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(04/12/07 4:00am)
Music Review
Brandi Carlile
The Story
3.5 stars
More Melissa Etheridge than Ani DiFranco, Brandi Carlile has made The Story into an angst-filled, alt-country-tinged album that is evidence of her place in line as America's next great female singer-songwriter.
To that end, Carlile's sophomore release, The Story, delivers far beyond expectations.
With album opener "Late Morning Lullaby," Carlile mixes the folk sensibilities of her influences with twinges of alt-rock instrumentals.
She croons like an early-era Thom Yorke as she yearns for tranquility, establishing her voice as an instrument of beautiful, haunting bravado.
Showing an even darker side of her vocals, however, the titular song that follows brings to light eerily similar comparisons to Etheridge.
Much like Etheridge, Carlile's voice in "The Story" is a raspy, aching embodiment of pain longing for acceptance.
However, not only does the song showcase Carlile's vocal talents but also her strengths as a songwriter, depicting the search for her own identity in the confusion of a heartbreaking relationship.
Carlile lightens the fare with "My Song," a track just as dark in topic but more pop in presentation, proving that her range remains both grounded and innovative.
With the song, Carlile is what so many other successful starlets such as Michelle Branch try so hard to be - a radio-friendly female musician brooding between a balance of sensuality and aggression, confidence and insecurity.
That's what makes The Story a success. The album is truly the story of Carlile herself, polished enough for her listener but honest enough for own her own inner artist.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(03/29/07 4:00am)
The hype machine.
At times our best friend, at others our worst nightmare, hype is ubiquitous in today's Internet-infused world.
There are two kinds of hype. One works from the top down, the type of critical promotion that can bring attention to ho-hum bands and underrated geniuses alike.
As for the other, it works from the bottom up, allowing word of mouth to give an act such as Gnarls Barkley an opportunity to turn "Crazy" into a radio explosion.
But who made "Crazy" a hit? Fans searching for the song of the summer, or bloggers who buzzed for months before its release?
How distinct these two types actually remain is a fading line, as critics, bloggers and fans are almost one in the same.
Take two of the most heavily praised, and arguably the most widely debatable, albums of 2007: Arcade Fire's Neon Bible and The Shins' Wincing The Night Away.
Each album received stellar reviews upon release and debuted at No. 2 on Billboard's Top 200.
How each got there is a different story.
The first time I heard the Arcade Fire debut, I listened to it once. Months later, I popped Funeral in and didn't move until it finished.
By that point, every critic on the block was praising the band, some going as so far as to deem Funeral the album of the decade.
Talks of the next effort had some saying that Neon Bible would establish the band as the best of its time.
I didn't get it. I still don't, and my guess is you don't, either.
The best reason I've heard for the hype is that critics possibly get off on the band's "epic scale."
In summary: top-down hype.
The Shins, on the other hand, worked from the bottom up to steal the hearts of many.
The Shins were unknown to me until "Garden State," when I instantly became one of those kids you either love or hate - the ones who think the film is the voice of Gen Y and who bought the soundtrack like wildfire.
But is Braff sharing his obsessions not the same as critics expressing tastes in print? Well, no.
Fans didn't fall in love with The Shins because of hype, they fell in love because of the music.
Fortunately for Wincing, which caught some early criticism, The Shins reminded all their critics they're a pretty damn good band.
These days, who is at the bottom and who is at the top of the critic game remains a blurry line.
For my money, though, Wincing the Night Away could make Neon Bible lose its shine any day of the week.
Contact Adam Wright at abwright@email.unc.edu.
(03/22/07 4:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Living With the Living
3.5 stars
With The Pharmacists on board again for his fifth album, Ted Leo amps up his sound and solidifies his songwriting to make for a record that extends beyond anything he and his band ever have achieved.
On Living With The Living, Leo has grown from a punk revivalist into a more mature musician with complete control of his craft, forming his most accessible album to date and quite possibly his greatest, as well.
And while Leo usually receives recognition mostly for his guitar skills, here he sings with an impassioned immediacy that shows off both his vocal talent and lyrical prowess.
"Army Bound" is a protest song that is a smart and subtle outlet for his beliefs.
On the other hand, punk ballads such as "Colleen" offer the listener a glimpse into the introspection and intimacy of Leo's experiences.
However, not to forget his more widely known gifts, the hooks on Living are more toned and tight then ever before.
The album breaks away from previous Leo works that stayed stuck in the same sounds, offering a varied three-course meal for all palettes to enjoy.
"The Unwanted Things" is a hot reggae-inspired tune, while "Bomb.Repeat.Bomb" proves the album's hardest-hitting chunk of anthemic punk rock.
Better the louder it gets, "Bomb" is the perfect combination of political cries, screaming guitars and Leo's swooning voice, a pinnacle of success for an otherwise grand album.
And thus ends the case that Leo is not only one of the hardest-working musicians in the business, but also one of its most talented.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(02/22/07 5:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
Calla
Strength In Numbers
4 stars
Rarely in recent memory has mood and mystery worked so well than with the latest work from New York new-waver Calla.
Following up its much-buzzed 2005 release, Collisions, the band makes a confident and captivating transformation on Strength In Numbers with a full, haunting grasp of the musical narrative its previous release only hinted at.
Opening track "Sanctify" serves as a portal into the beautifully despondent world that makes up Numbers.
Following the grim framework of bands such as Radiohead, "Sanctify" teases listeners with a distant mood of stormy synths and menacing bass lines before hitting heavier, grittier guitars and vocals.
Here the vocals mix and mingle with the instrumentals rather than dictating them, making for a track bewitching in the darkest of ways.
Having immersed one in a world of melancholy and polish, the album seems ripe for a knockout early on.
However, the following track, "Defenses Down," mistakenly opens to disappointment. Seeming to break away from its gloomy prologue, the next chapter in Numbers is a softer, acoustic piece clashing with expectations.
Slowly building, the track soon adds a bass line that brings back the beauty of hopelessness. The layers continue until the piece reaches a pounding climax of sinister power with intricate guitars and hard beats.
It quickly becomes clear that Calla is not made of one-dimensional storytellers. The band exists in a world of foreboding nature while also creating rousing, polished tracks that shift beyond its genre.
"Bronson" is a dance number less new wave and more indie rock, using harmonized vocals and simplified beats in mass to make for an intricate piece of moody delight.
Likewise, "Sleep in Splendor" argues for its place in the next Quentin Tarantino spaghetti western with slow-moving pianos and drums inspired by worlds beyond the band's native NYC.
A story that transcends its tale even beyond first listen, Calla has solidified itself as a go-to master of music that brings light into the dark.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(02/15/07 5:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
Bayside
The Walking Wounded
2.5 Stars
Call it a Napoleon complex, grief or the subpar songwriting skills of an average pop-punk band.
Call it what you may, but Bayside's The Walking Wounded is an album muddled with control issues. Literally.
Within the first half of the album, the band members muse in three separate songs that they control their lives, they've lost control of their lives and they're gaining control of their lives.
Confused?
So is the band.
The first studio album since the death of its drummer, John "Beatz" Holohan, in 2005, Bayside is clearly dealing with the fate-versus-free-will debate.
With even more songs bogged down with the topic of control, Wounded is an album begging to show a darker and more poignant side of Bayside than ever before.
But despite the band's push for maturity, the songwriting is still adolescent at best.
Adding screamo vocals and technically adept guitar solos to match, Wounded is certainly more musically heavy than anything the band has accomplished.
However, the album's biggest fault is its weak lyrics.
"Duality," the album's first single, is blitz of radio-friendly punk clich
(02/15/07 5:00am)
CONCERTREVIEW
DSI Comedy Festival
Cat's Cradle
Friday, Feb. 8
3.5 Stars
Louis C.K.
You know, that guy. From that thing. Right.
Such was the mind-set of many at Friday night's comedy show at Cat's Cradle.
A recognizable face without such a recognizable name, C.K. certainly didn't claim the star power of Horatio Sanz, the original comedian slated to perform at the headlining event of the seventh annual Dirty South Improv Festival.
Slated to appear with NYC's famed Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and three-man improv outfit Bassprov, Sanz canceled his appearance the morning of, leaving DSI director Zach Ward in a scramble to find a replacement.
The solution? The last-minute addition of C.K., a ubiquitous but underrated stand-up comedian best known for his recent HBO special.
Despite early anxieties the show started out with a bang from members of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.
Taking off with the audience's advice that "truth is good," the Brigade launched into a fast-paced series of sketches ranging in topic from awkward truth-or-dare sessions to lessons in espionage.
With each sketch the Brigade's set seemed to build in wit and humor. However, considering the troupe's notoriety and the level of anonymity of the other performers, the show's biggest fault was not allowing the guys of UCB more time to show off their skills.
Nonetheless, Chicago improv group Bassprov continued the hilarity with a 30-minute set based on the suggestions of taxes, Cookie Monster and Anna Nicole Smith.
Easy-going and well-structured, Bassprov proved to be a pleasant surprise with its timely and poignant jokes on American life.
After a quick intermission Louis C.K. was met with thunderous applause that resembled anything but the level of enthusiasm one would expect from a show that was on the brink of disaster just hours earlier.
Foul-mouthed and unapologetic, C.K. riffed on the standards of sex, marriage and kids for the majority of his set with a string of jokes both offensive and hilarious.
Though the jokes were a huge success with the crowd, they proved a bit wearing. The comedian's best moments came when he diverged from his more comfortable topics and commented on peculiarities in society.
When all was said and done, the night was anything but expected. Shocking and safe, witty and clich
(01/25/07 5:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
The Earlies
The Enemy Chorus
2.5 stars
Layered and complex in structure from track one, The Earlies' second album, The Enemy Chorus, showcases the best and worst of what psychedelic rock has to offer.
The album is both a beautiful foray into bizarre and a misstep into cluttered abstract, each track a hit or miss in sound and style.
The album opener "No Love In Your Heart" begins with subtle strings before adding on an odd mix of dance floor rhythms, rattling synths and ominous, heavy guitar.
Nearly two minutes into the trippy voyage, vocals finally arrive in the form of a repetitious moan of the song's title. Over and over again, the droning vocal proves annoying and wearing against a mixed mess of beats.
However, the band reels its audience back in with the following track, "Burn the Liars."
The song hooks with catchy keys and transforms into an excellent example of psychedelic pop perfection.
Afterwards, however, the album returns to a consistent pattern of alternating highs and lows.
"Foundation and Earth" overshoots the boundaries of funk and groove, producing an artificial sound that suggests the foundation of Earth might have arisen from the spaceships of Scientology lore, after all.
Considering then what The Enemy Chorus has to offer, it seems as if the band only has the capacity to throw together beats and hooks it finds satisfying in a singular context, hoping that the product will be just as successful.
Thus, its current method of creation only results in tracks that are randomly successful in grabbing the attention of new fans, failing to represent the true talent that hides within.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(01/18/07 5:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
Switchfoot
Oh! Gravity
3.5 stars
Oh! Gravity proves to be a fitting album moniker as Switchfoot defies the laws of physics on its latest release and reaches the spiritual heavens so often mentioned in its songs.
Cleaner and more concise than anything the Christian rockers ever have produced, the album is evidence the band deserves to uphold the fame it achieved with 2003's multiplantinum The Beautiful Letdown.
Yet as much as that album's follow-up, Nothing Is Sound, failed to reconcile the band's newfound glory, Oh! Gravity is the perfect middle ground between sound and stardom.
The album achieves this success as a beautiful paradox, reaching for its overarching sounds with dirty guitars and introspective lyrics that surprisingly never clash.
On album opener and current single, "Oh! Gravity," the band mixes lines such as, "In the fallout, the fallout/We found out the hype won't get you through" with clanging piano keys and pounding drums, throwing modern-day politics into the mix as well.
Catchy and radio-friendly, provocative and autobiographical, "Oh! Gravity" proves to be a proper way to start an album full of tracks of the same nature.
However, though most of the album's songs fit the same blueprint stylistically, they almost always provide variations in sound.
"Dirty Second Hands" is an exploration into the depths of alt-country and the American dream, a loud and ominous piece featuring metal undertones and twangy overtones.
With lines such as "You're not quite as tough as you thought /You bought the American rot /The very seed that you thought you shot," the band seems to question the very place of success by using its own achievements as a yardstick for analysis - a theme that runs through the album.
However, no song seems more personal than "Faust, Midas, And Myself."
Deeming its own success a "personal disaffection" through the wealth of King Midas, the band asks its listeners, "What direction now?" with a hint of self-deprecation.
However, as harsh and bittersweet a song it might be, it also seems to have the most potential for popularity of any tracks off the album.
Thus, with Oh! Gravity the San Diego rockers both take a step forward and a step back, probing into the future as they also contemplate the past.
And though Switchfoot likely never will reach into the musical realms of U2 or Coldplay, Oh! Gravity is a fulfilling album in a dwindling genre where too many bands choose radio instead of rock. A masterpiece it is not, but a work of personal triumph, indeed.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(11/30/06 5:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
Oasis
Stop the Clocks
3.5 stars
With its first greatest hits collection, Oasis takes a step back from its recent drought and asks its audience to drink from its once great well of magical musicianship.
Hand-picked by the Gallaghers and company, Stop the Clocks is a compilation of the band's biggest hits and best B-sides.
A personal collection that is supposedly the band's definitive portrait - this is how Oasis wants to be remembered.
But the question remains: With years of added age, is that old well still as magical as it once was?
The answer? Kind of.
Classics such as "Don't Look Back In Anger" and "Champagne Supernova" haven't aged a bit, and as much as they reflect the revived '90s Brit rock scene, they still retain a sense of timeliness that few of the band's peers have ever achieved.
With added, albeit obscure, fan favorites such as "The Masterplan," Stop the Clocks packs more punch than the usual greatest hits collection.
Such B-sides reflect a subtler Oasis, and hard-core fans and simple "Wonderwall" worshippers alike will be pleased with the songs. Oasis snobs get more than mere radio hits and lightweight fans get exposed to a sound beyond beloved band staples.
But even after a series of 18 fantastic tracks, it's hard to stop the clocks for the band - do we really need an Oasis greatest hits album?
After years of immaturity and boring records, such a collection simply seems out of place in 2006.
Thus, the great debate surrounding Stop the Clocks is whether this is a collection too ahead of its time or if it's an album that missed its train long ago.
Regardless, even if we no longer care about Noel Gallagher and his enormous ego, the band's greatest songs remain impeccable.
It's just too bad Oasis didn't travel a little farther upstream before reminding us of its heyday.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(10/12/06 4:00am)
CONCERTREVIEW
Be Your Own Pet
Cat's Cradle
Friday, Oct. 6
2 Stars
Be Your Own Pet is comprised of a bunch of animals.
Or rather, savage, vile beasts better known as teenagers.
Barely out of high school, the members of Be Your Own Pet brought their vibrant and youthful brand of punk to Cat's Cradle on Friday night to a mass of energetic and eager fans.
But Be Your Own Pet failed to deliver the goods, and the band put on a messy, amateurish show that made the group look like, well, a bunch of teenagers.
Following two vibrant opening sets from Georgia acts Psychic Hearts and The Black Lips, Be Your Own Pet came and left the stage as if it had never even been there.
The saving grace of the night, however, might have been Atlanta rockers The Black Lips, a garage rock band of weirdos that spanned the musical stylings of The Beatles, The Ramones and the Beastie Boys with a whimsical ease.
But simply put, every attempt the members of Be Your Own Pet made to act like rock 'n' roll stars came off as a weak effort from a bunch of kids to muster up the talent so many Internet blogs have tagged them with.
In a brief half-hour set, the band forgot to play like true musicians, and cussed at, mocked and argued with one another and the crowd as if lead singer Jemina Pearl had read it all in a how-to punk rocker manual.
Though half the crowd seemed too caught up in moshing along to songs such as "Thresher's Flail" to care, the other half seemed to catch on to the fact that they had wasted a good $10 for the night.
As enjoyable as the band's debut record might be, the live show proved that Be Your Own Pet is just another band blessed by the media that probably will crumble in on itself within the next year.
Before leaving the crowd without an encore, bassist Nathan Vasquez summed it up best:
"Wow, you guys will really listen to anything."
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(10/12/06 4:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
The Places
Songs for Creeps
3.5 stars
Birds flitter through the sky, rabbits skip about, and the sun shines down on a wonderful afternoon in the forest.
And then a big, fat bear comes along and eats everything in sight.
Such is the setting The Places create through their newest musical melodies.
Songs For Creeps is full of playful, ethereal sounds that are a dark and fantastical journey into the subconscious of everyday life.
The group's only permanent member, Amy Annelle, mixes a familiar brand of folk pop with a fresh amount of blips and bops on a series of tracks that are almost entirely her own.
The band boldly breaks out with album opener "Miners Lie!," a tale of modern dissatisfaction.
On the six-minute track Annelle and crew blend the dystopian hauntings of Radiohead with the heart of Joan Baez, forming a song that achieves the almost impossible.
"Miners Lie!" digs under the skin without turning one away, bringing humanity and soul to a song that other bands could have taken to an uncomfortable extreme.
Though the remainder of the songs on Songs For Creeps are not as dark either lyrically or instrumentally, they are a nice respite from the album's grimmer themes.
"Blessed Speed" is a straight-forward, homegrown embodiment of folk.
Annelle's voice oozes her longing of love while guitars and banjos echo her sorrows in the background without putting on another show of flashy production.
Yet as nice as the band's more folksy songs might be, its strengths reside in the moody tracks of its somber ideals.
"My Weary Eye" is almost indefinable, a track so subtly stacked with layer upon layer that it becomes a thing of maniacal beauty.
Annelle is a woman of much talent, and her bandmates in The Places seem to evoke something inside her that is absent from her other projects.
The Places allow her to explore the underground of American existence.
And we should all be thankful for it.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(09/28/06 4:00am)
Everywhere you go, he's there. Lurking in the shadows, watching every move you make, he's the Big Brother of America today.
And yes, he's probably seen you naked.
Who am I talking about?
Prince, of course.
The modern McDonald's of the record industry, Prince has changed the way we buy, sell, market, distribute and make popular music more than any other artist of the past 25 years.
Forget about Madonna, forget about Springsteen, forget about Nirvana and forget about U2,
Prince beats them all.
And though he's faded out of the public eye since that whole name-change debacle, The Purple One's influence is now more rampant than ever before.
Just take a look at this week's Top 10 albums, and there's that tiny little man, grinding and groping all over everything as if it all sprang from his own androgynous loins.
Given the amount of Prince's love juice sprayed across The Billboard 200, may I now present to you Exhibit A: Justin Timberlake.
First and foremost, let's start with that new sound of his.
The beats, the production, the lyrics, the sexuality - all reek of Purple Rain haze. Timberlake says he's bringing sexy back, but all he's really doing is bringing Prince back.
"SexyBack" moves from hip-hop to funk to pop to new wave, with that Prince-like layering of so many genres it becomes indefinable. (See also Exhibits B, C and D - "Crazy," "London Bridge" and "Promiscuous," the year's other megahits.)
Heck, Timberlake even joked to Rolling Stone recently that he chose the name FutureSex/LoveSounds because Purple Rain already was taken.
So even though Timberlake is the new king of sexy, Prince is the most sexually aggressive artist ever to achieve success. Way before Madonna was humping everything MTV had to offer, Prince was dropping the f-bomb, posing nude for album covers and writing songs such as "Soft and Wet" and "Jack U Off."
And you can thank Prince for that Parental Advisory warning on the new Timberlake CD.
When Tipper Gore overheard Prince wailing about masturbation on "Darling Nikki" from her daughter's boombox in the mid-'80s, off to Congress she went.
The rest is history.
But let's not forget that Timberlake has roots with *NSYNC, my own Exhibit E.
The band's 2001 album, No Strings Attached, was an all-out declaration against its old record label, a bitter breakup that was publicized throughout the industry, and that probably wouldn't have been successful without Prince's own bitter label disputes.
To break himself from Warner Bros., Prince took the most drastic step possible to completely disconnect himself from his musical identity and changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in 1994.
Yep, that's right, Prince consciously ruined himself for artistic freedom and set the stage for numerous other acts to do so. (See Exhibit F, The Dixie Chicks.)
By the turn of the century, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince already was embracing the digital age, releasing his music exclusively through the Internet as he helped usher in the iTunes years.
Likewise, Prince isn't the only one to change things up name-wise. See Mr. Multimoniker himself, Exhibit G, the one and only P. Diddy/Puffy/Sean John/etc.
Which brings us to Exhibit H, Danity Kane. Back in the '80s, Prince had his own string of pre-packaged ing
(09/28/06 4:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
Ben Kweller
Ben Kweller
4 stars
Ben Kweller owes much to the number three.
On his third album Kweller makes himself a triple threat to be reckoned with.
In essence, he is a one-man band that can do it all - piano, guitar, vocals, everything.
The musician writes, sings and performs all of the album tracks, moving from heartbreaking ballads to upbeat toe tappers with the greatest of ease.
Yet something brews deep beneath Kweller's tracks - a heart, a brain, a body and a being.
Kweller, as a follow to On My Way and Sha-Sha, is Kweller at his most personal, a soul-baring piece both romantic and morbid in scale.
If the musician's first two albums were the opening chapters to his autobiography, then Ben Kweller is the juicy, beautifully written spectacle of a center.
The first of the LP's standouts to hit the ball out of the park is "Sundress," a breakup song of grand proportions.
The track weaves in and out instrumentally, much like the on-the-edge relationship of Kweller's lyrics. "Sundress" blends outstanding musicianship with a captivating vocal prowess.
Continuing Ben Kweller's winning streak, "Thirteen" becomes a tell-all track of puberty and first love set against Kweller's incredible talent as a pianist.
His voice becomes a vessel of his past, reminiscing about "passionate makeouts and passionate freakouts" as his keys mold and shape a Ben Kweller classic piece of songwriting.
But with "Magic," Kweller casts a spell over the listener that propels the album to a level of enchantment not yet heard from the musician.
Kweller draws from his punk background and opens the track with a guitar hook that would make The Strokes, or any of their New York counterparts, steam with jealousy.
From there Kweller crafts a tale of a lonely girl in an all-too-big world searching for the magic to fix her troubles.
What does she find? Probably Kweller himself.
Even on songs that don't reek of autobiographical deliciousness, Kweller brings that one-man band to the rescue and uses every instrument played and every line sung to make any old story his own.
"Magic" as a track is the finest example of Kweller's capabilities, and it's only a hint of what might come.
If the third time's the charm, then here's hoping the fourth time's a masterpiece.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(09/28/06 4:00am)
CONCERTREVIEW
Citizen Cope
Cat's Cradle
Friday, Sept. 22
3 Stars
Citizen Cope brought material old and new to Cat's Cradle last Friday, playing to a sold-out crowd that turned the entire set into an enthusiastic singalong.
Not even two weeks after the release of his latest album, Every Waking Moment, Cope's show was full of energy from the crowd, who had already memorized all the singer's new tracks.
But that's where the energy stopped. Cope opened surprisingly strong with his greatest hit, "Bullet and a Target," but was never quite able to achieve the same level of stage presence for the rest of the show.
The crowd didn't seem to care, and poured out their hearts as the set continued with standouts such as "Sideways" and "Penitentiary."
But in the end, Cope's fans were the real stars of the night.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(09/21/06 4:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
Kasabian
Empire
2 stars
Kasabian has obviously seen "The Wizard of Oz" way too many times.
Just like that not-so-magical wizard, the British band's new album, Empire, is a beautiful and showy spectacle until the layers are stripped away and the charade comes to a screeching halt.
In the end the album is just a sad old man with no powers at all.
And if the lofty title doesn't give it away, that's not what Kasabian had in mind, hoping its musical Empire will soon conquer the land.
But that promise of greatness turns out to be a supposed modern declaration against the horrors of war, all set to danceable disco-rock.
So if you ever thought that disco could lead the people to revolt, this album is for you.
On first listen Kasabian dives into its bag of magical beats, using it best abilities as a band to create hooks that move and shake, pushing production quality into a top-notch sphere.
But by track five or six, the wizard starts to peak his little gray head over the curtain and the realization comes that this album is turning into a big, fat mess.
The hooks seem to have been placed on repeat, played over and over with some sort of slight transformation added on to try and breathe life into an otherwise tired genre.
Take for example the band's current single, "Shoot the Runner." Techno beats mingle with an overlying series of "ahs" and "ohs," steadily building into a crescendo of operatic garbage, reminiscent of Darth Maul's death song in "The Phantom Menace."
The song's idea of protest is almost as bad, with the only lyrical mentions of upheaval on lines such as, "Shoot, shoot the runner/ cos I'm a king and you're my queen, bitch."
And because this is an album for the people, "Shoot the Runner" wouldn't be a worthy anthem without the mention of Absinthe, whores and sex in the snow.
"Seek and Destroy." "Stuntman." "The Doberman." Pick any song, and it's probably an ironic mess you never would expect from the title.
On "British Legion," a song that should reek of political commentary, the best lyrics lead singer Tom Meighan can muster up are lines about girls smoking cigarettes and the boys who fall in love with them.
So much for disco-induced protest.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(09/21/06 4:00am)
CONCERTREVIEW
The Easy Star All-Stars
Cat's Cradle
Saturday, Sept. 16
3.5 stars
Radiohead, truly, is one of the greatest bands on Earth.
As if you needed more prove, the Easy Star All-Stars pulled the near-impossible Saturday night, performing its reggae cover of OK Computer to a packed house.
The modern day classic was shaped into a rousing, Rastafarian jam, and hipsters and hippies alike danced along with standout tracks such as "Let Down," now a reggae party anthem.
The night's highlight came when the funky "Karma Police" became an audience singalong, showcasing both the All-Star's incredible talent as musicians and Thom Yorke's brilliant songwriting skills.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(09/14/06 4:00am)
Not long ago, Joel Hanks offered his friends a proposition:
"Let's just do a show, we'll play a bar, we'll do some Sublime songs; it'll be fun."
He never imagined that he would spend the next five years making a career of it.
Hanks now plays bass at sold-out shows across the nation with Badfish, a self-described tribute to Sublime that is arguably one of the most popular bands of its kind in music today.
The group is only one of many in a growing wave of musical mimicry, with the formation of tributes and cover bands skyrocketing in recent years.
Google the subject, and you'll find a plethora of Web sites and message boards listing booking information, rating shows on "likeness" and "authenticity," and debating the distinction between a "cover band" and a "tribute band."
Even in Chapel Hill, such groups are no longer restricted to the Friday-night frat party or the Jones-Henderson wedding reception, infiltrating the likes of Cat's Cradle and other beloved indie-rock havens.
"There's a lot more cover bands now than there were 10 years ago, and you couldn't even find a tribute band 20 years ago," said UNC music operations manager Paul Cole.
"I would definitely call what's going on now a phenomenon."
As far as basic differentiation goes, cover bands are your typical, "Shake Your Booty," bar mitzvah fare, whereas tribute bands usually impersonate their source givers as immaculately as possible, costumes and all.
In Cole's case, the description falls somewhere in the middle. Cole is a founding member of The BackBeat, a local Beatles and '60s cover band composed of four UNC alumni.
You might not hear British accents or see flamboyant Sgt. Pepper's garb on the BackBeat boys, Cole said, but the group mixes a precise replication of The Beatles' sound with the aesthetic appeal of the flower-power era when performing.
"For us, it's all about the music," he said.
The BackBeat began as what Cole describes as a "sort of educational outreach" when the photography of famed Beatles' wife Linda McCartney went on display at the Ackland Art Museum in 2001.
"They called me, since I work in the music department, and were asking if I knew a Beatles cover band for the event," he said.
Cole didn't, so he decided to make his own.
Five years later The BackBeat plays gigs almost every weekend, ranging in variety from chancellors' receptions to biker bars, and the band will have its first show at Cat's Cradle in October.
"With this particular group of guys, its just what we're into," he said. "We get a bigger kick out of doing this than our own stuff."
Like the members of The BackBeat, Hanks and his Badfish bandmates fell into the world of cover bands by chance.
"At first it was just for fun, so we could hang out with our friends at the local bar, make some extra cash," Hanks said of the band's initial Sublime tribute in 2001.
However, the one-time tribute to the SoCal group soon turned into a monthly gig, and by Sept. 2002 Badfish was selling out bars across New England.
"We went from playing one market to four markets. The tour started for two weeks and then went to three weeks, then four," he said. "It was a very natural build."
After years on the road, Badfish now claims ownership to a level of popularity that few cover bands have managed to replicate.
"Not a lot of people, especially when we play on the East Coast, ever got a chance to see Sublime, and we're giving them an opportunity to see these songs performed live," Hanks said.
"It just seems like we've fallen upon this niche, and I feel very lucky for that," he said.
However, despite the fact that the group deems itself a tribute to Sublime, Hanks said he and his bandmates are not in the business of emulating the ska-punk legends.
"We've never had that idea to be the band," he said. "We're Badfish, and we don't try to be Sublime. We're doing our own idea of what these songs should be."
Many cover bands go beyond simply performing songs and re-imagine them for a new audience.
The pop-punk supergroup, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes first brought songs by the likes of John Denver and Elton John to the Warped Tour crowd with 1997's Have A Ball.
Then, taking a different route, in 2003 the Easy Star All-Stars released Dub Side of the Moon, a complete album covering Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in a reggae style.
Easy Star Records musical director and Dub Side producer Michael Goldwasser said the idea came from his close friend Lem Oppenheimer.
"I did some preliminary arrangements and thought it might work, and then we put together the All-Stars for that record and started production," Goldwasser said.
Dub Side was an instant hit, and as the band embarked on a national tour in support of the album, anticipation began to grow for the group's next cover.
Distributors suggested the next project be another Pink Floyd album, The Wall, but Goldwasser had another vision in mind: Radiodread, a reggae take on Radiohead's modern classic, OK Computer.
"We wanted to move out of the '70s and do something for our generation," he said.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for Goldwasser has been earning a reputation as a cover musician while directing a record label that focuses on original artists.
"I think every musician and composer wants to be known for original material," he said. "It comes from your mind, it comes from your heart, it's you.
"But I don't consider what we are doing as a cover, I feel like what we do is reinterpretation - taking something old, rearranging it and doing something new to it.
"Hopefully people can see it as art."
Regardless of success stories such as Dub Side of the Moon, the cover band explosion has drawn as much criticism as it has interest.
"There is a certain negative attitude among a certain group of musicians," said Cole of the flack cover bands often receive.
"We were once part of that, but you grow up after a while," he said. "We enjoy what we're doing, and that's all that matters."
However, Cole said much of the backlash has stemmed from tribute bands that take their acts to the extreme.
"They've got more of a Hollywood aspect to it," he said. "The guys in those tribute bands are just as much actors as they are musicians, and they can carry that big ego that gets a bad rap."
Hanks and Badfish have faced similar criticism but also have wondered if they hold an obligation to the surviving members of Sublime.
"I think the guys in the band are not psyched about it," he said.
But Hanks said he and his bandmates aren't affected by the negative commentary, no matter the source.
"You can't please everyone, whether you're in a cover band or doing original stuff," he said.
"I'm so amazed by the response we get, though. So many people thank us for what we do because they could never get this experience otherwise, and that's very special to us," he said.
In Goldwasser's opinion, music is music, no matter who wrote the songs.
"If we make music that makes people happy and brings joy to the world, than we have succeeded in what we hope to do as musicians."
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(09/14/06 4:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
New Jersey Transient
New Jersey Transient
3 stars
The title says it all.
In order to break away from his bass work with North Carolina golden boys the Avett Brothers, Bob Crawford had to go all Zach Braff on us and flee to the Garden State.
On the self-titled side project New Jersey Transient, Crawford tries his best to leave behind country twang for an album packed with pop melodies, grungy guitars and jazzy spontaneity.
Self-aware of the fact that his strengths reside in his abilities as an instrumentalist, Crawford's greatest achievements come from a interwoven set of musical interludes that make up half of the 10-song spread.
Keyboards flitter and fly about in album-opener "NJT," forming a light, ethereal sound far away from the Avetts' homegrown jams.
Crawford continues the subtle ambience in "Chapel Hill of Love Blues," casting his famed bass as the star in a track that meanders through rolling rock, jingling jazz and blistering blue grass.
But it seems in Crawford's case less is always more. In "Lowfi Waltz" he takes the stage at a local jazz club to produce a never-ending maze of circus-like piano, hard-edged strings and weeping sax that seems better fit for a flea market of musicianship than the hipsters' favorite lounge.
However, "Lowfi" is a mere journey into the misguided, and Crawford's instrumentals rarely suffer otherwise.
On the other hand Crawford's talent as a vocalist is clearly the album's Achilles' heel.
For example the garage rock anthem "Home" suffers only from Crawford's vocals and is otherwise a great example of his musical prowess.
Crawford bleats, "Girl, when you first met me/ I was a flea, disrupting harmony." His words are ironically poignant.
The problem doesn't reside in a lack of talent - it simply comes from a plethora of instrumental greatness that overshadows anything Crawford can sing or write.
Likewise, Crawford's work lacks the spark that could outshine his chemistry with the Avetts.
After all, you can always take the boy outta the band, but you can never take the band outta the boy.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(08/31/06 4:00am)
MUSICREVIEW
Snakes and Music
Isabelle
3 and 1/2 stars
Depending upon your priorities in life, the fact that Snakes and Music has nothing to do with the "Snakes on a Plane" soundtrack either could be good news or bad news.
Let's consider it to be the former, and just go ahead and put a stop to the obvious Snakes and "Snakes" comparisons.
With Snakes and Music's new album, Isabelle, the Philadelphia band mixes folk rock intimacy with hipster instrumentals for a fulfilling and unique sound that crosses the genre board time and time again.
Album opener "Isabelle" is the first sign that Snakes and Music is an act that can't quite be pegged into one corner.
Lead singer Andrew Low warbles like the best of the pop-punk kids while alt-country influences linger in the background, later busting out into an aching happy-meets-sad tone reminiscent of early Bright Eyes.
Following is "Please Explain," the album's first standout, blending early '90s chords with a chorus rooted in depression, drug addiction and the search for a way out.
"Can I just get a little of whatever you're on?" moans Low on repeat, and out comes your standard self-deprecating indie rock song.
And that's when - in the immortal words of Samuel L. Jackson - you get Snakes on crack.
Banjos ignite, harmonies explode and cobras viciously attack the jugulars of unsuspecting listeners for a dose of adrenaline that remains prominent throughout the remainder of the album.
Fusing blues with '80s mall rock and grunge with Southern rock, Snakes and Music keeps the audience guessing no matter the track.
The stomper, "Sinking Ships," plays like a Springsteen song in an emo era, while "Treading Water" adds a dash of new wave bass lines to the hodge-podge album.
Yet, as the group slithers through another string of styles, it manages to create a sound that is distinctly its own.
And just like that, Snakes and Music transforms an ill-timed band name into a wise and fitting choice.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
(08/31/06 4:00am)
CONCERTREVIEW
Roman Candle with The Whigs
Friday, Aug. 25
Cat's Cradle
4 stars
Area citizens felt the heat Friday night with an energetic and powerful performance at Cat's Cradle from local up-and-comer, Roman Candle.
Riding a wave of success from the June 22 release party of The Wee Hours Revue, Roman Candle is fast becoming the town's new "it" band, evoking comparisons to acts of Chapel Hill's indie heyday.
The band's buzz made for a packed house, and those who arrived early for the show were met with a knockout surprise from opening act, The Whigs.
The Athens, Ga. three-piece worked the crowd to a crescendo of excitement with a rock 'n' roll frenzy that shined through tracks such as "Technology" and "Violet Furs", setting a tone of wild intensity that would last throughout the night.
Roman Candle arrived on stage afterward to an eager and responsive crowd that brimmed with hometown love, offering up a string of its best songs to fill the audience's appetite.
The group's remarkable passion for music played through every drum beat and guitar slap on a set list that drew heavily from its new CD. "You Don't Belong to This World," was a crowd favorite that had nearly everyone moving and shaking.
However, one of the show's highlights came not from a recorded favorite, but from the live-only "Why Modern Radio Is A-OK."
"Modern Radio" has front man Skip Matheny hating on "high school emo band(s)" and reminiscing about the good old days when "a pop song used to be a powerful thing."
From Bob Dylan to Neil Young, the artists of Matheny's lyrics run like an exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But Matheny does more than drop names, and he completes with ease what so many other artists fail at immensely -- he actually draws upon those acts of his past, with Dylan's lyrical artistry, John Lennon's charisma and Johnny Cash's bravado all to be found with him on stage.
As stunning as it may be to watch Matheny's power in front of an audience, the true pleasure of his performance is in the smile he flashes through every few notes.
With brother Logan on drums and wife Timshel on keys, Matheny was clearly at home on stage. His love for music and the even greater love of his band seem to be the very power that keeps him afloat.
And by no means is this Matheny's show. As apparent with the acoustic encore piece "13 By Big Star", the dynamic that Roman Candle carries on stage is a pure joy to watch.
With Matheny on guitar and the rest of the group providing vocals by his side, it became clear that this band is a family, no matter the relation.
And after a night of watching Roman Candle's talent burn bright, you realize that a pop song can still hold just as much power as it used to.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.