Brian E
Yellow Light District
Record Label Records
July 15th 2009
“Don’t Stop—Just Slow Down”
This motto on the cover of Brian Ellis’ newest project speaks volumes. Yellow Light District, due to be released as a limited series of 500 individually numbered 12” vinyl in July, is vintage sonic pornography for those who get a hard-on when they listen to the likes of the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack, or are obsessed with 1988’s Bloodsport…err anything Jean-Claude Van Damme. This record is no conservative, veiled throwback; it is a neon headband inspired synth-feast.
I listened to the LP while jogging through industrial Bushwick and Williamsburg. I quickly transformed into Little Mac training for my final bout with Mike Tyson in NES’ Punch-Out. Yellow Light District’s most penetrating hook is its style; It isn’t intellectual—it isn’t professorial—it is its own weird science. The first track, Theme, flawlessly begins the record with rolling waves of soft synth melodies that eventually starburst into a dance floor beat, textured with free form keyboards. As every track passes, Mr. E never lets up, always reintroducing the listener to an era some wish was long forgotten. But like the venerable Dov Charney seems to believe, some things don’t die for a reason, and there should always be those creatives out there to remind us why.
Dylan Connor
Breakaway Republic
January 20th 2009
Unsigned
It is strange what a mass gathering of hallucinogen consuming, dust bathing, barter-system campers can convince you to do. Conceived while wondering around the Burning Man Festival singing songs for the evanescent joy of gratitude, Breakaway Republic was born of legend and wild spirit. But to be honest I don’t have the stomach for another “record birthed from unusual circumstances” pitch. What is the record about, who made it, and is it any good? These are the questions that I want the answers to. A caveat, I hope those who fall in love with this record take my comments cum grano salis (from one Latin lover to another). For all others, you have been warned.
Breakaway Republic, named for the particular camp that Dylan Connor resided at for the duration of his Burning Man experiment, is a saccharine pop album with shoddy lyrics and easy melodies reminiscent of lesser loved Gin Blossoms records. For all intents and purposes this is Mr. Dylan’s therapy—his catharsis—and that’s cool, but it is no excuse to expect an uncritical response to obvious Elvis Costello impressions. Breakaway Republic is pop—plain, non-nuanced, unchallenging, contrived pop. The music is well performed, and well recorded. The record has what could be called high points; Blood Like Fire is some pretty damn good Americana, and Have a Little Dream is an excellent melody over and simply strummed guitar. It has the beauty of a signature Marc Cohn tune and the soft sound of James Taylor. That having been said, Breakaway Republic lacks gravity. It is simply too deficient to qualify as even approaching relevant.
Tour Dates
January 16th – Bridgeport, CT – The Field
January 17th – Philadelphia, PA Secret – House Party
January 30th – Brooklyn – NY Bar 4
February 18th – Philadelphia – PA O.N.E.
Shugo Tokumaru
Exit
September 2, 2008
P-Vine Records/Almost Gold
The stuttered waltz and whimsy that is evoked by Shugo Tokumaru’s latest sonic fable Exit infuses Japanese flourishes with Lennonesque imagination. The record captures the color of a fairy tale and the levity of short bedtime story. He never requires much of the listener other than an appreciation for the occasional appearance of odd instruments and an appetite for extraordinary music. The record never seems to overreach with its Eastern idioms and playful melodies. That Exit is sung in Japanese (I think) adds a level of open-ended intangibility; meaning always remains peripheral to the feel.
Live, Shugo’s plays the guitar as if it were his Siamese twin. His instrument at times seems as big as the man himself. There is an unmistakable element of bluegrass that flavors his live performance. Much of the other nuance present on the record becomes lost in the open space of the venue leaving the defined plucks and strums to fend for themselves. Perhaps this is because his music is so dense that the guitar becomes consumed by the disjointed tinkering bells and ethereal polyrhythm. During his 2008 CMJ appearance at the Bowery Ballroom, as understated as his presence was, he exceeded every other act that night with sheer creativity. As always, the Bowery’s CMJ show was over priced and underperformed; Shugo would have been served by a more intimate venue and a less preoccupied audience.
I am quite sick of the tendency for any musician who employs a whistle in their song structure to be labeled the next “Insert Nationality” Sufjan Stevens. Shugo seems to get shellacked with this honor quite often. His instrumentality relies on a menagerie of distinct sounds that have the sole intent of forming an effervescent ambience. I don’t imagine such a project can be said to be unique to Mr. Stevens. Indeed, Shugo Tokumaru’s Exit is one of the most original records released this year, and it is certain to endear many who listen. If you get the chance to see this guy upon his North American return, be sure to catch him at an appropriate venue, so that all the glorious array of whips and bobs don’t just float away.
Matt Mays & El Torpedo
Terminal Romance
September 30th 2008
Sonic Records
What is going on in Nova Scotia? To borrow a phrase from a dear friend, “What the fuck’s in that water?” Perhaps we as children of the 70’s and 80’s have some strange Freudian obsession that lingers late into adulthood. We want to destroy our proverbial fathers and godfathers, not to dispose of everything that they stand for, but to take their place in the hard fought legacy of rock and roll. This is the difference between acts that sound in style like their forbearers and those that so completely embody those that have come before them that they simply aren’t recognizable as part of our time. When a band of this caliber is discovered your affinity for them is involuntary. Innovators like John Cougar and Rick Springfield drew on trend heavy subcultures to create the most perfect pop radio rock songs. Matt Mays & El Torpedo are so stylistically imbued with this same project that it is difficult to claim mere mimicry. The band recorded in England with Chris Tsangarides, a producer who has had experience channeling pop rock in its greatest days. Having produced for Thin Lizzy, Tsangarides is sure to have been shuttled back by their performance.
Terminal Romance is kids living in the city, looking at the lights, riding downtown with nothing but adventure in their hearts and perhaps a touch of coke in their nose. It is big guitars and youthful melodies that together sing celebratory anthems to the night. It is ¾ sleeves and cut off jeans. I mean com’on, this guy owns a fucking DeLorean! Or at least he drives one in the video for Tall Trees, easily one of the album’s best cuts. Digital Eyes and the record’s title track cement Matt May & El Torpedo as visionary time travelers—faster than 85mph and we are back to the future. This ain’t no costume party—this ain’t no remake.
Like any pop-rock anthem of any era, the lyrics, while invocative, aren’t exactly fine art. The words aren’t completely vacuous in that Sarah Palin sort of way, but it’s fair to say the songs rely more on their pop appeal and accessibility than deep rooted meaning. It is incredibly difficult to write a song about loving someone until the end of time without coming off as a complete tool bag. Terminal Romance figures out that it isn’t always the words that matter— it’s the alcohol content. Matt Mays & El Torpedo have put together an entirely entertaining record worth every moment that we are shuttled into our former selves. They give us the ability to see the modern city through a different lens, one that frames it as a playground for the rebel, for the lover, and for those unsatisfied by the quiet streets, dim lights, and slow nights of small towns.
Other Music
Matt Mays- 2002
Matt Mays & El Torpedo- 2005
When the Angels Make Contact- 2006
Tour
Oct. 1 Middle East Upstairs Cambridge, MA
Oct. 2 Jammin Java Vienna, VA
Oct. 3 Piano’s Bar New York, NY
Oct. 7 M Room Philadelphia, PA
Oct. 9 Club Cafe Pittsburgh, PA
Oct. 10 Beat Kitchen Chicago, IL
Oct. 11 First Avenue Minneapolis, MN
Oct. 15 Garrick Centre Winnipeg, MB
Oct. 16 Odeon Events Centre Saskatoon, SK
Oct. 17 Dog House Rocks Medicine Hat, AB
Oct. 18 Edmonton Events Centre Edmonton, AB
Oct. 21 B.J.’s Grande Prairie, AB
Oct. 22 Blue Grotto Kamloops, BC
Oct. 23 Queens Hotel Nanaimo, BC
Oct. 24 Sugar Nightclub Victoria, BC
Oct. 25 Commodore Ballroom Vancouver, BC
Oct. 28 Red Deer Memorial Centre Red Deer, AB
Oct. 29 Flames Central Calgary, AB
Oct. 30 Pump Roadhouse Regina, SK
Nov. 1 The Outpost Thunder Bay, ON
Nov. 4 Barrymore’s Music Hall Ottawa, ON
Nov. 5 Barrymore’s Music Hall Ottawa, ON
Nov. 6 Phoenix Concert Theatre Toronto, ON
Nov. 8 The Casbah Hamilton, ON
Nov. 11 Element Night Club Kitchener, ON
Nov. 12 The Ale House Kingston, ON
Nov. 13 Cowboy’s Ranch London, ON
Nov. 14 Les Saints Montreal, QC
Nov. 15 Chez Dagobert Quebec City, QC
Nov. 28 Cunard Centre Halifax, NS
Nov. 29 UNB SUB Fredericton, NB
Okkervil River
The Stand Ins
September 9th 2008
Jagjaguwar
Okkervil River, along with other musicians gracing our planet, are “Cro-Magnons on drugs with guitars”—so says Will Sheff, frontman behind the band. He also says that hybrid vehicles are yuppie porn, while much of the rest of the developed world simply considers them responsible. Given that I am a rational and emotional decision-maker, why would I choose such a troupe of barely-evolved and underdeveloped rapscallions to tickle my senses? The answer to this question is clear: I had purchased the disk before reading Under the Radar’s interview with Sheff. Since I bothered to buy the thing, I figured I owed it a listen. I enjoyed Black Sheep Boy enough, but the net effect was that I went into The Stand Ins with a pretty negative attitude.
Upon listening to the first real song on the album, Lost Coastlines, I thought my initial instinct was right, driving me deeper and almost irreparably wedged into that negative attitude. For example, one of many catchy lyrics is “Every night finds us rockin’ and rollin’ on waves wild and wide, well we have lost our way, nobody’s gonna say it out out loud” followed by la’s ad nauseum and some sappy horns. That said, this song may be the highlight of the Stand Ins.
The next song, Singer Songwriter, has a nice twangy guitar accompanied by Sheff’s scratchy singing, approaching a drawl at times. Unfortunately, the lyrics are very distracting. The sole purpose seems to be to make a mockery of a musician who has got it all: good fans, good music, a good family. But somehow this is still a bad person who deserves to be made fun of—you get the feeling that Sheff is trying to teach him a lesson. Not only is the subject of the song mocked, but the band also goes on to poke fun at fans wearing brand-name clothing. Sure, that’s funny. But folks, watch out—show up at an Okkervil River show wearing Chanel, and you may find yourself on the receiving end of their wrath, or maybe just the subject of their next album.
Starry Stairs is another song about a musician Pornstar who has seemingly got it made. Unfortunately for this musician, (s)he is unhappy and feels the need to apologize to his/her audience “if you don’t love me, I’m sorry.” I, for one, am happy to accept the apology, though I have a feeling it was facetious, at best (This song does boast a great lyric, “I’m alive, but a different kind of alive” which reminds me of my favorite line from Kafka’s Metamorphosis). Something had happened here: I enjoyed the pop sentiment created on The Stage Names, as it was often accompanied by errant and sometimes twangy instrumentation, cheesy oooohs, and a great Sheff yell here and there. Somehow this effect was not achieved on the Stand Ins.
In general, this album is well-made with music of an out-of-time and out-of-place style, and lyrics that make you want to commit suicide—and to no fault of your own. Find yourself singing along to the 50’s prom style song Pop Lie (the only things missing are a Pompadour hair style and the movie That Thing You Do), and you’ll get chided for being a fake and a liar. This is where you realize that the entire album is trying to teach not only the caricatures in the songs, but also you and the whole world a lesson. This theme goes hand-in-hand with the saccharine qualities of the music- sweet, but devoid of calories. The album appears to be a treatise on nothing. Maybe not nothing—on things that “bother” Sheff like designer brand clothing and successful musicians. I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing sweatshop labor topping his list any time soon.
Where will you be on the 1st of October? Well, you best be at Pianos! Give these cats a welcome they won’t soon forget. Come celebrate the new record, Fools Want Noise, and Oh My God‘s brilliant recovery from the bitter clutches of death! It will be fun I promise…
Below is their video Fools Want Noise off their upcoming record.
If you aren’t in New York, check out these dates at a city near you…
Tour
Sept 25, 2008 Midpoint Music Cincinnati, OH
Sept 26, 2008 (Scene) Metrospace Lansing, MI
Sept 26, 2008 Mac’s Bar Lansing, MI
Sept 27, 2008 Beauty & the Beat Flint, MI
Sept 28, 2008 Allegheny College Meadville, PA
Sept 29, 2008 Smog @ Bard Annondale On Hudson, NY
Sept 30, 2008 Daniel Street Club Milford, CT
Oct 01, 2008 Pianos York, NY
Oct 02, 2008 Mohawk Place Buffalo, NY
Oct 03, 2008 Casa Cantina Athens, OH
Oct 04, 2008 Howard’s Club H Bowling Green, OH
Oct 10, 2008 Doug’s Rockhouse Aurora, IL
Oct 11, 2008 Subterranean Chicago, IL
Oct 16, 2008 The House Dekalb, IL
Oct 17, 2008 Triple Rock Minneapolis, MN
Oct 18, 2008 Cactus Club Milwaukee, WI
Oct 23, 2008 Cowboy Monkey Champaign, IL
Oct 24, 2008 Bluebird St. Louis, MO
Oct 25, 2008 Record Bar Kansas City, MO
Oct 26, 2008 Duffy’s Lincoln, NE
Oct 27, TBA Pittsburg, KS
Oct 28, 2008 Hailey’s Denton, TX
Oct 29, 2008 Beerland Austin, TX
Oct 30, 2008 TBA Paso, TX
Oct 31, 2008 Hotel Congress Tucson, AZ
Nov 01, 2008 Modified Arts Phoenix, AZ
Nov 02, 2008 The Mint Los Angeles, CA
Nov 03, 2008 Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, CA
Nov 05, 2008 TBA Rapid City, SD
Nov 06, 2008 Nutty’s North Sioux Falls, SD
Nov 07, 2008 Maya Jane’s Vermillion, SD
Nov 08, 2008 Maintenance Shop Ames, IA
Wax Fang
La La Land
Don’t Panic! Records
October 14, 2008
Wax Fang- World War II (Pt. 2)
It has been erroneously said that Wax Fang’s music is “otherworldly,” perhaps because of their Brian Eno and David Bowie fascination. No tastemaker’s descriptives can challenge the fact that neither Scott Carney’s voice nor the band’s high powered style is alien to our ears. It would not surprise me in the least if I were to turn the radio on while driving on N71 through Southwest Cork only to find Wax Fang blaring through the speakers. Carney has an imposing voice that is oddly reminiscent of a masculine Marianne Faithful. The music is a saturation of Irish invasion 70’s guitar driven rock, produced with the energy of the Pogues’ pummeling punk. The only reason I even dare to compare these magnificent musicians to anyone at all is because I have yet to read a satisfying description of the band that does not resort to non sequitur comparisons or to the false, though flattering suggestion that what they offer has never been offered before.
La La Land has the grandiosity of a carnival’s main event. Carney’s voice belts like a ring leader’s supplication to a timid crowd waiting to be brought to life by the theatrics of the Big Top. Wax Fang certainly do not lack originality, but their open display of influence is important when gaging who would or would not enjoy their music. One cannot claim Wax Fang to be a carbon copy of anything. They cleverly assemble their music on a foundation of hyper melodic power riffs and drum-line snare pops. The tired and tiring genre of indie-pop lacks Wax Fang’s controlled brashness. While keeping almost entirely away from the schizophrenia of bands like Animal Collective or The Annuals, Wax Fang exudes a vociferousness that is on par with any of indie rock’s more raucous acts. The defining aspect between Wax Fang and others would be that their brashness is contained; it is structured and constrained by their melody’s affinity for stability. The band never strives to make noise or involve themselves in cacophonous tangents that some might consider excessive, while other more discerning listeners might understand to be an unwillingness to take risks.
La La Land is a record worth the buzz that it has received. This Kentucky trio is destined to become one of the great pub rock bands of our time. If they live up to their destiny, we will soon be hearing Carney’s bravado as we down pints of Guinness. It strikes me as odd that the band does not consider their sound to be rooted abroad. I am excited to see the theatrics. When they visit NYC again I’ll certainly be there to watch the circus live. Wax Fang’s explosive energy is highly addictive. They are fist-in-the-air, scream-out-loud melody mongers whose force is focused and unapologetically deliberate. As a side note, drummer Kevin Ratterman comes to Wax Fang from his previous band Elliot, whose short lived career was extraordinarily influential to the indie scene. We are glad to know that life after Elliot can be so good.
Oh My God
Fools Want Noise
October 14th 2008
Split Red Records
Oh My God- Facewash
Oh My God- Houston
While I have loved many bands over the years, there have only been few that I really give a shit about. Would you believe it, Chicago’s Oh My God is one of them. I first met Bish, Ig, and Billy many, many years ago when they played Duffy’s Tavern back in Nebraska. I had seen them a few times prior and was very impressed with their performance. My sister also happened to be in town from Chicago and I wanted to take her to a great show at my favorite dingy bar. They did not disappoint.
Rumors circulated that there would be an afterhours party with the band. Memory from that night being hazy, I can’t exactly remember how I scored the address, but I later found myself with my sister and a friend parked in a gravel lot outside a big house in the country. There didn’t seem to be anyone around and our first instinct was to scram, but the van was there and I was determined to meet these freakishly performative people. I don’t remember much about the night save the phrase “flying fish farm”, a bottle of Makers Mark, absolutely delicious vegan lasagna, Ig’s massive hair, and the extremely kind company of Ig and Billy as we sat around a living room table discussing who knows what. My sister, my friend, and I were thrilled to have imposed on their late night festivity.
Later, when booking a show at a venue in Lincoln named Knickerbockers, I learned that Oh My God was on tour again and that my band was to open for them. This had my gut in knots. There was certainly no way we were going to compare. But we suffered through it, knowing what was to take place on the same stage only moments after our breakdown. It was a blissful evening, regardless of the sad circumstance of less than capacity attendance. Eventually I moved to Chicago where I saw them at the Double Door for their tour’s homecoming. This time I brought my cousin and a few friends. They were equally impressed with the band’s visceral performance.
Oh My God is aggressively eccentric. You haven’t ever seen a scissor kick until you’ve seen Billy fling his body around the stage. To give you any idea of their antics, Billy often begins shows dressed as a clown or plays the show in a kimono, or a clown in a kimono. As the show progresses he loses an article of clothing here and there, until he ends up in his skivvies, sweat run makeup, and a white tee-shirt that has some handwritten social critique such as “legalize prostitution” printed across the chest.
I always liked Oh My God’s combination of instruments. Their songs are structured around the drums, bass, and organ. The drums are often schizophrenic, the bass is distorted and fuzzed to excess, and the organ is tweaked beyond recognition. Since those days in Chicago and Nebraska, they have added guitar to the amalgamation. Tragically, while on the road in Ohio during a recent tour in 2007, a car collided with their van head on. Every member received terrible injuries. Billy shattered a kneecap, cracked a few vertebrae, and broke three ribs. Bish broke his left wrist and Ig broke his right. Matt, playing guitar on tour, broke his tibia, nose, and thumb. To be honest, I thought the band was through. It is extremely difficult to tour year in and out, record after record, only to be forced to postpone an upcoming record release and take a year off for physical therapy, psychologically to start again. I can only imagine the difficulties they encountered. I wished them the best in a dire situation.
So imagine my surprise when Frederick Foxtrott received a copy of their new record for review. The triumph of this band only underscores their tenacity and energy. While I have always said that Oh My God’s live show never quite translates onto plastic, their newest effort Fools Want Noise comes closest to capturing the frenetic display on stage, although I will always have a place in my heart for Interrogations & Confessions. New to the band are drummer Dathan DeVore and guitarist Anthony Gravino. While I have not witnessed Oh My God play in their current incarnation, I assume they will have all the excess that my memory reports.
Fools Want Noise continues Oh My God’s irreverent tradition. Billy’s voice is steeped in rhythm and blues, imbuing the rugged bass lines and industrial organ with hooks and catchy phrases that snare even the most indifferent of listeners. The melodies were forged in a popcentric factory. Oh My God is a candy coated cog. Though this combination makes for an unlikely surfacing into the mainstream, make no mistake, Fools Want Noise is infectious. Oh My God is an indulgent, intense and socially seditious band.
Every track on this record attracts the listener as much as it challenges them. Billy exudes a libertine persona that shuns social standards with confrontational words. They don’t keep safe any particular agenda; they prescribe an abandonment of all extremes, all the while shanking the status quo. Even in some of their contradiction the band seeks beauty. Billy’s soliciting eyebrows and cocky form sing songs about failure, vulnerability, and tragic love. Oh My God’s words are provocative in that they judge against judgment, while at the same time projecting themselves as iconoclasts seeking to deliberately break from the cagey grip of modern expectations. This allows some of the more saccharine elements of Oh My God’s music to be enjoyed in an abnormal context instead from the inhibiting and trite perspective of the masses.
Other Music
Oh My God EP- 2000
Action!- 2002
Interrogations & Confessions- 2003
You’re Too Straight to Love Me- 2004
Tour
Sept 18, 2008 Founders Brewery Grand Rapids, MI
Sept 19, 2008 The Loading Dock Traverse City, MI
Sept 20, 2008 DIY Street Fair Ferndale, MI
Sept 20, 2008 The Belmont Hamtramck, MI
Sept 25, 2008 Midpoint Music Cincinnati, OH
Sept 26, 2008 (Scene) Metrospace Lansing, MI
Sept 26, 2008 Mac’s Bar Lansing, MI
Sept 27, 2008 Beauty & the Beat Flint, MI
Sept 28, 2008 Allegheny College Meadville, PA
Sept 29, 2008 Smog @ Bard Annondale On Hudson, NY
Sept 30, 2008 Daniel Street Club Milford, CT
Oct 01, 2008 Pianos York, NY
Oct 02, 2008 Mohawk Place Buffalo, NY
Oct 03, 2008 Casa Cantina Athens, OH
Oct 04, 2008 Howard’s Club H Bowling Green, OH
Oct 10, 2008 Doug’s Rockhouse Aurora, IL
Oct 11, 2008 Subterranean Chicago, IL
Oct 16, 2008 The House Dekalb, IL
Oct 17, 2008 Triple Rock Minneapolis, MN
Oct 18, 2008 Cactus Club Milwaukee, WI
Oct 23, 2008 Cowboy Monkey Champaign, IL
Oct 24, 2008 Bluebird St. Louis, MO
Oct 25, 2008 Record Bar Kansas City, MO
Oct 26, 2008 Duffy’s Lincoln, NE
Oct 27, TBA Pittsburg, KS
Oct 28, 2008 Hailey’s Denton, TX
Oct 29, 2008 Beerland Austin, TX
Oct 30, 2008 TBA Paso, TX
Oct 31, 2008 Hotel Congress Tucson, AZ
Nov 01, 2008 Modified Arts Phoenix, AZ
Nov 02, 2008 The Mint Los Angeles, CA
Nov 03, 2008 Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, CA
Nov 05, 2008 TBA Rapid City, SD
Nov 06, 2008 Nutty’s North Sioux Falls, SD
Nov 07, 2008 Maya Jane’s Vermillion, SD
Nov 08, 2008 Maintenance Shop Ames, IA
Tom Schraeder
Lying Through Dinner EP
September 6th 2008
En Prise Entertainment
After missing his flight out of Austin after playingSXSW music marathon, Chicago’s Tom Schraeder made a deliberate decision to approach his next project with a synergistic attention to detail. His stay in Texas was serendipitous,
“It’s clichéd, but everything really does happen for a reason; I couldn’t tell you what pulled me to stay in Austin with two changes of clothes, a guitar, and nowhere to sleep.”
Tom’s time absorbing his environment produced Lying Through Dinner, a collection of intimate perspectives voiced with care, projecting the short lived narratives beyond the confines of a single song. Rather, each track seeks to exist in tandem with the next, so that each song serves the greater purpose of the record. Indeed, every song is a rebuttal of vanity and narcissism.
Even though his stay was unplanned, Schraeder’s experience instilled a sense of determination that served as an effective catalyst for his renewed creativity. He slept everywhere from floors, to couches, and even a homeless shelter. Speaking of how his journey contributed to this project, Schraeder says,
“I’m not saying I’d choose to spend the night in a shelter again, but something about the vagabond nature of the experience made this project happen with ease. We went from demo to mastered record in three weeks.”
The record opens with Needle Will Bite, a short and simple track that appeals to one of the most basic of internal monologs. The point of it all, what sticks in the brain, is the line “Something’s gotta give…” This is a moment that everyone has been through, and the song’s elevated tempo is perfect for the lyrics. The song quickly identifies itself with the listener and after only a few seconds makes clear that it speaks for the audience. People sing along to songs and memorize every word so that when they sing them, it is as natural as if they had written the words themselves. Schraeder should be proud; there is a certain beauty in being the guy who wrote the song that poor slobs across America sing at karaoke bars, wasted out of their gourd.
The metaphorical theme of the album’s next track, Guadeloupe Cries, forms the song’s backbone. Guadeloupe at once represents the pre-European peoples of Mexico, but she also represents the holy virgin of Christianity. She is a hybrid of an old world and a new one. She is the liminal space that exists betwixt and between. We imagine a familiar hotel room that has become somewhat lonely. We watch it rain out the window, as if Guadeloupe’s tears lament worldly events, what has been and what is to come.
Musically the record represents tradition and heritage, but in nearly every song experimentation is present. The folk, country-boy croon is at times accented with cavernous feedback, and in the case of Sorry My Dear, the distant and mournful wail of a magnetized guitar. The juxtaposition of the saloon–tuned piano and the fluctuating noise creates a beautiful atmosphere in which words are cradled.
In contrast, Don’t Look Back seems to be Schraeder’s shot at writing a standard, complete with a horn pick-up and a key change. The song says “move on, get over it, shake it off,” The song recovers from the melancholy and depth of the first few tracks, to turn the record face forward. This is a bar song. Not in the sense of alcohol drowned sorrows, but in that it celebrates that feeling you get when you realize the meaning of present and future tense. The past becomes irrelevant. The audience then becomes surrounded with possibility. The suffocating empty room becomes thrown into the social, recognition that a wider world awaits us.
Lying Through Dinner was also made possible by a number of local Austin musicians. While the heart of the record is clearly derived from Tom Schraeder, the rich Texan heritage that was brought to the table certainly added to the already excellent song writing. The challenge for Schraeder was not only to follow up to 2007’s release The Door, the Gutter, the Grave with a record as equally honest and soul soaked, but to also to step up the presence of a defined artisanship. Tom Shraeder has succeeded in this endeavor with Lying Through Dinner.
HolySons
Decline of the West (Expanded Edition)
September 23rd 2008
Partisan Records
Let’s call it Emil Amos’ “occult personality.” It’s a personality that has little regard for the mainstream reasoning of independent music. While indie-anything might not be funded by multinational conglomerates or directed toward the average teenage yokel, like all trends, a normative pattern has developed that is definitively associative with the indie genre. It is always only a matter of time before the more subversive and respirating aspects of countercultural movements become consolidated and imitated, in order to produce an easily replicable fashion.
This annexation is not necessarily a phenomenon analogous to comodification, but the resulting product and transformative process occurs along similar lines. This is also not a difficult or novel observation to be made. New and innovative forms of expression always morph into what is more easily consumable, or in their most influential moments, such expressions affect public sensibilities, reformatting the public’s expectations and restructuring the capillarian flow into the mainstream. Notice Virgin Mega Store’s small side shelf labeled “Indie Invasion.” Cutting to the chase, Emil Amos’ upcoming release under the moniker HolySons has been genetically engineered to resist this phenomenon. The newly expanded Decline of the West simply does not seem interested in lying on anyone’s proverbial plate.
That is not to say that Amos is an avant-garde original with austere concepts of individualism. Indeed, the drum machine aided acoustic guitar with layered vocals shtick has already been introduced to us by The Beta Band. Somber and sinister voiced lyrics long ago came back to life with Beck’s Sea Change, and Amos’s musings of Satanic Androids would have felt at home on 1994’s Mellow Gold. The smooth lilts from tracks off Decline of the West like Gnostic Device even have undeniable moments that pay heavy homage to Nate Dogg.
HolySons however, cannot be reduced. The loose nature of Amos’ recording process along with the choice of instrumentation and layering, as with the addition of the squeeze box on Bleakest Picture or the banjo on Things You Do While Waiting for the Apocalypse create an atmospheric quality that is perhaps perfectly fragile. To detract from any one element of HolySons would be to collapse its worth entirely. The record is grim and unclean, enigmatic but engaging. HolySons is a sometimes difficult to swallow pill that mollifies the aches and pains induced by the doldrums of scenester rock and roll.
Other Records
Decline of the West- 2005
I want to Live a Peaceful Life- 2002
Enter the Uninhabitable- 2001
Staying True to the Acetone Roots- 2001
Lost Decade- Recorded 1994-1999
