Reading Carrie Brownstein’s memoir made me think back to 1999 and indiepopradio.com (long defunct — don’t go there). Maybe I can recreate some of the playlist using youtube, with some help from archive.org.
I wrote about indiepopradio.com before — it was a low-bitrate Shoutcast mp3 stream run by Portland’s Rich Burroughs.
Here’s another article I found about it.
(Note: I wrote a few reviews for what turned into the “bad at listening” series a couple of years before the Ball of Wax blog got started. Most of these were for and about me more than is appropriate for Ball of Wax, so I’m posting them here.)
This is another one I picked up on tour in 2004. I remember running into Nedelle and Thom (by themselves, no backing band) at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis, where I stopped because I had a day off and wanted something to do. It was by conincidence that they were there as I was going to play with them the next day in Chicago, and I recall Jeff Hanson (also on Kill Rock Stars) headlined the show.
What I remember of Nadelle and Thom was that they were great performers. Thom’s guitar playing and singing were spot on and Nedelle sang perfectly; their harmonies were great. They were equally good the next night in Chicago, very impressive, blah, blah, &c.
In the end though they were playing what I would describe as lounge music, and while a number of the songs were very good and catchy (“Cute Things” in particular) it just wasn’t my thing. This CD reminds me of that, and the backing band makes it even more “loungy,” very 60’s variety show music. Nothing wrong with that, no doubt, but I guess the two have since gone their separate ways.
On a separate note, regarding the previous night at the Triple Rock in Minneapolis. That was the second time I’d seen Jeff Hanson — a friend had invited me to go see him the year before at Studio Seven in Seattle. At both shows I was shocked by his voice, which sounded very much female. To observe that voice coming from a gruff-looking man was a weird thing, and he took advantage of its effect in his songwriting, which was haunting. He had a sense of humor about it too, I recall him joking at the Triple Rock show, asking the sound guy if his mic sounded high to him. Sadly, Jeff Hanson died in 2009 in St. Paul.
I meant to call this the Monday roundup but I was delayed. Just a couple of things here… first, I have a music review of a band called Stray Kites up on Blog of Wax. I had some issues finding an angle on talking about Stray Kites… I settled on talking about lo-fi, but what I would rather find words for is the flighty topic of inspiration.
Back in ’99 my friend Andrew found a website called indiepopradio.com that served a low bitrate mp3 stream of, you guessed it, indie pop. Neither of us had heard of this before. We fancied ourselves musicians; I had started making a habit of writing songs and we had made some recordings on his computer, mostly as a joke (it was also how I learned about Cakewalk). But “music” to us was still defined by what we heard on commercial radio, KCMU being too “weird,” or something… not sure why but we didn’t listen to it.
So we started listening to indiepopradio.com and it was a revelation, because it turned out you could make recordings, release them, and find an audience, all without having to be in the “music business.” And more importantly, the kinds of music that we were now hearing and gravitating toward was cheaply produced and simple — lo fi twee bedroom pop — also something we didn’t realize you could do. Granted, there were higher-fi bands on there too, like Death Cab for Cutie, the Make Up, Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Sleater Kinney, who played intricate parts and wrote complex music. But there were many others who got away with much simpler, noisier, and equally charming recordings and songwriting.
That was hugely inspirational, and we resolved to start a label and put out our own recordings. I’ll leave off for now discussing our relative success and failure on that front, but my point: the Stray Kites record reminded me pretty strongly of that time, and that feeling of youth and creative energy and possibility that was so important.
Speaking of that feeling, now and again I’ll read the history page on the Elsinor Records website when I want to overdose on it. Vicariously.
In other news, my “residency” at the Benbow Room ended Friday with An Invitation to Love opening for Rosyvelt and the Chasers. That was fun. We were rehearsed just enough, and I was accustomed enough to the room, where playing the set was more or less automatic, and I could sort of sit inside the songs and play the songs rather than the notes. That doesn’t happen every show, and it’s nice when it does, though I could have done without one of my patch cables crapping out.
Speaking of Rosyvelt and the Chasers, both bands were great that night. The Chasers in particular were something else — ultra-pro metalheads who were having a lot of fun with what they do. Kind of Spinal Tap, all very cool.
(Note: I wrote a few reviews for what turned into the “bad at listening” series a couple of years before the Ball of Wax blog got started. Most of these were for and about me more than is appropriate for Ball of Wax, so I’m posting them here.)
I played with Honeycreeper at the Mojo in Baltimore in August 2004. I remember this show particularly because it ended about fifteen minutes into my set, on account of nobody was there, and I got screwed into playing last. That was also the night my friend Sarah from high school came up from Gaithersburg to see the show, and also the night I drank a lot of tequila with the bartender after the club closed. I don’t remember much after that.
My guess is Honeycreeper were using this CD as their demo at that time to get gigs… it was clearly recorded at a show as there are lots of people talking throughout, the mix is uneven, and about halfway through a bunch of digital glitching makes the CD unlistenable. Before that happens though the CD does do a good job of getting across what the band is all about, which is high-energy fast-tempo rock/funk/fusion (in their words: “punkadelic funk rock”) performed by very good players. Think Heart if Heart were hippies, and throw in some Blondie, No Doubt, Zeppelin, and lots of jazzy solos.
Slightly unusual is that singer Mandy Beck plays a baritone sax… I don’t see that too often. I see from their website they’re still going strong, and have released a couple of high-quality albums since this demo came out, not bad:
[Eds. note: I wrote this for ballofwax.org, but there was enough ink spilt about the Dismemberment Plan already, everywhere, by everyone, and they didn’t need the publicity. And, it’s not that great of writing. So why post it here? Because I can. I also started using the word ‘natch’ in this piece, and that needed to be documented (natch).]
Unlike certain people on the staff here, I don’t maintain a very expansive knowledge of important indie rock bands, music, and history. What I knew of the Dismemberment Plan before Saturday was that “You Are Invited” song, plus a memory of them being big back when I was first learning about indie pop (hat tip to long-defunct indiepopradio.com on that count). Also the “Death and Dismemberment” tour, whose name was pithy and memorable. Well done, marketing people.
My friend Brian had extra tickets to their show at Showbox Sodo, so I went. What better introduction to a famous and popular group? And who better to give an objective review? Enough rhetorical questions.
In short, the band was great. I hate it when people describe a musical experience as “amazing,” so I won’t do that, but I will say that the group exhibited that rare quality you sometimes see with musicians that have played for a long time, and performed their songs many times, yet still enjoy playing them. It’s a combination of passion and competence that’s very fun to watch. And that drummer. Hot damn! That’s 50% of the band right there. Such precision, power, and intricacy, yet relaxed in the groove. The rest of the band: perfectly serviceable. It would not, however, be unfair to say their main job is to back up singer Travis Morrison.
I’m not sure I’ve seen someone use his voice quite like Morrision does. He goes from ballad-crooning to full-on screaming, but then he also.. is it quite right to call it rapping? A lot of words real fast on the meter. I don’t know what he was saying, but there was a lot of it. And he could keep all of this up without fatigue for almost 2 hours.
Also, the man is entertaining. But then they all were. Everyone was getting into the stage banter thing (except, notably, the drummer), and while that can get tiresome pretty fast, it was clear these guys were happy to be there, and the good feelings onstage were shared by the audience. Which is important. This positive atmosphere seems to have been missed in a lot of indie pop star reunions lately (see “ment, Pave”).
What can I say of the music… it’s hard to go into a concert cold, without knowing the songs beforehand. I don’t have anything specific ringing in my head afterward (except “You Are Invited,” natch), though they succeeded in making me want to go to my local library and learn more about their band. I can say that at various times I was reminded of the Death and Dismemberment thing, because a number of the songs sound like Photo Album-era Death Cab For Cutie. Given the timeline though, it may be more accurate to say that Death Cab sounded like them. This music was more complex, with lots of parts and turn-on-a-dime time signature shifts. Lots of that. They clearly like messing around with time.
Somewhere halfway through the set they turned into Fugazi, with the energy, tempo, screaminess, and avant factors being increased beyond what had occurred heretofore. I wouldn’t be surprised if these people came from hardcore, which would also make sense as they’re from DC. They dialed it down again some toward the end, but the entire set was high-energy and avoided introspection. Sadly, I can only speak in these broad strokes, as everything bled together for me, and writing about music is hard. But it was easy to tell which were the hits from the fan reaction. I didn’t know they had that many hits.
On the downside, they played one of those prescribed encores, which are always lame. On the plus side, the only did it once, and a large number of audience members then got on stage with them for one song (you can sort of see this in the picture above). Which was a cool fun thing to have happen, though I was worried the stage might collapse.
And that was it. Famous reunited rock band was pretty badass, even to the uninitiated.