The Donnas - Spend The Night (Atlantic)

The bastard stepchildren of a romantic tryst between The Runaways and Girlschool, Palo Alto, California's favorite daughters are back with their fifth release (sixth if you include their pre-teen Electrocutes garage slopfest). As with The Ramones, AC/DC, and Motorhead, to name but a few, you know what's inside before you even crack open the jewelcase, so about the only mystery is how are they gonna put those three chords together this time out. Could we be in for an E-A-D earfull…a G-A-D grungefest…maybe even a goshdarn, death defying A-D-E halfcourt alley oop at the buzzer? And will their signing with/selling out to the establishment end up watering down their attack? Well, the results are in and our heroines are looking and sounding none the worse for wear. Aside from getting drunk on Diet Cokes ("All Messed Up"), there's the obligatory tales of sex, getting high, sex, getting drunk, sex, fast cars, stupid boyfriends ("Who Invited You?), sex, loser girlfriends ("It's Too Bad About Your Girl"), and, did I mention sex?

I can't discern any appreciable difference in the production values, so that lucrative big league contract apparently didn't buy their way into any high falutin' 24-track recording studio, but then with this kind of music you certainly don't need fancy frills like that. The many highlights include the footstompin' "You Wanna Get Me High," which sounds like the first single (so naturally Atlantic releases the tame sleezefest, "Take It Off" instead), "I Don't Care (So There)," and, for a change of pace, a couple of enjoyable little cheerleader routines in the middle of "Pass It Around" and "Dirty Denim." Elsewhere, "All Messed Up" has hard driving, AC/DC riffs all over it, accompanied by an appropriate fist-in-the-air chorus, and I swear I recognized some old Doobie Brothers' riff sniffing around the opening notes of "Please Don't Tease."

One thing that Atlantic's money has bought the girls, however, is some potentially lucrative product placement deals. We now know that Donna A is packing D-cups (hello, Victoria), and that they enjoy drinking Bud Dry ("It's On The Rocks"), Henessey ("I Don't Care (So There)"), and Tangueray ("Pass It Around" ), and a few conveniently placed lyrics about Mercedes, Charlie Brown shirts, and Cavaricci shoes should be worth a few bucks down the road once this tops the million seller mark - although I'm still trying to figure out the Nightmare on Elm Street connection (Freddy's poster adorns the sleeve and he's namechecked in "5 O'Clock in the Morning"). Could they possibly have acting aspirations? They're now about the right age for those bimbo bloodbaths, so who knows. Keep an eye out for some over the top videos to show off their chops (early copies of the CD come with a bonus DVD featuring interview footage, a "Making of…" tell-all, and an animated video of "Do You Wanna Hit It?" from last year's Turn 21) leading to a "Coming soon in a theatre near you, it's…." Hey, this is all dirty old man, horny young jock basement fantasy material anyway and, besides they've already been featured (TWICE!) in Blender, Maxim's musical masturbation rag, er, mag.

So, these swinging sorority sisters deliver again,. Of course it's silly and simple and the lyrics won't be nominated for any Pulitzer prize in Poetry (although rhyming "Henessey" with "Tennessee" and the catchy couplet "Your hair is so dirty/It makes you look like you're thirty" are worth a few yucks), but hey, this is rock and roll not rocket science. So grab a cube o' brews, a carton of smokes, don't forget your helmets, and Spend the Night with The Donnas. Just don't expect them to be there in the morning.

In Gowan Ring - Exists and Entrances Volume Two Autumnal Equinox 2002 (Private Release)
Contact the artist directly at ingowanring@mollymail.com

One of the last of a dying breed, that of the wandering minstrel, Jon Michael B'Eirth (the only constant member of the travelling circus known as In Gowan Ring) returns with his second volume of ephemera, and, as with last year's initial offering, it is a collection of cover songs (Robin (Incredible String Band) Williamson's "The Lord of Man" and (I'm guessing from the P.T.V credit), Psychic TVs "Just Like Arcadia"); traditional ballads (a sad and forlorn reading of "Under A Willow Tree," which prompted B'Eirth to observe, "it seems most willow songs have themes of unrequited or unfaithfull love," and this is no exception. That statement could also be applied to a lot of wyrdfolk songs as we discussed last month, and "On the Butterfly's Wing," his contribution to the Hand/Eye compilation we were so excited about is also included herein); selections from out of print formats of earlier releases ("Of Skin and Tresses" featuring bells, chimes, flutes, various plucked instruments, and the occasional pot banging percussives is from the cassette version of Love Charms, and there's some haunting shell neckless "tinkle sounds" on the 100 second "Jeweled Jangles," also taken from Love Charms, that approximates someone caught up in one of those old love beads room separaters that I can all but picture hanging in all the doorways around B'Eirth's house like a love child's mistletoe!); and, last but not least, a few old pieces of musique concrete dating back to 1988 (two "Reckoner's themes,") which combine flutes, backwards vocals, and ominous percussion fx resembling approaching thunder to little effect, and perhaps could have been left behind.

"Coffe [sic] Morning" is exactly what it sounds like, a commercial for the demon bean which will bring a smile to those of you who've succombed to that form of legalized speed. It's also comforting to know that B'Eirth is one of those "who don't think capitalism is all that bad," as Wavy Gravy pointed out at Woodstock, and is not above taking the odd monetary endorsement fee if proffered, as he explains in the liners.

Williamson's "The Lord of Man" was recorded live at an Elementary School in Portland, OR and the session sounds like it was a blast to take part in, with the students stomping, clapping, and screaming along with the song, which is presented in the manner of an old Punch and Judy play. It's similar to " " on the IGR compilation, Compendium, and all I can say is - those lucky brats...I never had someone as cool the In Gowan Ring collective come by and play for me when I was in grade school.

Finally, "Ring-o-the Rascal" is an affectionately nonsensical children's fairy tale of the sort Donovan wrote for his A Gift from A Flower To A Garden collection, and I'd love to get these two troubadours together in the studio to see what whimsy they can dream up.

Not essential (except for completists), but a fine diversion to while away the hours until you pick up the fourth official In Gowan Ring full length, Hazel Steps Through A Weathered Room, which was due for release as we went to press.

"The Whys and Hows of Herman Dune and Cerberus Shoal" [split EP] (Stella White/North East Indie)
www.northeastindie.com

This is the first in a projected series of split CD EPs that Cerberus Shoal will share with some of their favorite contemporary artists, as well as some international bands they met on tour and who probably wouldn't otherwise be heard here in the U.S. Herman Dune is a Swiss trio living in France who use tambourine, blocks, horns, shakers, violins, et. al. to create a whimsically acoustic, homey, sing-around-the-campfire vibe that falls somewhere between Violent Femmes and '60s Dutch punsters, The Fool, while the two lengthy Cerberus tracks ("Sweetie" and "Bazouki") feature playful, driving, chanting harmonies, a la some hippie cult worshipping Hapshash & The Coloured Coat. Believe me, they're not that far removed from the Woodstock "Rain Chant!" If that's your thing, so is this. Future entries will feature Amsterdam's De Kift, London's Guapo, Hungary's Kampec Delores, Poland's The Magic Carpathians, a reunion with their former partners, Tarpigh, and...

"The Vim & Vigour of Alvarius B and Cerberus Shoal" [split CD EP] (Stella White/North East Indie)

The lads sent Sun City Girl bassist Alan Bishop (aka Alvarius B) a copy of their 18-minute epic, "Ding" and asked if he would be interested in offering his interpretation as part of the second entry in their new series of split CD EPs. Bishop's version is a lengthy, surreal collection of non-sequitors delivered over a scraping, scratching, nails-on-blackboard, omnidirectional backing, and the whole 12-minute sonic orgy sounds very much like The Residents backing Eugene Chadbourne, with whom the Girls recorded an LP back in 1999. I'm unfamiliar with the Arizona trio's material, so I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but fans can take it from there.

The EP also includes a couple of tracks from Bishop's 2x (solo) CD [also entitled Alvarius B.], "Blood Baby" and "Viking Christmas." The former is a short, wyrdfolk whine that recalls Jandek and Daniel Johnson channeled through Nathan (Rivulets) Amundson with a Randy Newman chaser, while the latter seems imbibed (I use the term advisedly) with enough glogg to keep even the thinnest skinned northerner warmer than a six-dog night.

Cerberus step in and repeat the program with mixed results. The Louisiana Loonies with the oversized Bette Davis eyes are back in full force on the Cerb's take of "Blood Baby," which closely approximates the soundtrack to the latest edition of Barnum & Bailey's circus. The strangulated vocalist seemed to have been in the middle of a bowel movement when someone shoved a microphone in his face, and I'd swear that was Emu Phillips dropping by to help out on a few of the later verses! Strange, but now that the Tarpigh guys have jumped ship, this is one of the most Tarpigh-like track I've heard in the entire CS catalogue!

Their version of "Viking Christmas" retains Bishop's couplets which recall the Bonzo's "Canyons of Your Mind," with lines like "In the brewery of your mind/Foam the suds from swolen glands, And the sauces in your limbs/Settled in between your hands," and they turn it into an appropriately high octane, drunken sea shanty. Even the broken dishes, clanking pottery and clinking glasses remind me of a field recording of one of those Renaissance Dinner Theatre outings. The final straw-slurping gulp demonstrates our partygoers have thoroughly enjoyed their evening's entertainment.

Wrapping up the procedings with the original "Ding," Colleen Kinsella sing/speaks over the sound of a manual typewriter, perhaps auto-writing the lengthy lyrics, which occasionally coincide with the liner notes. The Deconstructionist in me constantly wants to understand why something is included in a song, and that typewriter is bothering me. Does it suggest that the stream-of-conscious, extemporaneous "lyrics" are being sung almost as fast as someone can type them and pull them out of the typewriter? It is rather unsettling, bordering on distracting. About midway through the track, Erin Davidson begins harmonizing, and the entire piece eventually delivers the most awesome vocalization on any Shoal release. There's no way anyone could possibly follow the storyline of this piece, so one must be satisfied to sit back and enjoy one of the better examples of voice-as-instrument in recent memory.

Skye Klad - Skye Klad II (Mutant)
www.mutantmusic.com

If I was writing for some smartass 'mersh rag that limited its critics to pithy 20 word witticisms, this one would go something like: Ever wonder what happened to The Fields of The Nephalim? Well, fret no more. It's my pleasure to announce they're alive and well, and have been hiding out in Minneapolis going under the name Skye Klad. 

But since we're above such candyassed comments, we'll proceed with the insightful vivisection you've come to know and hate.

From the opening buzzsaw of the grungy-with-an-attitude "Reign Song," the Minneapolis quartet let it be known that their debut slugfest was no flash in the pan. The in-your-face vocal snarl of guitarist Jason Kesselring on "Sunwheel" sounds like a shouting match between Trent Reznor and Al Jourgenson, although I do think there's an Echo & The Bunnymen riff trying to break out, while the descending riffage of "Little Nemo" may be a tip of the dome to the eponymous Black Sabbath track and Kesselring's how-low-can-you-go utterings will have you reaching for your old Fields of the Nephalim albums to compare whose basso is more profundo.

The gentle (!) stringpluckings of "Meechmit" provide a welcome, albeit short respite from the proceedings and then it's back to Kesselring's Industrial Batcave yelpings on the black metalic 80s sheen of heavy metal wannabes The Cult on "Evening Star" - I can swear I hear the riff from "Rain" peeking out from behind the Marshall stacks.

"Skye Boat" floats across the fields of the Nephalim in search of the lost power chord, which they put to good use on "As It Is So Be It" and "Lethe," which might actually be radio friendly enough to be a hit!!

I used the phrase "gothic death metal" to describe their debut and the term is still applicable here. If you pull out your records by Bauhaus, Joy Division, Love & Rockets, Test Dept. or any of the aforementioned acts and play them back to back with your favorite Nordic deathmetal compilation, you'll have established the perfect sonic ambience for this firebreathing, flesheating, phonic feast and the fact that Skye Klad was able to condense a dozen records into just one is a testament to their ability to feeze dry the excitement and vicarious thrills of the dark underbelly of  rock's demon seed while avoiding the pratfalls and bottomless pits of this oft-maligned and seldom appreciated sub-sub-sub-cellar of the netherlands of rock and roll.

Salamander - Live at Soo Gallery (Mutant Music)

Two sidelong instrumental jams make up this limited edition (300) recording of a rare live Salamander performance from May 20 of this year. The first, "A Thirsty End" begins like a Grateful Dead tuning session - the band doesn't seem quite sure what song to play, but soon Dave Onnen's throbbing bass picks out a groove and the twin drumming of Bryce Kastning and Matt Zaun fill in the gaps, allowing guitarists Sean Connaughty and (moonlighting from Skye Klad) Erik Wivinus (doesn't he ever sleep?) to weave their magic with a vibe that is closer to the heavy grooves on their Camera Obscura "Red" albums ("Mantra" and "Ampersand") than the more recent 2xLP Birds of Appetite. The tension eases somewhat towards the end when this listener had the sense that the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders.

The 15-minute "Trench of Fire" on the flip finds us in a wind tunnel with Erik's vibrating baritone guitar bouncing notes off the wall with the resulting distorted feedback crescending like tentacles of flame reaching out of the titular pit. Then it's Sean's  turn to run swirling loop-de-loops up and down the guitar neck and all around the resulting maelstrom.

About halfway through, over a throbbing Sabbath-on Quaaludes stomp, Wivinus and Connaughty's guitars become flamethrowers spewing sparks at each other, into the audience, through your speakers, and into your face. I'm sure there are easier ways to get a tan, but they ain't half as fun. If long, psychedelic, improvisational guitar duels are your thing, Live at Soo Gallery should be also.

SubArachnoid Space/Bardo Pond - Tigris ~ Euphrates (Camera Obscura)
www.cameraobscura.com.au

And speaking of sidelong instrumental slaps of sonic psychedelia, the latest from this Australian imprint, an admitted favorite in this house, is a split LP from two of the most popular and prolific practitioners of the fine art of musical brainwashing. SubArachnoid's two part, "Tigris" (there's a distinct edit/pause between their two segments) meanders like its namesake around your skull, pausing every now and then for a reality check before surging forward, relentlessly and effortlessly swallowing all in its path.

Like any 20-minute improvisational jam, there will be pauses along the way for the players to feed off of each other, pick up a vibe...a melody...or a chord sequence that they can merge together and build into the rudimentary basis for a traditional song structure. Gradually, one player may lose interest in that chord sequence or melody and slowly morph the song in a different direction, hopefully dragging the rest of the band along.

In the end, "Tigris" is a series of magic moments created live in the studio, captured on tape, transferred to vinyl and preserved for your eternal enjoyment. The very nature of improvs dictates that you will probably never hear this again, even if you happen to catch their live show. With their constantly evolving search for new directions, I'm pretty sure the band will never play it again either, so I recommend it as an example of how the music medium, similar to photography can freeze a moment in time for us to return to as often as our whims desire.

The Bardos, on the other hand, have been stuck in quicksand (both sonically and creatively) for so long now that each new release is as predictable as those Motorhead, Ramones, and Donnas disks we spoke of earlier. Where I expect more from the Pond is that their records tend to be created out of jam sessions, and the very nature of improvisational jamming is that no two releases will sound alike. Leave it to the Bardos to toss that theory out the window. But to the track at hand: the bravado vibrato of the Gibbons Brothers' twin sledgehammer attack ups the distorto ante from previous recordings somewhat and threatens to bounce the stylus right off this 180g slab of Czechoslovakian plastic. Unfortunately, after about 5 minutes, the rest of the band heads outside for a smoke, leaving Gibbons #1 son to deliver a sustained high-pitched note that had dogs in my neighborhood yelping for mercy at my doorstep. I'll try to be objective in describing the next 15 minutes or so. I've been chastised on several discussion lists lately for allegedly unfairly slagging the band on two fronts: lack of development (i.e.,  all the songs tend to sound the same) and Isobel's uninteligible vocal effects. At least we don't have to address the latter (Izzy seems absent from the recording session), so let's just say that the remainder of the record can (kindly) be described as one of those Grateful Dead jams which I think Deadheads commonly refer to as "Space," and the uninitiated usually describe as "The Bathroom Break" portion of the show.

Bassist Clint Takeda plucks a few heavily reverbed strings until, ten minutes later, another guitarist drops by to tune his guitar for a few minutes and then the song mercifully ends. It took all the patience I could muster to keep myself from bailing several times to extricate myself from the muddy "Euphrates."

Now I know this was hastily assembled to take advantage of the bands' Terrastock performances in Boston last month, and they have also been sold on the individual tours, so the band may not have had a lot of time to enter a studio and prepare something "polished," but I would have hoped they'd put a little thought into their contribution and not just handed over floorscrapings from the editing room. Believe me, as annoyed as I was at this freeform tuning session, my description is pretty spot on, so I'm not just pissing in the wind here. Pick it up and decide for yourself.

The Iditarod/Charalambides/Stone Breath/Bardo Pond/The Sonic Youth - 5x7 - The T5 Singles Box (Time Lag)
www.time-lagrecords.com

Portland, Maine's Time Lag Records assembled this limited edition (500) box set of five 7" singles, which was originally sold at the Terrastock V music festival in Boston last month. The Iditarod's track, "Feel the Breath of the Woods Upon Your Heart" covers both sides of their single, with Camera Obscura recording artist Sharron Kraus contributing clarinet to the b-side ("Part 2,") joining the main duo of Karin Wagner on vocals, singing bowls and shruti box, and Jeffrey Alexander on stringed instruments and electronics. The Iditarod, like Charalambides - who we'll get to in  a moment- don't so much write songs as create mood pieces, and "Feel the Breath...," particularly "Part 2," is a lengthy, sustained drone with the aforementioned instruments, culminating in Alexander's gently strummed acoustics. Ambient...melancholic...memorable. The only down side is having to kill the buzz to get up and flip the thing over.

Charalambides (Tom and Christina Carter, joined by frequent collaborator Heather Murray on organ) offer the set's only traditional 45 rpm single (the others spin at 33 - anyone know what happened to that extra "1/3"?) "Spring Leaves Fall" and "Sun or Wind." The former is a heavily treated guitar instrumental and on the latter it's hard to tell where the gals' ariatic voices end and the electric guitars begin. Christina and Heather have been using their voices as additional instruments of late (rather than a vehicle to tell a story via lyrics) and this approach is used to great effect on "Sun or Wind," which is not so much a "song" as a vocal exercise, and can be received as either hauntingly poetic or annoyingly shrill.

Stone Breath is not so much a group this time out as a vehicle for "Timothy the Revelator" Renner to offer three solo pieces, with b-side assistance from Stone Breath's Serada. "Ephrata (Water Pass Above Me)" features Renner's monotonic, whispered vocals, over the sitar-like backing of ectara or gopichand, while his duet on "The Passing of The River Waltz" rides along a banjo-like dulcimer bedding like fallen leaves floating downstream. "Bitter Was the Night" is a disappointment, as the duo sound either drunk, stoned, and/or half-asleep in a half-hearted attempt at a traditional "round." I'd say they had one "round" too many.

Bardo Pond have apparently reached that plateau reserved for all artists who've "made it," where they no longer feel the necessity to identify themselves. This conveniently makes it difficult to punish the guilty. What we do know is that "Button" and "Water Sinks Into Fire" were recorded this past July at their recording studio, The Lemur House in Philadelphia. The A-side is one of their quietest recordings, and I quite enjoyed the acoustically driven instrumental with electronic acoutrements, sort of like Ghost covering "Gompers" from "Satanic Majesties...." It's nice to hear them abandon their typical sl(u)dge-hammer approach and hopefully this is something they will explore further on future recordings. The flip features Isobel's typical hum/moaning over the Gibbons' brothers avant-skronk guitarrorism as heard on their last few releases. Noise for noise sake, I say, but some folks like this stuff.

And speaking of noise for noise sake, last and certainly least we have The Sonic Youth (where did that article come from?), who interrupted their recording sessions for the soundtrack to the apprently forthcoming film, The Demon Lover (maybe they'll use the Green Pajamas' track for the theme?) to give us "Sweet Emotion" and "Lord of Your Thighs," which have absolutely nothing to do with the songs which originally bore those titles. Of course, the Welsh band, The Pooh Sticks, wore out that joke ten years ago, so the blink-and-you-missed-it guitar scrapings of the former and the somewhat more tolerable ambient cinematics of the latter may indicate that these long in the tooth aging hipsters may have another career in the movies, but I'll withhold judgement until hearing the full soundtrack.

So what we have here is a dilemma: is a hastily assembled, limited edition, special package of material designed to piggyback on a major festival by giving the kids an exclusive souvenir worth the time and money if the results indicate that time (and not quality) was of the essence? I think we, the record-buying public, are somewhat to blame for this situation. In recent years, the concept of the "completist," someone who has to have everything a band releases, has been taken advantage of by marketers who think that all they have to do is put something out there and someone will buy it.

Of course, there are labels who are run by collectors themselves, and their best intentions sometimes are compromised by the product offered to them. I'm giving both Camera Obscura and Time Lag the benefit of the doubt based on their remarkable track record of previous releases and laying blame at the artists' feet this time. For they, too, will tempt even their most earnest fan's integrity and toss something off merely for the sake of having something exclusive available at the merchandise tables. The artist also knows damn well that they're trading on their past reputation to tease their fans into buying something unheard, merely on the concept that this is a rarity that'll be worth top dollar someday. Judging by the alarming rate that these box sets flew off the table, it appears that the artists have won this time. But have they? I'd be curious to know how many purchasers will actually retain this set after they've heard it. I'd wager that, for most, it is mere ebay fodder. And how many fans will think twice next time one of these packages comes along? So if you see these $30 sets popping up soon with $49.99 opening bids and bold advertisements attesting to their rarity, be forewarned. Just because you're a completist, doesn't mean you have to be a complete fool as well.

Low - Trust (Kranky)

Kick out the jams, muthafucka, the otha shoe has finally dropped! On their 13th release (including EPs and splits), the Duluth, Minnesota trio finally turn their amps up past three and work up a goshdarn sweat on the rocking, stomping "Canada," which sounds like it may be a (bassist) Zak Sally vocal. Mimi Parker's heartbeat drumming propels "Candy Girl" forward like a goose-stepping march through a Joy Division funeral procession (think "The Eternal" and Decades" from Closer.)

"Time is A Diamond" makes good use of three-part harmonies, which adds another underexplored dimension to the band with most songs having previously emanated from Parker or her guitarist husband, Alan Sparhawk. In fact, the harmonic arrangements on "The Lamb" would do even CSNY proud. The comparison is not that far offbase, because as I got deeper into Trust, I was enveloped within a warm and mellow feeling akin to listening to Young's Tonight's The Night or Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name. The songs, however, aren't in the same league. "The Lamb" f'rinstance, is little more than an exercize in synchronized footstomping…in getting half a dozen friends and the junior Sparhawk, Justin to mimic Parker's lone-drum pounding.

"In the Drugs" is traditional Low, with a slow, headswaying melody and the Sparhawks' harmonizing reminiscent of their cover of the Bee Gee's "I Started A Joke" from an old Jawbox compilation, and "Last Snowstorm of the Year" is a short, poppy track that once again approaches ear-bleeding levels (which for Low, is about a five on the VUs).

The album's most frustrating and, what appears to be, longest track (I have the 2xLP version which omits songlengths), "John Prine" is both the first and last song I played before sitting down to write this review and I still can't tell you why it's so named. Sparhawk's down-the-hall, echoy vocals obscure the lyrics, so no help is at hand on that front. There probably is no reason other than the band is huge Prine fans and wanted to name a song after him. But the Deconstructionist in me wants more. It's as if they wrote a song called "If Jagger Joined The Beatles" and you slapped it on and it turned out to be an instrumental! The length is also not justified, as the track eventually deteriorates into a call and response series of "sha-la-la's."

Anything after last year's Things We Lost in the Fire (arguably their finest release) was bound to disappoint, but Trust holds its own with angelic harmonies, a few downright rockers, and the occasional, traditional sounding cup-of-coffee-and-a-sandwich-inbetween-notes sonic iceburgs. To place it in a historical context, I liken it to Fleetwood Mac's Tusk. The world wants (but doesn't get) another Rumours, so the LP is unfairly crucified, its value sullied for years, only to be resurrected and properly appreciated after the anti-'70s haze lifts. You will be disappointed if you expect a retread of "Things We Lost…," but an honest, objective analysis will reveal hidden charms that may take some listeners decades to accept or even acknowledge.

[ Home ] [ Flashes From The Archives Of Oblivion ]