IMPERIAL TEEN ARE DEFINITELY ‘ON’

May 10, 2009InterviewsIMPERIAL TEEN, RODDY BUTTOMJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Given adulation by avid indie heads, but never properly recognized by aboveground mainstream pop drips, Imperial Teen was at the top of their game when I interviewed Roddy Buttom and Jone Stebbins to promote ‘02s tantalizing On. But they took a protracted five-year sabbatical before the less interesting, introspectively mature The Hair The TV The Baby And The Band finally arrived. During that time, Roddy composed film and t.v. music. Jone became a hairstylist. Lynn Perko got married and had kids, and Will Schwartz started his own band, Hey Willpower. This article originally appeared in Aquarian Weekly.

Imperial Teen delivers infectious California pop that sticks in your head like a sexually charged sunny afternoon daydream. The alluring warmth of the sumptuous harmonies by guitarist Roddy Buttom (ex-Faith No More keyboardist), bassist Jone Stebbins, keyboardist Will Schwartz, and percussionist Lynn Perko caress leisurely cheerful post-New Wave euphoria.

For their third full-length, On (Merge Records), the catchy quartet expand moods, textures, and rhythmic design, contrasting wispy illuminations such as the sublime “Captain” and the slow burning lullaby “Undone” with the electronic indie pop of “Million $ Man” and the lascivious “Teacher’s Pet.”

Surrealistic anthem “The First” repeats an uplifting mantra gleefully, recalling Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes” and David Bowie’s “Heroes” in its resplendent glow. But it’s the triumphant opening punch of irresistible melodic treasures “Ivanka,” the bubblegum-induced “Baby” (somewhat reminiscent of T. Rex’s “Hot Love”), and the insouciant psychedelic warbler “Sugar” that initially suck the listener in.

Formed in ’94, Imperial Teen soon found an audience with the engaging debut, Seasick. Thanks to MTV exposure, the insinuating “Yoo Hoo” (featured prominently on the Jawbreaker soundtrack) gained the attention of mainstream America and gave ‘98s impressive What Is Not To Love a leg up. However their record label at the time, London Records, was being tossed around like a French whore, ruining the much-needed momentum for further radio penetration.

Nevertheless, the co-ed combo stumbled ‘On’ and now find themselves on the undercard for the current tour by the re-formed Breeders at Bowery Ballroom.

What were some of your early musical influences?

RODDY: More than music, my mother was an influence. We played piano together. I got into Ragtime at an early age. Afterwards, I liked Elton John and pop. Then, I got into punk, moved to San Francisco, took a lot of drugs, got influenced by my surroundings, and began experimenting.

JONE: When I was younger, I didn’t get into Led Zeppelin until I moved to Frisco. My parents listened to Country and Big Band music. I found punk when I was 13. I didn’t listen to Classic Rock ‘til my twenties.

Roddy, was it difficult changing direction from being keyboardist in metal-edged Faith No More to co-leader in indie pop band Imperial Teen?

RODDY: Faith No More was very democratic. Everyone was involved. I was younger and there was more of a sentiment of where we were at that time, pushing buttons and getting in people’s faces. I’d moved from home to a strange, weird city, and went in that direction. Now, singing intrigues me more. There’s a lot to be said for the word, topic, and subject matter.

On utilizes more moods and textures than the past albums.

RODDY: Probably so. We got more studio-oriented. Our first batch of songs didn’t even use distortion pedals. They were just as we wrote them. By the second album, we had more time to get into the studio aspect. We’ve reached some sort of middle ground now.

I was particularly intrigued by the simple, melodic “Mr. & Mrs.”

RODDY: Everything we start writing begins in the studio. We were playing around with keyboards and drum machines. That’s about people we know in San Francisco. It was written during a nostalgic time when San Francisco was going through that weird dot com thing and its affect on commerce. It felt like a city was burning down.

I like the student-teacher fuck fable, “Teacher’s Pet.”

RODDY: I like the story of a person on the way up and the other on the way out. That’s what I tried to capture. “Lipstick” on the previous record, has the same vibe.

Many of your songs have a playful sexual nature.

RODDY: I hope so. That’s always the most fascinating and it pushes people’s buttons. I get more into specifics while Will gets caught in vague pictures.

JONE: Sex is an important part of human existence and becomes a factor in writing songs about situations in your life. You could read whatever you want into the lyrics.

Have your harmonies become more complex? Do you appreciate ‘60s vocal groups such as the Four Tops, Four Seasons, and Beach Boys?

RODDY: People regard us more like the Mamas & Papas as a singing group. As far as emotions go lyrically, I think that’s more important than where things go instrumentally. I’ve always related to harmonies.

Was “Ivanka” the opening track because each member gets a chance to sing lead?

JONE: It’s one of our older songs. When What Is Not To Love was finished, we had “Ivanka” done. So it’s super familiar and shows the essence of our band summed up in one little neat song.

Which pop bands currently knock you out?

RODDY: I’ve always loved the Breeders. They capture the moment with their songwriting and harmonies. There’s some San Francisco bands I like – the Aislers Sect and Track Star.

JONE: I’m listening to old ‘20s music. I have a ukulele project I’m working on half-assed with a few friends. We had disbanded Uncle Dickie & His Ukel-Ladies, but after the Kristin Dunst movie, Cat’s Meow, which featured ukulele music I like, it made me want to do “5’2 Eyes Of Blue.” But I’m not attracted to Hawaiian ukulele music.

Does Imperial Teen feel scandalously underappreciated? After MTV exposed “Yoo Hoo,” I felt you should have set the world afire.

RODDY: It seemed things were going that way. But Polygram’s merger screwed us up. We got caught in between. Only bands that are so safe and take no risks were a sure bet.

JONE: Radio in San Francisco is real bad. If those songs they’re playing are popular, I don’t wanna be played next to them. You’d thing there’d be an actual cutting edge commercial station considering the city’s history. There’s college station KUSF and Berkeley has KALX, but I think they share the same airwave signal.

-John Fortunato

INTERNATIONAL NOISE CONSPIRACY EXPERIENCE ‘SURVIVAL SICKNESS’

May 10, 2009InterviewsINTERNATIONAL NOISE CONSPIRACYJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Swedish Marxist, Dennis Lyxzen, initially headed hardcore garage-punk enthusiasts, The Refused. As front man for the equally politically charged International Noise Conspiracy, he ups the anarchistic rage. They put on a damn good show at now-defunct Manhattan club, Wetlands, in 2000, after I caught up with Lyxzen for some quotes. After Survival Sickness opened US doors, ‘01s A New Morning, Changing Weather increased the angst but didn’t compare favorably to its predecessor. However, ‘08s rampaging The Cross Of My Calling found the boys at the top of their game.

Dressed in a fully-buttoned dress suit and tie with a Beatles haircut, Dennis Lyxzen looks a tad out of place amongst the tattooed weirdos, mohawk-haired rebels, and straight-edge punks cornering the overcrowded Wetlands Preserve this Friday evening. While many fans have come out to see local faves the Rye Coalition, nihilistic Seattle band the Murder City Devils, and Minnesota’s Selby Tigers, quite a few seem interested in Lyxzen’s radical Marxist combo, the International Noise Conspiracy. In spite of his Swedish combo’s neat retro appearance and catchy ‘60s garage-inspired songs, their strong anti-Capitalist political beliefs lurk behind an innocent facade.

“When we play live, we hope to let people go home thinking, tapping their toes, and getting excited. We jump around and communicate radical ideas in a creative manner… revolutionary ideas that are passionate, sexy, and beautiful, but never dull and boring,” Lyxzen explains.

On the International Noise Conspiracy’s Epitaph debut, Survival Sickness, the song titles seem to perfectly express their underground ideals: “The Subversive Sound,” “Smash It Up,” “Enslavement Blues.” Grueling, ghoulish organ coats nearly every explosive rave up. The heavy guitar thrust of “Impostor Costume” is reminiscent of fellow garage revivalists the Chesterfield Kings. And the impulsive “Ready Steady Go!” ends the album on a rousing, beat driven note Fleshtones fans could relate to.

I spoke to Lyxzen a few hours before his bands’ enthusiastic, well-received midnight set.

Compare your work in Refused, which resulted in the thrilling ‘98 album The Shape Of Punk To Come, to the International Noise Conspiracy.

DENNIS LYXZEN: The feeling is similar. I was going through all these different phases, but ultimately I wanted to play what we’re doing now. Refused was just four of us into different stuff. When we started this band, we incorporated radical politics. When we play live, musically it’s more simple. We had to take a couple steps back to move forward.

I think the Noise Conspiracy is more soulful than most current so-called alt-indie punks. You compare favorably to Delta 72, the Mooney Suzuki, and possibly, the Lynnfield Pioneers.

It’s a resurgence. We come from hardcore punk backgrounds, but we all like soul, ‘70s punk, the Kinks, and garage rock. We just want to mix it up and not be a retro band, which is boring. We want it to be exciting to listen to.

The Swedish rock scene seems to be in full force with the Hellacopters, Gluecifer, and the Noise Conspiracy at the head of the pack.

I can’t explain why there are so many good bands. Sweden’s big enough that there’s a lot of bands, but small enough for healthy competition. People inspire each other immensely. It’s a healthy attitude. There’s a nice alternative underground scene. Maybe it’s because Sweden has community music schools. (laughter)

Your songs have a primal urgency. “Survival Sickness” and “The Subversive Sound” remind me of ‘60s garage rock legends like the early Animals, ? & the Mysterians, and the 13th Floor Elevators.

I love that stuff. The first time we practiced we did a Sonics cover. At first, we thought we wanted to sound like that, but we realized we were too good at playing music so we couldn’t play that type of music. One of my favorite bands from that era was the Music Machine. We’re down with that! I think what we try to do is trace punk and hardcore to its roots. All of a sudden you’re back in ‘77 New York, ‘68 Detroit, ‘65 Rolling Stones, then back to the ‘50s and Bo Diddley. We wanted to see where all this good noise came from and who inspired these guys to write their songs.

Your sprawling liner notes for the album talk of capitalist exploitation while embracing Marxism. Conversely, the lyrics never get as politically charged. Why?

We wanted to familiarize people with a danceable, enjoyable, and common sound rooted in popular culture and mix it with radical thoughts. We have to take into consideration that we don’t have all the answers. We’re just posing analysis of things that we perceive need changing.

How would you compare Sweden’s political climate to that of the U.S.?

America’s way more direct and brutal while Sweden is more liberal and not as extreme. Society is deteriorating with these neo-conservative agendas which are now infiltrating Sweden. People are dying of starvation while someone has five Porsche’s. Capitalist society is based on class differences. Bureaucracy uses the poor by making them produce materials they cannot buy on the market at inflated prices.

“Impostor Costume” seems to touch on that.

That’s about the collective changing of identity. It’s like waking up one morning and my name’s on a Wanted poster on the wall. I’m thinking, “Damn, I have to change my identity. We’re forced to be what our perceived roles in society dictate instead of getting an identity that suits us better.

IDLEWILD CONFIDENTLY ENTER ‘THE REMOTE PART’

May 10, 2009InterviewsIDLEWILD, RODDY WOOMBLEJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Scotland’s Idlewild may’ve only registered with underground rock pundits here in the US, but overseas, their sweeping melodic symphonies continue to reach the charts. Initially a more punk-rooted combo, Idlewild grew into one of the finest symphonic exhibitors.

The following interview promoted ‘02s The Remote Part and Idlewild’s upcoming appearance at Coney Island’s Siren Music Festival (headlined by the increasingly popular Modest Mouse). They opened for Pearl Jam when I caught ‘em live at the Garden soon after. Since then, Idlewild put out ‘05s fairly solid Warnings/ Promises and ‘07s Make Another World (which I’ve yet to hear). I spoke to singer Roddy Woomble, whose ’07 solo folk changeup, My Secret Is My Silence, subsequently reaffirmed his versatility. This article originally appeared in Aquarian Weekly.

Just thirty miles outside Glasgow, Scotland, lies rustic volcanic haven, Edinburgh, sleepy hometown to current Brit-rock faves, Idlewild (and, offhandedly, former ‘70s bubblegum idols, Bay City Rollers). Formed by college art students Roddy Woomble (vocals-lyrics), Rod Jones (guitar), Bob Fairfoull (replaced on bass by Gavin Fox), and Colin Newton (drums), the feisty foursome enthralled local adolescent audiences with wildly energetic live shows, leading to ‘95s independently released “Chandelier” EP and ‘98s Captain mini-LP.

Promptly thereafter, ‘98s fascinating American debut, Hope Is Important, exhibited similar youthful indiscretion and rough hewn hardcore punk agility, rumbling through the urgently discordant “You’ve Lost Your Way” and the ballistic “Everyone Says You’re So Fragile,” yet countering the visceral paranoiac edginess with tranquil fragility. ‘01s better produced, melodically streamlined 100 Broken Windows blanketed the gauzy “Let Me Sleep” and the vulnerable piano-acoustic closer, “Mistake Pageant,” with extremely compelling lyrics. Indubitably, the rubbery, hook-infested “Little Discourage” and the raspy divergence “Idea Track” recalled the arousing mischievous clamor of earlier recordings.

Despite comparisons to introspective Radiohead tailgaters Travis and Coldplay, Idlewild’s ambitious The Remote Part reveals greater assuredness, matured sophistication, tighter arrangements, and more importantly, humble restraint. Terse cinematic epics such as the moody, string-ensconced opener, “You Held The World In Your Arms,” the poignant affectation, “American English,” and the yearning ballad “I Never Wanted” snuggle alongside the blistering anthem, “A Modern Way Of Letting Go,” and the unsettled exhortation, “Out Of Routine.”

What bands did you enjoy as a kid?

RODDY: At age 13, you fall in love with bands’ records, the songs they write, and record covers. That’s when I had an epiphany discovering REM, Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division, Nirvana, Pavement. They blew me away. Then, when you actually go to the clubs and bands make these noises in front of you, you’re revelation is complete.

Did these influences inform Hope Is Important?

We were just a local Scottish band that’d been to London. Collectively we changed as people and as a band since half the songs from Hope Is Important were written during that period. That’s why that album sounds like a band just realizing who they are. I don’t think it’s a brilliant album, though it has its moments. At the time, we were more comfortable as a live band instead of a studio band. So the album suffers because we didn’t have the proper attitude. Then again, we didn’t know. Eventually, all the pieces fit and it all came together by 100 Broken Windows.

100 Broken Windows had better production and traded the previous albums’ caustic vindictiveness for sensitive melodicism.

There’s different ways to be powerful and get a message across. It doesn’t necessarily mean stepping on the distortion pedal and screaming – which was what we originally thought. 100 Broken Windows was a fully formed breakthrough album with good melodies. People took us more seriously as a band. In England, we were originally seen as a teenage indie rockers’ wet dream, but not very substantial. Now, people who have Windows figure we’ve past that stage and we’re a proper band.

You reach for deep introspection, allowing strings to punctuate the dramatic significance.

We’ve improved as songwriters. That occurs naturally after five years hanging with each other and listening to records. It was an evolution. Also, we have low tolerance for each other’s mistakes. There’s lots of groans before we decide what we like. That’s why the songs sound well arranged. We did many different arrangements before deciding on one we liked.

Rumor is Idlewild has 50 to 60 leftover songs from Remote Parts.

They weren’t necessarily completed things. They were parts, bits, chord progressions, and melodic ideas. Very few were completed songs. It’s more like a jigsaw puzzle on the floor.

Literary influences get scattered across your songs. Gertrude Stein gets mentioned on Windows’ “Roseability.” Walt Whitman gets his due on “American English” and Scot laureate Edwin Morgan recites “Scottish Fiction.”

I think written word is incredibly important. My mother was a big reader. Me and my sister always read books growing up. Through the band, I started writing lyrics. As Idlewild, a lot of our songs don’t deny the influence. You can inject riff heavy music with a lot of thought. The problem is when you namedrop poets, people think you’re some pseudo-poet pretentious geek. Maybe I am. I tried to shy away from that before, but I can’t deny what I am. That’s just my personality. I’m a big Walt Whitman fan. My interpretation of that song is to understand yourself in the context of the world. But many songs are misunderstood, so that’s a celebration of that.

That dichotomy tempers “(I Am) What I Am Not,” which may question God’s existence or, perhaps, sideswipe passive-aggressive personality.

It suggests different situations since everyone has so many different elements and characters. A lot of these songs stem from the environment I grew up in Scotland, where you do have to fit in a certain way since it’s a small town people live in their whole life. Even if you’re not like the people from your own town, you have to become them sometimes.

Some songs remind me of the spirited pathos Morrissey offered with the Smiths.

The thing I always related to with Morrissey was that his songs were quite hopeful. He was just recognizing what was around him without offering answers. That’s what we try to do. It’s not about being too negative or positive, like “come on, let’s smile.” Good songwriters don’t finger point or preach. I actually listened to Hope Is Important for the first time in ages and I couldn’t believe how much I screamed. I never did that live. There seemed to be this pure catharsis because I was very uncomfortable with my singing voice. I basically tried to sound like Superchunk’s singer. They were my favorite band at the time. But it didn’t sound like me. It’s like when you look at a photograph of yourself when you’re 18. You’re like, “God, did I look like that?” But I could see why truckloads of English teenagers accepted us as their band. We were the same age rolling on the floor screaming. Now, these people have grown up with us and we’re reflecting their lives in a different way with our music.

Are some hardcore fans disappointed with Idlewild’s pensive ballads? Early live performances were brazenly shambolic.

I don’t tend to that. There are plenty of new bands coming around every year doing that. Now there’s the Libertines. It’s not a genre in danger of dying out. As we get older and try to prove something to ourselves, the songs get better and individually we play better. Our audience is younger in Europe because in America we play small clubs for only 21 and over. So we appeal to college kids, whereas in Europe, we have young teens listening. Our songs are now played on Radio 2, which is the adult Easy Listening station. There’s a broader fan base in Europe. I hope with the exposure of our record in America we’ll develop a connection with the normal public – not just indie rockers. It’s straightforward in England. If the song’s good, it’ll get airplay. Everything in America is so political and you have to fit in formats. Our songs weren’t played much on British radio before this album, but we definitely had d.j.’s who were fans and spun the records. With “You Held The World In Your Arms,” people who’d never heard of us accepted it and we followed up with “American English,” which I think is a better song. It was played to death and the LP went straight to #3. It wasn’t rocket science, just a good song. Our songs aren’t obscure. They’re designed for everyone to relate to, make a connection, and sing along to. It’d be sad if our album was unnoticed by people that would otherwise like it.

The world is depressing, so you have to celebrate small victories when something good happens. Mc Donald’s is the most popular restaurant in the world making the shittiest food in unethical manner. That’s sad as well. When a brilliant band actually fills up a club with people who really like them, it’s a minor triumph. But the general public will only accept one or two new bands each year. All the rest of the great unsung bands end up working at coffeeshops. That’s depressing. I thought the White Stripes acceptance was great. They’re essentially a real weird li’l indie blues band making perfect pop songs on analog tape and there’s just two of ‘em. Now they’re massive.

What’re you listening to lately?

I like Neko Case and just picked up her album with the New Pornographers. Cat Power’s record is my favorite so far this year. My favorite rock band is Queens Of the Stone Age. I’m a huge Bright Eyes fan as well. I’m anticipating the release of Mars Volta, ‘cause I was a big At the Drive-In fan.

ICARUS LINE GOT A RIOT GOIN’ ON

May 10, 2009InterviewsICARUS LINEJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Boisterous punk-fueled L.A. group, Icarus Line, enjoys partying as hard as anyone. And you’ll see in the following piece, they’re not averse to fighting. I had these fuckers laughing their asses off at some insidiously rancid comments made about sexual positions prior to dinner in their tour van. Heavy metal fans should definitely check out ‘04s rambunctious Penance Soiree.

Icarus Line’s obnoxiously loud and totally exuberant 9:00 set at Point Pleasant ocean club, Jenk’s, scared the shit out of uncool locals, but satisfied everyone else when they opened for indie pop vet, Evan Dando, in springtime ’07. They were on an East Coast tour supporting Black Lives at the Golden Coast, a decent follow-up nowhere as great as Penance Soiree. This article originally appeared in Aquarian Weekly.

Easily one of the most commanding punk-metal outfits currently making the rounds, Los Angeles quintet Icarus Line stormed the West Coast aggro-rock scene in ’98 with cantankerously verbose Hellcat Records 7″ EP, “Highlypuncturingnoisetestingyourabilitytohate.” Armed with an artfully brutal complexity twice as rebelliously unapologetic but not as influential as still-vital precursors Queens Of The Stone Age, the battle-scarred dilettantes again collided Joe Cardamone’s fierce primal screams with jaggedly side-winding six-string menace and rumbling rhythmic propulsion on urgently apocalyptic breakthrough, Mono.

In high school, Cardamone enjoyed thrillingly likeminded cataclysmic daredevils Drive Like Jehu, Jesus Lizard, and Born Against. Yet those influences were “down the road,” since his parents initially enforced British Invasion bellwethers the Beatles, Stones, and Kinks.

“My first concert was Guns ‘N Roses. That made me reevaluate my life – Appetite For Destruction. Every year there’s something new knocking me in the head,” claims Cardamone.

Forging a muscular post-hardcore framework, Mono’s claustrophobic anxiety consumed abrasive gearjammers reeking of the same demonic austerity Detroit beacons the MC5 and Stooges brought forth in ‘69. A commendable long-play debut, it revealed definite DC punk underpinnings, but not Fugazi and Minor Threat so much as fleeting Monorchid’s chillingly maniacal Who Put Out the Fire? Boldly determined push-n-pull Nirvana-spun exhilaration “Feed A Cat To Your Cobra” solidly represented this primordial bastion. When Icarus Line’s boutique label Crank! went out of business, Buddyhead Records suitably picked up distribution.

Signed to V2 Records, ‘04s even more audaciously radical and startlingly original, Penance Soiree, suffered only from damning major label impediments. An explosive powder keg light years beyond underground metal expectancy, it may’ve went largely unnoticed by the general public yet assuredly intensified their clandestine fan base. Mono felt like a stony collision, but Penance Soiree hit harder, a valiantly tempestuous comedown of bulldozing blitzkriegs packing sharp barbs, panicked volatility, and suicidal rage. Lubricious scorcher, “Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers,” spews migraine-inducing venom at unsuspecting libertines bothered by Icarus Line’s squalid corporate sell-out. “Spike Island’s” loose Exile On Main Street pulse, gothic Ministry duskiness, and phase-shifting psychedelic guitars nearly betters “Kiss Like Lizards” flailing Soundgarden seethe. Fellow L.A. pals, the Willowz, ostensibly built a career around “Getting Bright At Night’s” wailed snarls and whiny slurs.

“V2 was good to us, but by the end of the day, they wouldn’t let me make the record I wanted. They wanted me to demo,” the betrayed and never dismayed Cardamone says. “Steve Aoki I’ve known since he went to college. We played shows at his apartment. So we signed with Dim Mak. It’s a good situation for us.”

Three years hence, Black Lives at the Golden Coast keeps up the sordid petulance while exploring a colorful array of unanticipated glam, prog-rock, and balladic ideas. The Melvins and Mudhoney’s grunge-y fury still infiltrates many cuts, but its imposing thematic expanse unexpectedly hearkens back to a forebodingly anguished Rhythm & Blues classic.

When confronted with my erroneous ‘agonized minority scenario,’ Cardamone contends, “I wouldn’t attribute Black Lives to suffering anymore than black music. It’s our take. It could be perceived both ways. But it’s more about Sly & the Family Stone and (soul singer) Bobby Womack then detention centers and drug busts. Rock came from black music, but nowadays kids aren’t influenced by that. Sly’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On completely blew my mind. It was a huge influence – very disjointed and unhinged. Pieces don’t always touch and connect. There’s sparse moments when you don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

Intrinsically uplifting, straight-ahead, and approachable, Black Lives may put-off longstanding lunk-headed metal freaks, but its grueling kaleidoscopic malfeasance proves captivating. A brazenly existential streak runs through bombastic opener “Black Presents,” yelped Jane’s Addiction redolence “Frankfurt Smile,” and resonantly shimmering U2-twinged guitar ballad “Victory Gardens.”

“We took traditional avenues towards songwriting, which was more of an enjoyable challenge than before,” Cardamone insists. “I’m 28. I wanna listen to a song. I wanna write a song. It’s pretty simple.”

An affinity for free form modal Jazz icons Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Sun Ra, and John Coltrane informs Zeppelin-like purge “Golden Rush” and ominous declaration “Kingdom.” Lyrically, Cardamone’s itchy distemper and colossal savagery remain, but his cognizant expulsions rush miles ahead of Icarus Line’s compulsive sonic noise brethren.

“Some people want angst-y teen shit. But I attribute better lyrics to age and experience. You place higher value on relationships and how people are treated. Personal politics are more poignant than anyone starting a riot,” he points out. “Drums, vocals, and bass were put up front like a Motown, dub, or hip-hop style. The guitars are used for texture instead of main chainsaw melody. I didn’t want to do the same shit. It felt good. It’s a pretty regimented evolution, hopefully not too calculated. We’re trying to make records that hold true to what is the soul and fabric of what we are. Being comfortable as a singer on Black Lives was a big step up, telling stories and getting listeners into our world instead of just using the voice as another instrument. We’re expressing vocal patterns in tones like Mike Patton (Faith No More/ Tomahawk).”

Hooky glam-rock turnabout “Gets Paid” may catch fans off-guard, but its sexy Bowie/ T.Rex playfulness works as an aphrodisiac.

“It’s basically the same song as Penance Soiree’s “Party the Baby Off,” but in a different key.” He snickers, “Maybe I can sing now and have a good time putting a smile on people’s faces. Its video is bangin,’ done live like Lou Reed’s Rock & Roll Animal. Lou Reed wrote some of the best heavy rock and roll tracks.”

Choice California anthem, “Slayer,” written while Cardamone resided in a hotel, evokes unfettered West Coast spirit without sounding as mainstream pop as Sugar Ray. Conversely invoking Mars Volta proggish tendencies, the hurtled “Amber Alert” deals with child abduction like horror movie directors John Carpenter or Sam Peckinpaugh, where the kid gets chopped to pieces.

At spacious beachfront Point Pleasant club, Jenk’s, Icarus Line’s initial chaotic wankering emanates from a scraggly scrum as they warm up for Evan Dando’s latest Lemonheads. Cardamone’s howled caterwaul pierces book-ended guitarists’ James Striff and Jason Decorse’s frayed edges, bassist Alvin DuGuzman’s burrowing rhythm, and Jeff ‘The Captain’ Watson’s tribal thump. Their feral bravado goes full force. A murky, sped-up version of “Gets Paid” gains fervid crowd approval. An electrifying miasma spreads across the vast lounge, as the screeching axes emit increasingly massive shard sparks of deafening wattage. By the sweat-drenched mutilated epilogue, friends, family, and followers are thoroughly satisfied (if a bit fatigued), as well as a few previously unconcerned beachcombers, several foxy fillies, and some older folks.

Nonetheless, instead of concentrating on Icarus Line’s fertile studio creations or restlessly vociferous shows, the sensationalistic music press has concerned itself more with the controversial adventures these offstage hooligans enjoy. Former guitarist Aaron North (Buddyhead owner now in Nine Inch Nails) unknowingly drunkenly mishandled Texas legend Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar at the Hard Rock Café and the band painted ‘$uckin’ Dick$’ on the Strokes tour bus.

Drummer Watson (back in the fold following the departure of five different skins men) recently managed to get into a skirmish with faux-metal contemporaries Avenged Sevenfold at England’s Leeds Festival.

“All five guys tried to fight him. They didn’t like the way he looked with his t-shirt off. TV On The Radio came to his defense. They rescued him from getting demolished by the band and some Paul Bunyan-looking guy.” However, Cardamone admits, “Jeff was out of his mind drunk. Girls called him over to the table and they were laughing at his jokes and Avenged Sevenfold got mad. They tried to get him away and he said, ‘Fuck you!’ Then it escalated.”

-John Fortunato

JOLIE HOLLAND MAKES GOOD IN ‘ESCONDIDA’

May 10, 2009InterviewsJOLIE HOLLANDJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: Roots-y Country-Blues devotee, Jolie Holland, utilizes primal Jazz, rock, neo-Classical, and vaudevillian sources to get across her unconventional musings. Treasured beatnik crooner, Tom Waits, became a fan when he heard Catalpa, a scrappy homemade recording. I got to speak to Holland prior to a Maxwells gig in ’04. She was supporting her first proper studio album, Escondida. Thereafter, she only got better, as ‘06s Springtime Can Kill You and ‘08s The Living And The Dead attest. This article originally appeared in Aquarian Weekly.

Sometimes the past refuses to recede in our memories, reassuringly taking us back to an innocent time when skies were bluer, air was cleaner, and grassroots music more genteel. Bringing back the spirit of those witheringly weathered days is Jolie Holland, whose euphonic inflections and old timey visage revisit, rekindle, and re-acknowledge well begotten olden relics.

Born and raised in Houston, the singer-guitarist-violinist then spent adolescence in a family-owned east Texas home just a few hours northwest of musical Mecca, the Big Easy. Her initial public performance in a local band (as rhythm guitarist) happened at the tender age of sixteen before subsequently securing several solo gigs. Though Holland’s parents assumed she’d attend college and land a high powered corporate job, the free-spirited bohemian began paying more attention to the ragtime Blues of guitar pickers Blind Willie Mc Tell and Elizabeth Cotton.

Yet Holland didn’t get deep into the Blues until she left the Lone Star State for San Francisco, meeting many respectable musicians who shared similar interests. Thereupon, she inhabited Vancouver’s drug-addled ghetto as lead songwriter for the earthy Be Good Tanyas. After splitting from the group over “creative differences,” Holland made a staggeringly admirable bare-boned demo that reached the hands of reputable bard Tom Waits, an undeniably meritorious “role model.”

Captured in a living room, the resulting Catalpa was then given proper release by Waits’ current label, Anti (a subsidiary of established L.A.-based indie, Epitaph). Interspersing hokum Country alongside modern folkloric peculiarities, its courageously naked rural-bound compositions express intimate confidentiality and draw frank comparisons to Alan Lomax’s archaic field recordings.

In November ’03, Holland entered a formal studio with veteran Jazz drummer Dave Mihaly, fellow six-stringer Brian Miller, and other recruits for the lovely Escondida. From delightful Cajun waltz, “Sascha,” to flickeringly tingled sedation, “Darlin’ Ukulele,” and lonesome bluegrass refuge, “Faded Coat Of Blue,” her cherished cabaret poignancy reveals astoundingly plaintive vulnerability. In spite of its homey upbeat Tejano feel, “Goodbye California” deals with untimely suicide, perhaps paralleling the Piedmont-forged death tales of yore.

Wearing an antiquated petticoat dress, knee-high stockings, golden brown shawl, and black granny shoes, the bespectacled, full-figured bumpkin held the half-seated crowd in the palm of her hand at Maxwells in Hoboken, hypnotizing the awestruck minions with understated poise usually reserved for torch song bearers twice as experienced. Holland’s witty self-deprecation, genuine wide-eyed smile, and hippie-esque vagabond countenance kept the audience engrossed despite flubbed improvisational attempts at familiar rudimentary originals and one temporary mid-song bungle.

Notwithstanding these few errors, Holland’s sweetly demure voice possessed this backroom club whether she served up back porch folk, melancholy Western swing, or operatic Jazz. She broke out a violin for a Native American instrumental dirge that slipped into the somber “Alley Flowers.” When her violin fucked up during another number, she recovered brilliantly, succinctly freestyling a cappella lyrics to eventual applause. The sullenly majestic “Drunk At The Pulpit” satiated silenced attendees as a supinely restrained encore.

Why’d you move from the Louisiana-Texas Jazz-Blues hotbed to San Francisco?

JOLIE: I love New Orleans, but to live there, what job would I have – working in a bar around drunken people. I settled in San Francisco and was introduced to amazing musicians I wanted to work with.

Then you moved to liberal-minded marijuana vista Vancouver to be in the Be Good Tanyas. Were you also a stoner?

No. I’m extremely moderate. I lived in a rough neighborhood – 50% HIV rate. It was hard to go out at night because there were junkies everywhere. But I met great people and wanted to see what the city was like. I’m back in San Francisco living at the Golden Gate panhandle. It’s a tourist-y area.

Are Jazz-folk singer-songwriters such as Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones influential?

I hate Joni Mitchell. I respect that people like her but she’s not singing to me. I can’t stand Rickie Lee Jones. I’d like her if I could understand what she was singing. I’m from the street so I wanna hear what you’re singing or I won’t drop money in your hat. When you mumble, it makes people think you’re not serious. But I look forward to hearing her new album. Most radio songs are bad and the Blues stations play boring new stuff. I didn’t even realize there was good rootsy Blues until a friend turned me on.

Since Catalpa was recorded in your living room, will those songs ever be given proper studio treatment?

My band’s really creative and versatile. Every song I’ve recorded I’ve done 20 different ways. I’ve done Catalpa songs with huge horn arrangements or with guest rappers. I probably will re-record some differently. “Sascha” and “Poor Girl’s Blues” are the oldest songs I’ve ever recorded.

Getting to Escondida’s nitty gritty, you begin with “Sascha,” a diva-esque torch song.

That’s an early Jazz-pop-styled tune. It’s inspired by anarchistic New York writer Sascha. We hung out and had a sweet relationship that motivated me to move out of Vancouver. “Sascha” represents me having a melody in my head and not knowing how to put chords behind it. It had seven chords – which is a lot for a song. I learned more about musical theory before I could finish that.

“Old Fashioned Morphine” reminded me of Billie Holiday, who struggled with heroin addiction.

I love Billie Holiday. But that song doesn’t refer to recreational morphine use. I’m using it metaphorically. I wrote that to amuse myself while waitressing. I’d just read a book about medicine history and my grandfather had just spent his last months on morphine.

Its post-midnight trumpet setting comes closest to Tom Waits’ oeuvre.

It’s funny you mention that. The trumpeter is my friend Ara (Anderson), who was lucky enough to get called by Waits to play on his last two records.

Are you into similarly styled folk troubadour John Prine?

I’m not a fan of his (nasally Dylan-esque) voice, but I love his songs. I do “Christmas In Prison.”

Does the lilting velvety piano ballad “Amen” come from Gospel spirituals?

The most direct inspiration is (acid folk weirdo) Michael Hurley. I love his records. He inspired “Amen’s” wacky arrangement. When you listen to his songs, structure seems to make sense, but then it jumps out of key in strange moments. His songs have an internal sense, tight flow, and strong nucleus communicated in a strong way. He’s so inspiring. “Amen” was written off the top of my head on a full moon night on piano at a crazy practice with his principles in mind.

Then there’s “Poor Girl’s Blues,” a down home Appalachian folk-Blues tune.

At the time in ’95 (when it was written), I was listening to early Dylan, like Freewheelin’ or Another Side.

The quietly strummed gentle persuasion, “Do You?,” has a hushed lilt Norah Jones would appreciate.

I don’t know her but I have 10 friends in common with her. I was in a band with someone who wrote “If I Were A Painter” for her first album. I’m a friend with her first manager. She’s in the family, coming out of a musical circle I stepped into in San Francisco. People are annoyed they hear her too much. But she’s younger than me and I’ve been around longer so she’s not an influence.

Are you into British Isle folk by Fairport Convention or Richard Thompson?

Be Good Tanya’s “The Little Birds” was up for best song on BBC, but we lost to (Thompson’s ex-wife) Linda Thompson. I don’t know what she sounds like. I’m so broke (I can’t afford records).

How might future recordings differ?

I have different ideas. I have an unreleased live record. There’s an element of sketchy rock and roll not represented on either of my first two records so I wanna lay down that rock sound I represent live. I also wanna do a pristine Jazz-slash-Country record with dance songs you could imagine couples dancing to wearing tight jeans.

DEL THE FUNKY HOMOSAPIEN RETURNS IN ‘ELEVENTH HOUR’

May 10, 2009InterviewsDEL THA FUNKEE HOMOSAPIENJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: I remember being in west Florida’s resort peninsula, St. Joseph’s, cleaning freshly caught fish with my friend Doug at a waterfront house he rented, when Del The Funky Homosapien’s quick-spit rap quip, “Mistadabolina,” came on the radio. Integrating De La Soul’s jazzy hip-hop/ soul sass with the minimalist rap attack of Run DMC, Del could’ve set the world on fire if the mainstream was privy to him at the start. Instead, he has led a subterranean existence below dozens of trendier flash-in-the pan stylists, blowing off the whole gangsta scene from the start. However, he has outlasted nearly all his peers and continues to make interesting music. I got to hang with Del in May, ’08, with my good friends from High Times. This article originally appeared in High Times.

Way back in 1990 when hardcore rap ruled the day, Del The Funky Homosapien went against the grain, shunning the West Coast’s thriving ruff-rider gangstas with nerdy middleclass playfulness. Now living outside the liberal pot-friendly confines of Berkeley, California, in nearby Richmond, Del (born Teren Delvon Jones) returns in top form with Eleventh Hour.

An Oakland native, Del was a gifted student interested in comic books and video games, but not averse to petty crime like robbing toy stores. To avoid high school beatings by more physical troublemakers, the mischievous teen began break-dancing and forming rap battle crews. Soon, Del and long-time rhyme partner, A-Plus, would squash fools in talent competitions. After first smoking weed at age 16, he expanded consciousness with psychedelics, but unlike many word schemers, never experimented with acid, mushrooms, and mescaline during studio sessions or in concert.

“We used MDMA when ecstasy was pure,” says Del in his slurry guttural drawl. “But it wasn’t poppin’ like now in the Bay Area. It’s their whole mantra. I like to keep my mind on a certain level before a show. I don’t want people seeing me eking out. If I’m recording, I’d be too lit going off in a corner talking to someone trying to keep from flying off somewhere.”

Influenced by early rap legends Run DMC, LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, and Ultramagnetic MC’s, the green hip-hop head came into fruition when L.A.-raised cousin, Ice Cube, hooked him up with political zealots, Da Lench Mob. Thereafter, Del’s promising debut, I Wish My Brother George Was Here, shunned typical ghetto-blasting delirium for humorous social satire, rendering confrontational Afro-cultured lampoon “Dark Skin Girls” and silly funk ditties “Mistadabolina” and “Pissin’ On Your Steps.”

Dissing Ice Cube’s Parliament-Funkadelic samples and nascent Will Smith-derived conversational jesting for maturated ’93 follow-up, No Need For Alarm, Del created abstract hip-hop collective, the Hieroglyphics Crew, a respected techno-house-informed free-styling unit. On mind-bending 2000 set, Both Sides Of the Brain, he developed a more forceful delivery, bringing onboard Company Flow beat designer El-P. Allusions to ‘herb puffing’ imbibe Bob Marley-designated “BM’s” (‘we’re back in Amster D/ got some grams for me/ chocolate Thai/ purple haze’). Narcotics also get props on coke-dealing freak-out “Soopa Feen” and puritan scan “Skull & Crossbones.” At this time, Del discovered Amsterdam’s leniently liberal aboveground community, but upon reentering the less tolerant USA was harassed for a minor drug infraction.

“In Amsterdam, we had so much bomb we were being stupid rolling the fattest joints,” he avows. “We went to Christian’s little flea market. They’re selling weed and shrooms. Coffeehouses had all different strains. I was so smarmy about it, (customs agents) must’ve assumed we had weed ‘cause my boy Kwame had dreadlocks. So they strip-searched us. They asked to see my wallet and I had a little hash crumb in there. I laughed and said, ‘You gotta be tripping. Just throw it away. Or smoke it.’ They said it was a federal offense distributing drugs. Kwame paid $400 before they let me leave.”

Surprisingly, despite this painstaking circumstance, Del doesn’t support marijuana legalization. His reasoning has more to do with the general public’s immature habitual abuse than any ridiculous government agenda.

“People’d be playin’ the fool too much,” he opines. “Weed’s not so severe. But you gotta know your boundaries, have restraint, or drugs’ll control you ‘til you ain’t doing ‘it’ anymore, ‘it’s’ doing you. I ain’t gonna front, but you don’t know what’s gonna happen with somebody. I’ve been to a rave where kids be poppin’ X. But I saw these same kids at another show and they were like

ROBYN HITCHCOCK INVESTS IN ‘JEWELS FOR SOPHIA’

May 9, 2009InterviewsROBYN HITCHCOCK, SOFT BOYSJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: In the beginning, singer-guitarist Robyn Hitchcock fronted the Soft Boys (with lead guitarist Kimberly Rew), one of the most melodically friendly bands of the late-70s Brit punk scene (alongside the Buzzcocks, and soon after, The Jam). He released a bunch of solo albums during the ‘80s and ‘90s, some accompanied by the Egyptians. A cordial guy, Hitchcock spoke to me weeks before ’99s Jewels For Sophia came out. Afterwards, the long-time cult fave did ‘03s solo acoustic turnabout, Luxor, ‘04s mod Country-folk derivation, Spooked (with roots revivalist Gillian Welch and bluegrass stylist David Rawlings), and ‘06s Ole Tarantula (with REM’s Peter Buck and Young Fresh Fellows’ Scott Mc Caughey). He returned in great form on ‘09s Goodnight Oslo.

While growing up around London in the ‘60s, singer/ songwriter Robyn Hitchcock was an average kid who enjoyed listening to British rock artists as well as their American counterparts. Self-described as “basically a late developer,” he admits to being a “very sheltered, immature kid. It took me some time to develop a sense of myself.”

“For me, ‘60s artists like Bob Dylan, who was the prime influence on most musicians, and Jimi Hendrix, were very original. Artists that were weak, their influences capsized them. But the Beatles, Kinks, Yardbirds, and the Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones through to Captain Beefheart, early Pink Floyd, and Velvet Underground, were brilliant groups. I was just twelve and I didn’t know that wouldn’t continue forever. I figured you turn on the radio and you get “See Emily Play,” “19th Nervous Breakdown,” and “Purple Haze” coming out,” Hitchcock remembers.

In the late ‘70s, Hitchcock and musical partner Kimberley Rew turned some heads fronting the Soft Boys, resulting in three absolutely classic albums, Underwater Moonlight, A Can Of Bees and Invisible Hits. In 1981, Hitchcock led a few ex-bandmates into the studio to record his first solo excursion, Black Snake Diamond Role.

After Steve Hillage (formerly of Gong) produced ‘82s throbbing, club oriented Groovy Decay, Hitchcock formed the Egyptians with ex-Soft Boys rhythm section Morris Windsor and Andy Metcalf for ‘85s upbeat Fegmania!, ‘86s introspective Element Of Light, and ‘88s charming, but inconsistent Globe Of Frogs. Following ‘90s spare, acoustic solo disc, Eye, and its lively ‘91 follow-up, Perspex Island, he re-formed the Egyptians for ‘93s underappreciated Respect, before going solo again on ‘96s lost-in-the-shuffle Moss Elixir.

Thankfully, Hitchcock’s charming Jewels For Sophia should reclaim some lost turf with its undeniably catchy fare. The wry Northwest anthem “Viva Sea-Tac,” featuring the Fastbacks’ Kurt Bloch on “She’s About A Mover”-styled organ, praises Seattle’s most innovative guitarist: “Hendrix played guitar just like an animal inside a cage/ and one day he escaped.” The fast-paced slide guitar breakdown “Nasa Clapping” and the hip shakin’ rocker “Elizabeth Jade” also energize the set. On the soft, reflective tip, lean acoustic ballad “I Feel Beautiful,” affectionate “You’ve Got A Sweet Mouth On You, Baby,” and eloquently shady “Dark Princess” reveal some of his most heartfelt sentiments.

Hitchcock plans to independently release outtakes from Jewels For Sophia as A Star For Bram, available at robynhitchcock.com in 2000.

You’ve become more introspective over the years.

ROBYN: It’s the inevitable mellowing out process. The process is never constant. You slowly get gentler. But you might feel quite peaceful in February and quite violent in August. Not everything I write literally happens to me, but I’ve probably imagined most of it.

You let your guard down more often.

I hope so. I didn’t mean to be guarded when I was younger. But I was probably frightened or overwhelmed by my feelings. The stuff that resonates most and rings truest are the emotional songs.

Perhaps the reason you’ve lasted so long as a vital artist is because you’re still struggling to resolve inner turmoil. I felt that way when you did Eye.

Eye had too many songs. In essence, it was good because it was written in a year during a crisis point in my life. I didn’t bother to overdub myself. I managed to let out many feelings without the help of accomplished musicians. It was very bare. The songs had to stand up by themselves. That’s why I didn’t overdo the production.

Your voice seems to have gained emotional intensity.

I think smoking cigarettes helped. (laughter) Actually, I’ve probably lost the top end of high notes. As you get older, your voice gets more authentic. My voice has more character and truth in it now. That’s built up over the last ten years. There are songs where I think I suck for trying to hide behind some other sound or trying to sound like someone else. I double tracked my voice on “If You Were A Priest” to hide any quality in my voice. So it sounds somewhere between Syd Barrett and Richard Buckner. There’s no personality in it. On “Madonna Of The Wasps,” I sound as if I’d been hit in the head with a fly swatter. Live, I sound better interpreting them now. They’ve developed some soul.

You’re as sharp witted as ever on Jewels For Sophia. The imagery and surrealism seem mindbending.

You have to approach words in a simple way. Many words are just videos for the mind. The songs should give you pictures in your head. It’s not like I’ve cunningly cloaked words like an enigma you could reach if you had a decoding book. People get confused by pictures. Sometimes the songs are very simple and don’t have many pictures in them, like “Sweet Mouth” or “I Feel Beautiful.” That’s easier.

Why weren’t the Lennonesque “Mr. Tong” and the giddy “Gene Hackman” ode listed along with Jewels For Sophia’s other song titles?

The idea was to make it seem like an afterglow. So I didn’t want to credit them. Otherwise, it’s a bit too predictable. It’s as if I’d completed my gig and you snuck upstairs to the dressing room and I was there having a drink and playing songs no one ever heard. I wanted it to feel as if the record went off somewhere at the end.

Have your acoustic songs inspired influential lo-fi artists like Smog, Palace Music, or Sebadoh?

I don’t know. I know Lou Barlow (of Sebadoh) so I should ask him. Probably the music I made with the Soft Boys up until Eye has sunk into musicians’ consciousness more so than recent stuff. I don’t know if anyone has heard what I did afterwards.

What made you decide to pursue a musical career?

My parents weren’t into music so it was an area I could colonize. My father was an artist and wrote books. So as not to compete with him I tunneled away and emerged with music. It was like breaking out of a compound and avoiding the searchlights. That’s how people are supposed to break out of prisoner war camps. They tunnel a long way out and come out in the woods somewhere. But it never works out because the tunnel always comes up short.

Would you consider writing short stories as you did with Eye’s “Glass Hotel”?

Funny you should mention that. I actually do have a novel finished, but I have to do a re-write. The plan is to finish the novel for 2001. It’s a bit gelatinous at the moment.

DAN HICKS & THE HOT LICKS @ BOWERY BALLROOM

May 9, 2009Live ReviewsJohn Fortunato

Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks / Bowery Ballroom / Sept. 7, 2000

Since his last studio album, 1976’s It Happened One Bite, singer-songwriter-guitarist/ quick-witted satirist Dan Hicks has been writing music for HBO and hocking commercials for Levi’s Jeans and Mc Donalds. Recently, he revamped his band, the Hot Licks, recorded ‘00s generous 15-song comeback, Beatin’ The Heat, and began touring. Playing his first New York City gig in 20 years, Hicks captivated a Bowery Ballroom audience filled with dyed-in-the-wool former hippies (including jug band fixture Jim Kweskin and WFMU d.j. Rita Houston) and party-spirited thirtysomethings.

A laid-back beatnik with a pure ‘n easy pre-rock folk-Jazz obsession, the soft-toned, flinty voiced Hicks performed for nearly two hours, dousing his set with intermittent quips and sarcastic snips. His songs, as always, had a relaxed, unhurried vibe that weighed ever gentle on the mind. Many were spiced with a breezy samba feel and a lounge-y ‘40s cocktail bar effervescence, especially the delicate “End Of A Love Affair.”

Credit guitarist Tom Mitchell, violinist Brian Godcheaux, string bassist Ozzie Andrews, plus politely soulful backup singers Debbie and Susan for giving Hicks solid support. During the Gypsy Jazz excursion of Cozy Cole’s “Topsy,” each musician performed a terse solo showcasing virtuosity. Then, wry mandolin-laced “Where’s the Money,” feel good summer stroll “Strike It While It’s Hot” (done as a duet with Bette Midler on the new LP), and voodoo love song “I Scare Myself” (featuring Rickie Lee Jones’ sultry voice on the new LP) located a contagiously low key serenity somewhere between J.J. Cale, Michael Hurley, and It’s A Beautiful Day.

Hicks bragged about getting “Motley shitfaced” before settling into the cracked bourgeois white-Blues, “Got My Paycheck Today,” then delivered “Black-Headed Buzzard” in a style that seemed half freight train Blues, half Appalachian Mountain folk. For an encore, he swiped a Western Swing ditty from Texas legend Bob Wills; smiled through the ironic “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away”; and eased into Beatin’ The Heat’s protagonistic serenade “I Don’t Want Love” (featuring former Stray Cat guitarist Brian Setzer on the studio version) and the sweetly bluesy confection “My Cello.”

Since leaving seminal pre-psychedelic ‘60s San Francisco band the Charlatans, Hicks very capably has spliced vintage American music genres with quirky originality and cornball absurdity. Now, nearly three decades since his high water mark, ‘73s Last Train To Hicksville, this Little Rock, Arkansas-born relic has still got the naive charm, deliberate smirk, and youthful anxiety of artists one-third his age.

HIGH TIMES MARIJUANA MUSIC AWARDS @ WETLANDS PRESERVE

May 9, 2009Live ReviewsJohn Fortunato

High Times Marijuana Music Awards / Wetlands Preserve / Sept. 6, 2001

True stoners attending High Times Marijuana Music Awards (a.k.a. the Doobie Awards) were enlightened by not only the fine herb burning at Wetlands, but also dope-related heavy music resonating loudly through the foggy air past 1 A.M.

Hosted by half-baked offbeat comedian Jackie ‘The Jokeman’ Martling (who spit out lukewarm to totally hysterical one-liners) and directed by HT editor Steve Bloom, sturdy bong awards (assembled by neighboring A-1 House of Trophies) were handed out to winners in several dope-related categories between each 15 minute band segment. Short videotaped music clips of each nominee were projected on a side wall, adding to the ceremonial feel of the presentations.

To get the evening started, New Jersey’s Atomic Bitchwax (Stoner Rock Band of the Year) drifted into blistering, psychedelicized instrumental jams. Led by guitar phenom Ed Mundell (concurrently a member of Monster Magnet), AB really hit stride during a spiffy version of Tommy Bolin’s “Crazed Fandango.” Next, Boston’s sociopolitical metal-punk combo Tree (winners of the Rally Band Award) hauled out a few energetic rants.

Legendary marijuana advocate/ backdated hippie David Peel (whose ‘68 LP Have A Marijuana and ‘72 LP The Pope Smokes Dope were primal countercultural treasures) won the Marijuana In Music Award and truly impressed the audience. Unlike Peel’s off-key solo acoustic meanderings occasionally featured on the Howard Stern Show, he took the stage with a serious band that definitely kicked out the jams. Later on, the band Dope, winners of the Hard Rock Album Award for Felons & Revolutionaries, provided a fistful of Goth-inspired metal that rattled everyone’s frazzled brain cells.

Though I regret missing Jazz veteran Charlie Hunter (Jazz Album of the Year recipient) and the Cannibus Cup Band (due to some intermittent mind-expanding inhalation at the club’s basement level), I faintly heard their sweet sounds wafting through the Wetlands interior.

Undoubtedly, most of the younger crowd was on hand to catch California’s reefer-inspired hip-hop/ punk enthusiasts Kottonmouth Kings. In town to promote their vital second album, High Society, leader Brad Daddy X, rappers D Loc and Saint Vicious, DJ Bobby B, and 6’6″ dancer Pakelika (the Silent Assassin) highlighted the evening with assertive, spontaneous joints, taking home Band of the Year honors.

It was also a pleasure to see in attendance members of HT’s undefeated Central Park-based softball team, the Bonghitters. Happily, I was invited to play three games with the Bonghitters this summer. Unfortunately, I didn’t play enough to receive a team jersey.

Other Doobies Award winners for 2000 included Dr. Dre’s The Chronic 2001 – Album of the Year; Rocker T’s “Sensible Proposition” – Pop Song; Fastball’s The Harsh Light of Day - Best Rock; Cypress Hill’s Skull & Bones – Hip-Hop; Rage Against The Machine’s The Battle of Los Angeles – Rap Metal; Jimmy Page & Black Crowes’ Live at the Greek - Classic Rock; Rocker T’s If You Luv Luv Show Ya Luv - Reggae; Charlie Hunter’s eponymous LP – Jazz; Armand Van Helden’s Killing Puritans - Dance; Grass - Soundtrack; Gov’t Mule – Best Jam Band. Deceased Grateful Dead legend Jerry Garcia received the Lifetime Acheivement Award.

I AM M.I.A. HERE’S ME RAW

May 9, 2009InterviewsHIGH TIMES, M.I.A.John Fortunato

FOREWORD: M.I.A. reached the pinnacle of success in ’08 when “Paper Planes,” a nifty cut ‘n paste club track with well-placed gunshot sound affects (from her second album, Kala) made MTV and radio playlists. She received great exposure at Bonnaroo Music Festival, but told a friend of mine she was sick of being harassed during passport checks because of her fathers’ affiliation with controversial Sri Lankan freedom fighters. She’s since then taken a sabbatical and became a mother. This article originally appeared in High Times.

Gifted Sri Lankan refugee, M.I.A. (a.k.a. Maya Arulpragasam), faced savage bloodshed, racial tension, and hurtful injustice her entire life. But that heartbreakingly scandalous turbulence only provided serious ammunition for the foxy dark-skinned artisan. Alongside her mother, M.I.A. fled to England’s lower class council estates at her renegade father’s insistence, escaping the war-torn village of Tamil for the less violent segregationist subclass of London’s bleaker poverty-stricken Surrey section.

Graduating from prestigious Central St. Martins College, where she studied film and created graffiti art, M.I.A. soon acquired a cheap ‘80s-derived Roland TR-505 beat machine and began to cut ‘n paste minimalist dub-styled dancehall-related hip-hop while reluctantly becoming an exotic fashion plate.

M.I.A. received underground praise, then worldwide recognition for exhilarating multi-culti electroclash playground rhyme, “Galang,” the highlight of 2005’s compelling Caribbean-accented Bollywood-styled debut, Arular. Based around acid-soaked “purple haze” adulation and stocked with dazzling synthesized bleats, beeps, and bleeps, the kitsch-y “Galang” secured a knee-slapped stutter-stepped chug-a-lug pulsation merging varied global genres.

Born in the United Kingdom and raised in Sri Lanka then nearby India, M.I.A. appropriated the nickname of her protectionist father as album title fodder. A militant guerrilla battling majority Sinhalese Buddhists as leader of the autonomous Eelam Revolutionary Organization, he thereafter aligned with the larger secessionist Tamil Tigers sect of northern Sri Lanka, fighting for equal rights while resisting unfavorable federal settlements oppressing his native Hindu minority for decades. Resorting to roadside suicide bombings and other violent acts, their vicious terrorist tactics counteract the inequity of heavy-handed government enslavement.

Unlike radical Islam, the Tamil Tigers fight for sovereignty and independence, not tyrannical subjugation a la wrongheaded fundamentalist gangland murderers in the Taliban. However, the controversial Tigers broke a 2002 cease-fire agreement, launching a few deadly air attacks on the military from M.I.A.’s hometown of Jaffna, blowing up a civilian bus, and bombing Sri Lanka capitol, Colombo, in 2007 alone.

“I feel sad the Sri Lankans that make it out can’t talk about (the troubles). There’s two million military soldiers against 5,000 Tigers, which is now only 2,000. Something’s seriously wrong,” M.I.A. insists. “The week I got my graduate certificate from art school, someone said my cousin, whom I’d copied off in school, was dead. It was devastating. In England, I was able to live a different life. I can complain about stupid shit like Playstation and my shoes in London. But I wanted to make a connection between the apathy I was feeling in England and what (my peers) in Sri Lanka go through. If you shoot to kill people wearing black, a supposed terrorist color, on suspicion, the murderer doesn’t need to be brought in on. You weren’t allowed to wear khakis, leopard-tiger prints, Puma shirts.”

M.I.A. attempted to enlighten the outside world about the subjugation and repression witnessed via a firsthand documentary, but fearful ultraconservatives lynched the anticipated film while absurdly aligning her with terrorist uproar.

“When I went back they said my cousin was a vegetable in a refugee camp. Some said he was married to a Sinhalese girl and defected. I found that every Tamil family had those stories. You never find the body and it’s hard to exorcise from your life,” she admits. “Under oppression, you have no future. I was constantly harassed by police. I had to register at police stations just to get a hotel room. Tamil people are lined up like herds of animals in 100-degree heat in dirt. The army empties their goods into mud and the babies are all gonna be dead by age five. They were disposable. It felt horrible. The Tamils are banned from census reports. The government could wipe out the whole race and there’d be no account. If you’re talking about terrorists, the group is as good or bad as the government they’re struggling against.”

M.I.A.’s combative Cockney-cadenced lyrical discontent contrasts Arular’s primal upbeat sway and crackling tropical riddims. Sure-handed Philadelphia DJ, Diplo, her old flame, provides a few stomping beats and talented collaborators. Swarming robotic reggaeton rumble, “Bingo,” tribal quick-spit protocol, “Sunshowers,” and redemptive jump-roped woofer-blasting alarm, “Fire Fire,” are armed and extremely dangerous missives. On “Bucky Done Gun,” faux-trumpets anticipate a bloody skirmish. Despite Arular’s overwhelmingly confrontational theme, static-y club-banging anthem, “Pull Up The People,” seeks uplifting proletarian liberation. Sirens, laser zaps, steel drums, traps, toms, and tape-looped samples gird the elementary arrangements. A tone-deaf wild child with no prior musical skills, the scrappily resourceful M.I.A. startlingly became a universal superstar.

“What I did with Arular was a test with a bunch of questions that came from all angles – the media, immigration, the government, certain magazines, and television stations. I had to have consequences and side affects,” she explains. “Sri Lankan Sinhalese rioted at venues where I performed. They tried boycotting. I got hate mail. I’m not doing this to be ignorant and precious or angry and negative. It’s interesting to see the edges of these problems. I’ve seen Sri Lankan monks killing people and children. How do you allow it to go on? I went to British, Christian, and Hindu schools. The army would come down to the Tamil convent (I attended), put guns through holes in the windows and shoot. We were trained to dive under the table or run next door to English schools that wouldn’t get shot. It was a bullying exploitation.”

M.I.A. initially found her groove after finishing college while vacationing on tiny Caribbean island, Bequia, where Gospel music and Diwali jungle rhythms piqued her interest. She had no love for pop and dismissed punk because of its skinhead association, but started assimilating her newfound Carib influences with the underground rap infiltrating Surrey’s poorest populace.

“I went to Bequia with a friend who wanted to get away from hard times,” she recalls. “I started going out to this chicken shed with a sound system. You buy rum through a hatch and dance in the street. They convinced me to come to church where people sing so amazingly. But I couldn’t clap along to hallelujah. I was out of rhythm. Someone said, ‘What happened to Jesus? I saw you dancing last night and you were totally fine.’ They stopped the service and taught me to clap in time. It was embarrassing.”

Then, she got stoned at night and wrote swaggering rogue flaunt, “M.I.A.,” procuring the appellation as stage name and dedicating it to her former London gang association with Missing In Action.

“I’d never smoked weed,” she admits. “At the time, it helped kick-start and focus my obsession with music. But it’s not productive if you’re completely reliant on it. I’m constant – the same high or not.”

M.I.A. adds a small disclaimer, “Getting high is like losing control and these days women have too much on their plate raising kids, working, looking good, being on MySpace.”

Then again, she’s onboard for marijuana reform and legalization.

“Going to the Caribbean the first time, it was like Sri Lanka without the war and ugliness -real beautiful and natural. People were chill, no stress. If weed makes people passive, content, and happy, it’s fine. Of course, America has the best weed. In England, it’s garbage. No one takes time to cultivate the land. Besides, the sunshine’s better in America.” Furthermore, she claims, “I did a show on mushrooms in Japan. Thought it was the best show I’d ever done, even if it wasn’t the case. It was amazing. I felt like laughing the whole time as lights were going around and it got real trippy. Everything felt like it was going in slow motion.”

Dropping much of the political rhetoric on her equally fine ’07 follow-up, Kala (named in honor of her mother), M.I.A. still effectively sods Indian-induced hip-hop culture with British grime, a vogue urban two-step garage styling Dizzee Rascal and Wiley made famous. Jumpy Jamaican jostle “Hussel,” beeping nursery-rhymed romp “Boyz,” and clanging rampage “Bamboo Banga” (which hijacks Jonathan Richman’s classic cruisin’ rambler “Roadrunner”), deal more with the politics of dancing than war.

M.I.A. offers, “Arular was immersed in politics. It was on the street corner and t.v. I was outraged. This time, I had to work out where I was. Did I wanna be a pop star or an artist? There are so many options. That’s the downside. I had to find a place that gave me more space to grow. People are wrong to judge me as someone who’s shoving a manifesto in people’s faces and say ‘live like this.’ We all saw Saddam Hussien hung on U-Tube. People have seen how that situation panned out. I thought it was important to teach people to find balance in their life. Find happiness in what’s around you. I’m on the verge of being a super-Americanized version of a musician, but I could’ve stayed humble, got married, had kids, and say I’ve done it once, why try again?”

Perhaps the forthcoming apocalypse could be put on hold, as the carousing Kala truly gets the party going in a ceremoniously footloose manner. She celebrates ecstasy-laced rave culture on the bustling “XR2,” cunningly inquiring ‘where were you in ‘92/ took a pill/ had a good time.’

“An XR2’s a shitty hatchback Ford and the easiest car to break into. All the kids I hung out with back then were in little gangs that fought. One gang had an XR2,” she says. “We were the first ones to break out of the stupid-ness and the violence and started going out to parties and raving. We were more into music, dancing, fashion.”

This type of bohemian brevity won’t solve the planet’s staggering tribulations, but its escapism is absolutely addictive.

Though she may remain skeptical about with the Tamil Tigers fierce fanatical intimidation, M.I.A. understands how difficult and tricky the Sri Lanka situation still is, especially since juvenile labor and child soldiers continue to exist.

She concludes, “My work constantly opens minds for debate on the Tamil Tigers. What makes good and evil? I felt uncomfortable broaching it. People won’t give me the benefit of doubt. If you’re a citizen and get shot or bombed, you should be able to tell anyone if you have a microphone in your face. Politics of war changed the course of my life. I’m eating a burger talking to you, but I could’ve been in Sri Lanka with eight kids running an electric shop selling t.v.’s and baking cakes for neighbors. But I’ve come this far. If you care about the issue of child soldiers, look towards Africa. Every other soldier’s a child. Every country has these rebels popping up. The Brits fucked up the Tamils, who were smart, educated, middle class civilians. When the Brits gave power to the majority Sinhalese, they made the Tamils’ laborers and farmers. In Jaffna, we had electricity. Eelam, my father’s group, came out of that. They’d been abroad, knew international politics, theology, and had a manifesto. They were into non-violent protest. But the Tigers wouldn’t have it. Their kids, moms, and grandparents were butchered. They had no arms or ammunition. They had sticks, stones, and knives, objects used to cut fish. My dad’s group was outnumbered. That’s how the Tigers became the biggest representatives of the Sri Lankan struggle.”

Happily, M.I.A. has overcome many arduously complex and frightening circumstances to develop into one of the choicest young artists in contemporary music. She’s candid, intelligent, liberated, opinionated, strong-headed, and raw – a proven commodity in a wearily wired world.

JOE HENRY’S HEARING ‘TINY VOICES’

May 9, 2009InterviewsJOE HENRYJohn Fortunato

FOREWORD: I remember Joe Henry getting his new silk shirt burnt by the ashes from an incense stick at Southpaw in Brooklyn during my interview. He was not amused but at least thanked me for letting him know I saw it happening. Anyway, Henry’s been on the cusp of fame for years. He married Melanie Ciccone, Madonna’s sister, who thankfully convinced the enduring bard to give the pop superstar, “Don’t Tell Me,” for inclusion on her fabulous Music LP. I bet that song’s made Henry more money than his entire output. ‘07s excellent Civilians was followed up by ‘09s passionately mesmerizing Blood From Stars. This article originally appeared in Aquarian Weekly.

As singer-songwriter Joe Henry stands at the foot of Brooklyn’s Southpaw stage, guitar slung to the side before performing another fresh Tiny Voices track, he calmly quips, “I thought this song (the urbane “Flag”) was too political, but my wife said, ‘Your songs are so obtuse, no one will notice.’” The mostly seated audience politely chuckles, then afterwards give the seasoned rhapsodist resounding applause, beckoning him for a merited encore following a perfectly poignant stream of distended hymnal odes flaunting sundry emotional angles.

Though neither overtly political nor outlandishly askew, Henry’s expansive oeuvre does reveal an oblique Bob Dylan influence. At age eleven, his older brother traded a Steppenwolf album for Highway 61 Revisited. It was a galvanizing moment that spoke to him instantly. A fearlessly creative troubadour residing in Los Angeles since ’90, Henry found initial acceptance while living in New York City when his earliest demos were pressed to vinyl as Talk Of Heaven by Profile Records (a local label branching beyond rappers Run DMC).

“I’d always been infatuated with music. I grew up in the South listening to Dusty Springfield, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, and Buck Owens. At seven, I obsessed over Glen Campbell doing Jimmy Webb songs. “Galveston” was the first 45 I purchased,” the eager maestro shares. “My parents had a great appreciation for authentic Country, but they never went out to find it. They were incredibly hard working – not people of leisure. The only three records they had were Dionne Warwick’s Greatest Hits, Delaney & Bonnie’s Motel Shots - a fantastic record, and an Andy Williams’ Christmas record.”

Signed to A & M Records, Henry’s next step was to record ‘89s promising Murder of Crows. Initially conceived as producer Anton Fier’s latest Golden Palomino project, featuring ex-Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor and Allman Brothers keyboardist Chuck Leavell, the set hearkened to ‘70s classic rock radio. ‘90s ensued Shuffletown pared down Henry’s acoustic moodiness for finely wrought blue-eyed soul. Firmly in charge and acutely aware of the intricacies involved with compositional construction, his tuneful signature could be felt firsthand.

“When you’re young, you think of songs as potatoes coming out of the ground fully formed, thus the idea where someone is treating a song, producing it, and giving it a sonic perception becomes reality later,” declares Henry.

Hooking up with prestigious alternative Country band, the Jayhawks, the re-stimulated Henry’s melancholic hopefulness invigorated ‘92s widespread breakthrough Short Man’s Room and its battle-scarred follow-up, Kindness Of The World. Through a hazy ominous daze, his intimately reedy baritone rasp poured out wounded sentimentality, intuitively forecasting ‘all news will be good news from now on’ during the deeply felt pedal steel-mandolin-fortified “Fireman’s Wedding.”

About the prophetic merger, Henry recollects, “I had lost my A & M deal and the Jayhawks were between labels. It was a marriage of convenience. They lived in Minneapolis where there was a serious, disparate music community including the Replacements, Soul Asylum, and Twin Tone bands they felt part of. They approached music as a band, but I was touring for Shuffletown, which featured Jazz artists Don Cherry and Cecil Mc Bee. I found it hard for the Jayhawks to play those songs. They didn’t fall into their bag very easily. The songs were claustrophobic onstage while their thing was loose and open. So I tried to do something that was authentic to them and wrote Short Man’s Room as an idea of working within a bands’ mindset.”

Recruiting Page Hamilton of metallurgists Helmet for ‘96s broad abstraction Trampoline furnished Henry’s drifting lovelorn dirges with tremolo-ensconced dissonance and symphonic drones.

Henry admits, “We were both Miles Davis freaks. Helmet had opened for Henry Rollins at L.A.’s Olympic Theatre and he had great midtempo and slow grooves reminiscent of Miles’ electric period. I thought to invite him onboard would give me a whole new perception and he responded in a way that was authentic to him.”

By ‘99s loop and sample-aided Fuse, he convened with respected producer Daniel Lanois to appease a growing fan base heeding every whim.

“The songs wouldn’t arrive as they have if I was thinking in a fully Country lexicon. If those were the only colors in my palette I couldn’t write the way I do now because there’s no context for them,” he observes.

So despite retaining his contemplative maudlin tone on distant abstruse dreamscapes, Henry moved forward once again for ‘01s eloquent Scar, enlisting Jazz icon Ornette Coleman to blow free form sax above the wearily morose opening profile “Richard Pryor Addresses A Tearful Nation” and an unlisted bookend solo excursion. Aiming past the boundless confines of modern folk flirtation with help from ‘jazzbos’ Brad Mehldau and Marc Ribot, Scar gained critical plaudits but confused eager minions readied for acoustic retreat.

Henry ascertains, “It’s been many years since I’ve played anything pre-Trampoline onstage. Those songs don’t lend themselves to the interpretation I’m interested in now, which is why my writing style has shifted some. I’m looking to write songs that are more open with fewer chord changes, not constricting musicians. My records may not be connected in a linear way, but the thematic point of view should come through like a movie.”

Still enamored by the vast breadth of improvisational spontaneity, Henry signed to burgeoning indie Anti Records, securing esteemed clarinetist Don Byron and limber trumpeter Ron Miles for ‘03s deviously genteel Tiny Voices. His compellingly dreary lamentations desolately flutter in the wind with David Palmer’s languid piano ripples and overcast orchestral compensation richly adorning understated metaphoric ambiguity. An atmospheric lull befalls the transcending title cut, the crestfallen “Sold,” and the somber “Animal Skin.” A murky midnight gloom worthy of Tom Waits affects “This Afternoon,” a temperate soulful saunter that’d fit comfortably alongside lowdown alt-rock drones Lambchop, Tindersticks, and Nick Cave. Henry’s most dramatically elliptical utterances complement the relaxed groove.

Concerning his keen lyrical propensity, Henry insists, “Lyrics have never been a sidebar. I’ve always taken them very seriously and I’m a savage self-editor. I enjoy that stage of writing when a song has identified its character enough so you could step away. It’s not gonna evaporate, but it’s still viscous and pliable.”

As for the Jazz-informed meditations consuming Tiny Voices, he surmises, “I have a great love for Jazz, but I’m not trying to make Jazz music. I’m trying to incorporate certain Jazz tonalities because I appreciate those colors and that approach to freedom. When rock started, Little Richard made records when this was a maverick industry. It wasn’t so cut and dry. Look at The Clash, they improvised within the structure of a song until it gelled. That’s how Jazz players used to work, though they frequently don’t anymore.”

Besides his own work, Henry produced Soul legend Solomon Burke’s triumphant ‘02 comeback Don’t Give Up On Me and wrote his famous sister-in-law Madonna’s hit single “Don’t Tell Me.”

“I wanted Solomon to be a bandleader with his big voice,” he says of Burke. “Initially, he was spooked by how exposed his vocal was. He was used to chicken scratch R & B guitar, not acoustic guitar – which had a different function. I stuck to my guns and kept it immediate and raw.”

But his most lucrative payday came when pop diva Madonna struck gold with Henry’s “Don’t Tell Me.”

He concedes, “It was written quickly and dashed off in a half-hour. I listen to tons of Sinatra so I was working it in a Classic standard way. She responded to it instantly. I certainly didn’t think it would be a single. I thought it was trivial.”

As for future endeavors, Henry shockingly concludes, “I’d like to work with (hip-hop trailblazer) Dr. Dre. I think he’s bad ass. I’d be curious to see what he’d do with someone like me.”

HELOISE’S SAVIOR FAIRE GOES EVERYWHERE

May 9, 2009InterviewsHELOISE & THE SAVOIR FAIREJohn Fortunato

No one expects a Jazz-affiliated ex-Phish associate to come out of leftfield and set the underground dance community afire. Yet it’s glaringly apparent now that a very astute, literary-minded vocalist who’s a tad edgier than her booty-shakin’ contemporaries has accomplished just that. Bristling with nervous energy and readily causing a commotion, this seasoned starlet continues to gain notoriety via exhilaratingly action-packed gigs.

Buxom Amazonian bleach blonde, Heloise Williams, intriguingly bolsters ‘80s-derived new wave and ‘70s-styled disco by plying powerful pipes to multihued arrangements, reckoning the past with an over-the-top frivolity indicative of raunchy electronica chum, Peaches (whom she once chauffeured and body-guarded). Accordingly, every deviant nut job in her loosely twisted ensemble, Savior Faire, boasts a distinctly off-kilter personality – some more so than others.

As we squeeze all six members into my ’99 Lincoln to chat, I’m convinced there’s tremendous camaraderie holding these half-dozen sassily sharp scruffs together. Heloise (ex-Viperhouse) moved to Brooklyn a few years back, doing local shows at trusty downtown venue, Don Hills – singing, manipulating a laptop computer, and doing waggish dance routines with lubricated Vermont pals Joe Shephard and Sara Sweet Rabidoux (proprietor of erstwhile modern dance company, Hoy Polloi). As a sidebar, it’s worth noting multiethnic gypsy punk comrades, Gogol Bordello, have similar New England nurturing and dual dancer setup, though totally different musical approach.

Soon, Heloise brought boyfriend, guitarist James Bellizia, into the fold alongside early fan, lanky drummer Luke Hughett, and bassist Jason Diamond. Meeting Diamond (an incipient guitarist) through Elijah Wood (Lord Of The Rings/ Everything Is Illuminated) proved fruitful when the famed actor decided to launch Simian Records. In conjunction with Yep Roc Records, Heloise & the Savior Faire released their powerful ‘electro-rock’ debut, Trash, Rats and Microphones, on Wood’s new-sprung boutique label early ‘08.

Though initial live performances included chewed-up covers of disparate material by the Tubes (“White Punks On Dope”), Roberta Flack (“Feel Like Making Love”), AC/DC (“For Those About To Rock”), and Britney Spears (“Toxic”), these couldn’t better the sexed-up originals Heloise promptly build a small catalog around. Set changes, stage props, and kitsch-y clatter further characterized and elevated the eccentric sextet. And Bellizia’s rock solid New Order compulsion nicely thickened the finest efforts.

Despite the murky sound system bogging down Lower East Side club, The Annex, Heloise & The Savoir Faire took the totally bitchin’ crowd on a romping joyride through the urban dancehall jungle. I shortly hung out beside foxy Gogol Bordello dancer, Elizabeth Sun, as the colorful troupe began enthralling the sardine-packed patronage with rip-roaring coital fugues. Illuminating the stage with daring sexual prowess far removed from her tertiary Phish swish, Heloise’s lascivious rhymes and slyly promiscuous mannerisms challenged archetypal politics of dancing. Dangling impudent innuendoes atop catchy-as-fuck dance-rock (and ancillary orgiastic mantras), her lone cat moans and queen bitch quavers killed the fanatical audience ‘til friskily febrile finale, “Givin’ U The Bizness,” reached maximal white soul strut integrating ravishing pale-faced damsel Annie Lennox with swaggering blaxploitated diva Tina Turner.

The flamboyant Shepard, wearing gay pirate apparel and bandanna, worked in casual Casio tones and scant backup vocals when not gyrating hips like a frolicsome warlock. On the opposite side of magnanimous goddess, Heloise, erotic emissary Sara Sweet (whose swiveled Egyptian belly dancing ruled) sashayed as if she was a darlingly kittenish nymph. Wearing heavy mascara, eyeliner glaze, and flashy makeup, the extravagantly tattered frontline shimmied and shook – utilizing syncopated steps, fluttered arm gestures, and oddly flippant affectations. Heloise randomly donned a sparkling metallic sequence top and raccoon shawl during the eye-popping 50-minute set. Behind the fearsome threesome, Diamond laid down funky Larry Graham-inspired bass lines suited to Hughett’s leathery discotheque percussion while guitarist Bellizia rendered randy power chords. Bellizia and Hughett acknowledge Gang Of Four as stylish influences and oft times it’s revealed. Bellizia, peculiarly a big fan of ‘60s folkie Bert Jansch, also takes inspiration from Talking Heads’ snazzy ’80 classic, Remain In Light.

Born in Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital to British parents, Heloise lived in Minnesota as a youngster, moving back east to attend Middlebury College for literary studies. Yet it’s doubtful the future versifier learned to craft provocatively libidinous lyrics during scholastic English.

“I was an aspiring poet,” Heloise recalls. “I worked from anger. I’d wonder, ‘Why am I so mad?’ Then I’d write. But I want to make it sound like candy and let kids learn in a weirdly obtuse way.”

Subsequently, she was in formative Vermont-based Jazz bands ‘warbling Mingus, Monk, and Sun Ra.’ Then, Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio recruited the enthusiastic lass to sing at concerts and on ‘98s Story Of The Ghost.

“I couldn’t turn that down,” she admits, prior to divulging, “I’d always enjoyed Joni Mitchell and hoped I’d be able to learn to compose. But I can’t put as many words to a song.”

“She also liked Prince,” interjects Sara Sweet, “I was thinking the other day, Heloise’s lyrics are set apart in an artistic scholarly way like Beck’s crazy stories. How she describes dreams. The ‘do me’ lyrics aren’t pretentious. She doesn’t cram views down your throat.”

But Heloise need not always rely on insidious roundels. Opening Trash salvo, “Illusions,” nostalgically summoning Romeo Void’s fleshy come-ons and punk icon Siouxsie Sioux’s hiccuped delivery, sneers at cringe-worthy music biz sleaze. Ruptured bass, staccato drumming, and squiggled bleating electronics coil Heloise’s revelatory snip: ‘It’s all smoke and mirrors in a house made out of cards.’

“We’d been courted by record labels. It was all cheese-ball disillusionment,” elucidates Heloise. “We went to Japan and this big label guy was such a messed-up alcoholic we were actually taking care of him. Could you imagine that? The labels were promising shit and not following through.”

Furthermore, posh metro nightclub snub, “Members Only,” cattily deposes self-centered snot-nosed weekenders, the worst kind of crassly curmudgeon conformists sojourning Manhattan’s arrogant poseur scene.

Heloise explains, “I’d just moved to New York and there’s a giant club, Exit. I was in a huge line. People around me thought I’d cut in front. I was like, “I’m sorry. I don’t know where my friends are.” They said, ‘I could see why they want to lose you ‘cause you’re a loser.’ They were super-cool Williamsburg kids who were so mean. I was crying. So I got in the club and it was full of people not having fun posturing and posing for each other trying to be cool. No one was laughing.”

When corroborating about poseur gals having rusty pussies from underuse, the entire group chuckles. Then Heloise goes into a story ‘bout Southern boogie tilter, “Po’ T,” a.k.a. ‘poor thing,’ being based on a spring break trip to Mobile, Alabama, with a high school buddy and her hook-armed ex-marine father sailing the Gulf of Mexico.

“We met this kid, the youngest of twelve children, got drunk, played with guns – scary stuff. We were super-wasted on wine coolers. So “Po’ T”’s imaginary lyrics are wistful.” Heloise then reflects, “I had terrible cold sores and didn’t get to make out at the officer’s club doing karaoke.”

I obnoxiously counter, “Did the hook-armed father try to finger you?”

Heloise nods no, but without missing a beat, Shepard opines, “That’s how underused pussies get rusty.”

Duly note that Shepard’s hilariously gregarious. Upon latently entering my car, he interrupts the conversation with scandalously juicy gossip: “There’s a giant gay guy down the street running through a hallway yelling, ‘I’m a fucking faggot. I just broke up with my boyfriend and I’m really emotional right now. I’m sorry!’ Poor guy. Who’s gonna suck his dick?”

Jokingly, Sara Sweet bellows from the backseat, “I will!”

Such is life for this jocularly juvenile thirty-something assemblage whose curvaceous singer recently impressed chic punk, Debbie Harry, so much she ended up purring the Eartha Kitt epilogue on rumbling retro-disco anthem, “Downtown.” It seems the renowned Blondie front woman gave her seal of approval to Heloise at a Knitting Factory show where fashion designer Todd Thomas acquainted the two flaxen felines.

Getting back to Trash, the ecstasy-laced existential exploration, “Disco Heaven,” with its computer-generated voicing and typical spanking two-step disco beat, inhabits a blissful Shangri-La wondrously denigrated by scintillating metal guitar- razed car tune, “Datsun 280Z,” where Heloise assents to ‘grinding my gears down there.’

“That’s about sex in the car, driving fast around corners,” she says candidly. “Put your hand on that stick shift and grind those gears. Then you need to be re-virginized.”

Whatever.

Elsewhere, timbale lends a Latin feel to horn-y party jam, “On Fuego.” Burbling keys deluge buzzing shuffle “Pick ‘n Choose,” a savory li’l confection. Closing Euro-clashed rave, “Odyle,” finds Heloise emphatically yelping and pleading with an overwrought aggression R & B vets would relish.

“My high school director had me do Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” I thought I couldn’t, but he thought I had the personality to pull it off,” Heloise informs before solemnly concluding, “I should return to vocal lessons. I need to learn how to warm up and cool down, especially if we do a lot of shows in a row.”

“Yeah right,” ball-busting brat Shepard quips. “Vodka up, vodka down’”

BEERMELODIES

For Beer Geeks And Rock Freaks