that period of time… But finally the lottery came out and I got number 308 and I never had to go.

Well, it was too late to go with the band. So… yeah.

And then they went over there and recorded. The guy that they replaced me with, EMI Studios had him thrown out of the country ‘cause he was an acidhead, and he would disappear and half the time wouldn’t even show up. So they got rid of him.

So they used –

she made her contacts and she finagled the deal: $30,000, which was huge. That was a big budget back then! That was the recording budget. And for 1969, when that was recorded, that was a big deal. And so in that period of time we didn’t play out at all anymore. It was strictly write and arrange, write and arrange. And then we’d record in studios around town just to get a better feel of where it was going.

That must have been like meeting... there’s no one on Earth to compare. It wouldn’t have been more amazing to meet the Queen of England.

How did people respond when you got home and told them about it?

I did not go back. I just graduated out of

I know. We were meeting our idols. Something that, you didn’t even dream about that cos you knew it was never gonna happen.

And you were due back to record an album there. But you did not go back. So how did that happen?

(The phone rings, and Ferd breaks off for a long phone conversation about an old car that needs dents pulled out. When he hangs up he shakes his head. “Everybody’s asking about old cars,” he says. “I don’t wanna work on old cars. Cars like that, it used to take three guys just to pull off a bumper!”)

So you go over to England, come back to high school.

We did play out for a while because we wanted to show off, you know. [laughs] Did you help write?

I helped arrange, just the same I did [later] with Mellencamp. Hartman was really — in the same way as Mellencamp, they were his songs, and he wanted to do his songs. He was always sort of the prodigy of the band. And he worked his ass off. He still is in music.

“Hartman made good friends with Alan Parsons. They were going to hire him to take my place in the band, but they couldn’t get a visa for him.”

Well we had our Nehru jackets. In fact, I still have a Nehru jacket that was bought — Apple Records was just starting, and it was a three-story building, I think, and in the very bottom floor there was a clothing boutique named Apple Boutique. Well it failed, and we happened to be there when it was open.

I still have my jacket that I got in there with the big Apple insignia. I weighed 120 pounds then, I way 180 now, so there’s no fittin in that. And it’s still in pristine condition too. So I mean, when we got back, we all wore ourNnehru shit. And then we did start playing out, just to show off and tell stories.

And the school let us off for a week, but we had to get up in every class and tell them what we did.

ABOVE: Tom Hartman and Ferd and The Aerovons playing for a crowd of longhairs at Castaways upon their return from London. RIGHT: The Aerovons in St. Louis, pre-London. The gear is right, but they’re not yet looking quite so fab.

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high school and Vietnam was screaming hot. And there was no lottery yet. And my birthday was in April, the lottery came out in September. I have really flat feet. I wen to a foot specialist, he wrote this big letter saying I’m useless in the field. I went down and took the physical — and they were taking guys the next day: “Be back here tomorrow morning.” Me, they just told to go back home: “We’ll let you know.” So I cut all my hair off and waited. Cos I knew I was going. I worked for my dad’s body shop. I’d even call them and say, “What’s the deal?”

“Well, we’ll let you know.” So time went on and time went on and time went on…

You were still playing with the band?

Actually, no. I left. I said, “I gotta go, cos I’m gonna get drafted, so there’s no point in you

Did you feel at the time that the songs were Beatles derived?

Oh yeah. Yeah, they were heavily influenced by The Beatles. There’s all kinds of stuff that went on when they were over there recording, because the Beatles were recording. Alan Parsons was like the guy who ran and got coffee and scrubbed the floors. And Hartman made good friends with him. And actually, they were going to hire him to take my place in the band. But they couldn’t get a visa for him in the US. And he was down for it? Besides his work with The Beatles, he was the guy behind so much of Pink Floyd’s sound, especially Dark Side of the Moon! That would have changed the course of popular music.

Oh yeah. Isn’t that wild? [laughs]

So Parsons used to sneak him into the Beatles’ booth and put on some tapes, and they’d listen. And then Hartman would go back and write something real similar. And

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 20

actually the Aerovons stuff was out before the Beatles stuff was out! He wrote a song called “Hey Georgia” — OK, listen to the song “Oh! Darling.” It’s the same song! And there was another one too. He really liked “Across the Universe,” and there’s a song on the Aerovons album — right now I lack which one of them that is — heavily influenced. And those were direct steals. He heard the tapes!

Did anything ever come up about The Beatles possibly hearing The Aerovons, and the influence running in that direction?

No, and that could be interesting, because you know, that stuff goes on. One guy hears another guy and it’s like, “Man, that’s cool!

I’m writin something like that.” So yeah, of course it goes on. I know that was a period that Yoko was around a lot. I remember [Tom Hartman] telling me that. Whether The Beatles heard or even gave a damn, you know? There certainly is [a chance].

I can’t really answer it because I wasn’t there. But they may have walked in and listened to them playing or heard playbacks. It really isn’t that big of a place. But

back to whatever they were doing.

I didn’t know much about em. I knew of em, but I didn’t know what their music was like at that point in time. That was February of ’68.

So the band went over, and you were here.

Were you going crazy?

Oh, of course! You know, same deal when I cut my hand and had to leave Mellencamp — now I’m listening to me on a Number One record, working at my dad’s body shop again. That just absolutely sucked. So two opportunities I had, and neither of em panned all the way out.

Were you working with other people while they were away?

Well, what did I do? I managed a band…

All this is sort of — I wasn’t playing around town. At that point in time I wasn’t. And then when the band came back from England — they were over there what, three months? Well the drummer was older than us. Mike Lombardo. And he was married.

And his wife took off, so he disappeared.

She just disappeared, so he disappeared. So there wasn’t a full band. And that’s why EMI — there wasn’t a rhythm guitar, so there were only two guys left. So EMI said, “There’s no band. Shelve it.”

What’s your favorite Aerovons song?

if The Beatles were there recording then they had to be in the little one where Pink Floyd was. It was only three rooms, and the other one’s a big orchestra room.

Man. With The Beatles around, it’s easy to forget that there’s some other band, Pink Floyd, around the studio as well.

That was the year before, the year I went, when we were just meeting. [Pink Floyd] were very unfriendly — but we walked in, I think on a creative moment. Or it might’ve been an argument? Who knows. But you could feel the darts coming out of their eyes! [laughs] And you know, they were cool, but they were being interrupted, and they wanted to get

Ahh… probably “World of You.” Yeah. That one has a — it’s just a neat song. We put a lot into that. That was really some of our first original that we recorded. And I remember experimenting a lot in the studio with different sounds.

We stuck our heads inside the grand piano and sang over the strings to get the resonance.

We were doing all kinds of goofy shit like that.

That song — it’s not just the song, it’s all that we went through creating that song.

Back then, in the late ‘60s, everything was an experiment.

(The Beatles’ “Yes It Is” comes on the radio in the background. Ferd points at it and raises his eyebrows.)

We used to do this song. I never get tired of The Beatles. The Beatles is what I was weaned on. Hartman and me would hitchhike to South County Famous, because that’s the first place, when a single came out, it’s one of the first places you could get em. South County Famous & Bar. And you’d stand in line and buy your singles, and then we’d get home and sit there with our record player, and [mimes learning chords on guitar] — immediately we had those songs.

making sound were quickly evolving.

The crew of recording engineers and producers working at Abbey Road included many now-famous names in music. Geoff Emerick and Alan Parsons got their start at Abbey Road as teenagers, and Ken Townsend invented a technique for simulating the sound of double-tracked vocals called Automatic Double Tracking. ADT was inspired by the Beatles’ requests in 1966 for a technical alternative to the tedium of re-singing parts, and involved running one track to a second tape machine attached to an oscillator to create a natural doubling effect. ADT can be heard on many Beatles recordings, from Revolver on, and was used extensively by Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd on their album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, recorded at Abbey Road in 1967. ADT was later combined with manual double-tracking to achieve various effects, on guitars, drums and other instruments, especially as the sonic palette of psychedelic music expanded.

Other effects achieved by manipulating tape machines included flanging, where two machines ran the same track and one was slowed intermittently by pressing on the machine’s flange; chorus, where two nearly identical tracks merge to sound like one instument, and phasing, where the peaks and troughs of a track are varied over time, creating a sweeping effect. The Beatles also began playing recorded bits of tape backwards, famously heard on the abstract piece “Revolution 9.”

New instruments were also being invented and put into use by musicians. The Mellotron was invented in Birmingham, England in 1963, making a famous appearance on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The Mellotron worked by pulling sections of magnetic tape across a playback head, controlled by a keyboard laid out like a piano. The electric piano, most notably the Fender Rhodes and the Wurlitzer, became a staple for many recording artists, and can be heard on the Beatles’ albums Abbey Road and Let It Be. While rock and roll dominated the headlines at the time and earned Abbey Road lasting fame, through the ’60s the studio continued to record a variety of music. There could be a classical session in the morning, a theatrical session in the afternoon, and Pink Floyd in at night the same day. There were several separate studios within Abbey Road — Studio One, Studio Two, Studio Three, and a Penthouse Studio — so multiple sessions could be going on at the same time.

Abbey Road Studios has been in continuous operation since its first session in 1931 and, in spite of rumors of a possible sale in 2010, is still active running recording, mixing and mastering sessions, hosting live events, and films shoots, and has even recently branched out into education, offering classes in audio production. JORDAN HEIMBURGER

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 21

Grateful to the end Local effects pedal-pusher BRAD SARNO helps reanimate the Dead

PHOTO BY NATE BURRELL

by Hugh Scott

late ‘80s.” Not long after, Sarno received an email from Anastasio, who had already worked with Sarno in 2009 when he toured with pre-amps designed and built by SMS.

They discussed the rig at length. Anastasio, known for his signature Languedoc guitars, will not be using any of Garcia’s old equipment or guitars for the gig, but according to a tweet from long-time songwriting collaborator Tom Marshall, Anastasio did recently have a single-coil pickup, removed from hisoriginal Languedoc axe more than 20 years ago, reinstalled in an effort to help produce a more Garcia-like tone. “One of [Anastasio’s] guitars has a middle pickup

“NOTHING BEHIND ME, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”

So said Jack Kerouac in his seminal novel about life on the outskirts of society, On the Road. Those words, and the philosophy it espouses, mean more to one group of music fans than anyone else. For the last 50 years, Deadheads have been on the road and on the bus with the Grateful Dead and various incarnations of bands featuring its members.

This year, in Chicago, on July 4, the road finally comes to its end.

In true Grateful Dead fashion, the long, strange trip will end with a wild, sometimes chaotic and probably out-of-control party.

The celebration is centered around three concerts at Soldiers Field by the four living original members of the band — Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kruetzman and Mickey Hart — who will be joined by keyboardist Jeff Chementi and Phish guitar player Trey Anastasio, who is tasked with filling the significant shoes of the man at the center of the Brad Sarno in his workshop with some of his Sarno Music Solutions gear.

Grateful Dead: the late, beloved Jerry Garcia. on it, which would be the distinctive sort of

There is, of course, a St. Louis connecstandard signature Garcia tone — usually a tion. Guitar gear guru and developer Brad middle single coil,“ said Sarno. “He is trying to Sarno is the co-owner, alongside his wife strike that balance of how to be himself and Auset, of Sarno Music Solutions (SMS), how to be Garcia enough, tonewise and musibased in Webster Groves. SMS has been cally, to best serve the music in that context.” working with Anastasio of late, to help him

Sarno was called upon for advice and bring a bit of that signature Garcia sound to procurement. “We discussed gear and his guitar rig. Sarno is the perfect person to speakers,” he said of the conversation with assist Anastasio, who is hoping to incorpoAnastasio, “and I helped him find these rate some of Garcia’s signature riffs and speakers that I had learned about in the tones into his own style. past year, that are similar to the old JBLs

I spoke to Sarno about the rig and how Garcia was famous for but not as extremely he got hooked up with Anastasio. “I’ve been that color or that tone. I found these speakfriends with Mike Gordon, the bass player ers, called Purple Haze, from a company from Phish, for years,” he said, “and I let him in San Francisco called Tone Tubby, and he know to let Trey know that if he needed to loved them so he ordered four more and discuss anything about the upcoming gig loaded all his cabinets up with them.” Since to bug me, because I’ve been dealing with then, Anastasio has been practicing away, the Jerry Garcia electronic stuff since the

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learning as many as 90 Grateful Dead songs, while incorporating the new pieces into his normal gear. Sarno doesn’t know how much his gear and rig have actually been adapted for this soon-to-be legendary show, but “I have a feeling that it’s a lot of what he is used to using,” he said.

Sarno is no stranger to serious musicians taking his advice on how to achieve great tones. SMS’s Steel Guitar Black Box has been used by a number of notable musicians — Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir owns three — and his Earth Drive Pedal has achieved its own independent notoriety and cache as a crucial (and rare) piece of gear. Wilco’s Nels Cline was the first big name to use it, and he loved it so much that Sarno figures he’s ordered 15 of them from SMS over the years. In addition to his long run with Wilco, Cline is a legend in the West Coast experimental music world, and plays with an incredibly diverse range of musicians. “Nels goes through lot of pedals,” explained Sarno, “and has European boards and American boards and he’s turned on a lot of people.

He even turned on a guitar tech out in LA who does pedal boards for a lot of rock stars. One day Andy Summers of The Police came in to get his pedalboard and that guy turned on Andy [to the pedal]. Andy called me and said, ‘I need two of these, shipped out in two days!’”

Sarno’s reputation has spread far and wide to the point that he’ll often get calls from touring musicians coming through St. Louis who want to try the pedal out.

Recently, that has included members of such guitar-tone innovating bands as Tame Impala, Ben Harper and St. Vincent. “Just two weeks ago, St. Vincent, Annie Clark, fell in love with the Earth Drive and added one to part of her rig, and then the keyboard/ guitarist in Tame Impala [Dominic Simper] dug it, and put it on his board.” Only five years into production, the pedal is sure to continue to make waves in the scene — and keep musicians looking to St. Louis for the best tones in the world.

.com

mobile • web • branding

located on Cherokee Street in STL 815-535-7908

elevenmusicmag.com | ELEVEN | 23

YANKEE RACERS (farewell show), Brotherfather, The Free Years at Off Broadway

THURSDAY, JULY 2

THE GETO BOYS at Mad Magician

NOISETTE SERIES presented by Mr. Ben at Foam

TANLINES, Mas Ysa at Firebird

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1

WILD AND BLUE: A TRIBUTE TO ANNE TKACH: Fred Friction, The Skekses, Peck Of Dirt, Ransom Note, The Good

FRIDAY, JULY 10

a mean harp and a dazzling chanteuse, Brooklyn-based Sister Sparrow & Co has been barnstorming the nation for seven years now. The patio at B.O.B in the summer is the perfect setting for the band led by brother/sister team Jackson and Arleigh Kincheloe.

RECOMMENDED SHOWS

JULY 2015

SON LUX, Landlady at the Luminary

DESAPARECIDOS, Digital Leather at The Ready Room

VERUCA SALT, Charly Bliss at Ready Room

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22

AT BLANK SPACE | SATURDAY, JULY 18 Since he kicked it off in 2012, DJ MAKossa has been curating the party in St. Louis via Bump and Hustle, a monthly dance event at Blank Space that features a special guest DJ each time — serious national-scale DJs and producers like Kansas City’s Joc Max (De La Soul) and San Francisco’s Mophono (Gaslamp Killer, Flying Lotus), and the crowds have been growing right out the door. This month he and Nappy DJ Needles are celebrating Bump and Hustle’s third anniversary with one of their all-time favorites: EDAN, the man behind 2005’s game-changing Beauty and the Beat. That album “was almost like DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing in terms of breakthroughs,” says MAKossa. “It’s a fusion of hip hop and psychedelic guitar, with heavy guitar fuzz and drum breaks.” The burgeoning success of Bump and Hustle is only inspiring the two hosts to keep pushing further. The anniversary is “an opportunity to bring someone incredible and totally unique,” he says. “This is someone really, really special to me, one of the best ever. Out of anyone in the world, he’s my one or two choice to play for a smaller venue.” Whether you hit the Hustle every month or you’re just hearing about it now, consider this month’s a mandatory party. ES

BUMP AND HUSTLE 3RD ANNIVERSARY PARTY

MUSICALENDAR

PHOTOS BY RORY FLYNN, COLLAGE BY EVAN SULT

With a funky backbeat, vibrant horns,

SISTER SPARROW & THE DIRTY BIRDS at Broadway Oyster Bar

JAMES MURPHY DJ set at 2720

THURSDAY, JULY 9

LEGGY, Brainstems, Posture at Foam

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8

LIVERY COMPANY 3RD ANNIVERSARY: Bug Chaser, The Carondelettes, Dracla, The Maness Brothers, Mother Meat, Carriage House, Shitstorm, Mr. Bones, River Kittens, standup comedy hour, Tawaine Noah, Zak Marmelefsky, Spoken Nerd and more, noon at Livery Company

VOMITFACE, Little Big Bangs, Bastard And The Crows at Firebird

TUESDAY, JULY 7

CAVEOFSWORDS, Bruiser Queen, Captured Planet at City Museum Rooftop

SATURDAY, JULY 4

STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES at Old Rock House

Jamaican Queens represent, if not the future of music, then its present: they blend rock and electro instrumentation so seamlessly that it actually erases the distinction entirely. What remains is heavy, nasty, and mesmerizing, the sound of drugs (which drugs? any drugs) working their way through your system.

JAMAICAN QUEENS, Earth To Sender, We Are Like Computers at The Demo

FRIDAY, JULY 17

RINGO DEATHSTARR, Bantam Foxes, Strong Force at Firebird

THURSDAY, JULY 16

SAGE FRANCIS, Death And Taxes at Firebird

LUNCH BEATS noon-1pm at Blank Space

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15

KRISTEEN YOUNG, FEA, Bug Chaser at The Demo

LARRY CAMPBELL AND TERESA WILLIAMS at Off Broadway

The mighty distortion and building tension of What Moon Things is emo at its least pretentious and most powerful. The band combines into a single striving urge, building towards some climax that might take all night to arrive but will unquestionably be worth every arpeggiated guitar and hard-hit snare snap.

WHAT MOON THINGS at The Demo

TUESDAY, JULY 21

RY COODER, SHARON WHITE, AND RICKY SKAGGS at the Sheldon

*REPEAT REPEAT, Search Parties, Dear Genre at The Demo

MONDAY, JULY 20

Even if you fully tied on one at their Off Broadway set (just like they did!), you gotta rouse yourself (just like they do!) for this set, cos it’s gonna have all different songs.

They promise.

BUNNYGRUNT (4pm) at Vintage Vinyl

CIPHER SESSION rap battle, 1-4pm hosted by S.L.U.M. Fest at Blank Space

GEORGE CLINTON AND THE P-FUNK ALL-STARS free show at Ballpark Village

TUESDAY, JULY 14

SUNDAY, JULY 19

BITCHWIZARD, Hell Night, Ashes And Iron at The Demo

SAMANTHA CRAIN, River Kittens at Foam

SUNDAY, JULY 12

MEWITHOUTYOU, Foxing, Field Mouse at Off Broadway

THE STEEPWATER BAND at Beale on Broadway

THE TRIP DADDIES 20th Anniversary show, Old Capital Square Dance Club at Off Broadway

ACCELERANDO, May Day Orchestra, Nicholas St. James at Schlafly Tap Room

BLONDIE, Melissa Etheridge at Fair St. Louis’ Main Stage at Art Hill

Confirmed: Bunnygrunt’s new album is every bit as great as their last albums — which means it’s a brand-new classic!

New songs like “The Book that I Wrote” and “Just Like Old Times” join classics like “Southside Famous” as the cure for what’s been ailing you since the ‘90s. How can they sound so damn rock and so damn darling at the same time?

BUNNYGRUNT, Eureka California at Off Broadway

BUMP AND HUSTLE 3rd Anniversary at Blank Space

SATURDAY, JULY 18

DAWN PATROL, Mother Meat, Tropical Storm! at The Demo

RAP CITY hosted by Tef Poe and Tech Supreme at Blank Space

RAEKWON & GHOSTFACE KILLAH, Dillon Cooper at The Ready Room

JUDGE NOTHING LP release at Tick Tock Tavern

SATURDAY, JULY 11

THE URGE at Ballpark Village

WOLFE COMPANION LAUNCH PARTY: Marie And The Americans, Traveling Sound Machine, The Free Years at The Demo

EVERYTHING WENT BLACK (album release), Fister, Big Blonde, Braddock, Blight Future at Firebird

2015 LO-FI CHEROKEE SCREENING (5pm) at Grand Center Public Media Commons

FRIDAY, JULY 3

Griefs, Rough Shop, Hazeldine, Magic City at Off Broadway

Scan this QR Code, or go to ElevenMusicMag.com for a listing of club addresses. Check out our expanded calendar of events at calendar.elevenmusicmag.com, powered by

Discussed this issue Comedy show

LEGEND

MUSICALENDAR

BRUXISM #10 at Foam

FRIDAY, JULY 31

VANILLA BEANS, Early Worm, Little Falcon at Schlafly Tap Room

THURSDAY, JULY 30

Wait, where is this show? Ian Svenonius and crew playing live in one of STL’s smalles clubs? If you’re not here I can’t do nothin for you, man!

CHAIN AND THE GANG, Hoonbag Moonswag, Shitstorm at Foam

TUESDAY, JULY 28

GOOGOLPLEXIA celebrates the ComicCon at 11am & 12:30pm, St. Louis Public Library Central Branch

HAILEY WOJCIK, Potomac Accord at Foam

THE FOG LIGHTS, Letter To Memphis, Emily Wallace at the Duck Room

SATURDAY, JULY 25

ROBERT EARL KEEN at Ready Room

SUZIE CUE AND THE TERRIBLE TWOS, Old Time Assault, De Los Muertos at Schlafly Tap Room

FRIDAY, JULY 24

THE DEADLY VIPERS, Big Blonde at Foam

NOS BOS, Willis, Hylidae, Animal Teeth at Schlafly Tap Room

TAWAINE NOAH, Elevator Museick, F.L.Y. at Off Broadway

THURSDAY, JULY 23

Live Music

BRING ON THE NIGHT Anne Tkach onstage with Magic City at Off Broadway in 2011. The tribute to celebrate her life will include bands she was in throughout her life.

PHOTOS BY JESS LUTHER

>> REVIEW

Tame Impala, Kuroma

Monday, June 1

THE PAGEANT As they build toward the release of their highly anticipated third album, Currents, (out 7/17 on Interscope), Tame Impala returned to the Pageant last month for the first time since 2013, bringing along Kuroma, fronted by ex-MGMT guitarist Hank Sullivant.

Sullivant left the Athens, GA-based band The Whigs and began playing as Kuroma in 2007. Early on, he eschewed online promotion, and quickly put the project on the backburner to help MGMT record and tour their major label debut, Oracular Spectacular. This night, though, his revived band opens uptempo and loud, echoing ‘90s alt-rock in appearance, style and instrumentation. The group’s strongest moments are its well-executed vocal harmonies and drummer Nick Robbins’ steady fills. Kuroma is young and shaggy, their equipment non-descript, but the crowd’s into it (especially Beatle Bob, sighted breaking it down stage left).

Kuroma’s latest studio effort, 2013’s tongue-tyingly titled Kuromarama, is slightly more polished than Sullivant’s live act, which might benefit from some volume modulation on the part of, well, anybody in the group. The low end tends to dominate the room, including Sullivant’s otherwise spry vocals. Still, what they lack in equalization, they make up for in energy. Sullivant

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thanked Tame Impala for taking them on the road — theirs is an enviable tour slot, and Kuroma earned it.

The upstairs bar is full by 8:45 and most people seemed to be building a solid Monday night buzz. Kuroma’s static backdrop — the band’s name in turquoise, white and yellow — was replaced by Tame Impala’s trademark night-vision crosshair visual. (Kevin Parker revealed to NME this month that after the success of their 2012 album Lonerism, he was able to buy a house and equip it with not just a recording studio, but also a lighting/visual effects studio. “I can work on the visuals to a song at the same time as working on the song, which was magical, it gave it this other dimension,” he said.)

Guitar techs (and possibly band members?) in white lab coats crisscross the stage, setting up the band’s labyrinthine signal routing. There’s a Hofner McCartneystyle viola bass, two Vox AC-30s in white tolex, pink MIDI controllers, and enormous pedal boards for both vocals and guitar.

Light show tests get the crowd riled up. A fog machine kicks in. O faint powderedsugar smell, I know you well. Wait, I’m a little drunk. Good.

They take the stage. What a band Kevin Parker has put together, and how far they’ve come since their inspired 2011 psych-rock debut, Innerspeaker! From the opening bell, they’re on, drifting from groove to groove in lockstep time, bass and drums thundering throughout the Pageant.

They’re even louder than their opener, but

Live Music somehow much more in control, more dynamic.

Parker splits time between a Rickenbacker and a clean Fender Jaguar with all the switches, every plucked string eliciting spams from the string theory-inspired visualizer behind him, or spinning some kind of electric spirograph.

In a catalog-spanning performance, they play for an hour and forty minutes, including several extended jams and an encore, all while psychedelic VHSstyle footage rolls behind them. The band has released four songs from their new record online, and all of them get showcased that night: “Eventually,” “Disciples,” “‘Cause I’m a Man,” and their opener for the night, “Let It Happen” (Parker’s Mr. Roboto vocal effect is perfect, even live).

I confess, I was unsure of “I’m a Man” immediately, but hearing it live, followed by the June release of their muppet-themed video, I totally get it — especially because drummer Julien Barbagallo plays a whole lot like Animal.

Tame Impala has emerged as one of today’s best young bands, winning the crowd over with every song. The crowd loves every minute — when Parker beckons, they clap, wave their hands in the air, and cheer vociferously. Before the final song of the encore, Parker addresses the crowd: “We have have one more song, then we’re gonna get out of here. But you know we’ll be back.

This doesn’t end here. This is not the end.”

No, Kevin — it isn’t. You’re going to be doing this for as long as you like. JAMES KANE <<REVIEW

Wanda Jackson,

Miss Molly Simms Band Saturday, June 6 OFF BROADWAY It’s not often I overdress for a show. But Wanda Jackson is no ordinary performer.

She is one of the few in this world to whom the term “rock royalty” actually applies.

With a career that started at the age of seventeen and has spanned 61 years, Jackson is the definition of a survivor in an art form known more for shortening lives than prolonging them.

I arrived at Off Broadway at just before 8pm, amongst a sea of old rockers, beehive hairdos, and t-shirts adorned with the likes of Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn. Inside,

rockabilly songs are playing over the P.A. with a singer trying too hard to sound like Sun Studios-era Elvis. Surveying the scene, I note that the men here who aren’t in band t-shirts are dressed like greaser gas station attendants with probably more oil in their hair than in the Gulf of Mexico. The woman are exclusively in sundresses. As I stare out at the main floor, it’s unusually bare — most of the early arrivals have claimed balcony seats. I head back outside and run into Zagk Gibbons, who recently recorded Molly Simms’ soon-to-be-released solo record and will also be playing drums for her tonight. The conversation passes like all porch talks, a timeless easy catching up, until we realize it’s about time for the show to start. He bolts for the stage, and when I head back inside, the room has somehow packed itself solid. One could feel claustrophobic in a room like this.

The Miss Molly Simms Band is a somewhat makeshift arrangement tonight, with the borrowed Gibbons on drums and Jamey Almond on bass. But both played on her record as well, so they’re ready to roll. Her set opens with a new song, “One Way Ticket.”

While the lyrics encompass her trademark blend of heartache, despair, and drops of hope, this song has a particular radio readiness about it. This is a quality unseen in previous work, both as a solo artist and as a member of the Bible Belt Sinners.

The band sounds fantastic. Simms definitely has a knack of knowing how to find the right people to play her songs and breathe life into them. For a band making their stage debut together, the three play together better and tighter than many longrunning power trios.

Promptly at 10pm, Wanda Jackson’s band, the Ladybirds, emerge onstage to get in tune, and the anticipation builds as they run through an expert rendition of Link Wray’s immortal instrumental “Rumble,” only to flow into the opening of “Riot in Cell Block #9.” With that, out comes Wanda.

Sporting Elizabeth Taylor hair, a pink fringed jacket, and a voice that has not aged and is as fresh sounding as when she knew the King, Jackson sings the old number with as much heart as can be heard on the record. Age be damned: there is no quit in this woman. She jumps into one of her many signature songs, “Rock Your Baby,” which gets the audience cheering as loudly as they can.

When Jackson talks to the audience, she has the presence of the world’s coolest grandmother (well, one of). Be it some jawdropping yodels on an old country tune or belting high energy rockabilly, she retains all the moxie that established her as a legend all those decades ago, even keeping the audience in line as needed. Between songs, she tells tales of her 61 years in the music world, stories that could almost be postmodern mythology at this point, including meeting and briefly dating Elvis,

opening for Adele, and recording with Jack White. Wanda Jackson is perhaps the most badass woman in the history of rock and roll, crashing right through the accepted roles of women in music to answer the dare implicit in Elvis’ raucous rock blueprint, boldly misbehaving with her chin up and her guitar catching every nuance. Every lyric speaks with a fearless self-assurance about reckless appetites that thrill as they lead the way forward. When she launches in to “Fujiyama Mama” — “I drank a quart of sake, smoke dynamite / I chased it with tabaccy and then shoot out the light” — Off Broadway becomes the biggest sock hop in the world, and the feelings and good cheer don’t end until the last note of her second encore.

REV. DANIEL W. WRIGHT

>>PREVIEW

Yankee Racers,Brotherfather, The Free Years Thursday, July 2

OFF BROADWAY Last November, one of St. Louis’ most popular bands, Kentucky Knife Fight, called it quits and brought the house down for the last time at Off Broadway. Eight months later, Yankee Racer, which started as an outside project for KNF’s guitarist extraordinaire Curtis Brewer and longtime KNF collaborator (and eventual fulltime keyboardist) Nathan Jatcko, will also be playing their last show, on account of Brewer’s imminent move to New York City.

Given the history of the band’s live performances that go back to 2010 and their two studio albums, 2012’s Duologue and 2014’s American Music, you can count on a lot of good friends and special guests to help see their compadres off into the sunset.

The albums are a who’s who of STL music, with such illustrious guests as Née’s Kristin Dennis, Bruiser Queen’s Morgan Nusbaum, Old Lights’ David Beeman, Cassie Morgan, and many more. The music is more introspective and, frankly, more easily approachable than the hard-edged attack of Knife Fight.

That doesn’t mean their songs lacks an edge, though, especially on the first album.

The arrangements lean perhaps more toward pop than Knife Fight’s rowdy noir, giving full voice to Brewer’s scintillating guitar and featuring some of the most interesting classically influenced piano work heard on any St. Louis release of the last several years. The second album reaches in a rootsier direction, highlighting instruments like the banjo to create an early Wilco feel.

Brewer fully embroiled himself in the St. Louis music scene, both in Knife Fight and as guest musician for a multitude of bands here — most recently sitting in for a few notable shows with Whoa Thunder. His virtuosity on the instrument has given the scene a lot to work with, and his departure

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Live Music for the East Coast will leave a hole for some other hotshot(s) to fill. Time to start studying those charts and running scales... and in the meantime, the Yankee Racers show should be a proper STL send off. HUGH SCOTT >>PREVIEW

Wild and Blue: A Tribute to Anne Tkach

Fred Friction, The Skekses, Peck Of Dirt, Ransom Note, The Good Griefs, Rough Shop, Hazeldine, Magic City Friday, July 10 OFF BROADWAY There’s no easy way to say farewell to a woman whose presence fundamentally changed and uplifted the St. Louis music world for so long, but this show is a fitting one. When Anne Tkach died in a house fire on the morning of April 9, she was active in several bands — Magic City, Ransom Note, Rough Shop, The Skekses — and likely to show up onstage in a whole lot more.

Count in her close musical conspirators and friends, and nearly all of music-loving St. Louis suffered a deep blow when we lost her.

This night is a celebration, though, because Anne was a real person and a real personality, and a hell of a musician. It’s a time for those who knew her to come listen to the music that she helped bring into being, tell stories, and feel the strange combination of grief and profound appreciation that comes from summoning up the spirit of someone too suddenly departed.

And the show is already bringing bands together: Hazeldine was Tkach’s first big band, based in Albuquerque, NM, who achieved reknown in Germany via Glitterhouse Records and Polydor in the States before calling it quits in 2003. They’re putting a set together just for the occasion.

The same goes for The Good Griefs, a band Tkach played in with Magic City’s Larry Bulawsky years ago.

All of the sets will be powerful magic: The Skekses’ Ellen Herget is a true poet, Peck Of Dirt’s Sherman S. Sherman is a conjurer, Larry Bulawsky is a shaman, and Rough Shop wields the power of utter sincerity. Even so, no one spins a spell of love, regret, faith, and appreciation like Fred Friction. Fred will not skirt the subject of death — its power and its transforming glory and its painful presence in life.

So many evenings at Off Broadway pass in a pleasant wave of good crowds, warm nights, copious beer, and great music. Hell, so many of those nights Anne was right there on the patio, smoking and talking ‘til her turn onstage. This night will be a rare night, in which that easy essence is distilled into a pure liquor of love and respect and the bitch of loss and the luck of knowing each great person in your life, for however long they’re with you. EVAN SULT

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>>PREVIEW

Raekwon & Ghostface Killah Saturday, July 11

THE READY ROOM

Fly International Luxurious Art, or FILA, is Raekwon’s latest opus. The Chef, as Rae’s millions of fans call him, is one of hip-hop’s most consistent artists from the Golden Era (1986-1997). Chef and Ghostface Killah, also known as Iron Man or Tony Starks, have been hip-hop heavyweights since Loud Records released the earth-shattering Enter the Wu Tang in 1993. Their verses on Enter’s landmark song “Protect Ya Neck” led listeners into the harsh world of New York City’s Staten Island — or as they called it, Shaolin, after the Shaolin Monks they were inspired by.

Rae, the visionary who paints audio pictures with his verses, really took hip-hop by the collar with his 1995 classic Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, featuring Ghostface Killah.

This album is one of the crown jewels of not only Wu Tang Clan but of hip-hop culture, period. Cuban Linx, known as The Purple Tape because it was a purple cassette tape in an era where most cassettes were clear, black, or white, stood out both visually and sonically. Songs like “Incarcerated Scarfaces,” “Ice Water,” “Ice Cream” featuring Method Man and Cappadonna, “Criminology,” and “Verbal Intercourse,” featuring one of hip-hop’s greatest (many believe the greatest) lyricist, Nas, who opens the song.

Though fans have faithfully played Cuban Linx for twenty straight years, FILA brings many of this era’s stars into the fray.

A$AP Rocky assists Rae on “I Got Money,” a track with xylophones and hard drums that talks about being wise with money.

“F.I.L.A. World,” featuring Atlanta superstar 2 Chainz, talks about enjoying luxury life while sampling the finest and loudest of cannabis. Throughout Raekwon and Ghostface’s career, they’ve been torchbearers of flyness and excess while making it sound good.

Nothing changes with their latest offerings.

Big Ghost, another pseudonym for Ghostface, really rhymed onstage and in the group’s videos wearing a white mask early in Wu-Tang’s beginnings. The mask was used to shield Ghost’s face from the NYPD during legal differences. His solo debut album, 1996’s Iron Man, and 2000’s Supreme Clientele are classics, highly celebrated works that the purest of hip-hop heads swear by. Ghost’s latest album, this year’s Sour Soul, offers new material old and new Starks fans can really appreciate.

Raekwon and Ghostface are really seen as a super duo, much like their Wu-Tang brethren Method Man with Def Squad’s Redman.

Even with solo success, Rae and Ghost never disappoint. To further celebrate Cuban Linx’s twentieth anniversary, Raekwon is releasing a Linx Beach pullover in the style of the

Ralph Lauren Polo immortalized in his video for Wu-Tang’s “Can It Be So Simple.” If you’re looking, the jacket retails for $599. Get that priority mail and you may have it in time for the show. DUCKY HINES >>PREVIEW

Veruca Salt, Charly Bliss Wednesday, July 22

THE READY ROOM We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be in the 20-year recycling program that is popular music, and one of the most welcome returns is Veruca Salt, a band who broke straight from local Chicago band to national stardom on the strength of their 1994 single “Seether,” first released on Minty Fresh and later scooped up by Geffen Records. The band looked great (crucial in the days when MTV ruled the Earth) and sounded even better: mile-wide guitar distortion and bashing drums under the closely intertwined vocals of Nina Gordon and Louise Post.

And those voices never received their full due. Their debut full-length, American Thighs, was a gorgeous piece of work.

Anthems like “All Hail Me” and “Victrola” traded space with brooding builders like “Spiderman ‘79” and “Sleeping Where I Want.” They offered a space for listeners — especially eager, musically inclined female listeners — between Hole’s major aggressiveness, The Breeders’ knack for harmony, and the giant psych-rock tones of Smashing Pumpkins, minus Corgan’s buzzkill whine.

One crucial elements in their sound was the absolutely killer distortion tones they used, especially on the bass; the guitars on “Spiderman ‘79” alone deserve their own footnote in the history of excellent ‘90s radio rock. But the truly signature sound of Veruca Salt is, of course, their remarkable harmony relationship. They pioneered a certain harmony style every bit as distinct as the one invented by Alice In Chains’ Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell. And it’s fascinating to realize, lo these many years later, how central American Thighs must have been in the CD collections of thousands of girls who grew up to make their own rock music.

And now, the band is back, after years of acrimony, with the original lineup and a new album called Ghost Notes. As witnessed last year at Firebird, they sound wound up and ready to take on the world — which is to say, they sound like the original Veruca Salt.

There’s plenty of verve in their triumphant arrangements, and that sweet snarl that won so many hearts back when. And on meditative new songs like “Empty Bottle,” they fill in that crucial darker introspective dynamic as well. Hopefully this show will bring out both the first generation of fans and the young ones hungering for an authentic ‘90s sound.

For what it’s worth, Veruca Salt right now is the exact sound that rang from alternative radio stations back then. EVAN SULT

Album Reviews

HOT ROCKS = STL band (current and/or honorary)

Judge Nothing

The Cassette Anthology Boxing Clever Records

by Steve Pick

Mean Scene The very latest releases from all around St. Louis, assembled by SUZIE GILB. To get your upcoming release on the list, email suzie@elevenmusicmag.com.

LP = vinyl album | CS = cassette DL = download | CD = CD (duh)

JULY Everything Went Black Night Terrors EP CS, CD Release show Friday, July 3 at Firebird with Fister, Braddock, Blight Future, Big Blonde

Judge Nothing The Cassette Anthology LP • Boxing Clever Release show Saturday, July 11 at Tick Tock Tavern

Bunnygrunt

Vol. 4 CD, LP, CS, DL• Happy Happy Birthday To Me Two release shows! Saturday, July 18 at Off Broadway, with Eureka California and Royal Holland; also Sunday July 19, 4pm, at Vintage Vinyl Little Falcon Funny Guy EP CD Tuesday, July 21

Tawaine Noah In Distant Cities EP CD Release show Thursday, July 23 at Off Broadway with Elevator Museick and F.L.Y.

The Fog Lights Manhasset LP, CD, DL Release show Saturday, July 25 at the Duck Room with Letter To Memphis and Emily Wallace

Shark Dad A Bigger Boat CD Release show Friday, July 3 at Heavy Anchor with Bassamp And Dano, Uncle Erik’s Basement Quartet

I GUESS I WAS something of a chump. I saw Judge Nothing at least a couple times at Cicero’s Basement Bar back in the days when that was the place to be, and they were one of the St. Louis bands regularly headlining or opening for touring acts. I’m pretty sure I had written something about Club Zero, the predecessor to this trio with two of the same three members. But despite the fact I was charged, during most of the years this band existed, with finding 13 different local musical acts to write about for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I never got around to covering them.

A couple years ago I caught a reunion show, which confused me a bit. For Judge Nothing had continued past their time playing Cicero’s and clubs along the Landing, to actually recording albums with enough of an impact to warrant a full-paragraph bio on allmusic.com. I wasn’t paying attention at the time, and the reunion show didn’t remind me of the torrid, energetic pop/punk hybrid I remembered.

Now along comes this limited edition super-deluxe packaged vinyl compilation of 14 cuts originally released on a seem-

Barn Mice Barn Mice Self Release

The last thing Jason Hutto recorded before leaving St. Louis was Barn Mice’s debut. Now, in glorious cassette form, it sees the light of day. The tape has a warm and balmy feel — it’s like listening to one of those lost AM stations only found playing in old barbershops run by men older than your grandparents, where the interior is all fakewood brown and the countertop is covered with a Time Life from 1986, last week’s TV

ingly endless series of cassette demos Judge Nothing had packaged for sale at their shows back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

First cut “Make It Stop” brought me straight back to the delightful roar I remembered hearing as I ducked that damn beam which ran down the middle of Cicero’s.

Better late than never: The Cassette Anthology reveals a band which forged its own identity in a stew of loud/fast indie rockers from their day. The first songs show a strong Hüsker Dü influence – heck, “How Many Steps?” sounds like their take on the Huskers’ take on the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High,” which was inspired by John Coltrane, which means guitarist Doug Raffety’s modal guitar solo can awaken my jazz-loving instincts even in the middle of all that raw power.

Going forward, as songs are pulled from tapes released originally in 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1992, it’s easy to hear Judge Nothing getting more comfortable in their own skin and in the studio. I can’t think of another band that would have come up with “Watch On,” a paean to the ways in which wearing a watch affects one’s sense of time, or “You,” a melding of licks stolen from Black Sabbath with a scintillating melodic cry of desire.

The 1990 cuts are led by the stalkerish vibe of “I’ m Aware of You” and the chunkachunka guitar rhythms of “Down & Out,” which sound as though Judge Nothing was intent on one-upping Uncle Tupelo’s “Graveyard Shift.” By 1992, the band was just a hefty recording budget away from writing the kind of material that could have slotted smoothly into the new alternative radio format. And for good measure, there’s a 1997 cut called “Agape” that’s a supremely catchy hardcore punk love song.

The album package, which includes a fanzine filled with photos and testimonials from fans and fellow musicians, is beautiful, but the music is the true revelation. Here is proof positive that there is always something good out there you haven’t heard yet.

Judge Nothing celebrates their record release Saturday, July 11 at the Tick Tock Tavern.

Guide, and a couple of Popeye comics from before you were born. At certain points on the tape, in between songs, I almost expected a soft-spoken NPR DJ to chime in and name the song and its long, complex history before introducing the next tune.

Being that the Barn Mice are a local scene supergroup of sorts, featuring the Maness Brothers, Drew Sheafor, and Irene Allen, I approached this with equal amounts hesitation and excitement. While supergroups can be fun, there can often be the case of too many cooks in the kitchen.

There is thankfully none of that here.

Everyone gets their time to shine. And it’s clear from having seen the band live

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Album Reviews

SINGLES FOR SINGLES

by Ira Gamerman Single reviews in monologue for single people by a single weirdo EVERY SINGLE MONTH!

STRANGE NAMES “I CAN’T CONTROL MYSELF” You want security while giving your money to charity? Don’t get it twisted babe, he may sound like he was born in the ’80s — but he’s not joining that team!

This is the NEW SURVIVAL: it’s literally out of his control, like that glimmer in his infectious smile and that diamondwild energy in his eyes. Don’t get suckered into thinking this is redux schtick sweetie, he’s down on his knees making a very compelling case. Cuz the reality is he’s just gonna keep on falling for you.

JAMIE XX “GOSH” OMG OMG OMG he’s finally SINGLE. OMG GET WITH HIM. Don’t just stand there, DANCE! OMG OMG OMG easy easy! OMG OMG he’s even hotter now that SHE’S OUT OF THE PICTURE OMG OMG OMG I didn’t know he could move like that! OMG OMG OMG I THINK I’M GONNA- OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH-MY-GAWD OH MY GOSH… KIIARA “GOLD” THERE’S DISEMBODIED VOICES EVERYWHERE TALKING PRETTY NONSENSE IN YOUR HEAD BOY, RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN before that siren spell kicks in and you’re just a body on the pavement. OH GOD SHE’S DANCING CLOSER AND BITING HER LIP, USING THE SAME SEDUCTIVE TRICKS that made you want her the last night and the night before that. She could leave the party any time without ever letting you know, and you know you want it so don’t let her get away.

SHAMIR “MAKE A SCENE” It’s Saturday night, you’ve given up on your dreams of fashion design and accepted your life as a 30-something waitress, so why not drink til you puke and shake your booty with this dude who’s got the high pitched voice and even higher-pitched DFA synths? I’m not entirely sure that he wants to get with you, but he’s a total party machine and he definitely understands your existential malaise. Cuz isn’t complaining about your broken dreams boring?

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that the members’ mutual respect works towards lifting each other’s material.

The tracks breathe like laid back truths, starting with David Maness’ “Guitar and a Girl” and easily segueing into Irene Allen’s “Sorry,” which sounds like a track off Patsy Cline’s self-titled first record (the one with the original recording of “Walkin’ After Midnight” on it). But the immediate standout is Sheafor’s “Song for Fred (Drinker’s Lullaby)”, a song which could only be about everyone’s favorite drunken uncle and bar stool prophet, Fred Fucking Friction. The Twainesque tales and observations spun in these songs, such as on “Hallelujah (These Roads Are on Fire),” bind the past, present, and future together beautifully, closely observing the feelings and sights we either embrace or ignore in our daily encounters.

One can only hope that this isn’t the Barn Mice’s only release. Though all are busy with their own individual projects, you always hope, especially after listening to a good album, there’s there’ll be a second helping somewhere down the road. REV. DANIEL W. WRIGHT

The Fog Lights Manhassett Self release

Justin Johnson wears a lot of hats, most of them musical. In his roles as lead singer for The Jump Starts and Pretty Little Empire, he’s already shown his knack for concise songwriting and heartfelt harmonies.

In his newest project, The Fog Lights, Johnson teams up with former Upright Animals guitarist Jim Peters to create a tableau of modern Americana, full of lush arrangements constructed from acoustic guitars, banjos and pattering drums. Fans of the genre will find themselves swept away here, particularly by lead single “Lead the Way.”

Most of their debut album, Manhassett, adheres to rootsy tropes and does them well — not that there’s anything wrong with that. Sometimes you want a dynamic album with lots of moving parts, and sometimes you want an album that just moves you.

Manhassett does the latter with aplomb, putting the lie to the idea that in order to make great music you have to reinvent the wheel. There are moments of somber beauty throughout, including a heartwrenching cover of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” which finds the macabre heart of the song and cuts it out with a dull blade. Slowly.

Towards the end of the album is the finest moment, “Fear,” a drowsy dirge which features a subliminal organ line and the line, “if you feel nothing, well it meant nothing at all.” Thankfully, this album means something. JASON ROBINSON

Vomitface

Another Bad Year EP Boxing Clever

For many of us, some of our best memories about our adolescent music obsessions involve those oddly uncomfortable moments when parents, siblings, or friends would find a record you bought, look at the band name, and shake their heads in complete dismay. Unbeknownst to them, the band names were gimmicky or just thought up for shock value. The real treat they missed was the musical artistry itself.

Fast-forward to 2015 and Jersey City three-piece Vomitface.

Set aside the images of GWAR that are dancing in your head right now and remain calm. This classic case of “great band, weird name” is superfluous once you hear their new EP, Another Bad Year. Somewhere beneath the black surf detritus is a band that sounds like billiard balls slamming into razor blades — or in critical parlance: a more volatile Pavement splashing in the same pool as a lighter Sonic Youth, with heavy doses of old school punk thrown in for seasoning.

Opening cut “Never Make It” has an early Primus feel to its bass and guitars.

“Bruise” offers a knockabout intro before rattling into a heavy dose of old-school frenetic energy loaded with chainsaw guitars. “Did She Come Alone?” is that dirty porn song the Violent Femmes never got around to making, with some Bleachera Nirvana thrown in for good measure.

“Travelers Cheques” is steady and grimy, and the abrasive “Luckiest Man Alive” has some great percussion going for it, closing the EP on a roughshod note.

Released through St. Louis’ own Boxing Clever, Another Bad Year is an ambitious move for the label. The music is bouncy and Slint-like in its execution; Jared Micah cooks up his lyrics in a cauldron of dark sounds and images that bring to mind a white-knuckled JG Ballard in a snakepit with Big Black. Vomitface is a young band with old-school sensibilities and a trail of bloody hipsters in their wake. ROB LEVY

Titus Andronicus

The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus Merge Records

It’s one thing to name your band after a Shakespearean drama — it’s another to release a three-album, 29-track rock opera that mirrors the narrative arc of a

Album Reviews Shakespearean drama. This is the massive undertaking Titus Andronicus attempts with their fourth album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, released this month on Merge Records. This isn’t the feel-good album of the summer. Instead, it’s challenging enough to make you dig up the old English textbooks.

Despite the classic story structure and themes, the music is pure punk and glam.

Band leader Patrick Stickles howls like Johnny Rotten playing Hedwig in a seamless work. Successful narration separates albums that sound like rock operas from ones that really are, and Titus Andronicus has nailed it.

The first tracks indicate we’re going someplace turbulent. The narrative hits its stride on “Lonely Boy,” where everyone sucks — literally and figuratively — and the protagonist just wants to be alone. This is followed by a cover of Daniel Johnson’s “I Lost My Mind,” performed with a sing-song harmony and twinkling piano that begs to be staged like Godspell. And yeah, you can roll down the windows and jam the hell out of this track while driving around on a summer night.

They reprise the song two minutes later as pure fast fury that slows to a dragging stop, picking up with the jangly Springsteen homage “Mr. E. Man.” Full of bells and chimes, anthemic vocal harmonies, and a massive build, “Mr. E Man” makes me wonder if this whole Most Lamentable Tragedy is really a Shakespearean lens on the story of 1970s rock. By the end of the first act, we’ve heard echoes of the Boss and the Pistols, and there’s a Queen-like glam drama to the proceedings. Also present is The Who, with the parallels to Tommy.

Is this record in fact a nod to the legendary era of Album Oriented Rock — a time when albums were whole works, with nine-minute songs that braided into the whole overarching narrative, a time eventually taken over by the brevity of punk? Did we all lose our minds from all the complexity, and snap into loud little pieces sometime around 1977? The Most Lamentable Tragedy makes that argument, from the structural build up to the rising action of “Fired Up” and its anti-consumerism rebellion so very E Street Band I can almost hear the engines revving from the suicide machines a few streets over.

The story climaxes, as Elizabethan drama and musical theater do, at the halfway point. The ten-minute “More Perfect Union” starts slow and deep, with the protagonist lamenting lost family and asserting his individuality before the story gets turned over to a rich instrumental that devolves into cacophony, and sits in silence for a minute.

The second act loses the impact of the first, even though the plot and composition

maintain their quality. The problem’s in the lyrics, which become repetitive, starting with “(S)HE SAID/(S)HE SAID” and its mid-song chanted repetition of “You didn’t understand a thing.” These chants become a regular feature of most of the remaining tracks, and there certainly seems to be a conscious reason for it; perhaps it’s the doomed repeating of the past. At last, The Most Lamentable Tragedy concludes as it began, with a track of pure noise after a clear descent into a pit, and an acknowledgement that we’re not after all born to run, but born to die — the tragedy of all humanity. ROBIN WHEELER

Smokey

How Far Will You Go?: The S&M Recordings 1973-1981 Chapter Music

If you think Smokey’s a new artist, which would be easy enough to do if you listen to How Far Will You Go? without the backstory, you might catch yourself hoping for a double-bill with Hanni el Khatib. Why didn’t Smokey open for the Black Keys on their last tour? With an uncomplicated punk ethos colored with blips of funk guitar, Smokey passes for contemporary. But there’s so much more to the story!

How Far Will You Go? is a compilation of the band’s recordings from the 1970s.

Deemed “too gay” by record labels, frontman John “Smokey” Condon — a protestor in the Stonewall Riots and a member of John Waters’ Baltimore scene — founded S&M Records so he could release his music without changing his message.

The collection’s a revelation of songs that predict the path of ‘70s pop music, with sprouts of disco, funk, glam rock, and punk. Smokey revels in both ends of the guitar-sleaze spectrum, featuring work from the Stooges’ James Williamson as well as a very young and randy Randy Rhoads.

With its keyboard-driven pop strut and droll vocals, “Leather” would have been at home on radio playlists with The New York Dolls.

“I’ll Always Love You” pairs naturally with Nile Rodgers’ productions of the same era.

Their version of Bing Crosby’s “Temptation,” with its “Bolero” beat and throaty vocals, is the harbinger of goth. But the real melting pot might be “Million Dollar Babies,” which includes boilerplate disco bass and guitar, heavily Bowie’d verses, Alice Cooper’s subject matter, and even a smoked-out vocal effect straight from Lee “Scratch” Perry. In fact, over the course of this album, Smokey reveals itself as the missing puzzle piece needed to pull together the many disparate moods, attitudes, and styles of the ‘70s.

The gay themes that scared every record

producer Smokey approached? Maybe they seem less overt in our more enlightened times, especially with the hindsight that artists like David Bowie, Queen, and The Village People weren’t that much more subtle than Smokey. Sure, some of Smokey’s songs — say, “Piss Slave” and “Hot Hard and Ready” — don’t leave much to the imagination, but neither did Donna Summer. It’s a shame these recordings went decades without distribution. Musically, Smokey spans that time without sounding dated.

We’ve finally earned the pleasure of hearing it. ROBIN WHEELER

Joshua Powell And The Great Train Robbery Alyosha

Self Release

With an album title named after a character from Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and an Arthurian looking album cover, Alyosha is an album that goes down smooth. First track “Gunfighter Ballad for the 21st Century” sounds like the great ’80s song Neil Young should’ve written if he hadn’t spent so much time trying to piss off David Geffen. Evoking a rare breed of indie Americana and chamber pop in his music, Powell and his band have created a concept album that rolls through the uncertainties, transgressions and loneliness of the wilderness of the world, down the very river that adorns the cover.

The album has a very literary, allegorical heft to it. A certain sort of beautiful bleakness flows through the songs, from the feeling of hope retained whilst walking blindfolded down a hallway of swords, such as on “Cave of Clouds,” to the feelings of unseen danger and bravery on following track “The Farmer and the Viper.” Throughout, Powell handles his audience and his band like a shaman.

The ever-shifting dynamics of Alyosha run like sharp turns on the tracks of a runaway train — it takes its time to appreciate both the dangerously whipping wind and the blue skies and distant mountains of the American landscape passing by, even as the excitement and fear of the final destination mounts. Joshua Powell’s Alyosha might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but those who do decide to drink it in will certainly find a rich, compelling elixir that lingers on the palette. REV. DANIEL W. WRIGHT

Carlson

Never Easy Never Been Easier Driftless Recordings

1. All I see is an empty world. For all I know, I don’t exist in my

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Album Reviews own skin anymore. The speakers emit a robotic beat, one behind each ear. A light flickers on as the sounds travel back and forth. Everything in this room is so bright.

This must be what a newborn feels like. I realize I can’t move, and glance down to see my arms are strapped to this chair.

The sounds coming from the speakers are aesthetically pleasing, and yet slightly creepy. Something isn’t right.

2. The BPM shifts as two metal clamps appear from behind my head and pull my eyes open. Scenes of crowds rumbling and traffic jams appear on a video screen that lowers from the roof in front of my eyes.

They flash back and forth to the electronic beats, becoming more and more intense. I can’t look away as I feel my pulse rising. The bass drops and my body goes into a frenzy! Whatever is happening… I like it.

3. The chair I’m strapped to folds backwards as a healing blue and green lights pulse to the beat around my body. I feel cold.

Not the kind that comes with death, but something almost mechanical.

4. I notice the thumping in my chest is pounding heavy to the beat of the music.

It’s all clicks and beeps and strange voices that are hard to make out. I think they want me to wave my hands in the air. I am released from my bindings and take a look down at myself. I am metallic.

5. I have received my mission. I run down a corridor as other robotic hybrids chase after me. They fire projectiles and they spin past my sensors. I run along the halls shooting lasers from my wrists and bounding off walls. I can’t let them stop me from completing the task at hand.

6. I’ve reached my destination. I burst through the door as neon lights pulse around the room. The beat picks up and they turn into long tubes that echo out synth. A glowing glass ball descends from above in shimmering light. My mission is clear: I must dance. JACK PROBST

Netwurk

The Geeker Show Doorway Records (available at netwurk.net)

East St. Louis’ Doorway, comprised of Nick “Whiteout” Menn, RT-Faq, Heir Jordin (RT-Faq’s young son — see the video for “Proud History”), S.D. and Tek, has a long career as one of the region’s premiere hip-hop collectives. Netwurk is the name of the collaboration between S.D. and Tek (aka Midwest Messiah), but The Geeker Show is a departure from the expected Doorway sound of intricate rhyme patterns concerning everyman life over a

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traditional, fundamental hip-hop base.

The Geeker Show is high-energy rhyming with a harder but engaging edge. They’ve done a lot of shows in the past couple years around the area, and bring a very in-your-face live performance. On The Geeker Show, one can hear the hunger of two grown men really believing in their talent and ability to tell their story about the environment of East St. Louis.

Assisted by DJ Hypeman Big Sno and DJ Sno (of 100.3 The Beat), The Geeker Show opens with “Holla,” a song that starts off the project with a huge bang. “Can’t Help It,” featuring Delmar Records’ Indiana Rome, is the perfect song to ride around with the top down — or at least the windows. Many of these songs could fit into any satellite radio or club format, which speaks highly of Netwurk’s versatility. “Pablo,” a song that fans at Netwurk’s live shows love to see performed, is as hard hitting as any song can get about knowing Pablo Escobar and Noriega (figuratively, of course). The album’s title track, featuring St. Oeaux fka St. Orleans (of regional classic “We Don’t Luv ‘Em”) is very easy on the ears, and will have the listener nodding along in no time.

“That’s on Me” features labelmate Nick Menn, and is about striving in the harshest of East Side environments. “Hammer Pants” also carries a strong chorus about testicular fortitude in obtaining daily goals.

The Geeker Show is a delight to listen to and serves as a great display of Netwurk’s talent and work ethic. DUCKY HINES Netwurk celebrates their album release on Friday, July 10, at the Mad Magician (5625 Manchester).

Prinzhorn Dance School

Home Economics DFA Records

When Prinzhorn Dance School signed on for their first album, they insisted on including a specific clause for their EMI distributors that required the company to use recycled materials in the production of their albums. Although most likely driven by environmentalism, the move is indicative of the duo’s approach to songwriting.

On Home Economics, their latest EP, they borrow, melt down, and fuse together classic British melancholia and build for themselves a sparse, minimalist structure.

As with recycling though, they confine themselves to a certain set of materials.

And what this process does is scoop out the unique impurities from their sources. The result tends to give their music a feeling of standardization that is both pleasant and unmemorable.

Within thirty seconds of pressing play

on their latest EP, Home Economics, it’s clear that Prinzhorn Dance School is in the same school district as the XX’s school of gloom. And while the two share similarities between melodies and and softened percussive rhythms, the morose and somber extremities of the XX have been filtered out for Prinzhorn. Another influence that bubbles to the surface is pre-Madchester electronica that the drum machine evokes with the likes of New Order and Public Image Limited. Again, Prinzhorn Dance School have delicately melded this influence with their music, and yet all the machinery weirdness and experimentation is lost in the mix. Lastly, sprinkled throughout the EP are bits and pieces of the Fall in bass lines, vocal cadence, and lyrics, yet devoid of Mark E. Smith’s abrasive edge.

The songs on Home Economics are pleasant and moody pieces of pop, unique in their own right. Despite this, the group is unable to break away from the middle of the road in which they find themselves.

Perhaps it’s time they should start focusing on upper-level classes instead of electives like Home Ec. SEAN COTTON

Little Wings Explains Woodsist

Little Wings is the nom de plume of one Kyle Field, a background player in the indie music scene for years, working with musicians and bands like Devendra Banhart, Grandaddy, Lee Baggett, and Rodriguez. Having released almost a dozen records just as Little Wings in the last 15 years, Field is a seasoned troubadour of the Northwest.

I was presented one of his songs on a mix CD given to me in college by a friend living in Portland. That track, simply titled “III,” features a mostly falsetto Field joined on the lo-fi singalong by a chorus of friends.

There’s something about “III” that is so delicate, loving, and sad; I became fascinated, enthralled even, and spent a lot of time trying to track more hard-to-find gems down. Little Wings might not be a household name, but they deserve to be.

Little Wings lives in a realm already inhabited by the likes of Will Oldham/ Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Kurt Wagner’s Lambchop and (Smog)/Bill Callahan. On his new album, Explains, Field adds a little twang to his brand of clever folk-rock. He knows how to spin a tale with his words that conjures up fine details filled with wonder. Both “Light Brang” and “Fat Chance” are complex poems, spinning like tongue twisters that seem like they’re never going to stop spiraling.

He drops sly winks and nods throughout his rhymes: some highlights include references

Album Reviews to Zooey Deschanel’s shampoo commercials, the film How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Andes mints just to name a few. This probably looks silly on paper, and it is, but Field delivers it with such genuine sincerity that you’ll chuckle at its charm instead of rolling your eyes. His voice is unlike any other; frail while simultaneously expressing confidence in its delivery. As it breaks and quivers, Field’s voice comes out self-assured to provide your ears with imaginative stories. Fans of mellow, folk indie crooners need look no further than the music of Little Wings for your next favorite. JACK PROBST

EZTV

Calling Out Captured Tracks

Brooklyn trio EZTV’s debut LP, Calling Out, opens with a cymbal crash and a sparkly, filterswept guitar chord before side stepping its way into the opening groove of “Bury Your Heart.” The opening moments, like the rest of the album, are well-crafted and walk the line of unexpected and familiar with a good balance of ease and skill. EZTV’s sound fits snugly within the American power pop sound, leaning more toward jangle than drive.

They’re saying just what they mean to say without having to try too hard to get the point across; economical arrangements add just this guitar embellishment here, just a little extra from the drums there in a way that enhances the laidback, introspectivewithout-being-mopey songwriting of singer/guitarist/songwriter Ezra Tenenbaum. Vocal harmonies are placed just so, filling out the band’s sound for a beat or two before focusing back in on the lead vocal.

Calling Out is a first album by a band clearly comfortable in their sonic skin, well done but not trying too hard, an easy album to push play on and let run from start to finish without getting monotonous or jarring you out of your daydreams. JORDAN HEIMBURGER

Superchunk

Come Pick Me Up (reissue) Merge Records

Come Pick Me Up probably should have been called Here’s Where the Strings Come In — but they already named an album that back in 1995. In 1999, the band holed up in a studio in Chicago with musician/ producer/weirdo Jim O’Rourke (who would later play bass with Sonic Youth and mix Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, among other accomplishments) to bang out another classic entry in Superchunk’s legacy of

exuberant power-pop gems.

On the biggest and best song here, “Hello Hawk,” there’s the sudden appearance of a violin during the solo, which continues all through the eventual fade-out. Then there’s that blasting horn section at the end of “Pink Clouds” that threatens to devolve into chaos but pulls out at the last few seconds.

These touches of delicate instrumentation are woven into the brawny, brainy Cheap Trick-by-way-of-Pavement vibe on this record, which gave it just the right touch in the waning days of Alternative Nation.

Looking back now, on the sixteenth year since its release, it’s a wonder Superchunk wasn’t a bigger name. Though they are legend among committed indie-music fans, and their songs were made for singing along to, the transforming bolt of mainstream awareness never struck the band — which may well have been more blessing than curse, since they released a raft of their own albums uninterfered, and co-fronters Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance fundamentally shaped the sound of the next couple decades with their upstart label, Merge Records.

The second disc on this reissue contains three acoustic takes and five demos, a nice touch for Superchunk junkies, but not necessarily essential. The one undeniably worthwhile bonus is the original demo of “White Noise,” which didn’t make the cut for Come Pick Me Up but is intriguing in its yelping acoustic roughness. JASON ROBINSON

White Reaper

White Reaper Does It Again Polyvinyl Records

The kids raised on the radio apportionments of pop punk are grown up, and no one might be more emblematic of this than White Reaper. Their first full length, White Reaper Does It Again, showcases the group’s tendencies toward the loud, bouncy, and anthemic. With shout-along choruses, chunky guitar power chords (often palm muted), and catchy keyboard hooks, it’s hard not to feel like you’re in the middle of a fish-eye lens music video somewhere in SoCal with a bunch of green-haired skater slackers before the dot com bubble burst.

In fact, the album itself feels a bit like this camera trickery: it bulges at the center but tapers off at the edges both in terms of the sonic mix and songwriting style.

The precedent for a band like White Reaper certainly has its origins in more recent indie pop and rock bands such as Surfer Blood, Fidlar, or Ty Segall. Still, their sound brings to mind something more reminiscent of Weezer, Motion City Soundtrack, or Insomniac-era Green Day. Part of this is

in the straight ahead radio-ready approach to writing and recording that’s always aimed at the jugular, full throttle and unabashed.

The record leaves you with scant opportunities to breathe, charging ahead in a way that only sugar-addled, starry-eyed youth can.

And yet their exuberance may be the biggest downfall. Despite the fun and hookoriented writing style of the band, their dynamics leave much to be explored. This perhaps is what really gives the album an older feel. It’s safe and doesn’t take chances.

White Reaper aim to please, not to explore.

They write rippers, but the luster is lost after the third song. In a day and age where the LP is expected of any group who hope to make a career of themselves, White Reaper offer a compelling reason to return to the age of singles. SEAN COTTON

Active Child Mercy

Vagrant Records

Active Child has been a favorite around the web for quite some time. In the four years since mastermind Pat Grossi released his first full-length, You Are All I See, he has expanded on his humble electronic beginnings to build a project that experiments with chamber pop and R&B — think Antony & The Johnsons if Antony went out and bought a sequencer. Grossi has an angelic falsetto, which resonates even when his lyrics aren’t memorable. Not unlike former collaborator How To Dress Well, Active Child has expanded his instrumentation, adding more guitar and harp and less electronics. And after collaborating with popular singer Ellie Goulding on a track off 2013’s Rapor EP, Grossi’s fanbase has grown.

Unfortunately, Mercy feels lackluster, and doesn’t have the staying power of his previous releases. There’s almost always a musical hook or vocal loop in an Active Child song that sticks with the listener, but Mercy’s trouble lies in its lack of memorability.

Single “1999” presents a theme that runs through the entire record: the deeply romantic feeling of longing. Later, “Never Far Away” floats into new age/’90s Sting solo territory — which honestly is very pleasant and mesmerizing, even if your initial reaction might be to cringe. The title track grooves its way to romance as you follow a trail of rose petals that leads right to a candlelit bedroom.

Few indie acts can pull off something this uncomfortably cheesy, but Grossi has a way with sound that makes these songs interesting even when the lyrics aren’t very profound. Mercy is not Active Child’s strongest album to date, but Grossi is hardly in a sophomore slump. JACK PROBST

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THE WAY BACK PAGE While enjoying all the latest offerings the indie world has to offer, I often find amazing records buzzing around my brain months and years later. A tragic truth gained while working at a record store: it doesn’t matter how incredible you think a band is, they won’t sell as much as they should. Eventually all these gems will get marked down and sent to

The Bargain Bin Memories of long-forgotten records by Jack Probst

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Datarock

Datarock Datarock Young Aspiring Professionals, 2007

SHE BROUGHT OVER mushrooms for us to share, but we each took a separate trip. I provided the soundtrack to our visions, as I lay on the carpet between the stereo speakers. She latched on to a lot of the stuff I listened to, though there was one group she played me that stuck in my head: Norwegian dance rockers Datarock. Decked out in matching red tracksuits, these guys rocked and funked their way into my life.

Their hit “Fa-Fa-Fa” popped up all over the place in the spring of ‘07, although the entire record deserved its time in the sun.

Datarock knew how to get the party started and when to slow it down, but it certainly never stopped. It had actually come out a couple of years before in their homeland, but it had just hit the States. Where CSS had ruled our lives the summer before, Datarock picked up that torch for the next. The beginning of that afternoon was really colorful as we sat in different parts of my room, each having our own celebrations inside. Mine started to turn dark when “See What I Care” came through the speakers.

“If you do wanna leave me / just go right ahead / see what I care.” This resonated in my brain for what felt like hours. Time slows when you’re tripping, and every emotion you have explodes inside you. I suddenly started to think about what I had gotten myself into.

I felt like suddenly she and I weren’t much alike. We had completely different views of the world. She wanted to do things I’d never dream of. She believed in causes I had no interest in taking part in, let alone arguing about. She wanted to do any drug she could get her hands on. Much like the protagonist in Datarock’s “Sex Me Up,” she didn’t want to keep romance behind closed doors, she wanted us to get down with anyone. I couldn’t handle that. It all made me feel like I was inadequate.

“What are you doing with your life?” I thought. I sat up and tried to let her down

gently.

“I knew we wouldn’t last, but I never thought you’d be the one to end it,” she yelled at me. She left and tried to follow the lines of the highway as they swirled back and forth. I finally felt free. With my fist in the air, “I Used to Dance with My Daddy” kept me dancing all summer long. It was good to feel like myself again.

A year later, I stood waiting outside of the Pageant for my new friend Jillian.

I was mildly stoned, which was my usual state during my early twenties. She met my recent ex while they both were attending Webster University, and had heard about me working at Euclid. Back then, Euclid was located across from Nerinx High School, which she had attended. We talked about bands, and she helped me work through a sudden rehash of feelings for the ex. I found myself in a panic because we were now both on the same campus and I would see her from time to time. I let myself turn around the heartbreak so I felt like the one that got dumped. Datarock’s mopey “Most Beautiful Girl” set the scene for how I was now feeling.

My heart felt dark and alone, as I relived our breakup through her eyes.

Euclid had a boatload of comp tickets to see Ladytron, so I put the word out online to see if anyone wanted to join me. I didn’t know much about Ladytron then, other than they were a band I should probably be interested in. The real draw for me was the opener: Datarock themselves. Jillian invited her old high school friend Katie who was home for the summer. As they approached I had to rub my eyes for clarity. I could have sworn Jillian was walking with an elderly woman. Man, I really needed to cut back on the green stuff!

Before the show started Jillian excused herself, and there we were sitting alone at the same table. I imagined it would be dead silent, as per usual when I interacted with my friend’s other friends. But no, Katie started to ask me questions, and I was completely comfortable the entire time. For being someone who was frequently crippled by social interaction, I felt normal for once. I admitted to being pretty stoned, but she said she couldn’t tell. Her eyes always got really bloodshot, so she was pretty impressed that I could keep myself together. I probably looked like a fool for smiling as much as I did.

Datarock made everyone sweat, and the three of us danced the night away. When I arrived home that night I sent Jillian a message:

“So — what’s up with your friend?”

We were best friends for the summer until she had to retreat back to the Northwest for school. Datarock’s semi-cheesy but oh so sweet album-ending duet with singer Annie, “I Would Always Remember You,” was trapped in my head. But that is another story entirely...

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