on a whim tonight, kind of unexpectedly, i put on a costume (my x-wing fighter get-up, so as not to put any unnecessary wear on the wild things suit) and went with simeon to see a small local band called "black mountain" play at a small local multi-purpose art space venue called "the ark" which (a-r-k) stands for something but i forget what. black mountain is a couple of guys who work at the comic store where sim gets his weekly fix, and another guy. it's an interesting set up, drums and two bass (basses?) and one of the bass players (the not-comic shop guy) clogs. as percussion. they play no frills, thick, dark, and melodic, but unmistakably metal, rooted in the best traditions of slayer and megadeath and updated for today. with clogging, which i can't say enough good about. (every band should have a clogger for percussion, it's just such a neat sound. ok, maybe not every band. blink 182 wouldn't benefit much from a clogger. but then there's not much will help blink 182.) these guys are still very rough and amateurish, but they're on to something. pretty much the only band i could think of that's similar is the fucking champs, who are much more polished and tuneful... but you'd have to image they sounded something like this at first, except with two guitars instead of two bass (basses, whatever!) and without the clogging. which also looked damn cool. i wish i could dance like that. i wish i could dance.

they opened for - and stole the show from - a trio of navajo punkers by the name of "black fire" who are basically just a very underground, very native american, rage against the machine (before zack delarocha left). except they're better, not because of their music, which was simple, hard, feedback-laden screaming punk rock (plus a small bit of navajo chanting thrown in for variety) and would have been serious mosh pit music back in the day, or even tonight if there had been more than twelve people in the room, all of us old enough to have the "pits are for kids! i'm too old to slam." mentality. no, they're as good or better than rage because these guys had real live righteous anger, which is something i admire a great deal, and it's always inspiring to see. people who have the courage of their convictions turn me on. you could hear the pain and frustration and anger in the music and even in the introductions between songs, you could tell how much this meant to them, getting their message out. very earnest, well intentioned, angry angry angry navajo punkers. oh, and a girl bass player, who was kinda cute but did lots of annoying slinking about and fake karate kick bass-playing stuff, which i could've done without.

during the set break, there was an amazing belly dancer, who performed for about fifteen minutes, and it was absolutely beautiful. even though she wore a gasmask the whole time. for the first time, i think, i saw belly dancing that was as graceful as ballet, and more intricate, and more sensual. very evocative, and with the gas mask, even communicative of a message. i'm not usually one for dance performances, but this was spectacular.

then simeon and i went to moonlight cafe for guinnesses and hummus, served by a very cute waitress, no less. all in all a great night, simple but enjoyable.
2:58 AM   {l} {c}

okay. so i saw the strokes tonight at the howlin' wolf. for several days now, i've been kind of nervous about having to recant what i said about the strokes last week - but i don't, at least not completely. they are a good band, and they play good punk-edged, solid rock and roll, but there's not much that's original or new or innovative about them. they imitate their influences expertly - in fact at points they channel them - and the raw earnestness and confidence and grit that comes through makes them different from most other indie (or mainstream) bands today. but it's not their grit, it belongs to mick jagger and iggy pop. this show made me feel as if i was in a scene from a movie about early eighties punk bands, or that i was witnessing the closest thing i'll ever see to iggy pop fronting the stooges in 1982. but the strokes are not the stooges, and julian casablancas ain't iggy pop, no way no how. he is a rock personality though, like jack white of the white stripes is - but of a different sort. jack white proved himself to be the rockstar primadonna-perfectionist-asshole type, while casablancas is the rockstar lifestyle-living-innocent-waste type. which is to say he was trashed the whole set, but not so trashed he didn't hit give a great performance. he hit every mark he set. but was he fuuuucked-up. and somehow still able to channel the raw emotion into his vocals, despite his chemical detachment. he was so stoned, in fact, that there was something almost childishly innocent about him, as if you just had to forgive him for not knowing better. oh, and also notable was that something of a pit formed in the front of the crowd, which i was magnetically attracted to, despite not having been in a real pit since i don't know when. but just seeing all those thrashing bodies, i had to be in the middle of it. and i was, and it was good. but it wasn't the first time i've been in a pit, and it was not the best by far, though i enjoyed being in the thick of it - which is my final analysis on the strokes. they're not the first time the world has heard their sound; they're great, yes, but not the best; and i had a good time tonight. which, really, might be all that matters.

and i haven't even told you about 80's night at the shim-sham yet.
4:16 AM   {l} {c}

i'm listening to a new cd, that came out today. it's probably one of the best discs i've heard all year - it's sort of experimental, it's kind of a bold, off-the-wall kind of thing, and it pushes the boundaries of the artist's style. and the band is bad-ass, really technically great musicians. and, not that it matters, but the lead singer went to my high school, and used to be good friends with my cousin douglas.

it's called, "songs i heard" and it's by harry connick jr.

true dat. what's that? too eclectic for you? go ahead, subtract whatever cool points you want. completely new arrangements of some songs from childrens movies - i couldn't help but get it - i've always liked his version of "the bare necessities" from the 'simply mad about the mouse' disney disc - so harry connick jr. doing the oompa-loompa song? had to hear it. (it's darker than you'd expect) and to hear "ding dong the witch is dead" as a jazzy dirge and "spoonful of sugar" as a new orleans second-line march, it's amazing. it's good jazz by any standard, and his totally re-worked, big band jazz arrangements of these songs are almost all winners. i don't think this album is meant for the faint of heart, romantic-comedy lovin' housewife type harry connick jr. fan - he's always had the experimental side to him, and those, in my opinion, have been his best albums, whether or not they've worked completely - his concept album 'star turtle' and 'she' come to mind. he's more than he seems. and this is good stuff.

still don't believe me? even the onion av club agrees. and besides, harry connick jr. singing "edelweiss"? on a mix cd? c'mon, the girls'll melt. right, girls? hmmm... have to test that theory, if i ever get the chance again...
12:47 AM   {l} {c}

there, bought my tickets.. i'm going. to see the strokes at the howlin' wolf, on thursday. we'll see if they live up to the hype live.
2:34 PM   {l} {c}

so i've been meaning to get to this for a couple of days now. you see, i listen to lots of music, and i like to keep up with new artists and new releases, and i'm generally aware of the trends and the next-big-things. so, i've been aware of the strokes for a few months now, to some extent - aware at least that they've been generating a similar hype to that of the white stripes earlier this summer. but i hadn't heard much - a few mp3s - and was kind of looking forward to their album coming out. but now that it has, and i've listened to most of it at record store listening stations, on a couple of occasions, i've come to the conclusion that i don't really like the strokes. the press says, droolingly, that they have a more refined, more professional sound than the white stripes, but are along similar rock and roll lines, and there are inevitable comparisons to the stooges and television. well, on a couple of listens, here's my take: no way. nothing about this album seems to grab me. they're technically proficient, i'm sure, and it is a cleaner sound than the white stripes, but i like jack white's raw delivery and the sort of amateurish charm that lets them get away with it - and the quirky mixture of elements that you know are all derivative, but you're not always sure from what - was that a blues riff or a rock lick? sure, the strokes seem to be a good, solid, real rock band, but they're no stones or who or anybody else, and don't even come close - and they don't seem to have the variety of influence that the stripes do. they have a good sound, but it's not original, and it's not as good as the bands they're trying to channel. so. if this is the pinnacle of indie rock, what gives? why glorify and annoint second rate 70's rock imitators, like the strokes, over some of today's real innovators? i don't get it.

which is not to say i won't get the album. i'm still considering it, because you never know, it may grow on me. maybe all i need is to see them live to be converted, as i was with the white stripes...
1:56 AM   {l} {c}

ron sexsmith & lucinda williams - 10/3/2001 - house of blues, nola

first off, this was a brilliant pairing - i don't know who decided that ron sexsmith should open for lucinda, but two better singer/songwriters would be hard to find.

ron sexsmith is... plain to look at, maybe, and he has the shy, reserved, almost formal demeanor of a boy who grew up outside of the 'in crowd' - not the extrovert, not the type you'd expect to see up on a stage, not a rock star. but there he is, on stage, and when he starts to sing, you can see the confidence in his eyes - and you know that he belongs there, and all eyes are on him. the man has a beautiful voice, and an ability to write beautiful songs. and despite being soft-spoken, he's a good performer - not a rock star, but a step up from a folk singer - maybe a folk star? i tend to think of him in a class with rufus wainwright and freedy johnson, same sort of thing - but i wonder how they are live... (i'll be seeing freedy live around halloween, hopefully...) anyway, he played a good set -- quite long for an opener -, with songs from each of his albums, perhaps a bit weighted towards blue boy, his latest... but sadly he didn't play either of my personal favorites, "one grey morning" or "idiot boy". anyway. good show, and i'd have paid as much just to see him...

lucinda williams is a thing all to herself, however... strangely, though, this show started off a little detached - a little cold, as if she was just going through the motions. but after a little while, maybe 3 or 4 songs, she hit her stride with the 'hometown' crowd, and there was no turning back...
2:46 PM   {l} {c}

so i said i'd post a real review. here it is. i wrote this as part of an application to be a reviewer for pitchfork but it's probably safe to say i didn't get the gig, since i haven't heard anything and the submissions closed nearly a week ago. that being the case, i don't feel bad posting it here - and i don't think it's too bad, as music reviews go, especially for my first attempt in years...

REVIEW: Jay Farrar - Sebastopol

Sebastopol, California, is a town named after a fistfight. It was such a bloody, marathon beat-down that it reminded the small town’s early inhabitants of the news reports they’d recently read of the long-lasting British siege of the Russian port of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. And so, in a one of those strange, dark twists of logic peculiar to rural America, they named their town after a bar brawl.

It's difficult to listen to Sebastopol, the first solo album by Son Volt founder Jay Farrar, and not feel that he must have had the tale of that fistfight in mind when he was making this record -- it treads a similarly peculiar, rural and distinctly American path, with a logic all its own - evocative of the oddities and imperfections of small towns and backroads. In his solo work as with his band efforts, Farrar has continued to evolve a sound that’s distinctly his own. Down-tempo and rural, by turns stripped down and intricately layered, and held together by his distinctive nasal intonation - high lonesome yet raw with a down-but-not-out emotional honesty.

This may be the first time he’s recorded under his own name, but then, Jay Farrar has never been afraid to follow his own muse. As founder (with Jeff Tweedy, now of Wilco, for those young’uns out there ) of seminal alt.country outfit Uncle Tupelo, Farrar created a sound that was steeped in traditional country but with the electric, urgent hooks of punk rock -- doesn’t sound too original now, but in 1989 it was revolutionary, and their first album, No Depression, gave its genre a name. But when he felt his sound was going one way and Uncle Tupelo another, he just left -- that simple -- and built Son Volt around his vision, giving the world 1995’s Trace -- quite possibly the defining album of the alt.country sound, and Windfall, its anthem. Son Volt continued to evolve from there, experimenting in much more intricate, layered compositions and sometimes getting their songs tangled or lost in the arrangements.

Here, Farrar strikes a pleasant balance, with enough instrumentation to keep things interesting and arrangements which give his unique lyrics and vocals plenty of elbow room. On Sebastopol, Farrar goes beyond the typical slide guitar (expertly wielded in this case by Kelly Joe Phelps) and adds the unusal twang of a sitar to the mix, and manages to make it sound more like Indiana than India. “Feel Free,” the album’s first track, begins with an odd electric tootle, but the song settles into such a simple rhythm you soon find yourself wondering if you imagined it. But it was there, and serves as a shot across the bow that there’’s more texture here than in the ordinary line up of sounds and instruments.

“Voodoo Candle”, “Damn Shame”, and “Feed Kill Chain” are as hook-laden and memorable as Farrar’s no-hurry delivery gets, the kind of songs you find on replay in your head on quiet roadtrips.

"Prelude (Make It Alright)" is a tease, building up a promising rhythm out of the aforementioned sitar, some lo-fi drums, and what could be maracas, but abruptly cuts off, giving way to the simple acoustic strumming of Dead Promises

The standout track on this album is clearly “Barstow” -- a Farrar classic if ever there was one. A slow, catchy waltz, complete with hauntingly beautiful vocal support from alt.country ‘it’ girl Gillian Welch and lap steel by David Rawlings, it’s a weird tale which might be about a post-apocalypse excavation of small-town America. It reads like something out of a magical realist or science fiction novel, but sounds like lonesome, classic country.

Which reminds me -- one of Farrar’s most endearing qualities has always been his craft with unusual lyrics, a skill in full effect here -- he casually uses words seemingly out of phase with songs of the roadtrip nature such as these, and lines like “Anyone caught speaking Esperanto / is thought crazy or headed for jail”, “woke up in another test market / with a new headache filter in place”, and even “parabolic louver lighting / really gotta have some.”

And so Sebastopol, as his first solo project, confirms what Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt fans have known for a long time -- Jay Farrar is a musical auteur whose singular talent is to weave the strange and incongruous seamlessly into the forlorn country landscapes of life in rural America - and to show that they were already there in the first place.

2:01 PM   {l} {c}