It should be clear from the name of this blog that Joe Strummer is important here. A man born with fire inside, he influenced a range of people from musicians to activists. He would have been 58 years old today.
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Photo credit: Bob Gruen
Shows worth checking out this week in and around Cleveland:
The Beachland Ballroom & Tavern
Let’s close the week with something pretty from Infantree, shall we? Warning: May induce the urge to run barefoot through open fields.
I find myself drawn to the music of Ohio artists. It could be some innate loyalty to or a sharing of basic ideas with my fellow Ohioans. Or it could be that Ohio turns out more excellent music per capita than the rest of the world. I may be biased, but I’m going with option B.
Die, Sloopy, Die is a tribute to great Ohio bands of the past and present. The name is an anti-tribute to our official state rock song “Hang On, Sloopy” by the McCoys because, while it is awesome that we were the first state to declare an official state rock song (and, so far, we are one of only two states to do so, Oklahoma having declared the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??” their official state song), we chose one of the lamest songs it was possible for us to choose.
“Ladies, let me tell you about myself…”
The facts: The Afghan Whigs formed in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1986 with Greg Dulli on vocals/guitar, Rick McCollum on guitar, John Curley on bass and Steve Earle (no, not that Steve Earle) on drums. They were the first band not from the American northwest signed to Sub Pop Records. They released six studio albums, beginning with Big Top Halloween in 1988 and ending with 1965 in 1998.
The first time I heard the Afghan Whigs, they scared me. I was about twenty years old, and while I was not prim and proper, I had a frigging lot to learn. The tones of anger, which projected both outward and inward, that colored Greg Dulli’s vocals in the songs on their seminal album Gentlemen translated to menace in my ears.
It took me a couple of years to come around, and I don’t remember how it happened, but it seems like I went from being horrified by them one day to wanting to be all up in Greg Dulli’s business the next day. My then-husband and I set about collecting every album, EP, single, video, magazine article and any other items emblazoned with “The Afghan Whigs” that we could get our hands on (I retained possession of the collection when the husband and I split up, possibly because he feared grievous bodily harm if he tried to come between me and my treasures). They became, and remain, my favorite band.
“I’ve got a dick for a brain…”
If I had to use only one word to describe the Afghan Whigs cannon, it would be “swagger”. The story set forth when listening to their albums in chronological order is one of a group of angry, young punks who got into their mamas’ Stax and Motown collections one day, put on suave suits and never looked back. The anger remained, but now it was topped by a layer of strutting, smooth-talking cockiness.
Gentlemen is considered by many to be the Afghan Whigs’ masterpiece, concisely marrying their early punk energy to the soul spirit that would become their trademark. While their earlier albums showed promise, they were scattered, directionless. Gentlemen was a clear vision, sharp, slickly jagged, cleanly dirty.
Their next effort – and one of my all-time favorite albums – Black Love, pushed the music further into soul territory while still retaining a metallic edge. A Curtis Mayfield influence weaves itself throughout, wrapping around images of sex, violence and religion. The whole album is a challenge: Step up or be stomped.
Then everything fell apart in the glorious mess that was 1965. It is an unrepentant party album, though it still carries Dulli’s characteristic Catholic guilt and flashes of brilliance within its decadent atmosphere.
“And my brain is gonna sell my ass to you.”
The Afghan Whigs became known for their way with a cover song, often taking songs that seemed innocuous, cutting them open and turning them inside out to expose their viscera. Songs like the Supremes’ “My World Is Empty Without You” and Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold” became suicide notes of abandonment in their hands. Al Green’s “Beware” turned from a plea to a threat. And if you never thought you’d want to get naked to a song from The Wizard of Oz, just listen as the quartet turns “If I Only Had a Heart” into a slinky, steamy torch song.
The Afghan Whigs-If I Only Had A Heart
In 2001, the Afghan Whigs went their separate ways (with a two-song reunion in 2006 for their Rhino Records retrospective Unbreakable), McCollum, Curley and their Spinal Tap-esque succession of drummers moving on to other projects, but none as successfully as Dulli. He has released four albums under the aegis of the Twilight Singers, with a fifth album on the way as of this writing. Additionally, he put out a solo album in 2005, an album with Mark Lanegan as the Gutter Twins in 2008 and in 2005, played in a live-only covers band called Uptown Lights – along with numerous other production jobs and guest spots.
Greg Dulli will be embarking on his first solo tour this October and on through November, playing stripped-down versions of his songs – including Afghan Whigs and Twilight Singers titles. He’ll hit the Grog Shop in Cleveland on October 16.
Summer’s Kiss: A Greg Dulli, Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers & Gutter Twins Compendium
The Twilight Singers Official Website
The Gutter Twins Official Website
Moon Maan Official Website (Rick McCollum)
Staggering Statistics Official Webstie (John Curley)
Ultrasuede Studio (John Curley)
http://assets.delvenetworks.com/player/loader.swf
As I write this, I am self-medicating to counteract a funk. I had the blues pretty badly, but the antidote is cleaning that mess up very well. The cause of the melancholy? Music. The cure? Music.
Having gotten one of her songs stuck in my head, I decided to listen to Jessica Lea Mayfield’s Blasphemy So Heartfelt on the drive to my day job this morning. It was not the best movie I’ve ever made. While it’s a beautiful album – good from start to finish – it can break my heart in seconds. As I began to sink low, I thought, “No problem. I’ll just pop in the Black Keys’ Brothers when I get to the office and be revived.” (No, I do not actually talk like that in my head.)
My surefire cure was delayed until lunchtime thanks to my Monday morning forgetfulness that caused my headphones to be left on the kitchen table, but that gave me time to ponder, not for the first time, the powerful connection between music and emotion. I have always been what I term “music sensitive”. I can be going along happy as anything only to be stopped dead in my tracks by a song with the right – or, arguably, wrong – tone. Once while on a date, my companion left the table to use the restroom only to return minutes later to find me on the verge of despondency. What had happened? I pointed upward to indicate the restaurant’s P.A. system which was piping out one of Gloria Estefan’s easy-listening love songs. While I could make a joke that just hearing Gloria Estefan had made me sad, it was the minor key chords, the plaintive vocals, and maybe even the tepid lyrics about love lost, that affected me.
I’ve often wondered how many others are thus affected. Author Nick Hornby would clearly be a fellow music-sensitive, judged by a single quote from High Fidelity alone: Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music? Even emotions themselves garner music-derived nicknames. When we are sad, we are in a funk or have the blues. When we are excited about something, we’re jazzed. And it’s obvious from just even a cursory survey of the history of music that the emotional nature of song is a foremost component in the creation and continuation of music.
But are other people as instantaneously and acutely affected as I am? Does Skip James’ “Devil Got My Woman” leave anyone else with an empty heart (but an oddly satisfied soul) every time she listens to it? Is Brothers like a double dose of Vivarin for other drivers on long roadtrips? Is there another person in the world who cries every time he hears Kathy Mattea’s “Where’ve You Been”? (There, now you know my secret shame.) Have you ever had the whole tenor of your day altered by a handful of words and notes?
Or am I just a freak?
Note: Beach Fossils and Warpaint played under very low lights, and flash photography is of the devil, so no live shots to go with this review.
Beach Fossils
Joined by TJ from Cleveland’s Cloud Nothings, who filled in on guitar due to the Fossils’ guitarist quitting a week into the tour, the Beach Fossils dove into the night with big energy that did not dissipate throughout their set. With their chiming guitars, dance-groove bass and big-beat drums (the drummer stood as he played his minimal snare and tom set-up), they give off an ’80s vibe, putting me in mind of the club scenes from Pretty in Pink. That is a good thing, in case you’re unsure. The songs began to sound a little same-y after a while, but the band was fully committed to every song.
Warpaint
When I decided to hit this show, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about Warpaint live. Their recordings are laid-back, and I honestly feared their live show might put me to sleep. I feel okay admitting that because, in retrospect, I know how silly that fear was. As a matter of fact, as soon as I saw drummer Stella Mozgawa take off her shoes and socks, I had a feeling I was in for something good.
Not just good. Great.
While I can certainly enjoy shows from bands whose music I have only a passing familiarity with, it is rare that I can get into those shows like I got into Warpaint, eyes closed, vibing to the heavy grooves. The ambient guitarwork and sweet (but not twee) vocals of Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman are backed by the strong rhythm section of Mozgawa and Jenny Lee Lindberg on bass (slightly nerdy gear aside: found it cool that Lindberg plays a Rickenbacker bass). The sounds coming out of the bass and guitars verged on the spooky, almost – dare I say it – gothic at times. And Mozgawa sounded like she’d be perfectly at home in a black metal band a time or two.
A very impressive set that left the audience enthusiastic and asking for more.
(I would love to see Warpaint play some gigs with Cleveland’s mr. Gnome.)
Javelin
While they were very energetic and had a lot of people dancing (actual dancing – not the usual concert-style, shimmy-in-one-spot dancing), all-electronic music isn’t generally my thing, and I left three songs into Javelin’s set. But my preferences probably don’t do Javelin justice, so check out the Zender Agenda’s review of their set.
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I could make supposedly witty remarks about how Infantree is an appropriate name because these guys are twelve years old if they’re a day, but that would belie the maturity of their sound and the confidence of their fully-realized songs. While they’re only a few years out of high school, three of this four-man band from southern California have been playing and writing together since elementary school, and the experience shows in their music.
Their sound encompasses influences from jazz to folk to Spanish classical to rock to blues to… they’re eclectic, let’s put it that way. And they have the skill to translate these influences into whole music instead of the mish-mash such eclecticism could otherwise engender.
Apparently, they also have the skill to make my write like some pretentious magazine reviewer, so why don’t you just listen to them instead. Here’s “Euphemism†from their EP Food for Thought.
Their full-length album, Would Work – produced by Niko Bolas (Neil Young, Warren Zevon) – will be out on September 14.
I’m not usually one for comedy music. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not out of some indignation that people are messing with the pure art form of music because I’ve listened to just as much ridiculous crap as the next person. It just doesn’t make me laugh. “Weird Al” Yankovic, however, transcends the banality of comedy music by being an exceptionally adept musician and arranger whose parodies are often better than the originals. He wasn’t always quite as good at hip hop, but he has evolved over the years to the point where he can do hip hop better than hip hop. Yes, I know this is not saying much when it comes to mainstream hip hop, but work with me here. Watch the evolution.
“Amish Paradise” – amusing, but not impressive.
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“It’s All About the Pentiums” – Better. Better than Diddy (again, work with me here).
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“White & Nerdy” – A freaking masterpiece.
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