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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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The Twin Town Trip Guide
Wednesday 02 May @ 11:41:51 |
  by MARK WHEAT
When Mark Wheat's first "Twin Town Trip Guide" column ran in Pulse's second issue, he was the host of KFAI's Local Sound Department. His column continued on a weekly basis in Pulse for over a year. Wheat and his cultured British accent are currently appearing on 89.3 The Current. This column appeared in the Apr. 16, 1997, edition of Pulse.
I love surprises. That's why I love covering the local music scene; it is constantly surprising me. When I first started doing "The Local Sound Department" on KFAI three years ago, I worried that I would not have enough music to fill 90 minutes every week. Now I worry because I can never fit all the stuff that I want to play into the time slot, nor all the information that there is to spread, nor all the guests that are available. It is a wonderful time to be involved in the local music community right now; I feel blessed. I'm also very pleased to be given this chance to pass on some of the information that I come by every week to you through this surprisingly sprightly little weekly that we are trying to build here. Of course, the reason why we're here is not because there is no journalistic coverage of the local music and arts community already, but because there is so much to cover that we feel the need to add to the recognition already given to the musicians and artists living and working here, as well as to some of them who deem it necessary to just visit!
I hope there will always be a surprising amount of things for me to talk about, but if you think there is something that I've missed, that deserves attention, please surprise me some more ...
The new release bag o' goodies is surprisingly fat this month, so I thought I'd start there. The job of reporting on the sound and style of new music just seems to get harder as we squabble over genre terms and appropriate adjectives. Judging any CD by its cover, or even the section you find it in at the record shop or library, can still leave some surprises in store.
Willie Murphy and the Angel-Headed Hipsters
Monkey in the Zoo
Atomic Theory CD
Best known nationally as the producer for Bonnie Raitt and "Spider" John Koerner and locally as an "old school" West Bank blues legends, who'll sit at the piano and play solo until the cows come home, Willie surprises here by stretching his musical muscle all over the globe. From the world music tinged horns sliced with diced up samples of TV newscasts, in "The World is a Neighborhood" to the screaming blues-rock of "Kamikaze," old "Mr. Pianoman" is set to smash some cliches with this new CD.
Savage Aural Hotbed
Pressure of Silence
TRG/Ultramodern CD
"Real world music" is probably set to become the most overused genre term of '97, but these guys have scooped out a whole page in the genre's discography by carefully varying the pace and intricately and seamlessly lacing their industrialized drum machinations with delicately chosen bits of "found sound" and even on "!Z!" ... (shock-horror!!) ... a bit of romantic Spanish guitar, played over the cheers of a soccer crowd, of course!
Wheelo
Something Wonderful
CD
The overall quality of this debut CD was no surprise; the pedigree of the band speaks for itself. Peter Lack had a little glory of his own at the hands of Rev 105, being featured on what proved, sadly, to be the only collection of their studio archives ever made, and he first caught my ear in his '92 band Cartwheel. The rest of the band also sport spanking resumes. Steve Foley drummed with the later-day 'Mats, then Bash and Pop. Troy Thompson spent five years at Flyte Tyme working with Jam and Lewis, and Chet Hermes has played bass with Mile One, RainTribe and the Boquist boys of Son Volt. The album is packed with richly produced pop, with hooks heavy enough to hang ya winter coat on, but the surprise came at the end, where they slipped in a "hidden track." Full of sparkling sitar, it has the feel of the band relaxing and stretching and having fun in the studio. It leaves you promising that there is more to come and it could be completely different. Now that would be another nice surprise!!
Watch this space for more surprises and try to listen to non-commercial radio sometime. This Friday on the LSD, we will be joined by Laura Brandenburg and Steve Birmingham, to talk about the release of Squealer magazine's local CD compilation opus ... Shuffle This. ||
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