Music News

Music News

For the week of February 13, 2002

'Round the Dial

by Tom Hallett

Kahser finds "Good Life"

My heroes have always been cowboys: R.I.P. Waylon Jennings

Fairy Tales and stories from the road: Azure Ray

Matt Pond PA: Orchestral rock that actually works

by Rob van Alstyne

by Tom Hallett

by Celeste Tabora

by Rob van Alstyne

'Round the Dial

by Tom Hallett

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "Originally, I wanted to be a farmer. I wanted to raise chickens. But then something unexpected happened. I heard Elvis Presley for the first time. This whole other galaxy of strange, bewitching music, which you could pick up on radio.” —Neil Young

SONG OF THE WEEK: “My Evil Twin” by They Might Be Giants

     Elvis had a twin brother, you know. Jesse Garon Presley was stillborn, and buried in Tupelo, Mississippi, on an unusually chilly January day in 1935 before tiny E. even came home from the hospital. Had he lived, he just might have changed the face of rock ’n’ roll forever. Maybe he and El woulda been like-minded about music, and maybe they woulda formed the world’s first twin-brother-fronted rock ’n’ roll band, which coulda been really cool, but then again it coulda made things real hard for the Everly Brothers, and when it comes right down to it, The Everly Brothers were intrinsic to the further development of rock and/or roll after Big E. got outta the Army and went all mushy on us.

    Or maybe Jesse woulda been as overtly Oedipus-ish as Big E., and they woulda fought to the death over their mama’s attentions. And just maybe, Jesse would’ve gone a darker route than brother E.; rejecting the white patent leather shoes of Pat Boone, strappin’ on James Dean’s black biker boots, and glommin’ onto the fierce, tribal rumblin’s of Bo Diddley, the growling axework of Link Wray, and the screeching, hellish vocals of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins to become the first proper propagator of the beast that would eventually become Heavy Metal.

    Who knows? One thing’s for sure—whether an artist has a physical twin, a sibling or a spiritual soulmate for a partner, connections like those inevitably make for some seriously sparkin’ music. In Elvis’ case, though his other half didn’t make it out of the womb alive, we have to assume that the two communicated in some primal form while awaiting their magnificent/deadly entrance into this corporeal world.

    Did baby Jesse realize, in a flash of timeless, pre-birth wisdom, that neither of the twins would live unless one sacrificed himself? Did he send El out into the world with a secret, a gift, a mission, or did he send him out with a terrible emptiness inside that finally only copious amounts of pills and peanut butter could pretend to fill? As fascinating as the subject is to ponder, even more interesting are those pardners who begin life in completely different physical/musical/spiritual zones and end up connecting somewhere along the line despite all odds. Cats like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Jack Logan and Kelly Keneipp, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, or Jack Norton and Ben Weaver.

    Norton (aka Paul Dandy) and Weaver, a couple of old souls in barely legal bodies (both were born in 1979, Weaver in Oregon, Norton in Minneapolis), seem to share the same mystical bond that those older and better-known musical compadres did and do. Both are impossibly prolific, genre-confounding, era-defying/defining traditionalists; both count a slew of their heroes/contemporaries as genuine admirers (having received accolades from such disparate characters as Tom Waits, Tiny Tim, Hasil Adkins, Bo Ramsey and BBC radio legend John Peel); and both are fiercely independent, highly relevant artists in their own rights.

    Weaver, whose first album, 1998’s El Camino Blues (Unit 3 Records), featured guest spots from such luminaries as Greg Brown, Tony Glover and Peter Ostroushko, spends his offstage, out-of-studio time working for the Minnesota DNR and writing. Norton’s ’98 debut, Wizard Oil, sported members of Waits’ and Leon Redbone’s bands and was named Album of the Year by Tradition Magazine. He lives on a farm, raising chickens and turkeys and, like Weaver, writing songs. Lots of songs. Shitloads of songs. Thing is, much like the aforementioned Logan’s work, they’re almost all damn good songs. I should’ve gotten the hint when I received a mini-disc from the pair that included a fine reading of Logan’s Bulk classic, “Drunken Arms” a while back.

    Though I’m a little late catching the Weaver/Norton Express, I’m happy I lurched onto the platform before the caboose was outta reach. Norton’s 2001 album, Dance Real Slow, was a true musical cornucopia, featuring violin, electric mandolin, banjo, lap steel, organ, harmonica, guitar and accordions surrounding caustic, drop-dead lines like, “A desperate girl on my mind / Got a friend that fucks her / But only in his spare time ... ” (from “End of the World”) as well as that killer Logan cover. “Jesus” contains a sample from “Pac-Man’s Magic Land”; the title track would ride comfortably next to Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty” on a mix tape as a dirty-faced, modern Butch-and-Sundance-themed outlaw blues; and “Our Little Town” seeps out like a tear-stained South Texas jukebox favorite. Norton’s already completed another album, The Not So Jolly Fat People (Trailer Records), with guest Bejae Fleming, that I’m sure I’ll be raving about soon enough in these pages.

    In the meantime, Weaver recorded another new album near the close of 2001, as well, with the able assistance of Norton, Dave Moore and a full band. This one, titled Hollerin’ at a Woodpecker, comes outta the gate at a slow, comfortable ramble. “The Ocean Ain’t Blue” lopes along lazily, a dusty rural love ditty. “Sara,” a heartily-rasped, Steve Earle-esque campfire ode, finds Weaver drivin’ (and drivin’ himself crazy), tryin’ to outrun his mem’rys of that lil’ gal. “Blood,”a nightmarish cheatin’ song, recalls mid-period Leonard Cohen (Weaver tosses in just a hint of Lee Hazelwood’s deep-seated, unpretentious wit) with dark imagery, haunting lines like “The closer I seem to get / The further I slip away from you,” wicked strings and soul-weary abandon.
    “Piss in the Wind” kicks off with a ringing banjo, cryin’ harp and a countrified, fire-and-brimstone sense of self: “My greatest challenge in life / Is lovin’ two things the same / If you can’t live by your heart / You’re just pissin’ in the wind / You can only trust hope / An’ believe in grace / When you know you’re born / Against the nature of God.”

    His triple-x-jug-fueled country confessional apparently having momentarily run its course, Weaver hooks up with Norton for track 5, “Woodpecker Song,” a bouncier, acoustic-driven yack-back that features his pal repeating the main lines in a silly, nasal whine and providing dead-on bird whistles. It’s mildly irritating, but in a good way—the kind of song that bugs you just right and makes you want to play it really loud so other people get bugged too.      “The Night is a Coal Pit” (obviously not a song of sweetness and light, but then again, Weaver seems to always hold out a tiny shred of hope by the end of even his most dirge-like efforts), edges in softly, with Tejano-flavored guitar and soothing brushes, a high-lonesome modern psalm.

    Mid-way through the album, Weaver’s sometimes underlying dark, squirrely sense of humor finally comes to the fore. “Those Semis Sounded Like Thunder” shows why this kid’s singing/songwriting might’ve caught the ear of somebody like Tom Waits. The freeways, cars and trucks edge into your ears as the track begins with a vaguely familiar spin on the opening notes—you’d almost think it was the first few licks of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” if you were in another room—and glittering lyrical gems like: “The semis sounded like thunder / Smelt like junkyards / I remember sittin’ in my best friend’s closet / Readin’ his brother’s Penthouse an’ Playboys / Before we even knew about masturbation / Unaware there was even a cure.”

    This is Weaver’s aural version of Stephen King’s “Stand By Me,” his lyrical glimpse at a town a half-mile down the road from the Tallahatchee Bridge, and just over the hill from The Roach Brothers’ Big As A Barn studios. A two-minute, thirty-second flashback to a bygone youth that’s so real you can smell the diesel and taste the summer dust on your teeth.

    “Bible Song,” “Horsehair and Hay” and “Christian Demons” continue that journey through the past, the former a hazy summer romp through fields and meadows overshadowed only by their inhabitants’ self-imposed limits, the second a bittersweet almost-companion song to John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” that celebrates and muses on the life of an ole cowpoke named Frank, and the latter with a hellish harp blowin’ over snaky, “Little Red Riding Hood” guitar and a clop-clop backbeat behind hair-raising, horse-back theological rantings.

    “Sunshine Tonight” finds Weaver wandering the night, floating on a cloud of airy fiddle and still pining for that elusive girl, who just might be a little righteously pissed at him by now.

    “More Than I Can Bare” is a smooth, “Detroit City”-ish comin’ home song (How’s that for sublime? He uses “Bare” instead of “Bear,” and Bobby Bare sang “Detroit City,” the chorus of which went, “I wanna go home, I wanna go home, oh how I wanna go home”), our protagonist finally wearying of the road, and, we assume, being drunk all morning. “Always Loved You” lies down on a rickety bed of loneliness and gives up its ghost to the fuzzy, half-real swing of an oncoming dream, and the final cut, “Nelson Mississippi,” shimmies in on a nasty riff, hinting at more ramblin’ to come, once a rest has been had.

    You get the feeling that a short respite is all this self-styled “Walkin’ Dude” will get—whether he chooses the road or it chooses him, whether he’ll miss his girl (or his erstwhile musical partner in crime, Norton) or he loves her all the more because of their time apart, whether he plays his guitar or it plays him—and you find yourself kinda secretly thrilled that he’s not done with his journey. One thing’s for sure—though he and Norton are a formidable team when they want to be, Weaver’s quite capable of layin’ down a seriously satisfyin’ batch of tunes on his own—and as long as he does, we just won’t ask him about his pills and peanut butter intake.

    Weaver recorded this CD in December of 2001, so by his previous standards he’s probably already worked up another batch of 20 or so tunes. Like a forthcoming Townes or Clark album in the ’70’s, Logan/Keneipp release in the ’90’s, or some serialized Old West pulp fiction novel, there’s a palpable sense of anticipation and excitement every time he or Norton put out a record. Me, I can’t wait for the next installment.

    Ben Weaver’s CD release party for Hollerin’ at a Woodpecker will be held 7 p.m. this Fri., Feb. 22, at the Acadia Theatre & Cafe in Minneapolis. Tickets are $7 in advance, $10 at the door. For more info on both Weaver and Jack Norton, log on to www.angelfire.com/indie/jacknorton.

    Friends of Cheaters bassist (and ex-wife of late local guitar hero Bob Stinson) Carleen Stinson are invited to an informal gathering of pals and associates meeting up at St. Paul’s Turf Club on Fri., Feb. 22, from 6-10 p.m. to help her celebrate her “Perpetual 29th Birthday.” Come on down, share some memories, swap some stories, and take advantage of the Turf’s killer jukebox and palatable brew prices.

    One final note—as well as losing outlaw country hero Waylon Jennings this past week, the music world also lost drummer Mick Tucker, who pounded the skins for English glam/pop outfit Sweet. Tucker added the ratta-tatta rhythms to such ’70’s classics as “Ballroom Blitz,” “Fox on the Run” and “Love Is Like Oxygen.” The band’s lead singer, Brian Connolly, passed away in 1997, leaving only guitarist Andy Scott and bassist Steve Priest from the classic lineup. Until next week—make yer own damn news. pulse

If you have local music news/gigs/events that you’d like to see listed in this column, or you’d just like to complain that pissing in the wind could adversely affect woodpeckers in your area, send replies to: TMygunn777@aol.com.

Kasher finds "Good Life"	by Rob van Alstyne
Makes great record

Tim Kasher knows how to wring great music out of personal anguish. Three years ago he used the unraveling of his marriage as the creative fuel for his band, Omaha’s Cursive. The resulting work, Domestica, was a powerfully disturbing song cycle; an unflinchingly bold reflection on the games of pain that people inflict upon one another in dysfunctional relationships. It was also arguably the most harrowing album released in recent memory. Domestica served as notice that Cursive weren’t some run-of-the-mill “emo” outfit, but rather a uniquely expressive and dynamic band.

    Kasher’s voice surged violently from a whisper to a scream without notice, spinning spine-tangling tales about his “pretty baby.” Tracks like “The Martyr” verged precariously on a heavy-metal edge, with a sound that relied heavily on stop-start dynamics and crunchy power chords, but was clearly too weird to fit snugly into the genre.

    Intent on pushing the bounds of his songwriting further, Kasher formed another band, the Good Life, in an effort to explore less rocking but equally angst-ridden aspects of his songwriting. The Good Life’s first release, 2000’s Novena on a Nocturn, favored an icy new-wave aesthetic, incorporating spooky synths as comfortably as spiky guitars into the mix. Few fans of Cursive could have anticipated Kasher’s capacity to write a riveting piano ballad (“The Competition”), but as Novena proved, Kasher is anything but a one trick pony.

    Now comes the Good Life’s sophomore release, Black Out, a dense and dark exploration of alcohol-fueled nights and lonely mornings. If Novena was merely eccentric, Black Out is fantastically weird, mixing in break beats, looped samples, classy touches of saxophone and vibraphone freakouts.

    “We wanted to do an album like this, something big and thick and elaborate,” explains Kasher. “We have five people in the band now and Mike [Mogis, producer] had a lot of input as well, so I think it’s just full as a result of all those extra perspectives. It was a lot more work than Novena was. The first record we did in something like nine days, and this record was like five weeks, something absurd like that. It was just a lot more tinkering and laboring.”

    Although clearly an intricate and layered work, Kasher’s urgent wounded voice and the band’s impassioned playing ensure that Black Out never comes off as sterile. In cathartic moments, like the surging chorus of “Off the Beaten Path,” Kasher once again proves his ability to channel personal traumas into great art. Although undeniably delving into moods best described as various shades of blue, Kasher melds various downcast sentiments with such a vast array of musical backdrops on Black Out that a listener experiences a wide range of emotions.

    “One of the things I was trying to do with Black Out was to get at this sort of sad-happy hybrid style of song-writing,” Kasher says. “I was really influenced by songs like John Lennon’s ‘Oh Yoko’; it’s such a happy song but it feels so sad too, it’s just a great song. I tried to aim for that kind of thing with songs like “The Beaten Path” on this record, which is pretty upbeat. There’s just such a wide range of emotions really within what people call ‘downtrodden’ music.” pulse

The Good Life play with Azure Ray on Sun., Feb. 24, at the 400 Bar. 9 p.m. $7. 21+. 400 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. 612-332-2903.

My heroes
Have always been cowboys: R.I.P. Waylon

by Tom Hallett

“They buried me in that great grey tomb that knows no sound / But I am still around / I'll always be around...” —”The Highwayman,” Waylon Jennings & Friends

Like a lot of youngsters in classic country songs (Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” comes to mind), my daddy was a low-down, mean-spirited old cuss who never gave me much but a tan hide an’ a pile of work to do, but there’s one thing he inadvertently gave me that I’ll never forget. When I was a miserable, lonely 16-year-old who’d abandoned a lifelong love for Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, Hank Williams, Sr. and George Jones to rebel against my redneck pa with loud, abrasive modern outlaw music like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and Alice Cooper, I made a fantastic discovery.

And then I saw it. A dark, stained-brown album cover with embossed gold lettering and a photo of wicked-grinnin’, lycanthropic-lookin’ country outlaw smokin’ a Camel non-filter.

    The old man had gone into town for supplies, leaving me alone with his brand new console stereo and all my nasty metal albums. As Priest’s “Turning in Circles” did just that on the record player, I began digging through the dusty pile of albums stacked in the cabinet below. The soundtrack to “American Graffiti.” An Olivia Newton-John country album. Some rancid Christmas albums. And then I saw it. A dark, stained-brown album cover with embossed gold lettering and a photo of a wicked-grinnin’, lycanthropic-lookin’ country outlaw smokin’ a Camel non-filter. Greatest Hits! It screamed. Waylon!

    You know the tunes— “Luckenback, Texas,” “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” “Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way”—they were all there. I put that album on and immediately grasped the connection between the true country I’d loved as a child, the ’50’s rock ’n’ roll my old man dug, and the thundering power rhythms of the rock bands I was into.

    Waylon was the conduit— and he opened up this long-haired country boy’s mind to a whole new musical universe. I probably wouldn’t be overstating my case if I said he’s the reason I have Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Uncle Tupelo, Blue Mountain, and, once again, Hank, Patsy, Kitty and George Jones albums snuggled quite contentedly next to The Who, Alice Cooper and Judas Priest records in my collection. Like Waylon and his ilk, I’ve learned that I’ll always be sadly in search of, and one step in back of, my slow-movin’ dreams. But that’s OK, because now I’m proud to say that my heroes have always been cowboys and cowgirls.

    Jennings was a classic Texas outlaw who really only wanted recognition for his music—and as his battle with time and illness (he’d recently lost a foot) dragged out, he most likely lost the will to carry on. He didn’t want to be a burden, didn’t want to live a life where he was beholden to others and not able to indulge in his true love—playing his songs. I love all those hits, and I’m eternally grateful to the man for helping me reestablish my connection to real country music, but my favorite Waylon tune is one I didn’t hear until a few years ago, and one that was never a big splash on the radio.

    1977’s “If You See Me Getting Smaller,” from the album Ol’ Waylon, probably says best what the man was thinking as he saw his body, his horizons, and his very life-force growing ever more diminutive over the past few months: “If you see me getting smaller,” he sang with eerie prescience, “I’m leavin’ / Don’t be grievin’ / I just got to get away from here / If you see me getting smaller / Don’t worry / I’m in no hurry / I’ve got the right to disappear ... ” You are correct, sir. Gracias, and Vaya Con Dios, Waymore.

Waylon Jennings Albums You Should Own:

*Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line (RCA) 1974
*The Outlaws: Wanted (RCA) 1976 (Re-issued in ‘96 with tons of bonus tracks)
*Waylon Live (RCA) 1976
*Ol’ Waylon (RCA) 1977
*Waylon, Greatest Hits (RCA) 1979
*The Highwaymen (with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, & Kris Kristofferson) (Columbia) 1985 pulse

Fairy tales

And Stories from the road: Azure Ray

by Celeste Tabora

     I first met Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor of Azure Ray at the Troubadour in L.A. when their other band, Now it’s Overhead, opened up for labelmates The Faint. Hailing from Athens, Ga., the two belles naturally exuded a southern charm irresistible to anyone unfamiliar with its magic. They were the sweetest girls, and by the end of our meeting I felt slightly sad to see them go … fairytale princesses with angelic voices that dance together over instruments seeming to exist only for their accompaniment.

    “Orenda and I have been playing music together since high school [in the mid-’90s] in various forms,” says Maria. “We have always written slow sad songs in our bedrooms, but never thought to do anything with them.”

    The two were in a rock band for a while, which held their immediate attention. Then there was the courtship of Geffen Records, but that romance was all but lasting. Not long after, Maria and Orenda found themselves in Athens. It wasn’t until someone convinced them to open that Pandora’s box of sad songs written in their bedrooms that things started to change for the better.

    With only two people in the band, Maria admits that it is easier for them to write songs. Pretty as The Bangles’ Susanna Hoff’s sweetest ballads and haunting as My Bloody Valentine’s more audible moments, Azure Ray’s music is nevertheless in a class all its own. Exactly what to call that class is a bit more tricky, and it’s almost easier to describe the sound by saying what it’s not: rock ’n’ roll, no; not folk, not country, not pop.

    Better, maybe, to talk about theme.

    “Loss and longing [tend to appear] in our music,” says Orenda. “The lyrics are about our personal experiences. There are some things I hold back on to spare the feelings of [those] I care about. Songwriting in Azure Ray is a cathartic experience to me. I try to turn pain into something beautiful. For me, this often means skipping really personal details for a more poetic, archetypal description of my feelings.”

    “When a song is finished to me, it just feels right,” she continues. “Usually, if I don’t finish a song the day I write it, I never will. Either it comes all at once or it just never comes.”

    “Sometimes I’m not sure [when] a song is finished,” agrees Maria. “We pretty much write the songs individually and then bring them to each other to add harmonies and give feedback. We live together, so it makes it easier.”

    With several other projects (aside from Now It’s Overhead there’s also been Japancakes , Bright Eyes and Little Red Rocket) on their plates, the two have plenty to think about.

    “Touring poses the only foreseeable conflict, so we leave it up to our booking agent,” says Maria. “He looks out for both bands to make sure the tours make sense.”

    Despite tricky scheduling, the two enjoy their time on the road.
    “I love waking up in a new city every morning,” says Maria, “meeting wonderful people all of the time and making money doing what I love the most: playing music and drinking.”
    Azure Ray owe a part of their success to a serendipitous relocation to Athens. Originally from Birmingham, Ala., the duo couldn’t find anyone who was into the kind of music they wanted to do. So they packed up and moved east.
    “It was the best thing we could have ever done personally and musically,” says Maria. “Athens is like this magical inspired little place, completely separate from the rest of the world.” pulse

Azure Ray perform with The Good Life at the 400 Bar on Sun., Feb. 24. Doors 8 p.m. Music 9 p.m. 400 Cedar Ave., Mpls. 612-332-2903.

Matt Pond PA
Orchestral rock that actually works

by Rob van Alstyne

Most people have pretty strong pre-conceived notions of what qualifies as “rock” music—myself included. Even those with a more open mind tend to think of certain instruments (say, guitars) as particular staples. Rarely does one think of the cello, French horn or flute as key ingredients in making great rock. Which just means that the beautifully orchestral sound of Philadelphia’s Matt Pond PA needs to be talked about a lot more.

    After considerable spins of their latest release, The Green Fury, I’m pretty convinced that every band needs to pick up their own orchestral section, or at least throw in a viola somewhere to augment the traditional guitar/bass/drums lineup. Unlike so many bands who favor a lush sound, however, none of the instrumental work on The Green Fury feels extraneous. A particularly tricky accomplishment considering the number of musicians, 13 contributors are listed in the liner notes, at work.

    “People like to point out how many band members are listed in the liner notes, but that’s not something I really like to focus on,” says Pond. (Oops!) “I think the assumption becomes that the people are less important because of their numbers, but the truth is that anyone listed made a major contribution to what was going on. The biggest struggle with having so many people in the studio was trying not to go overboard with all the layers. We were putting overdubs on and it got to the point of vocal harmonies and things like that and we just realized that there wasn’t a lot of room. Most of the time they just didn’t go on the record; we didn’t want to clog things up with one too many melodies or parts.”

    Staying economical despite the usage of so many instruments is one of The Green Fury’s many impressive feats. The majestic orchestral sweep of tracks like “Measure 3” and “Promise the Blue” manage to convince listeners that propulsive rock and the cello need no longer be estranged from each other, while more sedate acoustic based songs (“Silence,” “Jefferson”) prove Matt Pond PA can use flutes in a pastoral song context without sounding like a PBS nature documentary soundtrack.

    The cellos, lap steels and assorted other atypical rock instruments are clearly more than minor instrumental shading providers, a fact Pond owes to the bands songwriting process.

     “What was more of an intentional and conscious direction with the inclusion of the cellos and everything before has just gradually become more of an organic thing,” he says. “Within this lineup now, all the new songs arise out of us practicing together, so the cello and those elements are going to be there from the start. We’ve started to try and learn how to pare things down while still having that orchestral sound, and I’m really happy with where the songs are going.”

    Clearly Matt Pond PA have come a long way from the leaner sound of their 1998 debut Deer Apartments, recorded as a side-project and released with little fanfare. Now recording for high profile indie-rock label Polyvinyl Records and with a strongly committed full band line-up in place, Matt Pond PA appear ready to take their career to new heights, not that Pond necessarily agrees.

    “You can’t really have any expectations when doing music,” he says. “We’re not making tons of money or anything, but it’s great that more and more people are hearing us, that’s always a goal. I don’t think about goals in terms of supporting myself by making music or anything like that. What I like to do is beat myself at records. Whenever I finish an album, I go back and pick a million things out, little changes I wish I had made. The goal is always to have the next record be better, to have less things to pick out. I kind of look at our band’s career as this thing we somehow mistakenly fell into and now that we’ve decided to do this we’re stuck with it for a while.I don’t know what else I could possibly be doing with my life right now.” pulse

Matt Pond PA plays Sun., Feb. 24, at the 7th Street Entry with Triangle. 8 p.m.$6. 21+. 701 1st Ave. N., Mpls., 612-338-8388.