|
Pulse of the Twin Cities Login |
|
If you do not have an account yet
Create One.
|
|
|
Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
|
|
|
|
The Winter Blanket
Wednesday 23 July @ 15:37:12 |
 by Rob van Alstyne
Given the dominant “hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-frying-pan” musical mentality of pop music today it’s refreshing to find out that bands like recent Minneapolis-by-way-of-the-Quad-Cities transplants The Winter Blanket are still out there. Composed of vocalists/guitarists Doug Miller and Stephanie Davila, Paul Blomquist (drums) and Kim Murray (bass), the Winter Blanket’s evocative, spectral take on minimalist folk-rock as evidenced on their solid sophomore LP, Actors and Actresses, demands attention (in its own understated sleep-rock fashion, of course).
Recorded with the aid of Low frontman/Chairkickers record impresario Alan Sparhawk, I’ll readily admit that Actors and Actresses had me expecting little more than a knock-off of the well established slow-core moves of Duluth’s best known rock ’n’ roll exports. After just one spin of the album those preconceived notions proved way off-base.
The Winter Blanket is a band that understands the importance of balance and dynamics within their chosen field, mixing the expected sonic lullaby numbers (“Small World”) with soaring feedback-fueled rock (“Train-Wrecks”) in a surprisingly seamless manner over the course of twelve rough hewn tracks that balance the pretty (swirling keyboards, elegant piano lines), with the gritty (stark lyrical content). Davila and Miller’s slightly awkward singing voices—one wrong turn away from conventionally beautiful, and therefore all the more riveting—bring palpable emotion to each track on Actors and Actresses’ thematic song cycle concerning the performative aspects of relationships.
The home-recorded demos for the band’s forthcoming record, Prescription Perils, prove equally engaging despite relying on a limited set of tools. Stripping their sound bare, Davila and Miller prove that a strong folk backbone supports all their songs and there isn’t a discernible difference in quality between the band’s own material and the famous cuts they’ve chosen to cover (Miller’s shaky take on Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town” is destined to be a classic upon the album’s early 2004 release).
Released as is, an option the band is strongly considering, it appears that Uncle Tupelo’s March 16-20, 1992 may finally have a contemporary challenger for the best “youngsters-in-the-computer-age-pretending-to-know-coal-miners-personally-category.”
With Miller and Davila living in Minneapolis for the past year, the band sat down for lunch in St. Paul to discuss, among other sundry topics, what it’s like to be a band that favors substance over style.
Pulse: From listening to your work it seems like you guys are a pretty well-read band. Would you say that literary influences have a large impact on your band?
Davila: To be honest, not really. As of late, I think the songs have become even more story-oriented, but that probably comes from listening to people like Richard Buckner who have mastered that kind of form. I don’t sit down and think, “OK, I’m going to write a story now.”
Miller: We have a bigger influence from the musicians we really admire—Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, early Springsteen. Actors & Actresses was definitely intentionally themed, but not in the sense of a Richard Buckner record, which is obviously poetic.
Pulse: While listening to the demos for Prescription Perils, the traditional folk aspect of things that may have been lingering under the surface on Actors and Actresses became a lot more obvious to me. The core of the song (chord progressions, lyrics) is obviously central to what you’re doing now. How does the song-writing process work within the band?
Davila: Normally it doesn’t happen as a whole band, one person has an idea and brings the song to the rest of the people who hear it and then come up with their own parts to write on top of it. Originally the Prescription Peril songs were recorded as demos just so we could have something to send to the two other guys in the band; they’re still living in the Quad Cities. But as people heard it they kept saying to us, “This is good as is,” so some of the demos now are probably going to wind up on the record unchanged.
Miller: We’re working on our third full-length album and this is the first time we’ve ever demoed songs for a record. I think we just sort of realized, “Hey we kind of like this sound.” We’ve always written songs this way, we’ve just never kept them in that stage. We recently toured as a two-piece, playing everything stripped down, and we’re sort of leaning towards keeping the whole record that way.
Davila: There might be some drumming and a banjo or two, but it shouldn’t be too different. We’re looking to make a record we can really pull off live.
Pulse: How do you see yourselves fitting in on the current music scene with the whole “new rock” explosion going on? It seems like a lot of bands are based around a flashy image-intensive kind of approach that you guys don’t really favor.
Miller: It’s hard to say where we really fit in. I think the whole alt. country/folk thing is resurging again with people like Gillian Welch and the whole sort of O Brother Where Art Thou phenomenon, but we certainly aren’t latching onto that. I think maybe some of those people might like what we’re doing.
Davila: We’re not very imagey people we’ve always sort of just relied on being nice. Even the people that we listen to, like Low, are not image-based. When you’re sitting in your room or in your car listening to a record, there aren’t any set images that go with that. It seems like some people now just form bands so they can have something to go with their image, and we don’t want to be a part of that. When it comes down to it, it’s just about the music for us.
Miller: There’s a place for being image conscious—I love David Bowie, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it wouldn’t be natural for us. There’s definitely a good group of bands that really don’t care about that sort of thing, and that doesn’t make them better or worse than other bands, but we definitely consider ourselves a part of that group.
Pulse: Tales of sensitive introspective artists terrified of live performance, Nick Drake trembling in the corner and scared to go on stage, have been a longstanding part of rock ’n’ roll mythology. How do you guys feel about performing your music live? Is it hard to get people’s attention in noisy bars?
Davila: Performing is the favorite part of music for me. It’s better than being in a studio, better than working on songs. Getting up there and playing our music for people is great. I think we’ve won most of our fans that way. People tend to say things like, “You really mean what you say when you’re up there,” and that kind of response is great.
Miller: People have been really quiet and respectful around here. Audiences have been great.
Davila: Sometimes the more quiet you get, the better audiences are. I find if I lower things down to a whisper the crowd will react accordingly and get very quiet.
Miller: I think the secret is that once you get really quiet nobody wants to be that jerk in the crowd who everybody can hear. (laughs)
The Winter Blanket will be performing as an acoustic two-piece at 9 p.m. on Thu., July 24, at the 7th St. Entry. They will be the first band on a bill with the Sprites and the Lucksmiths—so get there early! $6. 21+. 701 First Ave. N., Mpls. 612-338-8388.
|
|
 |
|
|
Comments -
Post Comment |
|
The comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for its content.
NO comments yet! Be the first!
|
|
|
