Chasing The Light

The walls have been raised two, maybe even three times now... blown down just as many. The architects have felt the blisters upon their initial blisters, the kinds thought to be the stuff of self-aggrandizing hyperbole with which the wrinkled and ostensibily steeled old folk can condescend their whippersnappers.



Detroit's The Questions have suffered that nuance strain of the artist who sees his work, has seen it, touched it, heard it, and breathed it, only to have lost it all... The manuscript's pages blown from the windowsill by a sinister gale; the sculpture's limbs shattered upon a misstep in its transportation from studio to gallery;...

Or the hard-drive storing the 12 songs you've spent 11 months of your life on...is destroyed, with no chance of recovery - as was the case with this quartet's now steadily resurfacing work: Chasing The Light (Sample here). The Questions have started, restarted, reworked and remixed this, probably their most complete and quintessential work to date, for a band that started as a rough hewn, rebel-rousing punk-duo, born from poetics, spurred by mysticism and continuing a protest/folk tradition in their own little, wild way.




"At first it was pretty devastating news," said singer/guitarist Drew Bardo, at the end of summer '10. "It really took the wind out of our sails. But upon further review, we decided that it might be a blessing in disguise. That making a rough draft album first could only advance the cause and give us the blue-print for what we were trying to record the first time. So to make a very long story short-- we are now excited about the loss..."

In four subsequent sessions, they had 10 new songs ready - This, after a year's worth of gelling as a quartet (Bardo and drummer Will Linna welcomed bassist James (Pookie) Grech and guitarist Chris Krez).

The band, Bardo said, is born again, with more "depth. We have become a solitary soul."

And, this autumn, they've leaked 66% of the album - eights songs now stream for free on their bandcamp. The songs showcase their wider breadth of sensibilities - from the gnarly growl, psychedelic snake-charming hooks and head-banging grunge-beats of opener "April Fool's" to the more toe-tapping jangled-out Americana twang of "Alchemy" -

Originally envisioned as three potential EPs, the band decided to start putting them all together as one flowing album. Still, the first four songs seem to show a more grated, throat-curdling catharsis, a therapeutic rock-heavy tear, compared to the next four songs softer acoustic shades and more melodic vocals - haunting and beautiful - "Lorna Blue's" harmonies soar along with a subdued banjo and harmonica forming a spectral lullaby. The tribal and hazy blues marches of their past come back, re-imagined, through "Wrecking Hour" and Bardo's poet-half exudes a cutting disertation on the evils of American ruling class in "Chasing The Ghost" - given a jazz flair by Krez' skills on the trumpet.

We'll see where they go from here - four (or more?) songs are yet to see the light of day.
After almost two years, Bardo surmised: "We fully believe that great art must come at a price of suffering. It comes from a deep sense of compassion. It comes from a deep sense of joy and sorrow equally. It is a sensitivity not many musicians get. There are a lot of bands making music for many reasons-- and that's fine.
"...But we do not take our craft as a hobby or a joke. It's not meant to be fun. It's not funny. It's not even entertaining. It comes from a heavy place. It's dangerous. It's difficult...sometimes even painful. Our music challenges people to ask personal questions. Spiritual questions. We instigate strange and difficult emotions. Our art is sincere. Ugly at times. It is the hurt that makes you know your human-- you're alive"


  

How to Succeed in Beeswax

Varying sentiments echoed the same essential appraisal: Yeah, that sounds like a good idea...
I remember picking the brains of other local musicians when Beehive first got started...
Yeah, I think that's kinda the way to go, these days... or I like it... or I'm not sure what the best way to go about music in the Internet age is, yet, but this seems to be a cool way to do it...

Detroit's Beehive Recording Co., launched five years ago by local music maven and perennial band-er, Steve Nawara, aimed to recreate what Italy Records had initially set to, back "in the 'garage days,'" by unifying and propping the albums of local talent, only this time, cutting back on the inherently high and hindering production costs (studios, vinyl pressing) and going "web-based."

Beehive Artists released their tunes online, often as singles or 3-song EPs, paired with artwork and bio's, $ from the downloads would be pooled towards financing eventual physical formats of said-recordings. As an adhoc label, Beehive offered its artists a 50-50 split, providing songwriters the freedom to put whatever song (be it a solo side project thing or some other experimental project for another band) up for Internet-ears to-hear, while its listeners get user accounts much like a mini-iTunes.

But, for the last year, Beehive has gone "free and open" to its members. Online seekers could come stream for free with the hopes that we all continue to support the artists as well as this unconventional label, when the time came... (Thus, why not throw a Ball?^)

To date, Beehive's culled 2,500 members(/listeners) and posted 37 singles recorded by Detroit area musicians. By year's end, it'll pass 10,000 downloads from its site, with no artist having been charded to record in the Beehive studio.

Dark Red, Aran Ruth, Deleano Acevedo, Bad Party, and Duane the Teenage Weirdo were some of this year's Beehive highlights.

To continue doing their part to bring some kind of feasibility to the mercurial music business, Beehive is hosting a fundraiser event - a Beehive Ball, at the Gaelic League in Detroit, November 12, featuring 12 bands from its digitally-downloadable catalog: Aran Ruth, esQuire, Dark Red, Laura Finlay, Johnny Ill Band, Jojjon, Body Holographic, The Mythics, Eric Villa, Ginger Ale Revolution, Cannon, and Robert Harlow.

As the Internet fliers echo - this is a formal event, so leave your denim, moccasins and faded vintage T's at home, folks... I, personally, would encourage bowties and fish nets... $15 at the door, or find them online - or at your local record stores (UHF in Royal Oak, People's in Detroit). -more info

New Things of Note

Stream Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor album -here -
(Recorded inside the Ypsi- psychedelic-power-trio's home studio, Spacecamp, they'll have physical copies ready in time for their two-week east coast tour -available on translucent yellow vinyl, via New Fortune Records.)


Other sounds to be found out there on the Internet - You can hear a new single from Guided By Voices, the first new sounds assembled by their "classic" (and recently-reunited) line up, part of a whole album's worth of new material, coming in early 2012. Listen: Guided By Voices - "Doughnut for a Snowman"

Also, gnarly/valiant garage rockers Thee Oh Sees  dropped two new singles (on Pitchfork) from their forthcoming album - listen to: "The Dream" + "Carrion Crawler" and then see 'em:
11/22 - Lager House - Detroit, MI

We Are Everything

No way to tell if the sun is beginning to set yet... The only light spilling into this log cabin is a hazy glow of overcast skies, a dying light but not yet gone, through yellowing curtains, clashing with the glow of the chimney's fresh, spurting fire.

And you could go out through that back porch and slide into the patch of dewey ferns, grab a walking stick and take one last hike before it gets pitch black and the temperature drops below 40... You come back up, back in to warm up, nostrils stung with pine, your lungs and legs burned by the climb back up... Mellow but exhilerated...

At least, that's where my head went, what I saw, what I felt, -the daydream I fell into, listening to Michigan's newest voice in rustling, orchestral Americana folk rock - Joe Hertler and the Rainbow Seekers. Jangles, chimes, twanging lilts and grass-stained percussive tumbling, under smooth crooned vocals halfway between lullaby-and-anthem - Hertler and the Seekers capture the similar heart-swooned wanderlust aesthetic of other Mid-Michigan based folk constituents like Frontier Ruckus, but may strike something closer to another trouabour whose been writ-'bout on this blog before, ala Small Houses.

Makes me wish I'd gotten more into Lansing's music scene while I lived out there, for school. (At the time, I was too preoccupied with Detroit's musical goings-ons, but oh well).



This Lansing group is ready to release their first proper LP (after Hertler, himself, had put out a live album, an EP and a solo LP) - On Being comes out this month, with a string of inner-State shows to support it - including Nov 3 at Mac's Bar in Lansing.

Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers - "We Are Everything"

New Material, Old Factory

Ann Arbor's Americana/folk Duke, Chris Bathgate's Salt Year has been a busy year, indeed. Aside from a handful of six-week tours through the nation supporting his recent LP, he made a stop at NPR's Tiny Desk (for that characetristically unconventional performance, seen here), he's also, somehow, somewhere, at some time, put together an EP - Old Factory (coming out on Quite Scientific).

...But you can't hear (most of) it until January, at the earliest. For now, all you can hear (and see) is the song (and video for): "Big Ghost..."



And you can see (and hear) him, Nov. 4 - at Woodruff's in Ypsilanti.

(And, even though I feel like I've said a variation of this preceeding phrase six or so times on this blog:): Happy Halloween...

Martin Bisi @ Small's 11.10.11

Idiosyncratic genre-journeymen, producer and weird-pop purveyor, Martin Bisi, is coming to Hamtramck, welcomed by the comparably quirky cut-ups Lord Scrummage and equally energetic Pink Lightning.

Bisi, who cut his teeth with Brian Eno in the heady days of New York's scorchingly inspirational no-wave days of the early 80's, is readying a new LP for early 2012 titled Ex Nihilo ("form out of nothing"). "I'm in the zone, let's just say..."

You can stream the lead single, "Suffer the Moon" here -and experience it's dizzying blends of sonic sensibilities reminiscent of his former clients, contemporaries and collaborators (from the noise-rock of Sonic Youth, to the spooky theatrics of Swans' Michael Gira)... Mesmeric, murky balladry abounds...

(Watch: Martin Bisi: "Drink Your Wine" )

Read up more on Bisi's intriguing history and current adventures, here.

Zombie

John Sinclair once told me that...
"Rock n roll....is like a zombie..."

...whether you think it's dead, or if you think you've finally killed it... it'll keep moving; scabs' and all...
~

In other news - instrumental surf-rock trio DevilFish are celebrating the release of their 2nd LP (on vinyl) - Squirrel Gulch, Thursday (Nov 3) at Ferndale's Loving Touch - with: High Speed Dubbing and Oblisk co headlining (the latter of which will be highly pressured by your writer to do one more Joy Division cover...)

The vinyl comes with a calendar-sized comic book, featuring the cracked comic-strip invented by 1/3 of DF - Pierce Reynolds (ex.. the Gumshoe, seen left)

Where It Was At...

I scare Bjork when I tell her about Siri, ...how her smartphone is capable of complex thought. How technology will know, now, when you're trying to fuck with it - and fuck with you, right back...

But, Bjork had already scared me, earlier in the night, when she displayed her whisker-less jaw, her beard having been shaved hours before...

 

Thom Yorke's getting tipsy in a penguin suit and Beck's keepin' it cool like it's 1996 while Trent Reznor stomps the shit out of VHS cartridges, harvesting their magnetic intestines... 

Upstairs, more than a thousand revelers are pact like sardines, the Crofoot stuffed like a crushed tin box...

 ...and this, these hurried images, is the closest I'll get to Detroit's dedicated interpreters, the cracked creative class, the dedicated post-everything troubadours as they dress up as a variety of musical icons, celebrating Halloween in some weird talent-show explosion of reverence -for the band's their embodying, but beyond that, for each other...

Apart from a zealous, must-win, shoulder juked shunt to the front row for Joy Division's set, I have opted to take  my chances for most of this Halloween Party (-the fourth annual of such covers-band showcases hosted at Pontiac's Crofoot, it's inspiring tribute moments framed, inevitably by Pabst-spilled crudeness, cleavage, coagulated blood and BO marination through latex body suits...). Mostly, I've buoyed myself in the middle of the dancefloors, rollicking along with the choppy seas of sozzled dancers, listeners, shouters and shakers...

No one was themselves.



(Mister as Beck)



The four most dynamic female vocalists (at least taken from the modest census of the Michigan indie/rock/pop scene) joined forces for a heartbreakingly-fleeting 30 minutes, to perform a set of Shirelles covers.   

Huddled up by the sound guy, 200 ft back, I listened to Regan (of Pewter Cub) pour her heart into "Mama Said" while Dina (Secret Twins), Liz (Phantom Cats) and Jen (illymack) backed her up with perfect harmonies and theatrical side-stepped sways and jazz-hand accentuation.  

I craned my neck over hills of shoulders and spiky hair to hear it, had to get closer; foot traffic like battling quick sand, I squirmed down and through the channels of bodies - Such energy everywhere, so much of it, we waited for some maniacal match to be struck and held to the mylar balloon-full-fireball-spitting locusts... No one could move... What would/could happen when we boiled and bubbled over the edge, at the feet of Beck in the middle of "Black Tambourine."

Shirelles wrapping up, I sneaked to the side of the stage and ran into Michael Jackson (Chris Butterfield / Pink Lightning) and found the clean-shaven Bjork (Steve Puwalski / Pupils), next to his bassist, Jason Worden, himself moments away from pasting pastel designs onto his face...

I paced the room, wishing, (cursing?) that something so beautiful as these four intertwining voices, staggering enough on their own let alone united, risked being lost on so many of this roly-poly crowd sluicing distractedly through its four distinct performance-compartments... "This needs to happen again! This needs to be happening right down here, in smaller room, where we can all hear it, perfectly, perfectly," I stammered, right before bumping into the red-scarf-swathed Beck, circa his Loser days, (Bryan Lacker / Mister, in disguise).

I turned; DJ Ernie (Erno the Inferno) Guerra and I traded skunk-eyes, both of us not recognizing the other at first - he all slicked up in a suit, and me behind a goatee, eye patch and shock-white rat's nest wig. But there he was, sitting next to Jay-Z (Brent -Blaksmith- Smith) as they got ready for his set in the Crofoot cafe.  

I laughed to myself that the backstage space, for cacophonous 20-minute blur, resembled the likely snap-shotted populace (and persona) of any regular ol' Lager House rock night or some Loving Touch special showcase... All the regulars of local rock's stages, whether hungry for beer or whether legitimately splashed to the curb of the backstage like flooded rain run-off, reverted to their unconscious comfort zone - each other.

And yet, this was just back stage. An anonymous thousand-or-so swarmed the rooms above, waiting to hear them... albeit not playing their own songs, but still - it's something that so many ears, minds and hearts had the potential to soak in so much local talent. No matter how much vodka these Elviras and Spidermans had slung back, their ears were exposed to the impassioned performances of a wide range of local bands. It sinks in... It goes beyond the novelty of NIN...

In that sense, it went beyond the sometimes begrudged and unavoidable small-turn-outs, week to week, for the bands here, who slog it out, commendably, each season, song upon song, persevering and honing their craft and continuing to release their own albums, to any one who wants to take a listen.

Look at how many got to listen to you last night... You couldn't move. I guess, I was thinking, I know what these bands are capable and what they sound like in their own right, their own voices, their own songs - it's something else to see them pull all this off... Maybe those packed into the thousand-plus crowd, who don't normally see them, will get bit with curiosity - like, what does Child Bite sound like, when they're not NIN? Come down and see! Why not? It could happen... miracles happen on Christmas, why the fuck not on Halloween, too?

Speaking of Covers? Here's the heavenly re-imagining of Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" - posted by Detroit's Phantasmagoria:

And so... Eventually, I got up to the front row, finally, for Joy Division (Oblisk), a cover set that I obnoxiously took credit for, having somewhat tricked singer/guitarist Asim into saying yes-to-it, with Creepy Cheapy' production manager, Phreddy, within ear shot, checking him off for it months ago.

Coy to the bitter end, Asim assured me he wasn't going to go over the top on some Ian Curtis-esque spasm. Lo and behold, he shaves his beard clean (the first time in four years) and half way through the keyed-up dance-rock run of "Transmission," his arms start windmilling dynamically, hips jittering a bit of a shake, eyes squinting, head rolling...just like the late post-punk trailblazer... And the crowd (and your writer) went fucking crazy... just as Asim explodes into the chorus

DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE-TO-THE-RADIO ...

And that was a whole other part of it. Not just to lose yourself in costume, but to lose yourself in a whole other way - beyond the private transcendence wrought with one's headphones in your bedroom off on some lip-synched, cathartic wriggle through your favorite album, no, this was a chance for every musician to live as their favorite writers, singers, performers...

And don't get me wrong, I'm all for killing one's idols... But it's something else when Tom Bahorski (Ashleys) is all done up like Ziggy Stardust and connecting to bassist Mike O'Connor (Fur) through the properly-paid tribute to a track like "Ashes to Ashes..."

What I mean is, - Idol worship is one thing, and yes, that's certainly part of what went down last night - but we can't be so cynical as to ignore the connection that's made, when someone else flips over how good your Radiohead songs sounded, or how intense you were as Bjork...

Scary...

Scary Monsters...

Happy Halloween.

In this town of Halloween

...Concentrated

Morning after Ypsi...
I perched on a stool, to the side of the stage, interviewing seven music movers and song shakers integral to the establishment of the culture community currently buzzing in and around Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor.

Asking them questions that don't have answers. Sussing out answers to unknown questions.

Scenes... what's the answer? Hell, what's the question?

How do you industrialize a scene, establish an identity- (and get it recognized nationwide)- as a destination for music -how do we get all of the big buzzed national acts to come back here on regular nights - how do we sustain energy and enthusiasm for live music... Can you engage and enlist the most dedicated of local music acts -from rock, to punk, to electro, to jazz, to blues, to folk... to try to come together, and fly together, inside some ideal (yet potentially cockamamy) Spruce Goose-esque ship... Does that require our own label? Our own branding? Do we want to become a product?

There's no one answer. There's probably not even less than 20...

How do you industrialize when there's no more industry? Bands upon bands are putting albums upon albums up, for free, on bandcamps...

These are painful questions: What is the value of music, these days?

Just think of how much good music you, we, have listened to, in these days of our late 20's, our mid-30's, knocking on 40... for free? Can you fathom how much utter crap you listened to in your teenage days - that you actually paid money for? And yet, here you are, listening to modern masterpieces, the cutting edge contemporaries who are probably going criminally unheralded as the next Dylans and Cobains, the next new innovators - and you probably haven't paid them a cent, only paid them attention.

This probably requires more, as Amber Fellows (Swimsuit / Ypsi Music Shelf curator) suggested...maybe monthly town meetings, -if we do really want to figure out what precisely should be done with all this energy?
Does it need to be caught, bottled and displayed like King Kong or should it continue maturing organically, roaming the wilderness of Michigan? Perhaps it just needs to be nurtured, looked after - given a bigger habitat (more venues) and given better resources... <-does that mean getting booking agents? What? What do we actually want?

Awkward, difficult questions...but its worth figuring them out.

Are we otherwise just writing our names in water? Or would be desecrating the preciousness of what we have / what's happening / what we share by dissecting it, experimenting on it, to determine its use and value - turning on some crude black light to reveal the particles floating from our amps, from our mouths, coating our vinyl and wound through our cassettes...

Is there wisdom in letting it be?

I don't know yet.

Since Halloween's upon us - it's apt to enjoy these sounds of Ypsilanti's Bad Indians:

Concentrate...

Tonight, at Woodruff's in Ypsilanti, Fred Thomas (Saturday Looks Good to Me / Swimsuit), Shelley Salant (Swimsuit / Ginkgo / Michigan Happenings) Jim Roll (Backseat Studios / Drunken Barn Dance) and a few other local musicians of the Ann Arbor Ypsi scene will discuss scenes, part of Concentrate Magazine's Speaker Series.

--That's a word that can make many cringe due to it’s perception for creating cliques, catty competitiveness and its inherent risk of disillusionment or jadedness upon once wide-eyed hopeful artists

-- It’s also a word that makes some think of community, to believe in their friends and gain inspiration from the works, and the performances, of their neighbors. 

Scenes can stir up pride for one’s community – to know and appreciate that such talent is nestled throughout basements and 2^nd story lofts all within a walking distance (or a quick bus ride) from the venue.

Scenes, the scene, or a scene, ...can be the elephant in the room of any live music event – at least it is for me, -someone who has to write about it constantly. Whether it’s the Ypsi Music Shelf inside Café Ollie, or if it’s the Ypsi Flea festival, if it’s an up and coming Ann Arbor rock group self-releasing their self-produced album on a Thursday night at the Blind Pig – whether it’s an esteemed folk band headlining a Saturday at the Ark or if it’s something like the expansive Mittenfest music festival, which will be here in just two months time… 

A voice in the back of my head always asks – what does this mean for the scene, where or what can this lead to, or become? What are we trying to build, if anything at all, -or are we just crazy, crazy passionate and merely doing it because we can’t help it (or explain it)? 

Concentrate Magazine has wondered something similar – how do we sustain it, to the point where it keeps growing, as opposed to blooming to a certain point, how do we get the branches of our tree to peak up above the canopy of all the other city’s scenes – is that the tacit goal? What does it require? Is it wide-eyed, naïve, unreasonable or egotistical to overtly acknowledge the worth of each other’s work to the point where we enter realms of analyzing and acting upon required steps that are more commerce than art, more self-marketing than self-expression? 

Tonight - Woodruff's - Ypsilanti - 5 pm - REGISTER here