Melisma Spring 2007 | Issue 6

MELISMA Volume III, Issue 2

editor-in-chief MEREDITH TURITS senior editor/business director MARTIN SATTELL submissions editor AMANDA BROWER assistant submissions editor DAN CASEY art director MOLLY LORENZO layout director AMANDA HART cover photo MEREDITH TURITS cover layout MOLLY LORENZO contributing writers CARRIE BATTAN, LAURA BERGER, AMANDA BROWER, DAN CASEY, RACHEL CHERVIN, ERIK DOUGHTY, ISABEL DUKE, MICHAEL T. FOURNIER, MAX FURMAN, RICKY HARTMAN, MEREDITH HASSETT, SHANA HURLEY, ALEX KITTLE, JESSE KOHN, DAVE MCCOUBREY, PETE MILLAR, MIGUEL MIRO-QUESADA, GEORGE NAGEL, EMILY PISTELL, MARTIN SATTELL, MICHAEL TUCKER, MEREDITH TURITS, BOBBY WESTFALL

from the editor

In a flash, the year has eluded us, and it’s spring again. Wow. And with spring, of course, comes the tired cliché of change. Sure, change can mean anything from a shift in attitude to an augmentation of plans. But how about revolutionizing our outlooks towards music? Seems easy enough, right?

It’s safe to say that most of us at Melisma dare to tread on the path less traveled, and turn ourselves to sounds outside of the realm of radio. But for whatever reasons, we’re still subconsciously tethered to genre lines, top ten lists or expectations set out by the scenes in which we dwell, websites we read or societal expectations we incur. But the question is: why are we so afraid to change?

For Melisma’s Spring 2007 issue, we dare you to take a risk, dare you to change and dare you to give yourself some freedom. At Melisma, we’re careful to advocate an open mind; if you want to publish your profile on a driving metal band next to an ode to a flighty indie act, then we want you to feel free to do it. And if you want to throw on a folk record that doesn’t nuzzle in so cozily next to your collection of boisterous hip-hop beats, then we dare you to take the chance.

So for spring, vow to work towards a little change. Blast the volume on something you’ve never heard before, and read about a band for which you never imagined you might care. Hey, you just might reward yourself with a pleasant surprise. And there’s no better way to embrace a new spring than with a fresh mind – and a fresh soundtrack.

Meredith Turits Editor-In-Chief

contributing editor MICHELLE HOCHBERG

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contributing photographers MIGUEL MIROQUESADA, MEREDITH TURITS layout engineers AMANDA HART, MOLLY LORENZO layout committee AMANDA BROWER, AMANDA HART, MOLLY LORENZO, MARTIN SATTELL, MEREDITH TURITS

interested in writing, art or design? questions, comments, adulation or hatemail? melismamagazine@gmail.com myspace.com/melismamagazine

Melisma Magazine is a non-profit student publication of Tufts Univer sity. The opinions expressed in ar ticles, features or photos are solely those of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor s or the staff. Tufts Univer sity is not responsible for the content of Melisma Magazine . If you would like to submit a letter to Melisma Magazine , please send it to melismamagazine@gmail.com. Please limit your letter to 400 words or less.

MELISMA

VOL 3.2

SPRING ‘07

features

opinions reviews m.pulse

MENEGUAR 4 CAMPAIGN FOR REAL TIME GRAPHIC NOVELS 6 EZRA FURMAN HARPOONS HOT CROSS 10 DUSTIN KENSRUE 13 BRIAN MCPHERSON 16 RED ELVISES 17 HOW WE ARE 18

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THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION 20 CLIPSE 21 ALTERNA-PORN 22 ABOVE THE INFLUENCE 24 ANGELS & AIRWAVES VS. +44 25

WRITTEN 26 RECORDED 27 LIVE 32 FILM 40

PULSE REVIEWS

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MELISMAfeatures

meneguar

BREAKING STRINGS, TAKING NAMES photos and text by MEREDITH TURITS

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Art school. It’s the stereotypical backdrop for an over-romanced story of a group of nerdy kids who flourish into a successful band. You know the drill; a few guys with similar tastes put down the silk-screening materials one night to play some music together, which eventually blossoms into more than just a Tuesday night jam session.

Admittedly, Meneguar’s story isn’t too different. The now-Brooklyn-based four-piece first crossed paths a few years ago at SUNY Purchase, roughly an hour north of New York City. Jumping in and out of bands together for a few years, vocalist/guitarist Jarvis Taveniere, guitarist Christian Deroeck, bassist Justin Wertz and drummer Jeremy Earl first played as a unit under the name Sheryl’s Magnetic Aura. They took control of a small region of East Africa outside Nairobi and lived happily ever after.

Okay, that last part was a lie. But in 2004, after a handful of releases, including a 7-inch split with Rapider Than Horsepower, the band decided to wipe the slate clean, rename and start again. Cue the inception of Meneguar.

The band re-launched with a five-song cassette on Wertz’s label, Fuck It Tapes, followed by 2005’s full-length, I Was Born at Night, for Magic Bullet.

About a year later, Meneguar geared up for a few more projects to happen side-by-side.

“We started writing a new album and recorded two of the songs at our house and put out a 7-inch on Troubleman Unlimited,” Taveniere says of the endeavor that became the Bury A Flower 7-inch. “Around the same time, we had Troubleman reissue the first record all remixed and remastered. We were never one hundred percent happy with the way I Was Born At Night [initially] looked or sounded. When the original press sold out, we decided to fix it up a bit.”

With a raw, indie-pop sound as the enveloping air, there’s something about Meneguar’s core that’s silky and, at times, almost sultry. There’s no dire urgency rushing the tracks, but instead a calculated kind of cool that lets the songs unfold on their own. Clean guitars mesh with Taveniere’s bright vocal lines and sharp tongue to create lively, playful soundscapes. Meneguar’s natural dynamic comes out in their sound; the music seems to flow like a live performance in a Brooklyn basement, even when harnessed in a studio. And frankly, with the way this stuff moves, it’s just the kind of thing that’s effortless to fall in love with.

“I feel like the studio always compromises the live energy to some extent,” Taveniere says. “There [are] plenty of times in the studio where I’m really getting into the take and then after everything’s mixed it just sounds like nothing special.” Despite Taveniere’s reservations, both the 7-inch and LP play with intensity and fervor.

Riddled with savvy lines like “One hand is broken/and the other needs a break” and “I’m not picking my battles/‘cause I’m not ready to choose,” Taveniere’s lyrical wit extends Meneguar’s sound to a new level.

“Writing lyrics is one of my favorite parts, but it can really stress me out too,” he remarks. “There [are] some lines that I know are bad and I know I should change them, but they [come] out of my mouth so naturally...they just feel like they belong.”

The same type of sound and aesthetic that Meneguar has nearly perfected will carry over to the next group of to-dos on their proverbial plate, which includes a new self-engineered full-length for Troubleman slated to see

life this summer.

“Some of the songs were written right after the last [record], so it’s not a total departure, but we worked way harder on the writing and recording of this one,” Taveniere says. “We’re learning how to record as we go, so the newest album sounds a little more fleshed out.”

But, true to form, one project is not quite enough.

“All the monotony of the studio inspired us to start recording more at home,” he continues. “The results of that will be released on our drummer Jeremy’s label, Woodsist, around the same time as the Troubleman LP.” It seems to be their intimate home environment that allows the quartet to go into projects with guns blazing. “[Our dynamic is] uptight,” Taveniere laughs. “We’re around each other all the time. It can be stressful, but it also leads to getting things done.”

Between their two upcoming projects and plans to comb the US, UK and Europe with tours, Meneguar’s cup hath runeth over.

“The longer we play together, the looser we become,” Taveniere says. “At the beginning, I worried too much. Now I just try to have fun and not break guitar strings in the middle of the set.”

campaign for real time THE FUTURE OF MUSIC...LITERALLY

by MICHAEL T. FOURNIER

The Campaign For Real-Time are five dudes (plus one android) from the future who travel back in time to cover songs that haven’t yet been written. Still with me?

Good. Their vision of the future sounds pretty damn fine – music that provokes bouts of butt-shakin’ on the first nine listens, then nudges you in the Fugazi bone on the tenth (if you can sit still, that is). In 2006, C4(RT) released two long-players (Yes….I Mean, No and Let It Rise, both on Curve Of The Earth/Big Scary Monsters), toured England twice, won the WBCN Rock N’ Roll Rumble and made a video for their song “In Your Dreams.” Whew! I sat down for a brief chat with All-World Lee “Big Game” Bronson prior to the release of Knocks From The Underground, an Endless Recordings compilation CD featuring scads of Boston bands.

You guys supposedly didn’t write any of your own songs – they’re all from the future. Ever been sued by the artists you “covered?”

Our lawyer, Don Bixtler, has told us to “tread lightly” with this topic.

Well, what are you allowed to say about it?

Best-case scenario? It’s free advertising for the, um, talent, we’re, ahem, paying homage to. Worstcase scenario, how are their legal teams going to fight us when we’ve had recorded proof of playing this material way before the songwriters were even born?

For those unfamiliar, please introduce your lineup.

Dick Dreyfus hits the four on the floor. Dr. J.W. Hemisphere lays down the stings and strings.

Felix Coyote is called “Styles” by the ladies - we hired him due to his mastery of analog synths and antiquated iMacs. We found Falconer Model 7 in the trash and gave him a big douching. Now, he sings and plays keys. Falconer was kinda bullshit at being an android, and all these people stereotyping him as such, so he chose a human name: Elton “The Wizard” Steal. Rory Stark breaks law school students’ hearts, sings and programs. He also rips the guitar. And me? I’m All-World Lee “Big Game” Bronson – “Big Game” because I step up big, and I earned the All-World moniker.

How strange is it to play on a compilation CD with bands whose futures have already been decided?

All bands’ histories are written.

Bands form daily. Some get to the point where they might play out.

Some record. Some don’t. Some release albums. Some tour. One thing you can count on is that every band will break up.

But thinking specifically of the record release show, which featured like a dozen bands playing short sets -- doesn’t that sort of event grate on you?

It’s great to play with Paneling back when they’re called Hooray For Earth and before Mad Man Films finally decide to cut the bullshit and start filming prison documentaries. Read Yellow is gonna disband per order of the Misspelling Act of 2009. The saddest part is playing with Faces On Film.

Why? C’mon now.

Your newest, Let It Rise, was released on vinyl.

What do you think is the medium’s place in today’s music?

Vinyl’s at the forefront for any serious music consumer, and for DJs. Let the other 40,000,000 people out there listen to mp3s. People love tactile objects, and there’s nothing more tactile (at least musically speaking) than vinyl. You have to physically flip the goddamn thing over to enjoy all of it. That and Felix has been training in this weird arcane thing you guys do now called “beat matching.” Apparently, it involves playing the same song simultaneously on two turntables.

It would be so much easier if you just used a Slamdek.

What the hell is a Slamdek?

It’s the next in a long line of gizmos that the industry puts out in order to get you to buy your whole music collection again. Just wait.

Right. So what’s up with all the names on the album cover?

Like I’ve said before, vinyl is at the forefront for any serious music consumer. And any serious music consumer either knows, is going to know, or is going to get schooled that those bands listed are the only people doing anything serious in this goddamn industry!

But there’re like 300 names!

And there are 3,000 albums released each week.

What’s your point? We have to be teachers in this community. We’re all in this together. We have to help pull each other up.

How viable is the idea of community in 2007?

I’m going to answer this idiotic question because I’m a nice guy and I think your heart’s in the right place. The idea of the community is viable today and tomorrow and the tomorrow after that.

Haven’t you ever heard that expression “No man is an island?”

Who said that?

Mark Cuban, I think.

is among the leading authorities on New Hampshire emo math metal. His book on the Minutemen’s Double Nickels On The Dime is part of Continuum Press’s “33 1/3” series. He once bought Lisa Carver a donut.

MELISMAfeatures

the comic tradition

A SOPHISTICATE’ S GUIDE TO COMIC BOOKS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS

by DAN CASEY

What would you say if someone told you they read comic books? Would you write them off? Joke about how it’s just “kids’ stuff?” Who reads comics, anyway?

Surely it’s all just sweaty, overweight, pasty, acne-ridden people who live in their parents’ basements, stuffing their faces full of Twinkies and Cheetos, only emerging to head to the local Sci-Fi convention with their stained “Jedi Was Better” t-shirt, right? Wrong. Too many people miss out on the visual and literary goldmines that are comic books. Granted, there are still your throwaways like Archie and other titles geared toward a younger audience, but the majority of comics tackle social and political issues, using them as a springboard for the art form. That said, why is there still this stigma attached to such a seminal part of our national visual culture? Superman has his own exhibit in the Smithsonian, for crying out loud! Where’s the justice?

Perhaps it’s the nomenclature; “comic book” has certain negative connotations attached to it. Instead, why not go with the more sophisticated terminology of “graphic novel.” According to Merriam-Webster, a “graphic novel” is a “fictional story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as a book.”

Boy, howdy, that sure sounds like a comic book to me. Now that we’ve elevated ourselves to a higher plateau of lexicology, let’s discuss the issue at hand: the unwarranted neglect of a rich medium. Since the inception of comics, critics have castigated comics as “subliterate” and even purported that reading comic books would disrupt the development of a child’s literacy. The poor quality and tiny typeface of the original comic books lead to fears of visual impairment.

Furthermore, comics were generally seen as “poor-quality, unimaginative works that promoted a fantasy world.” Though some spoke out against this criticism, citing a lack of any substantial evidence, the critics kept up their full-frontal assault. Hence, the long-lasting assumption that comics are but a “children’s medium.”

It’s no secret that violence has a certain place within comic books. With any other form of media, people are bound to take issue with something and blow it out of proportion. In his 1940 editorial “A National Disgrace” in the Chicago Daily News, columnist Sterling North alleged that the “bulk of these lurid publications depend for their appeal upon mayhem, murder, torture, and abduction….Superhuman heroics, voluptuous females in scanty attire, blazing machine guns, hooded ‘justice,’ and cheap political propaganda were to be found on almost every page….Unless we want a coming generation even more ferocious than the present one, parents and teachers throughout America must band together to break the ‘comic’ magazine.” Wow, Sterling, those are some strong words.

This all feels strangely familiar: just as today’s demagogues decry videogames like “Grand Theft Auto” and the alleged “fact” that they are turning our nation’s youth into bloodthirsty, car-stealing, pedestrian-pummeling killers, yesterday’s firebrands sought to vilify the comic book. I mean, these are the same people who told you that playing “Dungeons & Dragons” is a one-way ticket to Hell.

To be fair, there is some credence to these claims. Some comics are exactly that: chock full of violence, cheap political propaganda and the like. Case in point: This Godless Communism, an American anti-communism propaganda comic from the ‘60s. This Godless Communism poses the age-old question of “what if the US were conquered by the communists?”

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(Apparently, it won’t be very much fun.)

As a sort of counter-counterpoint, one needs to keep in mind that comic book writers and artists are not depraved, amoral people. They have to adhere to the standards set forth by the Comics Code Authority, which is like the FCC, but for comic books. Despite this, there is a definite place for more “adult” themes within comics. Often times, these themes are necessary in order to make social commentary. It can be hard to be meaningful if you are relegated to Spider-Man rescuing cats from trees or Alfred accidentally shrinking Batman’s costume in the dryer.

The world needs comic books. Some things are better expressed visually and textually. A perfect example of this is Art Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, a memoir recounting his father’s struggle to survive the Holocaust as a Polish Jew and drawing largely from his father’s personally recounted experiences.

In 1992, this grim tale of sacrifice, racial prejudice and the effects of war on a family through the generations won a Pulitzer Prize Special Award. Are these themes difficult to address? Yes. Do they need to be addressed? Yes. People like Spiegelman need the medium of the graphic novel in order to express that which cannot be done simply by written word alone. For example, Spiegelman’s mother committed suicide after surviving Auschwitz and coming to the States.

His father, in the depths of depression, burned her journals, an event ironically similar to the Nazi book-burnings. With such a fractured home life and his parents’ tragic pasts, Spiegelman’s visual narrative is the only method for him to come to terms with his reality. Comics can enable people to tell those stories which need to be told – and for that, we are truly lucky.

Clearly, comic books and graphic novels aren’t just “kids’ stuff.” Rather, they deal with some rather sophisticated sociopolitical issues across a wide variety of genres. In series like Ex Machina, politics and superheroism butt heads as the plot revolves around an ex-superhero, now the mayor of New York City as he deals with issues from gay marriage to racism to his own personal demons. Most recently, in the Marvel Comics’ mega-event Civil War, a political schism threatens to divide the world of superheroes. After the New Warriors, a superhero team with a reality television show, tries to attack a supervillain hideout, a villain named Nitro generates an explosion which kills several of the New Warriors and 600 schoolchildren in Stamford, Conn. As a result, the superhero community is faced with a dangerous piece of legislation, the Superhero Registration Act, which forces heroes to register their identities and abilities with the United States government and work for the government directly or be declared an outlaw, an enemy of the state, so to speak. The legislation results in a rift within the hero community, plunging them all into a civil war. Beneath this massive, title-spanning superhero battle royale, however, lies some very poignant political allegory about life in the wake of 9/11 and the Patriot Act. The creative folks behind comic books these days are not sitting on their collective duffs. They are not living under rocks. They are not merely churning out cheesy, uninformed pulp, week after week. They are taking a proactive role in raising social awareness through a very viable medium.

Listen – in case you couldn’t tell, I am really passionate about comic books. I have grown up reading comic books; it’s a hobby I share with my dad and it’s something he’s done since he was a wee lad himself. Just as cotton is the fabric of our lives, comics contain the visual and social fabric of our lives. Comics are not just for kids; they deal with adult themes and pressing issues within today’s society. So next time, instead of writing off those brightly-colored tales of Spandex-clad he-men as something you wouldn’t enjoy, give them a chance. You’ll thank me later.

Now that I’ve ranted about why you should read comics, I feel obligated to recommend several personal favorites which are guaranteed to be accessible and enjoyable for even those who are strangers to the medium.

The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman “An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.”

If that description doesn’t send shivers down your spine, then you may want to check your pulse. Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead is a wonderful series which seeks to answer the question of “What happens next?” after most zombie movies end. In a well-worn genre, Kirkman’s character-driven story has great writing, great pacing and enough action and drama to keep you hooked. This series examines the human condition through the slightly unconventional lens of a zombie apocalypse. With deep characterization, Kirkman aims to show us that in a world full of zombies, humans can be just as dangerous.

MELISMAfeatures

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman The Sandman is, perhaps, the standard to which all other modern comics must strive to achieve. The only comic book series ever to win the World Fantasy Award as well as the first comic series to be on the New York Times Best-Seller List, The Sandman is truly an epic undertaking. According to Neil Gaiman, the series’ creator, the plot is: “The king of dreams learns one must change or die and then makes his decision.” The Sandman’s grand tale centers on Dream, the immortal, anthropomorphic personification of dreams. If some critics find comics’ storylines to be lacking in substance, they should examine The Sandman before another misinformed word leaves their snarky lips.

Beginning with the end of Dream’s long imprisonment, Gaiman takes the reader on a journey through the ages. From William Shakespeare making an almost Faustian bargain with Dream to a nightmare taking physical form and organizing a serial killers’ convention in an unsuspecting motel in rural America, Gaiman’s writing is unparalleled. Incorporating elements of horror, fantasy, and classical and contemporary mythology, he creates a living, breathing world and paints Dream as a tragic hero in a truly compelling tale. Some say that this series legitimized comic books as high art; some say that this series is ground-breaking.

Personally, I would say that it is both, and furthermore, it is one of the best stories you may ever read, be you a long-time comic book fan or a complete stranger to the medium.

Watchmen by Alan Moore Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

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Who watches the watchmen?

Despite my glowing words about The Sandman, Alan Moore’s Watchmen may very well be the pinnacle of achievement for graphic novels. Not only is Watchmen the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award, the most prestigious award for a work of fantasy or science fiction, but it is also the only graphic novel to appear on Time Magazine’s 2005 list of “The 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present.” Originally a 12-issue mini-series, Watchmen was one of the first superhero comics to present itself as serious literature, popularizing the “graphic novel” format in the process. Watchmen takes place in 1985, in an alternative history United States where costumed vigilantes are very real and the country is dangerously close to nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The Doomsday Clock is at five minutes to midnight and to make matters worse, the hero community has been ravaged by the Keene Act, a piece of legislation which has effectively banned all forms of costumed justice. Beginning with the mysterious murder of one of their own, Watchmen revolves around the story of a group of superheroes – past and present. Taking a somewhat unique viewpoint, Watchmen seeks to break down the standard view of superheroes by portraying them as real people who must confront ethical and personal issues of their own, people who struggle with their own neuroses and must cope with their own failures, people who – with the exception of the truly metahuman Dr. Manhattan – really lack anything that could constitute a “super power.” Alan Moore envisioned Watchmen as “a superhero Moby Dick; something that had that sort of weight, that sort of density.” With Watchmen’s utter deconstruction of the superhero archetype, masterful usage of symbolism and metafiction and cinematic storytelling techniques, it is an instant classic and one which warrants several reads to appreciate its sublime, multifaceted genius.

Dan Casey is a freshman majoring in International Relations and Defense Against the Dark Arts. When not enjoying a nice, warm Butterbeer with his pals Ron and Hermione, The Boy Who Lived at Tufts is coming of age in 700 pages or less. The lightning bolt-shaped scar on his head is a reminder of the dark magic of Vegan-Super-Editor-In-Chief Meredith Turits.

There is a movie deal in the works. Action figures, too.

ezra furman & the harpoons JUMBO PRIDE

by MARTIN SATTELL

Would-be musicians often begin their careers late in middle school when, after idolizing Led Zeppelin or The Clash, and with a bit of parental fiduciary intervention, they pick up Ibanez GRX20s from a local Guitar Center and play makebelieve rock star with their friends. In most cases, they quit only a few years later, their once trusty axes accumulating dust under a bed or in a closet. Ezra Furman fits this mold almost perfectly. For Furman, it was listening to London’s seminal punk rock outfit The Sex Pistols that inspired him to begin playing the guitar. But, unlike his dilettantish contemporaries, he stuck with the instrument, improving his technical abilities and songwriting methodology to secure the award of a record contract with Illinois’ Minty Fresh Records late last year.

“I started off a punk kid,” Furman recounts shyly. “But my mom, being an ex-hippie said, ‘If you’re going to be the musical type, you’ve got to hear Bob Dylan.’” It wasn’t until after dabbling in Blonde on Blonde that Furman says he became obsessed with music, and he was certain he wanted to seriously pursue a career in the field.

Whereas the influence of punk music informed Furman’s musicianship (he is an ardent and avowed heavy-picker “because that’s what has to be done,” he says), the introduction of singer/songwriters such as Dylan – and later Neil Young and Joan Baez – into his CD collection compelled him to begin writing his own songs. Furman’s lyrics reveal the variation in his influences, as well. Caught somewhere between polar opposites, Furman’s lyrics are poetic like the folk-rock he adores, but his punk persuasion adds an element of anger to his diction, he says.

The aural pleasure of Furman’s songs is definite, but their poetic nature requires repeated listening for full digestion. Those self-described literate lyrical gems such as, “I’m so cautious I get cautious/as my highway stretches out/my little pupils dilate in the shadow of a doubt,” are belied by oft-melodious chords.

Before leaving his hometown of Evanston, Ill., Furman became a regular of Chicago area open mic nights where he showcased his talent as both a musician and lyricist. In the process, he accumulated an extensive repertoire of original material that would make any serious musician swoon with a mixture of admiration and jealousy.

Despite various offers from area musicians, Furman was averse to forming or joining a band. “A lot of people at that age are just like, ‘Hey, we all play instruments, so let’s start a band,’” he observes adroitly. “They don’t think the songs have to be good.” Like most precocious musicians, Furman’s merit comes from his deliberate songwriting. He asserts that having quality songs is personally important to him because he feels that he is not a talented singer. If joining a band were at all to trivialize the value of his music, the effect would be devastating for him as a musician, Furman says.

Furman maintained his lone wolf status for the first year and a half of his time in the Boston area as an undergraduate at Tufts University. Despite his conviction to remain a soloist, however, he says he was “won over to the dark side,” by Jahn Sood, Job Mukkada and Adam Abrutyn in early 2006. He explains that the three were members of the Tufts rock group Moksha, but, after being unable to decide whose songs to play, they brought in Furman as an intermediary. “They got sick of it and said, ‘Let’s just play your songs,’” recalls Furman.

They were so intent on playing his songs that they offered him the position of lead vocalist/guitarist and frontman for an entirely new band – Ezra Furman and The Harpoons. Although he expected being in a band would detract from his creative process, Furman proudly admits that having a band works out because he’s still able to sufficiently express himself. He says he plays, “as if [he] were alone on stage. [The band] just come in at the right parts.”

Equipped with a backup band, Furman felt confident enough to return a longstanding call from Redwalls manager Mitch Marlow, who saw him perform at a show in Evanston, liked what he heard, and gave Furman his card. Marlow, who had understandably previously given up on Furman as a potential client, quickly leapt into action, preparing the band – and Furman, especially – for its path to success.

“He got us shows, lined up a tour,” Furman says, alluding to the band’s summer 2006 “Broke and Hungry Tour,” which spanned from Maine to Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to Illinois.

Most importantly, Marlow contacted executives from Minty Fresh Records – a small, serious and respected record label that includes such mainstream acts as The Cardigans and Liz Phair on its repertoire. Marlow sent the Minty Fresh execs the band’s 2006 demo titled Beat Beat Beat, and requested they attend an Ezra Furman and The Harpoons show in Evanston – a stop on the tour. Even though the demo was recorded in a dorm room (the EP’s liner notes affectionately refer to it as “Studio 416”), it made enough of an impression to prompt the execs to go to the concert. After being sufficiently impressed by the four-piece, they made an offer to put out the band’s record. “We freaked out,” Furman says.

The 14-song – and currently untitled – album was recorded over six days in January and is slated for released in April of this year. It was recorded at Engine Studios in Chicago with producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse/Josh Ritter/Iron and Wine).

In the meantime, the band is playing shows around the Northeast and handling its newfound success. Furman is still a bit unsure of himself.

“Now we’ve got this album that’s not mastered,” he says. “We’ve got to choose the order and get an album cover. It’s been really unclear how big of a deal it is, but things become more clear as we talk to people older than we are that are more involved in the [music] industry and it’s made us realize that it is a deal.” He cites the sentiments reflected in songs such as “My Soul Has Escaped from My Body,” to convey his incredulity as to his recent successes as a musician. “I always felt in the past year and even now that we’re faking it, but I guess that’s how you start out,” he says.

Self-effacing and uncertain of his own abilities, what Furman fails to see is that he’s not just starting out; he’s making it. Regardless of Furman’s reservations, he’s likely on his way to a successful music career. Expect more than just this upcoming debut from Ezra Furman and the Harpoons.

Martin Sattell raises hell as his death bell knells.

MELISMAfeatures

hot cross

RISK TAKERS, RISK REVIVERS photos and text by MEREDITH TURITS

The ice obscuring the entrance to MassArt’s Pozen Center is thick and choppy, and covers the small Boston side street in an unforgiving way. The February air, biting at earlobes and noses, has forced the crowd that has gathered for the evening’s show inside the building. Plastering themselves against walls with radiators blazing, most are still wearing their coats, even after heading inside.

It’s roughly a quarter after seven when the four members of Hot Cross – vocalist Billy Werner, bassist Matt Smith, drummer Greg Drudy and guitarist Casey Boland – sweep into the venue’s open space with flushed, wind-whipped faces. They’re visibly rushed, riddled with the pressure of time and stress of traffic. After the load-in and a few trays of coffee, the band gears up for their headlining set in support of their new release, Risk Revival.

It’s been more than two years since the mixed-reviewed Fair Trades and Farewells EP dropped on Drudy’s Virginia-based label, Level-Plane. As one of the most highly influential and relentlessly active bands in the face of their independent music niche, Hot Cross’ absence left many pensive, wondering what was next for the quartet who seemed to acquiesce into silence.

When the band slipped back onto the radar last year, their reemergence came with a few announcements that threw Hot Cross die-hards for a loop. As expected, the band would be back with a vengeance – or at least a new full-length record: their first in more than three years. But Level-Plane, which had been entirely responsible for all Hot Cross projects since the band’s inception in 2000, would be taking a backseat to the release. Instead, Equal Vision would be grabbing the reins on the project. Then, following the Equal Vision/Hope Division jump, Hot Cross also revealed they’d be pushing their release date back from the expected 2006 debut to February of 2007 in order to overhaul and improve the work they’d already done.

And that ride has brought the band to their perch in the open MassArt venue, now on the heels of Risk Revival’s release. All of the changes and hiatuses, though now tucked behind them in the Hot Cross history books, aren’t quite independent of the band just yet. As Werner sat down to explain, their tumult on the road to release has been weaved into the fibers of Risk Revival, from its darker overtones and lyrical exploration to its powerful aesthetic.

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2006 was obviously a year of a lot of changes for you guys, between jumping over to Equal Vision, re-recording, pushing your release date back, etc. In general, how do you guys take to change as a whole, both as you create it and as it springs on you unannounced?

We’ve always dealt with these kinds of things. Hot Cross has always been a challenging band to be in; the last three years or so were spent trying to co-ordinate a practice schedule while one of our members lived six hours away. At this point, we’ve learned to roll with the punches and adapt quickly. When you’re an active band, 90 percent of the changes that come about are generally spontaneous and unannounced.

The transition to Equal Vision [EVR] took a while, right?

We were talking to EVR on and off for at least a

year before we signed our names to anything.

Since the record was written several months ago during the transition, is the material on Risk Revival still totally pertinent for you?

Absolutely. The songs are still powerful and relevant to us on a personal level. The long process of getting this record out is actually part of the reason why these songs mean so much.

Risk Revival was truly a labor of love and finally having the record out and being able to play the songs live at every show are the residual rewards of months of frustration and hard work.

After essentially releasing everything yourself through Level-Plane, how did the idea of surrendering control to an extent affect you?

It was a long and hard decision to make. By nature we are control freaks about most aspects of our individual lives so letting someone else

into something so intensely personal for us was a challenge. Gaining our trust is hard and Equal Vision knew how to approach us and speak to us in a way that was respectful and sincere. They came to us as fans who were genuinely interested in what we were doing and that went a long way with us.

What could a label have done to turn you off to them, then? In the same vein, what appealed about the approach that EVR took?

Like most people involved with “DIY” projects, we were suspicious of larger labels and their intentions. Having been around EVR bands and only hearing positive things, we were intrigued by their way of doing things. This was a label that has had multiple 100,000 [copy] sellers and they seemed to treat their bands better and fairer than most of the small bedroom labels we knew.

One day, the entire staff came to see us play a

show at ABC No Rio, paid to get in, apologized for being late and told us they were stoked to see the band after listening to the records. They were a lot friendlier, open and enthusiastic than most of the punks we interact with who are half their age. Go figure. We’ve just gotten a very positive, supportive and enthusiastic attitude from the label from day one. You can’t beat that.

Let’s talk a little more about the record.

Why the title Risk Revival?

Releasing a record is a risky venture, on both an artistic and emotional level. Another album out for consumption is a revival of those inherent risks.

Sonically, it’s a little darker in nature, but production is a bit crisper. Explain both elements.

Is the contrast very relevant to the music?

Individually a lot of things happened to us over the course of the last three years - families dissolved, relationships dissolved; some of us were forced to come to terms with death, others came to terms with new chapters in their lives… slates were cleaned, others became too dense to read. All in all, a good record is going to reflect the real lives of the people that make it. As a whole, I’d say it was a dark few years for all of us.

Sonically, we wanted to closely mimic what it might be like to see us live, both in terms of energy and depth. This is the first recording where I think we managed that. All in all I think the sound of the record compliments the musical and lyrical themes of the songs very well. We were fortunate that it turned out that way.

Myles Karr is a bit of a creative genius, no?

Myles is one of the most talented people I know, without a doubt.

How did you establish the relationship that led him to do your artwork for the release?

We’ve all known Myles for many years from playing in bands. He’s been a friend of mine for around ten years and we worked together at the same tattoo shop for a couple of years. He was excited to be involved and we were excited to have someone who knew us on a personal level on board.

How does the artwork tell the story of your record and who you guys are?

We all bear various burdens that we are forced to drag behind us, or overcome. This is a theme

that appears multiple times on the record. The artwork expresses both sides of that very well.

Did you hand him lyrics or the music and ask him to match his art to those, or did you give him a concept and ask him to sort of go with it?

I told him the title of the record and some of the names of the songs and he ran with it. He’s too imaginative to give him too many guidelines.

We wanted original concepts from him and he delivered.

This time around, what are your goals for the record?

We wanted to write and record an album that we would be proud of and I think we achieved that. Seeing the record appealing to people that haven’t heard of us or that never liked us before is something we always like to have happen.

Hopefully we will see that with this record.

What about touring?

We’re definitely excited about being out on the road again. We barely played out at all last year, as we were trying to get this album done in a way we were satisfied with. We don’t have any specific goals for touring other than getting to as many places we can without burning ourselves out or going into debt.

I know you’re the kind of person who has a pretty full schedule and intensive regimen. Are you the kind of person who has always needed a lot of structure in your life?

Interesting question. I’m definitely more comfortable when I’m involved in some sort of routine. I am so busy most of the time that I have to have structure to keep everything straight and prioritized.

Is Hot Cross’ regimen as structured, too?

As much as it can be. It’s hard when you’re

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dealing with four people who have lives outside of the band. We do pretty well though. We work pretty hard.

just because you can do something doesn’t mean you’re equipped or experienced enough to do it right.

How does having your members spread out geographically affect scheduling and the social dynamic in the band?

It took its toll when Greg lived in Virginia. He drove 12 hours round trip to practice entire weekends with us. That’s how most of Risk Revival was written. Now, three of us live in Philly and Greg is only one hour away, so it’s a lot easier.

Do you think the effect is necessarily negative or positive either way?

It all depends on the individual and their own goals.

What have you guys done to make sure that you’re using the outlet in a positive way?

Our use of it is at a bare minimum label. I don’t think we’ve ever sent out a friend request. We don’t troll the site doing searches for “emo” and “Level-Plane” and “hardcore.”

The site is large enough so that if people are interested in us, they can find us. There’s no reason to annoy people. We use it to post tour dates, announce stuff and host media. That’s about it.

You’re definitely very cognizant of the current digital music culture, what with MySpace and other similar media making exposure of bands much easier. However, through past bands and with Hot Cross’ lengthy run, you guys definitely got your feet wet before the Internet was a huge player.

What effect has digital technology had on your band and the way you approach music, distributing, writing, etc? I know you have a huge opinion on music sharing.

The biggest change is immediacy.

A band you never heard of is playing in your town tomorrow night? Log on to the Internet and check them out. Okay, guess you’re not going to the show. Want a 7-inch your local store can’t get? Log on to the Internet; you’ll have it by Friday. The benefits of this are incredible, but it also kills the mystique and excitement of underground music. Where’s the incentive to check out new bands on the road? Where’s the incentive to order a record based on word of mouth? For bands, Myspace is a dream come true.

People like to laugh at it, but where else can you host any kind of media you have absolutely free, reach literally millions of people every single day and promote directly to people that may like what you do? It doesn’t matter if you sell ten million records, or ten. Myspace is a level playing field where, for the most part, all bands have the same opportunity to promote. I think that is an amazing tool. You couldn’t pay for this kind of exposure to millions of people ten years ago and now it’s totally free and available to anyone and everyone. I only get annoyed when the Internet manages to kill a band or promoter’s work ethic and unfortunately that happens all too often. Most of the time it results in this weird sense of entitlement that almost never reflects that person’s experience or the amount of work they’ve invested in what they do. That is a sad fact. The Internet also doesn’t really teach people that

How has your live show developed as your discography has progressed?

It’s weird to have to go back and relearn songs we haven’t played in a long time. I never thought I’d be in a band that had to pick and choose from an entire catalogue’s worth of songs.

What’s the biggest criticism you usually hear about your live show?

[That] our sets are too short.

What do you say to that?

Talk to Greg.

dustin kensrue

COMING HOME TO A SOUL EXPOSED

by MEREDITH TURITS

PHOTO: PAM PIFFARD

I can’t remember the last time I saw a line stretch so far out the door of the Knitting Factory. It’s safe to say I spent nearly half of the part of my childhood that actually mattered riding the 1 train to Franklin Street in TriBeCa and trekking up to Leonard Street. Sometimes I was drenched in sweat from subway humidity, or otherwise bundled up to the point where my eyes looked like they were floating in a tangle of scarves. But it was the black banner that always made my heart flutter with a kind of excitement you can only know when you’re a 15-year-old about to see your favorite band for the first time. It’s like nothing else matters, really; you brush through the door, past the wood-paneled walls, and the intimacy of the New York venue rushes into your veins like an amphetamine.

These memories are at their most vivid looking back on my little ninth-grade self stumbling into Knit for one of my first experiences there. My limbs shook with an unfamiliar anticipation to see Thrice, the band whose love would, for me, be forever unmatched as I cradled The Illusion of Safety as if it were a small child. And when Dustin Kensrue, Thrice’s frontman and lyricist, delivered the band’s songs like sermons – the poetry of my world…well, those are the kind of things that you frame like a photograph in your mind. It’ll hang on my five senses forever.

So when that little tingle found its way back to tickling my limbs as Mr. Kensrue took the stage again, this time several years and countless Thrice shows later, I couldn’t help but welcome it with the sincerest familiarity. In 2007, as a solo artist on the cusp of his first Equal Vision release, Please Come Home, Dustin Kensrue sings a slightly different tune, but holds onto his signature soul. He has packed fewer obscure metaphors into his singer-songwriter folk-rock, but there are still layers of depth and hundreds of fresh perspectives and personal narratives. And he still stands with the fervor to shake amplifiers and touch souls; a moment I was lucky to relive in person. This is life, love, faith and art: Dustin-style.

What kind of freedom and fluidity are you allowed in working as a solo artist that you might not get working in a full-band context?

It’s nice not having the democracy to run through kind of. I think there are a lot of cool things that come out of that kind of collaboration, but it’s much easier to be like, “Hey, I wrote a song,

here it is,” and if I want to record it tomorrow I can because I know how I want it to go. There’s definitely a lot of freedom there that’s cool. I like working both ways but I’ve never done it this way.

It’s like a breath of fresh air.

Did you do any of your recording on the fly, then?

All of it was pretty non-structured and pretty on

the fly. I basically wrote a song and I’d send a rough demo over to my buddy Chris who played drums on the record and that night we’d go and track it, run through it once and record it. It was all very loose and it was a conscious vision to keep it that way. I think it leans towards a more folk, country vibe. Once you put it together too

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polished, it kind of loses some of its soul. We just tried to have fun with it. We recorded most of it late at night after Thrice practice, so it was like nine to one in the morning. It was fun.

What individual factor has afforded you the most growth both as a person and a songwriter?

Ever?

Whatever’s significant to you.

It sounds kind of lame, but time, really. I think it takes time and experience to have enough opportunities to be able to push yourself. I know for me as a musician and a performer, all the experiences I’ve had working with the same people for eight or nine years and then being able to work with different people through that time, including different producers, different whoever…I think that time really allows you for growth. I see areas where I can be like, “I grew here, I grew here” but I don’t think there’s like one thing. It’s kind of a long progression.

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yourself in a way.

“Pistol” gets us thinking about family and relationships with other people. Which relationships have been most important and influential in your life?

Definitely my wife, which the song is definitely about. She’s kind of my “hard-headed woman” and she’s definitely a very strong and amazing and intelligent person. Even when I don’t want to be pushed, she’s there to push me because it’s what I need. It’s like a personal trainer. They’re pushing you to do stuff and sometimes it hurts, but it’s always better for you. She’s kind of like that with my soul, I guess. Other than her, definitely my parents. They don’t even see all the

: I HATE HATE POLITICS, BUT I GUESS YOU’VE GOTTA GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY TO GET ANYTHING DONE.

Lyrically, you traverse ground that’s not as abstract as usual. How did your thought process differ when writing for Please Come Home?

The same with Thrice, I always want the lyrics to match the music in a certain way. Because the stuff feels a little more rural and down to earth, I wanted the lyrics to reflect that and sound natural when they were sung to the music. I think in general, this music comes from more of a storytelling place and I wanted to write more in that vein, too. You listen to it and it tells a story immediately and you don’t have to run and get a book that it refers to or something. Then, as those songs over time sink in deeper, you realize there was a deeper meaning that you missed but there’s that initial reaction which I think is lost with a rock band. I didn’t want to be drowning in all of these weird metaphors when the music is just really stripped down and simple.

So because you’re telling all of these stories then, how does it affect you personally having to dip in deeper and reveal more?

I think in general it’s a little more naked which is not something that I’m great at. But I have to be a little more open and make that effort because I do think I kind of hide behind a lot of the things the lyrics reflect. It’s usually me with a bunch of layers on top, I guess. Once you kind of commit to doing something like that and really putting it out there in an unambiguous way, it’s kind of refreshing to be open. When you really sit down and tell someone how you’re feeling and go to that place you don’t really go and have those conversations, you feel like you’re unburdening

ways that they’ve made me who I am. They definitely raised me well.

And then of course, your brother, Chase, played release shows with you, too.

Yeah, we actually played “Leno” last night, too.

I love my brother and it’s just fun to have him come out. There’s kind of a big gap in our ages – he’s 18 and I’m 26 – so until recently that gap was a lot larger and now it’s starting to close a little bit. I can relate to him on an adult-to-adult level, and that’s kind of fun. Not having him just be like, “Okay, that’s my little spastic brother running around the house,” like I can have him be a part of what I’m feeling…it’s great.

I understand that literature is often the catalyst for your music and other artistic endeavors. Can you explain the relationship it has with your art?

I think for me the written word is very important.

It’s something I enjoy and feel is very powerful. I know a lot of people don’t like reading, but it’s been something I’ve always loved. It kind of transferred into writing for me, which has mostly been in the form of songs. The main thing is that it’s just basically a way of communicating ideas and I love ideas, I love thinking about things and I love being inspired by other peoples’ ideas. For me, that’s been the biggest inspiration in writing – the books that I read, whether it be a nonfiction thing on an issue I feel is important or just the fiction stuff I read, I’ll take images or just little

bits and things. One is straining your intellect and logic, and one is training your imagination to write powerful lyrics that take a little more work.

Then do you see the written word as an easy transition into music or is building the bridge sometimes challenging?

Well, the interesting thing with lyrics is that it’s really different than writing poetry and prose.

You’re not bound in those senses by other factors. In poetry, if you’re writing a sonnet, you have a structure that you need to be bound by. In music, you’re not restricted really, except for saying like, “It should be heavy right here, or soft right here” and it’s a set thing…When you’re writing lyrics, you have to be like, “Is this going to sound okay when I sing it?” or “I can’t use this word because there’s no way to sing this word without sounding stupid.” So in general, you’re doing two things at once, trying to make the words sound right and trying to make them sound right being sung. In the new Thrice record, I’m doing things for all four discs. I’m writing a classic English sonnet and putting that to a song. I don’t usually write that way where I’m writing to a very strict structure. It’ll read as well, if not better, as a poem, and it’ll be set to the song, too.

Did you have to do a little digging through Shakespeare or other writers to do some work for it?

I just kind of looked to make sure I was writing the right structure and I looked at a couple of different types of sonnets and settled on the English one and just kinda went for it. It’s really fun, though. I love writing with that structure.

I’m definitely interested in the future [in] learning more classical poetry structures. I was reading about something, I think in C.S. Lewis – though it’s always a 50 percent chance it’s Lewis because I read way too much of his stuff – that was kind of a metaphor for people railing against any kind of border. They want everything to be completely free. He’s saying that life is really more like a sonnet. You have this structure, but within that structure, you can do whatever you want. The beauty of it is that structure and to make it work right…I like the challenge of making it work. I think it’s probably because I’m a bit of a perfectionist with my lyrics and I get kind of frustrated when I have to compromise something for the words to fit with the music. In poetry, you don’t have to do that.

Innately, how does your mind interact with the world? Mathematically? Creatively?

It’s not mathematically. I’m very big on logic and logic is kind of on the map, but it’s kind of a more rudimentary form in a sense. It’s not like theoretical. I was good at algebra and stuff because you can write out logic proofs in

algebraic terms, but I think in general I deal with things…actually, I don’t know how to answer that question. I can tell you that I internalize everything. I kind of live in my head more than I do in reality so I’m a little out of it sometimes because I’m thinking about things in my head.

I guess it’s a mix of creatively and logically. It bothers me if things don’t make sense.

Ray Griffin’s books. He’s like a retired logician and philosopher. He’s written multiple books on the events of 9/11 kind of combining other works and observations and he pulls it together very well. There’s one called 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. That one’s pretty comprehensive and heavy, but I think that’s an important book to read. There’s another

You’ve made it clear on several occasions that theology and spirituality play a large role in your life. Can you explain their presence to you and how these passions manifest themselves in your music?

That’s a huge part of my life, my beliefs. It’s basically impossible for me to keep it out of my music. I never really try to write about anything, and I think on this record some people feel that it’s purposely slanted to a more spiritual place, but it’s not at all. It just happened to be what came out when I was writing these songs. I think my lyrics always reflect parts of my life and you see that on the Thrice record.

With Vheissu, it’s kind of a more coherent approach to the way that I was thinking whereas something like Artist in the Ambulance was definitely more of a lost and questioning place. It really is whatever I happen to be feeling at the time and what I feel works with the music and what naturally comes out.

What personal and world issues are currently most pertinent to you?

Definitely the global poverty that we have in a lot of places, especially Africa. I think those issues are so huge that they scare us a little to even PHOTO: PAM PIFFARD try to deal with it. But the reality is, I think, with some real but not as drastic as you’d one that’s a little more concise called Christians, think kind of changes, those problems could be Faith, and the Truth Behind 9/11, but I really helped right away. You know, like fixing certain don’t agree with a lot of the theology…I feel like trade laws and giving more of ourselves, which in it gets in the way with a lot of the larger points reality, such a small percentage of our incomes of the book. Anyway, I think his best and most or our time can go so far in reality, especially concise presentation on 9/11 is in that book. related to third world countries where we give What effect do they have on both the way you one percent of what we make a month and it can conduct your life and your music? feed a village or something. It’s crazy. I feel like Definitely dealing with these issues, some of it is there’s definitely more than we can do. coming out in the new record. I’m still trying to Then also issues with Iraq are on everyone’s work out what it means to my politics. I mean, I mind. I don’t think there are any easy solutions hate hate politics, but I guess you’ve gotta get there. I’ve been kind of dealing a lot with issues your hands dirty to get anything done. You just with 9/11 and a lot of unanswered questions want to wash your hands clean of it but it’s the from that. I’ve been reading some of the David way things are being changed so you’ve just

gotta participate. But I don’t know, the reason I’ve been looking at the 9/11 thing is because it’s basically the most pivotal moment in modern history and so many things that we’re dealing with right now are a result of what happened. If we misunderstand what happened, I think we’re going to misunderstand what we’re doing now.

That’s an incredibly powerful notion.

Definitely.

Well, on a lighter note, I know you’re heading off to Australia with Thrice for a few weeks. What else is upcoming on your agenda?

When I come back from Australia, I’m going to finish up some other stuff. [Thrice] is heading out.

We’re going to do Bamboozle [Fest in New Jersey] and a couple of dates on the East Coast and then probably coming home and mixing the Thrice records. And then I’m going to be going out for a month with my solo stuff in June-ish. Then I’ll be coming back and sort of gearing up to release the [Thrice] records.

Who are you mixing the Thrice records with?

I think we’re mixing it ourselves.

We’re pretty much doing everything ourselves.

What are your goals for the future, both musically and otherwise?

I hope to be able to play music for a long time. I love doing it for so many different reasons. It’s challenging and fun for me. I feel like I’m making an impact [on] people’s lives, and that’s always very cool. I’m able to touch more people than most people with a very wide impact. The stories I get from people are just kind of mind-blowing. Things work in ways that you would never expect and it’s definitely a blessing. I’m kind of tumbling to give it justice because it’s definitely beyond you and [if] you start trying to take credit for it, you’ll have skewed view of your place in the universe.

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bryan mcpherson

FROM STREET TO STUDIO photos and text by MIGUEL MIRO-QUESADA

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Local Boston musician Bryan McPherson is not one for subtlety. Sitting down with a tea in hand at Cambridge’s Simon’s Coffee Shop, 29-year-old McPherson casually asks, “Are we gonna fucking start this thing or what?” Believe it or not, it is this very bluntness that is part of Bryan’s unique charm; he has a refreshingly unapologetic view of life and speaks from the heart.

McPherson has recently released his second album, Fourteen Stories, for Indecent Records. The new album is a follow up to his first record, Alive: Live from Club Passim, and includes the song “O.F.D. (Originally From Dorchester)” which reflects upon McPherson’s ability to turn personal experience into honest musical statements.

“I use lyrics and music to express myself and to cope with life,” McPherson says. “I was young and angry, living in Dorchester. I am still angry. The world is unfair and full of hypocrisy and I went to Catholic school, which was the center of hypocrisy.”

McPherson’s use of music has carried him through his life in the Dorchester, MA projects to where he is today. On record, McPherson is able to capture his explosive energy as a singer/songwriter and is well known for his intensity during live performances.

“Music is my optimal form of expression,” he says. “It’s driven by my feelings.”

McPherson’s career began eight years ago playing on street corners in Boston. “I picked up the guitar at 15, messing around.

It wasn’t until [I turned] 21 that my lyrics and music finally came together, with the instrument and voice.”

McPherson goes on to tell how he’s been inspired by a wide range of musicians from Bob Dylan and the Velvet Underground, to punk bands like early Dropkick Murphys and Choking Victim.

“I figured myself a street corner punk rocker,” he says. “Each of my songs are like children; they’re little fucking maggots that you gotta smack around and lock in the closet.”

Like his various influences, McPherson’s music is hard to pin down.

Instead, the label most appropriate to his unique mix of aggression and introspection is defined by a similar sense of contradiction. McPherson is at the forefront of both the Boston and New York’s anti-folk scene.

“I am not ‘anti folk,’ two words, I am ‘anti-folk,’ one word,” he clarifies.

“To me it means freedom of expression…. It’s punk rock.” He pauses, then adds, “It’s more punk rock than most punk rock these days.”

McPherson attributes his current experiences with acoustic musicians to

his identification as a social outcast punk rocker during his teens.

“I was loud and I didn’t fit in at folk club,” he says. “[The punk rock and anti-folk scene] are both places where people go when they don’t fit in. I find them liberating.”

McPherson’s struggles in life did not end when he left Dorchester. Like many musicians and artist, McPherson got swept up in the darker parts of the city scene; he continued making headway as an artist while his life spiraled downwards.

“I wasn’t exactly coffee house material back then,” McPherson explains. “I was shooting heroin.

“People liked it,” he remarks, “But I just kept fucking up - drugs became more important. When you’re stoned on heroin you don’t feel a lot of things and I operated on my feelings. It is the only way I could do anything. Eventually all I was thinking about was how I could get 20 bucks to get two bags to stick in my arm.

“I couldn’t play guitar because I didn’t have five dollars to buy new strings for my guitar,” McPherson recounts. “People died, people I know. I couldn’t hold on, I had no money, I was stealing, all that shit.

Heroin dragged me down. It’s all true, everything they say in school. That’s why I got clean. I got lucky. I didn’t just decide, I got lucky.”

The following year, McPherson put out his debut record, which includes “What if Jesus Was Gay.” Since then he has put out a second album, written a plethora of songs (the majority of which may never be heard), as well as continued to play heavily in both Boston and New York.

Fourteen Stories is McPherson’s first recording in which he is supported by a drummer and a second guitarist.

“I wrote 14 different songs,” McPherson says. “I didn’t want 14 songs that sounded the same…I wanted each song to be its own thing. It goes with the whole freedom of expression.”

McPherson is a raw emotional performer whose abilities as a singersongwriter are only dwarfed by the passion that he projects on the stage. For McPherson, what was once a means by which to cope with life in Dorchester has become a calling.

red elvises

MOTHERLAND! THE MOTHERLAND!

by MICHAEL TUCKER

The Eastern Bloc has more indulgences to export than Russian-mafia caviar and vodka. It has also given America the hip-shakin’, commie-crooners The Red Elvises. To get a concept of their sound, think Elvis Presley meets Josef Stalin in more than 100 unique compositions of ‘50s rock, surf and jazz.

The band is the brainchild of singer Igor Yuzov and “actor/ bass-balalaika player” Oleg Bernov. The two met at a peace walk and played in a Russian folk band together before both were politically exiled from Siberia in 1995. They moved to Los Angeles and found a guitarist and drummer, and thus, The Red Elvises were born. The band started off playing rock clubs and bars in Southern California and quickly gained a loyal fan base. Yuzov aimed high from the get go, often chanting to crowds in his jittery, Russian accent, “We are The Red Elvises and we will be your favorite band.”

The Red Elvises caught their break in 1998 when their unique, surf rock sound and heavily accented vocals were chosen to score the cult classic Six String Samurai.

The band made a guest appearance in the post-apocalyptic movie, playing boozed-up roadside rockers.

They entertained musician-warriors who were venturing to Las Vegas, the only American city left after the Ruskies dropped the bomb in the 1950’s. After playing a song, the band is killed for their shiny shoes by the Grim Reaper and his swordwielding heavy metal band. Yuzov still insists that the film was “the motion picture event of last millennium.”

Almost a decade later, The Red Elvises are still rocking. Having toured across America and Europe, the band has spread its sound across the world. They have cut 12 albums - a testament to the evolution and longevity of their music. In 2004, Yuzov and Oleg refaced The Red Elvises and added three new members: Ukrainian Roman Dudok on saxophone and flute, American Craig Pilo on drums, and fellow Russian Alex “Sasha” on keyboards. The band then produced their most recent work to date, Lunatic and Poets, on their own indie label Shooba-Doobah Records.

The main inspiration behind The Red Elvises is, not surprisingly, Elvis Presley. They pay homage to the King with their onstage antics and dancing, as well as in the “Ballad of Elvis and Priscilla.” Their

music is also a tribute to 50’s and 60’s surf rock, noticeably influenced by bands like Dick Dale and The Ventures. “Lovepipe” and “Surfing in Siberia,” with speedy guitar riffs and energetic saxophone, are two songs sure to get your pelvis shaking.

The Red Elvises repaint the American dream; they have no problem trading a white picket fence and Fido for a bottle of hooch and some arm candy. Their lyrics echo romantic notions of love and lust in America, of rock ‘n’ roll, women and late nights. “Suzanna,” a jazzy track highlighted by saxophone and keyboard solos, shows the bands’ sense of humor: “It took me almost a half-an hour to find the zipper on her dress/And then the phone begins to ring/And some asshole’s voice from MCI tells me I can save 25 percent on my long distance calls/Why me?

Why?” The bars and rock clubs where The Red Elvises play are smaller, more intimate venues. The band members mingle with the crowd between songs, accepting drinks and constantly urging women to the front. The band’s appeal resides as much in the music as it does in the lead singer’s quirky personality and ability to work a crowd. Yuzov usually badgers the audience in charmingly broken English, omitting articles and mispronouncing words: “This song is a sing-a-long, everyone sing-along with song!” He often bursts into uncontrollable fits of yelling in his native tongue and his charismatic performances are a staple of the band’s live presence.

Michael Tucker is apparently too metal to write a biography for his contributions. Intially, he offended the editors with the snub, but now they think it’s relatively rad, since they get to write his bio for him. We’re making that sweet metal hand gesture just for you, Michael.

MELISMAfeatures

how we are

ROCHESTER REBELS

by BOBBY WESTFALL

Out of snowy Rochester, Ny., How We Are come screaming. Hopeful and desperate at the same time, they play fast, melodic hardcore with technical precision marked by nothing less than true passion. Taking a break from touring after a recent set at This Is For You fest in Daytona Beach, Fl., How We Are frontman, Rory Van Grol, took the time to answer some questions for Melisma.

Why don’t we just start with some band history.

How did How We Are come together? Any past bands you’ve been in or looked up to?

The idea of HWA came up when John [Twentyfive], the bass player, and I both worked at the same natural foods store. We’d been friends for a longtime, but we had never been in a band together before. So we thought about doing one together. After we talked about it, things just seemed to fall into place. John talked to Mike [Sarnowski] about playing guitar (his previous band had just broken up a bit prior to that) and I asked Adam [Vernick], who I was in a band with already, to play second guitar. After that, Adam and I went to a show and saw this younger kid, Tommy [Vollmer], playing drums, and after his band’s set I asked him if he would be interested in playing drums for a hardcore band with us.

He said he’d try it out and at our first practice everything just clicked, musically and personality wise. As for past bands, we have all been in bands prior to this one. Some got out of Rochester; others did not. I was in the bands Standfast, From Hell, XWitnessX and currently Achilles. John has been in XHead OnX, The Disaster and Break Of Dawn. Mike was in The Breaking Project, The Avram and What Stops Us. Adam was in To Fester Within, Still Ill, Lemuria and XWitnessX. Tommy was in a band called Farewell Injuria.

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I know it’s a broad question, but how did you get into hardcore?

Well, I first got into hardcore and punk through skateboarding. I started skateboarding and watched a ton of skate videos and, well, the soundtrack to skateboarding in ‘94-‘95 was punk and hardcore bands. That’s how I got into Minor Threat, Green Day, Pennywise and a bunch of other bands. I didn’t start going to shows until around ‘96 because all I cared about before that was skateboarding. I really didn’t even get out of Rochester for shows until ’97, ‘98.

You guys put out your first full length not too long ago. How has the experience of writing and recording in general been?

The writing for the full length came together pretty easily, in my opinion. We don’t get to practice too

often due to everyone’s school schedules and so forth, so when we did get together we tried to accomplish as much as possible. Mike would bring songs to practice pretty much written and we would put them together as a band and throw in our input. Mike is a writing machine when it comes to music - it seemed like at every practice we would have a new song. It was exciting.

Recording went pretty well - we had to record close to home in a sense, so we recorded at this place, Viking, which is in a town called Medina. It’s about a little over an hour from Rochester, and about 20-30 minutes from Buffalo. We ended up staying in Buffalo every night since Adam and Tommy both go to school there. Now, getting the actual CDs was a whole different story. We are a band made up of friends, and so we wanted to keep that theme going with whoever put out the full length. Keep things close to home - for a few reasons we thought this would be great.

Anytime we wanted to get in touch with our label, they would be right there, we were friends with the person so we could communicate ideas and be a part of the CD as much as possible. So, on many levels, we thought it was the best idea, as a band that wasn’t going to tour a lot or play a ton of shows, that keeping things local would work out best for everyone involved. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see that vision come to fruition.

Getting the actual CDs from Pat from Triple Attack Records was the most pain-staking process for some of us to deal with. We called him, we emailed him, we went to his house, we went to his work, he just didn’t respond to us at all....We thought something was wrong - we were worried.

People were e-mailing us and asking us where the pre-orders were, and we honestly had no idea.

Pat didn’t send out any pre-orders, he didn’t let us know anything...So, I finally caught him at his job and asked him what the deal was, and he gave me some run-around excuse, but he did have five of the CDs with him that he could give me. So, at this meeting, I finally acquired physical copies of our full length. I told him that if he needed help with sending out orders, let us know, we [would] help, we just want people to get these CDs and shirts they paid for. We wanted everything to work out. I told him if he wanted us to do it we would,

just let us know where to send the stuff. Well, it turns out that it took us about another month to get in touch with him again to get the rest of our CDs from him. He dropped them off at my work when I wasn’t there. The whole situation was a giant fiasco and pretty taxing on us as a band...It was nerve racking - someone that we were friends with, someone that had been screwed over by bands in the past. We thought that he wouldn’t treat his friends this way. Well, I guess we were wrong. Someone that talks about loyalty and friendship to no end totally turned his back on us and left us with our mouths dropped open, and so we had to try and clean this whole mess up.

The whole situation was and is very disheartening to no end. None of us have seen him since that time I saw him at his work. We have tried to contact him since then to get more CDs and he ended up leaving them at his work for us to pick up, because we tried to talk to him there. From what we know, he sent 500 of the CDs back to the pressing plant claiming that they were defective, so we only ended up with 500 CDs. That pretty much concludes that story. Case in point: do not send anything to Patrick Stefano at Triple Attack Records.

So generally, how does the writing process go for the whole band?

I mentioned above that Mike would write most of the songs and bring them to practice. Like most bands, I guess, people bring parts in and show them to everyone and we see how they work. We suggest variations of certain parts and work with them to create a song. This was never hard for us; we all picked things up pretty quickly and the chemistry of the band has always been really good. I don’t think we ever really tried to force a song. If a part didn’t feel right we would work on it and change it around. Those guys are all really good at playing together; I’m lucky to be in the position I’m in.

Lyrically, you seem to have both an introspective, personal side and a side that really calls out to other people. Do you just write what you feel you need to say at the time, or do you have a particular message that you want to spread with

your lyrics? Are there any experiences that have gone into your songs that you could tell us about?

I try to write lyrics based on personal experience.

I don’t want to try and write something that I have no connection to. I write how I feel and about things that happen in my life. I’m pretty open about my personal life, for the most part. I guess it’s a lot like a journal in that regard. With this band I am not the only person that writes lyrics, which is really inspiring to me. We all try and contribute to that process. On the 7-inch/EP, Adam wrote the lyrics to “Harbor,” and on the full-length, John wrote the lyrics to “You Are Not Goliath” and Mike wrote the lyrics to “To Teach A Hundred.” But, for me, I wrote about things I’m experiencing in my own life, whether that is death [(“To Ascendancy”)] or whether it’s my brother’s battle with alcoholism [(“Open Up”)]. Since I already mentioned “Open Up,” I’ll talk about that song a little bit.

My family is a family of alcoholics, for the most part. My mom and dad are both what I would like to call “functioning alcoholics;” they get up to work in the morning and can carry out all of their responsibilities.

My brother is a whole different story: he is what you would call a “nonfunctioning alcoholic.”

I’ve had many physical altercations with my brother when he is drunk; it’s not fun. My parents have had to call the cops and separate us from each other. I would not wish this on anyone. There have been many occasions where my brother would black out and not remember anything the next day: he would get fired from jobs, he would get thrown in jail, he would get beat up. Now, I love my family to no end and it killed me to see my brother keep doing this stuff. But whenever I would say anything we would end up fighting about it. I didn’t drink and I thought I was better than him, that’s what his argument was. It killed me! I wanted him to do so much better for himself. So, in many ways, that song is about trying to deal with my brother and his demons and how they don’t just affect him, they affect our whole family. I would like to add that my brother has now been sober for seven months and I couldn’t be happier. He is such a different person now; we can actually talk and

hangout. It’s really amazing.

Looking from the outside, Upstate NY looks like a great scene with so many great bands coming from the area right now. How is it for someone in the scene there?

Like any “scene,” we have our issues. As a whole, I would like to think that we have a really wonderful thing going. We are really lucky to be surrounded by so many great friends and bands. I try not to take any of it for granted at all. I think of “Upstate NY” as a pretty good group of bands and people.

From Buffalo to Syracuse to Oswego, we have a pretty good connection with people in a lot of

those cities. Bands like Another Breath, Black SS, Polar Bear Club, Engineer, Achilles, Ed Gein, No Idols, I, Object. We have a very diverse, amazing group of people to be able to work with and play with. I know I missed a bunch of bands, but I really can’t name them all.

Maybe it’s an unfair blanket statement, but to me it seems like right now, especially in Boston, punk and hardcore are, in many ways, completely distinct entities. What’s your view on that?

That sucks for Boston, honestly. I feel lucky to be a part of what Rochester has right now. Our punk and hardcore scenes have become one scene in a lot of ways. It’s really awesome. The DIY scenes in Rochester are putting our energies together and putting on a benefit show for our one consistent venue in Rochester: the AV space [(avspace.org)]. It’s a really great space - it hosts artists and tons of different styles of shows,

from hardcore to noise art stuff. We are really lucky to have a space like that. Since we don’t have a lot of places to do shows, the punk and hardcore communities are more tied together. I really like that about our area.

What are How We Are’s plans for the near future?

I know you’ve had to turn down a lot of show offers, but do you have any plans for some weekends or a tour in the next few months? Will we be seeing you in Boston in the foreseeable future?

With half of the members at colleges that aren’t in Rochester, it can be tough to get things together, so we are taking it easy right now.

We just did a quick tour down to This Is For You fest in Daytona Beach, FL. That was really fun. We have no plans for any touring right now; we’ve talked about doing a weekend up to Burlington, VT. because we have some really good friends up there. That’s all we really have right now. Nothing too intense, we take things as they come for the most part. We have been asked to play the Worcester area a few times and it’s just never worked out timingwise. We’ll see what happens, I guess.

So switching gears a little bit, but with the band’s name, I have to ask. What do you think of the Lifetime reunion and the new album and everything?

You’re probably asking the wrong person in the band this question. Honestly, I’m not excited and part of me doesn’t want to recognize them as a band. I really love Lifetime [and] I think they were way ahead of their time. I honestly don’t own the new record nor have I heard any of it, so I can’t comment on that. I honestly don’t even want to hear the new stuff, because I don’t want to hate it.

I guess a part of me feels that Lifetime was a band in a certain time and certain place and, well, that time and place isn’t around anymore. If they were playing in Rochester, I would probably go see them and be excited about all of the Hello Bastards, and Jersey’s Best Dancers songs.

MELISMAopinions

the digital revolution

WHY KEEPING TECH-SAAVY MAKES US BETTER LISTENERS

by ISABEL DUKE

20

There are a million ways in which the Internet has affected contemporary music listening. An individual could only purchase so many records, tapes or CDs in a span of time to create a music library, leaving the average American with a modest one at best. The Internet rolls around and BOOM! Peer-to-peer file-sharing programs such as Napster and Kazaa allow people to download quickly and cheaply whatever music they want.

This, coupled with a growing expansion of storage space on the average computer, facilitated personal music libraries to expand exponentially, unaffected by financial constraint or availability of music. If one person in the world has a song on the Internet, it is accessible to the rest of us regardless of distance, culture or marketing. Now, music libraries have the potential to make any person on the Internet unique. We can create libraries with as much and of whatever type of music we want. Music collections can be an expression of personal identity with little constraint in letting our distinct tastes shine through. I’ve heard many argue that the music they listen to is a part of who they are, if not a reflection of all that they are.

Although stricter copyright laws have been enacted since this initial boom, making music more difficult to access cheaply, listening has been changed forever by this phenomenon – namely due to new accessibility to the diverse forms of music in existence today. New music itself is a growing area as more and more people (with the help of computers!) are writing and creating their own music without any professional help, and self-marketing their sound via the internet. With all the music out there in cyberspace and accessibility from Bangladesh to Boston, the Internet gives listeners an infinite variety of music to choose from and creates the ultimate forum for new music to be shared and exposed, all at the click of a button.

A variety of revolutionary websites have been created to further push along and facilitate this growing phenomenon. Think Amazon or the iTunes store. When using these to browse music, a person is inevitably hit with automatic recommendations based on browsing and purchase history.

While this feature is not necessarily intended as benevolence towards the consumer, but rather to maximize the profits of the companies, it nonetheless exposes people with similar taste to new music. As a pioneering force in the digital music biz, iTunes constantly works to improve upon this idea with service additions such as the new iTunes Mini-Store, which automatically lists on a toolbar similar artists to those being heard at any given time by a listener via his or her own existing private collection. Then, all you have to do is click and listen to a sample of an artist to which you otherwise may never have been exposed.

I could go on forever about the wonders that MySpace has done for the exposure of new music, but I think that’s pretty clear to all of us.

Anyone anywhere can post their personal music, including and especially the music that he has written and created on his own, on a MySpace page for the world to see. Similar, but lesser known websites such as PureVolume.com have appeared which specialize in music sharing specifically.

PureVolume is essentially a “MySpace,” but without all the other information on people’s profiles. Its point is purely and eloquently to share new sounds.

The “create-your-own” radio wave is likely the most exciting and

promising new form of music sharing on the net. As it exposes people at no cost to tons of new music, it is quickly and massively growing in popularity. A group of music majors at Harvard University created Pandora. com, a leading site in this trend, where one can type in any song or artist of his or her liking and the musical “genes” of that music will be analyzed and deciphered, so that Pandora can spit out a “radio station” which only plays music with similar music “genes.” The “Music Genome Project,” as it is referred to, finds patterns in musical form – basic codes (like human genes) common to all music that assign attributes to certain songs. Once these attributes have been analyzed and recognized, Pandora conducts its search through its enormous music database for music with similar attributes and creates a custom radio station, potentially filled with music its listeners have never heard of, but are likely to enjoy. A similar website, Last.fm, creates similarly personalized radio stations, while letting listeners hear the song that was searched for initially. There are a million features on both of these websites, however, that are constantly being tweaked and expanded to tighten the customization abilities of these “radio stations.” For example, if a personal station plays a song that a listener doesn’t like, that person can tell the site not to play that song anymore. In addition to not doing so, the site will furthermore take into consideration the listener’s distaste for that particular song (and perhaps its specific “genes”) in order to adjust and improve the station so that it is more likely to play music that that specific individual will love. Additionally, a person can have multiple different “stations” saved in existence at a time. Maybe someone has a station that plays music for when they want to be woken up and another that puts them to sleep, all the while continually playing new, foreign music that the person may never have been exposed to were it not for these new sites.

The internet-radio boom may well be the next big revolutionary tool in music listening. It goes so far as to remove some of those pesky copyright restrictions being put on music today, which, of course, put a damper on what the public can listen to by virtue of making music expensive again. Because radio stations (not the listeners themselves) buy the rights to play music on a song by song basis, people can listen to whatever they want for free using these personalized station websites.

Furthermore, we don’t necessarily need to rely on the music geeks at Harvard to tell us what we might like. Websites like radioblogclub.com, for instance, have arrived where people can post and share their own personal playlists, which radio station websites, in turn, have license to play songs from at the click of the listener. Unlike iTunes, which also displays “iMixes” you might enjoy but would have to purchase in order to listen to in full, a private communications company pays for the radio listening music experience instead. Essentially this means that the general public can now listen to the recommended music of anyone in the world legally and for free. This is the next step in the future of music. One can only imagine the repercussions this growing trend will have on the future daily lives of the world’s music listeners. is a sophomore majoring in Sociology and, as far as she can tell, is always right. If you disagree with something she’s said in this issue, don’t tell her.

clipse: the indie icon

CAN YOU FIT INTO A 6-XL?

by MAX FURMAN

On Tuesday, February 27, no fewer than 15 Tufts students made their way to the Middle East in Cambridge for a concert, marking the largest Jumbo turnout I have ever seen at a show that wasn’t actually on campus. So what was the act that drew so many Jumbos out of their Medford cocoon? Was it Snow Patrol, whose mopey TV anthems I hear blasting 24/7 in my dorm, or some ‘80s-rocking indie-band-ofthe-day? Nope, it was Clipse, Richmond, Va. trap-rap superstars, who were in Cambridge to play a two-night jump-off for their 2007 tour.

Clipse are two brothers, Malice and Pusha T, whose fall 2006 release, Hell Hath No Fury, earned them a space on many critics’ year-end top ten lists.

Along with the critical acclaim came an unusual new fanbase: people who don’t really listen to hip-hop. In other words, the people who read magazines like this one. Pusha and Malice’s lyrics aren’t any less violent, profane or threatening than any of their contemporaries, nor are their beats brighter or more radio-friendly; Hell Hath No Fury is one of the harshest, least listener-friendly albums I encountered last year.

More interesting to me than the show, which was fantastic, or the songs, which were even better, was the merch table.

As Clipse’s set concluded, the entire crowd about-faced and surged towards the back of the room, where we had been told Re-Up Gang shirts were available. But, too bad for short people like me, the shirts only came in sizes 2-6XL. “If you can’t fill it, hang it on your wall!” the merch guy repeatedly said to the horde of flabbergasted, sub-2XL fans.

“2 through 6XL?” one was heard to say. “Don’t they know white people like Clipse?”

And that’s the thing: they do know. They absolutely do. Shortly before he set out on tour, Malice did an interview with Pitchfork Media, a music website with a mostly white audience and staff that has a somewhat-well-earned tastemaker rep. There’s no reason he couldn’t ignore Pitchfork like he ignores Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly. Clipse’s albums and mixtapes are popular downloads, but much less successful as on-shelf products. Even a casual glance across the

crowd at the Middle East would show that white people, even the ones who don’t wear sideways caps and Bapestas, like Clipse.

So, the T-shirts were a challenge. Not “Are you big enough?” since literally no one who is still thin enough to walk under their own power is big enough for a 6XL. The merch guy asked us if we could fill it, not if it was big enough for us. Those who were worthy could wear it with pride. The rest of us could mount it like a dear head - a glorious trophy from our successful expedition into the wilds of a Clipse show. As a business move, it’s very impressive, but I think I’d like it more if it wasn’t specifically designed to make me feel inadequate.

Clipse have managed to turn White America’s entire system of cultural signifiers against us. Pusha and Malice know that a shirt that says “Re-Up Gang” is the 2007 equivalent of a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah shirt in 2005 or an Arcade Fire tee in ‘04. With one deft move, Clipse get to have their fame and wear it, too. By dividing their fanbase in two, they simultaneously acknowledge and subvert their place as hip-hop group of choice for many people who don’t otherwise listen to hiphop. And, most importantly, they take everyone’s money while doing so. I think Pusha himself said it best when, near the end of their set, he remarked, “We got some real Clipse fans in the house tonight.”

I finally figured out what he really meant.

Max Furman wrote this article. When he isn’t missing deadlines, skirting issues or telling his roommate to turn off the TV, Max pursues a degree in building shit that makes cool noises. He consumes a diet heavy in Omega-6 fatty acids, but light on leaves and curry. The long-term implications of this are as yet unknown. Max Furman can also be found on iTunes and other fine digital distributors.

MELISMAopinions

the other girl next door

ALTERNA-PORN: A TATTOOED PORTRAIT OF THE TABOO

by MEREDITH TURITS

22

There’s a possibility that what you’re about to read may make you hot.

And frankly, that’s okay. In a society that’s wrought with an administration looking to cause a throwback to regimentation and chastity belts, censorship, in many ways, deserves a breath of fresh air. It seems as though we’re constantly spiraling into the taboo, with sexuality and identity as the sacrifices at the helm. But there’s always that beat below the surface that looks to cause a little dissonance and push the limit. Meet the new images of the underground.

There’s a possibility she still stands tall, like the images you’re used to, hovering near 5’10”. Long, lean, flawless skin. But this girl is different. Her hair, black and pink, is chopped in different directions. She has images of sparrows on her hips, a trail of nautical stars extending down from her navel, and a perfectly anatomical heart blazing in bright color across her entire sternum.

There’s a 16-gauge horseshoe hanging down from her septum and her ear lobes are stretched to the diameter of a prescription bottle.

And every day, thousands of people ditch the pictures of the runway girls to watch her illuminate a set of photographs in which she poses with a shed full of dirty tools and empty paint cans. She, like hundreds – no, thousands – of girls, is the face of alterna-porn, a sub-culture of websites and live burlesque shows looking to put a new twist on conventional standards of beauty. Though they’ve been stakeholders for a while – classically, pin-up style in the 40s and 50s and, more recently, with sites like superpower Suicide Girls, which launched in 2001 – the breadth of their influence has evolved in the last few years.

The investigations into whether or not pin-up truly does redefine conventions of beauty is a fairly tired discussion at this point. Perhaps it’s trite and belabored, but beauty really does seem to be in the eye of the beholder. Whether looking at tattooed punk rock girls walking down the street or the epitome of the Hollywood starlet walking down a red carpet,

one is going to be relatively cognizant of his or her own perception of attractiveness.

What’s far more engaging is the sociocultural aspect of standards of beauty, particularly stereotypes perpetuated by the pornography industry.

Let me preface this by saying that in no way am I a porn connoisseur, nor am I in the industry as a model or someone who works from the inside. Rather, the stake I hold is far more common, and just as important: I am a consumer. My perspective comes as someone who loves taking time to browse the photosets up on SuicideGirls or Supercult, and indulge in the play worlds of these girls who I find to be captivating. Yet, though I hold the alterna-porn models up on a sort of pedestal, I still find myself being incredibly judgmental towards models in the mainstream porn industry. I’ll freely admit I pin them with unfair negative stereotypes and consider them “dirty” or “classless,” despite the fact that they’re doing the same job in a different skin. But the question is “Why?” Perhaps the answer is simple.

Maybe as a woman who is much more inclined to identify with a punk rock aesthetic, I won’t jump to judge the girls who look similar to me because of my own fear of being judged. But that seems to only tackle one part of the puzzle.

Simply because I don’t contextualize myself with the media-perpetuated ideal of beauty doesn’t mean I can’t recognize an attractive face or a beautiful body when I see it.

So why, then, am I still so quick to judge?

My personal biases seem to trace back to presentation. The more I think about the places in which I’ve encountered mainstream porn and the way it’s packaged and sold to consumers, the more I feel smothered by an in-your-face type of sexuality that’s about getting the job done. We rouse images of cheesy porn soundtracks and fabricated dialogues play-

ing at volume 11 in frat house basements. The associations undoubtedly make me shiver; this is not something in which I would voluntarily engage myself.

Then there’s the notion of accessibility. Mainstream pornography is nearly everywhere; from newsstands in Grand Central Station to Google Sponsored Links, the industry is easily commodified. As a result, it heightens a consumer’s tendency to objectify. It’s almost too easy to imagine that Amber Jaye Snowflake doesn’t have a life outside of her starring roles, and that the facets of her personality are demonstrated best from her three main interests: top, bottom, and on her knees. Yep, there’s Captain Judgmental coming out in full-force again.

Bottom line? To me, there seem to be few prerequisites and fewer risks associated with mainstream porn as long as you fit the part: be long,

: MAINSTREAM PORNOGRAPHY IS NEARLY EVERYWHERE; FROM NEWSSTANDS IN GRAND CENTRAL STATION TO GOOGLE SPONSORED LINKS, THE INDUSTRY IS EASILY COMMODIFIED.

lean, and...er...limber. And assuming the political mentality of the nation doesn’t reset to 1802, there will always be a market and forum for the distribution of mainstream porn, however creepy it may be.

And, of course, then there are the alterna-porn girls. I am initially inclined to contextualize these girls in a completely different way, and I attribute it to the entire subculture surrounding the alternative side of the industry.

First, it seems as though the girls have to have a level of confidence somewhat unique because of all of the risks associated with looking outside of the norm, as well as posing sans trousers. The fact that they may not be accepted because they don’t fit conventional standards of beauty is incredibly pertinent, and, in many ways, it seems like it would take a certain personality to brave the waters.

Next, the more covert presence of alterna-porn manifests itself in a very different way than mainstream porn; for the most part, the images are more like playful pin-ups than videos of blatant races to climax. Sure, sites like Burning Angel contain plenty such media, but for the most part, the prevalence is pin-up. And pin-up is, often times, as much about the expressive, artistic side of the photograph as it is about the human form.

Pin-up has the personality that mainstream porn and spread-eagle shots in adult magazines kill dead.

But the more I think about it, the icing on the cake is really the community aspect of it all. Wait, what? A community of porn enthusiasts infusing legitimacy into an “illicit” industry? Yep. Most of the alternaporn sites are member-only sites in which the models have profiles and blogs that turn them into humans and reject their degraded status as merely sex toys. When a girl poses with a digital SLR camera in one of her photosets, you can read about the fact that she is indeed a professional photographer, see her portfolio and interact with her on a personal level. There’s a distinct type of intimacy relayed by these alterna-porn

communities that takes away from the commodification of the women.

And, less commodification often means less misogyny. That notion, hand in hand with all of the other politically-charged messages that creep into photosets – things like animal rights and feminism, often launched by the models’ personal perspectives – gives the industry a second purpose. It is, if you’ll go for the idea, more socially responsible pornography.

Sugarcoated messages aside, when it comes down to it, porn is porn. Both the alternative and mainstream sides of the industry are just that – an industry looking to serve a purpose (one that is, in this case, sexually charged) for a specific niche of people. People understand the aesthetic to which they are drawn, and seek out satisfaction accordingly.

“I don’t really think the porn world shapes people’s perceptions much at all. I think the perceptions that have already been shaped in someone by the outside world are then sought out in porn,” an ex-Burning Angel model told me via e-mail.

Regardless of what we’re seeking, it’s more about looking at the way we consume and how we allow sociocultural stereotypes to shape our perceptions. Maybe we’re not directly affected by the porn industry, but we can’t deny we all have our own opinions, however fair they may or may not be. And, c’mon, admit it: it totally gets your blood flowing to all the right places, doesn’t it?

I won’t tell. I promise.

Meredith Turits is a sophomore who, majoring in something resembling Philosophy, has begun mastering the fine art of panhandling. She is pleased that this issue of Melisma has only reduced her nightly sleep by three hours and that Viva La Vinyl has only made fun of her four times this week. Her next endeavor is trying to survive living in Williamsburg without acquiring a medium format camera or a septum ring. Yeah, right.

MELISMAopinions

above the influence

...OF INDIE ROCK?

by EMILY PISTELL

FEMALE VOICE: (Computer voice) Being popular was all I could think about last year. I wanted to, like, be cool with everybody. I listened to music that I didn’t like and laughed at stuff that wasn’t funny. I programmed myself to be a totally different person to everyone.

Computer voice starts to change into a real human voice.

FEMALE VOICE: But I wasn’t myself. Now I’m not pretending to like indie rock or anything like that. And people think that’s cool.

MALE VOICE: Live above the influence. Above weed.

I first heard this public service announcement on the radio in January 2007, after my iPod full of indie rock had just run out of batteries. My friends and I looked at each other incredulously: did the Office of National Drug Control Policy just link indie rock music with smoking marijuana?

Across the country, independent music listeners are asking the same question and coming up with an affirmative, and offensive, answer.

I struggled to understand what the message was. The first impression I got from the ad was an incredibly premature link of marijuana use and independent music taste. To my indie-tuned ears, I found the government telling me that no one could like the music I adore unless they were stoned. I found myself frustrated with a federal office I would generally ignore, and displaced enough to want to set the record straight.

In reality, the ONDCP was sending the message to all the vulnerable tweens and teens out there that you don’t have to fit in with the popular crowd. The suggestion is not novel; our protective parents and eager guidance counselors have been drilling that comforting statement to us for over a decade. Yet, the ad is so bizarre because now, the cool kid to emulate is the indie rock stoner. It paints a picture of a lanky, bearded, watery-eyed American youth; a country where the kids who sit alone at lunch no longer pine to be a jock or a cheerleader, but rather long to spark up a joint on the corner and listen to The Magnetic Fields.

It is not a complete mystery where this fallacy has come from; as the O.C. soundtrack adopted more and more independent bands, artists like Band of Horses are unexpectedly thrown into the high school spotlight.

With their inevitable detachment from American youth, older generations automatically assume all kids love shows like O.C. and movies of the Garden State variety, and thusly are susceptible to the strange, offbeat music that wallpapers Ryan’s angsty love scenes. And so, indie rock becomes the “in” music to listen to, the irony of all ironies.

The ad defines indie rock fans as a clique, one that listens to seemingly incomprehensible music and blazes daily. Don’t get blind-sided by

their pretensions, the ad warns vulnerable youths, and have confidence in your own uniqueness. But what these antiquated advertisers don’t understand is that that is what independent music is about: it is a lifestyle, and one that we adopt not because the music is oblique. Independent labels simply allow for freer musical expression. Before pigeonholing indie rock fans as stoners, the Office of Drug Control should realize why we are truly supportive of non-commercial artists. We listen because we can recognize the quality and creativity of the bands that don’t have to answer to commercial interests. We appreciate the under-appreciated because we can find the subtle beauty in the abrasive vocals or exploratory guitars. And we don’t need to be stoned to love the albums we support most.

There will always be those with weak convictions who will follow the popular crowd without fail. There will forever be teenagers who smoke weed to look cool or listen to indie rock to feel “alternative.” But the mass generalization of a musical genre and the equation with marijuana is a sordid excuse for a dynamic advertisement. And ironically enough, the girl-robot’s message is being broadcast on radio, a medium that independent music listeners have strayed from for years. The ad fails to inspire individuality in the lost teenagers of today, and merely leaves indie music fans to wonder what has come of their cherished medium of expression.

: DID THE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY JUST LINK INDIE ROCK MUSIC WITH SMOKING MARIJUANA?

24

Emily Pistell is a freshman who will eventually make a decision about the direction of her life, but can’t make any promises. She is fond of Wikipedia adventures, taken with diner food and completely enamored with all things miniature. She has yet to finish the pile of Post-Its she bought this year, but certainly not for a lack of effort.

from the ashes rise THE REMAINS OF BLINK-182 DUKE IT OUT

by ERIK DOUGHTY

“I wasn’t really masturbating. I’ve never done that. I was inspecting my testicles for weird bumps.”

Oh, the good ol’ days of toilet humor, eighth grade drama and Blink-182.

For many college students, including myself, Blink-182 was the training wheels into rock and roll: an insignia of adolescence. Or, if you’re a musician, “Dammit” may well have been the first song you played while learning guitar. The rockers, pop princesses, Jock Jams fans, hip-hoppers and even the indie elitists can recall that brilliantly disturbing image of Mark, Tom and Travis mocking boy bands and Britney Spears in their video for “All The Small Things.” Although most people will never again search Blink-182 in their iTunes library or dust off their Dude Ranch CD case, the band will remain a hallmark of the innocent past.

It was only after Blink-182 broke up this past year that I began to feel old. Too old. Internships, the stock market, organic chemistry and resume building all seemed so safely far into the future until even the invincible Mark, Tom, and Travis couldn’t escape the inevitability of growing up. However, from old ashes raise new structures; with the demise of Blink-182 came the inception of Angels & Airwaves and +44.

Angels & Airwaves, former Blink-182 guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge’s latest project, is characterized by angelic instrumentals with expressive, sentimental lyrics. It’s a larger-than-life undertaking that even has plans to film a movie based on the band’s music. Before any of the tracks had even been recorded, Tom DeLonge claimed that the Angels & Airwaves album would be “the greatest rock and roll revolution” and consistently used the word “epic” to describe the music.

I’ll admit, labeling the album “the greatest rock and roll revolution” did whet my appetite with the possibility of witnessing pop culture’s own Greek tragedy. Yet, keeping with tradition, DeLonge’s tragic flaw of hubris was unearthed with the unveiling of Angels and Airwaves’ debut album. Instrumentally, the album is unrecognizable from anything of the Blink-era. The structure of the songs and the pleasant melodies mixed with unconventional effects create a unique and truly “angelic” anthemlike sound. However, the songs tend to blur together as each track is structured very similarly with superfluous, minute long introductions.

After sifting through the layers of effects and striking dynamics you’ll find that DeLonge’s vocals, melodies and even the lyrics have hardly changed at all. His nasal tone and mundane lyrical themes do not compel the same emotional arousal as the music itself. Despite a few stellar tracks such as “Valkyrie Missile” and “The Adventure,” the album falls short. Somewhere between DeLonge’s epiphanies, filmmaking endeavors and attempts at a revolution, the music itself has been lost in translation and fans have been left with an album that still feels unfinished. +44, featuring ex-Blink bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus and percussion virtuoso Travis Barker, recently debuted with a melancholy, somber prog-punk rock album. Despite the improved musicality and lyrical value, the album itself is sub-par, devoid of catchiness. Hoppus is only fair as the lead vocalist as his voice fails to bring the songs home and sustain the high energy level conveyed by the music. However, “Make You Smile”

is an outstanding song and Barker’s drum tactics are mind blowing, as always. “No, It Isn’t” is one of the few tracks that retains that true punk rock arrangement that listeners still love. Unlike Angels & Airwaves, +44 is an album of simpler, more genuinely-toned songs. For this reason I am partial to +44, even though the music itself still seems almost uninspired.

Despite Hoppus’ exceptional song writing capabilities, the album lacks replay value and it seems as though the band, in trying too hard to differentiate itself from past projects, has produced an LP without direction or foundation.

The debut albums of both Angels & Airwaves and +44 disclose many of the secrets to Blink-182‘s unparalleled success. DeLonge and Hoppus are unable to assume the roles as front men for their new works, as their vocal potential is limited. However, when acting as a pair in Blink-182, they compensated for one another and the contrast of their two voices actually set them apart from similar acts. The creatively-lacking, but honestly-simple lyrics of both Angels & Airwaves and +44 do not blend with the two bands’ new music, whereas when fueled by the fun, jumpy, charismatic energy of Blink-182, the lyrics and music went hand-andhand. Those three dudes in their mid-twenties telling perverted jokes and singing about boobs and blowjobs had their own sound. It wasn’t progressive. It wasn’t digital, angelic or electronic. But it belonged distinctly to them.

Every band meets its end and Blink-182 is no exception - nor should it be. Even the trials of Angels & Airwaves and +44 are not total failures.

Both new bands have already developed strong fan bases, sold millions of records and are seemingly proud of their music (in some cases, too proud). With these albums however, I get the feeling that both bands are aiming at sentimentality and emotional connection. Ironically, despite the straightforwardness and immaturity of many of the Blink-182 songs, those tunes were the ones that owned the prized sentimentality because of what they meant to many fans, music lovers and kids who wanted to be able to stand in front of thousands of people and tell those same ridiculous jokes – and get away with it. Blink’s music made growing up seem not so much like growing up and even today their music brings me back to a simpler time. From a musician’s standpoint, both Angels & Airwaves and +44 have emerged more creative, complex and ambitious after the breakup. On the other hand, as a listener, it’s hard not to admit that both bands were unable to find that near perfect harmony and chemistry that made Blink-182 a shoebox treasure for all of those kids who listened to them through an awkward period of voice-cracking, conformity and instant messaging courtship.

Erik Doughty is a freshman planning to major in Journalism or Political Science. His love for music began with Coolio’s hit single, “Gangsta’s Paradise.” Sadly, Erik really knows nothing about himself and hence, neither shall you.

MELISMAreviews

ross haenfler

STRAIGHT EDGE: CLEAN-LIVING YOUTH, HARDCORE PUNK, AND SOCIAL CHANGE

by SHANA HURLEY

26

The “academicization” of punk rock is dangerous territory upon which to tread.

One doesn’t need a Ph.D to interpret the social context of “Anarchy in the UK,” for example. As The Ramones’ simplified three-chord structures and declarative lyrical styling have demonstrated in the appearance of generations of their emulators and imitators, punk needn’t be “smart.” Whether you’re 16 and “screaming at a wall” with Minor Threat or 18 and “rising above” with some help from Black Flag, punk rock is relatable because it’s direct, fast, and, often, as angry as you are. It is decidedly unacademic.

Despite the context, Ross Haenfler, an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Movements at the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss, has developed an academic study of the contemporary straight edge movement in his 2006 Straight Edge: Clean-Living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change. As the book jacket declares, it is the “first in-depth sociological analysis of the movement,” and Haenfler catalogues the results of formal and informal interviews into a cohesive document.

The result is a definition of straight edge, an introduction to its social achievements and fallbacks, and the application of a simultaneously personal and theoretical approach. Using the diction of his discourse, Haefler analyzes the straightedge movement within hardcore punk through a sociological lens.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book is Haenfler’s decision to include his personal narrative. He opens Straight Edge with an explanation for his choice to adopt the straight edge lifestyle, in the context of his youth spent in Rapid City, S.D. He continually weaves in anecdotes from his participation in the Denver, Colo. hardcore scene. The personalization provides a contrast to his attempts at putting an academic spin on the movement. In this way, Haenfler’s biggest strength is his commitment to authenticity. Right from the cover of the book, which features a picture of Pat Flynn of Have Heart X’ed up in a sea of enthusiastic fans, the reader is aware that this is a legitimate document, produced by an ally instead of an outsider.

Haenfler’s approach is comprehensive: he breaks his thesis into a series of chapters, each demonstrating individual studies, which show impressive breadth and depth. Though many sections do not reveal anything particularly new, he takes the time to use an academic approach. For example, he establishes and fully proves how straight edge qualifies as a social movement and collective identity. To be fair, he criticizes the straight edge community for its exclusivity in regards to gender and homosexuality while also highlighting its valuable ability to construct communities for its ideological adherents. In another section, he addresses the tension between “positivity” and “militancy,” profiling the characteristics of each type and the oscillating historical dominance of each group within straight edge’s history.

Tying hypermasculinity and “crew” behavior into militancy, Haenfler reinforces his discussion of the simultaneous inclusiveness and exclusivity of straight edge. This theme, considered during multiple discussions of gender’s role in the hardcore scene, permeates his study.

The most interesting chapter – perhaps because I personally relate to it

– addresses issues of “Life after straight edge.” He covers those who pick up drinking, drugs and sexual promiscuity. However, he also discusses those who maintain accordance with straight edge beliefs, even though their participation within the hardcore scene has ebbed. In doing so, he characterizes two important portraits of stereotypical behaviors within the straight edge scene while also developing the complexity of others’ individual relationships with straight edge. It is when Haenfler interviews his peers that his sociological hypotheses reach the level of sophistication I desired to find in his analyses. His own testimony and the agonizingly honest reflections of other interviewees develop the strongest proof of his thesis, underscoring that straight edge is a social movement with lasting implications.

On the other hand, despite its potency, Haenfler’s personal involvement also poses methodological problems. He cites informal interviews, conversations in which he (assumedly) engaged in with friends. Though these are clearly important aspects of his research, his immersion experience poses a challenge to his reliability as a witness. For example, he admits that his documentation waned as he grew older and less personally involved in the scene. This enhances the personal aspect of his narrative but weakens his ability to supply the reader with a fluent, comprehensive study. His personal involvement prevents him from separating straight edge from the hardcore community, leading him to interchange both too casually. To compensate, at times, he over-emphasizes the formality of the interview. When addressing the methodology of his analysis of sexism, he goes too far to prove that he has established a comfortable, professional setting that would offset any consequences of his inherent Y-chromosome masculinity. At times, his academic definitions read like a high school research paper, laboriously paraphrased from upper-level readings. He sometimes struggles to find the balance between academic professionalism and personal passion.

Additionally (and most frustratingly), Haenfler’s personal engagement in the hardcore community creates a challenge for him when deciding upon his audience.

At times, Straight Edge clearly reads as directed to the owners of Chung King Can Suck It albums and Earth Crisis varsity jackets. Other times, such as when he addresses the history of the movement, it seems like he misses an ignorant target while also aiming well below any sort of knowledge audience. If Haenfler aims to provide a document like Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, which has educated countless fans fortunate enough to stumble upon its welcoming prose, he has not succeeded. On the other hand, if Haenfler’s target audience already has a base awareness about important milestones in the movement, he has provided a sincere and comprehensive supplement that will complement even noted scene grandfathers. Although Haenfler’s demands on the reader’s awareness of hardcore music and history do not always pair well with his demands for comprehension of sophisticated diction, the anecdotes and reflections are personal enough to break through the academia to resonate personally.

Despite these detractions, Straight Edge is still a milestone. To my knowledge, it is absolutely the first academic look at straight edge, and at hardcore in particular. It uses a mixture of authentic academia and pertinent culture, aptly quoting from each discipline. The curious alliance of sociology and classic hardcore lyrics and imagery has challenged my self-constructed boundaries that dictate that hardcore and school must be different; instead, by engaging both spheres, Haenfler succeeds in producing something quite special. Straight Edge isn’t for everyone, but it shouldn’t be overlooked, either.

the one am radio

THIS TOO WILL PASS (Dangerbird)

by AMANDA BROWER

Hrishikesh Hirway and Jane Yakowitz have been releasing records of their ethereal beats and lyrics since 2000. Somehow, though, listening to The One AM Radio’s aural dreamscapes still has that magical ability to make you feel as if you’re the only one who’s aware of their existence, like having some fantastic secret and all the power and torn feelings that come with it. Do you share your discovery with everyone you know and gain celebrity for being the originator of cool? Or do you keep it hush-hush so you can continue making yourself believe that no one else would ever appreciate it quite like you?

I got my first sampling of The One AM Radio’s hazy, pillowesque songs back in 2003 and I’ve been indulging myself with them ever since. Each album, from 2000’s A Cloud’s Fear of Kites EP to 2004’s A Name Writ In Water, has carried me on rolling waves of sweet melancholy and dipped me again and again into a welcomed state of cathartic, meandering self-meditation.

Even On the Shore of the Wide World, 2005’s offering of remixed versions of some of the band’s most outstanding songs, stayed loyal to The One AM Radio sound, despite collaboration with equally independent, uniquelydriven artists such as Daedelus and John Tejada.

Listening to The One AM Radio has always felt like being trusted with a quietly and tentatively-divulged admission. The personal quality of Hirway’s soft singing, combined with the nostalgic wailing of both an oft-featured musical saw and Yakowitz’s violin, make for an emotional experience – one that is fantastically crushing and reassuring all at once. Crushing, because it forces you to realize that all of your so-called life-altering moments have been lived before, and reassuring, because someone else is singing about them, is living and feeling in tune with you. The worn poignancy of most every song – all of which manage to trick you into believing, even for just a fleeting moment, that Hirway is seeking your shoulder rather than offering you one to rest upon – is so poetically perfect and resounding that, when listening, one can only shiver with the haunting thought that, just maybe, you’ve been granted the delicious treat of someone else’s thoughts lain more intimately bare than usually offered.

But with This Too Will Pass, the band’s latest endeavor, I’ve found my expectations met with a watered-down response. Sure, I can still count on hitting play and finding myself swathed in a cloak of hushed harmonies, nostalgic reflections and obscured visions, but there’s something lacking. Meandering verges on pedantic and the echoing sorrow of Hirway’s wondrous voice has dissolved into a ghostly pitch of spent sentiment. Comprised of a set of songs that traces the disintegration of a relationship and what’s to come, The One AM Radio’s new album seems like it’s seeking a sadness that’s no longer there.

Singing and sighing that once managed to elicit tears at a public concert from a born-and-bred, cold-blooded Bostonian like myself (or maybe it was just tears of relief that the group wailing about an elephant-electrocuted-byEdison-for-the-sake-of-the-invention-of-electricity was exiting the stage, but I doubt it) now fails to touch as deeply within me.

It’s elements such as the just-too-loud, unvarying strumming of a guitar throughout most of “In the Time We’ve Got,” and the nearly constant, tinny drumbeat that’s introduced in the first chorus of ‘You’ve got the city in you…’ that overpower Hirway’s understatedly emotive singing. The song ends nicely with a full section of soaring instrumentals, but it doesn’t make up for the addition of bland, predictable beats preceding it. In the following track, “Lest I Forget,” Hirway’s singing is once again reduced by instrumentals that appear to have been bolstered to disguise that quality of sincerity missing from the vocals. The song is marked by a sluggish, predictable tempo that numbs more than excites the ear and words enunciated in a dulled, flat manner. Whether this dullness stems from feelings of defeat or detachment is irrelevant to the fact that it makes listening to Hirway’s voice wearisome.

Overall, save for the first minute and forty-two seconds of “The Echoing Airports,” the one part of This Too Will Pass that seems to purposefully deviate from The One AM Radio’s traditional style of lush folk-electronica, the rest of the album fails to either stick to the formula or improvise upon it in a worthwhile way. The rhythm of the songs is generally predictable and boring, causing the album, as a whole, to lose a little bit of its shimmer. Some portions of instrumentals even remind me of Jack Johnson or other acoustic hippie artists – comparisons I’d rather not be making.

Perhaps I should congratulate Hirway for finally overcoming that sadness which so entrenched his previous endeavors, but I could only congratulate him grudgingly, if even that.

Because, well, now that his songs have ceased to be so sad, Hirway doesn’t hold the same, sadistic appeal for me as when I could rely on him to wallow with me in contemplation of human flaw and life’s messiness. And, because that (dare I say it) emo hint to his words really struck me as inherent to their beauty.

The One AM Radio will always be the secret I cherish, except now it’s a secret spread. The core of its essence remains, but its shell has changed.

Something that’s perfect can’t be expected to stay perfect forever, which is part of the reason why I wish this album hadn’t been created at all. It’s not so much that This Too Will Pass is such a travesty to the history of music – because it’s far from that – but more that it doesn’t stand up to the high standards The One AM Radio has cultivated for itself over the years. Do you stop making music when it ceases to be good, or do you stop making music when it’s so good that it’s teetering precariously on the edge of never been as good again? Ideally, The One AM Radio would have subtly faded away after the release of On the Shore of the Wide World, just as the band’s songs blip and fuzz into silence in a way that leaves you feeling whole and alright with their ending, like the sensation of lusting a little to recall a fading dream, but content enough to let it dissolve into vague memory.

Amanda Brower is Dolla$.

MELISMAreviews

a hawk and a hacksaw THE WAY THE WIND BLOWS (Leaf)

by JESSE KOHN

Jeremy Barnes is a living instrument. As his fingers race across the keys of his accordion, his feet pound pedals, producing the band’s primary percussion section with the inverted snares and tom drums that litter the floor around him. He wears a hat with bells on it, a drumstick crudely taped to the top. During crescendos he throws his head towards the symbol next to him, sending a reverberating crash above the intricate, complex violin and accordion lines. Adjacent to Barnes, Heather Trost, having attained near perfection of her instrument, plays the violin as though it is an extension of herself, with the ease and grace of speaking, or breathing.

I remember first seeing the band play in a tiny café at the College of Santa Fe. My friends and I had recently discovered Balkan gypsy music and we spent our spring nights inflating the pollen-filled air with brass, accordions, and strings; Fanfare Ciocarlia, The Boban Markovic Orkestar and The Kocani Orkestar. The sounds were exotic and new, romantic, distant and timeless. A Hawk and a Hacksaw realized our fantasies - two real gypsies on the stage before us. The energy that flowed from them pulsed through the audience, and within moments, the crowd, much too large for the small space, was entranced. Our pounding feet mirrored Barnes’ thumping bass, and the rattles on his feet made echoes of our claps. Trost smiled, and motioned for the first few rows to join them onstage. There was a communal feel about the show, as though we were all celebrating something.

Although the band’s two prior albums are beautiful and hypnotizing in their own right, A Hawk and a Hacksaw’s most recent release, The Way the Wind Blows, is the first to capture the intricacies and hectic power of their live performances. The album is a recording of gypsy songs - sad, joyful, minor, and beautiful. Some songs are fast and packed with energy, while others are slower, Balkan ballads marked by the lamentations of Trost’s violin weeping like a heartbroken Roma girl. Featuring guest performances by Beirut’s Zach Condon and members of legendary Romanian brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia, The Way the Wind Blows is an album that allows the listener, if he is patient, to escape the mundane West and its modern trivialities, for a fictional, romanticized Eastern Europe where every wandering derelict will break your heart if you merely put an instrument in his hands.

One highlight of the album is the crushingly slow is “Waltz for Tuba and Strings.” Trost’s violin dances elegantly over the pounding, deep tuba and the drawn out bass notes that the accordion exhales. Another song, “The Sparrow,” begins with a fast, synchronized harmony between accordion and violin that plays over the hurried Jesse Kohn belongs in a freak show. Foul smells seep out, like decaying stomping of feet. Soon, the violin departs, soaring dramatically and piercingly high into the flesh, from beneath his door, which is kept perpetually shut. On the rare air to perch and watch the accordion rush across the ground below. occasions that he ventures out into the daylight, he walks beneath an open A Hawk and a Hacksaw is a fascinating departure from the hordes of formulaicumbrella in order to preserve his ghostly pallor. Having reached the pinnacle of pretension, he is unsociable, unpleasant and unspeakably ugly. Should you sounding indie bands, and The Way the Wind Blows is their finest, most accessible work to ever encounter this ghastly, repulsive creature plaguing the pathways and date. The album is the perfect companion to a daydream vacation to nineteenth century halls of this great university, run away.

Prague.

28

unearth

III: IN THE EYES OF FIRE (Metal Blade)

by MICHAEL TUCKER

The members of Unearth are veterans to the metal scene, but have only recently received notoriety. Their newest album, III: In the Eyes of Fire, has silenced all the critics and left metal heads everywhere echoing one simple truth: Unearth is here to stay.

Unearth got off to a rocky start with their 2002 release of The Strings of Conscience. They took a shot at melding the snappy drumming and distorted power chords of heavy metal with the slowed-down, staccato breakdowns of hardcore. But, their songs were loosely tied together and lacked a natural flow. Overall, their sound was rough and poorly mixed.

At the time Unearth released their first album, metalcore was a well-established genre, but bands were beginning to reproduce the popular sound instead of using it as an influence. Suddenly, a wave of unoriginal bands flooded the metalcore scene and the unique sound was lost. Because Unearth’s first record was heavily influenced by early metalcore, it was written off by many critics as another attempt to mimic the popular sound.

Unearth was undeterred by the criticism and cut two more albums. In 2006, they entered the studio and began working on III: In the Eyes of Fire. It was their chance to finally show everyone what Unearth was

all about: heavy, raging music. But to do so, they would have to overcome the obstacle of mixing the fluid play of heavy metal with the powerful, regimented breakdowns of hardcore.

The fruit of their labors is an 11-track, aural assault that brutalizes even the most grizzled of metal-heads with shredding guitars, explosive drums and captivating vocals. The songs are technical, requiring each member to have a mastery of his instrument. The timing is precise; every note is played scrupulously.

Lead vocalist Trevor Phipps unleashes visceral grunts and richly textured screams that expose the music’s hardcore roots. Anger and aggression resonate in each word he shouts. His passion and emotion connect with the listener in a way that is better explained in clenched fists and grinding teeth.

Guitarists Ken Susi and Ben McGrath rain down melodic riffs and scorching bridges that take the music to a higher level of complexity. The drum work showcases the versatility of drummer Mike Justian. He is consistent and technically sound. During breakdowns, Justain becomes a savage beast, blasting across his kit at an astonishing pace. Producer Terry Date (Pantera/Ozzy Osbourne) has refined Unearth’s sound by impeccably layering the instruments and vocals.

The third song, “March of Mutes,” reveals Unearth’s eclectic influences and ability to write complex, uniquely structured songs. It lulls the listener into a false sense of security by the introduction, which utilizes classical guitar harmony to open the song softly. The brief, easy-listening is like the eye of the storm; a placid, well deserved break from the ferociously powerful CD. But as soon as it comes, it is gone. Fast, melodic guitar instantly ignites an inferno that burns throughout the entire song, complimented by double-bass drumming and well-timed gravity rolls. The speed increases and takes the listener to the threshold before the classic, hardcore breakdown. The fast guitar and crisp drums become slow and powerful as the song culminates in guttural screams intensely belting out crude emotion.

Heavy metal? Hardcore? Metalcore? The record’s genre is uncertain. But one thing is clear: with the release of III: In the Eyes of Fire, Unearth has proven itself a force in the realm of metal.

attrition

PREFACE EP and CHAPTER 1: WE’RE FUCKING SERIOUS (Self-Released)

by BOBBY WESTFALL

How to explain Attrition? I could simply say that, as their name implies, Attrition are brutal, going from blazing speed to crushing, stomping breakdowns. But that would not come close to doing this DC (deaDCity) hardcore band justice. I could offer up many comparisons: the vocals are somewhere between those of Modern Life Is War and His Hero Is Gone, the breakdowns incorporate the metalcore of Earth Crisis, while the melody that runs over both the fast and slow parts resembles Saetia or Pg. 99. These things are all true, but they are not nearly enough to capture the band’s essence entirely. Just as much as Attrition’s songs are not broken into simple verse-chorus-breakdown structure, Attrition as a band cannot be broken down into clichés or comparisons. They are experimental and unique while being completely coherent and enjoyable.

Their entire sound, every note, every scream, every drumbeat, exudes passion, desperation, and hope.

This experience begins with their self-released CD-R EP Preface. Its length alone - four songs in almost 20 minutes – makes it a standout among hardcore records. Attrition’s unique formula is evident from the very first blasts of spastic down-tuned guitar noise and pounding drums. Within seconds, a twinkling melody rises above the brutal noise. Each song begins this way, pummeling yet melodic, with intensely personal yet entirely political growls and screams. Just when you feel like you’re about to collapse from the beat down, the band stops, to pick you up and race with a bright beautiful melody line and a circle pit beat only to lead you into another crushing floor punching breakdown, and if you’re lucky, a gang sing along like a desperate scream for change. And if you worried that despite musical triumph, Attrition might fall to the same lyrical clichés as so many upstart hardcore bands, well worry no more. Attrition cry out with an intensely personal, emotional approach to anarchist politics and straight-edge conviction. There is no “you and me we’ll make the difference”. Instead we hear a severe indictment of the capitalist system with the screaming mantra of “this is not life/always choking/always looking down” and the cry of “where is our safe place? Our sanctuary from the commonplace?” is Attrition’s response to people who bring the prejudices and negative attitudes of the mainstream world into the hardcore scene. And if you don’t understand exactly what issue they’re taking on, their website offers a detailed explanation of each song.

Attrition’s more recent offering, Chapter 1: We’re Fucking Serious (as if there were any doubt of that after Preface), offers nothing more than the same sound totally refined and more cathartic, with new social challenges to confront. The songs have been condensed into two-minute punk rock attacks, the sound quality is clearer, and did I just hear clean guitar intro? This record does nothing Preface couldn’t do, it just does it all 100 percent better.

As hardcore is becoming more bloated and generic and so many of the bands playing the same three chords and fast-as-hell beats just can’t do what Minor Threat and Youth of Today once did, Attrition have found a way to hit as hard as the classics with an entirely new approach to the sound. Open yourself to their music and they will shake your soul and awaken your conscience. And if that’s not Bobby Westfall is a freshman considering a major in history and a proud what hardcore punk rock is about, then I don’t know what it is. But I know that both in my of Thrashaholics Unanimous. His main passion in life is producing consciousness and at an Attrition show, as sung in “Only to Fall” off Preface, “I can’t sit and member ever more bad puns on hardcore songs and straight edge slogans. All he watch.” And that’s exactly how it should be. wants to have is good clean fun.

MELISMAreviews

ted leo and the pharmacists

LIVING WITH THE LIVING (Touch & Go)

by SHANA HURLEY

30

Every generation has rock stars to whom one feels comfortable referring by first name only; some unidentifiable “X factor” breaks down the boundaries between the artist and the fan. For Ted Leo, it might be the catchy, power-pop guitar parts that define his familiar, signature sound. Maybe it’s because one knows that his songs are drenched in sincerity, often personally addressing individuals by name. It might just be that, somehow, this guy - a regular old dude with a goofy voice and without an ounce of pretension - has fused these two qualities and showed a generation that they could do it, too. There was Johnny Rotten and Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain. And now there is Ted, too.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists have made a successful, reputable career by constructing solid pop rock songs and backing them up with a powerful, ethical approach. One of the most hardworking bands, they’re constantly on the road diffusing their music and championing their ideals. Their jump to Touch and Go Records for their most recent release, Living with the Living, represents a shift to a larger independent label but a steadfast adherence to independent ideals. As a product of the ethically unforgiving hardcore scene, Leo carries an underlying punk rock attitude that cuts through the sweetness of his sound and niceness of his personality. In many ways, just as The Clash was both decidedly punk yet undeniably accessible, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists forge a Clash-like path on this record. Just as The Clash redefined punk rock by adding strong currents of reggae and ska, Leo also experiments with boundaries. And what’s more, The Clash’s musical repertoire included many forgettable “filler” songs, too, a tactic Ted and his Pharmacists seem to employ on Living with the Living.

After a curious noise sample titled “The Fourth World War,” the first real song on the album captures the infectiousness of good Ted Leo songwriting.

The track, “Sons of Cain,” recalls the era of Heart of Oak. The next song, “Army Bound,” echoes the Joe Strummer-like social commentary of “Spanish Bombs” as Leo rails against the injustice of poverty’s influence on our “volunteer” army. Similarly, in the closing “C.I.A,” Leo rhetorically poses: “The C.I.A.: only you know what you’ve done,” which rings with an eerie effect. Just as “Lost in the Supermarket” was a haunting personal narrative, “La Costa Brava” captures Ted’s wistful reminiscences of su pais favorita, España. “The World Stops Turning” and “Some Beginner’s Mind” are great in the way that the Ted Leo and the Pharmacists always are: fun, catchy, soulful and sincere.

These songs are classic; simple constructions, powerful melodies, smart lyrics and catchy hooks put them in the tradition of Leo’s best.

However, my favorite tracks on the album are its riskier songs. In the vein of “Revolution Rock” and “Rudie Can’t Fail,” the most exciting track is the dub-infused “The Unwanted Ones.” The band also takes a risk, to mixed success, with “Bomb.Repeat.Bomb.” Recalling his hardcore roots, Leo talks through his anger about the Iraq War over a frenetic, fast-paced punk rock score interspersed with melodious segments. “Sure we could mobilize a million troops, though a thousand would probably get the job done /but then people would start to ask questions,” he sings, satirizing senior administration officials. “The Lost Brigade” has a funk flavor and especially nuanced vocals, highlighted by producer Brendan Canty’s production (yes, that Brendan Canty of Fugazi). On “Toro and the Toredor,” the band explores soft and tuneful R&B influences on a product that sounds like nothing else in their back catalogue. These songs show the band’s willingness to challenge even their own conventions and progress as a songwriting unit.

When Leo plays it too safe, the product suffers. “Who Do You Love?” and “Colleen” are singles, more polished variants of the accessibility of Shake the Sheets’ “Me and Mia.” In particular, the over-produced female back-up vocals of the chorus of “Who Do You Love?” make the song’s commercial viability evident and unappealing. Even though “Bottle of Buckie” attempts a previously invoked Ted Leo trick by incorporating a classically Irish sound in the spirit of The Pogues, the effort falls flat in the context of the song’s saccharine chorus. These three songs detract from the integrity of the album; yet, they will provide a new generation of Ted Leo fans something to hold on to, as “Timorous Me” and “Biomusicology” did earlier.

In all, Living with the Living most resembles a Clash album because of its damning inconsistency. Though some songs are good - even great - many could be brushed under the rug. And, despite some songs being stylistically familiar, others are challenging to listen to. Living is as smart and emotional as ever, but more sophisticated, too. Unlike Shake the Sheets’ election-year commentary and stylistic homogeny, the lyrical and music diversity of this album set it apart from the Pharmacists’ past efforts.

lifetime

SELF-TITLED (Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen)

by SHANA HURLEY

Almost without exception, reunion tours are terrible ideas. Bands are strung together by an amalgamation of original and ex-members, with one member visibly seething about having to share a stage with a hated ex-friend. The awkward band relishes the moment, detachedly playing songs without passion while considering what they could buy with the reunion money. The power of the reunion money almost offsets the disdain band members feel for one another – but not quite. Then, of course, the worst idea of all is when the aforementioned bands decide to return to the studio to rekindle that old flame. Instead of channeling old chemistry to create reunion gold, great bands have produced awful albums, which embarrass them and their illustrious careers.

When historic 1988 hardcore band Gorilla Biscuits decided to reunite for one show, they were met with excitement. However, the reunion tour that followed proved otherwise.

And, when they decided to enter the studio, they left with abysmal new material. Bands should learn that reunion tours and albums lead to wistful fans occupying themselves with the sentiment, “And they used to be so good!”

Somehow, however, New Jersey’s Lifetime have defied the odds. After deciding to reunite for 2006’s cancelled Hellfest music festival, the boys scrapped together three last minute reunion shows. When the West Coast clamored for equal opportunity, Lifetime responded to their fans by playing three more shows. Reinforcing the sincerity that has always been Lifetime’s raison d’être, the band played their series of packed venues to two generations of Lifetime diehards, and donated the proceeds to charity.

The range of fans coming to current Lifetime shows alludes to the enormous influence the band possesses. For starters, guitarist Dan Yemin has gone on to form two of the biggest names in pop/hardcore crossover: Kid Dynamite and Paint It Black. Even without Lifetime, these two bands have spawned a generation of emulators like None More Black, the Loved Ones, and the Back-Up Plan, among many others.

More important, however, is the entirely novel path that Lifetime forged in pop/punk music. The New Jersey scene that Lifetime breathed life into gave rise to such acts as Saves the Day and Thursday. It’s impossible to imagine Saves the Day classics like “You Vandal” or “East Coast” without Lifetime’s revolutionary blend of hardcore and melody. A generation of FuseTV teenagers would still be emulating the rap/rock combinations of Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park if Lifetime hadn’t inspired an innovating crossover between pop music and the punk/hardcore underground. Most strikingly, this release is Lifetime’s only album not on the independent Jade Tree Records label.

Instead, Lifetime is a release of Decaydance Records, a Fueled By Ramen subsidiary owned by Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz. Whenever asked, Fall Out Boy consistently cite Lifetime as their biggest influence. In a collection of their top ten most inspirational albums found on Artist Direct, three of the ten are

Lifetime records (to date of that list, Lifetime had only put out six LPs and EPs). Wentz was so intent on promoting Lifetime’s influence upon his music that he signed them. It’s easy, then, to recognize that Lifetime is one of the most important bands in today’s popular subculture.

Strikingly, Lifetime’s first album in over ten years, Lifetime, is up to par with their other releases. In fact, it is more than just level with their previous efforts: Lifetime is actually good. Every song on the record borrows from Lifetime’s classic staples: frontman Ari Katz’s snotty vocals, Yemin’s signature riffs or Scott Golley’s quick drumming. Lifetime’s differences are that Katz’s voice is clearer, Yemin’s songwriting has more melody and Golley’s drumming slows the pace down, so the songs are more accessible.

The album’s opening song, “Northbound Breakdown,” is a representative demonstration of what follows. It is as melodic as anything the band has produced to date and Katz’s vocals are wholly comprehensible and sweet sounding. The lyrics are personal, relatable and about a relationship - uncharacteristic of the masculinity dominating the hardcore scene.

Yet, the drum parts are faster than comparable pop-punk, planting the song firmly within Lifetime’s roots. “Airport Monday Morning,” the second track, shows Katz’s voice in its sophisticated form but slightly bit faster, recalling older songs like “Irony is for Suckers.” On “Can’t Think About it Now,” Katz employs a whine rather than a bark. In “Song for Mel,” the track changes tempo for a groovy bridge. Further, dueling guitars in “Spiders in the Garden” show complex songwriting. At every turn, each song proves that the band is smarter, older, and more together than ever.

However, these songs are not yet radio-friendly. They are still rough enough around the edges to occupy Lifetime’s unique niche of too-prettyfor-hardcore and too-rough-for-pop music. Tellingly, Lifetime borrows from hardcore in less predictable ways than sheer intensity. Standout track, “Records at Nite,” which closes the record, begins with a melodic intro before breaking into a traditional pop-punk sound, then invokes hardcore sing-along choruses at its conclusion. At the other end, Katz’s voice often slips into his trademark mumble – take “Just a Quiet Evening” – which is too jarring for many radio-punk fans.

With the self-titled effort, Lifetime strikes a commendable balance. It is familiar, but it also challenges the band’s own conventions. Importantly, the record stays appealing to the band’s old fans, yet is also compelling for new ones. In the most flattering of testaments, Lifetime is exactly where Jersey’s Best Dancers left off. If the sheer volume of mainstream pop-punk didn’t testify otherwise, it would be easy to believe that the band never went away.

MELISMAreviews

grizzly bear

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON - FEBRUARY 2, 2007

by DAVE McCOUBREY

32

A band name can belie the sound that a group or individual produces. Take the band Destroyer, for instance. For people not well-versed in hyper-literate cathartic chamber-pop, they might, justifiably, think Destroyer is a grindcore band, with album titles like Abortion Squad or maybe, quite powerfully, Cockripper. In indie rock, as opposed to, say, death metal, band names don’t necessarily need to alert the listener to the nature of the sound contained within an album. Bands like ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, while at times aggressive and raucous, don’t nearly approach the blood-chugging, eye-gouging sound of Cannibal Corpse or Mangled. And Thank God for that.

This is part of the charm of indie rock: as opposed to more mainstream, radio-friendly pop, or even metal and hip-hop, an individual or band can have whatever name they choose; there are no parameters for choosing a moniker.

This makes naming a band fun and enigmatic. Hence, Destroyer. Other genres are limiting, mainly because, in a mass-marketing scheme, bands are sold as product, and their sound needs to be easily recognizable via their name. Hence, The Dixie Chicks. And, of course, there’s always the other end of the spectrum; calling yourself Disembowelment alerts death thrash-heads that, hey, we’re with you. No guess work there.

Grizzly Bear is another example of a band name that, perhaps, misrepresents the sound behind it. I mean, Christ, the grizzly bear’s scientific name has the word “horribilis” in it. I’m not a zoologist, but I’m fairly certain that’s Latin for “totally fucking terrifying and thirsty for camper blood.” One might expect this four-piece from Brooklyn-by-way-of-Massachusetts to sound like they could ravage a listener and leave him screaming for Ranger Rick to come save him. Not so! Instead, on their mostly-overlooked 2004 debut Horn of Plenty and their hipster-approved 2006 effort Yellow House, Grizzly Bear creates atmospheric, elaborate and intimate songs that rely heavily on complex, gorgeous melodies, effects pedals galore and strategic use of the banjo, flute and marimba. And all without sounding like total pussies.

With Yellow House being one of the most pleasant surprises of 2006, I bought tickets to see the band play at the Museum of Fine Arts on February 2. Last April, I unfortunately missed the collage-art experimental rock of The Books, but for me, Grizzly Bear, at least on record, seems like the next best thing for the MFA. Their music begs to be played in front of a sophisticated audience, one that would appreciate their ambient droning and knack for Beach Boys-esque melody like they would appreciate a room full of abstract impressionist paintings.

I didn’t quite realize how polite the folks at the MFA were going to force us to be, though. The show was held in a medium-sized auditorium, complete with a smallish stage and strange bronze cherubs pinned to the walls in various poses. When I arrived with my girlfriend and her friend, everyone was seated in stadium-style seats, chatting softly, waiting for the band to come on, with the lights pleasingly dimmed. This prompted my girlfriend’s friend to comment caustically, “I feel like I’m at a high school production of Annie -- except instead of parents there are hipsters.” Later, singer/songwriter Ed Droste would remark, “I feel like you guys should be taking the SATs right now or something.” He was kidding, sure, but there was a sense that some of the charming, freewheeling nature of a rock show was lost, with everyone seated and stationary, unable to dance or flounder or do whatever it is indie kids do.

I dunno, maybe sitting down allowed some people to listen to The Microphones

on their iPods while listening to Grizzly Bear, because, shit, listening to just one super-layered, textured, melodic underground sensation isn’t enough. We all know that.

Once the show started, though, these initial limitations were forgotten. It was immediately evident that Grizzly Bear sounded incredible. In a live setting, the band’s complex sound came to glorious fruition, as the auditorium was filled to the brim with wave after wave of dreamy, vast and occasionally exuberant rock. They were mesmerizing all night long. By the time “Colorado” rolled around during the second-half of the set, kids were visibly fidgeting in their seats, wishing they could at least stand and sway, as Droste belted out the “What now, what now...” chorus.

The melodies and harmonies that earned Yellow House a spot on many critics’ “Best Of” lists for 2006 were re-created perfectly, and enhanced further by the excellent acoustics in the MFA theater and the fact that the band played so damn loud. Songs like “Knife” and “Fix It” (from Horn of Plenty) were intoxicating in their scope and magnitude. I know it sounds like I’m using lazy hyperboles here, but honestly (and I asked several people what they thought of the show afterwards), the band filled and dominated the small auditorium with their music. Even their sound guy was rocking out. Some other highlights included an ambitious cover of “He Hit Me,” a song from ‘60s R&B group The Crystals, and a new song called “Final Round.” With its thundering floor tom and rollicking guitar, the song was reminiscent of Animal Collective but, at least live, was played much harder and heavier than anything AC has ever done. It was a clever little surprise sandwiched between several murmuring lullabies that left everyone excited at the possibility of a new direction for the band’s sound.

Before playing The Crystals’ song, Droste started to mention something about Phil Spector who had a hand in producing The Crystals. Of course, Spector (aside from killing actresses in fake castles, having horrible haircuts and nurturing a love for cocaine) is famous for his “Wall of Sound” production style, which brought several musicians into the studio, playing some instruments two and three times over themselves to create a full, orchestrated sound booming from the speakers. There perhaps is not a more apt description of the way Grizzly Bear sounded that night - “Wall of Sound,” though, barely does justice to the wealth and gluttony of sonic treats pouring out of their amps. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere - from the stage, out of the walls and floor, from the ceiling - and when they closed with “On a Neck, On a Spit,” the best song from 2006, period, some kids, no longer content to merely hibernate in their cramped chairs, just had to get out of their seats and dance in the aisles.

Dave McCoubrey is a man with a plan. And that plan doesn’t involve submitting a bio to his editors.

world/inferno friendship socierty

AXIS, BOSTON - FEBRUARY 11, 2007

by LAURA BERGER

Attending a World/Inferno Friendship Society show is rather like entering a freak show. You are not quite sure what is going on, or that the people on stage are even a band, until they pick up their instruments and begin to play.

Self-described as “circus music,” World/Inferno certainly puts on a theatrical performance.

The members of the band rotate, but the past four times I have seen them, the lineup has remained fairly steady. Jack Terricloth is always the lead vocalist. His unforgettable facial expressions and attire make him the image of the band. Sunday night, February 11 at the Axis, f he was dressed in a pin stripe suit, eye makeup and slicked-back hair. That is not to say that the other members are unimportant or look run-of-the-mill.

The entire eight-piece was clad in black, but they were anything but gloomy. Five string bassist Sandra Malak energetically threw her nearly butt-length dreads around as she rocked the stage. Semra Ercin, the percussionist, jumped around and shook her hair every direction throughout the entire show.

The World/Inferno Friendship Society’s music, particularly live, is extremely powerful because three of their members - Ercin, Malak, and guitarist Lucky Strano - sing vocals in addition to Terricloth.

As a result, the vocals are equally as important as the instruments in their music. Terricloth’s voice is certainly distinct, alternating between raspy, deep and crooning. The band’s stage presence, ability to work any crowd into a frenzy and catchy “circus music” attract an extremely loyal fan base. The Axis show was no exception. Behind the first five rows of fans desperately trying to reach the stage, a large group of dancers enthusiastically enjoyed themselves. While some folks skanked, the majority participated in a form of extreme ballroom dancing that has become synonymous with World/Inferno shows. The disco ball at the Axis reflected purple stage lighting off of the ballroom dancers as Terricloth crooned the infamous but live-only song, “I’m Addicted to Bad Ideas.” The whole scene was larger than life.

As Terricloth began singing the opening lyrics to “The Brother of the Mayor of Bridgewater,” everyone in the front of the room threw their hands in the air. All of a sudden, Terricloth stage dived into the audience, mic in hand, while never missing a beat. He then brought our attention to the three most important things in life: money, drugs and sex. This trio is the key concept of “The Velocity of Love,” one of the standout tracks from their most recent album, Red-Eyed Soul. Unlike most bands that traditionally introduce their songs by announcing the title to the audience, World/Inferno introduced each song with a story. Terricloth’s tales ended with the title or lyrics from the song they were about to play. This added to the bizarre World/Inferno performance.

At the sound of the first few chords of “Annie the Imaginary Lawyer,” the crowd started a riot. The last of the triple-whammy of the three most popular World/ Inferno songs was “Only Anarchists are Pretty.” Sometime during this fiasco, one fan got on stage and started singing with Terricloth. Terricloth then jumped into the audience with the fan in tow and they crowd surfed together. This is not out of character for Terricloth. Appearing to have a very intimate relationship with his fans, Terricloth held their hands as they reached out to him. Unfortunately, even amazing sets must come to an end. All the members of the World/Inferno Friendship Society gathered up their instruments and left the stage.

The other three times I’ve seen World/Inferno play they were opening for other acts, including two well known punk bands, the Street Dogs and the Bouncing Souls. As a result of this, they never had a chance to perform an encore. This was not the case at the Axis, however. The crowd went wild, demanding more. We were all chanting, “World Inferno” and clapping our hands in sequence.

This moment was undoubtedly a Boston moment stolen from Dropkick Murphys’ shows where similar encore chants are the norm.

Our persistence paid off; World/Inferno came back on for an encore and made all the energy worthwhile.

The music started out quiet with Terricloth almost whispering the lyrics to “Me and the Mad Monkettes” as he rubbed against front row audience members in a coy, sexual way. A crescendo began and finally Terricloth yelled, “Spending like a punk rocker on payday/At the monster dogs Christmas parade/Me and The Mad Monkettes we stop and wave.” A small, female audience member jumped on stage and gave Terricloth a bear hug. They certainly appeared to be an odd pair, a five-foot college girl groping a nearing middleage, balding man in a pin stripe suit. But it was just another day at the circus.

After a final eye flirt with the audience, the World/Inferno Friendship Society left us in a state of amazement.

“So long to the circus, so long to it all/I have always had a good sense of when it’s time to get gone/When the police are about to arrive, when security steps in/Wave goodbye to the circus…”

Laura Berger is a first year who works at Redbones but does not eat meat. She currently wastes much of her time mourning the death of the “real” MySpace.

MELISMAreviews

bane

with MAINTAIN, THE GEEKS, AMBITIONS, DOWN TO NOTHING, HAVE HEART CAMBRIDGE ELKS LODGE - MARCH 2, 2007

by SHANA HURLEY

34

Bane performing in Boston is a surprisingly rare occurrence. They are local boys, but generally pick shows in Worcester, which is closer to their hometown and has the sizeable Palladium to house the shows.

Additionally, all of the members of Bane are adults whose lives do not have the flexibility of their younger counterparts. Consequently, Bane shows in Boston always have high expectations.

Boston-area band Maintain opened the show. Their first song overwhelmingly reminded me of Inside Out, with riffs highly reminiscent of “No Spiritual Surrender,” sans a considerable degree of technical skill. They tried for the layered melodies made popular by Northwest bands like Sinking Ships while also pumping out Judge-level aggression, powered by a high-energy front man. Most of all, it was great to see a young group of guys filling a coveted slot in a huge show. In Boston, most line-ups are determined by who you know, making it hard for brand new bands to even get opening spots in shows. When most events are Brockton shows, steered by a tight-knit group of Boston kids that look out for their friends, the opportunity for a lesser-known band with no famous ex-members to receive this space was surprising and refreshing.

Second were PHOTO: DAN GONYEA South Korea’s The Geeks – living proof that Seoul’s got soul! In San Francisco, during the West Coast leg of their tour with Bane, someone broke into their van and stole thousands of dollars of drum equipment, amps, and their bass guitar. The thief also took a laptop, their iPods and a cell phone, as well as clothes and other gear. Furthermore, the band lost items of sentimental importance, invaluable during a life on the road hundreds of thousands of miles from home. Despite the enormous debt they incurred by deciding to tour the United States, which was exponentially exacerbated by the break-in, The Geeks continue to be the most positive band in hardcore. Ki Seok, The Geeks’ singer, insisted that the entire tour was worth their losses if everyone in the crowd were having fun. Earnestly, he shared stories about growing up in streamlined Korean society and the relief hardcore has provided for him, while selfdeprecatingly acknowledging that The Geeks are “the cheesiest band in hardcore.” In a call-and-response fashion, Seok taught the crowd the chorus parts to “Everytime We Fall” and “Let it Fade,” as well as

Korean expletives like “Shiiiiiii-ba.” They also amped up the kids by playing two well-chosen covers: Youth of Today’s anthemic “Youth of Today” and Minor Threat’s “Filler.” The Geeks’ incredible sincerity and passion was wholly evident and extremely well received. Integrity, a really meaningful concept in hardcore, is fully realized among these five great guys from Korea.

Ambitions, the fastest growing band in hardcore, fit solidly within this star-studded line-up. Playing emotive, melodic hardcore, Ambitions’ Dag Nasty influence is immediately apparent. As they often voice, the band is pushing the boundaries defining hardcore and going the direction members Jay and Jeff Aust were heading previously with their former project, With Honor, before it went defunct. Being from Connecticut, I didn’t realize that Ambitions aren’t yet nationally known and was surprised that the crowd wasn’t more familiar with them. Kids moved for their Quicksand cover and for the demo tracks available on MySpace, but not for the songs off of 2006’s Question. On the other hand, I am confident that their recent signing to Bridge 9 records and grueling tour schedule will gain them the attention they deserve. Their future Boston shows will be huge.

The aura of the show changed significantly with the next band, Down to Nothing. DTN’s set was skewed heavily toward material from their second full length, Splitting Headache, with a mid-tempo sound that merges the groove of Righteous Jams with the heaviness of Terror, rather than the faster, more Youth Crew-oriented songs from their first LP, Save It for the Birds. One could see that the audience, too, changed; instead of the white sweatshirts and X Swatches of The Geeks’ fanbase, the shirts turned black and the shorts went camo. The dancing became rougher and the kids became tougher – consequently, I became a lot less interested.

Similarly, Have Heart catered their set to the toughness of Boston fans. Beginning their set with a shout out to Down to Nothing, Have Heart kept that tradition of “chugga chugga” alive. Their set, while marked by positive lyrics and sing alongs, consisted entirely of songs from their debut full-length, The Things We Carry. The new album

catalogs their heaviest tracks to date and witnesses the ebbing of their “posi” sound. Have Heart began with the album’s opener, “Life is Hard Enough,” as vocalist Pat Flynn raced back and forth across the stage, only stopping to let kids grab the microphone for a few words.

As the band launched into a cover of the Youth of Today classic “Slow Down,” the Elks experienced pile-ons of legendary proportions. Have Heart’s set was the first appearance of a sing-along crowd large enough for near constant, stage-dive gymnastics. As the pit was pushed farther back on the floor, kids crowded the front of the stage for acrobatics and finger pointing.

Yet, the enthusiasm and stage antics for Have Heart did not match a quarter of the energy Bane brought to the Elks. Opening their set with Give Blood’s powerful first track, “Speechless,” Bane began with a jolt that powered the rest of their set. Immediately, the Elks became a circus, with stage dives and headwalking everywhere. The second song was “Swan Song,” the emotional last track from The Note. During its melodic bridge, guitarist Aaron Dalbec weaved skillful improvisation before the crowd exploded into a chorus of “When Armageddon’s

: WITH MEANINGFUL AND EMOTIONAL SPEECHES THAT DEFINE THE SPIRITUALISM OF BANE SHOWS, BEDARD IS WELL-KNOWN AS THE PASTOR OF THE HARDCORE SCENE. been locked and loaded, I will come back for you.” Singer Aaron Bedard matched songs about the emotional value of hardcore, like “My Therapy” and “Every Effort Made,” with heartfelt explanations of the songs and personal narratives. Movingly, before launching into “Pot Committed,” Bedard toasted The Geeks for the hardships they’d been through on tour and in South Korea, and for the positive attitude that they effuse. With meaningful and emotional speeches that define the spiritualism of Bane shows, Bedard is well-known for his capacity as the pastor of the hardcore scene. Fueled by the energy of the show and the hometown crowd in Boston, Bedard’s speeches were as powerful as ever. And as he sang such personal songs as “Ante Up” and “The Big Gun Down,” there permeated a sense of empathy and shared experience. Bedard sings in “Ante Up,” “Things they really aren’t so bad and I have never known much about silver lining.” As such, Bane sets are the perfect reminder that youthful angst has a home in “these four walls.”

As they plowed through the rest of their set, Bane’s uniting influence was clear. Hardcore shows are notorious for their lack of diversity. Still, Bane brought out a stunning mix of ages, races and plenty of women. Whenever someone fell, others would scoop him up immediately. The show took on the quality Bedard describes in “Can We Start Again?” when he relays, “Open minds and open hearts/the things that set us apart.” While the band closed “Can We Start Again?” the chorus of kids overpowered the sound of the band. It was a quint-

PHOTOS: DAN GONYEA

essential Bane experience, which many 15-year-olds in the audience were experiencing for the first time. It created the camaraderie that defines hardcore for so many kids that have passed through the scene during Bane’s ten-year lifespan. Unlike the bands that use violence and cliques to divide and dichotomize the scene, there were no fights during Bane’s set. Grown boys hugged. Seeing Bane is, as they say, almost a spiritual experience.

Shana Hurley is a freshman with way too much on her plate. She has a really rad dry-erase board that makes her look as popular as the prom queen. Besides looking to hold weekly crucial mosh parties in her Hodgdon dingle, she aspires to turn Melisma into the Bane Weekly. Just look at her go.

MELISMAreviews

man man

with PIT-ER-PAT, STEPHONIK AND THE BRIGHTSIDE, MATTEAH BAIM FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA - JANUARY 12, 2007

by PETE MILLAR

36

Philadelphia. No other city brings to mind such a sacred love between man and man. Wait, not that kind of love; brotherly love, the kind found in bonding over a frosty brew, a curbside steak or talk of a football franchise perpetually flirting with any legitimate evidence of success. So, it only makes sense that the city’s premiere experimental indie-rock quintet sports the deceptively homoerotic moniker “Man Man.” I mean, come on! Just look at all that facial hair!

Tonight it was these very hometown boys to whom the First Unitarian Church and the drunken collective of Philadelphians opened their doors and flailing arms, respectively. Despite two devastating blows to the local morale - the departure of the 20-year-old, non-profit gallery, Vox Populi, from the city’s music scene as well as that of the Eagles from the NFL playoffs - this was to be a night of triumph. Honus Honus, Pow Pow, Chang Wang, Sergei Sogay, and Alejandro “Cougar” Bjorg were finally returning home to rest their weary moustaches after an epic stint on the road in promotion of their most recent album, Six Demon Bag, on Ace Fu Records.

A representative cross-section of the Philly underground came out for the “welcome home” party. Ambassadors were present on behalf of all classes of hip, from the flannel-and-glasses-clad indie elite, to the “hoodsters” who simultaneously donned American Apparel and Fightin’ Phils fitted caps, all the way down to a chubby pubescent in a ratty, sweat-stained Bartman tee. The Mardi Gras atmosphere was reinforced by the evening’s costumed guests. A troupe of cane-wielding, acid-tripping performance mimes awkwardly mingled with the crowd while a Chang Wang doppelganger captured all the boisterous proceedings on videotape.

Matteah Baim brought the show to bizarre commencement with an a cappella rendition of the Transformers theme song. They continued with bland, atmospheric strumming which served as background noise to the anticipatory conversations of the audience. Just as the rhythm section finally kicked in, proving that they were in fact “more than meets the eye,” Matteah Baim finished their set and made way for act number two.

Stephonik opened their set by claiming to be performing live for the first time. Their subsequent blatant theatrics quickly disproved this comment. The singer paraded around the stage in homage to Karen O, with jet-black bangs, buckteeth and a banshee wail that nearly drowned out the generic, toe-tapping rhythm section and the frenetic noodling of the guitarist, a hip version of Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. In the set’s finale, “Heart Guides,” she pulled out the ace from her sleeve of clichéd crowd-pleaser antics, a heart-shaped “As Seen On TV” TapLight. Bravo, trashy Yeah Yeah Yeahs wannabes, bravo.

By the time Pit-Er-Pat took the stage, the audience was growing restless. It was already approaching 11 o’clock and the crowd wanted to see Man Man bring the ruckus while they were still drunk enough to dance along. This, however, was not what the marathon concert’s third act came to offer. Instead, Pit-Er-Pat did their best to perform smooth, calculated grooves, à la Blonde Redhead. A stuttering, jazzy rhythm section kept pace beneath hypnotic organ and synthesizer. Unfortunately, I was constantly distracted from their set thanks to my overweight, middle-aged neighbors, who were attempting to freestyle their own lyrics, then cackling with delight at their botched efforts. With the end of their set, the audience was clapping more for Pit-Er-Pat’s departure from the stage than for anything musical they had accomplished upon it, which was a shame since I thought they were the most satisfying of all the opening acts.

Having seen Man Man twice before, there were certain spectacles I had

come to expect of their live show: a deafening shout of “Get the fuck out of my house!” from the audience during “Engwish Bwudd,” choreographed leaps from Pow Pow and Honus Honus at the climax of “Push the Eagle’s Stomach” and on special occasions, double-saxophone squealing from Chang Wang. Pleasantly, the boys delivered all this insanity with a few surprises, to boot. If seeing the band take the stage decked out in their all-white, do-it-yourself uniforms wasn’t enough to whip the audience into a frenzied sea of excitement, then the opening chords of “Feathers” certainly were. And just like that, Man Man set sail on their journey through primal screams, hectic beats and confetti galore, maintaining the same hyperactive energy level throughout the duration.

Man Man’s most noticeable trait is their raucous noise: their lyrics shout in testosterone-fueled howls, their pianos punch and slam without concern and their cymbals abuse with an unrelenting crash. Model students of the “loud and fast” aesthetic, the band is known for blistering through their songs at a high-intensity, break-neck pace. At this particular show, they slowed down only for hypnotizing tribal percussion jams, the most exciting of which being when they all wailed on kazoos and pummeled a fire extinguisher in the buildup to the show-stopping “Black Mission Goggles.” Needless to say, the audience more than appreciated this wild, balls-to-the-wall atmosphere. Afterwards, fellow concertgoer, Steve Markow, commented that, “Man Man is like that cantina band from Star Wars, but if it was made up of ninjas, Indian chiefs and all the craziest motherfuckers who went to your high school.”

Perhaps an even more astonishing aspect of Man Man’s live show is their uncanny ability to play together as one fluent being: each member equally important in making the music seem alive. Not only can they simultaneously shift momentum, tempo or mood at a moment’s notice, but they can also expertly move the focus of the music from one member to the next, feeding off each other’s energy almost symbiotically. While maintaining the fractured A.D.D.like chaos of their studio albums, Man Man’s live songs, especially “Tunneling Through the Guy,” evolve with a smooth, effortless flow. This pulsating dynamic is so mesmerizing that those unfamiliar with the band are often unsure as to who the group’s actual “leader” is. Potentially, it could be either throat-chopper Chang Wang, Icy Demons and Need New Body-veteran Pow Pow, or UArts barista Honus Honus who bears the Alpha Moustache.

To no one’s disappointment, Man Man played a hefty set, clocking in at just about 90 minutes. Alongside the Six Demon Bag material, they presented a generous helping of older tracks from The Man in a Blue Turban With a Face, including crowd-pleasers “10lb Moustache” and “Zebra,” the cerebral “The Fog or China,” and, in the night’s most bizarre moment, “Sarspirillsa,” complete with a costumed woman acting out the song’s four lines of lyrics from atop a stack of amps. The band kept a firm grip on the audience for the entire performance, all the way to the final, exuberantly dejected mantra of “Van Helsing Boom Box.” Rejoicing in spite of their own pain, they said goodbye in an awe-inspiring moment of maturity and clarity. And somehow, it even felt like an appropriate ending to a night that had begun with robots in disguise. is a werewolf double-majoring in “Suppression of Lycanthropy” and “Economics.” As a man, he likes simmering his own marmalade, collecting antique whaling harpoons and wearing argyle socks. As a wolf-man, he likes debating the socioeconomic implications of the Gadsden Purchase and being a ravenous killing machine. The efforts put forth in this magazine were a collaborative effort of the two. Much blood was spilled.

girl talk

with DAN DEACON MIDDLE EAST DOWNSTAIRS, CAMBRIDGE - JANUARY 20, 2007

Choruses of Kelis and Yung Joc aren’t the typical fare to be heard from the mouths of hipsters in their thick-framed glasses and over-sized mid-waist belts (yes, that was what I was wearing, get over it), but Girl Talk’s Gregg Gillis is far from post-anything. Gillis’ music achieves the lofty task of cutting through the pretension of indie music, where listing off obscure bands that might not even be good and denouncing Death Cab for Cutie for being too mainstream are the norm. Indie kids aren’t supposed to hum the chorus of “SexyBack,” yet Gillis’ beats unite all of us in admitting that Dem Franchize Boys can be kind of fun to dance to.

Gillis’ mixes can’t fit into any one genre. His instruments are his laptop and a calculator (to make sure the beats work at a level of mathematical accuracy). He defines his music as a “sound collage,” emphasizing that he is not a DJ. While DJs simply play other artist’s music, Gillis describes that every note he plays is either altered or remixed from the original source, further distinguishing his tracks from other mash-ups. Songs by artists like Stereogum and DJ Dangermouse layer their compositions by mixing only two or three tracks, while Gillis’s songs can blend over twenty clips from genres as dichotomized as jazz and crunk. His most recent 16-track album, Night Ripper, sampled over one hundred and fifty songs.

When I arrived at the Middle East, a sparse crowd was staring blankly at the alt-country first opener. The Texas Governor seemed neither fitting to open for Girl Talk nor Tim McGraw. Half an hour later, though, when the second opener, Dan Deacon, set up a table of jumbled neon tape and wires, the crowd went from lifeless to uncontrollable. Deacon created an atmosphere of New Year’s Eve euphoria by forcing a countdown before almost every song. I can’t really tell you what his music sounds like nor how he played his wires, but he was sweaty, he had Gillis nodding along, and I have the bruises to prove that the crowd enjoyed his set.

At 11:45, the stage was bare with Gillis, a table, and two laptops.

He began by coupling Lil’ Wayne and George Benson with some incom-

by MEREDITH HASSET

parable dance moves involving a full body inversion using the table as an anchor and some intense head tosses. This was the only part of the night that could be described as a show. After the first song, the crowd and the stage lost any and all separation as everyone clawed their way onto the stage to find a spot near the laptop. Despite a few pauses in sound when wild fans pulled out the cords to the speakers and power source, Gillis’ performance was a flawless hour of pure primal dance. Highlights included samples of Kansas’s “Carry On My Wayward Son” over Justin Timberlake’s “My Love,” a mix creating the lyrics “lean with it rock with it whoop there it is,” and a sped up “Everyday I’m Hustlin’.”

By the final songs, the concept of going to see Girl Talk was no longer the point as sweat evaporated in the air and essentially rained down again on the mass of gyrating bodies. As I walked out, my glasses were fogged over and my belt was lost, but I guess that’s just what Gillis does: strip us (of our pretensions, of course).

Meredith Hassett is a freshman who came to grips with being a nerd when she found herself having a preference for a specific lead thickness in her mechanical pencil. She passes time strategizing how to steal tubs of fluff from Carmichael and perfecting the robot. Unfortunately, her myopia guarantees she will never see you on campus.

MELISMAreviews

badly drawn boy SOMERVILLE THEATRE - MARCH 5, 2007

On Monday, March 5, Badly Drawn Boy (a.k.a. Damon Gough) came to Somerville Theatre with Domino Records’ Adem. All timestamps are approximate.

38

7:30 – I arrive at Somerville Theatre, where the ushers help me find my seat.

They are very nice to me, as if trying to make up for what is about to happen.

7:32 – Adem comes onto the stage and plays a really nice set of almost-lullabies, sung in a Chris Martin-like voice. He mixes up his sound with various instruments including an acoustic guitar, ukulele, and… autoharp? His sweet songs and the comfy seats give me a sense of security. No, Adem, I don’t blame you for your part in the plot; I merely think you were a pawn in Damon Gough’s scheme to ruin my evening.

8:02 – Adem gracefully ends the set and makes me feel happy.

8:30 – Ah, here he is! The guy I’ve been waiting for comes onto the stage and takes the mic.

What follows is a pretty solid mix of songs we’ve come to love from older albums, as well as songs from his newest, Born in the UK. Everybody’s getting into it. Okay, maybe the newer stuff isn’t to my taste, but it’s worth it to get to hear “The Shining” and “Once Around the Block,” as well as a song from the About a Boy soundtrack.

9:00 - Hmm, this new stuff is kind of annoying. So is having to plug my ears from the over-zealous PA system. Also, what’s up with this pitch-bending thing he keeps doing with the keyboard? Every time he starts to play something we want to hear, he puts his hand on that wheel, whirls it around a little bit, and ends.

9:20 – Gough takes out a cigarette and begins to smoke, with some comment about not being allowed to but not caring. Concert-goers know that cigarette smoke isn’t easily avoided, but I have a cold and the tobacco smog carries across the theatre.

9:40 – Oh, great: another block of songs from his new album. This is kind of sounding like a cheesy seventies album. Hmm… is that tinnitus? No, that’s feedback in the speakers.

9:45 – Gough finishes the song and makes some remarks to the bass player about how “everything is too fuckin’ loud” and “[he] can’t hear [himself] think.”

Too bad everything really is too loud and we pick up every word he says.

10:00 – Gough decides “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun if I came down into the crowd (cigarette in hand) and sang while sitting in the audience?” Okay, at this point, the Vegas image is cemented in my brain. Oh, what’s that? You’re having trouble singing because you’re coughing. Don’t worry - smoke up, Damon!

with ADEM

by GEORGE NAGEL

10:05 – Gough announces he must leave for a smoking break. Lights dim on the stage and he walks off. The audience is left awkwardly clapping in the hope that it might repair the situation. Think, “If you believe in fairies.” This goes on for probably five minutes without any show of Badly Drawn Boy. I’m considering leaving, but I paid a lot to see this show and I want to get as much out of it as possible.

10:08 – Ah, here we go. I hope you had fun, Damon - we didn’t. He apologizes for leaving, but he couldn’t breathe, blah blah blah. Honestly, I don’t care; just get on with it.

10:20 – He begins to play a cover of some song but then chases away our hopes of something fun with that stupid pitch wheel which ends it all.

When he plays something good, it’s good. When he plays something else, it’s really bad.

10:30 – Is this seriously still going on? It probably wouldn’t be so bad if he weren’t throwing a hissy fit about the PA system and dropping his guitars all over the place in frustration.

Forever:45 – The show’s gone on long enough for my cold to go into remission and come back with a force as of yet not recognized by the scientific community. Wait! He’s bowing. YAY! Huh? Did he just say that if we wanted to stay he’d be back on with one more song? I thought that we had a hope of getting out of here. People are randomly throwing out compliments in hopes of making him just get it over with it.

Eternity:07 – He comes back on. This is a good sign; only one song left. And it’s acoustic so I don’t have to worry about my ears exploding.

Ridiculous:20 – Finally we’re done here. No, no. The only standing ovation you’re getting from me is my standing up and getting the hell out of here. I exit having lost a sum of money, four hours, and my respect for Damon Gough.

The final tally?

Adem – 8 Badly Drawn Boy – 5 Damon Gough – 0 Talk about being badly drawn out.

George Nagel is a freshman engineer and amateur recording artist. He also has five gold teeth, one of which is ingrown and has become lodged in his brain making it impossible for him to say the word “oxen.”

of montreal

AVALON, BOSTON - MARCH 11, 2007

by DAVE McCOUBREY

“I think rock should be tarted up -- made into a prostitute, a parody of itself.” --Brian Eno I bought tickets to the Of Montreal show at Avalon in January, pissed I had to wait until March 11 to see them.

Here’s the (brief) timeline: Of Montreal’s new album and their tenth studio release, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, was leaked on the Internet in October 2006.

Tickets for their on-going spring tour went on sale two months later. Hissing Fauna was officially released January 23, 2007. On February 13, at a show in Las Vegas, lead singer Kevin Barnes walked on-stage wearing nothing but a sequined cummerbund. Photos of everything that wasn’t under that cummerbund popped up on Pitchfork the next day.

So, fast-forward to March 11 Essentially everyone with whom I attended the show (seven friends) had heard about, and were consequently terrified of, possible impending nudity. Even though the show at Avalon was all-ages, and Barnes would have probably been arrested for sashaying naked across stage, this is Of Montreal we’re talking about here, and you never quite know what to expect.

I’ll save you the suspense: no one got naked. Instead, the sold-out crowd was treated to an hour-and-a-half of costume changes, uncomfortable fruit use (more on that later), art/photography shows displayed behind the band, and the general histrionics that accompany everyone’s favorite Zombies/Kinks-aping, faux-disco, make-up caked, rock ‘n’ roll stage-strutters. It was my fifth time seeing the band, so I was curious to see how far they were going to take the pomp and circumstance. The last time I saw them in Portland, ME, in 2005, Barnes wore a wedding dress and proposed to the crowd.

Before the band came on, some dude dressed as Darth Vader strolled out and basically played the role of hype-man. Then one-by-one, the band took their places and launched right into “Suffer for Fashion,” the first cut from Hissing Fauna. Without stopping, they buzzed through the next three tracks off of the new album, with the crowd clearly most excited about “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse,” in which Barnes implores “chemicals” to kick in and do their thing to save him from a life crisis.

By the show’s end, every track except the mammoth 12-minute ode-tobeing-depressed-in-Sweden, “The Past is a Grotesque Animal,” from Hissing Fauna was showcased, including a terrific encore rendition of “Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider.” Apart from Hissing Fauna, the band drew heavily from 2005’s The Sunlandic Twins for their set. They also played “Vegan in Furs” from 2004’s Satanic Panic in the Attic -- a live rarity. At various points throughout the set, Barnes would change outfits or a giant Cerberus would loaf across the stage or

Vader would stroll back out, adding a general “What-thefuck-is-going-on” feeling to the show.

For a solid hour, the band ripped through one hit after another, touching on everything expected.

A dance-oriented band, Of Montreal left everyone exhausted from jumping up and down and banging their heads. Some highlights included “She’s a Rejecter,” complete with live drums, “Forecast Fascist Future” and a cover of Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” in which guitarist Bryan Helium churned out the solo that closed the song perfectly.

After the vibrant main set, we were treated to three encore songs. Before the last one, Barnes exclaimed, “Now we’re going to play a song by one of our contemporaries - The Beatles! Just kidding: The Fiery Furnaces. They’re better than The Beatles. But they’re not better than The Shaggs,” after which they played a spirited version of the Fiery Furnaces’ “Tropical Ice Land.” Leave it to Barnes to claim The Fiery Furnaces are better than The Beatles, then namedrop a super obscure girl group from the 60s who released one album and were never heard from again. If that’s the pop trajectory down which Of Montreal is headed; we’re in for an interesting batch of new music in the future.

Going over the show in my head, it’s clear that Of Montreal spent a lot of their infamous Outback Steakhouse commercial money on props and set pieces.

At the time, the swirling artwork and the strange photographs of 1970s track meets were funny and strange (no doubt the effect they were going for), and I even laughed during one song when a guy dressed in a white fencing outfit came out, waving a Norwegian flag. But I think, in retrospect, that maybe all the busy embellishments distracted from the music. Look, Of Montreal’s songs are weird enough. They have tracks about: a girl who has sex with dead people (“Chrissie Kiss the Corpse”), vague sexual longing for distant cousins (“Jennifer Louise”), Nietzsche (“My, What a Strange Day with a Swede”) and pancake-eating withdrawal (“Pancakes for One”), but “Faberge Falls for Shuggie,” from Hissing Fauna, is the single-most ridiculous song, both sonically and lyrically, Of Montreal has ever penned. Still, when Barnes began to rub fencing-unitard man’s crotch with bananas and shove them down the front of his outfit, everyone was at a loss. I understand that Barnes doesn’t give a shit. This is why he walked around naked in Vegas and why he cakes on colored eye-liner and wears mesh stockings. But honestly, after a while, the extravagnace takes away from the great songs he writes. The man has amazing stage presence, but no matter how hilarious, fruit sex isn’t all that necessary.

MELISMAreviews

set your goals

THE ROXY, BOSTON - MARCH 10, 2007

by BOBBY WESTFALL

Knowing that Set Your Goals’ last appearance in Boston was in the opening slot on a Less Than Jake and Catch 22 fall tour stop at the Avalon, I was pretty much convinced that the only opportunity I would have to see them in the near future would be opening for Anti-Flag, Alexisonfire and Big D and the Kids Table. Honestly, considering the infectious nature of Set Your Goals’ hardcore/pop punk crossover sound, it’s not surprising that they would be bringing their Gorilla Biscuits meets Saves the Day sound to a wider audience, but it still irks me to see them leave the hardcore scene behind so soon after they came out of nowhere with their excellent 2004 demo. The set consisted entirely of songs from their first full length, Mutiny, completely ignoring the band’s excellent Reset EP. Though the dance floor was packed, the uninterested crowd, with the exception of a few kids running into each other in a haphazard attempt at moshing, made it quite clear that they were waiting for the later bands. The presence of a barrier and a bunch of beefy security guys in front of the stage managed to drain from the set what little energy was left. Rather than playing one of their usual Gorilla Biscuits or Jawbreaker covers, SYG pandered to the pop-punk/ third wave ska crowd with an uninspired cover of Operation Ivy’s “Jaded” that still failed to evoke even a slight increase in participation from the crowd. The

band’s two singers would, however, visibly light up on rare occasions when a fan from the band’s hardcore days could be seen singing along or crowd surfing, though the barrier still limited interaction between the band and those fans who wanted to see them. They closed with the fittingly ironic “To Be Continued…”

Set Your Goals’ rise to the top of the mainstream punk world will certainly continue, but it seems the chapter of their story where they mattered to me is now closed. I’ll keep listening to their records, but no matter how many Trial sweatshirts they wear in their music videos, I’m afraid they’ve said goodbye to hardcore. On “We Do It For The Money, OBVIOUSLY!” from Mutiny, Set Your Goals sing, “We’re all sellouts in your eyes/All these accusations hurt/If we share the same stage, why do you act this way?” But they don’t share the stage with any of those bands that would have criticized them before. Through Big D’s set, I entertained a faint hope that the SYG guys would be hanging out with kids at their merch table. I walked over to check once before leaving after Big D to find that I had, indeed, hoped in vain. Well, maybe they can follow in the footsteps of Civ, who released the album that gave SYG their name, and have a song featured in a car commercial.

half-cocked 40

The grey hair and age rings around my eyes make all the flags I fly much easier to believe. Still, when it comes right down to it, I surf eBay, just like everyone else - though I have yet to get my grubby paws on any of the vintage shirts I missed the first time through: Christie Front Drive, Crimpshrine, Stricken for Catherine, Rodan.

Let’s talk about Rodan for a sec. A great many of us aging hipster-types used to genuflect in front of the altar of mid-to-late-Nineties Louisville. Since the Slint reunion shows a few years back, nary a peep – back into the oblivion of every record ever recorded being readily available for download, two listens and an “It’s okay, I guess.” Like secrets, we need study right now.

The angular post-whatever nautical rock used to rule the school – hundreds of us trying to lurch our heads in 15/4 time to SHARKS AND SAILORS! SHARKS AND SAILORS! SHARKS AND sailors! Gone just as quickly as it started, seemingly blown out to sea by a gale of bleepy post-jazz or grubby kids screeching in a basement Mr. Microphone, something. I don’t know. But I miss it. Hell, nowhere to be found, even on eBay, any of it – June of 44, Crain, even Hoover and the 1.6 Band, stretches both, gone without a trace.

Imagine my relief when I discovered Half-Cocked had arrived in DVD format, with the oft-rumored Radiation attached! Whooo! Crates of hand-screened 7-inch singles exhumed and blasted in celebration!

Here’s how it went: Michael Hawley and Suki Golinsky, these two kids in an indie rock band, decided they’d try and make a film about…..being in a band.

Kinda, anyway: the musical group in question can’t play. We’re not talking about Darby’s first gig here – Rhonda, played by Tara Jane O’Neill, is hit by

SHARKS AND SAILORS!

by MICHAEL T. FOURNIER

her brother, played with great aplomb by none other than Ian Svenonious, the legendary Spiv of Nation of Ulysses and The Make*Up. Spiv’s in this band called the Guilloteens, see, and Rhonda and their friends bumrush the stage (yo!) and mess up the encore (be careful with that trampoline – my mom got me that for Christmas!). Rhonda then steals the van full of the Guilloteens’ gear, picks up her friends, and they drive all night, only to find themselves in Chattanooga with a stolen vehicle and a bunch of musical instruments. What to do? Book some shows!

I worried that Half-Cocked was going to be one of those films that only looks good in the light of nostalgia – I was into my Louisville pretty hard when I bought a VHS copy of the film in 1996, after all. I’m happy to report that the movie is still as charming and inviting as it was the first time around. Little to none of that charm is due to the all-star Louisville-and-friends ensemble. I’m pretty sure that I’d be a huge fan of the film even if pretty much all the members of the drool-worthy, probably-mentioned-too-many-times-already Rodan weren’t integral cast members. And have I mentioned that members of Rodan are prominently featured? They went on to be in June of 44, Shipping News, Retsin, Sonora Pine and Rachel’s, if you’re keeping score.

As if that weren’t enough, Radiation features members of Come in the story of a flaky Italian booking agent. It’s a hell of a package from the couple that went on to make a highly-regarded film about the fracas surrounding Fortunate Son, the ill-fated GWB book.

If I weren’t grinning so hard you probably wouldn’t be able to count the rings so easily. Ah well. It’s worth it. SHARKS AND SAILORS!

m.pulse

TURN IT ON AND TURN IT UP Souvenir’s Young America September Songs (Protagonist/The Perpetual Motion Machine)

A tragically beautiful release, September Songs continues to highlight Richmond trio SYA’s zeal and raw capacity for depth. Championed by a pronounced harmonica presence, layers of instrumentation sprawl across each other to create a cathartic, moving symphony of texture and prowess. The band maintains the darker, Western undertones that keep their sound fresh, and punctuate it with loads of ingenuity. The keys and other percussion act as the record’s cohesive thread, stringing with it complex rhythms, entrancing riffage and a delicate rolling twang that weaves through the sparkling melodies. Fragile and crushing alike, this remarkably developed effort resonates past its runtime. (MT)

La Piovra Self-Titled 12” (Youth Attack) A transatlantic gem, Italian band La Piovra combines elements of surf and thrashy hardcore into a catchy and visually pleasing 12-inch. Although the energetic vocals are in Italian, the message is clear: keep on fuckin’ shit up. From the blistering first track (“L’Ultima Sigaretta”) to the sixth and final song (“Fait? Dens!”), guitars shred and rock nonstop over a continuous torrent of percussion, while maintaining an infectious swagger. The record’s aesthetic is as breathtaking as its content; a gold silk-screened octopus shimmers on side B, making for one hell of a look when spinning the 12-inch. Although the first pressing on gold vinyl is gone gone gone, some copies of the clear second pressing may still be available. (RH)

The Evens Get Evens (Dischord) The second full-length from DC’s The Evens is easy listening at its most edifying. For powerhouse members Ian MacKaye and Amy Farina, this minimalist approach is new territory made possible by strong songwriting. Combining delicate vocal harmonies and skillful drum fills with warm, baritone guitar, The Evens create an impressively full sound without resorting to traditional tricks of increased speed or volume. More frenetic and aggressive than their first release, Get Evens is, lyrically, the product of election year disappointment. Often, it’s almost hard to hear the gravity through Farina’s sweet soprano. Haunting, beautiful and incisive, Get Evens is a gem. (SH)

Absentee Schmotime (Memphis Industries) Rough guitars and bright horns, buoyant melodies and sad-sack lyrics, grumbling male vocals and pretty female backups: Absentee have made my favorite kind of record - the kind that contradicts itself. Singer Dan Michaelson combines smart turns of phrase with a wicked sense of humor on songs like, “We Should Never Have Children,” and “Something To Bang,” crooning with a voice somewhere between a deep moan and a mumble. Think if the “Mahna-Mahna” guy (not to be confused with the Menomena guy) learns to speak English. Coming with me on that one? Good. (MF)

MELISMApulse Amy Winehouse Back to Black (Republic) A sultry jazz singer on her first album, Britain’s Amy Winehouse has put on the guise of a retro soul singer for her sophomore release. In Back to Black, Winehouse puts forth a truly competent collection of recreated Motown-era tracks. The impeccable instrumentation of backup band the Dap-Kings is just as important to the album as a whole – so much so that their name ought to be affixed with an ampersand after Winehouse’s on the cover. Winehouse’s powerful bourbon-soaked vocal performance evokes the sound of past masters like Billie Holiday, making for a sonically rich 11-song LP. Plus, there’s a profound sense of schadenfreude in listening to a woman who admits to being “an ugly dickhead drunk,” complain about not wanting to brave the 12-steps (“Rehab”) and how hard it is to remain platonic with her already involved male friends, “in the evening, when [she’s] been drinking” (“Just Friends”). (MS)

Crime In Stereo The Troubled Stateside (Nitro) Crime in Stereo hails from Long Island and posses the characterizing L.I. sound, as evinced by locals like The Back-Up Plan and reflective of influences like Lifetime and Dag Nasty. Merging traditional hardcore punk with soft edges, the third CIS release is the most melodic to date. In fact, the album altogether tests the limits that define and constrain hardcore. With sharp indictments of life in America – from disparities in income and opportunity to dead-end jobs and the disastrous War in Iraq – Kristian’s lyrics articulately embody the disappointment and frustration of growing up today in these “troubled states.” At the end of the day, where else could these boys come from but Levittown? (SH)

The Arcade Fire Neon Bible (Merge)

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Since writing a 100-word review consisting solely of the word “awesome” repeated a hundred times is unprofessional, I’ll just say that the Arcade Fire’s sophomore effort is an amazing new record from indie’s biggest sensation in recent years. Although it seems incredible that Arcade Fire could keep up the standard set by 2004’s Funeral, the intricate melodies, sweet lyrics and poetic mood of their new album are truly fantastic. Perhaps it’s not quite the “religious experience” it’s been hailed as, but I am, however, going to strongly recommend Neon Bible to anyone who likes rock, indie or just chill, quality music. (RC)

Relics Demo 7” (Clean Plate) Dizzying and crushing, and propelled forth at a lightning pace, Relics’ 7-inch demo spans four menacing tracks in less than eight minutes time. Fronted by vocalist Meghan Minior, the Western Massachusetts four-piece delivers brutal, yet almost graceful hardcore. Pulling elements from bands whose influence is etched into the very cornerstones of Relics’ compositions, the demo’s sonic intensity and song structure reflect much of the face of the current scene, but also creates a niche for Relics as new DIY pioneers. Minior’s driven screams radiate over pummeling instrumentation, which halts and grinds with the same fervor and vivacity as it moves. Practically seamless, the record is best played at a cacophonous roar. (MT)

MIXTAPEOLOGY

The Dears Gang of Losers (Arts & Crafts) The Dears is one of those bands that gets better with each listen, until you’re left wondering how you ever survived without its sprawling, layered instrumentation and passionate, unpolished vocals. The band’s newest release, Gang of Losers, is less complex than 2004’s No Cities Left, but still manages to retain the latter’s majestic, melodic sound. Musically, the album ranges from catchy piano ditties to repetitive, resonant choruses to sharp guitar refrains, while its lyrics are very personal, detailing Murray Lightburn’s fascination with ostracism. The Dears live up to their impeccable standards while still experimenting with instruments and sound. It’s perfect for anyone looking for a unique but accessible album. (AK)

SONGS FOR A MAKEOUT SESSION

Archer Prewitt – “Way of the Sun” Jill Scott – “Do You Remember” D’Angelo – “Left and Right” Prince – “Soft and Wet” Jeff Buckley – “Lover, You Should Have Come Over” (MS)

Bloc Party A Weekend In The City (Vice) The feel of the new Bloc Party album can be summed up nicely by listening to “Kreuzberg.” The songs - sometimes more romantic, and sometimes creepy in a horror film-like way - are decidedly softer and slow than earlier Bloc Party endeavors. However, for those of you longing for more of those fast, hard party beats and ripping drum lines, you’ll certainly find them in doses on the new album, with songs such as “Hunting for Witches” and “The Prayer.” A drawback, though - with many of these new songs, you might have to wait several measures for the intensity to build. (ID)

Plastic Little She’s Mature (Tonearm) It’s ironic that the subject of Plastic Little’s most recent album title is “mature,” because the band certainly isn’t. Lacking any pretense or axe to grind, these crude Philly-based rappers are straight-up fun, pumping out dance beats and ridiculous lyrics like, “This is the remix of my penis.” Covering The Cure and featuring guest spots by Ghostface Killah and Spank Rock, Plastic Little spends most of the album inadvertently making fun of other rappers by simply refusing to take himself seriously. (CB)

Mixel Pixel Music For Plants (Kanine) Music for Plants comprises ten enjoyable but unremarkable songs from a midlevel indie band.

Nothing more, nothing less. Throughout, the band seems confused about its place in the pop versus noise spectrum, but instead of reconciling their contradictions they choose to ruin decent songs like “Black Van” with odd noises that cover up instead of complement their one true strength: melody. It’s all pretty decent, but it’s also pretty lifeless, stumbling half-rock, and the tracks that actually are interesting, like “Switchblade Sister,” often seem to succeed in spite of themselves. Mixel Pixel doesn’t really do anything other bands haven’t done better, but they aren’t that much worse either. (MF)

Apostle of Hustle – “Animal Fat” Handsome Boy Modeling School featuring Cat Power – “I’ve Been Thinking” Elbow – “Any Day Now” Slowdive – “Altogether” TV On The Radio – “Province” (AB)

Al Green – “Let’s Stay Together” The Moldy Peaches – “Jorge Regula” The Beach Boys – “God Only Knows” The Cure – “Friday I’m In Love” The Magnetic Fields – “The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” (DC)

Explosions In The Sky – “Your Hand In Mine” Souvenir’s Young America – “Still Like The Hummingbird” The Notwist – “Neon Golden” The Album Leaf – “Another Day” Songs: Ohia – “Lioness” (MT)

MELISMApulse

MIXTAPEOLOGY

RECORDS FOR A LONG DRIVE

Beirut Lon Gisland (Ba Da Bing!)

One time, I let Zach Condon blow it all over my face. I am, of course, referring to the 19-year-old indie rock prodigy’s trumpet. After seeing him live and hearing the material that was not on the debut LP, Gulag Orkestar, I craved more, more, more! The five-track Lon Gisland EP delivers that much needed fix of Eastern European audio heroin with amazing tracks like the epic “Elephant Gun” and an entirely reworked version of “Scenic World,” which satiates the craving perfectly. This EP bears testament to Condon’s growth as a songwriter and composer. These aren’t B-sides; these are pure gold. (DC)

Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation Stars – Set Yourself on Fire The Raveonettes – Chain Gang of Love The Pixies – Doolittle The Stills – Logic Will Break Your Heart (AK)

Rjd2 The Third Hand (Xl Recordings) Combining his production skills with ambient sampling to create a bizarre – but altogether listenable – set of tracks, experimental British hip-hop artist Rjd2 established himself as indefinable with his first two albums. However, the artist’s genre jumping transcends the line between interesting and confusing with his third album. On The Third Hand, an excess of indiepop elements, as well as an overkill of vocals and guitar instrumentation, detract from Rjd2’s signature style. What’s problematic about Rjd2’s transition – except for a handful of tracks like “Get It” and “Beyond” – is that it lacks the soul, the danceability and the inexplicable moodiness that made his first two albums so addictive. (CB)

Rx Bandits And The Battle Begun... (Mashdown Babylon)

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The Rx Bandits’ fifth record release reveals the band’s most progressive sound to date. The rhythm is tight, the horn section is more distinct than on The Resignation, and, it’s even got a Bob Dylan reference. A live recording, the album sacrifices a bit of quality for a raw, genuine sound. The Bandits continue to define the structure of their music while still implementing complex rhythms and explosive breakdowns in their typical fashion. Battle is one album you can listen to straight through with very few skips and fast-forwards in between. And hey, don’t feel ashamed if you find yourself replaying the contagious a cappella introduction over and over before you even reach the second track. (ED)

The Appreciation Post Brighter Sides (Self-Released) Remember when you really liked Weezer? When Pinkerton was as good as it got? Boston’s The Appreciation Post helps you get those days back. The Appreciation Post, geeky 20-somethings named for – yes, it’s true – message boards, retain the sunny melodies of Motion City Soundtrack that conjure up memories of high school. However, the incorporation of Moog lines gives their music a level of sophistication that elevates them above a potential audience of 15-year-olds. Brighter Sides isn’t terribly original but it doesn’t have to be – neither was The Blue Album, and look how big Weezer became. Let’s just hope that success doesn’t ruin The Appreciation Post, too. (SH)

Cut Copy – Bright Like Neon Love Sparklehorse – It’s a Wonderful Life The Joggers – With a Cape and a Cane The Sea and Cake –The Biz East River Pipe – The Gasoline Age (MS)

The Velvet Undergound – The Velvet Underground & Nico Saves The Day – Through Being Cool Thursday – Full Collapse Elvis Costello – This Year’s Model Jawbreaker – 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (MT)

Neutral Milk Hotel – In The Aeroplane Over The Sea Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation Wu Tang Clan – Enter the 36 Chambers The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (DC)

Swan Lake Beast Moans (Jagjaguwar) Beast Moans is a fascinating burst from the Canadian weird-masters behind the bands Destroyer, Frog Eyes and Sunset Rubdown.

Swan Lake, for the most part, avoids all traces of traditional pop/rock song structure, putting as much emphasis on the spaces between and behind the notes as on the notes themselves. The record is admittedly disorienting on first listen, but over time, landmarks appear in the reverb and the songs attach themselves to your memory center. You realize that it isn’t an empty space you’ve been hearing, but a million mirrors reflecting the songs back to you. There is nothing quite like it. (MF)

Panda Bear Person Pitch (Paw Tracks) The third solo album from Panda Bear, one of the musical maniacs behind experimental rock troupe Animal Collective, is like biting into a juicy mango – but for your ears. For those expecting something typical of Animal Collective, fear not: Person Pitch is more akin to a mash-up between The Beach Boys and Liars (think Pet Sounds on acid). It is Americana refracted through a prism made of dark crystal. Besides its strikingly vast appeal, the Paw Tracks website proclaims, “Person Pitch [will be] sitting alongside the great solo albums of Paul McCartney, George Michael, and Ghostface Killah.”

Friends, Romans, pandas: truer words have never been spoken. (DC)

Busdriver Roadkill Overcoat (Epitaph/Ada) With the production assistance of DJ Nobody and Boom-Bip, Regan Farquhar (Busdriver) has managed to hit “catchy” right on the head. Layering insanely fast, nearly incomprehensible rhymes over drum-and-bass loops, acoustic guitars, synths and melodic female vocals, Busdriver has finally made his rhythmic quirks and harsh voice play to his strengths.

Standout tracks like “The Troglodyte Wins” and “Casting Agents and Cowgirls,” will make even skeptical listeners pump this album on repeat. (CB)

Explosions In The Sky All Of A Sudden, I Miss Everyone (Temporary Residence) Temporary Residence strikes gold again with the release of post-rock super-humans EITS’s newest ethereal journey.

The six-track beacon rings with the same airy center and resonant prolificness characteristic of the Texas-bred quartet’s back-catalogue. Anchored by its twinkling guitars and delicate movements, the release doesn’t offer too much distinction from its predecessors. However, tracks like “Catastrophe and the Cure,” on top of their expected ambient splendor, prove that All of a Sudden possesses some of the most impressive percussive showings of the band’s career. Certain slower moments in the sonic syntax drag slightly, but the formula works, regardless. This is one band that has no problem pushing barriers. (MT)

MELISMApulse

Anchor & Braille Demo 7” (Woodwater/Spartan) Anberlin vocalist Stephen Christian takes unabashed sincerity to a fresh level. Christian’s crooning, harmonious at the core, is enveloped in a vinegary vale that gives the vocals an edge on top of their soaring, melodic dynamic. The combination of soft instrumentation, underscored by vibrant piano lines, provides a lush foundation for Christian’s vocals. The 7-inch begs questions throughout: “Is this heaven or is this hell?” on side A’s “Sound Asleep” and “How could I let you leave my side?” on side B’s “Wedding/Funeral,” which get at the essence of the record’s quixotic, begging undertones. Christian consistently weaves intelligence into the lyrical quilt. The 7-inch is an excellent precursor to whatever is next. (MT)

John Vanderslice Pixel Revolt (Barsuck) With lively piano notes, emotional strings, an array of electronic sounds and a voice tinged with dejection, John Vanderslice subtly weaves a musical tapestry, commenting on our times and country in Pixel Revolt. A cluster of characters pop in and out of songs about love, war, separation and escape. His lyrics are sophisticated and unobtrusive, spread throughout mellow electro-pop melodies and piano/cello interspersions. Vanderslice, ever a non sequitur, records all of his music using analog instruments and equipment, giving his songs a rich, unconventional sound. Perfect for late-night philosophy discussions or early-morning walks, Pixel Revolt can be enjoyed by anyone seeking beauty in unexpected places. (AK)

Plumerai Res Cognitans (Silber) Plumerai is a Boston-based post-pop band that specializes in “shoe-gazing guitars, tight drumming… everything you could want from pop-oriented music,” according to their press release. A scant four songs comprise Res Cognitans, the band’s latest release. The album begins with “Avernal,” which sounds as if it were 80s dream pop laden with French house vocals and drums. “Linear” and “Illuminata” are more upbeat rock songs that seem to update the shoegaze to which this band obviously looks for guidance. “En Vole,” the clincher, is a poppy, yet dark number. Both violin and piano work to give it an almost cinematic feel. Res Cognitans is an enjoyable mix of energetic guitars, lethargic vocals, and relaxing instrumental passages - a mix which makes the band seem like a group searching (successfully) for their artistic and acoustic niche. (RC)

46 Pitbull El Mariel (TVT)

On El Mariel, Pitbull flips “Rock Lobster” and absolutely kills it. He raps with so much joy and charisma that he can make me love a song that goes “Jiggle jiggle/call your girl Bojangles.” Pitbull is so trill that I actually bought Mr. 305: The Pitbull Story (complete with a Lil Jon cameo). In addition to that, Pitbull is the only rapper I can think of who is actually a decent role model.

Instead of glorifying the violence and misogyny so prevalent in the work of his peers, he mourns a friend lost to violence on “Blood is Thicker Than Water” and, in general, is polite and respectful to the women in his songs. Pitbull: good guy, excellent rapper. Go buy El Mariel. Your parties will thank you. (MF)

Tulsa Drone Songs From A Mean Season (The Perpetual Motion Machine) The second full-length from Richmond, Va.’s Tulsa Drone is as vivid as a fine painting. On a canvas of textured post-rock, the band shades its instrumental landscapes with lush, Isis-like tones that are inextricably tinted with a subtle shade of Western folk.

The record’s most distinctive feature is its focus on Peter Neff’s bass-hammered dulcimer. Its delightful twang puts the record somewhere between a Midwestern folksong and a baroque movement, all the while creating an unmistakable drone (no pun intended) that animates the pieces. Mean Season’s narrative quality causes tracks like “Risk Guitar” to leave you feeling almost unsettled at points. Some of the songs, such as “The Plague,” beg slightly for a little forward movement. Overall, though, Mean Season is a strong display of musicianship and sonic illustration. (MT)

The Spinto Band Nice and Nicely Done (Bar/None) Titles that accurately reflect the albums they accompany are rare enough, but ones that encapsulate an album are even rarer. Nice and Nicely Done is a bouncy, energetic album that is, at risk of sounding trite, quite nice and very nicely done.

Although the elements of any given song, like the kazoo fanfare at the start of “Brown Boxes,” are goofy by themselves, they are executed with such precision and enthusiasm that they add up into ten incredibly enjoyable bits of pop and one amazing slice of gold: “Oh Mandy.” Every single element of the song comes together perfectly, from the mandolin to the drums to the flying-saucer synth, and the melody is so bright that it makes lyrics like, “Alright, a gnome in the backyard/I put him right on the X mark” sound brilliant. Highly recommended. (MF)

Jeffery & Jack Lewis City & Eastern Songs (Rough Trade) Jeffrey Lewis is one of those guys; you’re either going to love his sound or hate it. His anti-folk narratives tell great stories over fingerpicking acoustic guitar songs. His quips reveal an endearing, self-deprecating sense of humor as his songs document life as a neurotic, awkward human being, well, human. Observe “Anxiety Attack” and its storytelling of Jeffrey’s adrenaline-fueled emotional state for a conspicuous example. In “Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror,” he mocks Brooklyn’s uptight hipster community while also mocking himself. However clever his stab at Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, he does not fill expectations created by “I Saw a Hippie Girl on Eighth Avenue” or his amazing cover of “Part Time Punks.” This album needs more great songs instead of just good ones - something it doesn’t deliver. (SH)

Das Oath Self-Titled 11” (Youth Attack/Coalition) In roughly ten minutes, Das Oath spoil your soft-bellied ears with an all-you-can-eat buffet of home cooked feedback and thrash. Completely but comfortably stuffed, you slack in your cushioned bench seat and loosen your pants, and Mark McCoy’s throaty yell offers you a tray of decadent and glistening sweetmeats. Your greasy fingers gravitate towards the chocolate cake, but then you suddenly get punched in the gut and thrown out into the muddy street, only to come back the next meal asking for more. Featuring tempo variations, stabbing bass and guitar riffs, pummeling drums and notable guests/genre pioneers such as Joey Karam, Sal Gallegos and Will Killingsworth, Das Oath craft at the peak and end of their career what is possibly the best album of the year and one of the best hardcore albums of all time. Plus, how many 11-inch records do you own, anyway? (RH)

m.pulse contributors: Amanda Brower (AB), Alex Kittle (AK), Carrie Battan (CB), Dan Casey (DC), Erik Doughty (ED), Isabel Duke (ID), Max Furman (MF), Martin Sattell (MS), Meredith Turits (MT), Rachel Chervin (RC), Ricky Hartman (RH), Shana Hurley (SH)

editors’ picks

SOUNDTRACK TO A SCHOOL YEAR

To round out this year’s final issue, we asked the people who do the dirty work behind the scenes at Melisma to pick a record that stayed in rotation all school year. This is the good stuff. Trust us.

Meredith Turits Editor-In-Chief Black Eyes – Self-Titled (Dischord) Sure, this record is a good four years young, but is there anything on Dischord that isn’t timeless? “Deformative” latched onto my turntable and iPod like a giant squid’s tentacles and didn’t let go all year. This is manic chaos at its most titillating.

Martin Sattell Senior Editor/Business Manager The Foreign Exchange - Connected (Instrumentals) (BBE) Yeah, The Foreign Exchange’s rapping is stellar, but Connected would hardly be a specter of itself without Nicolay’s beatmaking genius. This instrumental version of the 2004 LP allows for the true appreciation of the music behind the lyrics.

Amanda Brower Submissions Editor TV On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope) TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain takes my record-of-the-year cake; it’s beautiful, robust and each time I listen to it, I feel like every tendon in my body is being stretched and strummed - a totally unique sensation.

Dan Casey Assistant Submissions Editor Man Man - Six Demon Bag (Ace Fu) I’m kind of new to this whole college thing. There’s way too much going on all the time and I don’t know how to deal with it all at once.

Along comes Man Man’s Six Demon Bag and it manages to conveniently package my greatest loves - moustaches, cacophony and men playing two saxophones at the same time - into one of the best albums I’ve heard all year.

Amanda Hart Layout Director backandtotheleft - Obsolete (Metropolis) Rather unknown (but incredible!) EBM (electronic body music) album. Keeps you moving and also works well as driving music. Not a bad track on the album, but don’t miss “Setting Sun” and “False Alarm” in particular.

Molly Lorenzo Art Director The Everyday Visuals - Things Will Look Up (Fiberline) Just like your favorite indie pop band: obnoxiously good hooks, amazing production and heart-melting vocals - and they’re right across the Mystic River. Definitely a reason to give local music that second chance. And after a show, there won’t be any meaty bodyguards or physical barriers in your way to meet the five guys.

Michelle Hotchberg Contributing Editor Girl Talk - Night Ripper (Illegal Art) I’ve listened to this album so many times that a third of its songs have made it into my iTunes’ Top 25 Most Played. Plus, what other album is appropriate for a show at the Middle East, feigning athleticism at the gym and late-night dance parties?