Album Review: Grape Soda - Form a Sign

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

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). . .

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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!

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

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...

...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

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)

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

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

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.

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.