This is an online music fan zine. Please support music and musicians by going to shows, purchasing CDs, buying a damn T-shirt!
All mp3s are posted here with permission from the artists/labels/PR folks, and for a very brief time. If you have any issues with content on this zine please email me; atartytart@gmail.com I'm addicted to my Iphone, darlins'... I'll get back to you.
If you like what's up here, it'd be nice to know about it, so leave me some comments, eh? You can always post me love notes and CDs and such at: Love Shack, Baby, PO Box 221235 Chicago, IL 60622 (note new addy)
Tart on Twitter
And you can find PuppetShow at enjoy.the.puppet.show@gmail.com
Over here in Chicago I don’t think many of us have heard of Super 400 yet…. Yet. This is about to change, and that is going to be a great thing. Super 400 is a trio from Troy, NY that is completely rock and roll. I mean through and through rock and roll. Hard hitting, bluesy, and grinding that bass beat into the place in the pit of your stomach that makes you just a little queasy if you stand too close to the speakers, their new album, Sweet Fist has been on constant rotation in my car for the past 24 hours. And I’ve had it for-ever. I forgot I had it, and I’ll tell you why because I want to get one thing off my chest before going on about what I really love about this record.
You see, the reason I had forgotten about this album; the reason I had in the back of my mind that maybe it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, was that the hidden gem of the album is track #4. I kinda have this unspoken rule here at Chez Tart to not criticize a band unless they’re really very established and popular and can afford to take it, (hence my recent appointment of Art Brut as current whipping boy band.) But this is a mistake that so many bands unknowingly make that I’m going to use Super 400 as an example, sorry guys! Here’s the thing, you really need to put the killer tracks at #1, #2, and especially #3. Sweet Fist starts out with “Needle Down” and I find that to be a great song to get ya going. Kenny Hohman has a true rock n roll voice, and he puts it to perfect use on this track’s lyrics. He uses just enough whine, drawing out the notes at the end of the phrase just enough to remind you of the master vocalists of the seventies without mimicking them. Like other songs on the album, “Needle Down” changes tempo a few times, but it does so with smooth transitions and a nice build to the end. Track #2 is good, but it doesn’t hold my attention as much as the first and track #3 is a grower. I love “FFMN” (Fear Forget My Name) on the fourth or fifth listen, it’s got an amazingly funky hook to it but it wasn’t my favorite song at first. So there, I had three songs that were great to ok. I totally forgot about track #4 which had blown me out of the water when I first heard it on their website. Damn! Most people will give a band three songs before turning a record off or leaving a bar. It’s wicked-cruel, but ask a blogger or a critic and they’ll pretty much tell you the same thing. I’m sorry we’re so mean, honest I am.
Yesterday I played the whole album through again and realized my mistake. I also dug around and saw that “Flashlight”, track #4 was the single released for Sweet Fist and was also in production for the soon-to-be-released video. It’s a great song featuring bass player, Lori Friday on lead vocals. Hearing it puts the rest of the album in perspective. I could give you ten bands from the past 30 years that I hear reflected in the music of Super 400 and that is certainly not a criticism. They’ve learned from their heroes and carefully woven together something that echos the best sounds of rock’s heritage. “Sand Hill,” and another favorite of mine, “I Thought It Was The End” show the depth and versatility of this seasoned band. Intricate guitar work coupled with the ability to just hunker down and really rock it when necessary makes Super 400 the kind of band that music lovers of different genres will find appealing. Hearing this album now makes me really want to see them live, and darlings that’s the whole point now isn’t it? So, don’t read this review as a back-handed compliment. It’s not at all. Super 400 is a very talented band with a great following already and when they hit the road to give you this album you will really miss out if you don’t come out and support them, they are gonna really impress you, live! Pre-order Sweet Fist here.
Tour Details (more dates added soon)
Aug 6 2009 7:00P Market Block Party Syracuse, New York
Aug 7 2009 9:00P The Electric Company Utica, New York
Aug 21 2009 8:00P Mexicali Blues Cafe Teaneck, New Jersey
Aug 22 2009 8:00P Wheeliefest 11 Rowland, Pennsylvania
Sep 11 2009 9:00P Revolution Hall ALBUM RELEASE PARTY Troy, New York
Oct 9 2009 10:00P Ralph’s Diner Worcester, Massachusetts
The trailer for the Noah and the Whale film/album ‘The First Days Of Spring.’ The track featured is ‘Blue Skies’ and will be the first single from the album. And they are giving you “First Days of Spring” It promises to be a great breakup album, you know what a sucker I am for those! xoxo
Pre-order it here
A few weeks after starting this blog I was joined by a good friend, Puppet Show. In fact, one of the reasons I began blogging was because he went away on vacation and left me with no one to talk to about music! He co-blogged with me for a while in those early days and as he was my sole source of music conversation at that time, I often went to him with my random and embarrassingly stupid questions. I’ve been begging him to come back and do some posts. He’s finally agreed to recount his story of how he spent this year’s summer holidays for you all. It’s a doozy![edit, sorry! got the links all sorted now]
“What I did over my Summer Vacation – A Musical Interlude: Opus I”
We all have summer vacations that as kids we remember into our adulthood, there are a lot of things that can trigger those memories. Some of us are blessed to live in an area where there are many things to do and not far to go, while others have to travel a good amount of distance to get to where we’re going. I have a little of everything going my way; my family owns a cabin on Lake Huron in Michigan. The nice thing about it is that we go every year with basic out of pocket expenses being groceries and gas. Good news is, buying 2 weeks worth of groceries is cheap, bad news is, I no longer live in Michigan and the road trip to the cabin has gone from 3 hours to 15 hours; still, it’s worth every hour behind the wheel.
Now, the interesting thing about the area is TV signals are nonexistent, and with the new DTV mandate the old TV airwaves that you used to get at 10 at night are gone. I actually prefer no TV in a beach cabin as to me it’s useless anyway, you’re on the beach all day. With no TV we MANDITORILY turn on the local radio station (which will be locked in for the duration of the trip): the wondrous WLEW FM Cruise 102.1 out of Bad Axe, Michigan. I so love this station, as it plays the same thing EVERY year. I kid you not, the sampling is awash of who was who and begs of nostalgic toys that you lost as a kid. A sampling of an average day: Ted Nugent’s Fred Bear(well he is the motor city madman), Journey: any album pre-Raised on Radio, Styx: any song off Paradise Theatre, Ugly Kid Joe’s Cats in the Cradle, Eddie Money’s “Shaking,” 38 Special’s “Fear the Reaper,” Carly Simon, Cher, KISS’ “Beth,” Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs,” Duran Duran, Kid Rock, ELO, Cheap Trick, this was a Wednesday sampling of stuff I remembered to jot down,… incredible.
The best thing about the station, (I have no idea if it is in it’s charter), is that it is forced to play these two songs at least once every day; Gordon Lightfoot’s Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road Now I know the good ol’ Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a great song, and I actually look forward to hearing it and in the evening as I watch the ships on the horizon in the shipping channel, I may hum a few bars to myself. As I hummed I would think, as I looked out over the Huron lake… why am I hearing this song about a ship on Lake Superior sung by a Canadian? But, I Digress… My biggest snap back to reality was when I heard Empire of the Sun’s Walking on A Dream I was immediately taken back to a track that Tart directed me to months prior that I played on an almost regular basis… to now be hearing it on the station I listen to during my summer vacation… that rocked.
Let’s return to the cabin now for the humorous side of my musical vacation, excuse the set up, it is long but well worth it. As long as I can remember we have enjoyed (I use that term loosely) rental cabins to the one side of our property. Typically there is rarely an issue, but from time to time I may nicely let a renter know that the dunes they are on, or the beach they are using, is ours and please use the rental property to the side. Mostly you will receive a “sorry” or “no problem”… but there’s always that one group. To make a long story short my sister ran into trouble with a (drunken) group (family) that just seemed to want to cross that line and cause trouble, they are regulars at this rental property, and lucky me I got to meet that group this year. The family appeared to be mid to late 30’s parents with a wannabe stud McMuffin who was whipped and beaten down (nagged) by his aspiring MILF failed-stripper wife (more on that later). Kids ranged from 8 to 12 years of age, and their 300lbs 5’8” Uncle (Insert Fiddle About joke a la Tommy here).
As you can imagine, all sorts use the rentals, units are decent and mixed in too, (about 20 units placed throughout a 2 acre lot leading to a beach) as I said the “family” didn’t take to kindly to the notion of private property vs. public access vs. rental property last year, and for lack of a better term were complete asses. Me being 6’6” and well into the 270lbs area, I can appear intimidating, so I am not sure why, but they didn’t want to seem to cross said barrier to cause havoc this year. They instead decided to nuisance us… so how do you nuisance someone, well it’s quite funny actually. You get your portable “boom” box and get close to the disputed private v. renter property line and play music to annoy the other side, while that plays out gyrate your hips back and forth side to side like an ex-stripper in front of your 8 year old and 12 year old. The hip thrusts during Squeeze Box played off their “Who’s greatest hits” CD was priceless, as Roger Daltrey would bellow “in and out and in and out and in and out” she would thrust her hips back and forth with her hands placed in front of her attached to some air booty, I never laughed so hard in my life, it’s what makes the world go round people… excellent.
So how do you end an epic vacation such as this, well funny you ask, well since we are in the area anyway we will go to the wunderbar town of Frankenmuth Michigan, which is home to such shopping as Bronners, the worlds largest Christmas store; and believe me, in all honesty it is. Mix that with the culinary delight of any Faux German town aspiring to bring in visiting tourists… the chicken dinners. Yes I said that right, family style chicken dinners. To this day when I think of family style chicken I think of Germany, it goes hand in hand. Kidding aside, they make a great family style dinner, and yes we go every year it’s part of the experience. So where is the musical interlude to this? Well picture this, the town is done up with German Bavarian architecture, even the covered bridge that was brought on to the Bavarian Inn’s property was made in Germany and shipped over piece by piece. Enter the restaurant, have a seat, order, and enjoy your dinner, complete with Bavaria accents, art, and waiters and waitresses in Lederhosen and Lederdressen for the girls. Let us not leave out the accordion player that walks around from table to table; I wish I had my camera on me or even a recording device because here is the best part: our accordion player was an older gentleman who played all the German classics but he had a sense of humor. He would play polka classics to the 60’s plus crowd who showed up for the early bird special, but as he approached the table of college kids a few tables from me he broke out into “Proud Mary” ala Creedence Clearwater Revival, (masterfully done too), the best accordion version I ever heard. I tip him well and laughed as I left, absolutely wunderbar.
So as I leave with my musical interlude of what I did over my summer vacation, I would challenge you to look and listen and find joy in the music of past in present in your life. Carry on my wayward son and Happy Trails to you… Puppet Show
A word of warning: do not listen to this album at anything but the highest volume your neighbors will allow.*
I breezed through Parallelo, the latest product of Phil and the Osophers, the first three or four times at a leisurely, medium-volume-level pace. I didn’t particularly love it. It almost annoyed me, and yet a few tracks stuck out that I found quite catchy and even interesting (“Propeller Jet” and “Extra Weight”.) I reported to a friend that it was “unevenly goodish” at first listen. Fuck me, I was wrong! Tonight, as I sat down to figure out this post, I turned it up to try and decipher those murky lyrics. I googled the last album put out by this band and came across Matthew’s post on it, and my very own comment on that post. Love when that happens – when I like something back in April and then completely forget about it by August. God, I’m bright sometimes. The turning up the volume is really what did it. Yes, this record is rough and unbalanced and much more muddy than what’s been put out by this band before.
I still maintain, as I did in April that there is a whole lot of Violent Femmes about this band. That is a very high compliment in my book. But Phil and the Osophers are no tribute band. They take a scratchy, surf sound and along with that genre’s melodic vocals and hook-laden, well-formed songs, completely un-retro them. That is the brilliant part of Parallelo. And that is also the brilliance that was the Violent Femmes and what which continues to delineate them from other Alternative bands of their time, including the Talking Heads of whom you might also hear a small echo here. Whereas the Violent Femmes’ recordings sounded as if they were recorded in clubs and in cheap studios on poor quality equipment and shoddy gear, Phil and the Osophers’ new album seems to have put the cart before the horse and made a good record and then run it through an 8-track player, sat up a recording system in the backseat of a car and given us the output. Does it work this other way around?
Phil and the Osophers hold onto a sound, through eleven tracks, that I’ve heard from other true indie lo-fi bands like Abe Vigoda or the slightly more layered noise of Tapes ‘n Tapes. Phil and the Osophers, however, give us more to chew on. It’s certainly not formulaic. It’s without a doubt, neither an homage nor a tribute to the past, nor to lo-fi in general. Lyrically and musically, this band has artfully crafted an album to showcase their range of talent and the song order is genius. They rev you up on the get-go and land you, oh-so-softly with “Well Being” so that you have a difficult time remembering all those boxy, hollow beats and occasional off-note vocals and you drift right off into that crash and rhythmic strum. Opening with “Uses of A Man” the band fools you into thinking that you’re uncomfortably not going to understand this thing. It’s got the most enigmatic lyrics; even with the sheet provided me I could not exactly decipher it. But I comforted myself with the thought that this trio actually does portray itself as writers and as philosophers; they describe this song as one that “deals with equal rights for all lovers.” That might just intend to confuse us.
USES OF A MAN
Leaked photo shot in the dark
on a resolve to make a change
I’ve fought that feeling for
strange markings of a coming of age
no couple, shifted and awkward
could give love a better name
no blessing lifted from the clouds
could commandeer its aim
we all owe wait forever
what are, what are the uses of a man?
am I useless to try to understand
that we are no uses of a man?
tomorrow whatever today was
will seem sawed off and ashamed
no sight worth keeping but
the evidence of every struggle we made
a receipt wrote for my soul
a receipt to delay
a receipt to do more
than completely revoke
the shame upon your name
shame upon your name
the shame of your certainty
we all owe wait forever
what are, what are the uses of a man?
am I useless to try to understand
that we are no uses of a man?
we trifle, we fail, we tire
we feign desire
not for the sake of our hearts
not for the sake of our hearts
all for the sake of remaining the same
and pasting what’s fallen apart
we all owe wait forever
what are the uses of a man?
am I useless to try to understand
that we are no uses of a man?
Unlike songs by bands mentioned above, you might have noticed how the lyrics on Parallelo often aim for your head, not your groins. Indeed, each track came to me with a sentence of explanation. The track I gave you last week, “Cheap Livin”, is, according to them “a tribute to the rich folks who lost it all.” There’s no looking back for them now. Musically, I’m not sure Phil can either. This record is put together nicely despite what I feel might be attempts to intentionally keep it rough and raw. It does not suffer for its organization and moments of accessibility. “Pineapple” is still as charming and unadorned as “Pretend Psalm” from their 2006 album, French Tickle. “Propeller Jet,” my favorite track, for it’s crazy, jaunty beat that counteracts sad and maybe even tragic lyrics, just makes no sense to me. It leaves me confused yet cheery? I like that about this band even though I begrudge them their want to cloak their words in production which is masked as the effects of being unproduced (!) and then tell me how very important those words are! But, there is much to like about this disconcerting and yet very unmistakably good project. Go buy this album. Let it happily confuse you, xoxo
*Matthew is generally telling you to turn things UP and I rarely follow his advice, but this time he’s very much right.
special thanks to Tell All Your Friends Publicity and Management
Ah, Radiolarians III is about to hit us! I’ve been waiting. Ever since reviewing the second installment of this three part project, the taste of thumping, swisssshing, jazz has been on my lips. Medeski, Martin, & Wood are prepared to drop yet another dose of their magic on us Tuesday, and this one is rich and wonderfully made. I shocked myself listening to Radiolarians II – shocked with how accessible it was, how very prog-rocky it felt (!), how they made a strange place like jazz so comfortable for a girl like me.
Since early 2008, this trio has been focused on this project of turning the music business on it’s head. Writing, touring, then recording for each installment has meant that hours and hours have been spent with the tracks before their “authorized” form is recorded and released. This final record of the series, Radiolarians III reflects that process, as a whole, in that, as a record onto itself, it feels complete. It feels whole. It reeks of something akin to finality but without that lifeless quality we think of when we say “final.”
There is nothing lifeless about Radiolarians III. From it’s opening track, “Chantes Des Femmes,” stretching from electronic to traditional jazz riffs, to “Gwyra Mi,” a bass-heavy, syncopated affair (with a drum track that I really wish to see performed live), this record will easily make my short list for favorite albums of 2009. Each song plays off the other, but not necessarily in a way that demands they be heard in their order. The tingly piano beginnings of “Kota” are so achingly beautiful. While “Won Ton” is particularly reminiscent of what I expected jazz to be before I listened to it: fingers flying across the keyboard, drum rolls galore, and a repeating bass line to keep it all in place, ending with a crash. A smile spread across my face at the dramatic opening of “Broken Mirror,” waiting to see where they’d take it. Hoping for irony, I was disappointed in heavy organ-sounding keys and it wasn’t until a bit after the 2:00 minute mark that things began to unravel nicely, …but not enough, I’m afraid. It is the only track that I felt just wasn’t “young” enough. “Undone” shows just how creatively they can build layer after layer around an idea, making you wonder if the ending was there in their heads all along or if it just evolved and was cemented in time for us. Peppered throughout Radiolarians III are surprise changes and switchbacks, “Walk Back” startles me a bit in the middle, evening out again and then ending with that bit of heaviness that teased and surprised me. “Jean’s Scene” is so very close in sound to “Amber Gris” off of Radiolarians II but also so turned inside out that I love hearing them both, even right up next to one another. Yes, there is a definite theme, a riff running through this entire project and tracing how Medeski, Martin, & Wood weave that theme in and out of each track, in and out of each record is the task of the listener, … Tart stating the obvious, I know.
When listening to an album like this (nuanced – falling and rising in great big waves of sound with layers of drum and guitar and bass) I am convinced you have to imagine the difference between the sound of it in your speakers or headphones versus how it must sound in a concert hall. About a month after reviewing their second record of this series, I had the great pleasure of attending a show by the Marco Benevento trio. Now I’m not going to compare the two; that would be silly and pointless (and I do hope that all parties consider it a compliment to be thought of at the same time!) However, in my limited experience with jazz it is my only point of reference. And that experience, of hearing Marco play piano, bouncing off his wonderful drummer and bassist, in that great big room was honestly a highlight of my concert-going life. So now that I hear this album, Radiolarians III, I sit in awe of my imagination of what it must be to hear this as it is intended, … played, performed, given to you for your pleasure, and your appetite, in the flesh. To devour this record would be more than magic. It would be an exhilarating experience and one that I envy all of you who have or will have had it.
Tour Dates
09.11.09 – The Mann Center – Philadelphia, PA
09.12.09 – Boykin Ball – Acme, PA
09.13.09 – Newport Music Hall – Columbus, OH
09.15.09 – The Cannery Ballroom – Nashville, TN
09.16.09 – Bijou Theatre – Knoxville, TN
09.17.09 – Workplay Theater – Birmingham, AL
09.18.09 – Variety Playhouse – Atlanta, GA
09.19.09 – Neighborhood Theatre – Charlotte, NC
09.20.09 – The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC
10.02.09 – Austin City Limits – Austin, TX
Over here in Chicago I don’t think many of us have heard of Super 400 yet…. Yet. This is about to change, and that is going to be a great thing. Super 400 is a trio from Troy, NY that is completely rock and roll. I mean through and through rock and roll. Hard hitting, bluesy, and grinding that bass beat into the place in the pit of your stomach that makes you just a little queasy if you stand too close to the speakers, their new album, Sweet Fist has been on constant rotation in my car for the past 24 hours. And I’ve had it for-ever. I forgot I had it, and I’ll tell you why because I want to get one thing off my chest before going on about what I really love about this record.
Pre-order Sweet Fist here.
Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign!