Originally published in Soundcheck Magazine
Adam and Dave’s Bloodline
Conversation/transcription by Andy Pareti
Photos provided by Julie Terrell
Who they are: Adam Garbinski and Dave Petersen, dynamic duo behind the Philly band that opened recently for the Meat Puppets and Jay Reatard and are readying their new album, Boycott Classics, for a May release. The band’s sound is as sporadic as their music tastes, which vary from Guided By Voices to worldbeat to the Grateful Dead. Other members include Brian Newell (drums), Kirk Henderson (bass, keyboard and vocals) and Lois Keenan (vocals and percussion).
The interview: Having been mercilessly denied with locked doors from their ritualistic, Sunday afternoon Bloody Mary at a local bar, we trek a couple blocks to the Silk City Diner, one of the only places available that serves alcohol on a Sunday. Garbinski is dressed in tight black jeans and a derelict of a wicker hat I think my mom used to own, while Petersen sports a hoodie and a thick, Samuel Beam-style beard. The diner is pretty crowded, and we struggle at times to outduel the audile tumble of orders being placed and Elton John pouring out the speakers above. Garbinski (left, first photo) is dressed in tight black jeans and a derelict of a wicker hat I think my mom used to own, while Petersen (right, first photo) sports a hoodie and a thick, Samuel Beam-style beard.
The band’s name: drawing from the “Bloodline”:
Dave: It’s a song I wrote called “Bloodline” a long time ago, and Adam was very fond of it. When we decided to have a band, we were knocking around titles; I think we had a big, long list on our laptop, and it totally turned from like real band names into funny band names into…
Adam: Dirty band names…
Dave: Into like, fake, dirty movie names, but we settled on this one.
Adam: Yea, “Bloodline” was a song that we liked, and I think we always liked names of bands like Sam and Dave, Jan and Dean, and things like that. And we were like ‘okay…Adam and Dave something.’ On our demo collection we’re called Adam and Dave’s Substitute for True Love. I think the original idea was to call every release something different.
Soundcheck: I can imagine the record label would probably have issues with that idea.
Adam: I know, yea.
Dave: Right away, as soon as it became a real band and we put out a real record and started touring it was like, everyone just calls us “The Bloodline”.
On Bill Moriarty and the EP, New Age Boredom:
Adam: The EP was self-produced and recorded but we had it mixed by Bill [Moriarty], who has done a lot of cool Philly bands like Tough Shits, Man Man, Dr. Dog, and he really kind of mixed it live, there’s a little extra grit on it, so that was pretty cool.
Dave: He’s very interesting…it kind of sounds how, if you see him do it, he’s kind of like a smaller guy – he’s real enthusiastic, and he’s kind of very right-brained. Not in a condescending way, like nerdy – like in the way you want someone to be nerdy. He kind of gets up on the control board, not in like a weird, flashy, ‘I’m crazy’ way, but just listening, and he’s reaching for knobs, and I realized at one point, I looked up and he’s crawling on the console, and he’s changing things around. It was just real interesting to see his approach and see the way he makes things sound the way they do. He was very cool and we’re very happy with it.
Soundcheck: Are we gonna see any of those songs on Boycott Classics?
Dave: Not on the record.
Adam: Those four songs, it’s gonna be a thing where when you buy the record, you get those four songs as free downloads.
Soundcheck: So are there any classics you guys are boycotting?
Adam: Actually, the reason I like the title so much is, there’s a song on the record called “Boycott Classics”, but it’s not really what it sounds like, which is why I like it. It’s kind of, when you hear it, you’re like, boycott classics? Fuck this! But the song is saying the opposite.
Anatomy of a song: “Hard to Know”
Adam: That was just a song I had for a really long time, and I never knew what would happen with it. And then eventually we were like, okay, let’s do it. Let’s try and stab at it. It’s about a guy who’s in a band in Phoenix who killed himself, so it’s kind of a sad story in a way. Musically, I kind of just recorded it quick on an acoustic guitar and sang it like an acoustic song…
Dave: The second try, because the first try was a misfire, I just remembered that!
Adam: So it was sort of just an acoustic guitar and singing thing, and then Dave put like a really, kind of rolling down the road, driving drum [part], and Kirk [Henderson] put a weird, outer space bass line on it like totally after the fact.
Dave: The bass is really kind of, extraordinarily weird on the song – it’s cool, but it’s really weird. We turned the drums back off and said, ‘don’t play with the drums, just listen to the acoustic and singing and play, but don’t ever repeat yourself.’ The idea was, this probably won’t work, but be very untasteful and just play lots of notes.
Adam: That song is something that really happened totally in the studio. The song itself was always there, but we’re glad it kind of accidently sprang to life, because otherwise we probably would have stopped there.
On the local Philly scene:
Soundcheck: Okay, what’s your favorite bar to get wasted at and your favorite bar to play a show at?
Dave: My favorite bar to get wasted at is when [Adam] is working at his bar, ‘cause I can get wasted for free! [Laughs] That’s why I love the South Philly Tap Room. I’ll have to think of one that doesn’t have to do with Adam working and giving me free booze.
Adam: I would say that my favorite bar to drink at, besides the South Philly Tap Room, is the Lost Bar. That’s an experience. We go there a lot, and we do a DJ night there once a month, which is pretty fun.
Dave: It’s a great, great bar, specifically to go to get wasted.
Adam: It’s like a midweek hideaway, destroy-your-life kind of place.
Dave: All the right ways that you want to destroy your life.
Adam: Favorite bar to play, I’d probably say Johnny Brenda’s.
Dave: That’s another great bar too, to get wasted at. It used to be a little bit more of a dive – not in like a purposeful way – just a little quieter and a little more raunchy, and now it’s very popular and it’s nice. Since they opened up the upstairs with the venue, they really put every other venue of that size [to shame].
Soundcheck: Best Philly cheesesteak?
Adam: Steve’s Prince of Steaks.
Dave: You won’t hear that from a lot of people, but it’s not Pat’s, it’s not Gino’s, it’s not Jim’s – though Jim’s is the best, I think, of those few.
Adam: Best record store – Positively Records. Or AKA Records.
Dave: Within the city, AKA is probably the best.
As the food arrives, Dave proceeds to get his slider caught in his beard as the two reflect on the fine dining of Austin, Texas.
Adam: Airport Road – the taco place there is my favorite place in the world. It actually is my favorite place!
Dave: What’s it called? I forget the name.
Adam: It’s a taco place on 53rd and Airport Road in Austin, it’s like the greatest thing in the world.
Dave: From early morning till like one in the afternoon –
Adam: We’ve stopped there even when we weren’t going to Austin, just driving through.
Dave: We’ve driven all night, parked the van on a side street at like 4AM and slept for a couple hours waiting for them to open.
Adam: Any other Philly questions? Where’s the best place to get a pimp suit? Suit Corner!
[Laughs]
Soundcheck: If you know some questions about Philly that I’m not asking, go ahead!
Dave: He can offer up quite a few pieces of Philly trivia.
Adam: Yea, I can go for a while.
[Note: After some investigating, it was discovered that the mysterious taco place in Austin is the Tamale House on Airport Boulevard and 51st Street.]
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Review - Dan Auerbach : Keep It Hid
Originally published in Soundcheck Magazine
Dan Auerbach
Keep It Hid
Nonesuch
“Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.”
The biggest hurdle a bluesman faces is the temptation to reinvent it. The above quote belongs to Count Basie, who certainly knew a thing or two about the blues in his decorated career. Blues music is stubborn, it is a rock; just as there is only one way to shed a tear, there is one way to play the blues. What does this have to do with Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach? Well, he understands the archaic nature of blues music, the romantic simplicity of it all. He did with the Black Keys, and he does here, more than ever before, by himself.
Keep It Hid wrings out the blues into a coffee cup and drinks it in. With these 14 songs, Auerbach has created the most basic and emotional music of his career. From an enjoyment standpoint, it doesn’t have the same immediate satisfaction as the aggressive attack of Rubber Factory (2004) or the amusing oddness of Attack & Release (2008), but these songs seem more dear to Auerbach’s heart, and the back-to-basics approach more appropriately suits the ragged cool of his voice.
It starts immediately, as Auerbach sings on the opening track, “Trouble Weighs a Ton”, “Needles and things, done you in / Like the setting sun / Oh, dear brother, trouble weighs a ton”. The song goes on to compliment its drug lament with lost faith, used women, and fractured families. The World: 1, Dan Auerbach: 0.
Later, on “Mean Monsoon”, Auerbach matches blues’ traditionally ponderous logic regarding love to a tee, wondering, “What’s he got that I ain’t got / Besides stability / Can he drive all night and never stop? / Well I guess you’ll have to wait and see”. Beneath the words swells a smokescreen of electric guitar that continues to resonate on this album, ascending to particularly swirling heights during the howling, piercing solo of “I Want Some More” and the surprisingly jovial “My Last Mistake”.
Keep It Hid is an exercise in musical restraint and potent emotion, and it’s a victory in not trying to reinvent the blues. It fades out to the sound of wind chimes, and you can almost imagine an ancient Auerbach, beard a stormy shade of gray, sitting in a lounge chair on the porch with a worn-out banjo in his lap. That he can evoke this sort of ripened realness at the age of 29 is nothing short of remarkable.
– Andy Pareti
Dan Auerbach
Keep It Hid
Nonesuch
“Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.”
The biggest hurdle a bluesman faces is the temptation to reinvent it. The above quote belongs to Count Basie, who certainly knew a thing or two about the blues in his decorated career. Blues music is stubborn, it is a rock; just as there is only one way to shed a tear, there is one way to play the blues. What does this have to do with Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach? Well, he understands the archaic nature of blues music, the romantic simplicity of it all. He did with the Black Keys, and he does here, more than ever before, by himself.
Keep It Hid wrings out the blues into a coffee cup and drinks it in. With these 14 songs, Auerbach has created the most basic and emotional music of his career. From an enjoyment standpoint, it doesn’t have the same immediate satisfaction as the aggressive attack of Rubber Factory (2004) or the amusing oddness of Attack & Release (2008), but these songs seem more dear to Auerbach’s heart, and the back-to-basics approach more appropriately suits the ragged cool of his voice.
It starts immediately, as Auerbach sings on the opening track, “Trouble Weighs a Ton”, “Needles and things, done you in / Like the setting sun / Oh, dear brother, trouble weighs a ton”. The song goes on to compliment its drug lament with lost faith, used women, and fractured families. The World: 1, Dan Auerbach: 0.
Later, on “Mean Monsoon”, Auerbach matches blues’ traditionally ponderous logic regarding love to a tee, wondering, “What’s he got that I ain’t got / Besides stability / Can he drive all night and never stop? / Well I guess you’ll have to wait and see”. Beneath the words swells a smokescreen of electric guitar that continues to resonate on this album, ascending to particularly swirling heights during the howling, piercing solo of “I Want Some More” and the surprisingly jovial “My Last Mistake”.
Keep It Hid is an exercise in musical restraint and potent emotion, and it’s a victory in not trying to reinvent the blues. It fades out to the sound of wind chimes, and you can almost imagine an ancient Auerbach, beard a stormy shade of gray, sitting in a lounge chair on the porch with a worn-out banjo in his lap. That he can evoke this sort of ripened realness at the age of 29 is nothing short of remarkable.
– Andy Pareti
Monday, February 16, 2009
Review - Ladyfinger (ne): Dusk
Originally published in Soundcheck Magazine (1/13/09)
Heavy is the burden that alternative-metal bands have to carry in this day and age. The poor guys just want to get their rawk on, and here all the hipster spokesmen just pound them to the ground, telling them to go back to 1999 and trash some once-proud outdoor music festival. It’s so easy to see it coming, and the sad part is that most of the time, the hipsters are right.
But wait, Ladyfinger (ne) isn’t playing by the rules. They aren’t painting targets on their chests and awaiting the media to fire flaming arrows at them. Maybe Saddle Creek Records, home of Bright Eyes and Tokyo Police Club, wasn’t so crazy to sign them after all. (In case you were wondering, the “ne” comes from Nebraska, their home state.)
The band practices no-frills riffage that is in line with Queens of the Stone Age or label-mates Cursive. The band has been compared with Motörhead, but while this is quite a kind gesture, it isn’t very accurate. Ladyfinger (ne) don’t have that brutish, grindhouse taste of rust in their sound. It’s more polished and clean, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.
Nor does the band possess quite the sense of humor to have the tongue-in-cheek charm of Queens of the Stone Age, but they are almost as relentless, and sheer power often can go a long way. Consider back-to-back mortar shells “Little Things” and “Two Years” as an example, the former a standard but catchy gallop that catches aflame after its false ending and the latter a battle hymn that is served well by its understated solo.
By keeping things so straight-laced, Ladyfinger (ne) actually avoid the pitfalls so many of these post-grunge bands fell into. They don’t try to rap, they don’t have a DJ, they don’t wear make-up, they don’t build songs around guitar solos … no, they are pretty much just plain hard rock. Their vanillaness should be a criticism (in some ways, it still is), but since it seems to be the only remaining avenue not already ruined by passé ghosts of metal music past, it leaves rabid critics little ammunition against them. Bland, it seems, is the new black.
A perfect example of another band that has used this approach and survived is the Foo Fighters. FF actually labored on through the craze of nu metal and rap-rock and have managed to outlive all those bands, and they did it by refusing to cling to a niche or follow a fad. David Grohl must know something that surprisingly few rockers know: if you want to rock hard, just do it. Whether it is a subconscious understanding or a learnt fact, Ladyfinger (ne) know this, too, and it is the one thing that saves them from almost certain mediocrity.
– Andy Pareti
Heavy is the burden that alternative-metal bands have to carry in this day and age. The poor guys just want to get their rawk on, and here all the hipster spokesmen just pound them to the ground, telling them to go back to 1999 and trash some once-proud outdoor music festival. It’s so easy to see it coming, and the sad part is that most of the time, the hipsters are right.
But wait, Ladyfinger (ne) isn’t playing by the rules. They aren’t painting targets on their chests and awaiting the media to fire flaming arrows at them. Maybe Saddle Creek Records, home of Bright Eyes and Tokyo Police Club, wasn’t so crazy to sign them after all. (In case you were wondering, the “ne” comes from Nebraska, their home state.)
The band practices no-frills riffage that is in line with Queens of the Stone Age or label-mates Cursive. The band has been compared with Motörhead, but while this is quite a kind gesture, it isn’t very accurate. Ladyfinger (ne) don’t have that brutish, grindhouse taste of rust in their sound. It’s more polished and clean, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.
Nor does the band possess quite the sense of humor to have the tongue-in-cheek charm of Queens of the Stone Age, but they are almost as relentless, and sheer power often can go a long way. Consider back-to-back mortar shells “Little Things” and “Two Years” as an example, the former a standard but catchy gallop that catches aflame after its false ending and the latter a battle hymn that is served well by its understated solo.
By keeping things so straight-laced, Ladyfinger (ne) actually avoid the pitfalls so many of these post-grunge bands fell into. They don’t try to rap, they don’t have a DJ, they don’t wear make-up, they don’t build songs around guitar solos … no, they are pretty much just plain hard rock. Their vanillaness should be a criticism (in some ways, it still is), but since it seems to be the only remaining avenue not already ruined by passé ghosts of metal music past, it leaves rabid critics little ammunition against them. Bland, it seems, is the new black.
A perfect example of another band that has used this approach and survived is the Foo Fighters. FF actually labored on through the craze of nu metal and rap-rock and have managed to outlive all those bands, and they did it by refusing to cling to a niche or follow a fad. David Grohl must know something that surprisingly few rockers know: if you want to rock hard, just do it. Whether it is a subconscious understanding or a learnt fact, Ladyfinger (ne) know this, too, and it is the one thing that saves them from almost certain mediocrity.
– Andy Pareti
Review - Andrew Bird: Noble Beast
Originally published in Soundcheck Magazine (2/12/09)
Boy, does Andrew Bird make me feel stupid.
Having to look up words such as radiolarian and aubergine when Bird’s 2009 release, Noble Beast, is just three songs old makes me realize just how tiny a spec I am in this broad, vast universe of vocab mastery. But that universe can fit in the pocket of the expansive place that Bird creates with the music, a haunting warmth of quivering violins and slow-burning acoustic guitars that reverberates through the cranium like an open, unfurnished room. And that’s just it. No matter how grad-school-English-lit the lyrics get, the music beneath and above them sways with the same broad stroke of boundless, open-road freedom.
For every SAT Verbal wet dream of a lyric that Bird provides, there’ll be an analytical mind to digest it. I’m not one of those people, but I still feel like I get Noble Beast. Fat Possum Records, which is known more for servicing jagged blues personalities such as R.L. Burnside, Bob Log III, Junior Kimbrough and The Black Keys, have unleashed an uncharacteristically polished record in Noble Beast, an album that is as warm and welcoming as a log cabin in a snow storm.
Although Bird has developed his theatrical folk style over a career that spans more than a decade, this latest release recalls, more than any, a band that is every bit as green and unseasoned as Bird is reliable. That would be Fleet Foxes, whose mountainous sonic reach is matched valley for rolling valley by Bird here. Even Foxes lead vocalist Robin Pecknold shares an unmistakable similarity with Bird’s voice.
Whether it’s because Bird has developed a sort of expectation that he is supposed to meet or because his album just happened to come so soon after Fleet Foxes, Noble Beast will never reach the heights that album did. Alas, it doesn’t have to – despite the similarities, Bird’s creation still is its own unique animal.
For one, Bird takes his unparalleled violin skills through untraversed territory, avoiding the easy pitfalls of fiddle and bluegrass in favor of something that falls in between classical and Nick Drake-style folk. It’s demonstrated in all its beautiful, understated glory in “Masterswarm”. Bird finds other ways to keep things nuanced and fresh, such as the dynamic rhythms beneath “Not a Robot, But a Ghost” and the cheery whistling to close out “Oh No”.
Some albums are unfolding stories; some are emotions. Noble Beast is a painted landscape, a detailed panorama that isn’t so much inhabited as it is alive itself. With albums such as these, you might see better if you close your eyes.
-Andy Pareti
Boy, does Andrew Bird make me feel stupid.
Having to look up words such as radiolarian and aubergine when Bird’s 2009 release, Noble Beast, is just three songs old makes me realize just how tiny a spec I am in this broad, vast universe of vocab mastery. But that universe can fit in the pocket of the expansive place that Bird creates with the music, a haunting warmth of quivering violins and slow-burning acoustic guitars that reverberates through the cranium like an open, unfurnished room. And that’s just it. No matter how grad-school-English-lit the lyrics get, the music beneath and above them sways with the same broad stroke of boundless, open-road freedom.
For every SAT Verbal wet dream of a lyric that Bird provides, there’ll be an analytical mind to digest it. I’m not one of those people, but I still feel like I get Noble Beast. Fat Possum Records, which is known more for servicing jagged blues personalities such as R.L. Burnside, Bob Log III, Junior Kimbrough and The Black Keys, have unleashed an uncharacteristically polished record in Noble Beast, an album that is as warm and welcoming as a log cabin in a snow storm.
Although Bird has developed his theatrical folk style over a career that spans more than a decade, this latest release recalls, more than any, a band that is every bit as green and unseasoned as Bird is reliable. That would be Fleet Foxes, whose mountainous sonic reach is matched valley for rolling valley by Bird here. Even Foxes lead vocalist Robin Pecknold shares an unmistakable similarity with Bird’s voice.
Whether it’s because Bird has developed a sort of expectation that he is supposed to meet or because his album just happened to come so soon after Fleet Foxes, Noble Beast will never reach the heights that album did. Alas, it doesn’t have to – despite the similarities, Bird’s creation still is its own unique animal.
For one, Bird takes his unparalleled violin skills through untraversed territory, avoiding the easy pitfalls of fiddle and bluegrass in favor of something that falls in between classical and Nick Drake-style folk. It’s demonstrated in all its beautiful, understated glory in “Masterswarm”. Bird finds other ways to keep things nuanced and fresh, such as the dynamic rhythms beneath “Not a Robot, But a Ghost” and the cheery whistling to close out “Oh No”.
Some albums are unfolding stories; some are emotions. Noble Beast is a painted landscape, a detailed panorama that isn’t so much inhabited as it is alive itself. With albums such as these, you might see better if you close your eyes.
-Andy Pareti
Review - Andrew Bird: Noble Beast
Originally published in Soundcheck Magazine (2/12/09)
Boy, does Andrew Bird make me feel stupid.
Having to look up words such as radiolarian and aubergine when Bird’s 2009 release, Noble Beast, is just three songs old makes me realize just how tiny a spec I am in this broad, vast universe of vocab mastery. But that universe can fit in the pocket of the expansive place that Bird creates with the music, a haunting warmth of quivering violins and slow-burning acoustic guitars that reverberates through the cranium like an open, unfurnished room. And that’s just it. No matter how grad-school-English-lit the lyrics get, the music beneath and above them sways with the same broad stroke of boundless, open-road freedom.
For every SAT Verbal wet dream of a lyric that Bird provides, there’ll be an analytical mind to digest it. I’m not one of those people, but I still feel like I get Noble Beast. Fat Possum Records, which is known more for servicing jagged blues personalities such as R.L. Burnside, Bob Log III, Junior Kimbrough and The Black Keys, have unleashed an uncharacteristically polished record in Noble Beast, an album that is as warm and welcoming as a log cabin in a snow storm.
Although Bird has developed his theatrical folk style over a career that spans more than a decade, this latest release recalls, more than any, a band that is every bit as green and unseasoned as Bird is reliable. That would be Fleet Foxes, whose mountainous sonic reach is matched valley for rolling valley by Bird here. Even Foxes lead vocalist Robin Pecknold shares an unmistakable similarity with Bird’s voice.
Whether it’s because Bird has developed a sort of expectation that he is supposed to meet or because his album just happened to come so soon after Fleet Foxes, Noble Beast will never reach the heights that album did. Alas, it doesn’t have to – despite the similarities, Bird’s creation still is its own unique animal.
For one, Bird takes his unparalleled violin skills through untraversed territory, avoiding the easy pitfalls of fiddle and bluegrass in favor of something that falls in between classical and Nick Drake-style folk. It’s demonstrated in all its beautiful, understated glory in “Masterswarm”. Bird finds other ways to keep things nuanced and fresh, such as the dynamic rhythms beneath “Not a Robot, But a Ghost” and the cheery whistling to close out “Oh No”.
Some albums are unfolding stories; some are emotions. Noble Beast is a painted landscape, a detailed panorama that isn’t so much inhabited as it is alive itself. With albums such as these, you might see better if you close your eyes.
-Andy Pareti
Boy, does Andrew Bird make me feel stupid.
Having to look up words such as radiolarian and aubergine when Bird’s 2009 release, Noble Beast, is just three songs old makes me realize just how tiny a spec I am in this broad, vast universe of vocab mastery. But that universe can fit in the pocket of the expansive place that Bird creates with the music, a haunting warmth of quivering violins and slow-burning acoustic guitars that reverberates through the cranium like an open, unfurnished room. And that’s just it. No matter how grad-school-English-lit the lyrics get, the music beneath and above them sways with the same broad stroke of boundless, open-road freedom.
For every SAT Verbal wet dream of a lyric that Bird provides, there’ll be an analytical mind to digest it. I’m not one of those people, but I still feel like I get Noble Beast. Fat Possum Records, which is known more for servicing jagged blues personalities such as R.L. Burnside, Bob Log III, Junior Kimbrough and The Black Keys, have unleashed an uncharacteristically polished record in Noble Beast, an album that is as warm and welcoming as a log cabin in a snow storm.
Although Bird has developed his theatrical folk style over a career that spans more than a decade, this latest release recalls, more than any, a band that is every bit as green and unseasoned as Bird is reliable. That would be Fleet Foxes, whose mountainous sonic reach is matched valley for rolling valley by Bird here. Even Foxes lead vocalist Robin Pecknold shares an unmistakable similarity with Bird’s voice.
Whether it’s because Bird has developed a sort of expectation that he is supposed to meet or because his album just happened to come so soon after Fleet Foxes, Noble Beast will never reach the heights that album did. Alas, it doesn’t have to – despite the similarities, Bird’s creation still is its own unique animal.
For one, Bird takes his unparalleled violin skills through untraversed territory, avoiding the easy pitfalls of fiddle and bluegrass in favor of something that falls in between classical and Nick Drake-style folk. It’s demonstrated in all its beautiful, understated glory in “Masterswarm”. Bird finds other ways to keep things nuanced and fresh, such as the dynamic rhythms beneath “Not a Robot, But a Ghost” and the cheery whistling to close out “Oh No”.
Some albums are unfolding stories; some are emotions. Noble Beast is a painted landscape, a detailed panorama that isn’t so much inhabited as it is alive itself. With albums such as these, you might see better if you close your eyes.
-Andy Pareti
Monday, February 2, 2009
Review - Omar Rodriguez-Lopez: Old Money
Originally published in Soundcheck Magazine (1/26/09)
If there’s one thing that Old Money – the latest solo album by The Mars Volta guitarist/producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez – proves, it is just how much that band is Rodriguez-Lopez’s above anyone else’s. Detach the other band members (which doesn’t really matter, since they all have a hand in this album anyway), and the sound doesn’t change much from the space-station prog rock that has built a strong following since the band’s 2003 debut, De-Loused in the Comatorium.
Old Money contains all the intergalactic chord progressions and scientific theorem time signatures that The Mars Volta are known for. But it has more patience than the band has shown in recent efforts, which may be a testament to Rodriguez-Lopez finally catering to nobody’s creative needs but his own. If The Bedlam in Goliath, Volta’s latest (released in January 2008) was a new start for the band after the self-indulgent and not-so-well-received Amputechture, Old Money is the Empire Strikes Back to Bedlam’s New Hope. It is darker and moodier – maybe not as flashy, but it ultimately has more meat on its bones. (Before fans jump on me, I know this isn’t a proper Mars Volta album, but it might as well be, considering its sonic similarities and involved personnel.)
There is a sad truth that has seemed to happen to The Mars Volta, though, and one that inevitably has carried over to Rodriguez-Lopez’s solo outings, as well. For the first time, we, as listeners, finally have come to know what to expect from the music. Scramble the brain enough times with the same mad-scientist riffs, and it eventually turns to mush.
Luckily, Rodriguez-Lopez seems to be conscious of this to some extent: for starters, like on Bedlam, the music is broken up into bite-sized four- and five-minute portions instead of the sprawling, 15-plus-minute epics of the past. But unlike Bedlam, this album is much more dynamic than Rodriguez-Lopez’s past work. Between the usual guitar and drum assaults are some true beauties of tension and mood. Ironically, they are presented more as short detours, like “1921” and “Vipers in the Bosom”, both under two minutes and both instrumentals, yet both incorporating some truly innovative new directions for the musician.
Unfortunately, none of the tricks that are still up the sleeves of Rodriguez-Lopez (or vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala, or even studio guitarist John Frusciante) could ever result in another progressive bitch slap across the face of mainstream music like De-Loused was. The more he tries, the more it seems apparent that it simply is not possible. It’s not the worst thing that could happen. The music still is interesting, even if it is usually self-congratulatory. But for the first time, it’s usual to be unusual – all the effects and bombast can’t make it new again. In fact, maybe the only way for Rodriguez-Lopez to come out and surprise everyone again is to start playing lo-fi indie rock. Sure, this is a musician who has made his career off of unpredictability, but somehow I just can’t wrap my mind around that one.
– Andy Pareti
If there’s one thing that Old Money – the latest solo album by The Mars Volta guitarist/producer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez – proves, it is just how much that band is Rodriguez-Lopez’s above anyone else’s. Detach the other band members (which doesn’t really matter, since they all have a hand in this album anyway), and the sound doesn’t change much from the space-station prog rock that has built a strong following since the band’s 2003 debut, De-Loused in the Comatorium.
Old Money contains all the intergalactic chord progressions and scientific theorem time signatures that The Mars Volta are known for. But it has more patience than the band has shown in recent efforts, which may be a testament to Rodriguez-Lopez finally catering to nobody’s creative needs but his own. If The Bedlam in Goliath, Volta’s latest (released in January 2008) was a new start for the band after the self-indulgent and not-so-well-received Amputechture, Old Money is the Empire Strikes Back to Bedlam’s New Hope. It is darker and moodier – maybe not as flashy, but it ultimately has more meat on its bones. (Before fans jump on me, I know this isn’t a proper Mars Volta album, but it might as well be, considering its sonic similarities and involved personnel.)
There is a sad truth that has seemed to happen to The Mars Volta, though, and one that inevitably has carried over to Rodriguez-Lopez’s solo outings, as well. For the first time, we, as listeners, finally have come to know what to expect from the music. Scramble the brain enough times with the same mad-scientist riffs, and it eventually turns to mush.
Luckily, Rodriguez-Lopez seems to be conscious of this to some extent: for starters, like on Bedlam, the music is broken up into bite-sized four- and five-minute portions instead of the sprawling, 15-plus-minute epics of the past. But unlike Bedlam, this album is much more dynamic than Rodriguez-Lopez’s past work. Between the usual guitar and drum assaults are some true beauties of tension and mood. Ironically, they are presented more as short detours, like “1921” and “Vipers in the Bosom”, both under two minutes and both instrumentals, yet both incorporating some truly innovative new directions for the musician.
Unfortunately, none of the tricks that are still up the sleeves of Rodriguez-Lopez (or vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala, or even studio guitarist John Frusciante) could ever result in another progressive bitch slap across the face of mainstream music like De-Loused was. The more he tries, the more it seems apparent that it simply is not possible. It’s not the worst thing that could happen. The music still is interesting, even if it is usually self-congratulatory. But for the first time, it’s usual to be unusual – all the effects and bombast can’t make it new again. In fact, maybe the only way for Rodriguez-Lopez to come out and surprise everyone again is to start playing lo-fi indie rock. Sure, this is a musician who has made his career off of unpredictability, but somehow I just can’t wrap my mind around that one.
– Andy Pareti
Review - The Flaming Lips: Christmas On Mars
Originally published in Soundcheck Magazine (1/26/09)
What are we to make of The Flaming Lips’ seven-plus-years-in-the-making maternity experiment in space, Christmas On Mars? It seems both too goofy to analyze critically and too philosophical to cast away as psychedelic nonsense. When put that way, I suppose it fits perfectly in The Flaming Lips’ universe.
Christmas On Mars is a (probably intentionally) low-budget, interstellar musing about humanity and, particularly, motherhood. The setting, a suspiciously terrestrial-looking space station on Mars, is stocked mostly with hallucinating male workers, dark, scary corridors and lots of gloom-and-doom atmosphere. Pink Floyd might have sang about the dark side of the moon, but according to The Flaming Lips, Mars is all dark, which is a bit surprising coming from the majestic, hopeful sound of the band’s lush musical repertoire.
Make no mistake, though. Christmas On Mars is not a musical, nor is it even a music-oriented film, regardless of the soundtrack created by the band. The music is far from the twisted pop melodies that fans are used to; it’s a proper film soundtrack, which means it is led solely by pacing and mood. This makes it both void of most of the splendor fans have come to expect from the band and, ultimately, irrelevant in their sonic catalog.
Band leader Wayne Coyne directs the film while he and the rest of the Lips either star or cameo in the movie, which may be the most direct and unadulterated exploration of Oedipal complexes and in-utero fantasies to come along in film in a long, long time. Most of the major players’ aforementioned hallucinations generalize around fetuses and vaginal imagery, which later is explained adequately in one of the film’s more interesting scenes. It all revolves around the colony’s lone female inhabitant, who has very little interaction with the men but whom the crew seems to look at as some kind of supernatural miracle worker.
The film sets up for a Christmas pageant of sorts that never actually happens. But there are elements of Christmas miracles that come into play, particularly when a rather ordinary-looking alien (played by Coyne) shows up. The film is too straight-laced to become a stoner classic and yet still is weird-for-the-sake-of-weird enough to suggest that Coyne and the gang felt compelled to meet some sort of universal expectation of them.
Christmas On Mars is one of those inexplicable passion projects that some artists become possessed by, and so it never can be appreciated by an audience as much as the creator appreciates making it. You definitely won’t see it trailing It’s A Wonderful Life on Thanksgiving weekend TV, and you probably won’t even see it in a college dorm room sandwiched between Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Trainspotting. It’s an interesting little film, but that’s about it. Its ambition certainly meets The Flaming Lips’ standards, but the end result falls a bit short.
– Andy Pareti
What are we to make of The Flaming Lips’ seven-plus-years-in-the-making maternity experiment in space, Christmas On Mars? It seems both too goofy to analyze critically and too philosophical to cast away as psychedelic nonsense. When put that way, I suppose it fits perfectly in The Flaming Lips’ universe.
Christmas On Mars is a (probably intentionally) low-budget, interstellar musing about humanity and, particularly, motherhood. The setting, a suspiciously terrestrial-looking space station on Mars, is stocked mostly with hallucinating male workers, dark, scary corridors and lots of gloom-and-doom atmosphere. Pink Floyd might have sang about the dark side of the moon, but according to The Flaming Lips, Mars is all dark, which is a bit surprising coming from the majestic, hopeful sound of the band’s lush musical repertoire.
Make no mistake, though. Christmas On Mars is not a musical, nor is it even a music-oriented film, regardless of the soundtrack created by the band. The music is far from the twisted pop melodies that fans are used to; it’s a proper film soundtrack, which means it is led solely by pacing and mood. This makes it both void of most of the splendor fans have come to expect from the band and, ultimately, irrelevant in their sonic catalog.
Band leader Wayne Coyne directs the film while he and the rest of the Lips either star or cameo in the movie, which may be the most direct and unadulterated exploration of Oedipal complexes and in-utero fantasies to come along in film in a long, long time. Most of the major players’ aforementioned hallucinations generalize around fetuses and vaginal imagery, which later is explained adequately in one of the film’s more interesting scenes. It all revolves around the colony’s lone female inhabitant, who has very little interaction with the men but whom the crew seems to look at as some kind of supernatural miracle worker.
The film sets up for a Christmas pageant of sorts that never actually happens. But there are elements of Christmas miracles that come into play, particularly when a rather ordinary-looking alien (played by Coyne) shows up. The film is too straight-laced to become a stoner classic and yet still is weird-for-the-sake-of-weird enough to suggest that Coyne and the gang felt compelled to meet some sort of universal expectation of them.
Christmas On Mars is one of those inexplicable passion projects that some artists become possessed by, and so it never can be appreciated by an audience as much as the creator appreciates making it. You definitely won’t see it trailing It’s A Wonderful Life on Thanksgiving weekend TV, and you probably won’t even see it in a college dorm room sandwiched between Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Trainspotting. It’s an interesting little film, but that’s about it. Its ambition certainly meets The Flaming Lips’ standards, but the end result falls a bit short.
– Andy Pareti
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