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Issue # 57 Feb 1/2 2004 thewigwambam.com |
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| Ignoring Objectivity Since 1998
WIG WAM BAM “Albuquerque zine of music & nepotism” |
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| Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Mindy
Set, the Sweatband, the Foxx, the Dirty Novels, Los Dums |
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| PORTLAND, OREGON |
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| Broken Social Scene,
Stars @ Dante's, Q Is For Choir, Jackpot Records, The Green Noise |
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LOCAL
RELEASES
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| Darlington
Horns Exile On High Street Little Kiss Records [CD, 2003] the FOXX [s/t self-release CD, 2003] |
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by Dee Snarl |
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12/03 and 1/04, 12pp, 8 _ x 6”, monthly; free |
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| LOCAL
SHOWS |
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Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Mindy Set, the Sweatband 1/4/04 @ Launchpad No doubt about it, this was a sloppy Sweat set but it was a loose atmosphere and everybody had fun anyway. Everyone’s allowed to mess around every once in a while. OK, I’m done going on and on and about the Mindy Set’s “Manchester sound”. True, it’s a starting and reference point but like every good band, they’ve surpassed those points and made their sound richer, more nuanced and accomplished. As for the Brian Jonestown Massacre, well, you realize Brian Jones himself is rolling in his grave. Because they would indeed be a massacre to what Jones himself loved: straight-up blues. When he started the Rolling Stones (yes, Jones not Jagger or Richards), he was an obsessive blues fan, long before “the blues” was transformed by rockers into a shell of its former self. Early on, groups like the Stones distanced themselves from rock n’ roll, which was considered to be derivative & immature--which it was. It was Jones who repeatedly--and ultimately to his frustration--tried to keep the group on the straight & narrow blues path. Even as early as 1965, it was apparent he had lost the battle. Once the psychedelics took hold (in which he fully participated) Jones was relegated to an unimportant drug-addicted sideman. Pushed aside, kicked out of the band more than once, he drowned in his swimming pool, the very first in a long line of drug-induced rockstar deaths. So I’m not certain what the homage is --if any--to Jones by the ‘Massacre. Musically accomplished, they bring to mind a melodious conglomeration of Mazzy Star, U2 and the Byrds with that Manchester filter. Still, the entire set sounded like one long song to me. If they didn’t stop for applause, you might not even notice they were playing a different tune. In this regard, the Mindy Set (who have the ultimate respect for the Massacre) surpass one of their inspirations in diversity, melody, songwriting, you name it. And, no , its not only a matter of me rooting for the home-team here. Its true. There’s no reason why with the right backup the Mindies couldn’t be selling records in the same numbers and touring the same cities successfully as the Brain Jonestown Massacre. Where’s a “major” indie label like 4AD or Caroline when ya really need ‘em? the Foxx, the Dirty Novels, Los Dums 1/30/04 @ Launchpad The local rock press (Alibi, Journal, Lobo) need to back off and stop complaining about the Sweatband changing their name to the Foxx. Nobody ever really liked that name anyway and hey, get a grip: bands change their names all the time. Otherwise, locally, we’d still be listening to dull & ordinary-named bands like Flake instead of the Shins; Blister instead of Hazeldine; Psychodrama instead of the Eyeliners or Hug instead of Nitrous Burning Cactus Tractor….well, ok, that last one’s an abomination but you get the idea. Look, the real reason (its been kept under wraps) is that the Sweatband U.K. and Parlephone Records filed major copyright-infringement lawsuits. Rather than spending lots of time and money no one has in court, the more glam-y Foxx was decided upon at the eleventh-hour before their CD went to press. Happy now? With a packed house, the artists formally known as Sweatpants packed the house not in little part due to all that press in the past few days--too bad most everyone forgot to talk about the music. If we ignore the Strokes/Jets comparison (what?!? ) the Lobo got it the best. True, the Juliet/ Patsy Cline comparison was perplexing (Patsy had more heart than soul) but Dusty Springfield, the First Lady of White Soul? Yeah I wish I’d said it first. Not 100% apt but I can still see where the guy was going with it. The Foxx are putting out more effort than ever. They workin’ so hard they almost like a collective James Brown up there, oh yeah. Not the least their clothes; even Isaac’s finally pulled through and what else can be said about drummer Ryan “ Fonz” Ruehl? I do however miss Zed’s purple boa which wouldn’t be out of place although I’d guess its hard to play bass with all those feathers flopping around your face and pickguard. This might sound strange to say but no one in the band is standing out, but wait! I mean that in the best possible way: the Foxx are a velvet, a fully functioning unit and getting smoother each day. Being so smooth is what makes it so inviting to dance and let your backbone slip. But don’t worry: that smoothness, that ease isn’t affecting the rock factor. The best glam is no less rockin’ but always the least raunchy (let’s leave Slade out of this part of the discussion shall we?). And I can’t help getting a stupid smirk on my face when they cover the Sweet’s 1972 Wig Wam Bam. And that brings up my biggest complaint about this outfit: when I’m dancing to the Foxx I just know I’m pulling some godawful “I’m getting down” faces like some dude trying to pick up chix on the dancefloor. Its so pathetic but I can’t help it when they’re playing :Damn you, Foxx! Well, at least I don’t have that mojo-hand thing that Julie’s got goin’ on… Although at times in the past year (with all my coverage of this combo) I was contemplating changing the name of this rag to Sweatband News and World Report, now I just gotta bask and say: I told you so. This was their CD release show and its about time. Some bands need to be forced at gunpoint, it seems, to lay down some tracks before they change personnel, style or just get tired of their old songs. Case in point: the Dirty Novels are 75% a new band since their inception. Me, I’d love an aural souvenir of their earlier stuff. Oh there’s some stuff in the vaults but I’m afraid it won’t come out until the re-issue Novels box set comes out in like 2025 or something. Hope I’m not dead by then… But! notwithstanding, the Novels have reached a new level that was in fact made an issue by the new line-up. Its all to the good however because that Rolling Stones rut was starting to dig itself too deep. And while we’re missing his guitar leads, Pauli’s slipping comfortably into his new role as sole frontman like he was easing into a hot bath. New guy Adam is pulling off some quietly-killer leads in a whole ‘nother vein with hints (not derivatives mind you) of 60s lead axemen like the Byrds’ Roger McGuinn or even John Fogarty. The latter is surprisingly OK, and believe me, I’ve never had anything good to say about Creedence Clearwater Revival in my life, excepting maybe Fortunate Son. Even the rhythm section is smokin’ like they have a three-pack-a-day habit. Carrie’s lines were particularly out front tonight, an integral part of the melodies, just where bass ought to be. And drummer Joey’s rapidfire fills and frills continue to delight. To open the show, Los Dums from El Paso/Juarez pulled some straightforward punk rock, post-Ramones, pre-New Wave. Their vocals need lots of work but musically they hit their stride by the last three songs when I finally did more than just tap my toe. I think they have potential to do better. More mariachi covers please. Its especially noteworthy to see a young band from ‘Paso that doesn’t wanna be At The Drive-In; I still don’t know what all the fuss was about. More genuine excitement was generated down there ten years ago by bands like the Chinese Love Beads, Rope, 72 Horas, even old school punkz Not So Happy all of whom got only local recognition. Anyway, at only six months old, Los Dums are in a good place to use their approach as a springboard and take a stylistic leap. Extra points to the scene in Ciudad El Paso del Norte y Juarez for everyone who made the four-hour trip from the border to support their compas and represent their tierra. That’s the way it should be with the natural and historical corridor between our cities. Everyone else ignores us all so its up to us to keep up a musical dialogue. Tejas and Nuevo Mejico used to be one and the same anyway que no?. Thanks Paul. |
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| PORTLAND, OREGON |
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Its been three months since I finally made it to the place where all scenesters go to live out their last days, sort of like the secret elephant graveyard of the old Tarzan movies. Its taken me longer than usual to report on someplace most of you already know anyway mainly because I made it only to one measly show of which I was less than impressed. Besides, being a desert rat, lush greenery and lots of clouds freak me right the fuck out. But the vinyl bonanza was hard to beat. To quote our old buddy Lincoln F. of Aztec, New Mexico, “I bought my weight in records”. More on that later. There’s something about checking out the rock in other cities when you only have a few days to pack it all in all: ya always manage to miss the good shit. Exhibit A: I missed the Prids by one day and Ohio proto-punks Rocket From the Tombs reunion by five days. Hell, for lack of any better shows to attend, I might even have gone to see Robyn Hitchcock if I’d stayed one more night. Honestly I was shocked. From all the NW hype I figured I’d have my choice each night of snubbing every band ever hyped by CMJ in favor of drunken rockers. I was staying outside of Portland for a couple days of work-related training from which I couldn’t escape at night since I had no vehicle and spending twenty-five bucks on a cab before even getting to a club was no option. On the last day of my classes (Friday 11/14/03) I left suburban Wilsonville at 6PM and taxied straight to the Portland airport-- not for a flight but to grab a rental car, find a suitably old-school motel and figure out what to do the next two nights. Show-wise it looked kinda bleak even after scouring the alt.papers for a show that wasn’t emo or part of the nu-garage scene. No luck. I had noticed Lech Kowalski’s flick Hey Is Dee Dee Home playing at the Clinton Street Theater but having only a half-hour before show time. I figured that my chances to find my way across a strange city, park and still make it in time were slim to nil. Luckily I was so desperate after three days at the self depriving (no TV, radio, alcohol, fun) retreat center I had to bust out. A date with the TV remote was untenable. Studying city maps for hours the night before (real maps, no internet at the place either), trying to figure out where the clubs and record shops were, paid off. I was proud of myself in that I made it to the movie with ten minutes to spare. So, sitting there in the theater before the coming attractions, not in Portland for over an hour, someone calls my name! It was ex-Santa Fean Dave that I met through Aztec Lincoln. Dave, one of the only other Albuquerque people to make it to Jeff Dahl’s last Desert Trashblast in Tempe AZ two years ago. Dave, who I was briefly (about four minutes) “in” a band called the Wheelers with, lying through our teeth to Phoenix’s Slash City Daggers at that Hollywood Alley show. Dave, who --uh--I really don’t know. But I couldn’t have asked for anyone better to hip me to the best record shops, him being something of a mod and a rocker with a touch of garage-psych. Hey Is Dee Dee Home was a rather marginal batch of Q & A with Dee Dee Ramone, filmed for use in some NY Dolls documentary that I’m not sure has yet seen light of day (ummm, or is that ‘dark of theater’?). Still, it was frickin’ Dee Dee so how can you miss it? He’s somewhat comical and sorry to say not a little pathetic. In some ways, he’s like the Ringo Starr of the Ramones. He’ll forever be remembered as guy who shouted “onetwothreefour” before each song, immortalized for turning fag tricks on the corner of Fifty-Third and Third, and name-checked in the Heartbreakers love-song-to-heroin Chinese Rocks: Somebody called me on the phone/’said hey is Dee Dee home/Do you wanna take a walk/you wanna go cop/you wanna go get some Chinese Rock. Except that according to Dee Dee and other sources, he was the one that originally wrote that song with “hey is Johnny [Thunders] home” instead in a song that was turned down by the rest of the Ramones until Johnny and Richard Hell’s Heartbreakers made it a local NYC hit. From the tone of the flick, I gather this was the whole purpose of the interview for inclusion in the Dolls picture. Most of the rest of it was Dee Dee pointing out each and every one of his tattoos and the stories behind them, many of which were too-typical junkie business. In all an amusing but sad little film but still worth checking out if you’re a punker/rocker geek. Next night (Saturday 11/15): I was at a loss for a decent show to attend. Everything looked like shite; really quite depressing for the indie rock capital of the nation. I’m certain a below-zero Tuesday night in Detroit would’ve rocked more than my weekend in Portland. The likeliest-looking gig was at Dante’s with Broken Social Scene who’ve gotten lots of ink as a great pop outfit. These guys are considered pop?! Are you fucking kidding me? The opening band Stars had some mildly (very mildly) 80s post-New Wave undertones but were entirely uninteresting. I overheard someone remark that they sounded like the B-52’s. Huh? that would be an incredibly depressed B-52’s as if Fred Schneider had just blown out his brains while everyone else was huffing wood preservatives. I knew I was in for a rough time when I realized that Broken Social Scene shared some of the same personnel. All I could think of during their set was a Stevie Nicks-less Fleetwood Mac and each band member haven eaten one and a half tranquilizers each. Ever get one of those indie CDs where the mix is about as subdued as it can get, the vocals barely audible under the music? Their entire set sounded like this and that can’t be an easy thing to do when you have eight or more people on stage at any one time. How the hell could anyone call this pop? Pop at least has a shiny happy exterior even if the subject matter is bleak (think New Pornographers or Shins, two of the top pop combos of the last few years and entire decade).Still, I stuck it out for the night ‘cause I was leaving next day and couldn’t quite believe that my Portland show-experience would turn out so dismal. I would’ve had a better time watching that Dee Dee movie again and it was no prize itself, really. The saving grace was hanging with a friend in from Arizona who I felt terrible about bringing to such a lacking show (sorry, Shanti!). However all was forgiven when I spent an afternoon wading through the stacks at three record stores, each better than the last. Q Is For Choir “a worker owned record store” just a few doors down from the Clinton Street Theater was a cool little --little!-- place jammed with vinyl, CDs, cassettes and the most zines I’ve seen in one place since our own Mind Over Matter shut down five years ago. Obviously not a place with a huge budget to buy stock, a little digging netted me a handful of goodies including vintage T Rex, Who, the Boys and early London punkers Penetration. If Q was the only shop I had hit I would’ve picked up more stuff but since it was the first I was holding out. I ‘d heard good stuff about Jackpot Records on Hawthorne but that turned out to be just hipster-talk. For the floorspace available, the place was woefully understocked. And strangely categorized: Mark Allman racked in with Johnny Thunders under “rock” ? Sacrilege! There was a lot of the usual hipster stuff in stock (Broken Social Scene of course, Death Cab for Cutie, Belle & Sebastian, ad nauseum) which I passed over in favor of the folk-psych of the Embrooks, post-riot grrrl the Sick Lipstick, the mildly garagey Four Corners and Hedwig & the Angry Inch, the best movie soundtrack in years, integral to the flick rather than some asinine marketing tie-in with Jay-Z and Burger King. But the hands-down winner for parting me with my hard- earned dough was The Green Noise on my now-favorite Portland avenue, Clinton Street. I had a teetering pile on the counter before I even made it out of the used CD section at the front of the shop. When I hit the vinyl section I just about creamed right there. My stack included: a Fuzztones retrospective, a Rip Off Records’ early singles comp, Detroit’s the Come-ons and Von Bondies, an early 60s re-issue LP (with bonus cuts!) of bluesmen Brownie & Sonny, a Riff Randells 10”, Sacramento’s Public Nuisance circa 1966-7, the new & hard-to-find Elastica BBC/Radio 1 sessions, Los Yorks (a garage combo from freakin’ Peru circa 1968!) and finally, from Japan: premiere dirty-rockin’-noise masters the King Brothers as well as my latest girl-popster faves, the punky cute Mika Bomb and the sugary Puffy Ami-Yumi. And those are just the highlights! I tell ya, carrying all that stuff through airport connections all day sucked but no way I was gonna entrust these goodies to the clowns in the luggage department. They can lose my clothes, my notebooks even the camera but not my vinyl!!! So, staying over a few extra days after work/training at my own expense for the privilege of spending more money than I made in the previous two days? Not too bad but if I ever get up that way again, Portland owes me a killer show with interest. |
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| LOCAL
RELEASES |
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Darlington Horns Exile On High Street Little Kiss Records [CD, 2003] Set the mood before you put this one on: Light a few cigarettes and leave them burning in strategically-placed ashtrays around the room. Dim the lights; a little low-key neon would make it complete but not absolutely required. Pull up a chair or, better, a stool. Pop this CD in the player. Crack the seal on a bottle of good booze like Maker’s Mark. Start off with plain soda or on the rocks, then taper off to just room temperature in a glass. Finally, hit it straight from the bottle: don’t bother to wipe the neck. This is Darlington Horns country. Get your ticket and climb aboard the Night Train. As the title suggests, the bottom line here is somewhere between the Rolling Stones albums Exile On Main Street and ---ummmm--- actually, between sides one and four of Exile On Main Street. This is not polished to perfection, cleaned up for clarity or compressed to shit. Its no frills, straight-up, full-band, single-take’s and a mandolin is about as fancy as it gets. The closest thing to a horn in the Darlington Horns is harmonica. I wouldn’t mind a little electric piano on a cut or two but since there isn’t, nevermind. To quote folky songwriter Steve Goodman, “pass the paper bag/ that holds the bottle”. Boozy bluesy bar-side rockyroll not for intellectual discourse or critical dissection, and certainly not for scenesters. Press play and shut up. the FOXX [s/t self-release CD, 2003] www.the-foxx.com zedstardust@hotmail.com Would it surprise anyone if I said I like this recording a lot? No of course not although in what’s probably the first critique ever I’ve had of engineer Alex Rose, it should been mixed a little rougher. The separations are a little too clear to my glam rocknroll taste but maybe part of that is the nature of digital pressing. A big honkin’ analog recorder and a monster acetate presser to put the Foxx (formerly--thank Christ!--the Sweatband) on vinyl would be killer. In any case, it’s a decent representation of the band and the use of back-up singers (double tracked Juliet & Isaac) on the opener Landslide is positively inspired. If “they” were an actual black chick back-up group, their name would just have to be the Juliettes. And don’t scoff: likening anyone to fem black singers is about the highest compliment I could give anyone. To quote Gerry Goffin, of the classic Brill Building songwriting team Goffin & King of forty years ago, “In the early 60s, God was a young black girl who could sing.” |
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the Ataris, HopesFall, Planes Mistaken for Stars, the Go Reflex 11/12/03 @ Sunshine Theatre contributed by Dee Snarl This was kind of an odd bill. Here’s the thing: The Ataris…. OK, let’s just start at the beginning…. I’d kept an eye on the Ataris since my old band the Roswells played with them in Santa Barbara in, uh, ’97? I kind of missed their set, but did pick up their debut, …Anywhere But Here, which I didn’t much like: too Green Day. Still, I heard good stuff about their follow-up EP, Look Forward To Failure, got it, and was pleasantly surprised by its maturity and texture; enough so that I also got their ’99 breakthrough, Blue Skies, Broken Hearts…Next 12 Exits. I liked that too, and thought they were ahead of the curve in adding a dash of emo to the over-saturated pop-punk clogging chain stores nationwide. Then I discovered Emperor and lost track of the Ataris’ later albums (though I did see them two or three more times). So, the Ataris beat a lot of other generic pop-punk bands to the punch by opening up their sound (is anyone still playing 1-2 1-2 pop-punk these days?!) So now pop-punk pretty much means emo-pop-punk, and this permutation too is getting stale, commercially speaking. With so many similar bands breaking up, why do the Ataris continue to get bigger? Here’s my theory: when a genre goes out of fashion (and that is, after all, all it is: fashion), most of the bands dry up and blow away, but a lucky few have reached critical mass and so keep up their momentum and may even transcend the confines of the genre For example, ‘80s metal died an ugly death, but Aero-smith, Slayer, and Metallica soldiered on (commercially remember). In turn, grunge went by the wayside, but Pearl Jam and Soundgarden continued to pack arenas. And so on. Apparently, the Ataris (barely) made the cut for emo-pop-punk (albeit on a smaller scale). The problem, then, is with whom do they play? Unwritten Law and Lagwagon would make for a nostalgia package, so they end up with hipper, harder bands that don’t really fit their sound. Not that the Go Reflex is hard. This piano-led Tempe quartet was quirky and really tried to be likable, but I just couldn’t quite bite. Too much like a slightly tougher Ben Folds. Not into Ben Folds. And Kevin, is it? Stop throwing horns Just stop. This whole show was way loud (way too loud, actually – mellow Go Reflex’s kick sounded like fireworks going off), but Planes Mistaken For Stars was way way loud. This was where I got tickled: these sweaty, scraggly longhairs ripped through some noisy and abrasive screamo that reminded me of AmRep and Unsane, and had scores of teenage girls clawing their eyes out and trying to gnaw through their veins. This was clearly not what they had signed up for at the Ataris concert. I thought it was pretty damn cool – brutal and hardcore in a way I hadn’t heard for a while. In a way, Hopesfall were the real stars tonight, in the place of honor before relatively ancient and venerable Ataris. This is the sound of today (or maybe yesterday? I lose track…): melodic hardcore (which used to mean Bad Religion but doesn’t anymore) with alternately screamy and clean vox. Hopesfall has the jump on the competition with some extra smarts and a welcome dash of indie quirkiness. These guys profess an affinity with a certain religion extremely important in our culture, but these days, who knows or cares? (More about that eventually.) Their show was both ripping and gripping; progressive but accessible hardcore (a term fast becoming about as descriptive as “alternative”) at its finest. Really, I had to split shortly into the Ataris set. What I saw was fine. I’d seen it before. The girls really liked it. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t make me want to blow off my engagement. It remains to be seen where the Ataris will go after being grandfathered in to the ‘00s punk scene. Maybe they’ll become the next U2. Maybe in 20 years they’ll be an “old school” punk band. Maybe they’ll fizzle right out, so squashing the point of this whole silly review. I’m tempted to say their fate’s in their hands, but probably, as is so often the case, it’s up to the teenage girls. |
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the WRENCH 12/03 and 1/04, 12pp, 8 _ x 6”, monthly; free Formerly Monkeywrench, kinda. I reported a couple issues ago that it was going online only. I guess I was misinformed or there was some falling out or something or another. In any case, I’m glad its back in print. And getting rid of (most) all the monkey crap can only be a plus. Geared to the industro-electro-goth-whatever crowd, I never know all of what’s going on here (nor do I anywhere for that matter) but the Wrench is always worth picking up. Ms Diva’s column is the highlight featuring dependably intelligent tirades. Most zine and online ranters go off half-cocked and quickly lose credibility (I count myself among these) but not her. Much appreciated. Checking out 2003’s top ten CDs in the January issue, I was incredibly pleased to see the Prids there as well as the under-rated Raveonettes. I should’ve known: the by-line was DJ Kentifyr (RAM) who has exquisite taste all in all. This is the one of the longest currently running print zines in Albuquerque which is only to the good. No matter how hypnotic and seducing the damn web can be, ain’t nothing like print, baby. A glowing cathode ray tube just can’t compete. Of course, people predicted Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the moveable type for the printing press would kill communication too. But no one’s torching computers like they did with good old fashioned book-burnings. I bet there’s alot prettier colors when your Mac or Dell is in flames… |
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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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