THE STONY LONESOME

Journalist and crazy bastard Ted Conover becomes a screw.

Other than good drugs and bad women (or maybe bad drugs and good women), probably few things have influenced music like prison. That’s right: incarceration. The Man in Black figured that out pretty early on. And if Akon (“Locked Up”) and Nelly (“Fly Away”) are to be believed, it ain’t no picnic, either. I’ve never done hard time, nor would I want to. Look at my picture—I’d be somebody’s bitch in twelve seconds. But I’ve often been curious about the prison guards; guys and gals whose day-to-day grind involves cozying up to the worst scumbags and cheats in the country. (And what do I do? I sit in an air conditioned office and complain bitterly when Subway forgets the jalapeños on my foot-long BMT.) So I looted every used bookstore in the Intermountain West until I found Ted Conover’s New Jack: Guarding Sing Sing (Vintage, 2001). Yes, I realize I could’ve just ordered the goddamn thing from Amazon, but I’m into the thrill of discovery and all that shit. Anyway, Conover, a journalist and a crazy bastard, gets a job as a prison guard at one of the nation’s roughest joints—not just because he’s a writer and needs a view of the inside, but also for the experience itself. He does a masterful job of putting you in his shoes through just about the most unpleasant work environment this side of the septic industry. You’ll love it.

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. 

HAIL HALEY

Haley Bonar returns with Big Star.

There are thousands of artists out there struggling to get your attention, loudly clearing their throats to get you to look their way. It can all be a bit overwhelming, which makes discovering a new (or new-to-you) artist a crucial and even reinvigorating experience.

This week I latched onto Haley Bonar, who’s actually on her third album. Hailing from South Dakota but based in Minnesota, she reminds me of Shawn Colvin circa Fat City, which I mean in the best way possible. Underrated at the time (and overrated since), Colvin had a great voice and even better songs, both of which suggested a hard life rather than an insular existence. Similarly, Bonar sings pretty melodies as vehicles for tough-minded sentiments; she also plays most of the instruments and produced. In that regard, Big Star is exquisitely jaded—a concept album about how much the music business sucks. On “Queen of Everything,” she sounds much older than her years: The industry, she sings, will “tear you from the inside, fuck with your spine, take you to the same place I lost my mind.” Fortunately, she never sounds like she’s whining. Instead, she just shrugs her shoulders, plugs in an amp, and sings a song about hitting the road and getting away from it all. “It’s just me and a map and a cup in my lap,” she sings on stand-out “Highway 16. “Life’s getting a lot better, no doubt about that.” Here’s hoping she lives up to the title very soon.

Stephen M. Deusner is a freelance music journalist based in Washington , DC. Don't ask him about Norwegian pop or house rabbits, unless you have a few hours.

REVOLUTION CALLING

A guide to really understanding the Beatles.

Periodically, I throw out a plug for Ian MacDonald’s Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties (Chicago Review Press, third edition, 2007). Even if you’re not a dyed-in-the-polyester Beatles fan, the book is still worth an examination. MacDonald breaks down the Beatles’ catalog, delving into the background of each tune and where it fits into the decade that gave us crappy-but-good-TV, guiltless sex and sexless guilt, and a shitload of good music. Plenty of semi-useless trivia (i.e. John Lennon wrote a Bob Dylan parody called “Stuck Inside of Lexicon With the Roget’s Thesaurus Blues Again.” And the line “I am the Eggman” in “I Am the Walrus” was allegedly inspired by a friend of Lennon’s who had a thing for cracking eggs on the bodies of women he boinked. Yeah. Throw those little gems into a quasi-interesting conversation and see what happens.) This book totally changed my understanding of the Fab Four. I can’t count how many times I’ve scrambled for it after hearing a snippet from, say, “Lady Madonna” on the local FM “oldies” station. Which brings up something else for another time: The term “oldies” has got to go. “Super hits of the sixties and seventies!” What a crock of warmed-over wombat semen. Jesus.     

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams.

NOW PLAYING JULY 2008

What's on the air in Outlandos...

More or less the same deal as before: a list of music/music-related whatnot worth mentioning.  Some of it new.  Some of it new-ish.  Some of it just plain new to me.  And then there's the old and the [more...]

A Triple-A radio programmin g veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentati on of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

NOT-SO-DEADLY B’s

Would you rather watch Olivia rollerskate in a blouse or Ron Wood in a tight turtleneck? We chose Wood. Why? What's the significance? We... don't... know.

When crap like Xanadu earns itself a two-disc DVD release (the magical, musical edition in case you’re interested) you might be wondering if we’ve hit the saturation point. Are there are actually any titles left that haven’t hit video…and if so, should anyone be allowed to see them? I prefer to see the cup as half-full rather than half-empty. Sure, what’s left is a hodgepodge of martial arts flicks and lazy foreign erotica, but if you dig deep enough into the pile you’ll find a few curiosities left in the bin.

Phase IV (Legend Films, 84 min) is the only feature-film from Saul Bass, the man who designed the most memorable title sequences in cinema history, most notably Hitchcock’s Psycho and North By Northwest. His take on intelligent ants who wage war on a pair of scientists in the New Mexico desert is ripe for ridicule (it even got the MST3K treatment), but also insanely ambitious. With long dialogue-free stretches of macro-photography following these mini-mental giants into their network of tunnels, the ending finds humanity evolving into some human-ant hybrid. It’s Kubrick crossed with the Discovery Channel.

More insect terror awaits in The Deadly Bees (Legend Films, 84 min), directed by another Oscar winner, Freddie Francis, who brings a British sensibility to the “nature run amok” genre. After a musical intro that features Stones guitarist Ron Wood strumming for The Birds (not those Byrds, but a different group who prefer embarrassingly tight turtlenecks), a pop princess is sent out to the country to recuperate from a nervous breakdown, only to find herself caught between feuding beekeepers. Although things could have been resolved over a pint of Guinness, the bees end up stinging the shit out of anyone who’s been marked with the “scent of fear.” Which is actually just Old Spice and warm beer.

Hammer Films specialized in drawing-room horrors and The Man Who Could Cheat Death (Legend Films, 83 min) is a prime example of their chatty brilliance. Anton Diffring stars as a snobby sculptor who needs the extract of human glands to remain forever young. Christopher Lee gets to lose the fangs for a supporting role, helping Scotland Yard piece together a string of disappearances. In usual Hammer fashion, everything is resolved by burning down the joint, but not before we’re treated to some fine acting all around.

Then there’s The Sender (Legend Films, 92 min), a sedated psychological thriller that feels like David Cronenberg on an off-day. Confronted with a suicidal teen with telepathic powers, Dr. Gail Farmer (Kathryn Harrold) tries to sort through his mommy issues before he gets all Carrie on her ass. Other than a startling shock treatment sequence, the movie is too drowsy to inspire much interest. Director Roger Christian went on to helm John Travolta’s big-budget Scientology sermon, Battlefield Earth, so his “beingness” is obviously back on track.

All of the above titles are available exclusively at Best Buy through July.

Straight outta the third most dangerous city in America—Saginaw, Michigan—Greg Walton writes from a basement bunker. His only window to the outside world is a sweet surround sound set-up and 65" inches of hi-def glory.

SETTIN’ YOUR WORLD ON FIRE

“The Inferno,” in dumb-ass, American English.

If you remember anything from 12^th grade lit, it’s probably Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno,” the most engaging part of the Divine Comedy. Or perhaps the only thing you recall about 12^th grade English is how Nikki Potter’s breasts seemed to grow unfathomably larger as the semester progressed—but maybe that’s just me. Needless to say, if your class touched on Dante’s work (as some of the better high schools do), chances are you read one of the dense, fancy-pants English translations, and you most certainly did not read the original Italian version. But I recently found an adaptation that should be in every high school in the land—and on your shelves, too. Dante’s Inferno by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders (Chronicle Books, 2004) is an adaptation of Dante’s tale in plain old American English, accompanied by Birk’s black-and-white, comic-book-style illustrations depicting hell as, well, any major American city in the New Millennium (although San Francisco and Los Angeles seem to be more prominent). There are the familiar images of Virgil leading Dante past the gluttons, but in Birk’s version, these fatties wallow on a sticky sidewalk with signs for Sizzler, McDonald’s and In-N-Out Burger looming in the background.

The text is equally interesting, primarily for the manner in which Sanders and Birk turn the language and imagery on its head. By way of comparison, here’s a bit from Canto VI, when Dante encounters the three-headed beast Cerberus, as rendered by Charles S. Singleton in his translation by Princeton University Press (line breaks altered to make this easier on your web-weary eyes):

When Cerberus the great worm perceived us, he opened his mouths and showed his fangs; he was aquiver in every limb. And my leader, reaching out his open hands, took up earth, and with full fists threw it into the ravenous gullets. As the dog that barking craves, and then grows quiet when he snaps up his food, straining and struggling only to devour it, such became the foul faces of the demon Cerberus, who so thunders on the souls that they would fain be deaf.

Now, the same scene a la Sanders and Birk (same deal—line breaks eliminated):

When Cerberus saw us coming, he flipped out. He growled with all three of his mouths, and you could see his sharp teeth while his whole body twitched like he had the DTs or something. But Virgil wasn’t even worried, and he grabbed a handful of that stinking mud and he threw it straight into the mongrel’s three greedy mouths. Like the crazed crack addict jonesing for a rock who instantly calms down after he scores and gets his first drag of smoke,  Cerberus’ disgusting barking heads sniffed at the mud and lapped at it so intently that they seemed oblivious to anything else.

See what I mean? Not necessarily better, but certainly different—a good spin on an old favorite. Sure, Birk and Co. have totally stripped Dante’s lush language from the story—and hardcore Dante fans will gnash their teeth, wail, and rend their clothes. But here’s my take: sometimes you’re in the mood for a Coors Light, not Cabernet Sauvignon.  

Jason Matthew Smith is a Texan who never developed an accent, thanks to a steady diet of television reruns during his formative years. He now lives in Utah, where everyone thinks he sounds just like John Astin, the original Gomez Addams. 

Chuck Eddy dusts off his old vinyl and scratches his head. We all win.

Greetings, BLURT readers. This column’s theme is fairly simple: Basically, I sort alphabetic ally through my shelves for dusty old 7-inch vinyl indie singles from acts that aren’t household names, and try to figure out why I wound up keeping them in the first place. This is the 4^th installment (first two appeared at Idolator.)

CRACK ♥ WE ARE ROCK – “Hooker Leg”/”Animal Trap” (no label listed, 2002): Inside a lovely if claustrophobic 45 sleeve with forest animals paint-by-numbered all over it (the opossum and red fox, oddly, are much bigger than the mountain lion), music from Midwest escapees to San Francisco that somehow serves as a bridge between the fleeting quasi-genres “electroclash” and “digital hardcore” – which is mainly to say distanced voices rapping, sort of, over synthesizer abrasions and insane studio glitches and buzzing sounds. The intended speed is never stated outright, but at 33 RPM, “Hooker Leg,” at least, suggests a noise-rock version of some early ‘80s Rough Trade girl band, like maybe the Au Pairs, with distortion working against the tune at riskier levels than Jesus and Mary Chain ever dared. Cyborg voices eventually discuss the shaking of souls. “Animal Trap” has balloon-rubbing effects out of Pere Ubu’s Dub Housing, and what sounds like an off-key trumpet toward the end, clearing some space and followed by the side’s only comprehensible words – namely, a woman politely telling us “thank you.” Notation on a fawn’s back on that cover picture: “Live In Africa 2002 BC.” Or maybe that’s the label? (no contact info)

CRIMSON SWEET – Robot Bus Driver (Crimson Sweet EP, 2000): Bizarrely, I still have four different 7-inches by this turn-of-the-‘00s NYC trio on my shelf, which puts them in the running with Cobra Verde, Shonen Knife, and, uh, Clay Harper (whoever he is) [Harper, ex-Coolies, operated and recorded for his own Atlanta-based label, Casino Music, in the ‘90s—Discography Editor] for 45-shelf indie-supremacy. Don’t recall ever loving anything by them, but apparently I liked all of it enough to keep. In my mind, at least, I associate their co-ed art-punk garage sensibility with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Glass Candy, who both emerged a bit later but ultimately got way more attention. This particular four-song translucent-vinyl 45 (first Crimson Sweet music I heard) switches off between relaxed Bangles-jangle and more hoarsely snarling screech. “CTR” mentions schoolyards; “Robot Bus Driver” follows Morse-code guitar with death-metal grumbling; “Bad Riddle” is live-wire hardcore; “I Can Touch You Now” an apparently sincere lust song wherein the wonderfully named Rooster Booster (who also plays guitar) eventually takes her drink and leaves. She’s hard to decipher when she gets full-throat emotional, but that doesn’t always work against her. Her bassist, Konsulate, looks like a young Mick Jagger. (www.myspace.com/crimsonsweet)

CRITERION – “Race Traitor”/”Honky Talk Hits” (Broklyn Beats, 2001): Two more aural experiments from a mad-scientist laboratory in Brooklyn, working overtime to resurrect dub without reggae life support: “Honky Talk Hits” lets an inverted piano mess and minstrel-show vocals that go “yeaaaahhh…..” and dig through sand dunes’ worth of dirt; “Race Traitor” is closer to some of Adrian Sherwood’s more outlandish ‘80s productions, or maybe Keith LeBlanc’s 1983 12-inch “No Sell Out,” credited to Malcolm X. A repeated sample of Dick Gregory growls “We don’t dislike you, we hate your stinking white racist insti-tooo-shuns,” which slogan performs the musical duty of keeping the experiment grounded, so centrifugal force doesn’t yank everything apart. (www.broklynbeats.net)

DAPHNE’S OPERATION – “Short Disaster”/”Curds & Whey” (Mudslide/Bottom Feeder, 1995): Like all three singles above whether intentionally or not, chaos intersperses here with white space; like Crimson Sweet, this Murfreesboro, Tennessee quintet (instrument credits: “pickin’, singin’”; “beatin’”; “more pickin’”; “washtub, hogcallin’”) refreshingly seems torn between being a pop band and a noise band. Somehow, the gravity of their guitars makes up for their vocals’ meek, muffled bent. And though the music offers up no tangible beat to speak of, the B-side, at least, manages hints of propulsion, and structure, and possibly even a song, albeit introvertedly expressed: “Growing up is so weird,” a subdued voice concludes, sneaking into the clatter’s cracks. “Call or write us,” the liner notes on an insert request, “for your next wedding, barmitzvah, hot rod/custom car show, barbecue, open house, Tupperware party, slumber party, funeral, shindig, hootnanny, fiesta, thingamajigger or, of course, board meeting.” I hope that won them a few gigs, at least; I still wish they would have clarified once and for all, though, whether “Curds & Whey” just means cottage cheese. Little Miss Muffet was always too cagey on the issue. (www.myspace.com/daphnesoperationrules)   

THE DEAD C— “Stealth”/”The Factory” (Sub Pop, 2000): Seemingly recorded from deep inside a radiator in Dunedin, New Zealand, “Stealth” recreates Metal Machine Music as part of the Environments series, and its dune-din ebbs and flows with real beauty. Hard to tell if actual instruments are involved; if so, they’re presumably not being used as their builders intended. The music breathes, though. The Dead C are prolific cult heroes in avant-noise circles; Thurston Moore and Byron Coley may well own a zillion releases by the threesome, but for my own purposes, this taste test seems sufficient. “The Factory” feels even more onomatopoeic, way more “industrial” than most music filed under that heading – an assembly line of clanking and revving gears and motors and spindles and power generators, with heat and sparks blasting off of the steel. Or maybe just guitar feedback, who knows. Both sides are instrumental, and as with Crimson Sweet’s disc, the vinyl is a vague sort of grey you can halfway see through. (no contact address; fan page at www.myspace.com/thedeadc)

DEATH OF FASHION – “These Days”/”It’s All Ours” (Canarsie, 2005): I have no memories of these guys at all, though MySpace tells me they come from New York. The A-side is built on a ringing Velvet Underground (via Smiths or somebody, probably) guitar drone – prettiness given forward motion. The singer’s voice is flat and basically devoid of character, typical college rock. But he picks up energy as he goes, stumbling into tunefulness and emotion simply by varying volume and intensity. He sounds cheerful, determined; worries he “might not make it through the day,” but you’re confident he will. On the B-side – shorter but tougher to get through – he just stumbles. Guitar enters out of nowhere at the start, almost like Plastic Bertrand’s “Ca Plane Pour Moi,” but the drummer’s attempt to add more rhythm into the equation comes off clumsy. If you’re gonna kill off fashion, it’s best to replace it with more color than what’s here.

(www.deathoffashion.com)

[Photos, top to bottom: Crimson Sweet, Daphne’s Operation 45 sleeve, Death of Fashion (credit J. Wilson)]

NUMERO DEUCE: MY FAVORITE MIX TAPE

Let me tell you this story...

Ed Hamell picked up the guitar at age 7 and started writing songs not long after. In his early 20s, Mr. Hamell was the front man and writer for an original band, but local bands were a dime a dozen in the tough, working class neighborho ods in Syracuse, NY. So he launched a one-man act called Hamell on Trial. Six albums (plus a live one) and countless shows later, Hamell himself is one of a kind. Catch him on tour this summer in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

WHITE MEN AND THEIR TOYS

I don't think the super rich are evil, but I fear they are out of touch--and that's dangerous.

Car traffic on the interstate highways has thinned out a bit in recent months, but the number of privately owned Prevost tour buses seems to have remained constant. The Prevost, squared off and boring looking, long ago replaced the more flamboyant looking Silver Eagle as the preeminent mode of band transportation, but most of the Prevosts I see on the highway don't appear to be hauling bands. Bands don't tow cars behind their buses, and most of the buses I see have some sort of SUV in tow. No, these buses, burning $4.50 a gallon diesel by the tanker load, are hauling rich people, and there are a whole bunch of them. One of these guys is a fan of ours who likes to drive his bus up from Lake of the Ozarks Missouri to Kansas City whenever we play at Knuckleheads. Our stock rises when he shows up because he parks his bus in front of the club and everybody thinks it's ours. Once, he came up towing his BMW. Somewhere in the blackness south of Jeff City, the driver noticed an orange glow in the side mirror and pulled over to find that the BMW was on fire. The owner simply unhitched the Beamer and they left it burning by the road.

It's amusing to hear about such extravagance in isolated incidents, but when I see all those buses pulling all those cars, burning all that expensive diesel merely for the amusement of the owners, I can start to go full-on Commie. Why do they get such big toys, and at what cost to the rest of us?

Meanwhile, back in Austin, the downtown skyline changes daily. We return from a six-week run to find that yet another high-rise condo, units all sold before construction commenced, has been completed. Where is all this money coming from? The economy is bad right? The condos are messing with the music scene. Condo buyers don't want to live near music venues, even here in the city that bills itself as “Live Music Capitol of the World,” so the developers are pressuring the city to lower the noise ordinance to 70 decibels at property line, way quieter than your lawyer neighbor's new Harley, and crippling for a music venue across the street from a construction site. Some clubs manage to get grandfathered in. Some don't. Those that do can expect the rules to change.

I was at a party in one of those new condo units once. The place turned out to be a sort of urban retreat for a couple who mostly lived on a high fenced ranch out in the hill country. The condo was one more toy. When you get that rich, is anything essential? I asked the fellow what he did for work. He said he was a cedar chopper. File under “Oh, please.” Cedar choppers were flinty, wiry fellows with gnarled up hands from gripping axes who, in the time of my grandfather, supplied ranchers with cedar fence posts. They rarely chopped cedar off their own land, as they generally had none. Now, in the era of mass produced metal fence posts, cedar chopping is an endeavor reserved for presidents on a photo op and rich guys whose wives want them out of the house for a while. I never did find out where his money came from.

The guy who left his Beamer burning by the road owns a club on Lake of the Ozarks. We played there once. I would never have guessed that there were so many 50-foot yachts in the middle of Missouri. The Mississippi Gulf Coast was once referred to as the Redneck Riviera, but I think that title now should go to Lake of the Ozarks, a vast manmade impoundment on the Missouri and Osage Rivers, which I'm told, has more navigable coastline than California, due to all the feeder creeks and secondary rivers that it backs up. But the yachts, My God they're everywhere. Most are wrapped in white plastic, perched on trailers in the lots in front of the dealerships that line the roads around the lake. Many more are lined up in slips down in the marinas, and quite a few are floating around in the coves, their owners and their friends lounging on the decks, drinks in hand, eyeing one another across the brown water. I asked why no one seemed to be fishing and was told that the fishing wasn't much good around there.

So the main sport seemed to be one-upmanship. The talk was all about who had the biggest boat. Someone pointed across the cove to an amphitheatre where some big touring act had recently played. The amphitheatre faced the lake, and there were slips where, for a fee, one could pull one's 50-foot yacht in and watch the show from one's very own deck chair. Virtually no one came to our show, but the club owner paid us well and provided the right wine back stage, a rare occurrence. He said he was sorry we hadn't gotten there in time to go out on his boat. This guy looked like he could have actually been a cedar chopper. By his wiry build and hillbilly twang, I guessed he had been raised in poverty, busted his way out of it in a big way, and was now proceeding to have himself a time.

I don't think the super rich are inherently evil, but I fear they are out of touch, and there is a danger in their being out of touch. Everyday, I see the physical evidence of extreme wealth sliding into the hands of a few. My fear is that those condo owners and Prevost drivers, despite the fact that they make up a very small percentage of the population, will be calling the shots for all of us—elites always do somehow, even in more or less democratic countries. How do you convince people who can afford to leave their burning cars beside the highway to care whether or not the rest of us can afford health care? Can they be made to understand that the price of the diesel they pump into those buses on their way to Disneyland affects the price of food, catastrophically for some. It's a hard sell, especially here in the States, where we still have enough room to isolate ourselves from people we believe to be different from ourselves. It's easy to pretend that other people's problems won't effect us, as long as they're out of pistol range or over a wall.

Singer-songwriter James McMurtry lives in Austin, Texas. When he’s not touring, you can see him at the Continental Club every Wednesday, ‘round about midnight. His latest album, Just Us Kids, is out now on Lightning Rod Records.