 |
Chez Stadium 2003, Success Pool Records The opening track to Chez Stadium's Freshman Slump has lyrics like, "She's a girl/She gets everything she wants," and background vocals singing, "Yeah yeah yeah." The album combines 60's Brit punk sounds with early 90's Gin Blossoms/Toad the Wet Sprocket. The style is most apparent on the first half of the album. Eventually, though, it slows down and something very clever emerges. The lyrics are really simple, and the melodies are catchy and fun. In a very lucid way, lead man Randall Payton compares telling a girl, "I like you," with Tourette's Syndrome. On another track, we hear, "I'm conflicted/Yes I am," immediately followed by a washed out background line, "No I'm not." The best thing about Chez Stadium (simply Randall Payton and various players, a quick scan of the credits leads me to believe) is Payton's ability to incorporate unique instruments in unobtrusive ways. The music, though simple on the surface, is crafted expertly. Payton is very talented, but he never forces you to acknowledge the fact. The best songwriters tend to sneak up on me from behind, while the flamboyance of a show-off often leaves me feeling impressed but unmoved. o is Freshman Slump a moving album? For my money, no, but it's an excellent start for someone who has enough promise to put out some great pop music (or more?) if he sticks with it. -ib
The Christine Young Band 2003, Self Released The Christine Young band, for those of you uninitiated, and if you believe the press glitz, is a "Wickedly Fun" honky-tonk ensemble that calls to mind Patsy Cline and will soothe every heartbroken trucker's depression better than a pocketful of Prozac gulped down with a fifth of Jack. I wouldn't know. I'm not a trucker, and I'm probably no real judge on what's fun for the average line dancing bar crawler. But I have heard Patsy Cline and by my ear, Christine Young sounds nothing like her. I have also been depressed, and while I get the feeling Christine has too, bless her heart, I wasn't uplifted. A little puzzled, maybe. Which, granted, is better than being depressed. Christine's lyrics are cockeyed and fail to deliver the emotional tenor they seem to be aiming for. You can tell what she's trying to say, but it comes out disjointed, awkward. The music, while well played, isn't inspired. It seemed like the band was just going through the motions while this was recorded, maybe all the way back to when note was first put to staff. All through the listen, I kept wanting to hear Christine and the band let loose, belt out some real emotion, really let the blood boil, but I never felt the love, or the heartbreak, or even sympathy for any of the subjects of the songs. As a whole, the songs fall flat. This recording might work as a sort of country and western musak. Background stuff. Hash browns without the ketchup. Whiskey without the beer back. A pale semi truck without a foghorn or those silvery naked ladies on the mudflaps. This album, The First Time, is Honky without the Tonk. -jr
The CowTrippers 2003, Bew Management Okay, I've been handed an absolutely impossible assignment. Reviewing The CowTrippers' album, Damn Glad to Meat 'Cha, is akin to determining, irrefutably, whether there is life on other planets. I think hard and hard, then my brain hurts, then I wind up something like a NASA Mars rover; robotic and completely out of touch with the Earth. But they'll strip me of my volunteer status and send me packing if I don't at least try to review it, so here goes. At their best the 'Trippers are clever, with good use of atonal and dissonant sounds, particularly by saxophonist Benny Morrison. The solid and interesting bass lines of Will Youngman and steady drumming from Tony Esperanza back Morrison. The lyrics can be bizarre in a great Zappa/ Primus kind of way. However, there is another, much darker side to The CowTrippers. It isn't so much bad as it is downright frightening. When the vocals turn to screaming and guitar turns to distortion, and the songs are titled things like Analingus, you know to keep small children far, far away. The sheer magnitude of this enormous battle of good and evil manages to whisk you away to somewhere you've never been. The question looming is whether or not you want to be there, that question, my friends, you will have to answer for yourselves... send me a postcard. -kc
Daniel G. Harmann 2004, Self Released Daniel G. Harmann is a recent Portland transplant from Seattle. (One is reminded of certain mammals retreating from a sinking ship, but I digress.) Don't be fooled, there is nothing feral about The Lake Effect. Daniel's new record, far exceeding his previous EP in eloquence and instrumentation, is an aural experience of near perfection. Daniel has a very thin and weak voice, but he covers (or accentuates, depending on your position) it with cataclysmic orchestration. Imagine the musical genius of Jeff Buckley crossed with the haunting sound of The Smiths and you'll get a good picture of what Harmann has concocted here, on his first full-length album. Each song is its own musical treat, transcending the singer/songwriter genre. Though you know that Harmann studiously produced each track with different players, the album has achieved cohesiveness, perhaps, because of its disparate parts. -ib
Frank Lemon 2003, Self Released Frank Lemon is a rat bastard. He has crafted a close approximation of the album that I wanted to and has done it much better than I ever could. Therefore, I am forced to hate him. His Album, Chimera, My Darling, however, I am free to like and appreciate with whatever abandon I so choose. So let the gushing commence. With help from the good folks at Perilymph Records (read: Nick Jaina), Lemon put together an album that is at once as ancient as it is new. Tinted with pithy woebegone, Chimera, My Darling is something you would expect from Tom Waits or Greg Brown or, at times, Dan Hicks. With such lyrics as: My baby loves my money and Mexico/But my baby she don't love me no more. As well as his lamentation of the bizarre love triangle he finds himself in, on the track SameThing, Different Religion: You told me you had love for another/And that we could never be lovers/I cried, "That's INSANE!"/That he should come between us/But it's not my ambition to compete with Jesus, Lemon puts himself in a growing class of clever lyricists/arrangers, and clever editing gives the whole oeuvre an approximate 78-rpm l'essence. And with help from the kids of Hot Club Sandwich and Myshkin, this CD makes it the perfect rainy/sunny/foggy/Icy (?!)Sunday afternoon disc. Ah, hell. Put it on any time of day, on any day and have a good time laughing and dancing around your apartment, or wherever, like my lovely amore and me did. Twice. In the same evening. -sh
Holy Sons 2003, Film Guerrero It's midnight in Portland, OR, pre-winter chill. Your personal long, winding, deserted, lonesome road is being narrated and sound-tracked by local troubadour, Emil Amos, a.k.a. Holy Sons. I Want to Live a Peaceful Life, Holy Sons' fourth album, is quiet, calm, and sheltering. Warm-drinks-under-the-blankets-in-your-cozy-apartment-while-the-wind-whoops-it-up-outside kind of music. The intensity at the center could snap a limb. Once again, producer Adam Selzer reigns supreme in the realm of pensive atmosphere. Replete with oddball noises all over the speakers, the songs still manage to leave plenty of room for your aural imagination, giving them a weight that keeps you listening. Not your typical singer/songwriter, or "guy with a guitar" production. For example, in a particularly bottom heavy, guitars all a-crunchy, snare a-snappin' song, Desire, Amos asks the question in the mantra-like refrain, "Are people still climbing their ladders?" He seems to be proposing the idea that big time rock stardom is and always really has been a strange illusion. …Peaceful Life is a reminder that great music recorded in basement studios is getting released on small labels, and folks like you and me are listening more than ever before. -sh
Kieskagato 2004, Iconic Rocket Records Kieskagato. Kieskagato. Key-skuh-got-oh. I've got to repeat this name to try to remember it. When Rm.101 sent out a press release a few months ago that, due to the proliferation of the name Room 101 throughout the states, they were changing their name to, of all things, Kieskagato, my first thought was, "That's horrible." My second thought was, "Well, no one else will have it." Then a friend pointed out that it was Russian and Spanish for catcat. "Well," I thought, "At least is means something." Then I'm in the basement of Nocturnal on the night of their cd release party talking to Bryan Fairfield, the drummer: he's saying the name over and over, I'm saying the name over and over. All this happening in casual conversation about the band, the cd and the touring schedule, and it finally clicks. It was a little hard to remember at first, but the name sticks, and it accentuates 2 things about the band: its creativity and its ability to be punchy and smooth at the same time. So, as for the album, You Are the One, Who Can, (ok, maybe it's a pretentious title, but) I've listened to the record about a dozen times since the show and I'm still digging it. It's almost a complete departure from Rm.101's first album, Half of What You Wanted, which, due to its derivative but exceptional music, is probably the perfect title. This album edges closer to the core of what these 5 musicians have at their creative center. The first time I listened to it, I remember thinking, "Weird," pretty frequently. The arrangements on this album are way more acute than on the first. The sound of Kieskagato is full on, take no prisoners, modern rock. That means guitars to the hilt, weird little samples, delicious vocals and a generous dose of the Fender Rhodes (a soft, jazzy keyboard which is widely popular, but usually played too hard for my liking.) The thing Kieskagato brings to the table that you're not going to find in other modern bands, though, is a lot of trumpet. On the first album, the trumpets seemed almost incidental, but on You Are…, they are so perfectly integrated into the music that it's impossible to imagine the record any other way. Kieskagato. Kieskagato. Commit it to memory. You're going to hear it again. -ib
Klezmocracy 2003, Self Released It's not a big secret that this town is klezmer crazy. On almost every night of the week, from some pizza joint or public house comes the Jewish sounds of the harmonic minor scale matched with the often compound time signatures. The mixture is at once joyful and heavyhearted. It is a music born from perseverance. So delivers Klezmocracy, though they seem to enjoy running the genre through the filter of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Impeccable musicians all, the four-member band turns the music into a seriously heavy affair, which at times include such instruments as the Hammond B3 organ. Strange and fresh, their eponymous debut album doesn't so much stick to one style of music but rather infuses elements of jazz, latin, rock, and of course, klezmer. For Example, song two, the only song on the album not a traditional, is called Miami Beach Rhumba, and that's exactly what it is. Interestingly, the traditional, Freylekhs fun der Kuhpe, is given the same latin, booty shakin' treatment. Listening to it makes you think of boat drinks with umbrellas more than yarmulkes. I guess that is the idea of the musical collection that is Klemocracy. Join the revolution. -sh
Loch Lomond 2004, In Music We Trust Loch Lomond is a side project of the best kind. The album is comprised of members from The Standard, Iretsu, Dignen and Hurt Bird. The record is a fine example of what can happen in Portland. From what I can tell, When We Were Mountains could be considered an accident of pure beauty. For example, start with track 6, Sourire. The track begins with the singer (in the list of the 10 players who contributed to the album, we're never told who actually does what) counting to 4 to start the song, but the song is actually in 6/8 time; you know, that waltz kind of 1 2 3, 1 2 3 tempo. Add to that the fact that the sound of the accordion's keys being pressed is just as loud as the instrument itself. It makes this percussive click click thing happen that doesn't seem intentional, like squeaking guitar strings or something, but totally adds to the song anyway. For a final stroke of innocent brilliance, the song is sung in a very American sounding French. I'd be embarrassed to find out that these elements were conscious, because I'm here telling you that they're not, but either way, each part adds up to a pretty, memorable and seductive song. Another clue that we're on to something great but guileless here is that the album was recorded at some place called "Kerby House." Obviously, it's some place on Kerby. Despite possibly low-fi surroundings, the album sounds really big and totally professional. The rest of the album is a tasteful conglomeration of sonic 80's alternative rock reinterpreted for a modern palette. The cd gets released nationally on March 30th, but you can order it now on CDBaby.com. Then, in April and May, Loch Lomond will be touring with The Standard, so definitely be on the lookout for this show. -ib
Mistress Quickly 2003, Self Released John Thurman and Kipp Crawford were in a band in Ashland called Fifth Business. They moved here, met this guy Shawn Davidson, and formed Mistress Quickly. For the love of music, they decided to put out a pop-rock album, so they wrote, rehearsed, and went into the studio. Out popped from Mistress Quickly an Onus. "You do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast enough of themselves, and to call 'horum:' fie upon you!" They got the pop-rock album down pretty well, nothing too crazy or unpredictable, nice and simple. Most of the lyrics are of heartbreak and savoir-faire in love. I personally find it amusing that Mistress Quickly is a character from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. "'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you." -md
Nigel Norman O'Shea Self Released "I'm sorry this album really sucks," claims Nigel Norman O'Shea of his own My Friends Call Me Nige, on the album's third track, Like a Pink Floyd Song. For the most part, I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. O'Shea. Top to Bottom, My Friends Call Me Nige is a fine album. The record is playful and witty, finding a middle ground between early 60s Brit pop and Morrissey, yet remaining uniquely American. The album's finest points come on I Get so Damn Excited 'Round You, I Had a Dream About the End and the aforementioned Like A Pink Floyd Song. At their best, the songs are simplistic, catchy songs. Occasionally, O'Shea gets away from this, as in the distortion heavy Blood, providing the one area that, in my humble opinion, this album suffers. All in all, however, it is worth the price of admission, besides, as O'Shea says on the album, "What do you expect for $15 bucks?" -kc
Oblivion Seekers 2003, Self Released Rockabilly meets B-52's, and maybe even a little Peter Murphy, at times it reminded me of a band called The Blasters. This album is interesting, fun and rockin'. I understand this is their fifth album thus far. The base of the band consists of six people, but this album features collaborations with ten other artists, including 3 other vocalists and a saxophone player which spices up the whole platter. The lyrics on this album make me laugh, but are pretty ingenious. Songs like Slave: "You mean the world to me/I'm your slave/I live on my knees/I'll die at your feet" is an example, and that, sang by a sexy, sultry female is HOT. At first listen I thought, did she just say, "I beg you to hurt me and prove you really care," and after listening to the album a couple of times, I realized that it wasn't that odd, comparatively speaking. I'm thinking this band is gonna be awesome to see live tomorrow night. I'm compelled to pull out my dusty chain wallet and dress like a rocker. I say, if you're into it, pick up one of these albums. -md
Shoeshine Blue 2003, Self Released This album is damn awesome. I keep finding myself putting it in, because it's an album that just gets better and better. A beautiful mix of folk/rock and blues. Shoeshine Blue is a creative songwriter/ vocalist, and Shawn McLain adds layers of violin and beautiful harmonies. The first song is called The Boxer and is probably the most beautiful song I've heard in a long fuckin' time. The second track, Famous, has a line in the chorus where the two harmonize, "We bet ya to write it down, there's a story in there somewhere." That there explains a lot of the idea this album carries. The music is dynamic and well written. The only thing that sucks about this album is it's only six songs long. -md
The Sick Kids 2003, Watch For Falling Records Oh, The Sick Kids. What can I say? Loud, fast, and most likely, drunk. Guitars a-buzzy, drums a-popsnap, bass a-bumbumbum, and some weird, zippy sounding noise that comes from an early synth called the Arp Odyssey. Not to be categorized into the overproduced section of your musical collection, Rock and Roll = Self Destruction is full of earth anxiety sung through gritting teeth while swerving around washing machines at 150 mph down the alleyway. It is raw and sloppy and all those punk things that the punk kids seem to like. Either they are fakers or they really miss the Satyricon in a huge way. Big Fat Disclaimer: I am not a big fan of the punk music but my punk rock friends seem to like it a lot. -sh
Uzi Machete 2003, Self Released At its best, Uzi Machete is a cheap Green Day knock-off without the faux British accent; at worst, a mild migraine. This album makes no sense. I'll admit, the first half of the album has a gum-sticky quality of short-term memory maintenance (I can't seem to get, "Stick shift driver, drive a little faster!" out of my head). This first half also uses blatant low-tech recording technique in its best form. Slip-shod songwriting and endearing but milk-fed lyrics cover this section of the cd. Enter phase 2. On track 8, I Had a Dream, the album turns into an acoustic nightmare. The rest of the album resembles nothing of its first 7 songs, and it's some of the worst singer/songwriter, electric guitar accompanied music I've ever heard. That is, until track 11, I Wish You Could Stay. Although the singing is amateur beyond adolescent naiveté, (reminding the author of embarrassing middle-school vocal experiments), the song retains a certain maturity despite its failings. Maybe it's the expertly plucked mandolin, or the eloquent, old-timey progression of the tune, but something about the song rescues the album from the circular file. -ib
Velvida Underground
2003, 20 Watt Records Put Rocket Songs into your CD player. Seriously. Press play. Listen to it at least once. I know Velvida Underground is a silly name that brings to mind maybe a novelty or perhaps a parody band. It's not. Oh, yeah, there are stylistic impressions. Opening the disc is Fly Away Angel, a seriously do wop-ed groove complete with dueling saxophones and falsetto. And then it just gets weirder in all the best possible ways. Track two is an accordion heavy cover of the Ray Davies song, Alcohol that includes a guest appearance by something called the E. Portland Drinking Men's Choir. I'm not going to do the play-by-play, track-wise, but the temptation exists because each song is it's own separate gem. Mike Danner, no musical slouch himself, has gathered an A-list of Portland's finest. Tim Acott on bass, Sam Hagerman on Sax, and local treasure, Neil Gilpin on guitar, gives Mark Ribot a serious run for his money. Yorck Franken and Sam Henry share percussion duty, both players giving the songs the subtle treatment of a jazz drummer. You won't feel like you've discovered some new form of music after your mandatory listen of Rocket Song, but I can guess that you will be hitting that play button sometime again in the near future. -sh For good or ill, Music Liberation Project has promised to review every local, commercially available cd, record or cassette sent to us. Band photos are not necessary, so save them for the big boys. Our address is on the staff page. |
