As the Chinese government stage-manages every aspect of the Beijing Olympic Games, the array of tricks they’re employing to ensure that their country is portrayed well in the international media is stunning. Admonishing a country of carton- an-hour cigarette smokers to stub ’em out? Check. Getting things like “chicken without sexual life” off Beijing menus? Done. Cranking up a mysterious weather-making machine to ensure bright, sunny days? Believe it or not, yes.

But beyond their desire to make their roads look empty and prevent the Olympic athletes from noticing the, ahem, security cameras in their dorms, the biggest heartburn-inducing fear among Central Committee members is that some free-thinking Western performer is going to swan onto a stage somewhere and launch a pro-democracy rant, thus forcing the government to let loose their entire nuclear arsenal on the offending artist’s home country.

These concerns have led the government to augment their already byzantine restrictions on foreign performers during the Games. Even under-the-radar performances are under heavy scrutiny; entertainment mag Time Out Beijing’s June edition was banned from newsstands, and their August issue will be folded into September because there isn’t enough non-Committee nightlife planned during the Olympics to fill the pages. Bars are forbidden from hosting live music and a local music festival was cancelled, meaning the thousands of foreigners visiting the city will have a difficult time finding musical entertainment beyond the sanctioned cultural performances on the official Olympic calendar.

A majority of these concerts focus on China’s glorious cultural history, with a mixture of Peking Opera, symphony orchestras, dance performances and folk music. It’s all perfectly highbrow and ensures that nobody confuses the host country with a dictatorial, propaganda-driven sweatshop. Beyond the obvious issues of artistic freedom, this clampdown is a tragedy; by only letting China’s visitors see their preapproved music events, the government is also reinforcing their country’s image as a utilitarian, creativity-free zone, hamstrung by tradition, propriety and productivity.

Why not find some time in the schedule between the Wang Jiaxun Percussion Music Band and, say, one of the three scheduled Disney concerts for a group like Hanggai? This Beijing crew is composed of six musicians who were originally from Mongolia. The members started out in punk and rock bands, but, inspired by the full-throated singing style and sparse instrumentation of the music of their homeland, found a way to smoothly integrate both styles without diluting either.

If there were a Chinese version of No Depression (like that would pass muster with censors), Hanggai would be cover stars. Their recombination of folk styles and edgy contemporary music is roughly analogous to what y’all-ternative musicians have been doing to American roots music for decades. Except, you know, in Chinese ... and with really deep vocals. Hanggai’s music is – like the best alt-country numbers – fantastic to drink to, and the band has received considerable acclaim for their live performances. So why not put them on a stage, or better yet, a bar? The songs on Introducing are imbued with centuries of cultural history, but they pulse with the frantic pace of modern city life. Hanggai are indisputably Chinese, but also incredibly accessible for novice listeners who have yet to acclimate to the unique tonal complexities of Asian music.

Vocalist Sa Dingding similarly fuses Chinese musical traditions with a contemporary approach in a way that Western listeners should appreciate. Her Mandarin, Tibetan, Sanskrit and glossolaliac singing is inscrutable to non-polyglot ears, but her fluid vocal method completely eschews the squeaks and squeals associated with contemporary Chinese pop singers. The production on Alive creates swooning electronic textures that pivot off traditional Chinese instrumentation, undergirded by propulsive rhythms. Occasionally danceable and pop-oriented, Sa Dingding’s music is prismatic and nuanced – it draws as much from the centuries of culture in her homeland as it does from her collection of counterfeit Cocteau Twins CDs.

Sa Dingding’s efforts to trumpet the ruling party’s lines may help her avoid charges of being a counterrevolutionary, but it doesn’t appear that the singer will be performing at any officially sanctioned events. It’s the country’s loss; her music is a beautiful representation of the rarely seen artistic side of Chinese pop.

First appeared Aug. 18, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

Buy Sa Dingding: Alive and Introducing Hanggai at Amazon.com.

I wrote a story about Hercules and Love Affair that ran in Billboard a couple of weeks ago but I kept forgetting to get it up here. Anyway, click on the image above to see at full size (used with permission from Billboard).

2008 is shaping up to be a banner year of sorts of Patti Smith. Not that she needs banners, parades, or the like, of course. But just in the first six months she’s already been the subject of three books, one about her first album (33 1/3’s Horses, by Philip Shaw, currently reviewed in BLURT’s books section), one a career overview/analysis (Praeger’s The Words and Music of Patti Smith, by Joe Tarr), and one a paperback edition of her Auguries of Innocence poetry book (Ecco Press). There are two more volumes due this year as well: Land 250, a collection of her photography being published to commemorate a Smith exhibition which ran March 28 – June 22 at the Fondation Cartier Pour L'Art Contemporain in Paris; and Patti Smith: Dream of Life, a photography book by filmmaker Steven Sebring intended to serve as a companion piece to his documentary of the same name.

Sebring’s film was recently featured at the Philadelphia and Sundance Film Festivals (it won an award for cinematography at the latter) and will premiere at New York City’s Film Forum. The first officially sanctioned Smith documentary, it’s scheduled to run from August 6 to August 19, and it clearly marks a cinematic arrival of sorts for Smith — not that she needs an arrival, introduction or the like, of course. (BLURT readers can get a taste of it by viewing the trailer in our Video Section.) Perhaps even more significant is the fact that on May 16, Smith was honored by Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, granting her an honorary Doctor of Letters degree in recognition of her success in the fields of music, literature and art.

Meanwhile, there’s this new double-CD that arrives in stores next week, a collaboration between Smith and My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields. It’s the latest entry in Smith’s ever-expanding CV, although it probably won’t provoke fan excitement along the levels of, say, Horses or the Sebring film. Indeed, there’s a nagging sense listening to The Coral Sea (PASK) that it should be ... well, better. The knot of anticipation collaboration like this evokes is really almost ridiculous. Smith. Shields. A poetic homage to Robert Mapplethorpe. Two separate, hour-long performances. This, this meeting between the great 20th century punk poetess and the deified master of postpunk guitar atmospherics, it should transport me, yes?

Sadly, it does not. It’s through no fault of Smith or Shields, though. This two-disc presentation of two live performances of Smith’s “The Coral Sea” (one from 2005, one from 2006; neither substantially different in tone from the other) finds the both of them digging deep into their artistic hearts to deliver the goods. Smith’s emotional state is predictably tense, empathetic and defiant. Shields’ guitar work is surprisingly emotional and gently improvisational.

Yet, in much the same way that the book is always better than the movie, the Loveless better than the live show, The Coral Sea is ultimately a failure of format. Leafing through the open, airy pages of Smith’s 1996 book, you get a sense of the epic scope of this poem that tells of a metaphorical journey, but the words are also lent an additional, individual weight. There’s no distraction of sound, no inflection of voice to impart unnecessary and inappropriate context. When listening to The Coral Sea – rather than reading it – one is continually easing into Smith’s vocal rhythm or getting lost in the gelatinous noise emanating from Smith’s guitars. That’s not to say that these aren’t effective performances. They are, indeed. It’s just that this piece of poetry is both delicate and dense and hearing it is a totally different (and somewhat disorienting) experience than reading it.

[Note: the PASK label is an imprint created by Smith and Shields, but at present there is no PASK website. Patti Smith’s official site is at www.pattismith.net and Shields is via the My Bloody Valentine site, www.mybloodyvalentine.net.]

[Photo Credit of Smith and Shields: Matia Zopellaro/RETNA]

First appeared July 2, 2008 at Blurt!.

Buy The Coral Sea at Amazon.com.

Sleep Well, the new album by Electric President, finds the Jacksonville duo of Ben Cooper and Alex Kane expanding on the indie-pop/electronica vibe that won over fans and critics two years ago on their self-titled debut. With a more refined palette of sounds and a more intuitively pop-minded vibe this time around, the rather ubiquitous Postal Service comparisons should be sloughed off easily. Though Sleep Well was recorded in much the same way as EP's 2006 album — in a storage shed in Cooper's backyard — it still displays a much more refined sound. Cooper recently spoke with New Times about the process behind the album.

New Times: Would you say that there's been any great impact on your sound from having recorded in your backyard rather than your bedroom?

Cooper: I'm sure recording in the backyard has had its effect, but I can't say exactly how. I've been doing it regularly for the past six years, so it's hard to pick out the details anymore. Probably the most significant impact is that it forces me to record in the middle of the night, due to traffic. The shed is close to the road, so I have to wait until the cars die down before I can do any tracking.

The new album seems more mature-sounding — more textural and more fully formed — than the last. Is that because more time was spent making it or because the two of you have gotten better at what you're doing?

I'd say both. We didn't rush things at all. Where we spent seven or eight months writing and recording the first record, we spent 13 months on this one. But beyond time, the sound of this record was much more deliberate. On the first one, we were taking acoustic songs and chopping them up in computers. Lots of the work was done after the mics were put away. This new record was much less manipulated. The songs were just written that way, and there was a much stronger idea of the sound from the beginning and of how everything would fit together in the end.

Have you thought about utilizing more musicians when you play live?

We're in the process of doing that at the moment. We found a drummer recently, and he's amazing, and my brother is going to play keyboards/piano with us as well. We've begun rehearsing, and we're working out ways to translate the songs to a live setting. I don't know when we'll be able to tour, as Alex is in school full-time, but we should know within the next month or so.

First appeared July 10, 2008 in Broward-Palm Beach New Times.

Buy Sleep Well at Amazon.com.

The first and most important element of any healing method-be it music, acupuncture, herbal remedies, massages, or any other modality-is the intent behind it. If the healing practice is offered with pure curative intent, it will have far greater effect than if it comes with ego or commercial attachments. In music, this would mean that the music is specifically created not to sell a million copies and be nominated for a Grammy, but to relax or heal its listeners.  There are eight musical elements that contribute to music's healing power. Each one is healing on itself or in combination with others:

Drone

A long, uninterrupted sound or set of sounds underneath the music. It could be environmental sound or, in East Indian music, the tamboura. It could be the Australian aboriginal drone instrument, the didjeridu, or a choir of singers chanting "Om" on a single tone. It could be any sound or musical tone that forms the "bed" on which the rest of the music lies.  The function of the drone is to touch us in our physical bodies. If you were to chant a series of musical tones, you would notice that each one resonates in a different part of your body. Drone tones that zero in and touch specific physical areas can, if listened to and felt long enough, be used to help break down blockages and tensions. Very low drone sounds will vibrate in the denser, more massive parts of our bodies-our intestines, our stomachs. Very high drone sounds will resonate higher- in our throats, or our sinus cavities, etc. Visualizing drones going to the tense and blocked areas of our bodies can free physical pain and stress.

Repetition

During the last decade the Pachelbel Canon in D was a New Age "hit." Why? Because it was so comforting. And why was it so comforting? Because its theme was repeated over and over again.  When a musical phrase is repeated, the listener becomes comfortable with it. The listener knows what to expect and so lets the repetition enter into consciousness with no judgments. After awhile the music has a hypnotic/relaxant effect, and the listener is moved into a receptive state, a state in which healing can take place. In today's New Age recording market there are many, many extended-play tapes and CD's made up entirely of repeated musical phrases and/or mantric vocal chants. These are very good for body workers or yoga teachers other healing practitioners to have playing during sessions because they settle down clients almost immediately. Also, because they don't change or go in any particular musical direction, they help the clients center and focus on the healing to take place.  When the repetitions are varied somewhat they are more successful and less boring that when the exact same thing is infinitely repeated. In other words, when, from time to time, harmonies or gentle improvisations are added to the basic repeated phrase, the music is richer and more beautiful.

Harmonies

Also called overtones, harmonies are a phenomenon that naturally occurs whenever any basic musical sound is made, like a ladder above the fundamental sound, overtones climb in a series, but each "rung," or tone, is softer as it gets higher, so most of us can't really hear them at first listening. In the East, harmonics are called "unstruck" sound., the way most people experience harmonics is by hearing "a ringing of the rafters" immediately after live music has stopped. Harmonics are the most mystical of all musical elements and as such are the most spiritual. The function of harmonics is to balance the physical body with the layers of unseen bodies known as the aura. When the basic "struck" musical tone touches the physical body, it naturally-occurring harmonics (un-struck sounds) extend out, each rung touching and bringing to balance each layer of the aura. Today we have revived the ancient sacred practice of chanting harmonics with our voices. This involves the sound of vowels and can be learned easily by anyone. There are several recordings of Asian monks who chant harmonics as spirituals practice or choirs of musicians who do harmonic singing. This music, because of its ethereal character, is very balancing and healing to the spirit.

Rhythm

We human animals are rhythmic creatures. Whenever there is music with a beat, we unconsciously start moving to it either by tapping our toes or by swaying or dancing. Most musical rhythms are directly related to the pulses in our bodies. Through the phenomenon of entrainment, we beat in sync with whatever outside rhythmic stimulus we're exposed to.  The function of rhythm in healing music is to duplicate the healthy pulse. The most obvious pulses in the human body-and the easiest to duplicate musically-are the heartbeat, the breath cycle, and the brain waves. By experiencing music with healthy pulses, people's irregular pulses can often be brought to regularity.  Drum music, especially that of native peoples, is excellent for duplicating the heartbeat. Many Latin rhythms, such as Samba and Bosa Nova, are heart rhythms (though too fast for people with serious heart conditions.) The breath cycle, being asymmetrical, is often duplicated in the music of Eastern Europe and other cultures of the East. As for brain waves, in particular those moving us into meditation (alpha and theta,) these are easily programmed by synthesizers and found throughout New Age recordings.

Harmony

The emotional content of music is contained in its harmonies. When the harmonies are simple, the music is more restful that when harmonies are complex or dissonant. For example, in recordings of Gregorian Chant or the music of the 11th century mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, voices usually sing either in unison (that is, all on the same notes,) or one set of voices sings a melody and another set of voices sings the same melody in parallel motion five tones above or four tones below. This kind of chant harmony is present in native people's chanting as well. Music with simple and basic harmony doesn't challenge listeners emotionally and can be used for mediation, centering, and visualization.  Sometimes, when emotional healing from such things as childhood abuse is needed, more complex harmonies are called for, late 19th century and early 20th century classical music can be useful for therapists who want to help clients work through trauma and emotional disease because the shifting and changing harmonies help move the listener's feelings.

Melody

Have you ever noticed how a gorgeous melody can lift you right up out of your body? You might be so far out during such music that you aren't even aware that music is being played! This is the power of melody, the ability to take the listener away from physical awareness. The function of melody, then, is as pain killer. In some enlightened hospitals, patients are given a choice between pain-killing drugs and melodic music.  Melodies are built on sequences of musical tones called scales, modes, or ragas. There are literally thousands of these musical scales in the world, and each scale has an effect on the listener. The best Western scale for releasing pain and suffering is the wailing blues scale. In India there are thousands of ragas, each one designed for a particular season or time of day and a specific mood, such as devotion or celebration or contemplation. As we learn more about these scales, we'll be able to intelligently apply them to healing.  In the process of visualization-often used in the treatment of chronic or life-threatening disease-melodic music allows visual fantasies to take shape easily. This enhances whatever scenario the patient has designed for self-healing.

Instrumental Color

Because each musical instrument has a quality of sound that is unique to it, each will touch us in a different way. A tuba's sound will be more likely to resonate in a listener's belly than in the head area. A flute will vibrate the head but not the belly. Each instrument-whether wood, brass, gourd, or skin-has the power to touch the listener in a specific area of the physical body. And, because the timbre of an instrument is determined by a characteristic array of harmonics in its tone, each instrument touches our auric layers in its own special way.  Drums resonate most in our bellies and diaphragms, the emotional and psychic centers of our bodies. Other instruments that touch us here are the cello, the trombone, the tuba, that bassoon, and other low-range sounds. The heart-center of compassion-is vibrated most by string orchestra. Alton instruments, such as English horn, viola, French horn, and high-range cello also pull at our hear "strings." The throat-center of communication and creative expression-responds to clarinet, oboe, and violin. The brow-center of insight and perception-resonates with flute, oboe, and trumpet. The crown-bliss center-vibrates to high-pitched instruments, tinkling bells and crystal bowls.  Knowing which instruments touch us where helps us choose music that can accompany healing work on specific parts of the physical body. For the entire body, the most effective instruments are those with the fullest range of sounds: keyboards, guitar, carefully-voiced synthesizers, symphony orchestras, and most healing of all the concert harp. Fortunately, in New Age music, there are many recordings by artists on a full assortment of instruments.

Form

This last element of healing music may be difficult to hear without practice, but I mention it briefly because it is an important ingredient in the mixture of elements that make a musical brew healing.  Form is the structure underneath all of the other elements. It determines the direction in which the listener goes when hearing the music. For example, a folksong has a verse and a chorus, another verse and the chorus, and so on. This form is linear. Other forms are cyclical. For example, a theme is stated, a contrasting theme is heard, and the original theme is restated. I believe that cyclical forms are the most healing, because the listener finds a climax (or point of most tension of excitement) in the middle of the music and then is brought back to the beginning feeling. Much of New Age music, because it is made with healing intent, is created in cyclical form, even when the musician is improvising or channeling. This is probably because the musician is intuitively in touch with the healing ebb and flow of the spiral and circular designs of Nature.

I wrote this probably about a month ago, but it just was posted this week. I hadn't listened to Mason Jennings before I was assigned the story, but his music is really … sweet, I think is a good way to describe it. Sweet and simple. His most recent album, "In The Ever," was released May 20 and debuted on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.

Read my Billboard.com feature here.
Mason Jennings' Web site.
Mason Jennings' MySpace.

The Ballad of Phil Longo

Fifteen years ago, Phil Longo joined his first band. Having somehow convinced the members that he could play an instrument (which he could not), Longo, through sheer force of will, began his journey through the Central Florida music scene. That first band didn’t last very long, but the experience soon led Longo to become a member of a well-regarded punk group, and from there, through a series of sonically divergent but philosophically similar bands, Longo has been an omnipresent, if unheralded, component of Orlando’s musical fabric.

As we sit in the blissfully frigid environs of Burton’s Bar and Grill on a hot June afternoon, the discussion about his long and often complex history in the area (see sidebar) is continually punctuated by recollections where Longo’s dogged determination to “play music,” “get involved” or “make something happen” has, more often than not, resulted in all three occurring.

“I guess that’s my talent,” he says. “I’m not the most talented musician or player, but I’m stubborn and I’m persistent.”

That persistence has found Longo in a wide variety of roles in bands, all of which he embraces. Whether playing punk, atmospheric rock, indie pop or some combination thereof, he’s been able to slot himself into established acts like Telephone, New Roman Times and Mumpsy and was a central figure in the conception and creative evolution of groups as divergent as the Hot Six and the Country Slashers.

And now, Phil Longo has a band that he can call his very own. Basements of Florida, more than any other group Longo’s been involved with, was literally willed into existence out of nothing more than a goofy idea: a bass-and-drums ensemble with no need for guitars or vocals.

“I wanted to see this work for a long time,” says Longo. “You wouldn’t believe how many conversations I’ve had with bass players where we talk about how no one gives the bass credit, and how wouldn’t it be cool to have a big bass jam like on Spinal Tap. But it always ends at ‘Yeah, it would be cool.’”

In true Phil Longo fashion, the actual birth of Basements of Florida was a combination of determination, fortuitous timing and a little spontaneous dissembling.

“I was talking to Patrick [O’Neal, drummer for the Country Slashers] and I was listening to these song ideas he had, and they were pretty good.

“One day after the Slashers had practice, I went into the Social [where Longo works as a bartender] and saw a poster up for the Joe Lally show. So I walk into the office and say, ‘Hey, Jodi [Goetz, booking manager at the venue], is there an opener for the Joe Lally show?’ and she said, ‘For the Slashers?’ I was like, ‘No, I’ve got this other band called Basements of Florida.’ The next day she texted me to tell me I had the show, so I called Patrick and said, ‘Guess what? We’re opening for Joe Lally.’”

The opening gig was impressive, as it saw the new group – Longo and O’Neal on bass, accompanied by Mumpsy’s Jeff Ilgenfritz on drums – wailing through a tight set of instrumental jams that were as forceful as they were concise. Despite the low-end-heavy lineup, the songs came off as gimmick-free and highly melodic.

“There could have been more thought put into it,” laughs Longo. “But we did it and it worked.”

While Basements has yet to occupy a substantial portion of Longo’s busy dance card, this new group is particularly resonant to him; not solely because of the novel musical attack, but because the band represents Longo’s willful approach to music.

“I’d like it to be a special-events thing,” he says. “The idea is that you can do whatever you want. If you really feel something, just do it.”

+++++++++++++++++
A Working Man (sidebar)

Whether he was a charter member, a temporary fill-in or just a compatriot in some productive jamming, Longo has been deeply involved with some of the area’s most notable bands. “We could go on and on about the ex-bands,” he says. “I’ve gotten better [over the years] at seeing the big picture and micromanaging different things.

“I wanna do all these little things to make my life as quality as I can, and be happy.”

Mechanical Bull “It was a terrible name. But it was my first chance to play music with other people.”

Adventures in Immortality “After two years, we changed the lineup and changed the name, then we changed the name again. It finally ended in 1998. After so many changes, we just decided it was over.”

The Hot Six “We played a lot, and Ryan at [the old] Back Booth booked us a lot, so that helped me meet a lot of people.”

Discount “I was driving up to Gainesville in the hopes of playing in a band. I jammed a little bit with the Discount kids, but nothing really came of it.”

Telephone “Scotty [Long, bassist] worked in the kitchen at Enzian with me and Spanky [Daviero, of Telephone], so they asked me to step in when [Long] left to join the Hex Tremors.”

Red Card “Oh yeah, there was this band Red Card I played with for a while.”

Knup/New Roman Times “When I started playing [guitar] with New Roman Times and [bass with] Knup, that was the first time I was really playing full-time in two committed bands. That’s when I realized that maybe you could make it work with polar-opposite people. Brad Palkevich’s ideas about music and Dan’s [Owens] ideas about music couldn’t be more different.”

The Country Slashers “For a while, it was just the Slashers. But even then, we went through a lot of change: We were a five-piece originally, and then we changed all members and became a four-piece.”

Derek Lyn Plastic “I went on tour with them for a little while.”

Fashion Fashion and the Image Boys “Oh yeah [laughs], I played with the Image Boys on that tour too.”

Mumpsy “I’d like to think that I’m the guy [Jeff Ilgenfritz] wanted, but I think that I’m the guy he got. Mumpsy’s probably not my strong suit, but it teaches me a lot of shit. And it’s way fun.”

First appeared July 2, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

I got a press release about Adron back in April and right away thought "oh my god I want to write about her" because her music is so awesome. She's my age and plays on a classical guitar, is inspired by a lot of Brazilian music and her music is so pretty, jazzy, summery and just lovely. Before I actually got her album (which came out July 1), I would just sit at work and listen to the four songs on her MySpace over and over.

Read my venuszine.com feature here.
Adron's MySpace

Last week I wrote a Breaking & Entering feature for Billboard.com about The Medic Droid, whose debut album Whats Your Medium (there's no apostrophe, that's not a typo) debuted on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart. Writing-wise it was kind of a challenge but I think it turned out OK.

Read the story here.

Check out the story here. It is cut down a little bit from the print version, but no big deal.

I saw Tilly and the Wall live for the first time in September 2005, about three weeks into my freshman year in college. They played at Mac's Bar in Lansing with David Dondero, Neva Dinova, and Orenda Fink (of Azure Ray). It definitely was one of my favorite shows of all time. As much as they get played off as a novelty band because they have a tap dancer instead of a drummer, I still think they're great and was so excited to interview Jamie Pressnall (the tap dancer) about their new album, which came out on Tuesday (June 17).

Read my venuszine.com feature/interview here.
Tilly and the Wall's MySpace.
Tilly and the Wall's Web site.

There’s a song on the new three-track Sugar Oaks single called “Very Sparrow.” It is, like most of the other songs by the Sugar Oaks, a combination of crystalline clarity and muted, soulful pop melancholy. Its gently delivered melodies float above spacious instrumentation. It sounds like the quirky, laid-back pop for which the group is known. It was also, until very recently, a complete pain in the ass.

“I actually wrote that song at least five years ago,” says Sugar Oaks singer-guitarist-songwriter Eric Hayden. “The chord changes were the same [as they are now], the lyrics were more or less the same … but it was really, really folky, and we could never get it right with the Sugar Oaks. Every time, we’d try something new and it wouldn’t work.”

“We’d tried over and over again to do it live,” says guitarist Christopher Belt, “but we were never able to do it. But about a year ago, we tried it at practice and came up with an arrangement that worked and it finally came together. And now, because Jon [Kraft, drummer] is also the engineer for our records, that song finally got fleshed out in the studio.”

The addition of Kraft to the Sugar Oaks lineup last August has turned out to be a pivotal decision in the band’s cautious evolution. As an uncredited engineer on the group’s debut EP – last year’s Red Grapes in the City – Kraft helped the Sugar Oaks get a firm grip on how to make their soulful pop more effective.

“I guess I’m kind of the poor man’s arranger,” laughs Kraft with all humility.

“But, seriously, having that engineer’s ear is really helpful for the songwriting process,” says bassist Matt Gersting.

Kraft is the fourth person to sit on the drum stool for the band, having taken it over from Gersting after the release of Red Grapes in one of many lineup changes over the years. The band’s roots go back to 1999, as a duo featuring Hayden and keyboardist-vocalist Soraya Zaumeyer under the name Bear Country. (“We opened for Cub Country one time at the Social,” laughs Belt. “Actually, we changed our name right before that show,” corrects Hayden. “It would have been ridiculous.”) As the lineup expanded with the eventual addition of Gersting and Belt (and many others during the process), their sound also matured.

“It was more acoustic when it was Bear Country – a little slower, a little more downbeat,” says Hayden. “We noticed the sound was changing, so it seemed like a good time to change the name.”

The band’s focus also sharpened, resulting in a more practiced – if no less organic – approach to their music that has culminated in the rich and distinctive textures of songs like “Very Sparrow.” And while that song may have taken the band a while to nail down, it’s telling that they actually took the time to get it right.

“When we finally had to create something that we were accountable for, rather than just writing songs and playing shows, we had to start thinking about things differently,” says Belt. “It was a tremendous learning process, but it had a lot to do with how we coalesced into the band that we are now.”

First appeared June 19, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

Check out the Sugar Oaks website, because they're great.

[I took the above picture in Atlanta, the night before the below-mentioned Jacksonville Beach show.]

[Oh, and for the record, Mark Arm announced from the stage in Orlando that Steve Turner did, indeed, remember the bar in question.]

“Maybe you went with some other band,” laughs Mark Arm. The singer and guitarist for legendary Seattle band Mudhoney is in the process of poking a giant hole in the middle of one of my favorite anecdotes. The story has a young me, circa 1990, heading off with the Mudhoney boys after a show in Jacksonville Beach. We’d been drinking all night, and after they finished playing a show at the (dearly departed) Einstein a Go-Go, we all headed down the street and happened upon a midget bar. Three-quarter-scale pool tables and all. Except the short people in this bar weren’t cute, reality-TV midgets. This was a midget biker bar, with the patrons decked out in leather and bearing no patience for the intrusion of full-sized gawkers. After some threatening glances from the regulars, we decided the place wasn’t for us.

I’ve told this tale dozens of times, once in these very pages, because the memory of this occurrence is as vivid in my mind as the day I married my wife – and now, thanks to Mark Arm, I’m digging around in my mental safe-deposit box for my marriage certificate.

“I don’t remember the midget bar, but you know, if you drink enough, things can start to look a lot smaller,” consoles Arm. Then, laughing, he says, “Or maybe you just did some dust.”

Probably not. I’m forced to console myself with the supposition that Arm’s memories of that long-ago tour stop may be a little fuzzy. After all, the guy and his band have played hundreds of shows in their 20-year existence. Maybe he just forgot this Florida midget bar?

“No, I doubt it. I’m pretty sure I’d remember a midget bar.”

Regardless, it has been quite a long time – 15 years by Arm’s estimation – since Mudhoney graced the state of Florida, and midget-bar trauma or no, Arm is quick to point out that the band’s decade-plus absence from the state was not intended as a slight.

“I don’t know, exactly [why it’s been so long],” he says. “Actually, you know, we haven’t played Germany since 1995, so Florida shouldn’t take it personally. Germany hasn’t taken it personally, and I know this because you’ve seen what those people can do [when they get angry].”

These stretches of time – 13 years since playing in Germany, 15 years since the last Florida show, 18 years since an imaginary sojourn to a midget bar – are especially notable for Mudhoney this time around. The band is celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2008, and they’re doing it in style with both a new album, The Lucky Ones, and a two-disc, deluxe-edition reissue of their infamous Superfuzz Bigmuff record. The latter, a six-song slab of punk slurry, combined with the potent force of the band’s instantly legendary debut 7-inch single (“Touch Me I’m Sick”) to kick-start the grunge movement that would dominate rock throughout the early ’90s. The reissue is fleshed out by the inclusion of the “Touch Me” single along with other 7-inches, compilation appearances, demo tracks and two live concerts. Now that they’ve been given the “deluxe edition” treatment, does that mean Mudhoney is now officially part of the rock & roll canon, a true legacy band worthy of having their music assessed alongside the giants?

“Well, you could just say that anyone who does something like [this reissue] is forcing themselves into the canon,” laughs Arm, fully aware of the silliness and seriousness of Superfuzz’s significance among alt-rock fans. “So I’m not sure how much doing a deluxe edition has to do with actually being in the canon.

“It’s crazy, though. We never thought we’d make it past three [years], tops. Even in the beginning, the only goal we had was to put out a single, which came pretty quick and easy. At that point, we could have said, ‘Our job is done,’ but instead we kept going.”

But why keep going at all? With a genre-defining EP, a clutch of classic singles, and an exalted position during the Grunge Years, why bother making new albums and expanding the palette of the band’s sonic signature? Why not be legends and move on?

“Because we enjoy it. It’s as simple as that. We’ll stop doing it when it stops being fun. Obviously, [original bassist Matt] Lukin thought it stopped being fun around 1999, so he left.

“But the actual ‘doing it’ – the writing and recording of songs – is still great, and it’s still fun. I love writing songs and recording them and watching them turn into something from just a nugget of an idea.”

As the band simultaneously reflects on their 20 years of history and the excitement of promoting a new record, one has to wonder if Arm worries that with all the nostalgia wrapped up in the reissue, people will forget that Mudhoney just released a brand-new album.

“It’s funny, because I’ve seen people be like, ‘Oh, it’s more of the same,’ and then some people are like, ‘Oh, it’s too different.’ But it doesn’t really matter to me. I’d assume it’s different … and somewhat the same?” he laughs.

“There’s really no grand goal that we’re trying to achieve anymore. It’s just that we really like playing together. We get this opportunity to travel to different places around the world – but not Germany.”

First appeared June 12, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

“Doing other things doesn’t make you less true to yourself. So this time, we were trying to mix it up, have more variety.”

If that doesn’t sound like the words of a punk-rock princess choking on her own progress, then you haven’t been paying enough attention to bands trying to justify their inevitably disappointing second album. True to form, those words are in reference to the second album by Be Your Own Pet, attributed to the band’s young, bratty, volatile and explosive singer, Jemina Pearl. Well, Pearl used to be young, bratty, volatile and explosive. She’s now running up on being of legal drinking age, which means that she’s no longer the insouciant high school student who pushed back against a raft of stereotypes by spitting, windmilling and fuck-you-ing her way across stages, propelled by the barely contained garage rock of her equally young and explosive bandmates.

With Get Awkward, the band’s songs are still bracing and efficient – only one clocks in at over three minutes – and Pearl is still an unhinged, full-throttle screamer who’s unashamed to make a shouted “WHOOO!” part of a chorus. But it would be unfair to expect the album to maintain the same invincible immaturity that propelled Be Your Own Pet through their first EPs and 2006 self-titled debut LP. To that end, Steven McDonald (Redd Kross) applies his lifetime of merging smartass attitude, punk-rock roots and pop sensibilities to the production work. (On the album’s weakest track – the midtempo “You’re a Waste” – Pearl’s singing voice bears a striking resemblance to that of McDonald’s wife, Anna Waronker.) The result is an album that moves the band forward incrementally, dialing down their spazziness in proportion to the level that their songwriting chops have improved. Which is to say, not much. The arrangements are still basic and modular, the lyrics are still dumb, the chords are still single-digit and it’s still the drumming that drives the whole thing.

So why does the 2008 model of BYOP feel so different than the 2006 model? Well, there’s the fact that this defiantly carefree band is heading out on a corporate tour with She Wants Revenge. And if that doesn’t leave a weird taste in your mouth, try this out: Less than a month before it was due to be released in the States, Universal Records deemed three of Get Awkward’s songs “too violent.” (Though signed to Thurston Moore’s label, Ecstatic Peace, BYOP’s U.S. releases come through Ecstatic Peace/Universal.) Rather than stand their ground, the band simply removed those three tracks from the album. In an interview with Washington Square News (the newspaper of New York University), Pearl coughed up this response:

“Other than that, Universal has been great. But I guess that’s just what happens when you decide to have something to do with a major label.”

Ahh, maturity.

First appeared May 22, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

The music of Torche comes at you with overwhelming forcefulness. The blistering guitar work, the sludge-thick riffs, the hulkingly muscular rhythm section, even the hooks that eschew anthemic power for melodic effectiveness, make a listener feel like a meerkat in the middle of a mammoth stampede: It’s coming, it’s fast, and it will crush you. It’s surprising, then, to hear that singer-guitarist Steve Brooks is a timid fellow.

“[Brooks is] usually a shy guy when it comes to his vocals; he’s not too confident of a singer,” says Torche guitarist Juan Montoya. “He’s much more comfortable on guitar.”

That discomfort could have something to do with the three-year gap between the release of Torche’s self-titled debut and this year’s 13-track Meanderthal. While many heavy bands bang out the release-tour-record-release grind on an almost annual basis, it took longer for Torche – and producer Kurt Ballou (of Converge) – to get the Meanderthal material ready for public consumption.

“When we went into the studio, we only went in with seven or eight songs,” says Montoya. “I don’t think Kurt or Steve were real confident in the direction the record was going at the beginning. The vocals were the main problem, because Steve waits until the last minute to come up with stuff. We come from the school of the Melvins and the Cocteau Twins, where people make up words that don’t really mean anything.”

(Yes, you read correctly: “the school of the Melvins and the Cocteau Twins.”)

“But even with just those [seven or eight] songs ready when we went in, we ended up coming out with 13 songs completed,” continues Montoya. “It came naturally, but a lot of help came from Kurt. He’s really focused and he’s very talented. He really knows what he’s doing and it’s comfortable to work with him. He’s eccentric, but he’s a genius and a madman.”

Springing from the ashes of highly regarded Florida bands Cavity (of which Montoya was a member) and Floor (Brooks’ former band, which counted Montoya as a member in its final days), Torche adds a strong melodic sensibility to the pummeling heaviness and tightly controlled aggression of those two bands. And though Torche was formed in the muck of South Florida and claims legions of homegrown fans throughout the Sunshine State – “Can you mention that every time we play in Orlando it’s been a great show and everyone makes us feel welcome?” asks Montoya – the band now splits its residential allegiances. Montoya and Brooks live in Atlanta, while bassist Jonathan Nuñez and drummer Rick Smith (who also plays in amazing grindcore/crustcore bands Shitstorm and Mehkago N.T.) remain behind in Miami.

Despite the hundreds of miles between their homes, though, the members of Torche are unlikely to become strangers any time soon.

“We just got back from a couple of tours,” says Montoya, “and we just finished the record and now we’re headed out on tour again through the end of the year, so we’re gonna be living with each other every day in a van, so it’s not like we’ll forget one another or anything.”

First appeared May 22, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

Celemony, a company from Germany (of course), has been creating software called Melodyne since 1997. It's essentially a digital tool designed solely for the purpose of masking mistakes. A recent addition to the Melodyne software is called Direct Note Access, and to call it Auto-Tune on steroids is to glibly dismiss the truly evil nature of this digital demon. Enabling producers and engineers to hone in on a single bum note — within a chord — and then correct its pitch, length, or whatever, DNA (get it?) gives recording technicians the power they've never known they wanted: the ability to eliminate and alter any shred of humanity that an artist inadvertently left in his or her performance.

Unsurprisingly, there's a bit of backlash to all this perfection-seeking. Even less surprisingly, some of it's coming from Steve Albini. The producer/engineer/fly-in-the-ointment worked with Kim Deal during the production of the new Breeders album to codify a "new" process called "All Wave Analog Recording." According to Albini, "to record All Wave, one must use no computers, no digital recording, no Auto-Tuning, or any other mainstays of contemporary production... [It] carries through the entire production and mastering process, including mixing, editing, sequencing, post-production, and the exceptional step of an all-analog direct-metal master for the vinyl LP."

That this process sounds remotely revolutionary is startling. But to dismiss it as the grumblings of a Luddite would be unwise, given the threats raised by the eggheads at the door. After all, "Please Please Please" by James Brown is 2:44 and is full of missed notes and sonic imperfections. Would you want to live in a world where it didn't make the cut?

First appeared in the May 15, 2008 issue of Broward-Palm Beach New Times.

Despite the fervent wishes of some pundits to move us right out of the physical-media age, CDs, records and even cassette tapes are still the only places a lot of music can be found. Due to licensing entanglements, lazy publishers or just forgetfulness on behalf of the listening public, there are millions, perhaps billions of songs floating around the nonvirtual world, just waiting to be rediscovered as lost classics. And not all of them are collectors items.

In trawling the virtual bargain bins of Amazon.com and Half.com, one can find many albums that, if released today, would likely receive a warm reception. Yet there they linger, feebly begging someone to put off buying a cup of coffee (or in some cases, a stick of gum) in exchange for an hour or so of sonic pleasure.

To help readers navigate the depths, the following is a list of nine albums – all at least 15 years old – that should be considered alt-rock classics, but aren’t. They’re all out of print on CD, none of them are available on iTunes, and not one costs more than five bucks for a used (good condition) copy. Hell, more than half of ’em cost less than two bucks. Consider it the cheapest music history lesson ever.

@ indicates other albums by this artist are either in print or available on iTunes.

AC Temple, Sourpuss (Blast First, 1989; $2.99 at Amazon.com) An explosive British indie noise-rock band that drew comparisons to Sonic Youth at the time. However, singer Jane Bromley has a full-throated howl that’s far more appropriate to this firestorm of guitars than Kim Gordon’s monotone. Produced by Jon Langford (Mekons), this was AC Temple’s third, final and best album.

Das Damen, Triskaidekaphobe (SST, 1988; $1.22 at Half.com) Das Damen’s pop-tinged psychedelia was delivered in a relentless, guitar-heavy fashion, and the band was renowned among underground cognoscenti for delivering the era’s loudest concerts. Underneath all that feedback and noise, though, were strong and un-retro garage-pop tendencies, and this disc finds the group at the height of its powers.

Flop, Whenever You’re Ready (Epic, 1993; 1 cent at Amazon.com @) The second of three albums by these Seattle power-poppers, Whenever You’re Ready is all anthemic major chords and earworm choruses; if the Posies had balls – and drank like the Replacements – they would have sounded like Flop. Rusty Willoughby’s smartass lyrics go a long way toward defining the band’s greatness, but it’s the breezy boldness of the group’s musical approach that’s the real charm here. “Port Angeles” is the best singalong tune about parental alienation and the apocalypse ever written. And, seriously, it costs a penny.

The Fluid, Glue/Roadmouth (Sub Pop, 1990; $4.49 at Half.com) The first non-Northwest band signed to Sub Pop, Denver grungers the Fluid brought a new sensibility to the label beyond just geography. Sadly, most folks only know them now for sharing a split 7-inch with Nirvana (their contribution, “Candy,” is included). This is a compilation of their 1989 Roadmouth LP and its more polished EP follow-up. The band’s finest moments are here, from the blistering high-octane rock of “Black Glove” and “Human Mill” to pummeling covers of Rare Earth (“Big Brother”) and the Troggs (“Our Love Will Still Be There”). The Fluid is reuniting to play Sub Pop’s 20th anniversary celebration this summer.

Junk Monkeys, Bliss (Metal Blade/Warner Bros., 1992; 75 cents at Half.com @)
Detroit’s Junk Monkeys had a lot in common with punk-fueled, melodic rock bands like Soul Asylum, Goo Goo Dolls and the Replacements, right down to the bacchanalian live shows and sugary hooks wrapped in brawny rock. The big difference: The Junk Monkeys never started sucking, much less reached the taint-tickling, sell-out lows of those aforementioned bands. While their third and best album would be a bargain at any price, snagging it for less than a buck is a steal.

Mary My Hope, Museum (Silvertone/BMG, 1989; $4.50 at Amazon.com) If he’s known at all, James Hall is most likely known for his New Orleans–based Pleasure Club or his work with Jimmy Gnecco of Ours. But Hall’s original stomping ground was Atlanta, as the leader of Mary My Hope. Museum’s sweaty grandiosity is unapologetically pompous and room-filling, so much so that he had to take the band to England for a while to get any attention. Still, the gothic tinges and simmering hostility of the disc predated the approach of the Twilight Singers by a decade.

Poster Children, Daisychain Reaction (TwinTone/Sire, 1992; $1.98 at Amazon.com @) Still going strong after more than 20 years of kicking out their wiry punk-rock jams, Poster Children’s creative high-water mark remains their second album. Produced by Steve Albini, Daisychain compresses all the wild energy of their debut and delivers it as a powerful musical wallop. Tight, angular songs that are as catchy as they are bruising.

Swell, 41 (American Recordings, 1994; $1.89 at Half.com @) In the grunge-obsessed early ’90s, a fucked-up acoustic act didn’t stand much of a chance. But for some reason, this disc from San Francisco’s Swell got a major-label push, which means that thousands of unlistened-to promos have populated bargain bins for 15 years now. Melodic and heavy, incredibly fragile and world-weary, 41 combines languid, semi-psychedelic acoustic passages with occasional flourishes of rock bombast.

Ultramarine, United Kingdoms (Sire, 1993; 75 cents at Half.com @) This crunchy-granola ambient house duo convinced Soft Machine main man Robert Wyatt to write (or co-write) and sing on three of this album’s songs. Alas, the early ’90s was not a kind era to aging progsters, and Wyatt’s presence was seen less as a momentous bridging of psychedelic cultures and more the ramblings of a doddering old artist.

First appeared May 8, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

I have a new feature up on venuszine.com, the first in a looong time (due to school and The State News). It's about Charlotte Sometimes, who just released her debut album on Geffen Records this week. Read it here.
Check out her Web site and MySpace.

Hometown: Oxford, Miss.
Fun Fact: Three members of the band are also in a Pavement cover band that is so good it "even fucks up correctly."
Why Its Worth Watching: Colour Revolt combines the more adventurous side of indie rock with soaring dynamics and a Southern mentality.
For Fans Of: Radiohead, The Grifters, Modest Mouse

Colour Revolt has hardly glutted the marketplace with material in its three-year existence, but with good reason. In addition to the fact that all of the band members are just now wrapping up their collegiate educations at Ole Miss, Colour Revolt has also kept busy playing 150 shows a year. All this without mentioning the fact that the band's debut EP was picked up for a one-off re-release by a major label. Needless to say, Plunder, Beg, and Curse, the band's debut album, has been a long time coming.

"Really, we've just been trying to get through school," laughs bassist Patrick Addison. "We've been full-time students throughout this whole thing."

"Now that we're [graduating in May], we're really excited about being able to tour while school is actually in session," says guitarist Jimmy Cajoleas.

Despite their studies, these young men have put considerable effort into putting Colour Revolt on the road outside of their Oxford, Miss. home base. Even if that means embarking on some serious one-night stands.

"We do full tour circuits in a weekend, and that makes things kinda interesting," Addison says. "Last weekend, we were in Pennsylvania, just for a Saturday night show. And we came back for school on Monday."

"I was stuck on the midnight-to-7 a.m. driving shift," Cajoleas laughs. "It was sleeting outside, and I got so tired by about 5 a.m. that I just stuck my head out the window and let the sleet hit me until I woke up."

With the release of Plunder on Fat Possum, Colour Revolt has made a musical statement that manages to combine the atmospheric dynamics they've honed from those grueling road exercises with the prismatic reality of life in Oxford, a Deep South college town that's as proud of its literature as it is of its grits. Light years away from the more straightforward angular indie rock of the members' previous band (Fletcher), Colour Revolt's sound is bathed in a peculiar kind of swampy, sonic gravy that evokes the explorations of other underground bands—from The Grifters to Band of Horses—with roots below the Mason-Dixon Line.

"It's hard to deny our southern-ness," Addison says. "It's definitely there. We're definitely a southern band, but when we say 'southern rock,' we're not really talking about Skynyrd or even Drive-By Truckers."

"It seems to be an unfortunate genre cliché, the southern rock thing," Cajoleas continues. "Regionally, it makes sense, but the South is growing and changing. I would argue that the best southern record ever made was Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. It's not a traditional 'southern rock' record, but it's about family and God and sex and death. Those are the things you see in Southern literature."

First appeared April 18, 2008 on Paste.com.

“It appeals to the ADD in me,” says singer-songwriter and visual artist Joseph Arthur regarding his decision to release five records in 2008, and the Ohio native is only half-joking. Arthur has never been one to hold a precious enough opinion of his own work to dole it out to listeners in well-paced portions. His last full-length album (Let’s Just Be) was released less than a year ago; its predecessor hit shelves only seven months prior. He’s experimented with a year’s worth of EPs before: In 2002, his Junkyard Hearts project entailed four EPs released two weeks apart from one another.

But given the series of Arthur releases on tap in 2008 – four EPs and a full-length album, all of which find him exploring different stylistic aspects of his music – it seems he’s become acutely aware that the current landscape of the industry favors artists who keep the attention of their fan base by narrowing the time gap between creation and product.

“I feel like I’ve been trying to get to this point for years now. It just makes sense to get things out closer to the impulse,” says Arthur. “Up until the EP goes to mastering, I’m still working on them. [The songs] can be a week old by the time they go to mastering, but some of them are a year old.”

With two EPs mastered and a third compiled – “I haven’t made the fourth yet,” he says; “I made a lot of spoken-word tracks with [frequent Gutter Twins guitarist] Dave Rosser that I’d like to do something with” – Arthur has already covered considerable ground.

The Could We Survive EP is well-rounded and sonically diverse. Starting with the anthemic acoustics of “Rages of Babylon” and revisiting some of the territory Arthur explored with his recent rock-oriented band efforts, the six songs feel less like a mini-album than a collection of top-shelf material that was inadvertently left off several hypothetical full-lengths.

Crazy Rain (the second EP, set to be released in April) is more cohesive. More electric and electronic sounds color it, and the collision of drum machines, distorted vocals and fuzzed-out guitar lines gives a sense of dyspeptic experimentation. As for the third record, Arthur says it’s “more stripped-down, more acoustic and slower … it’s more of a late-night type of music.”

With so much material being released in so little time, the question is whether or not Joseph Arthur is selling his own work short. Instead of a proper album that can be praised (or critiqued) for its variety, don’t these short-form releases make him seem a victim of musical graphomania?

“I think it fits in with these times,” says Arthur. “I could have put out a double or a triple album, but people have shorter attention spans. It just makes sense to get things out closer to the impulse. I think I’m more from the Jack Kerouac school of ‘first thought, best thought.’ There’s a risk, because the lack of time can make for mediocrity: sometimes you can undercook something. But you can really overcook things too.”

First appeared April 3, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

THE SWORD
Gods of the Earth
(Kemado)

The Killing Joke
Prime new metal finds the cool kids getting serious

Hipster metal didn’t start with Isis, or Earth, or even Neurosis. It all started with Andrew W.K.

In 2002, “Party Hard” became the hard rock anthem of the summer. The Michigan native’s performance-artist-as-lunkhead routine had been developed through a series of underground releases (on the same label as Wolf Eyes), which appealed to a certain irony-desirous segment of music fans. But the sheer simplicity and life-affirming rock he delivered fit all too easily into the listening habits of … let’s say … less discerning folk. Andrew W.K.’s bloody explosion into the mainstream consisted of two primary statements: 1) Party hard. 2) It’s perfectly OK to party hard. The former was taken to heart by the ball cap–wearing masses, while the latter served as a reminder to crowds of indie-rockers that perhaps there was more to music than chin-stroking and 7-inch collecting.

February 2004: Dave Grohl finally delivers the Probot project. Thick with credibility among the cognoscenti and flush with cash from global stadium tours, Grohl has long been in an unusual position: The cool kids treat Foo Fighters records as guilty pleasures, but fully understand that Grohl has impeccable musical taste. When the drummer not only acknowledged his love of classic metal, but indulged it by recording a straight homage to the genre with guests like Lemmy, King Diamond and Cronos (and released it on acclaimed metal label Southern Lord), thousands of music fans were suddenly reminded how much they used to love the sound of True Metal.

Sure, there have been bands toiling in metal’s alternate universes of sludge, doom, drone and crust since before Probot and Andrew W.K. But those acts and others excelled at creating complex, challenging and experimental revisions on the metal template. What “Party Hard” and Probot did was bring unabashed horn-raising, head-banging, rocking metal back into vogue. Twin guitars, rhythmic, blast-beat-free drumming, soaring vocals, lyrics about swords and sin – and, most important, melody. With the ground now softened by those unlikely metal pioneers, a handful of bands have emerged who unashamedly traffic in classic metal stylings, only to be greeted rapturously by hipster audiences who have been perplexed (or ashamed) of what metal’s become in the last 20 years.

The audience ratio of indie-rockers to metalheads is way out of whack when Louisville, Ky.–based Dead Child plays. Dead Child was founded by David Pajo, who not only was in Slint, but also Tortoise, a band whose music rocked so little they had to call it post-rock. Dead Child – repeat, Dead Child – also features former members of non-rockers the For Carnation and the Shipping News. It shouldn’t be surprising that there are hipster-friendly, ironic markers all over the band; the catalog number for their debut album, Attack, is 666; the band’s debut EP was called Headbanging Kill Your Mama Music; and, again … Dead Child!

But if this is all a winking joke, then the members of Dead Child should keep right on laughing. Attack is a brutal and well-crafted exposition of classic metal’s thrashier tendencies. Sounding as though it should have been recorded in some Bay Area studio circa 1988-1992, Dead Child owes more of a debt to Testament than to their stated influences of Sabbath and Maiden. Punishing numbers like “Twitch of the Death Nerve” and “Chariot” (chorus: “Swing low!”) are thoroughly and unapologetically rooted in metal’s golden age. It’s a shame that the hesher metalheads who are turned on by similar-sounding contemporary acts like Warbringer would be unlikely to give Dead Child a fair shot; Warbringer is on a “real” metal label, while Dead Child shares a home with the Mekons and Rachel’s.

Sometimes, though, being surrounded by “real” metal bands goes a long way to remind fans of the genre what’s been missing. When the Sword played their first South by Southwest showcase in 2005, it was on a bill with Alabama Thunderpussy, Pig Destroyer and Zombi. This Austin group’s set, however, set jaws dropping throughout the venue. The Sword breezily evoked all of what was great about classic metal – riffs, melody, fantasy – and, though dressed in the standard-issue thrift-store uniform worn by hipsters everywhere, they did it without a hint of smirk.

Soon after the showcase, they hit the road with Octopus Project and … And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, and they essentially stayed on tour for three years. The Sword’s road-dogging relented long enough for them to pay rent and record a couple of albums, 2006’s highly regarded Age of Winters and the recently released Gods of the Earth.

Opening with that most metal of introductions – the sturdily plucked acoustic guitar blooming into a technicolor, riff-pummeling instrumental – Gods clearly states its fealty to True Metal tradition. Though no track here provides the same groove-based crunch that made Winter’s “Freya” a staple of Guitar Hero II, a harsher, more direct assault is made. The first single, awesomely titled “Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians,” is all breakneck, syncopated riffing decorated with frenzied ascending scales. The guitars and vocals are more crisply recorded, stripping away much of the warm, stoner-friendly glow of their previous work in favor of a brisk and menacing vibe. Even the requisite epic number (“The White Sea”) that closes the album feels less like a modular, Metallica-style journey than it does a sort of winding down after 40 minutes of bruising metallurgy.

Buy Attack at Amazon.com.

Buy Gods of the Earth at Amazon.com.

I f*$%ing love this video!! I always have my own vision for videos before they come out, but this is way better than what I invisioned.  It's so simple but literally made my jaw drop at least twice.  It started off with a Mad Max vibe, but seeing Kanye in his "situation" was brilliant!  I love this!  Kanye to me understands the beauty of music videos and opts to go back to the days when seeing a new video was exciting.  On another note, isn't the girl in the videos body sick!  If she doesn't have a banging body I don't know who does.  Now excuse me while I bust out in some squats and lunges.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1287040795/bclid1300129704/bctid1416052169

I cannot say enough about Eric Roberson.  I discovered him a few years back in the same way many of his fans, especially those in Chicago,  may have through his house influenced song Change for Me.

After hearing a few of his songs from his Estoeric cd from his website, I immediately purchased the cd, and soon after bought his cds Left and The Vault Volume 1.5.  Imagine if the feel you get from De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Jill Scott and Erykah Badu merged into one person...yeah its that serious.

It's easy to say that Eric is an emerging, almost unheard of artist, but if you go to one of his concerts then that is hard to believe.  I have seen him a few times and each time the audiences are larger and filled with fans that sing along to every word never missing a single one of his beautiful lyrics.

Aside from his own music, he is also a songwriter and producer that has worked with Jill Scott, Musiq, Floetry and even the great J Dilla. 

Every time I listen to one of his songs, from Obstacles to Pretty Girl to Def Ears, and then try to listen to lyrics to (fill in the blank) a lot of current artists that currently receive airplay, I can't even begin to imagine why Eric is such a hidden gem and not racking up Grammys.   

http://www.myspace.com/ericroberson

Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott
Although it would be extremely easy to simply dismiss Missy "The Rain" Elliott's importance to '97 hip-hop as simply a case of being everywhere at once, there are a few other points to bear in mind. One, she ain't shakin' her tits for the camera in the hopes of distracting you from bad rhyming (see: Foxy Brown, Lil' Kim). Two, she's doing it for herself, from production and writing to video concepts, she's in control. Three -- and most importantly -- she's got skills. Her tracks are catchy, but original (search for stolen hooks on her *Supa Dupa Fly* LP and, well, you won't find any). Her rhymes are simultaneously street, smart *and* funny. And, on top of all that, her mere presence can make an alarmingly mediocre track (see: that damned SWV song) great. Now, maybe it makes sense that someone that good will be everywhere at once.

Master P
Putting questions of "artistic responsibility" and "originality" aside, you've gotta understand why Master P (nÈe Percy Miller) is probably the most powerful black man in hip hop today. His No Limit label cranked out nearly a dozen records in 1997, all of which featured and were produced by P himself (including his own phenomenal *Ghetto Dope*). Every single one of them went gold. And all that money stayed in P's pocket, cause he owns the label, the studio and just about everything else that went into making a revitalized Mystikal, Mia X, Tru, Silkk and P himself the preferred purveyors of Southern gangsta funk. Now, keep in mind, there's little that's new to P's musical blend: it's West Coast, spiced up with a little New Orleans butt-thumpin' and topped off with awfully predictable gangsta raps (Mia X being the more broad-minded exception). But that's not the point. Master P makes music for people to party to, to cruise to and rock it to. And he knows that's his job. So he's just gonna keep doing it until people don't care any more. And then he's gonna buy Microsoft.

Prince Paul
Although *Psychoanalysis* came out last year on Brooklyn's Wordsound label ("It's a comedy record," they told me. I didn't believe. I should have.), it really didn't begin to make an impact until this year when Tommy Boy (Paul's old home with Stetsasonic and De La Soul) rereleased it with bonus cuts. And it's a good thing, because now more people will have the opportunity to hear "Beautiful Night," a mock-R&B/psychoconfessional ballad that just happens to be one of the most fucked up songs ever recorded. And, hey, there's even a bonus Automator remix. And, if that song is the high point, the rest of the album doesn't fall too far behind, with Paul shifting between daisy age tomfoolery and Dr. Strange madness. Plus, with the release of the Gravediggaz' second record, Prince Paul -- after too long out of the spotlight -- appears more than ready to come forth and make hip-hop unsafe again.

Rakim
The mysterious Ra emerged from his self-imposed exile this year with *The 18th Letter*, his first full-length solo joint since he and Eric B. split up the most important hip-hop duo of all time. And, accordingly, just due to the mere presence of Rakim's commanding rhymes, that album turned out to be one of the year's best. Of course, the tracks weren't as strong as any of Eric B's weakest, but in the time away, Rakim's rhymes have gotten tougher, his thoughts have gotten stronger and his presence has become more imposing. Much like the resurrected God that he sees himself to be, it may very well be true that Rakim has returned to save hip hop from the grave.

Talvin Singh
"Ethnicity" is a concept often lost within electronic music. To be sure, there are groups or individuals who use "ethnic sounds" (Loop Guru, FSOL) to accentuate their music, but by and large, electronic music is electronic first, regional last. Talvin Singh changed all that. At first a journeyman tabla player (good enough to perform regularly with Sun Ra), then a jazz musician and, eventually, a remixer/DJ/performer in his own right, Singh's most important contribution to his genre is that he forces Asian musicians (both in the subcontinent and elsewhere) to acknowledge and revisit their musical heritage. Not that Singh's music is simply a tabla/808 mix or that he explicitly references his upbringing in every track. It's just that -- with his own work and his *Anokha* compilation of Asian DJ's/remixers -- he is proud of it, and unafraid to exploit it. And that, in a sea of faceless knob twiddlers that could have come from Peoria or Paris, is extremely important.

Amon Tobin
International DJ Amon Tobin released two of this year's most interesting electronic records -- the spacey electronica of *Bricolage* under his own name ad the trippy, hip-hop influenced *Adventures In Foam* under his alias Cujo. Having lived in no less than a half dozen countries, Tobin's music reflects his pan-ethnic life and displays a Latinesque take on hip-hop combined with mercilessly cold drum 'n' bass-influenced cool jazz. His live sets continue to amaze and, with remix work stacking up like chips, it appears that '98 will be a very busy year for him.

Wu-Tang Clan
If, like myself, you saw Wu-Tang on the MTV extreme sports whatever festival in Austin, you realized that something truly fucked up was happening in America. Here was this half-cocked bunch of miscreants (with several crew members missing from the fold) fudging rhymes, missing cues, screwing up beats and berating the crowd and, the whole time, the audience watched, enthralled. Loving every minute of it. That is the secret power of the Clan. Taking multi-level marketing to a new high (in conjunction with their power-brokering label, Loud), Wu-Tang delivered the double album *Wu Tang Forever* which provided ample displays of the rhyming finesse of all involved (but one must especially take note of both the increasingly scientific flow of Raekwon and the rapidly deteriorating psyche of Ol' Dirty Bastard ... or is it Osirus?) and, of course, the massive production skills of the truly insane RZA. And, of course, they were everywhere. Solo joints abounded (Ghostface's being this year's winner, Killarmy being the dud), Wu-Wear could be bought in malls in Indiana, *that* video kept on playing and the Clan just kept getting richer. But don't ever forget: They're more relevant than their fame will let you believe. And that's all part of the plan.

First appeared in the Dec. 1997 issue of Resonance.