I'm going to see the final New York Isis show tonight. (They're playing Brooklyn tomorrow night, but because I ride NJ Transit, I can't go to shows in Brooklyn—can't make it back to Penn Station in time to catch a train home—so Brooklyn shows don't count, in my mind. Which makes it all the more annoying when bands I want to see only play Brooklyn, and not Manhattan.) It'll be my third time seeing them.
I first saw Isis live a decade ago (October 15, 2000, to be exact), opening for the now-defunct Seattle band Botch at the now-defunct venue Brownies. I was there to see Botch; their final full-length, We are the Romans, was one of the most amazing records I'd ever heard, mixing metal, hardcore, and crazy guitar solos that sounded like an exploding Nintendo game into something that was, at that time, pretty new. It would, of course, turn out to be massively influential in the coming years; there was a stretch there where if you paid enough attention to certain subgenres, it was hard to find a band not blatantly cribbing from Botch, or Cave In.
I'd heard Isis's first full-length, Celestial, before coming to the show. (My friend Gordon ran Escape Artist, the label it came out on.) It was a sort of sludgy industrial-doom record, very clearly influenced by early Godflesh, but with a greater focus on hypnotic, repetitive riffing. They almost seemed like they wanted to lull the listener into a trance—at a low volume, under the right circumstances, the album could put me right to sleep. I liked it, though.
The show was completely different from the album. I mean, yeah, they were playing songs from it (and from their earlier EPs Mosquito Control and The Red Sea, which at that point I hadn't heard), but there was an element of exploration that was absent from the recordings. At one point, the loud guitars and pounding, looplike tribal drums gave way to a duet for theremin and didjeridoo. I came away surprised and really impressed. I'd heard something really new.
Isis got bigger and bigger as the years went on, becoming a mid-sized cult act and poster boys for "post-metal," a term that always came off to me like the people using the term considered metal something to be evolved out of. Like Botch and Cave In, they became a touchstone for younger bands, with critics attaching the shorthand name "NeurIsis" to a subgenre that seemed rooted in imitation of their work and that of Neurosis. I liked their second album, Oceanic, even more than Celestial, and the double disc of remixes, Oceanic: Remixes/Reinterpretations, was great. But the two albums after that, Panopticon and In the Absence of Truth, seemed boring and gray to me, like they'd run out of ideas and were falling back on habitual stylistic gestures. Panopticon in particular just felt like a rehash of Oceanic. Here's the repetitive, trancelike guitar riff; here's the roared verse and crooned chorus; here's the tribal drumming. Their music was so resolutely un-hooky, so focused on cumulative effects rather than individual moments of catharsis, that listening to it was like walking through a fog bank. And their visual style—abstract imagery and a generally impersonal, the-artist-is-not-present vibe—only served to distance me even more from their work. I felt like they were going out of their way to sound like one big roaring thing, rather than a group of people making music collectively, and as someone who likes small-group jazz and rock bands that prioritize interaction, I was having trouble maintaining interest.
I went to see them a second time in 2007, for their tenth anniversary tour, with Jesu opening, and was bored to the point of annoyance by both acts. I left early. So I'm curious what the feeling will be like at tonight's show. It's a kind of pre-emptive nostalgia, obviously—Isis announced their breakup immediately before the start of this tour, and bandleader Aaron Turner has postmortemed the band's catalog online. But Isis's music doesn't lend itself to celebratory exultation, so an "Irish wake" atmosphere is unlikely. I'm kind of thinking it'll be vaguely somber, as the band plods through an hour and a half or so of looping, hypnotic songs that I can barely tell apart. (I tried listening to one album a day this past week, to re-familiarize myself with their catalog, but gave up after the first two days.) Granted, the band's 2009 studio album, Wavering Radiant, was a comeback of sorts, with a newly organic and progressive-rock-informed sound, but the songs still aren't singalongs or anything. So I guess it'll be up to opening acts the Melvins and Totimoshi to bring the actual rock, and Isis will be giving the whole thing "event" status.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
BILL DIXON 1925-2010
I've known this was coming for a few days, but was sworn to secrecy. Here's the email I just received from Scott Menhinick at Improvised Communications:
I've just been asked by his estate to deliver the sad news that trumpeter/composer/educator Bill Dixon died last night in his sleep at his longtime home in North Bennington, Vermont after a two-year illness.
He was 84 years old.
Dixon is survived by his longtime partner Sharon Vogel and two children.
Information about a memorial service and where to send donations in his name is forthcoming.
An official obituary is in the works and will be available shortly.
Update: Here's a terrific video clip I'd never seen before today:
Dixon was one of the most interesting people I've ever had the pleasure of interviewing (for The Wire; the piece is also included in Sound Levels). I'm gonna be listening to his music for a long, long time to come, and I'm sure other people will be, too. (I hope this loss, massive as it is, will if nothing else help get Intents & Purposes back in print on CD.)
Dixon's discography is far from massive, so it's not outlandish to suggest that one listen to as much of it as possible rather than recommending an ideal starting point. But if I had to pick personal favorites, they'd be:
Thoughts (Soul Note, 1986, w/Marco Eneidi, alto sax; John Buckingham, tuba; Peter Kowald, William Parker and Mario Pavone, bass; Lawrence Cook, drums)
Vade Mecum I & II (Soul Note, 1994/96, w/Barry Guy and William Parker, bass; Tony Oxley, drums)
Cecil Taylor/Bill Dixon/Tony Oxley, s/t (Victo, 2002)
Tapestries for Small Orchestra (Firehouse 12, 2009, w/Taylor Ho Bynum, Graham Haynes, Stephen Haynes and Rob Mazurek, trumpet, cornet, flugenhorn, bass trumpet, piccolo cornet and electronics; Glynis Lomon, cello; Michel Côté, bass and contrabass clarinet; Ken Filiano, bass and electronics; Warren Smith, vibes, marimba, drums and percussion)
Tapestries is indispensable because of its inclusion of a DVD that documents the recording sessions as well as lectures from Dixon on improvisation and ensemble playing. Indeed, if there's more of that footage (and I'm sure there is), it should really be made available. Musicians and listeners a like have a lot to learn from this man's body of work, and any ideas he chose to express directly need to be filtered into the cultural bloodstream as much and as soon as possible.
LIKE A HURRICANE
After a decade, New Orleans metal icons Eyehategod return
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that there are no second acts in American lives. The members of the New Orleans metal band Eyehategod would likely disagree. Even though their last album—Confederacy of Ruined Lives—was released a decade ago, they're on a hot streak in 2010.
The group recently completed a three-week European tour and played a triumphant set in Baltimore over Memorial Day weekend at the annual Maryland Deathfest. Now they're heading out on a headlining U.S. tour with Nachtmystium and Brutal Truth.
The band made its name with a trilogy of albums—1992's In the Name of Suffering, 1993's Take As Needed for Pain, and 1996's Dopesick—which combined the murky rage of Black Flag's My War with Paranoid–era Black Sabbath's heaviness, dragging thick layers of noise and feedback over it all like the Spanish moss of their native Louisiana. Singer Mike Williams' incomprehensible howling added a jittery, disturbing edge to the mix, and evocative song titles like "Kill Your Boss," "My Name Is God (I Hate You)," and "Hit a Girl" created impressions of unremitting hostility, poverty, and degradation, both physical and spiritual.
The band's reputation for offstage debauchery added to its mystique and affected performance. At one 1997 show in New York, Williams looked like he might topple over at any second, as his bandmates glared at him. These days, Williams smiles, jokes, and interacts with the audience. He's a surprisingly upbeat frontman.
"When we first started back in the late '80s, nobody moved onstage—we would just stand there," says Williams. "It was so slow, you couldn't move to it. But I've learned how to be more of a person that's gonna be out in front. You have to talk to the crowd and be, not like David Lee Roth or anything, but you're there for the people to watch."
But has the music become more disciplined over the years as a result of all that touring? Eyehategod's lurching, nihilistic roar, with each song introduced and closed out by shrieking feedback, was always the point, after all. When they cleaned up their sound (relatively speaking) on 2000's Confederacy of Ruined Lives, some fans bristled.
Williams says they have nothing to worry about. "Definitely playing shows tightens you up, but with Eyehategod there's still always that sloppy, drunken way to it," he laughs. "We might get tighter musically, hitting notes at the same time, but we're still gonna be sloppy in that sense—the chaotic sense we've had."
The singer (who's also published a poetry book, Cancer As a Social Activity) says about a half-dozen new songs have been written, in instrumental form anyway. Now it's up to him to come up with lyrics. "It's just about having the time to sit down and put together a new album," he says.
Williams and the other members of Eyehategod have also been pretty busy with side projects. Everyone but guitarist Jimmy Bower is in Outlaw Order, whose debut CD, Dragging Down the Enforcer, was released in 2008, the same year Williams joined Down singer Phil Anselmo and Hank Williams III in the hardcore punk band Arson Anthem.
Part of this flurry of activity can be attributed to changes in the band's legal status. Both Williams and bassist Gary Mader are able to leave their home state, which wasn't the case for several years. Williams also quit heroin during a 90-day jail stint a few years ago. Fortunately, the lifestyle change hasn't affected him creatively.
"When I was strung out before, I used to think, What would happen?" recalls Williams. "Would I lack in the writing, would I have fewer ideas? But being clean, I still think the same way. I still have the same attitude. I still write the same style. It's all the same. I've found out that I am who I am—it wasn't the drugs talking."
Eyehategod's second act is, in a way, a return to their strengths. They recently hopped on the nostalgia train and performed In the Name of Suffering and Take As Needed for Pain in their entirety live. Williams says it's much more important to stay loyal to the fans who've stuck with them through the lean years than it is to try to win over potential new ones.
"If that happens, it happens, but we're not gonna write an album directed at those people," he says. "We're gonna write an album that is reflective of our old stuff and the way that we were thinking back when we did Take As Needed for Pain. "
That and maybe some hometown recognition. New Orleans' metal scene has never received the critical love its jazz and hip-hop stars have earned. It's extremely unlikely that a character based on Williams or his Eyehategod bandmates or the members of Crowbar, Soilent Green, or Down will show up in an episode of HBO's New Orleans-set Treme.
But there's been some recent thawing, says Williams. "They have these Big Easy music awards, and this year Eyehategod got nominated along with Down," he says with some surprise and quite a bit of pride. "It was in the metal category, but it was cool that they're kinda starting to notice it, [even if] it's taken twentysomething years to get recognized in your own city."
[From the Cleveland Scene.]
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that there are no second acts in American lives. The members of the New Orleans metal band Eyehategod would likely disagree. Even though their last album—Confederacy of Ruined Lives—was released a decade ago, they're on a hot streak in 2010.The group recently completed a three-week European tour and played a triumphant set in Baltimore over Memorial Day weekend at the annual Maryland Deathfest. Now they're heading out on a headlining U.S. tour with Nachtmystium and Brutal Truth.
The band made its name with a trilogy of albums—1992's In the Name of Suffering, 1993's Take As Needed for Pain, and 1996's Dopesick—which combined the murky rage of Black Flag's My War with Paranoid–era Black Sabbath's heaviness, dragging thick layers of noise and feedback over it all like the Spanish moss of their native Louisiana. Singer Mike Williams' incomprehensible howling added a jittery, disturbing edge to the mix, and evocative song titles like "Kill Your Boss," "My Name Is God (I Hate You)," and "Hit a Girl" created impressions of unremitting hostility, poverty, and degradation, both physical and spiritual.
The band's reputation for offstage debauchery added to its mystique and affected performance. At one 1997 show in New York, Williams looked like he might topple over at any second, as his bandmates glared at him. These days, Williams smiles, jokes, and interacts with the audience. He's a surprisingly upbeat frontman.
"When we first started back in the late '80s, nobody moved onstage—we would just stand there," says Williams. "It was so slow, you couldn't move to it. But I've learned how to be more of a person that's gonna be out in front. You have to talk to the crowd and be, not like David Lee Roth or anything, but you're there for the people to watch."
But has the music become more disciplined over the years as a result of all that touring? Eyehategod's lurching, nihilistic roar, with each song introduced and closed out by shrieking feedback, was always the point, after all. When they cleaned up their sound (relatively speaking) on 2000's Confederacy of Ruined Lives, some fans bristled.
Williams says they have nothing to worry about. "Definitely playing shows tightens you up, but with Eyehategod there's still always that sloppy, drunken way to it," he laughs. "We might get tighter musically, hitting notes at the same time, but we're still gonna be sloppy in that sense—the chaotic sense we've had."
The singer (who's also published a poetry book, Cancer As a Social Activity) says about a half-dozen new songs have been written, in instrumental form anyway. Now it's up to him to come up with lyrics. "It's just about having the time to sit down and put together a new album," he says.
Williams and the other members of Eyehategod have also been pretty busy with side projects. Everyone but guitarist Jimmy Bower is in Outlaw Order, whose debut CD, Dragging Down the Enforcer, was released in 2008, the same year Williams joined Down singer Phil Anselmo and Hank Williams III in the hardcore punk band Arson Anthem.
Part of this flurry of activity can be attributed to changes in the band's legal status. Both Williams and bassist Gary Mader are able to leave their home state, which wasn't the case for several years. Williams also quit heroin during a 90-day jail stint a few years ago. Fortunately, the lifestyle change hasn't affected him creatively.
"When I was strung out before, I used to think, What would happen?" recalls Williams. "Would I lack in the writing, would I have fewer ideas? But being clean, I still think the same way. I still have the same attitude. I still write the same style. It's all the same. I've found out that I am who I am—it wasn't the drugs talking."
Eyehategod's second act is, in a way, a return to their strengths. They recently hopped on the nostalgia train and performed In the Name of Suffering and Take As Needed for Pain in their entirety live. Williams says it's much more important to stay loyal to the fans who've stuck with them through the lean years than it is to try to win over potential new ones.
"If that happens, it happens, but we're not gonna write an album directed at those people," he says. "We're gonna write an album that is reflective of our old stuff and the way that we were thinking back when we did Take As Needed for Pain. "
That and maybe some hometown recognition. New Orleans' metal scene has never received the critical love its jazz and hip-hop stars have earned. It's extremely unlikely that a character based on Williams or his Eyehategod bandmates or the members of Crowbar, Soilent Green, or Down will show up in an episode of HBO's New Orleans-set Treme.
But there's been some recent thawing, says Williams. "They have these Big Easy music awards, and this year Eyehategod got nominated along with Down," he says with some surprise and quite a bit of pride. "It was in the metal category, but it was cool that they're kinda starting to notice it, [even if] it's taken twentysomething years to get recognized in your own city."
[From the Cleveland Scene.]
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
TOM PETTY, AGAIN
I've never been a major, diehard Tom Petty fan. Only ever owned one album, Full Moon Fever, as a kid. But I grew up in America, so I know all the hits—heard them my whole life on the radio, and they're all pretty great, one or two boring ballads aside. I have the boxed set, Playback, and last year's Live Anthology in my iPod. I haven't talked about that latter item here, but it's fantastic—four discs (five if you buy the super deluxe edition) of songs from shows going all the way back to 1980, and the band's so tight throughout, with only three membership changes in 35 years, that it could have been one long-ass concert. And the price was unbeatable; I got the four-CD version at Target for $22. What kind of major artist puts out a four-CD live box for $22? That's what you call fan service.So anyway, the new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album, Mojo, came out today, and it's really good. As the video clips posted online indicate, the album was recorded almost entirely live in the studio, with minimal overdubbing and stripped-down arrangements. The liner notes even describe not only the session dates but the specific guitars and pieces of equipment used on each song, which is a little more than I need to know, but I'm sure someone cares. The point, for me, is that the songs are good to great. There are too many of them—fifteen in 65 minutes—but only a few drag, and none feel like outright mistakes.
What's really interesting to me is how different it sounds from all the other Petty records I've heard. The acoustic-guitar-led countryish stuff is kept to a minimum, and the jangling, Byrds-y side is tamped down, too. This is a fairly hard blues-rock album, driven by electric guitar and organ. The album's second track, "First Flash of Freedom," is close to seven minutes long, and its middle stretch is a meandering jam that sounds like the Grateful Dead, or the Allman Brothers, or some combination of the two. "I Should Have Known It" is so cranked-up and live-in-the-room, it sounds like the band is covering a track off Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, especially when the bottleneck guitar solo kicks in. Other tracks have an almost Doors-y feel, minus the lyrical pretentiousness. Organist Benmont Tench gets a lot of spotlight time on this record, and he makes the most of all of it, without ever unleashing his inner Jon Lord or anything like that.
This is a band that communicates on an almost telepathic level. It's the kind of thing more veteran acts should be able to tap into, but can't, for some reason. ZZ Top can; I've seen them live and they're absolutely locked-in, and their strict policy in the studio, never violated, is that no sound will appear on a ZZ Top album unless it's been made by a member of ZZ Top. The horns on "She Loves My Automobile" from Degüello? They learned how to play 'em.
The Rolling Stones don't come close to this kind of cohesion. I don't think they ever had it. They've got (and have had, in the past) some great individual players, Charlie Watts in particular, but they couldn't make a live-in-the-studio album like Mojo if you put guns to their heads.
Contemporary rock bands, especially metal bands (much as I hate to say it), don't know how to make a live-in-the-studio album. Nobody's ever asked them to try. It's all about punching it in, laying down 50 versions of a riff until it's inhumanly perfect. Even Nirvana did it. I remember hearing my audio engineering professor play me "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and pointing out that Dave Grohl had only played his drum part once—one time through the verse, one time through the chorus—and Butch Vig, the producer, had cut 'n' pasted it to get through the rest of the song. How punk rock. How "real."
But I digress. My point is, this new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album is great and you should listen to it. I foresee myself listening to it a lot this summer.
Monday, June 14, 2010
BANDS ARE NOT JUKEBOXES
Today at my MSN metal blog, I condemn the practice of bands (e.g. Slayer, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Nine Inch Nails, Eyehategod, Unsane) playing entire albums live. It's fucking boring, and it's demeaning to the bands (who are reduced to being living jukeboxes) and the audience (who are rewarded for mindless nostalgia). Putting together a great set is an art form unto itself—balancing old and new, setting a pace that starts strong, offers a slight slowdown in the middle so the audience can relax/catch its breath, then bringing the energy level back up for a thunderous conclusion and a kick-ass, explosive encore. It might seem similar, but that's really a totally different thing from sequencing an album (or a CD), especially an album from 20 years ago, when albums actually had sides that demanded mini-sequencing of their own. Frankly, I'd be more impressed by seeing The Rock-afire Explosion playing a whole album by a band. Anyway, there's more if you want more.
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