Athens Music Express

On the Nature of Identity (Specifically My Own)

2011-04-16T11:19:00.005-04:00

When I started this blog over three years ago, I had no ambition beyond cataloguing my thoughts about music whenever I had any. As far as readership was concerened, I liked the idea of people stumbling across it by accident. I hoped this blog would function as a good piece of graffiti, if it served any function at all.

This blog intentionally waded into the public arena one time, when I posted a link to my thoughts on Allison Weiss in the comments section of a Flagpole article about her new album. That was the last time I did that.

The subject of my identity comes up a lot--in the comments section, the e-mails I receive, real-life conversations that get reported back to me. I've always liked the idea of remaining anonymous. Initially, because I wanted to be free to write what I wanted to without it having a negative impact on the people around me (you see, I play a very minor role in a minor band around town, and I'd hate for them to catch shit simply because I have opinions about music). Futhermore, we are so quick in the culture these days to dismiss opinions we don't like by assigning a motive to the person giving the opinon. The whole, 'Well you're just saying that because you're a liberal/conservative, woman/man, old/young, straight/gay, etc.' school of debate. I didn't want to give people the luxury of rationalizing away my ideas based on my identity.

As more people have discovered this blog, it's become harder and harder for me to remain anonymous. To be honest, I've never gone to great lengths to cover my tracks. That would just be dishonest. And to the four people I know of who were able to 'crack the code,' I am honestly flattered you would take the time to try and figure out who I am. And you're welcome to mention this blog the next time we're having a conversation.

I have no intention of 'outing myself' at the moment. But I wanted to let people know that I'm probably going to posting here even less frequently than before. See, because of this blog, I've been offered a writing/editing position at an infinitely more prestigious website. And my identity at that website is far from anonymous. It also, at the insistence of the editor, links back to this blog. So there you go.

Thanks to everyone for reading, writing, and caring. To any of the artists I've offended along the way, I assure you that no one has ever stopped liking a band beause of something I've written. If I were that powerful, you'd better believe I'd write a lot more often. Irreverence is a good & healthy thing. And remember, always try and take your music more seriously than you take yourself.

Cheers,
The Ghost of The Ghost of Paul Morley

A Note to the Readers

2011-02-13T15:31:00.003-05:00

I know it's been a long time since I posted, and I appreciate the e-mails, etc. Truth is, there haven't been a lot of music-related thoughts bursting around my brain lately. My silence has NOTHING to do with any negative comments, etc. I appreciate that people have different opinions. It's music, not geometry proofs. And I think I've shown that I'm perfectly happy to have a conversation/debate with someone, both in the comment section as well as through e-mails.

But I have been really busy lately. The band I play in has been recording an album. I have a book (e-book, technically) coming out in the next month or two, so I've been working on that as well as the book that was already in progress. I started playing in a second band. There's been sickness, vacation, holidays, snow. I live in a house that's over a hundred years old. If I had known this was going to be the coldest winter in recorded Athens history, I probably would have found another place to live.

Cold air shoots up from my hardwood floors, making sitting at a desk for long periods of time extremely uncomfortable. If I run the computer, the space heater in the bathroom, and any other appliance at the same time, it blows a fuse more often than not (today it blew because I was running the printer).

Anyway, you get the idea. We're moving in April. Here's some random Athens stuff I've noticed since the last time I wrote...

The cover of the new Modern Skirts album looks like... well, whatever the opposite of phallic might be. Sapphic? Vulvul? Yonic? Vag-tastic? Haven't heard it yet, but I noticed the download code is on the outside of the album. So I guess there's always that option.

Witches have an album out. I've been on the fence about them for a while now, but I'm really looking forward to hearing the album when I get a chance.

Have continued to enjoy seeing the bands I usually enjoy seeing. Haven't been getting out enough to see new stuff though. But I did catch Androcles & the Lion (totally by accident) and I thought they were very very good at what they did. If you're a fan of sincere, heartfelt, guitar-based Wilco pop/rock, you should probably check it out.

Have wondered if Athens Music Junkie has ever considered changing its name to Athens Music Cheerleader. I'm this close to hiding it from my facebook feed. I hate to be a cynic, but anyone who takes the grammy awards seriously (in terms of winning & losing) needs to take a long hard look in the music critic mirror.

Attended a couple of the Hacks shows at Caledonia. When I was 13-14 years old, I remember thinking that blowjobs, or pornography, or rape, or describing something really bad as 'like getting fucked in the ass' were all inherently funny. It's a shame that Caledonia has an age limit, because I'm sure Luke Fields' theory that black women are better at giving head than white women, a theory formed by watching copious amounts of pornography on the internet, would have played a whole lot better to an audience of middle-schoolers. Such is life.

And yes, that was the entirety of his joke. And yes, I'm writing this as someone who thinks that Bill Hicks represents the pinnacle of all stand-up comedy.

So in the spirit of Athens comedy, here's some music-related jokes for you. They're a little on the cruel side, but think of it as a Comedy Central roast-type thing.

What's the difference between Grape Soda and Orange Crush?
Orange Crush has a distributor.

How many managers does it take to get Modern Skirts a record deal?
More than one, apparently.

What did Jeff Tobias say when he went to the U2 concert?
Hey guys, is it cool if I sit in for a bit?

What's the difference between Grape Soda and the White Stripes?
Jack White didn't actually have sex with his sister.

How can you tell when a member of R.E.M. has been at your house?
Athens Music Junkie posts a blog about it.

What's the difference between Dead Confederate and Silverchair?
Fucked if I know.

What's the only thing worse than a copy of the new Whigs album?
Two copies of the new Whigs album.

Why is the cheapest ticket $90 to see Kenny Rogers at the Classic Center?
All that plastic surgery doesn't pay for itself.

Why is the cheapest ticket $65 to see the B-52's at the Classic Center?
Pretty sure we just covered that.

Take care, everyone.

Album Review: Grape Soda - Form a Sign

2010-12-04T18:38:00.011-05:00

I've been following Grape Soda since they first started playing. I was expecting a lot from this album, but this exceeds whatever expectations any of us might have had. Look past all the keyboards & echo if you need to, Mat Lewis may be the best songwriter currently working in Athens today. Grape Soda’s music merges the robot world of Gary Numan & Kraftwerk with Motown drums and Stax vocals that end up sounding like an alien observing the strange patterns of earth--and becoming very sad & angry about the whole ridiculous mess we find ourselves in. There are two members of Grape Soda. They are brothers co-existing in a band—not Gallagher nor Davies, but closer to the unspoken psychic bond of Ron & Russell Mael from Sparks. Grape Soda is Mat Lewis (the tiny one who plays the organ) and Ryan Lewis (the less tiny one who plays the drums).

They have just released their first album, the unfortunately named Form a Sign, and it is the best thing I’ve heard all year. From anyone. Anywhere. The fuzzy organ echo sound of their demo now has slightly less echo & fuzz, more polish and more control, which at first might seem disappointing, but it enables you to hear the words, such glorious words. It had never occured to me that ‘Obvious Signs was sung from the viewpoint of someone looking back at our underclass struggles, our working unfulfillment, from a post-revolution future—pointing out the obvious signs that such a revolution was inevitable. It turns out that the lyrics, ‘we all should be dancing / so why aren’t you dancing? / everyone is dancing / you’re the only one not dancing,’ wasn’t an admonishment to the stand-still people at Grape Soda shows. It’s a tribute to that person who is no longer entertained by what passes for entertainment. Lewis continues, ‘was it cause you saw / things you had before? / Things you couldn’t believe / but you did of course.’ The ‘you’ in this story has seen behind the curtain. ‘Obvious Signs’ proves Mat Lewis a more astute soicologist than most of this town's would-be politicians, displaying a rarity in the pop/rock/underground world today—empathy, an acknowledgement of other people, insight & ideas that extend further than one’s self.

This is what the album looks like.

Yes, that is one of the uglier covers in recent memory. Or to put it more diplomatically, let's just say that an album like this, swimming in ideas & mystery & imagination, deserves a better cover than this one.

After years spent searching for signs of life in Athens music, I can't stress how refreshing this album is. Grape Soda knows what they want to say, and Grape Soda is saying it clearly. Form a Sign starts with a call to arms and ends with an anthem. Grape Soda means business. The longest song is 3 ½ minutes.

Listen to 'Hot Toes.' The tightness in my spine, these butterflies, this need to listen to it again & again, this song affects me in ways that very little music does anymore—anywhere, not just in Athens. Everything about this song is perfect, the precise repeat delay of the keyboard—the wheezing noises in the background, an asthmatic caught in a deteriorating relationship, a crumbling world. There’s a desperation in Mat Lewis’ singing, a willingness to chase the story he is telling wherever it might go. It doesn’t show up as often on the album as it does when you see them live, but I guess that comes with the territory. One more reason why I hate studios & producers so much.

One last quibble. If I'd had my way this would have been the first song on the album.

Nothing wrong with 'Not Mine,' the song that opens the album. But I've always been a fan of burying the obvious pop single around track 3 or 4. Besides, this song--performed here in a different arrangement than usual--is the sound of someone who's been hidden away for the last couple of years, sorting through all of the world's bullshit, and they've decided to tell you what they've figured out, as they kick open the door and pin you against the wall. It would have made a perfect opener.

Sometimes I feel like I live in some strange alternate universe—one where bands like Dead Confederate, The Whigs, Modern Skirts, Venice is Sinking, Reptar, Hopeforagoldensummer, etc. are held up as the best current representations of local music. Which is pretty ironic, considering you can go to NYC, or Boston, or Chicago, or San Francisco, and find plenty of bands who sound just like them. Hell, in a lot of these bands’ cases, you could go there ten years ago and still hear plenty of stuff that sounded like them. I had no idea that sounding like Silverchair with less catchy songs had anything to do with Athens, let alone music. It hadn’t occurred to me that a less-edgy Ben Folds could mean shit to anyone over the age of 13 (apparently that band now agrees with me, as they’ve decided to ‘experiment’ by—are you ready for this?—recording in their bedroom; oh, the courage). I guess some people out there believe that Athens Music is about bands rushing to emulate outdated trends, bands who put themselves in a box and then want you to congratulate them for their excellent taste in boxes. But I digress. This isn’t about the current state of the Athens Georgia Music Scene Inc., it’s about Grape Soda. Although with this album arriving on our doorstep like a breath of fresh air, it’s hard not to mistake one for the other.

Any band in this town who doesn't listen to this album and hear a challenge being issued, a gauntlet being thrown, a white glove from some old cartoon being slapped across their face, is fucking kidding themselves.

So we can bitch & piss & moan all we want about the current state of the Athens Georgia Music Scene Inc. We can measure today against the days gone past and kick each other in disgust. But that’s all a bunch of blinkered bullshit. Quiet Hooves, Tunabunny, and now Grape Soda have all released albums this year that can stand next to any of the albums in this town’s history, defined as it is by risk & imagination, without apology. Along with bands like New Sound of Numbers, Circulatory System, (possibly) Eureka California, Antlered Auntlord, and Nutritional Peace, these people are making music that is original, passionate, moving, and infused with intelligence. The evolution is all around us, if you would only stop and listen.

Albums I Liked That Came Out This Year - Local & Otherwise

2010-12-04T10:06:00.003-05:00

The Fall - Your Future Our Clutter

KXP - KXP

Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

Grape Soda - Form a Sign

Brian Eno - Small Craft On a Milk Sea

Kylie Minogue - Aphrodite

Vampire Weekend - Contra (although that Honda commercial sucks, but that's a subject for another post)

Honorable mention: M.I.A., Antony & the Johnsons, Quiet Hooves, Black Angels.

Is that ten? Does it matter? Another shoulder shrug of a year when it comes to new music. If you'd like to make a recommendation to me, of if you'd like to discuss any of these further, feel free to continue the discussion in the comments. Grape Soda review coming soon.

Continuing Thoughts About of Montreal (see I spelled it nice this time). . .

2010-12-02T16:49:00.003-05:00

Check this out.

It's an early version of this song.

One of these versions sounds more sincere than the other. And it's not because I'm one of those people who thinks that acoustic instruments are somehow more sincere than electronic. I'll take a thousand Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, Janelle Monae, Pet Shop Boys, Missy Elliotts, etc., before I'd ever listen again to Jeff Buckley, Billy Joel, Tori Amos, what have you. There's just something in the delivery that moves me, that's all.

The first one feels like someone attempting to communicate something real, heartfelt, and raw. The second one, despite its swooning melody, sounds like a harsh cluttered nosebleed--the pitchfork writer, love him or hate him, had it right when he described the production as 'thin.'

Well at least we know that Kevin Barnes is still capable of greatness. And I say this as someone who still treasures Cherry Peel, Satanic Panic, and others.

Of mOntreal Defends Their Honor

2010-11-28T15:34:00.006-05:00

Of mOntreal frOntman Kevin Barnes finally got around to reading Pitchfork's review of their new album False Priest yesterday. He was, to put it mildly, not amused. He calls the reviewer a dickhead, an asshole, a cusshole, as well as flaccid, puritanical, and sex-hating. At the end, he questions the reviewer's credibility because he didn't mention every single song on the album, then lazily compares Pitchfork to Fox News, including a picture of Bristol Palin at the end of his post.

But this isn't the first time Rob Mitchum, the guy who wrote the review in question, has written about one Of mOntreal's albums. He also reviewed 2007's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? You can only imagine what score Mr. Mitchum, who Barnes describes as, "clearly not insightful or intelligent, at least not in terms of his understanding of music production," gave Hissing Fauna.

That's right. An 8.7. In the review, he described the album as "ceaselessly fascinating and inexhaustibly replayable."

I knew that Kevin Barnes had an appreciation for irony, but I had no idea he'd take it to this level.

A note to artists. I can't think of a single example of an artist who publicly complained about a review and came out looking better as a result. It only makes you look childish, and makes you seem like you take yourself too seriously (which, if you're going to spend your time berating negative reviews, you probably do). And in this case, you have someone who's in one of the most successful indie bands in the country berating a writer for Pitchfork who most people haven't heard of, calling him names, etc. based on a review that went to great lengths, for the most part, to give the band a pass on this album--a sort of, well they'll probably do better next time. It seems to me like Rob Mitchum was being generous. Here's an example of Of mOntreal's latest work of unassailable genius.

Throughout his blog post, Barnes switches off between playing the victim as well as the bully, depending on which role best suits his purposes at the time. But no matter which persona he adopts, he consistently comes across as a petulant asshole.

Hopefully, no one will show him this review from The Washington Post a couple of months ago. Now that's a bad review. And unlike Rob Mitchum's, an exceptionally well-written bad review.

Or this kid. Keep scanning the comments section on his youtube. Who knows when Kevin will strike again.

A Reminder: Outside Writing Is Always Appreciated

2010-11-27T10:10:00.005-05:00

I mentioned this a couple of years ago, but some of you may have forgotten. AME is always happy to post writing from other people. One time it actually happened.

www.athensmusicexpress.blogspot.com/2008/12/on-influences-vivian-girls-guest-blog

I'll probably make some suggestions. Exchange some e-mails. That kind of thing. Just like a real editor would do. I also promise not to change anything in your article without running it by you first (in my experience, a rarity in the rockwrite world). But I'm sure I'm not the only person out there with thoughts about local music (doesn't have to be local, however. I'm pretty sure Phil Collins has never heard of Athens--hell, it doesn't even have to be about music).

Your anonymity is up to you. Me personally, I prefer to let the ideas stand for themselves. Since attacking people's character & motives seems to have become the preferred method of debate in this country, I've always hoped that removing one's self (or as an intellectual would put it, 'self') from the equation might prevent that from happening. No easy way out for people to say, 'Oh, you're just saying that because you're ______'. But that's just me.

One word of advice, I generally find people's ideas more interesting than their opinions. The e-mail address is to the left. athensmusicexpress@yahoo.com. I check it every few days.

"You Are Forgiven" (#1 in a series) - Phil Collins

2010-11-24T18:27:00.006-05:00

For my money, the 80's didn't produce a better white balding soul singer from England than Phil Collins. Can't call it 'blue-eyed soul,' Phil's constant squinting makes it impossible to tell what color his eyes are.

A lot of people in the 80's tried to rip-off Prince. This was as good as any of them.

When Philip Bailey tried to start his post Earth Wind & Fire solo career, who did he call? That's right. Mr. Phil 'Soul Man' Collins. To Phil's credit, he comes off better than George Michael did in his duet with Aretha Franklin.

Sure, Phil could bring the funk, the R & B, but what about the ballads? I submit Phil's own 'Try a Little Tenderness,' the song 'One More Night.'

It takes real guts to pull off a song like this, one that essentially says hey baby, I know you're going to leave me, and although I'm sad, I guess I'm able to accept that. But I'd feel even better about it, in fact I'd feel totally 100% okay, if we just spent this one last night together.

A desperate plea, you say? A pathetic tossing away of one's dignity? Perhaps, but maybe Phil has a trick up his sleeve. Maybe Phil's thinking to himself, Man if I could just fuck her one last time, fuck her all crazy until she comes like seven times and is a drooling twitching pile of post-orgasmic mess, then I bet she wouldn't leave me. And if you listen closely, Phil knows he can do this. Knows he's been holding back just a little, teasing his mysterious, mercurial partner, waiting for this moment (dare I say it) for all his life, oh lord.

Funny thing about Phil Collins love songs. It's always about a girl (presumably) who's either left him or is about to leave him. No macho Led Zeppelin, or Guns N Roses posturing for our Phil. Or maybe he did write a song one time, one of those 'Babe get the fuck out of my house, see you later' type songs, and his manager pulled out a mirror and said, 'Seriously, Phil. Look at yourself. Nobody's going to believe that shit. Stick with the sad loser thing.' Stranger things have happened.

Phil played drums on Brian Eno's 'Another Green World.' This song shows he was at least paying attention.

And we haven't even mentioned 'Don't Lose My Number,' the finest top-ten plea to a gay teenage runaway ever written. We didn't mention Genesis. We didn't mention THAT drum fill. We didn't mention his appearance in A Hard Day's Night. Or his scene-stealing performance on Miami Vice. The man played drums on 'Do We Know It's Christmas?' He brought Holland-Dozier-Holland out of retirement to write his hit single 'Two Hearts.' He also helped John Martyn record an album. He produced the only decent record by an ex-member of Abba. Jesus Christ, people what more do you want from the guy? Phil Collins. Is. Forgiven.

Not that he ever gave a fuck what you thought anyway.

A Thanksgiving Prayer

2010-11-24T00:17:00.004-05:00

A classic. This is my Charlie Brown special, my Detroit Lions blowout, and my cranberry sauce with visible grooves from the can, all wrapped into one.

Don't worry, I won't post 'The Junky's Christmas' a month from now.

Between the Lines - Flagpole "Athens Rising" Nov. 3rd

2010-11-06T23:05:00.003-04:00

Oh, Flagpole. How I’ve missed Elaine Ely’s column ‘Miscellany,’ (the title was a pun: Miss Elaine E., get it?). For those of you who missed its brief two-month run, Miscellany was a public journal of Athens arts and culture (culture as something you buy, something that costs a lot of money—preferably something you can eat or drink, art as something that you are very much interested in as an accessory to your glamorous lifestyle) written by a wealthy person who had just moved to Athens from a big city, and wish we had just a little more culture—as defined above—and art, and was prepared to tell us where we could find it. More often than not, it was at the bottom of a wine glass.

Normally Kevan Williams writes F-pole’s ‘Athens Rising’ column. He muses on all the ways our city planning could be more effective/responsible etc. There’s some good ideas in it from time to time. This week’s column was written by a gentleman named Dan Lorentz.

So tell us about yourself Dan.

When my wife and I came to Athens about three years ago, we fell in love with Boulevard and its proximity to downtown from the start and bought a house located in the middle of the neighborhood on Lyndon Avenue. But almost as soon as we finished moving in, I started dreaming of a neighborhood grocery store.

What an interesting dream, Dan. I have a reucurring dream that involves riding a school bus as it speeds towards this huge gap in the road that it has to jump across. Sometimes I’m eating a box of donuts in this dream. Sometimes there’s a large man dressed in a bunny suit sitting on my lap. But you dream of neighborhood grocery stores. That’s cool. By the way, have you ever been to the Daily Co-op?

In every other city we’ve lived in, we’ve been able to walk to a decent-sized grocery store—and I had gotten accustomed to that.

Well sure, Dan. But there’s tradeoffs to everything, isn’t there? And I guess buying a house in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in town, within walking distance to downtown, outweighs being able to walk to a decent-sized grocery store. That did factor into your decision, right? Oh, and Dan? You probably already noticed this, but 200 days out of the year, it totally sucks to walk around outside in Athens.

So I began daydreaming of a grocery store. I found a great location for one just a block from my house in a big parking lot at the corner of Chase Street and Dubose Avenue—kitty-corner from Chase Street Elementary School.

Only one block from your house? That’s pretty fucking convenient, Dan. But it is your dream, I guess.

And it had a name: Green Thrift Grocery.

The worst name for a dream grocery store ever—assuming there aren’t any dream grocery stores with the words ‘pus,’ ‘cum bubble,’ or ‘excrement’ in their name.

While it would be a small-format store—just 10,000 square feet (considerably smaller than, say, the 50,000-plus-square-foot Kroger on Alps Road)—it would be full-service. At Green Thrift, you’d be able to get fresh, locally grown foods in season and pretty much everything else a conventional store has to offer (even if there’d be slightly fewer choices), including beer and wine.

You think your store’s going to sell beer and wine? Not kitty-corner from Chase Street elementary it isn’t. But shit, I don’t live too far from where you’re talking about. I wouldn’t mind a ‘full-service grocery store’ myself. Of course, I do go to the Daily Co-op a lot. Are you sure you haven’t heard of it?

The store would have a street-facing coffee shop area where you could visit with neighbors. Green Thrift would allow neighborhood customers to roll grocery carts home and have them retrieved by the store.

Um. Dan? Look, I know this is just a dream, a fantasy, a musing-out-loud of impossible things. But did you just say that you’d be able to take your grocery cart home with you? And that someone would have to then walk to your house and bring it back to the store? That someone would have to go to EVERY customer’s house and bring their carts back to the store? Hey, Dan. You love to walk so much? Bring your own fucking cart back to the store you overprivileged dick. In fact, while I’m thinking of it, I bet there’s a hell of a lot more neighborhoods than fucking BOULEVARD that don’t have a grocery store within walking distance of their homes. I’ll give you a hint, Dan. They don’t own their homes.

If you’re familiar with my neighborhood, you might be inclined at this juncture to point out, as a friend of mine did, that I live about a half-mile from Daily Groceries Co-op on Prince Avenue.

Pointed it out several paragraphs below, but yes, I think that’s a good point.

This is true. It’s not a hard walk for me at all, though crossing Prince can be nasty.
Well, Dan. It’s true that Prince doesn’t allow people to post youtube videos of his songs, but I’m sure he has his— Oh wait. You’re talking about Prince Ave. Hey, Dan go down to Milledge. Cross at the light. It’s not that bad.

The store stocks lots of great produce, bread, coffee and other staples. And it’s a sociable place.

So there you go. Problem solved, right? Except for the whole beer and wine thing. But you can go for a drive once a week, right? I mean, it’s not like you don’t own a car. Unlike the people in those other neighborhoods anyway.

I talked to Michael Wegner—a former Daily Groceries manager, musician and fellow neighborhood resident—about the store. He lives about four blocks from the store and says he goes there almost every day. “It’s the perfect distance for me to bring Amelia along,” he says, referring to his five-year-old daughter. “With the store so close, I just come by every day or so and get what I need,” he says. He says sometimes they don’t have exactly what he had in mind to cook that night, but he’ll find something. “And it’s fresh, and I don’t have to plan out meals for a week.”

There you go. Michael Wegner does it. It’s not your dream grocery store, but who says that dreams always have to come true. Besides Dan, it sounds like you’re already living a better life—financially, at least—than most people in our town. By the way Dan, did you know this is the 5th poorest county of its size in the entire United States of Fucking America? Holy shit!

Which is what I want to be able to do, too. But Daily Groceries doesn’t sell meat or wine.

So drive to Kroger once a week, or Earthfare if that’s more your style.

There is bottle shop not too far from me, and Los Compadres, for example—on Prince in Normaltown—is fairly walkable for me and has an impressive meat counter. I’m going to test-run the feasibility of doing my more or less daily shopping on foot in my neighborhood.

Yeah, you do that. Just keep in mind that, as far as ‘dreams not coming true’ is concerned, you’re doing pretty well. By the way that typo in the previous paragraph is Flagpole's fault, not mine.

But I suspect I’ll still be pining for a full-service store like the Green Thrift Grocery of my dreams—or another branch of the reality-based Earth Fare, for example—to locate near me.

Yeah, I kinda suspect you will. But I think asking Earthfare to build stores every mile apart so people can walk to them sounds pretty fucking weird. And unprofitable. Actually, I just had a couple of thoughts, Dan. Here’s one. Walk to fucking Earthfare. A friend of mine lives about as far away as you do. He walks there and back five days a week to go to his job. Or here’s another thought. There’s this thing that runs up and down Milledge every ten minutes called a bus. Why not try riding it? You could even start up conversations with people just like in your imaginary coffee shop. Or do you only like to imagine yourself talking to other Boulevard residents?

Now, as another friend of mine suggested, maybe my wife and I should have bought a home in Five Points—where Earth Fare is located—so that we could be near a smaller format full-service grocery with a coffee shop, which is obviously so important to us.

You sure do have some smart fucking friends, Dan.

But for a variety of reasons, including that we just didn’t feel like we’d be good Five Points material, we chose Boulevard.

‘Good Five Points material?’ What the fuck does that mean? And Dan, just so we’re clear about this, you do realize that ‘choosing Boulevard’ is something that 90%-plus of the residents in this town aren't able to do? Because they can’t afford it?

So let’s get this straight. Dan loves to walk. He loves to walk so much and it just kills him that he can’t walk to the grocery store each day to get his food and beer and wine. However, Dan hates walking back to the grocery store to return his cart (even though he’d only live around the block). Dan hates walking a mile to Earthfare. Dan hates walking to Los Compadres and the Daily Co-op. And Dan hates the idea of living in Five Points because he doesn’t like the identity that comes with living in Five Points.

But apparently the identity of a rich spoiled elitist prick who could give a shit what anyone else might need or want in this community, that identity suits him just fine.

People are fucking weird.

In my next column, I’ll sort through some of the demographic, economic, attitudinal, zoning and legal challenges facing neighborhood groceries in Athens.

Oh my god. I can’t wait.

Next To Last Festival (So Far)

2010-10-31T15:11:00.003-04:00

edit: When I refer to "birthdays & relatives," I'm talking about an actual birthday party and actual visiting relatives, I realize now that "birthdays & relatives" sounds like a Party Party Partners band that, for all I know, might actually be playing the festival.

I'm too tired to put these thoughts into any coherent kind of narrative. If you want real journalism, you can go read the Flagpole, right? So in no apparent order.

The New Sound of Numbers is back, and as good as they've ever been. New bassist Jeff Tobias adds a melodicism to the ping-pong two-chord song structure that has sent their music into an almost dub/reggae direction. I've got one mild criticism, but we'll save it for the end because it's bigger than this band.

There's something that comes across in Supercluster's live show that I still can't find on their album. More raw passion, or something like that. Or maybe they were just in that kind of mood Thursday night. I've certainly never seen Jason NeSmith abuse his guitar like that before. More on them later too.

Tunabunny played the same song for a half-hour. And it wasn't the "outer space" song they put out last year. Apparently, it was an Andy Kaufman cover. The bass player guy told me afterwards that the guy from their label made them do it. Let me get this straight, a label person told them to do this for 30 minutes?

The world is truly a strange place.

Moving on, either Eureka, California wrote a bunch of new songs, or changing drummers had a bigger impact than any of us could have expected. What used to sound like a vaguely 90's alt-rock-pop riff-driven smorgasboard now sounds infinitely leaner and poppier. Anyway, I enjoyed it.

Big Eyed Beans From Venus plays Captain Beefheart songs that sound as good as the originals. There can be no higher compliment.

As for the rest of the festival, whoever decided to schedule this thing for the busiest weekend of my year is a dumbass. I was able to make it out to ESG last night (they sounded like ESG, it was good), but missed most of the afternoon shows I wanted to see (birthdays & relatives), and will miss most of tonight's show due to work. I can only hope that future festivals will have the foresight & consideration to call me before choosing their dates.

So to my last point. I think it's great that some people in Athens like to have at least 6 people in their band. But I don't understand why every single person in the band has to constantly be playing their instrument all of the time. Aside from the fact that the music occasionally ends up blending into a giant mush, it fails to take advantage of the full capabilities of a large-piece band. To me, it just sounds lazy. Everyone come up with a part and then we'll just wing it. It'd be so great if say, heading into the second verse, the singer was backed by just the violin and the non-drummer percussionists, and then halfway through the rest of the band came crashing in. It would be so much more dramatic. Or just horns and guitar during the bridge. It could be beautiful. I'm not asking for Burt Bacharach;

I just think a little bit of craft might go a long way. Fuck, even Miles Davis knew enough to stop playing once in a while.

I don't know who started this shit. Dark Meat, probably. But Supercluster and The New Sound of Numbers are guilty of this as well, and they're all smart enough as musicians and people to do better than just settling for a wall of sound.

Parting thought. If you leave a comment on this article saying anything along the lines of, "So you're saying all music has to be arranged and controlled?" or "Who says music has to be dramatic to be effective?" or "How do you define craft?" I am not going to be holding back in my future comments, and I will probably make you cry.

RIPARIUP

2010-10-21T06:26:00.003-04:00

Well, here's an article that says more about The Slits than I ever could.

http://popanthropology.blogspot.com/2009/12/reclaiming-slits.html

Everyone talks about the album "Cut" when they talk about The Slits, and yeah, it's great. But if you ever get the chance, check out the sessions they recorded for John Peel, back when Palmolive was still the drummer.

No one's made music like this before or since. Respect is due.

Outside The Loop - Gordon Voidwell

2010-10-14T12:30:00.005-04:00

This song is probably going to get a lot more popular.

Let's not kid ourselves; this is little more than disposable pop music. Which is another way of saying that it's colorful, fun, and will make you smile for a couple of weeks until you get sick of it and decide that you never want to hear it again. What's interesting is how much it resembles Reptar. That's not to accuse either one of ripping anyone off. It's just a sound that's very prevalent these days, especially on top-40 radio.

More importantly, it's the similarities between the two artists that magnifies their differences, and helps us to better understand them.

Gordon Voidwell fills his party song with insights into the world of overprivileged elites, rhymes 'ivory towers' with 'big-sized endowments,' and stops you in your tracks as you wonder whether he's celebrating this world, mocking it, or getting ready to destroy it from the inside. It's the difference between observing the world and merely existing in one. And it's a difference that the local group has yet to learn.

And while we're on the subject, Gordon is also a better dancer, as well as a more charismatic frontman.

Outside The Loop - Lady Gaga and Yoko Ono

2010-10-14T11:51:00.006-04:00

The world's biggest pop star sings a Yoko Ono song with Yoko. And that can only be a good thing. I could write 2500 words on Gaga, but for the sake of space let's just say: music = pretty good for top-40, performance = bloodthristy & captivating).

I know to most of the world she's nothing more than a punchline--actually, I suppose that applies to both of them--but for my money, Yoko Ono is one of the most creative, interesting, and (here's a word that seems to pop up a lot these days) experimental artists in the history of music. In fact, after attending the recent AUX show at Little Kings, I walked away disappointed in a couple of things. First, the lack of female representation in general (3 non-singers out of the 42 performers), and secondly that somewhere along the line it was decided that, as it pertains to female vocalists, a slow dull moan that sounds a-little-sexual-but-maybe-also-a-little-constipated constitutes 'experimental.' Nobody, it seemed, was familiar with Yoko Ono--or even James Brown, for that matter. (As always, the lovely and amazing Vanessa Hay is exempt from this criticism).

Here's a song by a woman in her 70's. It came out early last year.

And here's a song she made shortly after she saw her husband shot and murdered. (1981, in case you're not good with the math).

There's plently of stuff, both wilder and more beautiful, where this came from. Go find it if you're interested.

More Yoko thoughts:
1) My favorite Beatle-related album of all time is John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band. Her influence is all over it.
2) At the time he met her, John Lennon was an abusive asshole, to his wife, his son, his bandmates, pretty much everyone he came in contact with. It is a testament to Yoko Ono's strength, patience, and love, that he was significantly less of an asshole at the time of his death.
3) If Jordan Stepp is reading this, she would probably be interested to know that Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson were hugely influenced by Yoko Ono. You can trace a direct line from Yoko's early stuff to the vocals in Rock Lobster, to say nothing of Give Me Back My Man.

More AUX thoughts:
1) Jeff Tobias offering to let anyone in the audience play his saxophone, provided 'they had never played saxophone before' absolutely embodied everything I think that experimental (the temptation to put it in quotes every time I write it is strong, but I resist) music should be.
2) Each of the drummers were fantastic.
3) It might be fun next time to mandate than 1/3 of the performers shouldn't know how to play their instrument.
4) It might be fun to see more than a couple of people actually look like they're having fun. The atmosphere fell somewhere between a library and a professor's den.
5) There would appear to be a direct correlation between the volume of a performer's amplifier and the number of masturbatory gestures they make on their instrument.
6) I don't know how much of it was rehearsed, but if all felt very safe. If we're not going to see performers taking risks, then what's the point of going to see experimental music in the first place?
7) I left about 2/3 of the way through. So my opinions are based on that. I intended to go back, but just didn't feel like it. Such is the freedom that comes with having no boss and no career ambitions.

Which brings us back to one of this article's subjects--Lady Gaga--and a question. When the most successful pop star in the world is more 'experimental' (I couldn't resist) than the avant-garde, does that reflect poorly on the avant-garde? Or does it mean that we might have, in Lady Gaga, a performer worth watching because we don't know what she'll do next?

That last question was rhetorical by the way.

Dead Confederate Wants To Sell You A Taco!

2010-10-07T22:03:00.006-04:00

You won't find the boys of Dead Confederate bragging about it on their website, but Taco Bell is "really excited to have Dead Confederate back in the Feed The Beat program". DC's new album "is in heavy rotation at the Taco Bell offices!" (their exclamation point, not mine). What's this all about, you ask?

From Taco Bell's Feed The Beat website:

For five consecutive years, Taco Bell® and its Feed the Beat® program have provided a total of 365 music artists/bands with $500 in Taco Bell Bucks. Touring music artists can relate to eating on the road and Taco Bell wants to help by picking up their post-show late-night dinner tabs so they can focus on their true passion: music.

Next time anyone in town (particularly their manager) tells you how big Dead Confederate is getting, ask yourself this question: How well can a band be doing when it prostitutes itself for $500 worth of tacos?

Though, like the band itself, most Taco Bell food is made out of grungy leftovers from the early 90's. (Aside from the Crunch Wrap Supreme, which is awesomely delicious).

Also, if the press release for your new album, Sugar, is going to mention Bob Mould--and DC's does, along with (in order) Dinosaur Jr, Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, The Hold Steady, Smashing Pumpkins, The Walkmen, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, The Whigs, Dandy Warhols, and Brian Jonestown Massacre--you should probably be aware that Bob Mould was in a band called Sugar. It was great; David Barbe played bass in it.

Anyway, here's a link to a free download of DC's ironically titled "Giving It All Away,' courtesy of Taco Bell and Feed The Beat.

www.feedthebeat.com/freebies/dead-confederate-free-mp3-download/

Allison Weiss Revisited

2010-10-07T21:46:00.005-04:00

This blog ran into some controversy a while back when it ran a critical assessment of Allison Weiss' music. I haven't heard any of her music lately, but this video is heartfelt, sincere, and beautiful.

When I first heard this video existed, I immediately rolled my eyes and rattled off a half-dozen cynical opinions. Then I actually watched the video and choked on every single one of them. This video contains every bit of the rawness, passion, and guts that I was unable to find in her music a year ago. Much respect is due to Ms. Weiss for having the courage to put something like this out there. If this video is any indication, her next project will definitely be worth checking out.

Nuci's Space does wonderful work...

2010-10-02T19:21:00.005-04:00

...and this is one way to help them. There's a band--although 'recording project' might be more accurate--called Emergent Heart.

They may have decided to call their new EP 'One' because it's their favorite U2 song, but they probably did it because it's their first release. It's available for download at http://www.emergentheart.com/. It's tuneful and nice in that smooth indie rock way that all the kids seem to love these days, in touch with its feelings, sincere, sensitive, etc. Kind of like The Antlers, Real Estate, Broken Social Scene, Telekenesis, that kind of thing. And it's every bit as good as the rest of that stuff is.

Still, I probably wouldn't be mentioning it at all if the proceeds weren't going to Nuci's Space. Go visit http://www.nuci.org/ if you haven't heard of it. This blog can get a little negative sometimes, what with all the fevered egos in this town competing for one's attention, but Nuci's Space is something that every Athenian should be proud of. Very few people start playing music (or writing about it for that matter) because they are socially well-adjusted and have excellent coping mechanisms for dealing with the world around them. Thank god for all of us that a place like Nuci's Space exists.

A callous attempt on the part of an unknown band to draw attention to itself by aligning itself with a music-related charity loved by thousands? That's one way to look at it, if you're feeling cynical. But I'm not, and any money that goes to Nuci's Space is money that is going to do good things.

Besdies, one of the guys in the group said I was 'smart' when he asked me to write about this. See, Athens musicians, I'm as much as a sucker for praise and attention as the rest of you! The Athens Music Express e-mail address really works! (Just be grateful I didn't take up Misfortune 500 on their request to come see them play--dry ice triggers my asthma).

(Gratuitous and unnecessary use of exclamation points at the end of the article used by kind permission of the owner, Flagpole Editor Michelle Gilzenstern).

Antlered Aunt Lord @ Go Bar, Sept. 29th

2010-09-29T17:05:00.005-04:00

There won't be any pictures with this one. No videos. No links. Even the band's name is a mystery. Antlered Aunt Lord was the first name they gave me, so that's what I'm putting in the title. But I also heard Antlered Auntlord, Antler Antlord. Antlered Antlord. Antlered Ant Lord. Antler and the Aunt Lords and so on and so forth. The only thing we know for sure is that the band is led by Jesse Stinnard, and he is supported by a cast of players that changes from show to show. Two weeks ago at Flicker they had two drummers. Last week at Go Bar they had traded one of the drummers for a keyboard player. A couple of months ago they played a party at the Landfill as a trio. I recognized one of the guitarists from Tunabunny, and the drummer was Chase Prince (of Hot & Cold, Circulatory System, and countless others).

To paraphrase Mark E. Smith of the Fall, if it's Jesse Stinnard and your grandmother on bongos, then it's Antlered Auntlord.

Asking around, I learned that Stinnard moved to Athens about ten years ago from Gainesville, Ga. He grew up on farms in different parts of the country, just him and his brother bashing out songs in the barn. Ambivalent about playing out (to the degree that you can't hear the songs anywhere unless you go to a show), Stinnard's spent most of his time here writing and recording, seldom letting anybody hear the results. In the last couple of years, he's begun to get known as "someone who records bands" (Stinnard hates the term "producer"), recording Tunabunny, Gemini Cricket, Sphinxie, and Hot & Cold, among others.

Says Antlered Auntlord (sometime) member, Brigette Herron, "I ran into Jesse a few months ago, and he told me he had written a bunch of new songs, and that he really wanted to get out there and start playing shows again."

As for the music? A little Guided by Voices. A little bit Pixies. A little Wall of Voodoo. The lyrics--the ones you can make out anyway--sound like they were assembled out of a surrealist dictionary. So maybe a little bit Pavement as well. It is undeniably powerful, and private, and pestilence, and preliminary to something or other. The musicians obviously loved playing the songs, jumping into each other, making faces throughout the set, and generally just having fun. The show at Go Bar ended with Stinnard turning all the amplifiers up to ten before ripping every string off his guitar and hanging it on the drumset right before he walked offstage and disappeared into the night.

To the outside observer, Antlered Auntlord seems to be against everything that has anything to do with self-promotion. Like a good piece of graffiti, we're only going to find them by keeping our eyes open. Even the internet can't help us. Like the Cheshire Cat, Stinnard will only be seen when he wants us to see him, on his own terms.

And if last week's show at the Go Bar was any indication, he will also be grinning.

Of Montreal Is Heading Off To See The World (Again)

2010-09-11T15:34:00.005-04:00

Just one question: With Thayer Serrano playing keyboards on this tour, will Kevin change the lyrics of 'Sex Karma' to "You look like a playground to me, Thayer?"

The mind boggles. In fact, while we're at it, why not just change 'playground' to 'thayground'? I hear fake lisping is the new whiteface.

Here's the band's new video. To their feminist credit, there's probably fewer women getting punched in the face and dry-humped while they lie there unconscious than there will be after next week's football game.

The Sound of Capitalism Exhausting Itself

2010-09-11T15:24:00.003-04:00

A music as shallow & useless, as silly & stupid, and as blinkered & desperate, as the future middle managers and CEO's who keep flocking to see them.

Live Review - Grape Soda, Titans of Filth, Eureka California, WereWolves. Live at the 40watt, Mar. 20th

2010-03-22T21:55:00.007-04:00

Grape Soda

Let’s get this out of the way before we go any further. Grape Soda is my favorite band in Athens right now, and you owe it to yourself to see them as soon, and as often, as possible. The band is made up of local music veterans (and brothers) Mat & Ryan Lewis. They’ve been playing together (and separately) for years, but I’ve never really been moved by any of their previous projects. Yet somehow, for some reason Grape Soda takes me somewhere. And there aren’t many bands in town these days who can even get me to pay attention.

The setup is simple enough. Garage rock drums from Ryan and spaced-out keyboards from Mat. But there's something unlikely in Mat's voice, a yearning, a soulfulness that you don't notice at first. Go to their myspace and listen to "Not Mine," a song that should be ringing out of radios & ipods all over the world, and maybe someday soon it will. Grape Soda sounds like no other band on earth that I know of, and in 2010 that counts for a lot.

Titans of Filth

With a lot of bands, it seems like their songs all sound the same. With Titans of Filth, it seems like you are literally listening to the same song over and over again. The fact that 90% of the songs are in the same key (B-major in case you're wondering, which just isn't natural) doesn't help. Unless, of course, Titans of Filth is trying to pull off an elaborate conceptual art move. In which case, I enthusiastically applaud their daring and suggest that we, their future audience, attempt to one-up the band by demanding an encore at their next show. At which they point they will come out and play. . . yet another song that sounds just like the last one. Warhol would be proud.

They're lucky I just happen to like that one song. Sam's voice, a mixture of Calvin Johnson and Stephen Merritt, is so flat you could run a net across it and play yourself a regulation game of ping-pong. And I mean that as a compliment.

Eureka California

The last time I saw Eureka California they had five bandmembers and I didn't like them very much. Last Saturday, they were down to three members and I liked them a little better. Who knows, maybe they could lose another member and become downright loveable? I nominate the singer/guitarist. To be fair, the band's recordings sound a lot better than their live set, which was a rocking, indistinct mush. On record, a couple of the songs seem to actually have hooks. "Milwaukee," at least, could hold its own with any local music compilation around. And if that's good enough for EC, then it's good enough for me. As a parting compliment, Wyatt Strother may be pound-for-pound the most powerful drummer in rock.

And as a parting fact, I've been to Eureka, California the place, and "kind bud" aside, it is a total shithole. Far more of a shithole than EC the band could ever be. Even if they expanded their line-up to Dark Meat-esque quantities.

Werewolves

The evening was a record-release party for both Euereka California and Werewolves. Werewolves frontman Wyatt Strother (you may have noticed, if you've been paying attention, that he plays in both bands) is putting out both bands' albums on his own Athens Horse Party label. Werewolves has been criticized in some places for sounding a little bit too much like Neutral Milk Hotel. Which is understandable. If you move to Liverpool and start a band that sounds like The Beatles, or move to Manchester and start a band that sounds like Joy Division, or move to Boston and start a band that sounds like, uh... Boston, people there are probably going to notice.

Anyway, you judge.

Whatever. I think they sound more like The Decemberists. But Werewolves--and honestly, it's just Wyatt, I woudln't compare the rest of the band to NMH at all--does have the same wide-eyed, intense gaze of Mangum, a similar voice, and an even more frequent "ba-ba-ba"-ing when he sings.

Personally, I have no problem on earth with Werewolves sounding like NMH, or anyone else for that matter. However, I should state for the record, and for all the NMH-influenced bands out there, that my reasons for loving that band had little to do with Mr. Mangum's nasally voice, or the aforementioned "ba-ba-ba"-ing. Or for the horns and additional instruments that were used to flesh out his songs. I loved, and continue to love NMH of words as strange and compelling as this.

The movements were beautiful
All in your ovaries
All of them milking with green fleshy flowers
While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines

And for performances like this.

I'm not disappointed because Werewolves may be influenced by NMH. I'm disappointed that they only seem to be influenced by the parts of NMH that are the easiest to replicate, i.e. the sound & the style. Unfortunately, the substance seems to be (for now) beyond Wyatt Strother's grasp.

I doubt even he would try to compare one of his own lines, "Pieces of my body made from plastic, glue and steel form the only temple without the capacity to feel," to anything by NMH (and just so you know, I tried to pick out one of the better lyrics I was able to find). But maybe he should try it sometime, because all too often his lyric writing falls back on the easy image (a vague noun like "things" seems to be a favorite), or unearned sentimentality like, "You will lay to rest inside my heart and I won't leave you alone." LuckyCharm words like "heart" pop up more than they need to. By not holding himself to a higher standard, he does a disservice to his songs, as well as his own imagination.

But the truth is, all criticism aside, the fact remains that Wyatt Strother is trying. In fact, he is trying very hard. I just hope that he keeps trying. A friend of mine once played me some recordings Jeff Mangum made circa 1992. They were, to put it mildly, underwhelming. The people we are today are not the same people we are going to be tomorrow, and that goes for Wyatt Strother as well.

Please, Wyatt, if you are reading this go and get yourself some poetry from the UGA library. Bill Knott and Frank Stanford are a good place to start. Please don't make the same mistake that so many musicians in this town make, and look solely to other musicians and their lyrics as the source of your inspiration. Try to sound like something you're not capable of sounding like. Reach beyond your grasp. I'm expecting to be blown away when I see your band a year from now.

I'm also expecting you to lose the constant self-deprecation bit. I understand where it comes from, and I'm sypathetic, but it got old pretty quick. Perhaps you could take it into shelf-deprecation? Goddamit, all my lacrosse trophies fell down! Or even elf-deprecation? These E.L. Fudge cookies taste like shit! And Will Ferrell is a shitty actor!

By the way, there's a band in New York who is also called Werewolves. www.myspace.com/amsterdam They are on a record label, which means they probably own the name. Maybe Werewolves Jr.? Or The Werewolves UK?

Alex Chilton R.I.P.

2010-03-22T21:48:00.003-04:00

3rd/Sister Lovers is an album that has meant as much to me personally as any album ever. Alex died of a heart attack just before he was due to appear at SXSW. Fortunately, they were able to take his body over to the Philip Morris/McDonald's Embalming Tent, and then from there to the Levi's/Spin Magazine Casket Factory. Both sites are copyright of SXSW inc., all rights reserved.

I'm not sure where he was buried, but I hope he is finally at peace.

This, quite frankly, is amazing.

2009-12-28T10:20:00.000-05:00

My Memories of Vic Chesnutt

2009-12-25T21:34:00.006-05:00

By 1995, I found myself working the graveyard shift five nights a week at a 7-11 in Jamul, California. It had been a rough few years since I'd graduated high school--factories, homelessness, missing parents, etc. There was a store in El Cajon called Music Trader that offered 4 tapes for $10, and it's one of the places I spent whatever extra money I had at the end of the week. When I saw Vic Chesnutt's album "Little" in there one afternoon, I went ahead and picked it up. I think he has something to do with R.E.M.? Sure enough, Michael Stipe produced it. For $2.50, it seemed worth checking out.

I didn't take to it right away, but I kept playing it on the nights when I worked. It sounded pretty good around 3 in the morning, with the doors propped open as I swept the parking lot. After a few nights of this, the songs started to emerge. After a few weeks, I found that the songs reached parts of myself emotionally that very few things could in those days. And so I played it every night. At 3 in the morning. As I swept the parking lot.

It didn't make me feel better, necessarily. Or worse. Even listening to it right now, 15 years later, I still can't tell you much about it. With a few exceptions, the lyrics didn't relate a whole lot to anything in my experience. His writing seemed so personal that there wasn't much room left for me. I felt like a spectator. It was never one of my favorite albums, or even the album that touched me the deepest, it was just something I felt compelled to play every night for a year.

I guess maybe it just made me feel a little less alone.

A couple of years later, I was working at a golf resort in El Cajon. Vic Chesnutt had just released "Is the Actor Happy?", his major-label debut. I picked up a copy, and listened to it a few times, but for whatever reason it didn't really grab me.

Gravity Of The Situation - Vic...

In the fall of 1998, I headed to Boston to start college. I was 26, and was so intimidated by my new situation that I didn't speak to my new roommate for two days. It was only after we realized that we'd both been playing a lot of the same music that we found a way to start talking to each other. His favorite singer in the world was Vic Chesnutt. He talked about how he had never heard music with such raw emotion, such genuine unfiltered passion (he had, after all, just graduated from Tufts).

That spring Vic Chesnutt collaborated on an album with Lambchop. Once again I shrugged my shoulders and yawned. Except for this song. Which I listened to constantly.

Until The Led - Vic Chesnutt

The following year, the roommate--and by this point, one of my good friends--had moved to New York City. It so happened that the weekend a couple of us went down there to visit him coincided with a show at Maxwell's in Hoboken featuring Kristen Hersh and Vic Chesnutt. The entire way there, my friend kept saying how happy he would be if Vic played "Isadora Duncan". He was literally bouncing up and down in his seat as he talked about it. We arrived to a packed Maxwell's. Me, I was more excited about seeing Kristen Hersh for the first time (that first Throwing Muses album was also one of my 7-11 era faves).

Vic was due to go on first, but the packed room was making it difficult for him to reach the stage in his wheelchair. Eventually, he had to ask some people to lift him up and carry him to the stage, wheelchair and all. Once safely there, he told the group that he'd play their request as his first song. They chose "Isadora Duncan". My friend cried, smiling the entire time. The show was wonderful.

Kristen Hersh was one of the first people to announce that something had happened to Vic Chesnutt yesterday.

I didn't know Vic Chesnutt. I saw him out around town a few times, and though I was tempted to introduce myself, and maybe tell him some of my stories, I never did. I hadn't listened to his music in years, and if you had told me I could never listen to his music again, I wouldn't have cared. And yet here I am on this Christmas night, my friends having left and my girlfriend having gone to work, and I can't stop listening to an on-line version of that album, the one I found in a bargain bin 15 years ago. And I've spent the last half-hour on the verge of tears for someone I've never met.

See, at a time in my life when I very badly needed someone to hug me and tell me everything was going to be okay, and I was several years away from anything like that ever happening, Vic Chesnutt's album "Little" was about as close as I could get. I didn't, and still don't, understand why. But maybe some things are more powerful if you can't find the words for them. I will always be grateful to him for what that album gave me. Even if I may have forgotten about it until last night.

I'm so sorry he died. And I'm even sorrier for the pain he must have been in while he was alive. Please, Athens, be good to one another. There's a lot of people around here in a lot of pain.

This was filmed earlier this year.

There's a few other drugs I'd like to add to this list. Depression is a real bitch to live with, and whatever benefits drugs, alcohol, etc. might bring you in the short term, they take a hell of a lot more away in the long term. Believe me.

Please R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt, you sweet sad beautiful man.

A Resonse To The Responders

2009-12-08T10:59:00.004-05:00

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to write in. There’s been more interesting thoughts & ideas in the comments section of this blog than in the last year’s worth of Flagpoles. Secondly, I’d like to apologize for the typos. I figured I’d have time to check it before anyone got around to reading it. In the two years I’ve been haphazardly writing this blog (i.e. whenever I felt like taking the time to do it), I think it’s had about 100 hits. In the last 72 hours, that number has about doubled.

My personal belief is that anyone who takes the time to write something deserves a response (in the case of the two people who mocked one of the commenters for getting pregnant, I think the appropriate respsonse might be, “What the hell is wrong with you?”). And because people raised a lot of interesting ideas, they deserve to be addressed. And I’ve gone ahead and set up an e-mail account, athensmusicexpress@yahoo.com, in case anyone would rather contact me personally. Because, y’know, I felt some of you were holding back a little in your comments.

And let me put this disclaimer first, because it’s the most important thing I‘d want anyone to read. I recognize that all art is subjective, and that one person’s crap is another person’s treasure. By expressing my opinion, I am not looking to convert anyone to my way of thinking. I am just expressing my opinion. It does not bother me that people like her music. It does not even bother me that she makes music. Hell, I think everyone should make music, write poems, paint pictures, or however they choose to express themselves. I think it is healthy, beautiful, and wonderful that we as human beings are able to do that. I wrote this article because it seemed that everyone in this town had an opinion about Ms. Weiss, but that opinion rarely ventured any further than “I love her music. She is the best,” or “I hate her and I wish she’d leave town immediately”. I think neither one of those models puts a lot of thought into her music, and I thought she deserved better. Not more praise necessarily, just more thought. And I find the disconnect between her music and her marketing, the fact that one part is incredibly ambitious while the other seems relentlessly un-ambitious, to be really fascinating, and worth writing about.

To the responses.

We’ll start with the most polite person first. Yes, Karate Media, I would hold a male artist to the same standard. Take A.J. Weiss for example... (joke. i’m kidding). I’ve always found Lou Barlow’s lyrics pretty solipsistic as well. However, I do think his lyrics about relationships at least, on occasion, make a larger point about how power is taken & given in relationships. I could care less that Allison Weiss writes nothing but relationship songs. I’m just disappointed that she doesn’t seem to have a whole lot to say about relationships. Or that the lyrics themselves don’t contain a whole lot of imagery, poetry, turns-of-phrase, or beauty—y’know the thing that makes lyrics (for me at least, remember that disclaimer?) resonate.

And we’ll address the D.I.Y. section of my article. Looking back, I think I could have made my point a lot clearer and with a lot less vitriol. Sorry for that. I had just spent about 4 hours doing nothing but listening to her music on lala, reading her lyrics, and watching her videos. It felt like I had been made to eat nothing but twinkies for four hours while watching a marathon of Laguna Beach. I was a little cranky. Heading into this project, I told myself not to get personal, and I think I may have crossed the line a couple of times there. I apologize.

Here’s a more reasoned take on my issue with the D.I.Y. thing. The thing is, if promoting your act, booking your own shows, and putting out your own records makes you D.I.Y., then I think 98% of the musicians in this town qualify as D.I.Y. Now, I want to make this clear, I’m not saying that Allison Weiss is NOT D.I.Y. And I’m not trying to imply that someone’s music becomes less artistically valid the more support they receive. God knows, that class background has nothing to do with the quality of one's art. I just think that this D.I.Y. label is one that Weiss chose for herself, and while I find that her “D” part of that acronym exceeds anyone else’s in this town (or possibly this world), and she deserves to be commended for that, I don’t think her “Y” is anything special, and compared to a lot of other people, actually comes up a bit short. But as Karate Media pointed out, I may just have a different definition than a lot of other people do.

Also, I don’t think Weiss is shallow for not writing a song about domestic abuse. I just think that her lyrics, and for that matter her style/presentation etc., don’t seem to be informed by anything beyond her own first-hand experiences. I’m not asking for Dosotevsky here, but I don’t think asking for some sign of recognition, for ANY sign of recognition, that there is a world out there beyond her own set of experiences is too much to ask for. It’s not even that I think it would make the world a better place. I just think it might make her art more interesting (again, see that disclaimer at the beginning). See, even when I say that Allison Weiss’ music is solipsistic or shallow or whatever, I never think for one second that Allison Weiss herself is any of those things. Truth is, I don’t think anyone is those things. In my experience, people are endlessly fascinating and original if you get to know them, no matter who they are. I just wish Weiss would allow some of those parts of herself into her music, and by not putting those things in there she does a disservice to herself and ultimately to her art.

If I have one other regret about what I wrote, it’s that I didn’t do enough to praise Weiss’ songwriting ability. Regardless of how I feel about anything else, the girl knows how to craft a hook. My head still sings, “I’m ready if you’re ready,” whenever someone asks me if I’m ready. Taken purely from a pop/hook/melody perspective, Allison Weiss could teach a lot of the more respected artists in this town a thing or two about how to craft a song. I meant to put that in the article, and I can only use my crankiness as an excuse. Which is a pretty shitty excuse.

And lastly, I’d like to address the issue of my anonymity/identity. I prefer to remain anonymous because I don’t like giving people the easy option of dismissing ideas I write just based on who I am. I’d rather the ideas stand alone without my identity getting in the way of people reading it. You can see, just by mentioning my age & gender in the article, how quickly people resorted to the old, “Well you’re just old and male so who gives a fuck what you think”. Imagine the response if people knew whether or not I play in a band (you’re just jealous because Allison Weiss has more success than you) or what I do for a living (you’re just jealous because she has more success than you) or my personal life (you’re just jealous because she has more success than you). As it was, I still got labelled an underachiever, resentful of her privilege, out of touch with the internet, le fucking retarted, lame, etc.

If I do play in a band, I’d also like to remain anonymous because I’d hate for my bandmates to get saddled with whatever reputation this blog might create for me. I used to write about music when I was going to college in Boston, and turned down a job with Pitchfork when I graduated because I wanted to focus on writing poetry, novels, etc. I’ve had a couple of books published, and they’ve done well enough so I haven’t turned completely bitter. After finishing my latest book, I wanted to take some time off from writing books and starting this blog gave me a way to keep writing without the pressure/responsibility that comes with writing for publication. Plus, I’d been reading a lot of Paul Morley around that time and I found myself having a lot of thoughts and ideas about the music I was coming into contact with. That’s it.

I’m not jealous of Allison Weiss in any way shape or form, I just think she’s capable of making music that is funnier, angrier, and more beautiful than the music she has been making up to this point. And I would like nothing more than to see that happen in the future.

Allison Weiss and the Beiging of America

2009-12-05T21:02:00.009-05:00

Meet Allison Weiss.

A force of nature, a triumph of self-promotion, the idea of D.I.Y. taken to its final priveleged extreme, Allison Weiss has certainly made a name for herself in Athens over the last few years. Few artists in this town inspire as much (public) hatred as Ms. Weiss.

Take this seemingly innocuous mention of her new album in Flagpole’s ‘Threats & Promises’ column, written & editorialized by Gordon Lamb.

Order Up: Allison Weiss is now taking orders for her newest album, Allison Weiss Was Right All Along, which is to be released Nov. 24. The four-tiered pre-order scheme starts at $10 for the album and a couple of bonus items up to $75 for the album, a t-shirt, poster, one-of-a-kind-drawing, limited-edition buttons and stickers and more. I have no doubt that there’s going to be more than one person out there in Internetland who'll buy in at the $75 level. This was originally planned to be an EP when Weiss began soliciting funds for a new recording, but she managed to raise so much that she fleshed it out into a full album. On a critical note, this is heads and tails above her previous work. Weiss is great with a full band, and her players, notably brother and guitarist A.J. Weiss, create a world of nuance behind her rather matter-of-fact lyricism. Speaking of which, if you’re the dude that broke her heart, you’re gonna feel like a real ass when this comes out. For more information, please see www.allisonweisswasrightallalong.com.

And here are some of the comments people have left below the article.

“It's almost like Allison wants everyone in Athens to think she's a giant tool.”
“Offering a bunch of shit for 75 bucks isn't exactly marketing, it's just stupid. For 75 bucks I'll give you a shitty CD and a personalized blow job. That's a much better deal.”
“Selling overpriced worthless junk for much more than it's worth is the American way. How do you think I made all my money?” – bill gates
“weiss is the lisa loeb of athens music.”
“bands can also have "ambition" without fucking insulting their fans by selling an album for 75 bucks.”

Now some of this is just standard local music scene behavior, the ‘anyone who gets successful is a jerk’ syndrome you find around town, but Ms. Weiss attracts a special resentment due, in large part, to her commitment to self-promotion and relentless marketing of her product—Allison Weiss.

The problem with criticizing Ms. Weiss for promoting her music, which is what most of these people do, is they tend to lose sight of the music. And her music is extremely interesting—and in it’s own way, extremely un-interesting—when compared to the way she markets herself.

Let’s look at that music? Is it as good as Gordon says it is? Well to me, his praise reads more like a series of backhanded compliments. He says, “better than her last album. . . somebody on the internet will buy it. . . ‘matter-of-fact’ lyricism. . . great with a band (my emphasis)” He certainly can’t think it’s ‘great,’ not coming from a writer who in his year-end summary last year described 2008 as “yet another year where the lions (sic) share of critical kudos went to completely safe, predictable and bland music. Absolutely nothing pictured below did anything to change or challenge the artistic paradigm in which they operated. Yes, that includes Lil Wayne.”

I understand that local paper protocol means Gordon couldn’t call Weiss’ new album “safe, predictable, and bland” even if he wanted to so let's cut the guy a break. I, however, don't work for a paper, but I am interested in digging a little deeper into her music since it's the one thing that nobody in town wants to talk about beyond a "like it/hate it" level.

As music her songs are harmless enough, sweet & catchy melodies presented in an accessible and straightfoward manner. Although, this too, could simply be the result of market research and Weiss’ ever-bending-backward attempt/desire to please her audience.

The lyrics are a lot more interesting. Every single one of her songs—and I have just read through all 45 of them on www.allisonw.com/lyrics (the “comprehensive Allison Weiss lyrics website")— addresses a “you,” presumably a boy, who is unwilling/unable to commit to a relationship as serious as the narrator would like. Perhaps this reluctance to sing about anything other than love is also just sound marketing. Gang of Four explained it better than I could.

Love crops up quite a lot as something to sing about,
cos most groups make most of their songs about falling in love
or how happy they are to be in love,
you occasionally wonder why these groups do sing about it all the time -
it's because these groups think there's something very special about it
either that or else it's because everybody else sings about it and always has,
you know to burst into song you have to be inspired
and nothing inspires quite like love.
These groups and singers think that they appeal to everyone
by singing about love because apparently everyone has or can love
or so they would have you believe anyway
but these groups seem to go along with what, the belief
that love is deep in everyone's personality.
I don't think we're saying there's anything wrong with love,
we just don't think that what goes on between two people
should be shrouded with mystery.

And as far as Gordon’s whole ‘dude-you’re-gonna-feel-like-an-ass when this record comes out’, the implied idea being that Allison Weiss is gonna tear that guy's ass up with her scathing lyrical putdowns, I have a feeling that the guy who breaks Joanna Newsom’s heart, or Lady GaGa’s heart, or even Miley Cyrus’ heart is more likely to “feel like a real ass”. As a writer, Weiss seems incapable of expressing any emotion crueller than disappointment. And anyway, she always saves her harshest criticism for herself.

In a year when 13 people in the Athens area have already died as a result of domestic violence, when women at her university and in her local music scene are still forced to deal with issues like rape and abuse and coercion, Weiss’ take on relationships can charitably be described as naive. Let’s look at those lyrics.

From “Try To Understand” (not a Heart cover)

And I know I'll miss the bad jokes,
and the way you never called.

If this qualifies as scathing, then Gordon must also think that “He’s Just Not That Into You” is the embodiment of militant feminism. Elsewhere in the song, Weiss spends a hell of a lot more time blaming herself for the relationship’s failure and apologizing to the man for not being good enough.

On “Yer Going Down”—not about what you think it is, although that would be a feminist statement—she accuses an ex (were they ever in a relationship? Like fairy tales, Weiss’ insight into relationships never goes beyond the “courtship” phase) of being a “fading scar,” and a “liar”. Setting aside the fact that scars don’t actually fade—that’s what makes them scars—Weiss fails to specify whether or not his pants were on fire.

From “You + Me + Alcohol” (it equals exactly what you think it does, i.e. an awkward physical encounter facillitated by large quantities of “wine” and “liquor” told from the persepective of a narrator who “can’t remember the things we did”).

This bottle of liquor I left in my kitchen
Was finished the night I was finished with us
I kept it around, although it was empty
So empty like you.

And that’s it, in album’s worth of songs, I have just referenced every single negative thing she says about the guy who “broke her heart”. And what’s sadder, it would have taken me ten times longer to list all the negative things she says about herself. Anyone who mistakes Weiss’ self-promotion for self-confidence obviously isn’t looking very closely.

The thing that galls me about Weiss’ art isn’t her music. Or even her lyrics. Those things are meant to be appealing, in the sense that beige stores and strip-malls are appealing, or in the way that Chick-Fil-A provides good customer service. If a landlord painted their strip mall blue, or pink, or any tangible color, someone somwhere might not like it. And that would mean less money. Better to paint it beige. After all, nobody dislikes beige, right?

And while there are plenty of people who find her music appealing, I’m afraid to say that I'm not one of them. At best, Weiss is a mediocrity. And the fact that there are people out there who like, or even love, her music doesn't make it any less mediocre. Although as a 37-year-old male who hates the color beige, I don’t think it was ever supposed to appeal to me. Wrong demographic.

And it isn’t her self-marketing that gets under my skin. I don’t like it, but if she’s willing to do it, more power to her. Granted, it reinforces the idea that we live in a world where people who lack self-confidence (or have enough self-confidence that they don’t feel so driven) might go unheard. Or, as Weiss herself put it in a recent interview, “Unfortunately, its about more than just writing great songs. You have to be organized and you have to be on top of things and you have to be putting yourself out there in the real world and online”. An idea like that is demoralizing to any artists who might lack good organizational skills and a desire to put themselves ‘out there’.

No, the problem I have with Allison Weiss and her art is the way she incessantly refers to herself as a D.I.Y. artist, which in case you don’t know stands for Do It Yourself. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure she wrote the songs by herself. And she has certainly promoted her career by herself. But it seems a little disingenuous for somebody who has been a full-time student for the duration of their music career, who hasn’t had to work a job while she’s been in college, and yet still found some way to record & promote her initial recordings, to call themselves “D.I.Y”. Certainly when it comes to promoting her music, no one has helped Allison Weiss but herself. But if your family creates an environment that allows you to do spend all your free time promoting your music, can you really say it's D.I.Y.?

You can say it. But if you don't bother mentioning all the advantages and resources that other people gave you, that actually allow you to do all these things in the first place, then you're either being naive or you're allowing a lot of other people who might share the same dreams as you to feel a little less good about themselves because they're not able to work as hard as you do. When anyone knows that working 25-plus hours a week while you're in college, or 40+ hours a week if you're not in college, at some job you hate is a hell of a lot more "D.I.Y." than spending your free-time galavanting around the country doing something you love while someone from home pays your rent.

As an artist, Allison Weiss sure is good at marketing herself.

In the interests of rebuttal, here’s a link to a recent interview with Ms. Weiss. (www.grassrootsy.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/an-interview-with-allison-weiss/)

Because I Don't Have The Time/Energy To Write Anything About Athfest

2009-06-27T09:00:00.005-04:00

Michael Jackson died a couple of days ago, and to hear people talk about it, there are two ways of looking at Michael Jackson's life.

1) He was a musical genius, and we will miss him.
2) He was a washed-up pedophile.

As for number 1.

That's pretty genius.

As for number 2, a lot of people are using the word 'allegedly,' to describe Michael's checkered past. Let's get this straight once and for all. When your defense is, 'While I may have shared my bed with this boy, and many other 10-year-old boys, I can assure you that nothing sexual ever happened,' even if you're telling the truth, that's still extremely inappropriate.

And you're certainly not innocent.

And if he loved children so much, where were all the little girls?

But that's only half the story. Michael Jackson grew up in a physically abusive household. He watched/heard his father beat the shit out of his mother and his brothers from the time he was born. And when he got a little bit older, he got to experience these beatings first-hand.

The next time you make a joke about all the surgery he had done on his nose, you might want to consider the nose he grew up with looked exactly like his father's.

Ignoring his sister's unproven allegations that she & Michael were sexually abused, during his Jackson 5 days Michael shared hotel rooms with his older brothers while they had sex with girls after their concerts. No one is sure when Michael Jackson has his first sexual experience, but you can be sure he got plenty of offers.

In the movie, Deliver Us From Evil, a documentary about Father Oliver O'Grady, a Catholic priest who sexually abused children in his varous parishes talked candidly and openly about his actions and the motivations behind them.

O'Grady was molested by a priest at the age of 10, as well as his brother. In the movie, he suggests that these early experiences had an effect of eroticizing childhood as a whole. In short, he just finds little kids sexy--or to be less crude, sexual. It's not a reach to suggest that something similar may have happened in Michael Jackson's life.

I'm not looking to villify him, just to better understand him.

Beyond his musical talents, Michael Jackson was a victim of abuse who grew up in a hell that most of us could never imagine. The fact that he wasn't strong enough to break the cycle of abuse, that he endured tremendous suffering as a child only to grow up and inflict a similar suffering on other children, doesn't make him a monster. It just makes his story, and the world we live in, that much sadder.

His life was a tragedy, with plenty to go around for everyone. I hope Michael Jackson is finally at peace, and I hope his suffering has ended.

Live Review – Ghost, Magik Markers, Dark Meat @ Tasty World, May 13th

2009-05-14T10:55:00.002-04:00

We had bands from all over the world Wednesday night—if you still consider New England to be part of the world.

Ghost exists in the place where Stairway to Heaven meets Paperhouse, where In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida meets I am Damo Suzuki. On the wall behind the stage of Tasty World, a set of multi-colored christmas lights encircles the venue’s logo. If you stare into the lights for ten seconds and then close your eyes, a washed-out image of the lights will project itself onto any surface you look at. This is an excellent way to experience Ghost’s music.

If you look behind the post that sits between you and the stage, you will see that there are seven members of Ghost, except for when the lone female member leaves the stage during certain songs to read silently from a piece of paper.

The band announced themselves with an ear-rattling gong. It was a far more effective opening than, “Hi, we’re Ghost”. Then followed 45-minutes of mind-blowing, big-bang- re-enacting, space-between-the-notes-exploring cacophony. Eventually, an air of predictability began to set in, a certain feeling of sameness. Ghost likes their tempos plodding and their chord progressions descending. Was it still awesome? Was it worth the ten dollars? Of course it was. But by the end of the show, it started to feel mind-blowing in a predictable way, which is kind of strange to think about. At this point in their career the weirdest thing Ghost could do is write a charging, ramones-like, pop song. Now that would be psychedelic.

The last time I saw Magik Markers was 2004 when they opened for Sonic Youth in Norfolk, Va. They’ve shed some members since then, and gotten a lot less aggressively confrontational. Here’s what a Magik Markers show looked like in early 2005.

There was none of that on display on Wednesday. As anyone who has a copy of their last album knows—it’s called Boss, and it’s really great (I’ll burn you a copy if you want)—Magik Markers has gone down a more traditional, song-oriented path since their early days. And as anyone who has a copy of the limited edition Gucci Rapidshare Download (I’ll burn you that one too), they’ve only gotten more interesting over time. They have a new album out last week called Balf Quarry that I haven’t listened to yet, but judging by their show last night, it’s worth checking out. This song sounded awesome last night.

I got there at 10:45 and Dark Meat had just finished playing. It figures that on a night of acid-fried weirdness theme, this would be one of the few shows in Athens history to actually start on time. Oh well. A friend shrugged her shoulders when I asked about their performance and said, “They sounded how they always sound”. So I guess we’ll have to continue waiting for the moment where the Meat try to embrace their inner Britney Spears only to fail miserably in the attempt and inadvertently invent an entirely new form of pop music that changes all of our lives forever.

Or maybe I’m asking too much. Whatever. Regardless. All I know for certain is the person responsible for bringing these bands to Athens, including Dark Meat, deserves a free drink/sandwich/burger the next time you see them.

Reading Between The Lines: Flagpole Mar. 17th - Medications feature by Jeff Tobias

2009-03-20T22:12:00.007-04:00

Listen: you’ve seen Rush in Rio, right?

I’ve seen Blame It On Rio, the 1984 comedy starring Michael Caine as a man who has an affair with his best friend’s barely legal daughter. The film was marketed with the tagline, "She's the hottest thing on the beach. She's also his best friend's daughter!"

It’s not hard to find; it’s the DVD with the purple dragon on the cover - the purple dragon with the Chiquita banana headdress.

That’s not helping. And it is hard to find. At the very least I didn’t see it at Eastside Vision Video.
What treasures await you on this glorious digital video disc? Classics such as “YYZ,” “The Spirit of Radio,” and “By-Tor and the Snow Dog;” a few solos (a lot of solos);

Oh, you mean the band Rush. But to answer your question: No, I have not seen Rush in Rio. And I have not heard Rush in a very very long time. So I guess Rush is coming to town? That’s pretty cool, I guess.

punctuations of the band’s patently Canadian - uh, “quirky” - sense of humor.
(Alex Lifeson: “This is jazz. Jazz… is weird.”

I'm not sure Mr. Lifeson's humor is very funny. And I have no idea how it is Canadian, let alone patently Canadian. It may be quirky, but whether or not it is "quirky" is open to debate.

Yeah, dude, so is pushing a female cop down a flight of stairs).

And that humor is really not funny. Which means that Jeff Tobias is now officially less funny than Alex Lifeson from Rush. Congratulations.

Also: 40,000 Brazilians absolutely losing their goddamn minds.

I do not think I will be purchasing/renting this video anytime soon.

So, it makes good horse sense that these people, these Portuguese-speaking aesthetes, would love them some Medications. Because you see, Medications - currently comprised of Devin Ocampo and Chad Molter - have dedicated their musical careers to something a little like Rush, a little like The Who, a little like King Crimson, but always, always, with an ingredient these honestly great bands have always lacked: humility.

Whoa. Wait. All that shit about Rush was just a lead-in to some band coming to town who has ‘dedicated their musical careers [sic] to something a little like Rush’?

By working exclusively with Washington, DC’s standard-bearer of music industry ethics, Dischord Records (with both Medications and their former project Faraquet), Ocampo and Molter have, career-wise, driven home the point of punk rock: the music can be glorious and powerful, but people are people.

First off, I believe that ‘people are people’ was the message of Depeche Mode, not punk rock. And 'music can be glorious and powerful' was Led Zeppelin's, or even Van Halen's message, but I am pretty sure that 'music can be glorious and powerful' was not the message of the Sex Pistols, or The Clash, or Buzzcocks, or Rancid, or Avril Lavigne. I always thought punk rock’s message was “anyone can create art regardless of their technical ability, as long as it has passion and is original".

Second off, Dischord Records is signing bands that sound like Rush?!?

Oh. I guess they aren't. It sounds to me like Dischord is signing bands that sound like either singer from Fugazi fronting a band that plays in unusual time signatures. We know Medications are good at fractions, but how good are they at converting them into decimals? And are they so good at fractions that instead of dividing up their paychecks they multiply their paycheck by its reciprocal?

Devin Ocampo sings like an ordinary guy because he is one.

Maybe. Or maybe he sings like a Fugazi guy because he wants to be one.

Now sit back and prepare to read one of the most dull interviews a band has ever given.

“Faraquet had split up by 2001, and it wasn’t the type of situation where we were going on hiatus; we were done,” says Chad Molter, emailing Flagpole from his home in Denver. “So, we all moved on to doing separate things. Devin and I continued to play music in different projects until our paths crossed again with Medications.” The differences between Faraquet and Medications are akin to those of two close but distinct brothers. Guitar lines and vocals hit points and counterpoints, always with muscular confidence (not macho posturing). The main element, it seems, is always rhythm: Ocampo and Molter are both, by turns, excellent drummers.

Wait, so there’s two drummers in the band? Do they take turns? I am no longer being a smart-ass, I am honestly confused. And as long as I’m here, what exactly does “guitar lines and vocal hit point and counterpoints” sound like?

Faraquet’s martial, all-elbows approach to the so-called “Dischord sound” took a turn for the ethereal with Medications, but both are bound by Ocampo’s personalized, acrobatic guitar playing and steely vocals.

So does Ocampo play drums or not?

Molter’s contributions have been more fluid: while he’s in his more comfortable role as a punchy, aggressive bassist in Medications, he learned his way around the drums, implausibly, in the staggeringly complex setting of Faraquet. “That was basically where I learned how to play [drums], with a lot of patience and assistance from Devin,” he says. Now the two multi-instrumentalists have set out to compose a new record, taking full advantage of their combined skills, if not their proximity.

This is giving me a headache, but I think I’ve got it now. Molter plays bass in Medications, but he learned to play drums in Faraquet, which is the band these two guys were in before they were in Medications. And in Medications, they've been sharing duties because it started as a recording project. I think.

This is no longer a music feature; it is a murder mystery. If you just keep reading long enough, you learn what the story's about.

“I live in Colorado now, so we have a lot less time to collaborate in person,” explains Molter. “Lately we’ve been writing separately and then coming together and working things out for shows. The situation is a lot looser in some respects because we’ve gotten away from having a certain role or just one instrument to play in the band, which, for us, had been a bit inhibiting in the past.” Fellow jack-of-all-trades, Mark Cisneros, will be filling in the gaps live. The progression from Faraquet’s never-sit-still restlessness to the more spread out, patient state of Medications’ union has continued in their new long-distance setting.

Here’s some live Faraquet. Notice how far they've progressed. (And notice how I'm using sarcasm to set up my punchline--that wasn't too subtle was it).

Wait. So this video is of the restless band, and the other video was of the spread out, patient band? To me, these bands sound a lot alike.

It makes sense: simplify as you go. “I think that we’ve both moved toward writing songs that are a bit more stripped down in their arrangements. There isn’t as much writing going on when we get together, just some refining. All in all, the music is moving in the same trajectory, which began when we first started playing together many years ago. We’re still writing what, to us, are just weird pop songs.”

This guy and I definitely do not hear music in the same language.

Not so weird, however, that they would alienate our South American neighbors.

Well, thank christ for that. We’ve got enough problems with Venezuela as it is.

It seems like most of the band’s touring as of late has been in Brazil: “We were contacted, pretty much out of the blue, by a Brazilian production company, and, after working out some details,

Money.

we decided to go. The Faraquet tour happened in a similar way. When Medications played Brazil we discovered that there were some Faraquet fans hiding amongst the general population, so, with the help of a lot of really great people we had met over there, we decided to do some shows as Faraquet. We never really intended to get Faraquet back together,

But they offerred us money.

but when we decided to finally re-release some material that had long been out of print, we started talking about doing a few shows or possibly a short tour or two. With the exception of a few shows in Brazil and one in DC, that never panned out. Devin and I had never seriously thought about jumping back into Faraquet again. It’s hard enough to keep one band going.”

I cut & pasted this article into word so I could start fucking with it, and when I got to this part, I went back and looked because it seemed like the article had gotten cut off in the middle. But it didn’t. This is where the article ends.

Look, this isn’t meant to be a slam on Tobias. He's one of the best writers on the F-pole. Also, pre-assigned word counts are a bitch, and it’s obvious from reading the quotes off his e-mail interview (which may or may not have allowed for follow-ups) that Medications didn’t give him a whole lot to work with. And the one-sheet offered up by Dischord is even more boring, if you can believe that. You can read it if you don’t believe me.

www.dischord.com/images.d/press_release/filename/9/149_Medications.pdf

And I know the music editor is in Austin right now for SXSW, but this is one of the most confusing, poorly organized articles I’ve seen in the F-pole in some time. I had to read it three times to fully understand what the article was about. Something I haven’t had to do since they made me write that Derrida paper in college. And to put in all that effort just so I could learn that there’s a band coming to town that plays a type of music that at least a half-dozen bands in this town (yes, including We vs. the Shark) can do just as well if not better, left me feeling a little bitter. Bitter enough to spend an hour writing this anyway.

At least Tobias didn’t use the term “shuddering climaxes” to describe their music, the way the guy from Pitchfork did.

Besides, "shuddering climaxes" describes Chris Hassiotis' writing this week a lot more accurately than it describes the music of Meditations.

Gemini Cricket @ Flicker this coming Sat. Feb. 21st

2009-02-20T20:56:00.003-05:00

At some point, when no one was looking, Gemini Cricket grew up. A band that a year ago (delightfully) sounded like the sweetest little sugary group you could ever book for your young elementary-school son’s birthday party is in the process of becoming something more sullen, if not downright dirtier & nastier than any of us ever could have imagined.

Gemini Cricket is the virile offspring of a married couple—for only a married couple could conceive of something so simultaneously wholesome & frightening—named Blake and Sara, and an eavesdropping neighbor on drums named Marie. When I saw them last year, they were all kazoos & handclaps, shy winsome smiles. Last month at the GoBar they seemed about to spontaneously combust, lost in reverb and sharp angry guitars. Check out the latest demos posted at www.myspace.com/geminicricketband if you’re interested in proving that such a thing as evolution exists. Even the most hardened creationist, darwin-hating, evangelist would throw up his hands in surrender when presented with the band’s supernatural mutation from the slide-whistling, self-deperecating, insect-mentioning, nursey-rhyming “Cricket Theme” to the stomping, filthy “Sizzle Pop”.

From childish. . . to Billy Childish.
From bagged lunch. . . to Naked Lunch.

From this...

To this...

They're also playing with Sphinxie, a band who spits genius, and a band who seems fundamentally incapable of purusing anything resembling a "career". Watching them promote themselves is like watching the shy kid at your junior high trying to get up the courage to ask someone to dance. If you see Sphinxie on the street, go up and ask them to dance. You'll be glad you did.

Gemini Cricket's new recordings are from a session they did last month with local producer Jesse Stinnard. According to this week's Flagpole, the session should result in a 7-song ep. They are playing tomorrow night at Flicker. And again at Flicker on March 6th for those of you who don't want to miss out on the Aux Festival--oddly not a french derivative of 1983's "Us Festival," a concert that should be best remembered for this guy...

I think Gemini Cricket could take him in a knifefight, along with his sissy bandmates.

On Influences: Vivian Girls (a guest blog)

2008-12-13T00:36:00.012-05:00

To Henry Darger, the Vivian Girls were warriors. They were children with the courage of grown men. They were victims and aggressors, fighting against the notion that children were somehow beneath the dignity of adults, and represented in thousands upon thousands of exquisitely catalogued drawings and narratives. The Vivian Girls were beyond human, twin-sexed--sometimes drawn with penises--perhaps pragmatic and perhaps meaning nothing at all. But they were the only tool in Darger’s extremely devout and socially anxious toolbox to help him process his childhood of abuse and his lifetime of solitude.

In the year 2008, the Vivian Girls are a band. They are a good band. I like their record, the self titled “Vivian Girls,” but something is not quite right. They are both meaningful and meaningless, and it is hard to say why. Maybe they are meaningful because of their potential to show us something about the way artists go from listening to creating their own music.
Why meaningless?
Because who really gives a shit anyway…

Incidentally, The Vivian Girls Experience from Philadelphia is an avant-garde duo who make up songs called “kitten lemonade stand,” and who have at least had a myspace since 2005. They also have some very impressive craft and costume making skills.
http://www.myspace.com/theviviangirlsband

The Vivian girls in 2000 were a band from Melbourne, Australia, now disbanded. They list their influences as New Wave and Situationism. Now THIS, sounds like my kind of band.

Needless to say, that PBS special “In The Realms of the Unreal-the mystery of Henry Darger” sure has been getting around. That reminds me that the Public Broadcasting Corporation relies on support from viewers like you.

But this is a story about the Vivian Girls, the band. The band in 2008 made up of three girls: Cassie Ramone, Kickball Katy and Ali Koehler. A blonde, a brunette and a redhead. Not necessarily in that order. This is not a joke. Their album sounds like a hazy reflective on a whole host of bands that have in the past moved me to embrace the dual nature of destruction and creation in life, my femininity and masculinity. They have moved me because I expect the music in my life to bring about the next step in evolution. So it is natural that when I first heard the signifiers in the album:
Surfy Beat Happening guitar riffs (mmm, Black Candy!)
Vocals somewhere between Talulah Gosh and Heavenly
Vaseline’s Harmonies
heavy on the distortion, reverb on the vocals,
are you kidding me…I was excited. Especially because of how it stood out in the rotation of my local college radio, WUOG.

But after a few listens I started to notice a theme…no context. No life experience. Lyrics just added as an afterthought because songs are supposed to have words. Generic. Copied. Because its cool enough. Because its easier.

On their Myspace the Vivian girls want you to know that they are influenced by the Wipers, Nirvana and the Shangri-las. These are the bands that they want you to hear when you are listening to their music. This is perhaps more interesting then what their music actually sound like. It is interesting because they sound more like the bands that Kurt Cobain was into, than what Kurt Cobain used them to become. While Nirvana and Wipers (even though Nirvana certainly came after) seem to have evolved from a common ancestor (like Chimpanzees and Bonobos), Vivian girls seem to be a de-volved version of the two. If they are evolving from anything, its more likely a branch off of the Social Distortion evolutionary tree. Why?
Well lets take a look at some live performances:

And for a follow up, a look at some more of their recent “controversial” (if controversial means you are BORING, and having a conversation I have heard 100 times already) video interviews:

Vivian Girls: Zing!.

Vivian girls are without a doubt a band searching for a sound, but who have nothing to say about the present, let alone the future. They are not as Jonathan Richman once said, “In love with the modern world”. And even their love for the old world is suspect.

I played it for my friend at work who’s first response was “Wow, this doesn’t sound modern at all!” He was right. So it got me to thinking about what it means to produce art in 2008 and have nothing to say about the future. And more than that, what do the Vivian girls have that is uniquely their own? Are they creating anything new? I think the answer is yes and no. There are really beautiful moments on the album, like the high pitch harmonies on the song “Where do you run to” which reminds me of the Vaselines. And there is the warmth of the California sun (Which I have never experienced, but imagine often), synthesized by a certain kind of guitar tone that I don’t understand, in the song “damaged” which reminds me of one of my other favorite bands, X.
So at their best Vivian Girls owe their moments to bands from 10-20 years ago.
And this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if they could do so with the enthusiasm and creativity of, oh lets say, another one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite’s: Shonen Knife.

I mean these ladies really were in love with the modern world. I get the feeling they liked the Ramones too.

And on second thought, the absence of a modern sound is not really the Vivian Girls’ crime either.

What about Thee Headcoats? I thought.
While in 2000, still using all of the sound signifiers of 1960’s lo-fi garage rock, Thee Headcoats still sounded like a fucking force to be reckoned with. But this is because of what was under the manifest sound. It is not a repeat of 60’s garage rock, it is 60’s garage rock from an alternate dimension. It has something new to say about the past and what it is like to deal with that past in the present and future. I suspect this is probably because of Billy Childish’s horrifying experiences of childhood sexual abuse when he was 9 years old. It was best put by the love of my life who said, “Um…I don’t think anyone ever wrote a 60’s garage song about looking at the gun in their father’s hand, or the day they beat their father up.”
Good point.

Speaking of fathers, Kickball Katie told a story about her father (Mr. Kickball? Kickball daddy?) in this interview:

Vivian Girls: What the Fuck?.

My point is, Vivian girls do not play music because their life depends on it. They play music because they want you to like them. There is a certain divining truth in music which is almost always true: If you are a boring person, you cannot make yourself anymore interesting by playing music. Your voice will reveal the truth, who you really are (or who you really aren’t). There was something communicated in Kurt Cobain’s voice that was extra-worldly. It felt as though if he didn’t get it out maybe the whole world would end. And maybe someday it will, but I do not think the Vivian Girls are anymore interested in this than they are with Sarah Palins’ fabulous million dollar haircut and debate “zingers.”

But in the end, I do like them. But I also feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for the fact that they are so emotionally young in such a big world, in such a big time. I feel sorry for the fact that they are talented musicians and have nothing to say, because there is a lot of sadness in really trying to create something meaningful for yourself and having it be meaningless to the world around you. (That would make a good song!) Listening to their recent video interviews I was reminded of hanging out with girls just like them in High School and early in college. No experience and an opinion on everything. They are not interested in anything other than repeating what has been said to them by someone they believed was interesting. They are no different from girls in Sororities, they just wear different clothes. They have different symbols but the same ritual context, the same class background. Just as it did then, it leaves me feeling utterly alone. It leaves me beginning to understand why Henry Darger chose to live his life in solitude with only his made up world to help navigate what was left of his sanity.

In many ways , the Vivian Girls are just like the naïve college girls that Jonathan Richman used to sing to from the cold sidewalks of Boston (still kind of inappropriate Jonathan…). He was pleading with them, that if only they would think for themselves, if they would only have the courage to live without the fear of disappointing your parents or having someone laugh at you, the fear of being alone, then their lives could be so full of meaning, joy and mystery. Just like how Henry Darger’s interior life was so rich, despite his ultimate fear of real human contact. So I guess why the Vivian girls’ are more of a disappointment than some band that just plain sucks is because of the stunning promise of what they could be, and that they seem to be running in the opposite direction of that promise.

Vivian girls, who cares what people say about you.
put out your cigarettes
and act like real girls.

Posted by: Lester Bang Bang on the door, Baby

Looking for Writers.

2008-12-01T23:18:00.002-05:00

Submissions accepted.
Opinions wanted.
Writing desired.
Drop us a line.
This is a standing offer for anyone who comes across it.

Live Review - No Age, Titus Andronicus @ 40Watt Sat. Nov. 14th

2008-11-19T22:37:00.007-05:00

Titus Andronicus went on first, in the sense that they went on before NoAge.
Titus Andronicus went on second, in the sense that they went on after the first band.
In the sense that I didn't see the first band, Titus Andronicus was the first band I saw.

I came close to seeing Titus Andronicus play at the Squirrel earlier this summer. On the way to the 40Watt, I was trying to figure out why I didn't end up going. Once they started playing, I remembered that I had gone on their myspace page and found out that I couldn't stand them.

A fable.

Sometime in the early/mid 90's, when Gilman St. all-ages punk was still all the rage, a group of pirates abducted the young, prebubescent punk-obsesses future members of Titus Andronicus. Raised on a steady diet of up-down beats, and too much beer, the now-bearded & foul-mouthed youths were dumped somewhere in New Jersey with a house full of instruments. Left to fend for themselves and sing for their supper, they seized on the one thing everyone in Jersey can agree on--Springsteen, and spat out their influences in a giant five-personed splat.

That's what it sounds like anyway. Stage banter ran all the way from "fuck me" to "fuck you," usually settling on the latter. The songs all sounded like a testosterone-laden, sea-chanty, harmonica-blowing, Ruby Soho-sounding mess. And so it came as no surprise when the singer took issue (during a between song monologue) with something one of the NoAge guys had said the night before.

"Fuck Springsteen," said the guy from NoAge.

Mr. Andronicus let it be known that if anyone said anything like that tonight, then we would be settling it "outside in the alley with fists and knives" (which come to think of it sounds like a line from Born to Run). I'm sure the only thing that kept him from punching/stabbing NoAge the night before was his four other band members holding him down and reminding him that NoAge was the headliner of this tour, and a whole hell of a lot more well-liked than Titus Andronicus.

By the way, Titus is from Glen Rock, New Jersey--a town 20 miles northwest of New York City. Aside from the fact that it's lame as fuck to love Bruce Springsteen simply because he's from the same state as you (I'm imagining Pylon playing this week in California, and Vanessa pitching a fit because someone doesn't like The Black Crowes), it's even lamer when you live closer to Julian Casablancas than to Asbury Park. Fuck Titus Andronicus, and fuck Bruce Springsteen, the Fonzie of Rock'n'Roll.

Turns out NoAge only said 'Fuck Springsteen' as a joke because they were getting ready to cover a Misfits song, and were propping up their favorite Jersey artist by tearing everyone else's favorite Jersey artist down. Of course the NoAge guy sounds more like Jad Fair than anyone else from Jersey, and there's more that happened in this whole turf war but I'm getting tired of telling the story because it's a whole hell of a lot less interesting than what NoAge did, or at least tried to do on the stage of the 40Watt club for the sixty or so people who came out.

If you had trouble sleeping this summer because your allergies were acting up and you weren't able to breathe so you stumbled downstairs and drank a glass of emergen-c and while you waited for your breathing to return to normal you may have been lying on the couch flipping through the channels when you saw this video on Mtv--yes, the actual Mtv.

By going more ferocious, more experimental, more psychedelic, NoAge has been able to add one more chromosome to the inbred DNA of the high-pitched white indie-rock singer gene. I'm talking the Superchunk - Built to Spill - Modest Mouse- Shins voice, the thin strangled squeak-shout straining to impart knowledge & emotion. By upping the MBV and lovering the GBV, they've been able to make something fresh for the indie world.

For a band with two members and an album that sounds nearly as dense & layered as Loveless, NoAge live sounded surprisingly like NoAge on record. Modern technology is an amazing thing. The band did everything they could to fill the space, climbing on monitors & speakers, jumping down into the audience (20% of the audience was moshing, 95% of the moshers were moshing non-violently--health & safety ed.), ranting against Proposition 8--a California band's version of name-dropping Springsteen. The show was beautiful, cathartic, and loud. They went well past 1am and nobody left until they played their last note.

I wasn't bored for one second, and I can't remember the last time that happened.

Here's some footage from a show they played two weeks earlier, same song they opened with at the 40Watt.

More fun facts about Glen Rock, NJ, and by extension, Titus Andronicus.

avg. income per household - $104,192.
Pct. population below poverty line - 2.4%

Same numbers for Athens.

$28,118
28.6%

No wonder they think Bruce Springsteen is actually a real person.

TV On The Radio - Dear Science

2008-09-27T12:58:00.004-04:00

It's only been officially available for five days. Doesn't matter. This is the best thing they've ever done.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this album a year from now, or five years, or ten years. Let's just say that TV On The Radio has finally found the perfect balance in their music between dread & anticipation, between apocalypse & redemption. Between art & pop. Music that would sound at home on radios as well as museums--95.5 The Beat & MOMA.

TV On The Radio embraces their contradictions like it's the only thing that can save them.

I could tell you the story of how they made the album, I could pick out snatches of lyric that signify & evoke. That stuff's available all over the internet wherever you look. And it's definitely worth reading, especially the band's testifying on behalf of Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face" and The Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian".

Instead, since this is presumably a blog about Athens music, it might be nice to mention that this band who has played all over the world played a show here in town at the 40Watt a year ago. They didn't have to come here. It was probably the smallest town, the smallest venue they played the whole tour.

Anyway, I was hanging out at the old X-Ray Cafe when the band stopped in to look around. I was having a weirdly introverted, raw-nerved kind of afternoon, so I just let them do their thing. Smiled and nodded hello whenever someone made eye contact. Listening to them chat with the store's owner, they sounded nice, funny, friendly, down-to-earth, and decent. I couldn't think of anything to say beyond thanks for coming to our town and playing this show, so I left them alone. Later, when they put on one of the most ferociously transcendent shows I have ever seen (check out this appearance on David Letterman for a taste)...

...it made me feel even better to know that these people were genuine in what they were doing.

This is an album to live with, to listen to over and over. In a time when so much that passes for culture is disposable and flat, TV On The Radio has done that rarest of things--created something that can exist in any world you want it to, even if that world is disposable and flat.

And in the process, they may end up making the world a little less flatter.

Here's the first video from the album.

Tunabunny Feature

2008-09-21T14:32:00.011-04:00

So how did you guys all meet?
“Well I think I met Mary Jane first”.
“No, I already knew Chloe through Jesse”.
“But really, Brigette and I went to Cedar together so we met first”.
“But as far as Tunabunny went, I guess it started when you and I were working Saturday mornings together”.
“Or when we started going to sing Karaoke”.
“Okay. Really it started when me and Scott started dating”.
“When we moved in together, really, is when I think it started. Because then your dad starting bringing over his old gear”.
“And we started playing Devo and Pere Ubu songs together”.
“No, just say the band started when I met Chloe at that Pylon show and she told me she played drums. That’s when the four of us finally got together”.
“You know what’s messed up is I remember Chloe asking me if she could be in our band like, a year earlier. I remember having to tell her there was no band”.

Tunabunny has existed for anywhere from 5 months to a year, depending on how you look at it. They played their first show in April, and since then have gone from a ramshackle mess getting by on potential (and enthusiasm, and charisma) into something more purposeful and controlled. Which is not to say that they’ve lost any of their freedom, or that the songs are calmer or more tamed, it’s just that now you can actually hear the songs. Now, the band is in charge of their music, instead of the other way around.

“Well those first shows at the GoBar, we’d be sitting outside talking to people, and all of a sudden someone would say ‘you’re on’—”
“And we’d rush inside pick up our instruments and start playing”.
“Only it was so insanely dark in there that we couldn’t see a fucking thing”.
“I just remember looking down at my bass and going, ‘That’s funny, I can’t see the dots on my bass”.
“Yeah, we’d all be playing on the wrong frets for like the first three songs until our eyes adjusted”.

Tunabunny tends to finish each other’s sentences. Mary Jane and Brigette, the two singers and guitarists, went to high school together at Cedar Shoals. They’ve known each other for nearly ten years. Scott, the bass player, met Mary Jane working at Jittery Joe’s and they became quick friends though a shared love of The Breeders and Karaoke (“and beer,” adds Scott). When Scott started dating Brigette, he was shocked to find out that she already knew Mary Jane.

“Chloe was always kind of on the periphery”.
“I knew you from working at Five Points”.
“And I just knew you as Tay’s friend”.
"And that time at the old store when I asked you to turn up The Velvet Underground after that one asshole customer asked you to turn it down”.
“Oh yeah. That was totally awesome”.
So how did the four of you all start playing music together?
“Well at first it was just me and Scott, and we kept inviting people to come over and play with us. Mary Jane started coming regularly and that really clicked. But we still needed a drummer—because I didn’t want to be stuck behind the drum set. So once I met Chloe and found out she played drums, she came over and it just took off from there”.
Chloe, had you ever played drums in a band before?
“No.”

It turns out that hardly anyone in Tunabunny had ever been in a band before. Mary Jane and Brigette had both been playing guitar for less than a year. Scott had played one show with Summer Hymns before quitting—“they wanted me to play guitar, I hate playing guitar. Besides, I was having more fun playing with these guys”.

I wanted to ask you about your sound.
“What about it?”
You don’t really sound like any other band. I’m wondering how you did that. How you got to sounding the way you do.
Four sets of shoulders shrugging at once. Then Brigette takes a shot at it.
“It’s just the way we sound when we play together. It’s always sounded like that. Maybe it’s because we have such cheap equipment. I really don’t know”.
Well what are your influences?
“I always tell people it sounds like Kim Deal singing for The Fall. Either that or Kylie Minogue singing for Pere Ubu”.
“I think Electrelane is a band we all like”.
“I was really interested in shamanism and transcendental states”.
You mean like in Native-American culture?
“Well partly that. But that’s also something that exists in Patti Smith, or gospel music, or Can. You find it in all kinds of places. These sort of incantations—like Little Richard, ‘a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop’, or speaking in tongues—I was interested in those sort of ideas of freedom and breaking into the spirit realm”.
“I just want people to have a good time, to maybe feel a little bit more freer after seeing us”.
What about the knocking stuff over? And using the mic stand to play your guitar?
“That’s just fun”.
And laying on top of the synthesizer and rolling around?
“That came from Sun Ra”.
“And besides, I have to keep playing the guitar”.

I’ve seen a lot of bands toss their equipment around onstage, and I’ve seen a lot of bands abuse their instruments, but I’ve never seen a band do so with such innocence and glee as Tunabunny. Kurt Cobain, Sonic Youth, Iggy Pop, etc. always seemed to be in such anguish as their amps toppled over. Tunabunny seems more like elementary schoolkids whose parents left them in charge of the house. Hey, let’s put the toaster in the microwave. That’ll be fun!

So you’re recording an album now?
“Yeah, Jesse asked if he could record us, so he’s set up this old 8-track reel-to-reel out at our house”.
“It sounds pretty amazing”.
How many songs do you have written?
“Um, probably 13. Either 13 or 14”.
How do you write your songs?
More shrugging. “Someone just starts playing something, and then the rest of us follow”.
“Unless someone brings something in”.
“Or someone says something and we start singing it over what we’re playing”.
“Like, ‘You Can Stop If You Want To,’ We’d been playing that chord progression for like ten minutes and then Scott started singing that part over it as a joke, saying we could stop playing it whenever we wanted to. But I liked it so I wrote a bunch of words to go with it”.
What’s that song about anyway?
“Um. . . it’s about personal freedom, and how we all have the ability to make choices. But also about how scary that can be. Because when you allow others to tell you what to do then you’re not responsible for your behavior. But if you’re in control of your life, that you leaves you wide open to all kinds of self-questioning and risk. Which, you know can make life all the more glorious and beautiful”.

Tunabunny sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before. They say they have no plans to do anything with their album for now except give away CD-R’s of it to anyone who wants one. Find them.

Songs Dark Meat Should Consider Covering - Vol. 2

2008-07-20T09:53:00.006-04:00

Steview Wonder - 'Superstition'

If you're looking for a reason to head out to SixFlags this summer, look no further than their American Music Awards rewind show taking place in one of the dark, air-conditioned auditoriums. If you like your history of music award show performers reduced to a series of 10-second clips--my heart broke when they cut off Prince in the middle of 'Purple Rain'--then this is the show for you. Featured performers include Mariah Carey, Britney Spears. Michael Jackson, and this guy.

The clip's from Sesame Street by the way, so even if you know the song backwards & forwards it's still worth a look.

Why this song for the Meat? Well aside from the horns, etc., it's got the same kind of war-watching dystopian hangover that the best Meat songs strive towards. Also, it might break them out of that white-boy up/down rhythm they're so prone to and help them learn how to swing.

I haven't found a song yet that might teach them how to sing. But the next time I'm over at Jim's house I'm going to hide all of his Mudhoney records, and the next time I'm over at any of those girls' houses I'm going to hide all of their yodeling records. They must have some seriously extensive yodel collections. It's the only explanation.

Incidentally, the guy who posted the youtube clip calls this the "ultimate feel-good song". Only if you don't listen to the words my friend, only if you don't listen to the words.

Going Overground with Sheryl Crow's new video

2008-06-29T11:50:00.005-04:00

If you feel you wanna fight me
There's a chain around your mind

--Sheryl Crow
the first line of "Out of Our Heads"

Here's the link to the video. Embedding has been disabled for the video in all formats, so feel free to open the video in another window for maximum reading pleasure.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WMBnUuiLR7U

And minimal listening pleasure. A song so bad it can almost make you decide you're in favor of the war. It has to be heard to truly be believed. The music is harmless enough. The verse is four chords on acoustic guitar set to a beat that's vaguely funky in a mid-90's white person kind of way (think Eagle Eye Cherry or Dave Matthews). The chorus then shifts into a more straightforward singalong a la "Give Peace a Chance"--which this song clearly wants to be--only with a more insistent beat. And the production at every turn is as clean and polished as some asshole's SUV sitting in line at the Chick-Fil-A drive thru at Beechwood when Athens is still in a drought.

Lyrics? Fuck yeah there's lyrics. When you're writing a protest song, one might say that the most important part of the song is its lyrics. Given a myriad of choices, Sheryl Crow goes for the easiest and most time-tested way of getting her message across: Trouble in the verse. Hope in the chorus. So let's start with what's wrong in the world, according to Sheryl Crow.

Oh, and be sure to keep it vague as possible. So nobody gets hurt.

Losing babies to genocide / Oh where's the meaning in that plight / Can't you see that we've really bought into / Every word they proclaimed and every lie, oh

You know the problem in this world today? Too many people supporting genocide. And not just genocide of adults, but something even worse--baby genocide. I'll answer your question, Sheryl Crow. There is NO meaning in that plight.

Interseting to note that Sheryl uses more pronouns without telling us what they're substitutes for than a gay person at bible camp telling us about their 'partner'. And just who is the 'we' that bought into the words 'they' proclaimed? Sheryl and her band? Sheryl and all Americans? Or did she just decide that using 'you' was too preachy, too finger-pointy, and would make it seem like she was blaming people for buying into a war started under false pretenses? See, Sheryl, I can use rhetorical questions too!

Thing is, if you believe people really did buy into every word and every lie, then, um, they kind of are to blame. And I think including yourself in that group by saying 'we,' so you won't hurt their feelings, kind of sugarcoats it. Especially when you didn't buy into every word and every lie. That's called disingenuous. It's also called manipulative. It's also called thinking the people you're talking to aren't as smart as you are. Which is fine if you think that, but you might as well come out and say it.

I'm going to cherry-pick the lyrics, but only in the interests of time & space because believe me they are all bad in the same vague, pseudo-poetical, pseudo-loving way. Sheryl Crow has put out a song that makes "We Are the World" feel like Public Enemy. In fact, let's cleanse our palette with a little PE right fucking now.

Public Enemy - Son of a Bush

Man, that felt good. So good it can almost make me forgive "Flavor of Love". It certainly gets its point across more clearly than this next verse from "Out of our Heads".

Through the dawn of darkness blindly / You have blood upon your hands / All the world will treat you kindly / But only the heart can understand, oh understand

As they like to say on the internet, WTF? Okay, last verse.

Every man is his own prophet / Oh every prophet just a man / I say all the women stand up, say yes to themselves / Teach your children best you can / Let every man bow to the best in himself / We're not killing any more / We're the wisest ones, everybody listen / 'Cause you can't fight this feeling any more, oh anymore

The problem with a song this vague, aside from the fact that it can't make up its mind between advocating either: 1) self-reliance at the expense of group thought or 2) putting the needs of the world ahead of one's own desires, is that people believing they were the wisest and that every man is his own prophet is a huge part of what got us into this mess in the first place. And any sensible analysis of our current fuckups has to take into account that the people who got us there really thought they were doing something good. Even if their logic was faulty, they still had noble intentions. This idea is important, because the chorus to this song, the part that Ms. Crow wants to get stuck in our heads, the section that every other part of this song is preparing us for, her great message, goes like this.

If we could only get out of our heads / Out of our heads /And into our hearts

So the problem is. . . we think too much? That we should just follow our hearts? Trust our gut instincts? This is the answer?

Aside from the cheap shot that I didn't realize being too much in our heads was the cause of baby genocide, isn't someone following their gut instincts in place of all tangible evidence, believing in their hearts instead of logic, kind of what got us into this problem in the first place?

The video is every bit as unfocused and clusterfucked as the song it represents. It features Sheryl and her band 'performing' the song on a stage. Set in black & white, there's no audience in the hall but plenty of smiles on the band's faces. Interspersed with the performance footage are clips of protests through the years, all of them protests in America of course, and people throughout history flashing the peace sign.

These peace flashers range from historical figures like Bobby Kennedy and Boris Yeltsin to Kobe Bryant and Fergie. Every Beatle is represented except George Harrison. The list features one war criminal--former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who in addition to unnecessarily prolonging the Vietnam War for an additional six years (and his own political gain), also illegally bombed Vietnam's neighbor Cambodia, creating two million refugees which in turn helped lead to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, who once in power genocided nearly three million people, including lots of (gulp) babies. And the list also features a president so crooked he was convicted of several felonies and would have gone to prison had he not been pardoned. No, not George W. Bush--though he's in the video flashing the peace sign as well. We're talking about Richard Nixon.

See! the video wants us to say, everyone believes in peace! Even the people who start the wars in the first place!

Let's end with the list of all the peace flashers I was able to recognize in the video. The punctuation's random because I had to type fast.

jimmy carter
bobby kennedy
fergie
Michael moore
Donald trump
slash
allen ginsberg
harry truman
jimi Hendrix
wyclef
cindy Sherman
paul McCartney
ringo starr
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of iran
yassir Arafat
george w. bush
patti smith
bono
jerry Garcia
al sharpton
martin sheen
jerry Garcia
john & yoko
carlos santna
boris yeltsin
elvis
stevie wonder
Richard Nixon
Winston Churchill
Henry Kissenger
Vladimir putin
kobe Bryant
jane fonda

And do you know what all these people have in common?

Not a single peace flasher had webbed fingers.

Let's hear it for evolution!

The 2008 Flagpole Music Awards

2008-06-24T16:42:00.006-04:00

The classiest amateur show in town made its 10th appearance last Thursday at the Morton Theater (excuse me, Morton Theatre). As uplifting as a decent church service, and as dependable as the winner in the World Music category giving props to the upcoming solstice, even if it occasionally veers towards hokiness & self-indulgence, the Fpole Music Awards are still a good bang for your Athfest buck. And even if it lasted nearly four hours, or about as long as the televised portion of the Academy Awards, I didn't start to get bored until the third hour. And I sure can't say that about the Academy Awards.

While we're on the subject, the big winners--in a Hollywood sense--would have to be Dark Meat and Of Montreal. If you're the kind of person who's interested in winners (and if you're reading a low-profile blog, how could you not be), you can check them out, along with video of the show, at Fpole's website, http://flagpole.com/Awards/. They also have video of the UGA drumline kicking off the show, which was pretty awesome, even if one of the Fpole's managing editors climbed inside my head and stole the joke I was going to make about this being the closest anyone in the audience had ever been to a football game. Too bad, because it was a pretty good joke too.

The music performers represented as wide a cross-section of Athens Music as possible: Indie, Folk, Jazz, Hippie, Rock, and Hip-Hop. And though award shows are a time for celebration and love, I have to mention that my head is still pounding from Moyuba!'s bongo-fest. Not really a drum circle, with five members it was more of a drum parabola, but their relentless tribal drumming ricocheted off the natural reverb of the theatre until it sounded like an army about to go fight a war, or at the very least go roast a pig or something.

No pictures of the actual award itself on-line, but it does feature a masterstroke of postsrutcturalist Saussere-ian wordplay by placing the word 'Flagpole' on a flag. Nice one. But an award show isn't about the award, or about winning, or which band is better, or even who plays, it's about memories, and this show was packed with them. We learned that with his deadpan wit, someone should immediately give Mercer West (spelled 'Mercre' while inside the Morton) his own late night talk show. On the other hand, we learned that Michelle Gilzenrat shouldn't be allowed within a hundred feet of a live broadcast until she gets her tourette's syndrome sorted out. And for anyone taking part in the downstairs betting pool, what were the final odds that Gilzenrat would be the potty-mouth instead of Mercer? Certainly higher than the odds that Dark Meat's Jim would be the only presenter who insisted on bringing his beer out to the podium with him when the Morton doesn't allow any food or drink into the actual theater because it's 100 years old and made out of wood. How oh so very rock'n'roll.

Actually, Michelle was a very charming, and occasionally funny, co-host. The other master of ceremonies, Clay Leverett, had his good moments--like using the sparkle mirrors on the award podium to reflect the spotlight back into the audience, along with his not-so-good moments--like always complaining about the sound guy turning down his mike, or feeling the constant need to sing along with Kenosha Kid's instrumentals. He also told us to "give it up" so many times that by the end of the show I started to think I was (pick your favorite):

a) a mormon cheerleader on prom nite
b) an altar boy right after sunday mass
c) a congressional page in an airport restroom
d) r.e.m.

Let's just go ahead and make this the negative section of our post. You know that show on local cable, "Classic City Dining"? Well they had the hosts of that show out to present some awards, and they were only slightly less brittle and smiling than they are on their show.

Oh, and when C-Fre$h said during his performance--which was great, by the way--that we've never seen anyone like him before. Um, I'm pretty sure I have. Just saying.

Alright, back to the positive.

Which just turned negative since I can't embed the awesome video from The BuddyRevelles that won one of the Sprockets music video awards, because the copy & paste capabilities of the internet/youtube are totally and utterly failing. And after ten minutes of trying, including my successful attempts at copy & pasting other videos, I refuse to take any responsibility whatsoever. Here's a link instead.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ShvpcC9jmmQ

The song's neither here nor there, a finely assembled wall of shelving in a late 90's indie rock sense, if you're looking for that sort of thing. But the video is creative, watchable, and funny.

Other highlights included Tofu Baby trying to pronounce "Perpetual Groove" though her constant lisp as she announced the nominees for Best Jam Band, and the Of Montrealers doing their theatrical non-sequitir livening up the party thing. Have to figure Kevin was the guy dressed up in the deep-sea-diver outfit flopping around on the floor and cleaning up confetti with his legs.

The show ended with "Spring Tigers vs. Twin Tigers", a subject already covered on these pages. It was cool and different how they divided the stage in half and had each band alternate songs, but even if Spring did nothing to embarass themselves, I still gotta to with the Twins, who sounded even better live than they do on their recordings. They're just a few hooks away from doing something memorable and fantastic.

It would've been nice if the show ended there, but then they brought everyone out to sing Queen's "We Are the Champions". On a night that featured the very best of what the Athens Music Scene has to offer, I'm pretty sure that this moment--whether being sung in mocking insincerity or misguided earnestness--wasn't one of them.

Holy Fucking Athfest!

2008-06-18T19:02:00.000-04:00

If it's the third week in June, it must be time to celebrate all things Athens music in one glorious weekend. Back in 1789, our town founders asked themselves two very important questions. What's better than Athens? and What's better than a festival? And they found two very important answers. A festival of music! and Having it in Athens! And with that Athfest was born.

A third question, why would I pay fifteen bucks to see the same bands that I can see play any other weekend for five?, thankfully went unasked.

(I know. It's not for the locals, it's for the out-of-towners. It's just a joke. It's cool).

So with 15 local venues all featuring music at once, and with cloning still illegal--if not scientifically impossible--how can a music lover deicde which shows to check out? Well, you can check out this week's Flagpole (Chris Hassiotis is excited about seeing Kuroma, because they sound like "Paul McCartney inviting Yes to come jam with Wings" Yowsa! Count me in!), or you can decide for yourself. Or you can keep reading. If you stay with me I'll try to make it sound more exciting than Michael Andrews talking about Curley Maple, who he describes as "a comfortable, back-porch sound that gets warmer and more inviting with each listen." Well in that case, I hope they play at least three sets, so I can get myself good and warm & invited!

Honestly, there's only one band I'm dying to see this Athfest. And that's Creepy.

No, not creepy like this.

Creepy like this.

Taking the best parts of Hopeforagoldensummer, Still Small Voice & the Joyful Noise, and sounding nothing at all like either one, Creepy is offering the one thing that no other band in Athens can guarantee this Athfest: Something Different. Saturday night at Flicker will be their first show. Judging by the songs on their website (www.myspace.com/creepyashell), Creepy sounds like Alice in Wonderland singing with Public Image Ltd. Or to put it more abstractly, a good Creepy music video would feature penquins and sunsets, with a glass cathedral held together with duct tape. Too abstract? Fine, then. The guitar is brittle & coated in layers of delay, the bass is full & textured, the vocals are non-existent and echoing.

Eno would love this.

You can walk into this show and have no idea what to expect--of Creepy, of their future, of yourself. An Athfest miracle.

The rest of the festival?

--I'll try and be in the front row for Dark Meat. So I can turn around to watch the look on the audience's faces. Later, I'll try and get Jim to autograph my copy of Superfuzz/Bigmuff.

--And it's times like this I curse my parents for not having any other kids. Because if I had a little sister, I could take her to go see the Modern Skirts and she would love me forever. I mean, look at this picture.

Otherwise, nothing I'll be seeing that I wouldn't be able to see in the next month or so.

Oh, except for the movies at Cine. Check out The B-52's at the Downtown Club in 1978. Most of the show is on youtube. Click on the link and swoon with nostalgia.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VN8hV4AyNss&feature=related

Without them there wouldn't even be an Athfest. There would barely even be an Athens.

Incidentally, I won two free wristbands off WUOG by answering a trivia question. How many layers does a Yoo-Hoo drink settle into? I guessed three. It turns out De La Soul (and Schoolhouse Rock) was right. Three really is the magic number.

Tiger vs. Tiger

2008-06-12T15:10:00.001-04:00

There's two bands in town.

Spring Tigers (www.myspace.com/springtigers).
Twin Tigers (www.myspace.com/thetwintigers).

And if old west towns weren't big enough for two sheriffs, then is Athens big enough for two Tigers? Should one have to leave? And if so, which one?

Athens Music Express breaks it down by using arbitrarily chosen categories, because that's what boys do on the internet.

Name

The name Twin Tigers is a lie. Because there's four people in the band.

The name Spring Tigers is also a lie. Because it's currently summertime.

Spring Tigers named their band after a Guided by Voices song, so they gain two points. But they lose five points for self-consciously naming themselves after a song off one of GBV's obscure 1993 7-inches (and they lose ten points if they named themselves after the version on that 'Suitcase" boxset). What's the matter ST? Too cool to name yourselves 'Motor Away'?

Verdict: TT by a whisker. (get it? whisker).

Looks

First, ST.

Wow. I think I saw these guys on Ellen the other day. Her audience loved it. The question is, do they work at Hot Topic just so they can get the discount? Or do they do it because they love the music?

Let's not even talk about the leather jacket.

Alright. Now, TT.

They seem very nice. And I'm liking that sweater.

Verdict: TT by a landslide.

Localness

ST frontman Kris isn't even from America, let alone Athens.

TT frontman Matthew grew up here and went to ACC public schools. Can't get much more local than that. And before Twin Tigers he was the main guy for Psychic Hearts, who were awesome. Loses points for changing his last name to 'Rain' though. But he would've gained points if he'd spelled it 'Reign'.

Verdict: TT seem to be doing pretty well so themselves so far.

Sounds

TT's touchstones revolve around the hazy psychedelia of My Bloody Valentine, Animal Collective, etc. Vocals are a little glammy, a little on the fey side (Bowie, not Tina). They're not reinventing the wheel, but at the same time their sound isn't overtly commercial. Still, it gets kind of hard to tell sometimes exactly which band has the english guy singing for them. And there's a huge cloud hanging over their head with the word DEERHUNTER written all over it in big pink letters.

ST's music would fit nicely into the soundtrack of whatever the big overprivileged white teen tv drama is these days. I'm getting the feeling these guys had to call a band meeting on the day The O.C. got cancelled. The singer uses the same snotty intonation as grade-schoolers do on a playground. But I'll bet you money his dad cannot beat up my dad. Also, negative 1000 points for claiming to be influenced by Syd Barrett and Wire when you really sound like Phantom Planet, or a more sober and high-pitched Strokes, or one more Plain White T's.

Overall, there's a cetain plastic feeling that hangs over their music. Which would be interesting if ST loved plastic, or if they hated plastic, or if they spent their whole lives trying to escape the plastic all around them only to end up with assholes like me calling them plastic. Unfortunately, they're content to just be plastic. Which isn't very interesting at all.

Verdict: TT for honesty, and for choosing the (slightly) harder path to stardom.

Final Judgement

Hey, wait a second. Athens isn't that small, and if we can have a Dark Meat and a Christopher's Liver, then why can't we have two tigers? They can both stay! And maybe they can even play a show together at halftime when UGA plays the Clemson Tigers! And eat Frosted Flakes together with Tony the Tiger while they read Tiger Beat! And cover 'Eye of the Tiger'!

That would be gr-r-r-eat!

Besides, I'll eat my own shit if Spring Tigers is still living and playing here 4 years from now.

Sphinxie @ Rye Bar - June 7th

2008-06-12T14:38:00.000-04:00

15 thoughts about Sphinxie

1) Sphinxie has a myspace page. You can go there if you want to.

www.myspace.com/youaresphinxie.

2) It doesn't really work as an advertisement. It's more like grafitti. Or an inscrutable billboard.

3) Sphinxie is building a career the way insurgents build their bombs.

4) They don't really belong on Mtv. More like the Discovery Channel, or National Geographic.

5) Here is a picture. It is a picture of a cellphone.

6) Did Patti Smith ever sing with Beat Happening?

7) There are three members of Sphinxie; a person who sings, a person who plays bass, and a person who drums.

8) Maybe the way to make music that is different & unique is to actually be different & unique. I mean as a person, living your day-to-day life in a constant mix of wonder & irritation.

9) Because when their microphone kept crapping out, when the staff at the Rye Bar was hopeless & elsewhere, and the man in the Hawaiian shirt was starting to heckle, they just decided to play louder and sing as a group.

10) Because most bands in this town are no different than the bum on the street begging for some of your change, begging for more of your time, certain in the knowledge that you couldn't have anything more important to do in your life than to listen to them. The only difference is the bands want your attention & money so they can quit their jobs and live in a mansion. The bum just wants some booze, or maybe some crack. Which makes the bum smarter than the bands. Shit, at least he's going to have a good time.

11) Wasn't early Pavement fronted by the Carter Family?

12) Because their set is so short and mysterious that as soon as it's over you want to hear it again, to make sure you really heard what you think you did.

13) Here's another picture. I don't know what it means.

14) Because this show was so transcendent that the next time I see Sphinxie play I wouldn't be shocked in the least if all three members fucking levitated.

15) It's going to take a long time to get bored with Sphinxie.

Songs Dark Meat Should Consider Covering - Vol. 1 of a series

2008-06-01T09:05:00.000-04:00

Fleetwood Mac's 'Tusk'

Granted, it would be hard to convince the band members to gradually come in one at a time (The Meat loves the all-at-once skronk. Dynamics are for pussies!). But the tribal drums, the marching band horns, the mix of male & female vocals. It's all there. Just waiting. Can't you hear it? And if you look close enough, Mick Fleetwood even looks a little bit like Jim!

Paul Thomas - Portraits of the New Subconscious @ Cine, Sat. May 24th

2008-05-25T12:37:00.002-04:00

Paul Thomas, Athens’ very own Andy Warhol (or is it Andy Kaufman? Andy Griffith?) put on an art show at Cine that was half installation piece, half music. The portraits themselves, film loops of intense close-up faces which are then multi-exposed and slowed down, are the best thing the artist has ever done. Unsettling in their beauty, unsettling in their detail, unsettling in their lighting, unsettling in their horror, these are a long way past their most obvious historical antecedent, Warhol’s screen tests back in the sixties.

The musical accompaniment featured Thomas (maybe Andy Gibb?) and friend Christopher Ray constructing a droning atmosphere out of samples and synthesizers, which were then sped up or slowed down to match the action taking place in the center screen, which featured film trailers from the 60’s and 70’s for exploitation B-movies with titles like “Bad Girls Go To Hell” or “Deadly Weapons,” provided by Michael Oliveri. With the portraits projected on either side of the main screen, the faces seemed to change expressions in response to whatever was taking place in the movies.

So it turns out the ‘new subconscious’ is pretty similar to the old one. Sex & Violence, Tits & Death, Freud would be proud (or maybe Andy Dick?). The film trailers have more breasts than a farm of Purdue chickens, more knives than a troop of boy scouts, more violence against women than Super Bowl Sunday, more sex than a thirteen-year-old’s imagination, more rapes than Milledge Avenue during rush week, and more deaths than a Florida nursing home at Christmastime.

At the very least, it was funnier than Juno.

There were two ways to experience the show, in a 15-minute burst, or to sit through the whole 2 hours. For the people who chose the first option, they left a little more amused, a little more disturbed, and a little more entertained. For the people who stayed for the whole show, the experience gradually began to shift from entertaining to excruciating. Even Thomas (Andy Richter?) went outside halfway through the show and didn’t come back until it was over. The sheer absurdity of boob after boob, of mutilation after mutilation, eventually gave way to a kind of numbness, a blank nihilism that can’t be countered. By the end of the show, you felt like you needed a shower.

In spite of the void it portrays, or perhaps because of the void it portrays, one could argue that ‘Portraits of the New Subconscious’ does reflect what it means to be an American in early 2008--certainly more than the Don Chambers show taking place over at Tasty World the same night. After all, we are the first people to live through a war that is taking place, with the exception of the soldiers and their friends and families, primarily in our subconscious. After an hour of watching, I wanted to look away. And I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty thinking about the people who are surrounded by this every day, but who aren't able to get up and walk out of the theatre after fifteen minutes, let alone two hours.

Maybe it would sit a whole lot better if the show traded in its definite article and called itself ‘Portraits of a New Subconscious.’ Because while nobody can deny the show’s truth, it remains only a partial truth. There is a lot more to our subconscious, as well as our conscious, than blankness, boobs, and battering. Any art that suggests otherwise is only telling you half of the story.

Paul Thomas’ show Saturday night displayed his genius in full, but his most brilliant gesture of the night may have been when he got up and went outside.

The New Sound of Numbers @ Caledonia May 19th (w/Paper Tanks)

2008-05-21T14:34:00.000-04:00

One of the most interesting bands in Athens just got a lot more interesting. The New Sound of Numbers (aka Sound Houses) unveiled their new line-up this past Monday night at the Caledonia and they were a revelation.

Past NSofN shows have been uneven, uncertain, and all too often uneventful. As someone outside the group, I have no business speculating on what’s been going on behind the scenes---and as a small, self-indulgent, non-journalistic blog, I have no business going up to anyone and asking questions--but lead NSofNumber Hannah Jones has evolved from a deer-in the-headlights performer into a more confident, self-assured front woman. She’s never going to be Bono and start swinging from the rafters, but there’s a sense of freedom and abandon in her performance that we haven’t seen before. Her vocals feel more relaxed. And to all the people who have described her singing as ‘bored,’ I know what you’re saying and why you’re saying it, but there’s a difference between sounding bored and sounding like an angel who has seen beyond the empty promises of heaven. There’s a texture in Hannah Jones’ voice now, or maybe it’s the inflection of her eyes, that says she knows exactly what she’s doing.

Previous comparisons to The Raincoats were unfair to the Raincoats. Now that comparison is unfair to The New Sound of Numbers.

The new songs reflect this growth as well. They’ve progressed from two chords in a song to three chords, and from one note melodies to two note melodies--the NSofN equivalent of adding a string section. Where previous songs seemed content to pace back and forth in a sparsely decorated room, the new ones occasionally go up and down the stairs, even if they never leave the building--let alone the neighborhood.

They played a cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ that made perfect sense. It sounded like a lost NSofN song, the kind of thing you can’t pull off unless you know who you are.

Reasons for growth? I blame the drummer. NSofN has turned downright groovy, becoming a dance band in the sense that Pylon is a dance band--adding Randy Bewley guitar with them means less than you think it does but more than you don‘t. The band were having so much fun playing their last song that they didn’t want to stop. This says there’s a ‘Sister Ray’ inside NSofN that is dying to get out.

But.

For a band that just overhauled their sound from an overcast afternoon into a rainbow, it’s understandable they would want to change their name. And having read the explanation--new personnel, different methods of making music, etc.--on their website I’m not going to argue on behalf of keeping their name. . .

But.

If you’re going to trade in a name that is bright, distinctive, and original you’d better come back with one better than the flat, anonymous-sounding, shittyband-reminding ‘Sound Houses’. The name comes from a phrase in a Francis Bacon essay, quoted in full on the band’s website. As a general rule, if you feel the need to explain why the name of your band is a good one, then it’s probably not as good as you think it is. It’s a shitty name because it isn’t fun to say. It’s a shitty name because it doesn’t jumpstart your imagination. It’s a shitty name because there isn’t any mystery, no sense of surprise. But ultimately, it’s a shitty name because this band deserves better.

Though it’s still better than naming your band Vic Chesnutt.

Paper Tanks went on afterwards. They want to rip open your heart and feed it to you without ever raising their voice, and they are totally fearless. If you find yourself at a show and they’re about to go on, you have a very important decision to make--not about them, but about yourself.

Going Overground with Gavin DeGraw

2008-05-16T15:53:00.000-04:00

Gavin DeGraw's new song, "In Love With A Girl," (note the heterosexual emphasis, the posters on the walls at Abercrombie must be starting to make Gavin a little nervous) may taste like a bowl of white rice followed by a warm glass of water, but the video is the most subversive thing you're likely to see on tv this week.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ftZ0jpYdn70&feature=related

The video is divided into two overlapping sections. The part where Gavin plays the song with his band is about as worthless as you'd imagine. However, the second part tells a story about Gavin and the girl he's in love with, the girl mentioned in the title whose greatest feature, according to Gavin, is her ability to understand him--which means she's definitely smarter than I am.

The story opens with Gavin's lovegirl locking the doors to the southern California department store where she works. Throwing off her blue workapron, no longer an employee, no longer a wage-slave to whatever company she works for, she text-messages Gavin to come meet her, where they proceed to turn the after-hours store into their own personal playground.

They don’t call their friend with a van to load off thousands of dollars worth of stuff. Freed from their jobs, left in the store to do anything they want, they instantly revert to a childlike state of play. All they want from the store is the chance to goof around with the video cameras, to jump up and down on the beds and throw lots of pillows. They want to ride in shopping carts and try on sunglasses without anybody hassling or telling them to behave. We see them hugging every thirty seconds and their liberation is contagious. Even the scene in the lingerie department seems innocent. You can watch Mtv for 24 hours and not see any two people happier than this.

There’s a security guard who spends the first-half of the video sleeping. When he finally wakes up and goes looking for the kids, they evade him effortlessly. He’s part of the old order, someone who prays to the twin altars of rules & decorum. He cares a great deal about this job, about this store, about the things in this store, and his caring becomes a weight that he wears in his face, that settles in his shoes and makes him slow. Too slow to catch the kids he is chasing, who are young, free, and care about nothing except pleasure. They are beyond their parents’ world, where the value of something is defined by how much it costs. To Gavin and his girl, the only value something has is how much pleasure they can take from it. And to deny themselves the opportunity to make some money out of their situation, or to acquire some more possessions, is the greatest freedom of all.

Their parents would probably consider it insane to pass up such an opportunity. The kids probably consider it insane that their parents voluntarily dedicated their lives to working and spending, acquiring and dying, without ever learning how to enjoy themselves. Intentionally or not, Gavin DeGraw’s new video is tracing the outlines of a revolution we are still in the process of articulating--a revolution that will lead us out of the same boring circular work-spend-work-spend patterns and into a deeper and more rewarding spirit of play.

Now if his bloated corpse of a record company would just let us upload the goddamned video.

Ken Will Morton @ Craftravaganza 5/10

2008-05-11T09:07:00.001-04:00

Best early Bob Dylan impersonation in town, right down to the capo and the metal harmonica neckbrace. The between-song jokes were funny enough to make you wonder whether he'd taken the time to write them the night before. But the jokes resonated more than the actual songs--which were sub-Dylan in their poetry, sub-Springsteen in their portrait of working-class life (apparently it involves lots of drinking), and sub-Petty in their slavish devotion to both Dylan and Springsteen. Cool converse sneakers, though. But seriously, has this guy ever been seen in a McDonald's? Does he even own a television? For a guy in his late 20's he sounds a lot like my dad.

If you love Ken Will Morton, find out when his birthday is and buy him a decent book of contemporary poetry (may I recommend The Man Suit, by Zachary Schomburg?) and any record made after 1974. For someone who so obviously loves words and music, he has a lot of catching up to do.

Tunabunny at Go Bar - 5/9

2008-05-10T11:49:00.002-04:00

When exactly did the church behind the GoBar start charging for parking? Had to park three blocks away just to make it to the Tunabunny show last night, and only three cars even bothered using the goddamned (or it it 'godblessed'?) lot. Hope the Christians enjoy their extra fifteen dollars of income.

The whole sad waste made me feel like grabbing the nearest rock and shattering one of their tax-free stained-glass windows, but seeing Tunabunny made me glad I left those windows alone.

The bass player couldn’t decide whether he wanted to stand up or sit down. The drummer couldn’t decide if it was appropriate to use her cymbals. And the two singers couldn’t decide if they wanted to win the audience over with kindness or bash them into submission with feedback. Within thirty seconds of their first song, Tunabunny is already beyond several thousand conventions in local Athens band music. Two females (girls? Women? Babes? Chicks?) playing electric guitars? Using a synthesizer for percussion? One singer using her guitar as a hammer against her microphone stand, against the drumset, against the other singer’s guitar? And the other singer using her voice to try and shatter the windows of the bar, if not the vacant looks on the faces all around her?

With most bands, figuring out their sound is as simple as figuring out which store they came out of at the mall. Oh, that band must have gone to the alt-country store. Hey, that band must have gone to the smooth indie-rock store. But Tunabunny is a completely different animal. They seem to have gone to the mall just to pinch the mall cops and try to escape, or to beat up little kids in the arcade and take away their quarters. The kind of band who went to the mall and just decided to drift.

Tunabunny is a confusing mix of accessibility and incomprehension. A band that giggles when things aren’t going well, but inadvertently bumps into each other when they are. A band that one minute seems about to invent a new language for music, but in the next seems content to stroll through the same parks and gardens that invented them. Even at their weirdest, they still want to be loved. But even at their most conventional, they manage to sound otherworldly. In retrospect, it all seems so simple—two guitars, bass, drums, an occasional keyboard—but I can’t for the life of me tell you what they sound like or what exactly they are trying to accomplish. In the sense that it could have fallen apart at any moment—that any one person in the group may have decided to say fuck it and just walk off the stage forever—it was one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen. But considering that I couldn’t look away, that my bladder was full and cramping by the third song and I never once considered heading to the bathroom until they had finished, in that sense it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time.

And I can’t wait to see what they try to do next.