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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Twin Cities CMJ Preview
Tuesday 29 October @ 17:19:41 |
 The annual indie hulabaloo that is CMJ takes place this week in New York, and Pulse thought it would take the opportunity to check in with some local acts who will be traveling to the Big Apple for the occasion. It goes to show that, as large and diverse as the indie rock universe can be, one event can mean very different things to different acts. In case you haven't heard, Har Mar Superstar has been blowin' up—for him, CMJ could be the venue for some major mass-media exposure. On the other hand, CMJ is a rare early opportunity for Tora! Tora! Torance! t o get some play: the band is just starting to get established locally and regionally. And Walker Kong is really a bit of a dormant veteran act, back again in fighting trim for their CMJ set. Here's what we heard from each of them.
HAR MAR SUPERSTAR
People in the Twin Cities are pretty much familiar with Har Mar Superstar, right? Hm, if you’re not already familiar with him, that’s a pretty solid rock you’ve been living under because Mr. Superstar has been baiting and reeling in fans from across the nation. From everyone’s favorite reality TV family The Osbournes to the girl next door, everyone has been enjoying Har Mar’s funky fresh flava. A few weeks ago, I caught the fashionable Har Mar Superstar in his St. Paul home...
PULSE: When did this start? Did you get an idea one day?
Har Mar Superstar: I’ve been talking about doing it for five years. It was one of those things where you’re like, “How do I start doing this?” I’ve never made a beat before. I was like, “How the %@!#$& do I do a show, or even a record, or even one song to show somebody what I wanna do?” I had this plan mapped out and I talked to Kill Rock Stars before I even had anything. Me and Howard got together and made [the song] “Baby Do You Like My Clothes.” He had the music and I picked one beat that he had and made a song, recorded it in his bedroom and sent it to Kill Rock Stars. A week later they were like, “Alright, we’ll do the full-length.”
PULSE: Well, let’s talk about the new album. The last time I saw you perform, you were doing songs from [the latest album] You Can Feel Me. Where did you do it? Where did you record it?
Har Mar: I recorded most of it with Eric Olsen, “Ric Diculous,” in his bedroom. We recorded most the beats at his house. I did some of it in Omaha with a couple of the guys from The Faint. We did two songs there, I worked on a little bit of it at The Busy Signals’ house. It was all in houses basically. It’s a house record. [laughs] Yeah, we did most of the album at Eric’s house and we produced it together.
PULSE: So, what of this new big time record label you’re on?
Har Mar: It’s called Record Collection. They’re part of Warner Bros.
PULSE: And you’re the first...
Har Mar: I’m the only band on the label.
PULSE: Does that put any added pressure on you?
Har Mar: Not at all. It makes it way easier for me. I get all the attention I want.
PULSE: When you’re onstage, you get into this tunnel! You don’t lose focus. The only thing I think when I see you is that if I was up there singing by myself with a boombox, taking my clothes off, I would flip out! Like, I would run off! It’s amazing what you do. How do you lose those inhibitions? When did you start doing that, taking your clothes off?
Har Mar: I don’t know really. Since I was little.
PULSE: How do you deal with hecklers when you run into them?
Har Mar: That’s easy. You just get petty. You make fun of them, ‘cause they get personal on you. You get waaay more personal on them. Either make fun of their teeth or their shirt.
PULSE: Does it ever get to you though?
Har Mar: No. It always gives you the opportunity to look better. Most of the people that would heckle at a show are the biggest retards anyway. You see those people at other shows and you’re just like, “Ugh.” You’re embarrassed for them. It’s always the guys that are “whatever.”’ You’re just like, “Okay. Here’s the reason why you’ll never want to come to a show again. Go back, finish your business degree and hide out in some sort of condo for the rest of your life.”
I would be surprised if Har Mar Superstar doesn’t rock the house at the CMJ Festival when he headlines the Northsix. The man knows how to own a room and show you a good time. You should take advantage of this Twin Cities’ performer who is rocking and shocking the globe. Catch him while you can, people! (Celeste Tabora)
WALKER KONG
We weren't sure we were going to be playing together again, Walker Kong ringleader Jeremy Ackerman tells me over the phone. It's been well over a year since the venerable art pop outfit has played a show together, a hiatus born of Ackerman's tenitus, and what he describes as the burn out of being a local band gigging every few weeks, always getting ready for the next show. But the Magic Marker Records showcase at Pete's Candy Store was enough to coax Walker Kong onto the stage again: a chance to see some friends perform in the big city, and to support their record label.
And it's been a good experience, says Ackerman. He notes that he has been writing songs ever since Walker Kong's last show, and just recently started playing get-together type rehearsals with some of the other band members. The time off seems to have brought the fun of hanging out and making music back to the Walker Kong operation, and the opportunity to play CMJ brought the old group together again. What we're doing now really has more connection with how the band started in the first place, he explains of their newfound informality.
The new feel has had an effect on the music, and most of Walker Kong's CMJ set will consist of new material. Before their extended summer vacation, the band's sound tended towards Talking Heads-style art funk. The new material is a bit different, less frantic in Ackerman's words. He describes Walker Kong's current sound as an extension of what we were doing on the last album [There Goes The Sun]-soft rock with psychedelic undercurrents. We're getting back to our Velvet Underground influence. New wave synths have given way to pianos and a smattering of Farfisa organ; the drummer hasn't been using a kick drum.
While he's excited about the trip, Ackerman notes that a band has to know what it's getting into with something like CMJ. If you're from Minnesota and don't have a high-profile record label, you usually end up playing to a few people in, like, the basement of a Pizza Hut in New York City, he says. Indeed, the dynamic of such festivals can be rather odd. He notes that several prominent local bands had their applications turned down, and that, whereas CMJ was once a venue for unsigned bands to get some major recognition (and perhaps a record deal), now it's largely a forum for indie labels to show off their rosters. That can put the crunch on quality unsigned bands; it also leads to small labels using whatever performance space they can get. (P. J. Morel)
TORA! TORA! TORRANCE!
The only time I've had the pleasure of seeing Tora! Tora! Torrance! in the flesh they were opening for, of all people, Scottish dancemeisters Bis. Imagine: a whole room full of downtown creative types waiting to get their Euro-style swerve on. Then this group of scrappy rock kids gets on stage and unleashes a maelstrom of spastic pop punk, the singer lurching about in a mad parody of Mick Jagger's chicken strut, the keyboard player pounding out baroque Keith Emerson-style organ arpeggios. Jaws hit the floor, but mostly in dismay. I was one of the handful jumping up and down and thinking, This is great, and these guys are hilarious. What's wrong with these people?
That kind of audience reaction doesn't surprise Nick, the band's front man. It's usually the old punk guy who gets us. The lonely one in the black leather jacket. He comes up to us after the show and is like, 'You guys remind me of the Buzzcocks—that %@!#$&in' rules!'
It's easy to hear a resemblance to between Tora! Tora! Torrance!'s raw, feisty pop hooks and the current crop of New York garage rock bands. But you get the feeling that these boys from Albert Lea aren't pretending when it comes to rock attitude. They're in it more for the free beer than for the art school props. Actually, Bis got all mad at us 'cause we drank all their beer, Nick remembers with a nervous chuckle. And also ate their cupcakes—turns out the drummer from Bis was celebrating his birthday. They go on stage and we're like, 'good luck' and all that. And then we went back stage and saw the beer, and saw there were cupcakes, so…we ate them.
Tora! Tora! Torrance! has a very appropriate venue for their CMJ gig this week, CBGB. They'll be performing with other local faves like The Stereo and The Beautiful Mistake in the Militia Group record showcase. (P. J. Morel)
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