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Issue # 28 August 2001 thewigwambam.com |
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| Ignoring Objectivity Since 1998
WIG WAM BAM “Albuquerque zine of music & nepotism” |
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| the Shins, Starsky, Pilot To Bombardier,
Scared of Chaka, Beefcake In Chains, Campground Effect, the Ladykillers,
Cowboy Up, the Groovie Ghoulies, Skate Or Die, Four Letter Words, the Cuts,
Dead On Point Five, Giving Chase, the Ladykillers, All-Star Blues Jam @ Club
Rhythm & Blues, the Lower East Side Stitches, the Trash Brats, Norman
Blake with Nancy Blake |
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| LOCAL
RELEASES Local bands, any label |
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| the Shins Oh, Inverted World [CD, 2001] Subpop Scared Of Chaka Seven Stories Tall: Singles ‘94-‘99 [CD, 2000] 702 Records |
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| LOCAL
SHOWS |
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the Shins, Starsky, Pilot To Bombardier 6/29/01 @ Launchpad Although Sean ran into more trouble with his pedals an’ cords an’ shit than he needed, Pilot still put on a peerless show. Even with problems like this, they’re better than 86% of what’s to be found out in the clubs. I stood front & center and the sound dynamics were incredible. Thank you, soundguy Chris. The mix was perfect; it was like wearing a pair of those big Koss headphones from the 70s. Its good to see Starsky playing out a lot more these days, holding their own with all the up-and-coming youngsters. Not that I’m implying these guys are old (heck, I’ve got a few years on ‘em); no, just reliable workingman’s-core. They were around before emo, before (c)rap-metal, before the teencreamqueen invasion and damned if they don’t sound as fresh as ever. Its like those old TV commercials: Starsky preferred two-to-one in blindfold taste tests over other leading b(r)ands! The Shins live come off more rockin’ than on record (well, that’s as it should be right?) but their sound is totally unmistakable: swaying lilt-pop harking not so far back as the British Invasion but to late-60s American pop influenced by the Brits. Everyone in the place was quite happy, faces full of grins. Drummer Jesse’s mom was in the crowd right up front, looking pretty damn proud of her boy. I was proud of the boys myself for a purely wonderful show; lucid and cloudless, “As an unmuddied lake, sir…Clear as an azure sky of deepest summer.”-- Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange; 1962. Of course, there’s the usual grumbles by idiots about the band being signed to big bad major-indie Sub Pop but you know what? Fuck off. Marty says they’re being treated well. I for one would much rather see Sub Pop promoting the Shins or Ben Weasel watching out for the Eyeliners than see the band members have to slop sandwiches at Subway or sling ink at Kinko’s. Its no crime to make a living at what you do best and as long as no one takes the Kurt Cobain route, its all good. We’re talking band support here. Not everyone can be Ian McKaye, thank god. Scared of Chaka, Beefcake In Chains 6/30/01 @ Launchpad Beefcake seemed sort of lackluster tonight or maybe it was me who was lacking luster as I’d just woken up about twenty minutes before I got to the show. Scared of Chaka has another new bass player-- must be about number twelve or something by now. Gwen reminds me of a young Lorca Drag; not because she’s female or a bassist but merely that she looks a little like Lorca and is just as confident on stage. She did really well especially considering the fact that she’s only been with these madmen for a few weeks or something. Although there’s lots more melody in their stuff than ever before (or maybe it’s the same amount but Dave’s not strangling it so much anymore), the live sound is still classic Chaka: start with the Dave Clark Five, take away two, plus the bottle of vodka (the one that you slipped under your windbreaker at the liquor store ‘cause the only thing you’re old enough to buy there is Slim Jims), that bottle you’ve been hitting off of is almost empty after drinking all night on the beach. It’s an hour and a half before sunrise over the ocean and the handful of diet pills you swiped (and ate) from your mom’s purse are just beginning to kick in. Now, put that feeling into song and bingo!--- there’s Scared of Chaka. Camprground Effect, the Ladykillers, Cowboy Up 7/03/01 @ house show Even a cramped stinkin’ cat-piss basement couldn’t put a damper on the music down there (the feline urine & human perspiration humidity in the air was a minus, I must admit). One of my new favorite bands, the three-piece Cowboy Up start out almost folkie/strum-y but then the cogs of reality begin to slip, sending broken gear-teeth flying in every direction --watchout!-- loud and fucked-up just the way I love it, punk as fuck, Klezmer-funk crash n’roll. Mikey’s vocals have an almost rock-o-billy quality but without the derivative stupidity; he sounds like the classic Popeye the Sailor cartoons of the 1930s where nobody’s lips move and the voice-actors ad-lib & mutter under their breath. Los Ladykillers delivered a good long set of their whiteboy funk n’ soul dance numbers but I still have a hard time with the silly lyrics; that’s my cross to bear I guess. The Campground Effect are more Grunge In Full Effect and lovin’ every bit of it. They sound like a lost Nirvana demo cassette from 1989 (if you think that band didn’t mean anything, well, you’re dumber than I give you credit for). Campground Effect (Houston?) rocked and through their music, I can finally understand why Nirvana was sometimes labeled punk (I don’t agree but I can see why). And no I’m not saying all this because they covered an early Cobain tune but because they had a full-on grunge roar from the get-go. Wish I’d had the presence of mind to ask if they had a CD or something. My biggest highlight for this party however was that I got to hang & drink beer with my teenager, far away from the family and the other adults in her life. It was cool. the Groovie Ghoulies, Skate Or Die, Four Letter Words 7/17/01 @ Insurgo I walked into Insurgo just in time (?) to hear the last couple of songs by Four Letter Words, which appeared to me to be just a bunch of shouting & jumping around by five or six people, half of them sans pants. I dunno, maybe the women in the crowd liked it better than me but to tell you the truth, any band without pants (even girl ones) sort of embarrasses me. I ain’t no prude but if I’m gonna be around someone with no pants, I’d rather we were alone. And I certainly wouldn’t want to alone with these (or any other) guys, pants or no… Skate or Die sounded just like what you’d expect with a dumbass name like that: like some skatepunk off the Dr Strange label, but like a 45 rpm 7” played at 33 per. Next up were the Groovie Ghoulies who have got to be the best Look Out! style band ever. It was quite a love-fest: they love to play all-ages shows even though they can easily fill a bar ‘cause they love “the kids”. The ever-lovin’ line-up: Lovable goofball Kepi (vocals & leaping around); the quite lovely Roach who fuckin’ rips on guitar (it was her birthday too! Kep even made her & the band play The Birthday Song [the hidden track off of their latest CD, Travels With My Amp); loverboy bassist B-Face with his new long hippie hair and another new drummer, lovelorn Matt. I swear this band wears out drummers who have to learn all eight-hundred-and-twelve Ghoulie songs and be able to play any one of them at the drop-of-a-witch’s-hat ‘cause Kepi loves requests. I kind of picture him like the James Brown of pop-punk, issuing fines to bandmembers for not remembering songs. As usual, most of the tunes covered all things ghoulish like vampires, zombies, El Chupacabra, Bigfoot and my own request The Beast With Five Hands (thanks, Kep!) and my all-time fave Ghoulie-tune Graveyard Girlfriend (my granted request last time they were here). Noteworthy as well was Ghoulie Family (also from Amp), dedicated to ex-locals Scared of Chaka who hooked up for a few dates on this GG tour. It can be safely said that a good time was had by all, notably Insurgo Carl who was hopping around like mad and crashed into the dude on crutches more than once. Luckily, the guy was a good sport about it all. The Groovie Ghoulies put groovie grins on everyone’s face. Happy Birthday, Roach! You rock! the Cuts 7/19/01 @ Burt’s Tiki Lounge From Oakland (via El Paso) the Cuts put on a great set, another in a recent spate of Nuggets-style garage rock n’ roll at Burt’s. The Tiki has lately turned into the place for this stuff, as unlikely as that may seem (well, maybe not with the popularity of the Thursday night rock n’ mod/soul spinnin’ records thing). I’m all for putting rock n’ roll back into rock n’ roll (if you get my meaning) and (no offense to the DJs) am hoping for many more live acts here. Although not my preference, spinning platters instead of an opening act sort of lends that vintage feel from back when bands used to have to beg bar owners for a spot to slip in a set or two between customer’s juke box picks. And speaking of vintage, the Cuts’ first song sounded like nothing but the early Animals rock n’ soul; I was waiting for someone to pull out the maracas. From here, things kept that garage feel but headed towards decidedly poppier material, like bands who wanted to get out of their parents’ garage and onto their friends’ car radios rather than groups who just wanted to rock, man. The Fender-Rhodes keyboards (always a good sign) play a bigger part of the Cuts’ current sound, rather than the harder-edged previous line-up featured on their CD -- or rather [unfortunately] their CD-R, a recording technology that promises to wear thin just as fast as fragile cassette tape. Dead On Point Five, Giving Chase, the Ladykillers 7/19/01 @ the Golden West I caught a couple of the Ladykillers’ signature tunes before booking on over to Burt’s for the Cuts (see above). Returning to the Golden West after that set, I barely heard a few minutes from New Jersey’s Giving Chase that sounded like standard alt.punk, no great shakes but then again, a half a song is no basis for judging a band. Dead On Point Five hammered out a great & loud set, the first I’ve heard of theirs for quite some time. Tonight was new bassist Jeff’s second gig. No, not second gig with DO.5 but second gig ever, the first being some flamenco-pop(!) band he used to mess around with. You wouldn’t have known as he did an outstanding job of keeping up with them other two guys. Drummer Tim may have gotten quicker (if that’s even possible) but is definitely keeping his movement ever more spare (like all the best drummers do) while pounding the shit out fast & clean. Madman Dominic is back to being the only guitarist…and that’s a good thing -- Dead On Point Five has always been at its best as a three piece rather than the couple of four-piece incarnations over the past year or two. All-Star Blues Jam 7/28/01 @ Club Rhythm & Blues A long-lost bud from southern Arizona was passing through town & got me out to this gig, bless his heart. I have no idea who I saw or heard in the hour & a half we were there (that’s part of the All-Star I hadn’t bothered to check this place out for over two years but not because I don’t like blues & jazz; I’ve dug the raw acoustic stuff since my big brother turned me onto Lightnin’ Hopkins when I was like 13 or something -- thanks, bro! --and I’ve recently gotten hip to the cool big band swing my uncle grew up on -- solid, Jackson! No, I haven’t gone out to the Club R&B because I was spoiled by seeing the best of the old time bluesmen who were still among the living when I was a kid (like Lightnin’, Brownie McGee & Sonny Terry, Howlin’ Wolf) and spinning the records of the older departed ones (like Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Sleepy John Estes). Also because the Club is full of people my own age, most of whom make me extremely uncomfortable (but that’s another story). I’m not much impressed with the blues today, which is all kinds of unimaginative & slavish imitation by blond-haired blue-eyed teenagers of electric Chicago & Detroit styles. Check out the “blues” records on the charts these days. These kids all look like fuckin’ Hanson and play with less soul. At least Hanson plays crap honestly. That’s not to denigrate the people who were up onstage this night; no, there were some fine players but generally, I see little in the way of innovation (much like all them kids these days that still play “punk” with a ’77 British spin and a mouthful o’ gob to boot. Ya bleedin’ wankers!). Okay, okay, for all my bitching & intellectualizing here, I did hear some decent stuff; decent enough in fact to make me want to check the place out again sometime (hear that , Ed? I’m waiting for ya to come back into town so we can do it up again).Two that really caught my ear were singers and I wish I knew who they were: one was a smallish brunette gal who had one of those deep-throated vocal styles that make you say “Did that come outta her?!!” The other was a slim black dude that had an incredibly smooth voice, more soul than blues, but certainly choice. So, I was feeling anything but the blues when I bailed for the next show downtown which was… the Lower East Side Stitches, the Trash Brats 7/28/01 @ Launchpad I was quite disenchanted with the L.E.S. Stitches after only a couple of songs; they were more “punk” as in the spike & torn t-shirt style rather than the trashy lo-fi I had hoped for. Decent enough in their way, I guess, but I left by song three. The reason I came out in the first place was for openers the Trash Brats who were a tiny bit disappointing in that they weren’t really glam rock as their name and their New York Dolls appearance suggests but I had no problem with what I heard: some quite satisfying rock n’ rolly pop-trash (although once again I was thwarted by a guy with no pants onstage. Ick) thing; bands were all mixed-up with each other; looked like they were having a gas too! . Norman Blake with Nancy Blake 7/29/01 @ UNM Continuing Education Theatre Nobody can flatpick an acoustic guitar like Norman Blake; nobody. He’s fast but cleaner’ than a hound’s tooth but so comfortable that you’d swear he’s playing slow. His style is pretty but sincere and is about as pure as his leisurely Dixie drawl. The man is genuine and has been for his thirty plus year career. He started out as a sessionman on records like Dylan’s back-to-the-country 1967 Nashville Skyline but became well known (to those in the know) for his tasteful dobro work on the 1972 hippies-meet-hicks classic triple LP Will the Circle Be Unbroken (a veritable who’s-who of the then- contemporary country/bluegrass scene joined by one of the worst country-rock groups ever, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band who nevertheless scored big cred by instigating the project). Not that (m)any of you out there will recognize the names but seeing Blake trading licks with flatpick guitar legends Doc Watson and Deacon Dan Crary at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in ‘77 was one of my all-time show highlights. Ever. It was wonderful to hear Norman again. His singing remains as smooth as Tennessee sippin’ whiskey. Although fine bourbon should, his voice hasn’t aged a whit. His playing is still uncommonly good though maybe not as intricate as it once was; with a taste of Chet Atkins, he’s moved from a flat pick to a thumbpick, incorporating more rolls & fingerpicking than ever before He seems to prefer these days to concentrate on his “poetry” as he calls the songs he “made”, spending as much time singing as strumming. In the early eighties, he got hitched to a gal name of Nancy who’s just as gentle and self-effacing as he is and a damn good player in her own right. Back then their records with her on viola, cello and such lent a more somber Chamber Music air to their old-time tunes. As good as it was, many of us back then missed Norman’s more straight-ahead steam-engine-rolling-down-the-hillside flatpicking, painting her as a sort of a backwoods Yoko Ono. So it was curious that when Nancy joined him on guitar and a sweet old-style Gibson mandolin during the second set tonight that things became more lively than the somewhat subdued first half. Her lovely high harmonies were exquisite and the counterpoint on mandolin was superb. Seeing them both onstage is as much a treat as hearing them, moving comfortably to & from the single guitar mike and dressed like country folk back in nineteen-ought-six but always quite unpretentious. That’s just the way they look & always have. |
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| LOCAL RELEASES |
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| the Shins Oh, Inverted World CD, 2001; Subpop What a lovely recording. For once, I’ll agree with Michael “No Alibi” Henningsen that this is about as close to perfect as it can get (and with Stewart Mason whose reviews are astute & right-on nearly each time). The Beatles comparisons jumping up left & right are neither here nor there (they did set the pop standard once upon a time) but me, I hear something more like the mellow side of the Kinks after they got out of the garage (so to speak) and went “Beatlesque” like everyone else at the time. Or the very earliest work (‘63, ‘64) of Simon & Garfunkel --which is quite good no matter what you say . Of course this was well before Paul ditched Artie to father the whole World Beat movement (which I’ve yet to forgive him for by the way) with that Graceland LP back in 1986. On the surface Oh, Inverted World is all soft & sweet but the lyrics reveal some dangerous ambiguities furtively peering from below. Musically, you’re just anticipating some jangly guitar work to chime in and wrap the songs up in some crashing finale but it never happens. And you know what? It’s not missed a bit (and that’s an amazing statement from my usual standpoint of taste i.e. noisy shit). Speaking contemporarily, James’ voice most immediately reminds of the harmonies of Vancouver’s pop supergroup New Pornographers, singers Carl Newman (Zumpano, Super-conductor) and Dan Bejar (Destroyer). Last year’s Mass Romantic is a guitar-pop CD gem that refused to leave my player. It has all the Phil Spector-like soaring crescendos & sticky hooks that Oh, Inverted World doesn’t need [plus it has Neko Case!!!] Together, these two releases take a permanent place at the top of my pop collection. One more comparison: James sounds like two out of three Wilson brothers (Brian & Dennis) and Mike Love from the Beach Boys, all at once! Most unfortunate is that the single New Slang has no keyboards & leaves little for Marty to do. The video (the enhanced bit on the CD) is even more understated than the song itself which is quite a feat -- there’s some (-body’s) girl (-friend) mouthing James’ words in fuzzy black & white. The vid didn’t exactly hold my attention but (it says here) Dave Hernandez (Scared of Chaka) plays bass so it’s not a total loss. Anyway, I keep pulling this out of my CD player to slip in the Damned or Iggy or what-have-you but the damn thing won’t stay out! I haven’t listened to a local full-length so many times in such a short period since 1997’s double-threat release of Sweetie (Elephant) and Confidential (Eyeliners). And although those are two of my favorite local discs (along with most everything by Los Drags or the Chaka boys), Oh, Inverted World is the only one that’s poised to break big in the mainstream of indie music-- which isn’t really that mainstream at all but you get the picture… Scared of Chaka Seven Stories Tall: Singles ‘94-‘99 CD, 2000; 702 Records PO BX 204 Reno NV 89504 I meant to pick this one up on their tour through here last year but things happened. Technically, this isn’t a local release since the Chakas bailed on us a few years ago for the West & Northwest but many of the singles on this comp were recorded here in the ‘burque at familiar places like the Nursery or their old Columbia pad with familiar people like Bob (Mind Over Matter) Tower, Flake and Word Salad. 702 has always been a righteous label run by SOC buddy Pete the Sticker Guy, a Nevada scene stalwart for like a million years. The recording quality of some of the older stuff sounds like abysmal shite but its still the Scared of Chaka we all know and love (to throw things at). Takes you back don’t it? |
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Wig Wam Bam (by Captain America PO BX 4865 Albq NM 87196 captainamerica1941@hotmail.com) |
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| Wig
Wam Bam is written by Captain
America | po box 4865 | albuquerque, nm 87196 |
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