IT'S BEEN NEARLY 18 years since Bela Fleck and the Flecktones' founding lineup has toured together, so you might think there would be some profound reason for their reunion.
In reality, the logic couldn't be more mundane.
With saxophonist Jeff Coffin busy touring with Dave Matthews Band, the rest of the group — banjo virtuoso Fleck, bassist Victor Wooten and percussion wizard Futureman — realized they weren't ready to get off the road. Rather than tour as a trio (the lineup for 1993's "Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"), Fleck asked founding Flecktone Howard Levy, who left the group after 1992's "UFO Tofu," to make his long overdue return.
"There was a fun potential to get into some different music," Fleck said via e-mail, of Coffin's absence. "Howard was the first person we wanted to explore playing with."
The original Flecktones reunion commenced with two weeks in Europe, and the band makes its U.S. return at Strathmore on Nov. 18 — one of only five dates stateside before Coffin rejoins the group in December for its semi-annual holiday tour.
Levy, a jazz-harmonica master who's also proficient at piano, synthesizers and various percussive instruments, originally left the group after three albums because he found the band structure — even one as adventurous and experimental as the Flecktones — limiting.
Continue Reading "Liner Notes: The Reunion of 'Bela Fleck and the Flecktones'" »
CHRISTOPHER OWENS IS PERHAPS the least likely pop star of 2009.
He arrives with an oft-repeated and truly harrowing back story in which he is born and raised in a cult and risks his life to escape. More crucial, however, is the enthusiasm with which he threw himself into songwriting, a trade he picked up following a bad break-up in a city that seemed to turn on him.
The fruits of Owens' first burst of inspiration resulted in the formation of the band Girls with friend and producer Chet "JR" White and their debut album, simply titled "Album." Released in September, it has been widely and intensely praised for combining a range of influences — Elvises Presley and Costello, Buddy Holly, early not late Beach Boys, Spiritualized, My Bloody Valentine — into a cohesive work that sounds somehow original and completely unique. Owens took Express on a roundabout tour through "Album," filling the details about the songs — real-life subjects and his own infatuation with songwriting.
"Lust for Life"
» EXPRESS: Is the title a reference to the Iggy Pop song?
» OWENS: It's not, actually. The only reference is that after I'd written the song, I was thinking about what the song is about. I don't know how those words stuck in my head, but it just seemed like the perfect title, and I didn't really care that it was someone else's song. It's like this is my version of "Lust for Life."
GOV'T MULE'S FIRST album in three years, "By A Thread," embraces both the old and the new. It's the Southern-leaning, hard-rocking jam band's first album with bassist Jorgen Carlsson, yet in some ways it's the closest Mule's came to its original trio sound since founding bassist Allen Woody died in 2000.
"I think when Jorgen Carlsson, our new bass player, joined the band [in 2008], it kind of was an indicator for us to revisit our first few records, which was a trio before we added keyboards, [Danny Louis in 2004]," said guitarist-singer-leader Warren Haynes. "So, I think in some ways, we looked backward and forward at the same time. We never want to do what we've already done. We want every record to be different then the one before it."
As a result, Gov't Mule's eighth studio record feels a little bit new, a little bit borrowed, but still grounded in blues, Southern and classic rock riffs, psychedelic explosions, Haynes' soulful vocals and epic jams. The influences are all there: Led Zeppelin ("Monday Mourning Meltdown"), Pink Floyd ("Gordon James"), ZZ Top ("Broke Down on the Brazos") and Jimi Hendrix ("Any Open Window"). So is the familiar riffage in "Steppin' Lightly" and "Railroad Boy." Then there's something like "Frozen Fear," which is an amalgamation of Gov't Mule's pop sensibility ("Soulshine," "Beautifully Broken") and its love of reggae ("Unring the Bell," 2007's reggae album, "Mighty High").
"All these influences that make up the new record have been with us the entire time," Haynes said. "It's hard to bring all your influences to the surface. Eventually as many of them rise up as can, but I don't know, it just felt like this record came about really quickly and most of the songs that I had written prior to rehearsal were songs that were written in a short period of time, but then when we got to the actual rehearsal and recording process, we wrote three or four songs on the spot, and it's hard to determine where they come from because they were so spontaneous."
Perhaps most interesting are two songs held back from Gov't Mule's last album, "High and Mighty." One, "Scenes From a Troubled Mind," features former bassist Andy Hess, while the other, "World Wake Up," was written when President George W. Bush was in office, but takes on new meaning now. "Forever More" was a Haynes solo song, previously available acoustically on his "Live at Bonnaroo" album. And "Railroad Boy" is an old Celtic song.
Still, this may be the heaviest, and most aggressive the Gov't Mule's sounded in years — at least since Woody was in the band. Express asked the perpetually-on-tour Haynes — he's also a member of the Allman Brothers Band and The Dead — to guide us through "By a Thread."
GRIEF CAN BE a great inspiration for indie rock. The Arcade Fire wrote its full-length debut, "Funeral," after the deaths of grandparents, and Bon Iver decamped to the wilds of Wisconsin to eulogize a broken-up band and nurse a broken heart on "For Emma, Forever Ago."
With their second studio album, Californians Port O'Brien have made their own album about loss and shaky recovery. "Threadbare" arrives after the death of founding member Cambria Goodwin's teenage brother, and fittingly, she is a stronger presence here than on past records, her ghostly vocals providing a foil to Van Pierszalowski's earthy howl.
"Threadbare" moves past intense ache into something like wounded acceptance. It's a compelling report from the frayed fringes of extreme emotions, delivered by a band that knows about fringes.
Pierszalowski and Goodwin spent summers working in rural Alaska, where she was a baker in a cannery and he spent weeks at sea on his father's fishing boat. These experiences informed their early songs about soulful isolation and youthful self-definition, but as Port O'Brien gained popularity and toured more heavily, the pair had to abandon their jobs to concentrate on music. Of course, that decision inspired a song.
Express asked Pierszalowski to walk us through "Threadbare" song by song to explain their origins and how they tell a larger story. Click here to stream the entire album as you read along.
Continue Reading "Liner Notes: Port O'Brien, 'Threadbare'" »
DANIEL JOHNSTON HAS the kind of back-story you'd think was made up: Quirky singer-songwriter builds cult following with lo-fi recordings and is hailed as a genius, but his debilitating struggle with mental illness — and some illicit drug use — lands him in a mental institution. While institutionalized, Kurt Cobain starts wearing a T-shirt with a Johnston drawing on it, his stock grows and a major-label bidding war erupts.
After his release, Johnston spirals in and out of control. At one point, he's throwing the keys out of the airplane his father was piloting, forcing them to make a crash landing.
"In terms of creating a legend, he's done everything right," former girlfriend and Glass Eye member Kathy McCarty says in "The Devil and Daniel Johnston," the 2005 documentary about the singer.
Continue Reading "Liner Notes: Daniel Johnston, 'Is And Always Was'" »
THE RAVEONETTES HAVE never tried to hide their influences. From the band's first EP, "Whip It On," to last year's "Lust Lust Lust," the Danish duo's sound has always centered on two-part harmonies, Jesus and Mary Chain noise rock and a heavy dose of '60s pop.
The group's name, after all, is just an amalgamation of Buddy Holly's "Rave On" and The Ronettes.
"There's no reason for it," Sune Rose Wagner said of masking influences. "That's the music we grew up with. That's the music we loved. That's the first music I was exposed to. That's the reason I make music."
And like some of the Phil Spector-produced Wall of Sound work, most Raveonettes songs have a dark meaning behind their poppy, layered, upbeat sound.
While "Lust Lust Lust," took things to a bit more droning, fuzzed-out place, the duo's fourth album, "In and Out of Control" (Vice Records), due out Oct. 6, is pure pop. It also finds Wagner and Sharin Foo singing some of the happiest-sounding songs about rape, addiction, drugs and suicide you've probably ever heard.
Continue Reading "Liner Notes: The Raveonettes, 'In and Out of Control'" »
WHEN YOU'RE TOURING the country in a van, you often have to make some odd stops for interviews. But it's not often you find yourself in the parking lot of a Taco Bell, talking to one of your idols.
Kip Berman, the guitarist and singer for indie-poppers The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, found himself in such a situation recently while doing a phone interview with Mike Joyce, the former drummer of The Smiths, for Joyce's radio show, "Alternative Therapy."
"It was so surreal," Berman said. "I just tried to talk to him about Taco Bell."
But Berman wasn't necessarily geeking out because of The Smiths — he actually has a conversation planned if he meets Joyce when Pains plays Manchester, England in December.
"I'll ask him about Suede," Berman said of the Britpop band Joyce once recorded a few songs with. "'Tell me about the time you did the early Suede demos.' I'll probably be the only person to corner him and not ask about Morrissey and The Smiths."
Continue Reading "Liner Notes: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, 'Higher Than the Stars'" »
STRIKE ANYWHERE'S DEBUT album, 2001's "Change Is a Sound" (Jade Tree), unequivacally lays out the band's goals in its liner notes: "Strike Anywhere supports the vegetarian lifestyle, the living wage movement and the fight against corporate globalization. ... The Antifascist circle is an international symbol for resistance, equality, and the solidarity of all peoples against oppression. We offer these songs toward those goals."
Jump to 2009 and the band is on a new label (Bridge Nine) and it has a new record ("Iron Front"), but the goal is exactly the same as it was when Strike Anywhere formed in 1999 in Richmond, Va.: power to the people, down with corporate oppression, don't trust the government (even a Democratic one).
It may sound idealistic, even simplistic, but spend a few minutes speaking with charismatic singer-lyricist Thomas Barnett, 36, and you'll find yourself understanding where he's coming from, even if you don't agree with everything he's saying. Then throw on the melodic, anthemic harcore blast that is "Iron Front" and you'll be so fired up that you'll want to juice up the electric car to drive to the nearest protest.
In many ways, Strike Anywhere's erudition takes punk rock back from the kids who think it's just for moshing and gives it back to people who want to be challenged.
"It's not children's music; a lot of people mistake it as just being an adolescent, aggressive, one-note event," Barnett said. "For us, it's never been."
That dedication to punk is apparent in Strike Anywhere's steadfast ethos, coupled with the fact that "Iron Front" is the quintet's most rousing record yet. There's still speed and power in the music, but Barnett's singing is stronger than ever, giving these hardcore crushers epic melodies and hooks that can feel like harder, faster Big Country songs while still calling on more overt influences from New Model Army, Discharge and Minor Threat.
"It's just part of the evolution of the band that there would start to be more realization of anthemic choruses," Barnett said. "That's the thing about being in a band for 10 years: You want to do something that moves you and doesn't just feel like a mash-up of previous records and previous songs. At the same time, we're true to our culture: We're not going to get bored with punk and do something else. ... We continually need this expression to be as cathartic and truthful."
Express asked Barnett for a track-by-track tour of the entire "Iron Front" LP and its same-named pre-album EP. Below you can listen to every song that Barnett discusses, but he wanted readers to keep this in mind when ingesting the meanings behind the tunes:
"Some of the songs have multiple meanings, and I don't want to dial it in for everybody. Making a record a part of your life is to apply what you think it means or what you need it to mean."
(For more Liner Notes features on Bridge Nine groups, click on the band names at right: Polar Bear Club and Ruiner.)
Continue Reading "Liner Notes: Strike Anywhere, 'Iron Front' LP + EP" »
IT MIGHT SEEM strange for a musical group that's only been together for four years — and together seriously for something closer to two years — to write much of its second album about what it's like to be in a band.
But when a group's rise has been as meteoric as Polar Bear Club's, suddenly everything becomes focused on the band that was originally meant to be a side project and your life goes all topsy-turvy.
"It's just the way our lives have changed from album to album," said vocalist Jimmy Stadt about Polar Bear Club's new "Chasing Hamburg (Bridge Nine). " "With [2008's] 'Things Just Disappear,' we really weren't a touring band. Then for the past year and a half, all we've been doing is touring. It's been a drastic, drastic change."
Much of "Chasing Hamburg" addresses what it's like to miss your loved ones, moving from place to place, the frustration found on message boards — and, ultimately, why all of the travel, heartache and criticism is well worth suffering through in order to play music.
Polar Bear Club's roots are in the punk scenes of Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y., but its sound is more mature than mere hardcore grunting. Hot Water Music, Small Brown Bike and The Get Up Kids are referenced frequently when Polar Bear Club is discussed, but the group has more a more angular sense of melody and rhythm than those bands, although they share the same grand emotive power.
But since PBC is anything but pure punk, Stadt said the group's fans tend to skew a bit older.
"Most times we'll play a festival, like an all-day or something, and at mid-day it's usually really young punk kids, and they may or may not like us," he said. "But the guy who's working sound who is 40 or 45? He always likes us."
So, while the the non-hardcore Polar Bear Club has linked up with mega-hardcore label Bridge Nine for "Chasing Hamburg," Stadt said they each offer the other something important:
"I think Bridge Nine is looking to branch out a little bit. When we met with them before we signed, they were the last label we had on our plate to meet with. And we all went into the meeting not expecting to sign; we really only went to get a free dinner," he said. "We all left and we're like, 'Wow.' They were the most straightforward to us ... and unanimously in the band we decided to go with them. But as much they have given us, they expected us to give them something, too, and I'm all for that."
Express asked Stadt to give us a track-by-track tour of "Chasing Hamburg." Click here to open a new window and stream the tracks.
(For more Liner Notes features on Bridge Nine groups, click on the band names at right: Strike Anywhere and Ruiner.)
Continue Reading "Liner Notes: Polar Bear Club, 'Chasing Hamburg'" »
IT TOOK NEARLY twice as long to talk to leader screamer Rob Sullivan about Ruiner's new CD, "Hell Is Empty" (Bridge Nine), as it does to listen to it.
The 10-track album is a 25-minute kick in the head, fueled by Sullivan's angst-ridden tales of self-doubt, love troubles and social criticism. The Baltimore-based band's songs are uniformly crunchy and to the point, coming across like a classic mid-'80s Dischord hardcore record with a bit more melodic swing.
On the album and in discussion, Sullivan comes across as conflicted about his place in the hardcore scene, and he seems tired of the gossip and fragile relationships in the punk world, which has sometimes painted Ruiner as a bunch of difficult dudes.
"For a long time we were touring so constantly that we weren't always the nicest people to be around," Sullivan said of Ruiner, which formed in 2004. "Sometimes you catch a person on the wrong day, and they're not polite. ... I don't think I've portrayed an image in any song that I've ever written that I would be the most polite dude to talk to. I don't portray that image; I don't particularly like that image. I am who I am."
Yet there's also a dark streak of humor coursing through Ruiner, from naming its 2008 compilation "I Heard These Dudes Are Assholes," to the opening lines of the song "Two Words" from "Hell Is Empty": "Hello, you fuckers, you assholes, you social rejects / I hope you get my sarcasm as I generalize our subculture."
Express asked Sullivan for a track-by-track tour of "Hell Is Empty." Click here to open a new window and stream the entire album.
For more Liner Notes features on Bridge Nine groups, click on the band names at right: Polar Bear Club and Strike Anywhere.)
Addison Road