By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville.com
Think you have issues with teens and their overloud music at home?
Imagine this: A wall of sound emanates from the suburbs and more than just escapes the bedroom, it redoubles every space upstairs as earplugs are more than merely necessary, they are a critical safety issue, and the whole neighborhood quakes as Frontrunner rehearses at home.
The five-piece band features Chandler teens whose sound is as forceful and bracing as any racket playing the local circuit, except there is at least one interesting thing to note: Only one of the members is barely even sweet 16.
As this is going on, their parents sit downstairs, smiling sweetly.
Says one of these supportive fathers, Bob Lilly, "At least this way, I know where they are."
Members of the group have been jamming together, in one form or another, since the third grade. The band began in earnest when Austin, 13, and Landon Scates, 15, were tired of sitting on the sidelines and decided to join brothers Jeremy, 14, and Shane Lilly, 16, plus a fifth member of Frontrunner, 14-year-old Ricky Jamison, to rock out. And now, given a proper environment by nurturing adults who treat this effort more like soccer moms than candidates for the usual battles to turn down the volume, Frontrunner has already performed at the Hard Rock Café and places such as Clubhouse, Big Fish Pond, Minderbinder`s.
Think about it: While other kids are being hustled to and fro to soccer and little league games, these moms and dads are running them down to the back alley of some local nightclub to unload equipment, wait around in a smoke-filled room, and then take them back home as they wedge them away from the wannabe groupies.
"At one point we just realized that they were all doing this on their own," says team mother Vicki Scates, who begs to differ with anyone who might believe this has anything to do at all with her own motivational skills, which are considerable (Her daughter, Linsey Taylor, is a top-four Fiesta Bowl Court contestant, going into the final round for the year-end beauty queen).
And yes, they do get the girls, yet another essential reason to rock. As they rehearse, one of their songs they are preparing for a demo, "What I Wanted," blasts through with the resonating force of a teenage Romeo trying to break down the distance between himself and his Juliet.
"It`s about long-distance relationships," says Landon Scates, a student at Corona Del Sol. "It is about trying to be with my girlfriend, talking with her over the Internet, when we are involved in a long-distance relationship."
How long distance?
"Mesa to Chandler," he says.
So be it, long-distance romance, as it pours through your speakers in a cacophony of emotional distortion and longing, remains the essential muse of hard rock, which is why it is so damn loud. But these parents have found that, as a motivational force, there is nothing better than music to keep their kids eyes on future day jobs.
"They have always been so motivated for music," father Lilly says, "We use that to get them to do their homework."
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Springsteen: Re-Released and Redeployed
By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville.com
I have been living like a tramp lately, but in the new century of exclusion (as opposed to inclusion), membership still has its privileges. For that reason, I endorse the BMG Music Club, of which I am now a member, and now I bring to you critical news of what landed on my doorstep as the first installment, "The Essential Bruce Springsteen." The triple-CD collection of basic Bruce, of course, for the most part, nobody needs, except for the 12 bonus tracks, which most true fans will find to be … um, essential.
I have always loathed Mr. Bruce Springsteen. And it is more than just having the Boss hanging around, bossing around my radio airwaves for decades and decades. Not so much the music I loathed, but his fame (especially this crap about him being the Boss). Not so much his fame but the people who made him famous, that is, his fans and his fawning critics. Not so much all fans but just the few that I have known over the past, say, 30 years. They were all people full of passionate intensity, and as W.B. Yeats wrote, they are the worst kind of people (compared to the best, who lack all conviction, I guess). Maybe not so much full of passionate intensity, because I am one of those big, bad, willful people, too, and the truth is my reaction to these fans and the fawning critics has always been a little too strong. In fact, I have always kind of admired Bruce Springsteen, but the real truth of the matter is it all got ruined for me a long time ago.
It goes back to those so-called Glory Days at my high school (Chaparral, Scottsdale, Arizona, class of 1978), and a girl I was secretly in love with named Sandra. Now, like most of the femme fatales in a Springsteen song, she was not the prettiest girl in school. But I never went for the kewpie dolls anyway (and they never went for me). It was all made more complicated, though, by the fact she was the best friend of my actual girlfriend: But that’s tangential, because both were in my view as we were sitting around at Sandra`s house, dazed and confused, listening to the Who, Genesis and Pink Floyd.
Now, at that time, I was a total Anglofile. In fact, I still believe those Brit bands of the 1970s – your Led Zeppelins, your Yes men, Your Genesi (with Peter Gabriel), your Crimson Kings – were pretty much the final angel prophets of our time sent to gong the electronic trumpets of the Apocalypse for the generation before it all went down … like I said, dazed and confused. So when Sandra chirped in that the only true god was this wannabe Elvis the called the Boss, well, it just ran against my doctrine at that time. Then she said he was the sexiest man alive, and so I was jealous, and that was simply more than I could take.
No more. As this essential set reveals, Bruce is all about passionate intensity and there’s nothing sexy about it. Rather than polishing the sacred gemstone of stoned souls, or wooing the ladies with the Elvis routine, Bruce plundered the depths beneath the dark cities of the American dream, finding not so much light down there, but dignity. A lot of it.
Probably the best thing about this triple-CD Christmas gift hint isn’t the music at all, but the collection of the lyrics of all of his songs in a single booklet. His words can stand-alone. With passages too numerous to write down for these purposes, his lyrics transcend the last decades of the 20th century. His words come across like political propaganda, too, but no, what I mean is this: Bruce has been used; quite incorrectly, it seems, as political propaganda.
Which brings me to another one of those Springsteen fans, Bob Kemp, whom we all used to call the "human storm cloud." I just didn’t like Bob, we didn’t get along at all, since he was my boss, and it did help the real ascendant rock God by the mid-1980s was U2.
Nevertheless, in the 1980s, somehow, the song, "Born in the USA," even though it chipped huge chunks out of the self-assured armor of the American century; somehow (I guess it was just those Teflon times) the became ananthem for the Reagan Era. Read these lines and explain the fallacy of this reading by the masses:
Born down in the dead man’s town
The first kick I took when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that’s beat too much
Till you spend your life covering up
Or this …
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I’m ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run aunt nowhere to go
Reading these lines, I just don’t feel so lucky being born in the USA. I wonder if I had been better suited as a Tibetan monk … or a Vietnamese fisherman (another story there, too). Bob Kemp later moved on and became some kind of Las Vegas gambling guru, last I heard. I bet, though, that for a time he lost touch with the Boss, as we all did. Springsteen entered a period of contemplation and resignation and happy family life. As other bands such as REM and U2 went on to conquer the world, Bruce descended into the "Tunnel of Love," penning somber folk songs about the interior lives of quiet, little, marginalized people. Except for a few exceptions, his music was no longer the soundtrack, the background music, of our lives. It was more like the museum of our lives.
Which is perhaps why I stopped hating him so much. Until Monica. Now, the person I am referring to is not a real person. In the 1990s Monica, a character on the show, "Friends," was the fussy girl. I have no idea what the actress who played her, Courtney Cox, is really like. I think she’s really hot, as kewpie dolls go. However, I always identified her with Bruce Springsteen because she was basically discovered when she was brought on stage to dance in that horrendous "Dancing in the Dark" MTV video.
Now, Monica was a clean freak character on the show, of course, and there lies the rub for myself: Clean freaks are the most controlling, manipulative, contradictory conspicuous consumers on the face of the earth. All of that soap. Chemicals in the home that will give you cancer. Bug killing agents with fumes that you soak up yourself. And paper, tons of paper. And trash bags piling up in small mountains worldwide. So there was Springsteen, contemplating his folksy navel in the older-is-wiser middle-age years of the 1990s, and meanwhile, as squeaky clean Mall America became the safety zone for all of this poisonous whitewashing of the landscape, the Boss was too focused on decrepit street folk and dignified bikers on the fringe to really spend much time on the Monica virus. Just as a bizarre composite of consumerism was moving into the far corners of China, forget about compromised Ohio, just as the Internet gold rush, the I-am-the-Walrus marketing guru was climbing into the pilot seat of Air America, just as Deadhead stickers were stuck on Cadillacs, just as Las Vegas was remade into an All-American Disneyland for the kids and folks, well, the Boss was plain missing from his throne.
Even worse, while on tour during the past few years, his old fans, his constituency, the common man, needed to apply for financial aid to see his shows. If you look at the demographics of this nation, the common man could only marginally afford to enjoy Bruce Springsteen as an American Natural Resource. As one of the richest entertainers on an annual basis, he is actually a major Third World Nation now, asking for a handout. Oh sure, this has really nothing to do with the quality of his work, but the fact is that after the lilting eulogy AIDS victims in the song, "Philadelphia," Springsteen waited until after 911 to resurface as, well, himself. That is, the Boss. Except, the song, "The Rising," still sounds like a lot of foaming at the mouth as it plays to the culture of vengeance as hip.
But now that the Bank of America logo is tattooed on the ass of pretty much everybody’s favorite pop star (even U2 has caved, pandering to the marketgeist by co-branding a song from its new album to also help sell iPods), Mr. Springsteen is just another voice in the wilderness of big, bad money. Too bad he couldn’t have found himself sooner, like say, 1996. All I know is my BMG Music Club is charging me $29 for this triple-CD set, which I am glad enough to own, not that I am not sure if I can afford that. Probably have to send it back.
In the meantime, I will e-mail some of his best lyrics of the past to people I love, miss, friends like that, and hope that Sandra, Bob Kemp, Courtney Cox or a holographic Monica will be interested enough to call. Or maybe even the Boss, finding the true connection to the real common man, no Woody Guthrie style bullshit here, will pen an anthem about some idiot driving a Humvee to the cleaners around the corner.
Finally, you might ask, do I recommend this, based on the quality of the bonus tracks? Well, maybe. Depends on your station in life. I would just hate to think about what kind of soul-wrenching experience it would be to find out what it costs at the mall, or to learn what mass production on this scale real costs; in terms of the paper, the CDs, the electricity to burn it, the bottom line for the record company, the publicists, the marketing, distributors, retailers and so on, in order to repackage the non-bonus CDs. Apparently, the Boss was one of the first of his generation to DIY these early recordings and sell them on his own. Now that was a beautiful idea. Now that was essential. Now that was what it was really like to be born in the USA.
Douglas McDaniel is the publisher of Mythville.com and a long-time music journalist in Northern California, Arizona and New England. And, oh yeah, Colorado. Except not so much there. His blogger is http://mythville.blogspot.com/ and his e-mail address is Mythville@yahoo.com for as long as that portal can keep the lights on. OM.
"It appeared as if he'd never leave Phoenix earlier that afternoon. He'd packed haphazardly but determinedly, like a Saigon diplomat, circa 1973, heading for a rooftop-to-helicopter escape. He drove north, alone, the "Rescue Guy" in his shiny red Nissan truck, so loaded with boxes of belongings that he couldn't see out his passenger's side window. All of his utilitarian tools and pop-cultural fuels were on hand: an immaculately organized collection of Southwestern post-punk rock bands on tape, a Swiss Army compass, a wooden pen with the end carved into a miniature eagle, and enough cigarettes to reach Nevada -- either Tonopah or Area 51 or Telluride, Colorado -- or for an emergency bonfire to signal airliners crossing the Great Divide (whichever came first). Also overloaded was the meat and metaspace of McDaniel's brain, an eclectic rag-and-bone shop of regrets, lies and sacred music. All in all, the balance of his cache was capable of either regenerating him, or quite the opposite. He had enough angst as energy stored to keep pushing the pedal over 75 mph in a general northeasterly direction."
-- from the latest book by Douglas McDaniel, "23 Roads to Mythville"
Mythville.com
I have been living like a tramp lately, but in the new century of exclusion (as opposed to inclusion), membership still has its privileges. For that reason, I endorse the BMG Music Club, of which I am now a member, and now I bring to you critical news of what landed on my doorstep as the first installment, "The Essential Bruce Springsteen." The triple-CD collection of basic Bruce, of course, for the most part, nobody needs, except for the 12 bonus tracks, which most true fans will find to be … um, essential.
I have always loathed Mr. Bruce Springsteen. And it is more than just having the Boss hanging around, bossing around my radio airwaves for decades and decades. Not so much the music I loathed, but his fame (especially this crap about him being the Boss). Not so much his fame but the people who made him famous, that is, his fans and his fawning critics. Not so much all fans but just the few that I have known over the past, say, 30 years. They were all people full of passionate intensity, and as W.B. Yeats wrote, they are the worst kind of people (compared to the best, who lack all conviction, I guess). Maybe not so much full of passionate intensity, because I am one of those big, bad, willful people, too, and the truth is my reaction to these fans and the fawning critics has always been a little too strong. In fact, I have always kind of admired Bruce Springsteen, but the real truth of the matter is it all got ruined for me a long time ago.
It goes back to those so-called Glory Days at my high school (Chaparral, Scottsdale, Arizona, class of 1978), and a girl I was secretly in love with named Sandra. Now, like most of the femme fatales in a Springsteen song, she was not the prettiest girl in school. But I never went for the kewpie dolls anyway (and they never went for me). It was all made more complicated, though, by the fact she was the best friend of my actual girlfriend: But that’s tangential, because both were in my view as we were sitting around at Sandra`s house, dazed and confused, listening to the Who, Genesis and Pink Floyd.
Now, at that time, I was a total Anglofile. In fact, I still believe those Brit bands of the 1970s – your Led Zeppelins, your Yes men, Your Genesi (with Peter Gabriel), your Crimson Kings – were pretty much the final angel prophets of our time sent to gong the electronic trumpets of the Apocalypse for the generation before it all went down … like I said, dazed and confused. So when Sandra chirped in that the only true god was this wannabe Elvis the called the Boss, well, it just ran against my doctrine at that time. Then she said he was the sexiest man alive, and so I was jealous, and that was simply more than I could take.
No more. As this essential set reveals, Bruce is all about passionate intensity and there’s nothing sexy about it. Rather than polishing the sacred gemstone of stoned souls, or wooing the ladies with the Elvis routine, Bruce plundered the depths beneath the dark cities of the American dream, finding not so much light down there, but dignity. A lot of it.
Probably the best thing about this triple-CD Christmas gift hint isn’t the music at all, but the collection of the lyrics of all of his songs in a single booklet. His words can stand-alone. With passages too numerous to write down for these purposes, his lyrics transcend the last decades of the 20th century. His words come across like political propaganda, too, but no, what I mean is this: Bruce has been used; quite incorrectly, it seems, as political propaganda.
Which brings me to another one of those Springsteen fans, Bob Kemp, whom we all used to call the "human storm cloud." I just didn’t like Bob, we didn’t get along at all, since he was my boss, and it did help the real ascendant rock God by the mid-1980s was U2.
Nevertheless, in the 1980s, somehow, the song, "Born in the USA," even though it chipped huge chunks out of the self-assured armor of the American century; somehow (I guess it was just those Teflon times) the became ananthem for the Reagan Era. Read these lines and explain the fallacy of this reading by the masses:
Born down in the dead man’s town
The first kick I took when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that’s beat too much
Till you spend your life covering up
Or this …
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I’m ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run aunt nowhere to go
Reading these lines, I just don’t feel so lucky being born in the USA. I wonder if I had been better suited as a Tibetan monk … or a Vietnamese fisherman (another story there, too). Bob Kemp later moved on and became some kind of Las Vegas gambling guru, last I heard. I bet, though, that for a time he lost touch with the Boss, as we all did. Springsteen entered a period of contemplation and resignation and happy family life. As other bands such as REM and U2 went on to conquer the world, Bruce descended into the "Tunnel of Love," penning somber folk songs about the interior lives of quiet, little, marginalized people. Except for a few exceptions, his music was no longer the soundtrack, the background music, of our lives. It was more like the museum of our lives.
Which is perhaps why I stopped hating him so much. Until Monica. Now, the person I am referring to is not a real person. In the 1990s Monica, a character on the show, "Friends," was the fussy girl. I have no idea what the actress who played her, Courtney Cox, is really like. I think she’s really hot, as kewpie dolls go. However, I always identified her with Bruce Springsteen because she was basically discovered when she was brought on stage to dance in that horrendous "Dancing in the Dark" MTV video.
Now, Monica was a clean freak character on the show, of course, and there lies the rub for myself: Clean freaks are the most controlling, manipulative, contradictory conspicuous consumers on the face of the earth. All of that soap. Chemicals in the home that will give you cancer. Bug killing agents with fumes that you soak up yourself. And paper, tons of paper. And trash bags piling up in small mountains worldwide. So there was Springsteen, contemplating his folksy navel in the older-is-wiser middle-age years of the 1990s, and meanwhile, as squeaky clean Mall America became the safety zone for all of this poisonous whitewashing of the landscape, the Boss was too focused on decrepit street folk and dignified bikers on the fringe to really spend much time on the Monica virus. Just as a bizarre composite of consumerism was moving into the far corners of China, forget about compromised Ohio, just as the Internet gold rush, the I-am-the-Walrus marketing guru was climbing into the pilot seat of Air America, just as Deadhead stickers were stuck on Cadillacs, just as Las Vegas was remade into an All-American Disneyland for the kids and folks, well, the Boss was plain missing from his throne.
Even worse, while on tour during the past few years, his old fans, his constituency, the common man, needed to apply for financial aid to see his shows. If you look at the demographics of this nation, the common man could only marginally afford to enjoy Bruce Springsteen as an American Natural Resource. As one of the richest entertainers on an annual basis, he is actually a major Third World Nation now, asking for a handout. Oh sure, this has really nothing to do with the quality of his work, but the fact is that after the lilting eulogy AIDS victims in the song, "Philadelphia," Springsteen waited until after 911 to resurface as, well, himself. That is, the Boss. Except, the song, "The Rising," still sounds like a lot of foaming at the mouth as it plays to the culture of vengeance as hip.
But now that the Bank of America logo is tattooed on the ass of pretty much everybody’s favorite pop star (even U2 has caved, pandering to the marketgeist by co-branding a song from its new album to also help sell iPods), Mr. Springsteen is just another voice in the wilderness of big, bad money. Too bad he couldn’t have found himself sooner, like say, 1996. All I know is my BMG Music Club is charging me $29 for this triple-CD set, which I am glad enough to own, not that I am not sure if I can afford that. Probably have to send it back.
In the meantime, I will e-mail some of his best lyrics of the past to people I love, miss, friends like that, and hope that Sandra, Bob Kemp, Courtney Cox or a holographic Monica will be interested enough to call. Or maybe even the Boss, finding the true connection to the real common man, no Woody Guthrie style bullshit here, will pen an anthem about some idiot driving a Humvee to the cleaners around the corner.
Finally, you might ask, do I recommend this, based on the quality of the bonus tracks? Well, maybe. Depends on your station in life. I would just hate to think about what kind of soul-wrenching experience it would be to find out what it costs at the mall, or to learn what mass production on this scale real costs; in terms of the paper, the CDs, the electricity to burn it, the bottom line for the record company, the publicists, the marketing, distributors, retailers and so on, in order to repackage the non-bonus CDs. Apparently, the Boss was one of the first of his generation to DIY these early recordings and sell them on his own. Now that was a beautiful idea. Now that was essential. Now that was what it was really like to be born in the USA.
Douglas McDaniel is the publisher of Mythville.com and a long-time music journalist in Northern California, Arizona and New England. And, oh yeah, Colorado. Except not so much there. His blogger is http://mythville.blogspot.com/ and his e-mail address is Mythville@yahoo.com for as long as that portal can keep the lights on. OM.
"It appeared as if he'd never leave Phoenix earlier that afternoon. He'd packed haphazardly but determinedly, like a Saigon diplomat, circa 1973, heading for a rooftop-to-helicopter escape. He drove north, alone, the "Rescue Guy" in his shiny red Nissan truck, so loaded with boxes of belongings that he couldn't see out his passenger's side window. All of his utilitarian tools and pop-cultural fuels were on hand: an immaculately organized collection of Southwestern post-punk rock bands on tape, a Swiss Army compass, a wooden pen with the end carved into a miniature eagle, and enough cigarettes to reach Nevada -- either Tonopah or Area 51 or Telluride, Colorado -- or for an emergency bonfire to signal airliners crossing the Great Divide (whichever came first). Also overloaded was the meat and metaspace of McDaniel's brain, an eclectic rag-and-bone shop of regrets, lies and sacred music. All in all, the balance of his cache was capable of either regenerating him, or quite the opposite. He had enough angst as energy stored to keep pushing the pedal over 75 mph in a general northeasterly direction."
-- from the latest book by Douglas McDaniel, "23 Roads to Mythville"
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Southwestern post-punk in a Guilded Cage
By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville.com
The modern dancer girls had evacuated. The socialites had, too. But that wasn't so bad. It was a Tuesday night at the Herberger Theatre in downtown Phoenix and there was plenty of food, reasonably priced alcohol. And the Herberger, now the grandest of all performance venues in all of Arizona, was certainly a sweet setting for a helluva party. But the modern dancer girls, who had melted in a sensual orgasm of death as it embraces life during a piece set to the music of Dead Can Dance, had already performed and so, they left, pretty much punched the clock and flew. That pretty much sucked the marrow out of this pre-Halloween event, and so the female socialites left, and so did the rich guy in the tie and the suit. After all, he clearly wasn't getting any action here.
So by the time the Tombstoners, a local punky rockabilly began its second set in this big round entry room at the Herberger, they were playing to a food server from Alice Cooper's Restaurant, myself, and a woman named Dorine, who was actually a friend of the band. It was kind of like watching a DVD of a band performance, then, like me on the couch watching them on TV, but recollecting on it now, I feel like a lucky bastard having such soulful punk-a-billy thrown at me in such relative comfort.
The Tombstoners, even missing their regular bassist for reasons typically obscure (homework needed to be done, or maybe just the DTs, take your pick), played hard and fast for what became, for them, a kind of rehearsal. The four-piece is led by this 40-ish muscular vet of the local music scene, a much younger guitarist (he is maybe 25), a stand-in bassist who is also up in years (for rocknroll), and then, Nikita.
Now, you could easily dismiss Nikita. You could say that all she does is wave her arms during most of the songs, doing a Pulp Fiction-style surfer wave. You could say she has no talent. But is would be incorrect. When she does sing, she does this creaky little girl style chirp that makes you think of a young Exene Cervenka of the seminal L.A. punk pioneers, X. That works, in small doses. What really is working for this group, though, is her busty, short-skirted apparition bouncing to the music. Apparently, during regular gigs in and around Phoenix, she wears less.
Now, of course she is a bombshell. But I mean a bombshell that should be written with more than just a capital B. Also, it should be written with a capital S, and at least one of the Ls should be capitalized, too. Anyway, I look forward catching this act again in a natural setting. Her image resides in me now, the image of lusty southwestern post-punk in a guilded cage. And that is just wrong!
CD Reviews
Starsailor
Silence is Easy
(Capitol)
Expectations are a bitch. It took awhile to forget about Starsailor's introduction to the post 1970s rock traditional sound it so liltingly displayed in its first release, "Love is Here." That production was stark in comparison, with raggedy Neil Young-style vocal wavering by singer James Walsh, and less-is-more arrangements of piano, organ, acoustic guitar, occasional bursts of chiming riffs. But if you can remove yourself from the gawdawful anticipation of more of the same, and what you then find is band growing toward a bigger sound. Also outta the closet with the born again stuff, it is at least more world-weary than messianic, and certainly the mournful, anguished esthetic, and of course, the roots in classic rock, are far hipper than anything you will find on those pale CC&R holy roller stations.
Tramps & Thieves
Mill Avenue Cowboys
(info@aztrampsandthieves.com)
Jayhawks aficionados from Tempe, Arizona, are a dime a dozen these days, but these guys make the duet-style Americana better than most. And road songs, too. They do it well. I saw them play at the Spirit Room in Jerome, Arizona, a ghost town turned into a hippie escape, and the effect was completely unforgettable. "Jesus, shake my shoulder if I should fall asleep," is as visceral a comment of a little band touring around in a van as has ever been heard. This acoustic release, if you enter it in a brood, will give you hope for more. Can`t wait to hear the next CD, no doubt full of those creosote pile-driving riffs.
Wilco
A Ghost Is Born
(Nonesuch)
We might have thought the previous album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was the masterpiece. Now I wonder. In fact, I am so stunned by the brilliance of the follow-up, I can hardly think of anything to say.
Douglas McDaniel is the publisher of Mythville.com and a long-time music journalist in Northern California, Arizona and New England. And, oh yeah, Colorado. Except not so much there. His blogger is http://mythville.blogspot.com/ and his e-mail address is Mythville@yahoo.com for as long as that portal can keep the lights on. OM.
It appeared as if he'd never leave Phoenix earlier that afternoon. He'd packed haphazardly but determinedly, like a Saigon diplomat, circa 1973, heading for a rooftop-to-helicopter escape. He drove north, alone, the "Rescue Guy" in his shiny red Nissan truck, so loaded with boxes of belongings that he couldn't see out his passenger's side window. All of his utilitarian tools and pop-cultural fuels were on hand: an immaculately organized collection of Southwestern post-punk rock bands on tape, a Swiss Army compass, a wooden pen with the end carved into a miniature eagle, and enough cigarettes to reach Nevada -- either Tonopah or Area 51 or Telluride, Colorado -- or for an emergency bonfire to signal airliners crossing the Great Divide (whichever came first). Also overloaded was the meat and metaspace of McDaniel's brain, an eclectic rag-and-bone shop of regrets, lies and sacred music. All in all, the balance of his cache was capable of either regenerating him, or quite the opposite. He had enough angst as energy stored to keep pushing the pedal over 75 mph in a general northeasterly direction.
Mythville.com
The modern dancer girls had evacuated. The socialites had, too. But that wasn't so bad. It was a Tuesday night at the Herberger Theatre in downtown Phoenix and there was plenty of food, reasonably priced alcohol. And the Herberger, now the grandest of all performance venues in all of Arizona, was certainly a sweet setting for a helluva party. But the modern dancer girls, who had melted in a sensual orgasm of death as it embraces life during a piece set to the music of Dead Can Dance, had already performed and so, they left, pretty much punched the clock and flew. That pretty much sucked the marrow out of this pre-Halloween event, and so the female socialites left, and so did the rich guy in the tie and the suit. After all, he clearly wasn't getting any action here.
So by the time the Tombstoners, a local punky rockabilly began its second set in this big round entry room at the Herberger, they were playing to a food server from Alice Cooper's Restaurant, myself, and a woman named Dorine, who was actually a friend of the band. It was kind of like watching a DVD of a band performance, then, like me on the couch watching them on TV, but recollecting on it now, I feel like a lucky bastard having such soulful punk-a-billy thrown at me in such relative comfort.
The Tombstoners, even missing their regular bassist for reasons typically obscure (homework needed to be done, or maybe just the DTs, take your pick), played hard and fast for what became, for them, a kind of rehearsal. The four-piece is led by this 40-ish muscular vet of the local music scene, a much younger guitarist (he is maybe 25), a stand-in bassist who is also up in years (for rocknroll), and then, Nikita.
Now, you could easily dismiss Nikita. You could say that all she does is wave her arms during most of the songs, doing a Pulp Fiction-style surfer wave. You could say she has no talent. But is would be incorrect. When she does sing, she does this creaky little girl style chirp that makes you think of a young Exene Cervenka of the seminal L.A. punk pioneers, X. That works, in small doses. What really is working for this group, though, is her busty, short-skirted apparition bouncing to the music. Apparently, during regular gigs in and around Phoenix, she wears less.
Now, of course she is a bombshell. But I mean a bombshell that should be written with more than just a capital B. Also, it should be written with a capital S, and at least one of the Ls should be capitalized, too. Anyway, I look forward catching this act again in a natural setting. Her image resides in me now, the image of lusty southwestern post-punk in a guilded cage. And that is just wrong!
CD Reviews
Starsailor
Silence is Easy
(Capitol)
Expectations are a bitch. It took awhile to forget about Starsailor's introduction to the post 1970s rock traditional sound it so liltingly displayed in its first release, "Love is Here." That production was stark in comparison, with raggedy Neil Young-style vocal wavering by singer James Walsh, and less-is-more arrangements of piano, organ, acoustic guitar, occasional bursts of chiming riffs. But if you can remove yourself from the gawdawful anticipation of more of the same, and what you then find is band growing toward a bigger sound. Also outta the closet with the born again stuff, it is at least more world-weary than messianic, and certainly the mournful, anguished esthetic, and of course, the roots in classic rock, are far hipper than anything you will find on those pale CC&R holy roller stations.
Tramps & Thieves
Mill Avenue Cowboys
(info@aztrampsandthieves.com)
Jayhawks aficionados from Tempe, Arizona, are a dime a dozen these days, but these guys make the duet-style Americana better than most. And road songs, too. They do it well. I saw them play at the Spirit Room in Jerome, Arizona, a ghost town turned into a hippie escape, and the effect was completely unforgettable. "Jesus, shake my shoulder if I should fall asleep," is as visceral a comment of a little band touring around in a van as has ever been heard. This acoustic release, if you enter it in a brood, will give you hope for more. Can`t wait to hear the next CD, no doubt full of those creosote pile-driving riffs.
Wilco
A Ghost Is Born
(Nonesuch)
We might have thought the previous album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, was the masterpiece. Now I wonder. In fact, I am so stunned by the brilliance of the follow-up, I can hardly think of anything to say.
Douglas McDaniel is the publisher of Mythville.com and a long-time music journalist in Northern California, Arizona and New England. And, oh yeah, Colorado. Except not so much there. His blogger is http://mythville.blogspot.com/ and his e-mail address is Mythville@yahoo.com for as long as that portal can keep the lights on. OM.
It appeared as if he'd never leave Phoenix earlier that afternoon. He'd packed haphazardly but determinedly, like a Saigon diplomat, circa 1973, heading for a rooftop-to-helicopter escape. He drove north, alone, the "Rescue Guy" in his shiny red Nissan truck, so loaded with boxes of belongings that he couldn't see out his passenger's side window. All of his utilitarian tools and pop-cultural fuels were on hand: an immaculately organized collection of Southwestern post-punk rock bands on tape, a Swiss Army compass, a wooden pen with the end carved into a miniature eagle, and enough cigarettes to reach Nevada -- either Tonopah or Area 51 or Telluride, Colorado -- or for an emergency bonfire to signal airliners crossing the Great Divide (whichever came first). Also overloaded was the meat and metaspace of McDaniel's brain, an eclectic rag-and-bone shop of regrets, lies and sacred music. All in all, the balance of his cache was capable of either regenerating him, or quite the opposite. He had enough angst as energy stored to keep pushing the pedal over 75 mph in a general northeasterly direction.
Monday, October 11, 2004
Hand Across Colombia
By Douglas McDaniel
Mythville.com
Colombian-born sculptor/architect Roberto Gutierrez waves his hands in the air, conjuring the shape of each idea into invisible shapes. He leans into you, each gesture a dance of explanations, beaming the point home. Bursts of communication in Latin accents pour into a mold -- otherwise known as American vocabulary -- as the coffee house conversation exudes a cosmopolitan vibe.
"The main important thing I do is the human body in iron and bronze," he says during the interview as the weekend crowd rushes in and out at the Mama Java`s coffee spot. "The body, the shape and its movement are always part of the content."
With works that move with straining Superman muscles, bulbous Wonderwoman curves, his miniature and monumental sculptures made of bronze or wood or steel or stone usually consist of a fluid grace and power not so much Colombian in character, more like that global olympian named Atlas. They climb walls. They stand on stilts. They swim on plates of glass as the body is half above, half below the pane of the clear swimming pool`s surface.
Now an international success from Latin America to Europe, the Arrowhead area resident gets rave reviews from a curator of the Museum of the Louvre, Georges Gomez y Caceres, who writes: "His sculptures are alive!" With exhibitions in Paris, Tokyo, Bogota, and yes, Scottsdale, he has just returned from a show in Lincoln, happy to be back in town, beaming about the beauty of Arrowhead.
"It is a peaceful place," he says of his home with his wife, Stella, for the past one and one-half years (he has recently moved to a new home at 75th Avenue and Bell Road). "We walk around and see all of the green, the beautiful parks. It is a real American dream that sometimes you guys do not realize you have."
Before he makes spontaneous jaunts to Home Depot to get his materials, Gutierrez more or less designs everything in his head. Instead of hashing out his concepts for sculptures on paper, he says the trademark muscular forms are almost entirely wrought in his mind`s eye.
"Very rarely do I do drawings in advance," he says. "I love architecture and that is the reason I have a very, very clear idea of the details – how they will hang, how they will be installed, thinking always about the weight, the measure, the content of the piece. Sometimes it takes up to one to two years.
"I have 300 sketches in my mind of ideas, great ideas. Today I just realized an idea for something I had two years ago after I saw something this morning. One hundred ideas, working and working, melting into my mind. I am always thinking about the action of the movement."
Many of his most popular pieces feature Atlas men hanging in mid-air, doing acrobatics. In other works, his sense of humor and humanistic symbolism shows through. For example, one piece, "Deserter," shows a bronze figure crawling down from out of a picture frame to indicate a "thematic value" of a figure escaping from the slavery of the square. Pieces from sizes anywhere from 10 inches wide to six feet tall will be on view at the 8th annual Hidden in the Hills Studio Tour, set for Nov. 19-21 and 26-28 (call 480 488-3381 or visit www.SonoranArtsLeague.org).
Of these new pieces, Gutierrez doesn`t really have a favorite.
"The last one is always my favorite," he says. "You have just applied all of your knowledge, all of your feelings. The last one is always the best."
Mythville.com
Colombian-born sculptor/architect Roberto Gutierrez waves his hands in the air, conjuring the shape of each idea into invisible shapes. He leans into you, each gesture a dance of explanations, beaming the point home. Bursts of communication in Latin accents pour into a mold -- otherwise known as American vocabulary -- as the coffee house conversation exudes a cosmopolitan vibe.
"The main important thing I do is the human body in iron and bronze," he says during the interview as the weekend crowd rushes in and out at the Mama Java`s coffee spot. "The body, the shape and its movement are always part of the content."
With works that move with straining Superman muscles, bulbous Wonderwoman curves, his miniature and monumental sculptures made of bronze or wood or steel or stone usually consist of a fluid grace and power not so much Colombian in character, more like that global olympian named Atlas. They climb walls. They stand on stilts. They swim on plates of glass as the body is half above, half below the pane of the clear swimming pool`s surface.
Now an international success from Latin America to Europe, the Arrowhead area resident gets rave reviews from a curator of the Museum of the Louvre, Georges Gomez y Caceres, who writes: "His sculptures are alive!" With exhibitions in Paris, Tokyo, Bogota, and yes, Scottsdale, he has just returned from a show in Lincoln, happy to be back in town, beaming about the beauty of Arrowhead.
"It is a peaceful place," he says of his home with his wife, Stella, for the past one and one-half years (he has recently moved to a new home at 75th Avenue and Bell Road). "We walk around and see all of the green, the beautiful parks. It is a real American dream that sometimes you guys do not realize you have."
Before he makes spontaneous jaunts to Home Depot to get his materials, Gutierrez more or less designs everything in his head. Instead of hashing out his concepts for sculptures on paper, he says the trademark muscular forms are almost entirely wrought in his mind`s eye.
"Very rarely do I do drawings in advance," he says. "I love architecture and that is the reason I have a very, very clear idea of the details – how they will hang, how they will be installed, thinking always about the weight, the measure, the content of the piece. Sometimes it takes up to one to two years.
"I have 300 sketches in my mind of ideas, great ideas. Today I just realized an idea for something I had two years ago after I saw something this morning. One hundred ideas, working and working, melting into my mind. I am always thinking about the action of the movement."
Many of his most popular pieces feature Atlas men hanging in mid-air, doing acrobatics. In other works, his sense of humor and humanistic symbolism shows through. For example, one piece, "Deserter," shows a bronze figure crawling down from out of a picture frame to indicate a "thematic value" of a figure escaping from the slavery of the square. Pieces from sizes anywhere from 10 inches wide to six feet tall will be on view at the 8th annual Hidden in the Hills Studio Tour, set for Nov. 19-21 and 26-28 (call 480 488-3381 or visit www.SonoranArtsLeague.org).
Of these new pieces, Gutierrez doesn`t really have a favorite.
"The last one is always my favorite," he says. "You have just applied all of your knowledge, all of your feelings. The last one is always the best."
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