August/September 2007 -- Issue # 25 Archive

STORIES          CD REVIEWS          FILM

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ISSUE 25: AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007 COVER STORY
Silverchair: Another evolution
By Troy Michael

The 1990’s saw an explosion of dirty rockers wearing flannel shirts and matted hair. Most of those bands hailed from Seattle, Wash., although some came from across the Atlantic. Once the "grunge hype machine" lost its wheels, most of those bands faded off into the sunset (Candlebox or Bush anyone?), and only the true bands survived the end of the grunge era.

Silverchair formed in 1992 under the name Innocent Criminals when they were just 12 years old. But even before that, Daniel Johns (guitar/vocals), Chris Joannou (bass) and Ben Gillies (drums) had been making music since they were only 8.

"I’ve known Chris since we were five because he lived right across the street from me," Ben Gillies told me on the phone from his home in New Castle, Australia. "We met Daniel when we were both 8 years old and found out he only lived about five blocks from us.

"Once we got together, we wrote these little rap-type songs and decided to put on a concert at primary school when we had a charity event. We thought we were quite good actually, so we kept making music."

When they were at the young age of 12, the rock band entered a radio show contest with their demo and won first prize, which included a free recording session in the station’s studio. The trio changed their name to Silverchair and have released five albums since. The albums spawned chart topping hits and number one albums, despite most music fans thinking they broke up.

"We never did break up, and it’s annoying when people think we did just because we haven’t put out an album in five years," Gillies said. "If we ever broke up the band, everyone would hear about it because we would make it explosive. But I don’t see that happening because we are in Silverchair until we die."

The truth is Silverchair’s last album was a live record Live from Faraway Stables in 2003. In Silverchair downtime, Daniel Johns went on to write and a record an album with producer/engineer Paul Mac under the duo’s name Dissociatives. Gillies formed a side band called Tambalane, which wrote and recorded one album on their own and Joannou took on the role as a producer.

Now back together as a trio, Silverchair is about to embark on another worldwide tour in support of their fifth studio album entitled Young Modern.

Like their four albums prior, Young Modern takes another giant step in the evolution of Silverchair. Gone are the crunchy guitars and thunderous bass and drums. Now the trio has recorded a beautifully sweet pop rock album that drums up images of sandy beaches and sunny Sundays with the Beach Boys or long rainy days in Portland listening to the Shins. Young Modern finds Silverchair all grown up and never looking back. They are a more intellectual and mature band, which has arguably recorded their best album to date.

"I guess it’s not a conscious decision to change with every album. We are just those kind of musicians who try to evolve and see what new things we can do. I think people would get bored with us if we made Frogstomp over and over. Plus we would get bored as a band and never last.

"I wouldn’t want to make new records with the same sound with only little changes as fills. I would go mad doing that. It’s like when you go to the salad bar you want try different things instead of having the same old salad."

When describing Silverchair, you only can describe them one album at a time because of their diversity. This latest record could be labeled "psychedelic pop." It brings back legendary Beach Boys and U2 collaborator, Van Dyke Parks who contributed orchestral arrangements to three tracks including a lush epic called "Luv Your Life." Also helping out again were Neon Ballroom sidemen, Paul Mac and Jim Moginie.

"Bringing in Van Dyke Parks is one of the best things we have done in this band. He has added so much to our music, which enables us to go further into the songs."

Now embarking on another world tour, Gillies, Johns and Joannou will be heading over to tour the United States, which includes the Lollapalloza festival in Chicago. Then they will go back and tour the UK and their home country. If all goes well, the possibilities are endless for Silverchair.

"Outside of the tour itinerary, everything else is up in the air," Gillies explained. "If the new album does well in America and sells like, five million copies – hell yes, we would want to come back and tour. But if it only sells a couple thousand, I don’t think we would be making it back over."

Now with Young Modern out, the three long-time friends and band mates once again put on their rock star outfits and head out on the road. But the question begs to be asked for this chameleon-like band – What’s next?

"We have always spoken about doing this all our lives, but at 12 or 14 you don’t really think you’d be in a band for life. You pretty much live by the moment and have fun with your friends and look at all the pretty girls," Gillies said. "We get asked a lot if we didn’t do music what would you do? I don’t know the answer to that. Music is all we have known since we were in our pre-teens. I think all three us of would agree that we are brothers, and we will be brothers until we die."

A Silverchair history lesson: the highlights

• They have had five No. 1 albums in their homeland, which is more than any other local group (Midnight Oil had 4, AC/DC and Crowded House each had 3).
• They’ve sold over six million albums, and their most recent release – Young Modern – is the fastest seller to date.
• They got their big break in mid-1994 when they won a national demo competition conducted by SBS TV show "Nomad" and Triple J.
• "Tomorrow" spent six weeks at No. 1 on the Australian singles charts and 20 weeks in the top 10. In 1995, it became the most played song of the year on U.S. modern rock radio.
• Silverchair’s debut album Frogstomp, produced a No. 1 hit in Australia and New Zealand. The disc went on to become the first Australian album since INXS to hit the U.S. top 10, selling more than 2.5 million copies throughout the world.
• Their sophomore album Freak Show was released in February 1997. This disc yielded three top 10 singles in Australia - "Freak," "Abuse Me" and "Cemetery." Global sales eventually exceeded 1.5 million copies in spite of the fact that the band had to juggle world tours while trying to finish their final year of high school.
• Their critically lauded breakthrough, Neon Ballroom, was released in March 1999. In Europe and South America, it became the group’s most successful album to date due to the Comet Award winning "Ana’s Song" – a track about Daniel Johns’ battles with an eating disorder.
• Silverchair’s one and only gig in 2000 was a sold out appearance at Australia’s Falls Festival on New Years Eve. It was followed on Jan. 21, 2001, by the biggest show of their lives - 250,000 people at Rock In Rio.
• In June 2001, the band started work on their fourth album, Diorama. According to Rolling Stone magazine in its four and a half star review, the album was "one of the boldest musical statements ever made by an Australian rock band."
• Diorama entered the Australian charts at No. 1 in April. It yielded the top 10 singles "The Greatest View" and "Without You" and the top 20 hit "Luv Your Life" as well as the airplay favorites "After All These Years" and "Across The Night."
• The band’s work on Diorama won them six ARIA Awards (Australia’s Grammies) including "Best Group" and "Best Rock Album." The disc went on to be certified five times platinum in their homeland.
• After an open-ended hiatus, Silverchair regrouped for the Waveaid benefit concert at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Jan. 29, 2005. The event drew a sold out crowd of 55,000 people and saw a ‘who’s who’ of Australian music raise over $2,500,000 for the victims of the Asian tsunami.
• The benefit show sparked a fire back into the trio, and they wrote and recorded Young Modern using their own money to avoid any problems with the record label.
• The disc was released in Australia on March 31, 2007, and like all of their albums it debuted at No. 1. It also rocketed past double platinum sales faster than any of the previous releases propelled by the lead track "Straight Lines," which became their biggest hit since "Tomorrow," racking up a month at No. 1 on both the singles and airplay charts.
• Young Modern is scheduled for release in the U.S. on July 24 of this year through Warner Music Group’s Independent Label Group (ILG).

Earthless : Releasing new album  Rhymes from a Cosmic Sky
By Jamie Ludwig

Earthless formed in San Diego in 2002 when three friends were brought together by their fondness for 70s space rock and Japanese psychedelic music. The trio, consisting of Mario Rubalcaba, Mike Eginton, and Isiah Mitchell, fused their musical prowess with free-jam openness. They breathed life into something that if tried by amateurs, could either be too technical to be fun, or else lost in some kind of hemp-necklace wearing, Frisbee playing, ganja-clouded haze. On their latest release, Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky the group crafts meandering guitars, hypnotic rhythms, and expert musicianship into a near-orgy of hard rock sounds.

Earthless’ Mario Rubalcaba is a prolific drummer who has done stints in some of San Diego’s finest music groups, including punk icons Rocket from the Crypt (as Ruby Mars), Hot Snakes, Black Heart Procession, and Clickitat Ikatowi. After years of playing percussion with more structured groups, Rubalcaba found the free form rock of Earthless to be a welcome change of pace.

"It was and it is still really refreshing… especially for me being the drummer," said Rubalcaba. "Playing with Rocket and Hot Snakes were pretty limiting as far as drums were concerned. For the most part, in 85-percent of all bands you go see in concert, the drummer is always in the back playing the songs. I like that. That’s all great. But I have a lot more on my mind with drums. With Earthless I get to freely express whatever I feel like playing."

Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky, the group’s second full-length, is their first on New York’s Tee Pee Records, a label specializing in psychedelic rock of all types from the dreaminess of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, to sludgier rock outfits Witch and High on Fire.

"Signing with Tee Pee Records seemed like a perfect fit," Rubalcaba said. "Our first record was on Gravity, which is owned by a good friend of mine, and that worked out really well, but being on Tee Pee was a no-brainer. Some of the bands they’ve put out I really like a lot, and we fit pretty well."

Rubalcaba noted the label contacted them through email after hearing the band’s first record. A cross-country trip to San Diego to see an Earthless performance sealed the deal for the band and label to come together.

"Everyone got along great and became friends," Rubalcaba said.

The album includes "Godspeed" and "Sonic Prayer," two twenty-minute long rock epics, and is topped off with a pulse-quickening cut of The Groundhogs’ psych pop classic "Cherry Red."

"Being spontaneous, keeping everything pretty loose and not following a structure" is what Rubalcaba said of Earthless’ style of playing. "We never set out to write a song, we just like playing music together and it turns into these jam songs. We do come up with actual parts, but it’s we have the freedom to trail off whenever we want and come back into it whenever we want," he said.

If most rock bands are centered on the beat of the drums, then Earthless is different in that the bass guitar provides the backbone of their sound. Rubalcaba and Mitchell (who previously played bass with Nebula) often go off on musical odysseys.

"We wouldn’t be able to do if it wasn’t for Mike’s bass playing," Rubalcaba said. "It’s just driven into the ground. Everything is locked around the beat and we can always come back to it after running circles around it."

When the trio performs live, it is even more spontaneous, with sets lasting up to and hour straight with no pauses. With improvisational groups, it can be tricky to translate that live energy into a recording situation.

"In the studio it is a little hard to capture what we do live," Rubalcaba said. "I feel that the new record does a good job with it. It was pretty much was recorded live. There were a few guitar overdubs, but for the most part it was recorded just like we play it."

Unfortunately for most of the country, outside of regional shows such as their home-away-from-home San Francisco, and a special appearance at the CMJ Festival in New York this fall, Earthless has no tour plans set for the new album.

For now, everyone will just have to play the record on repeat and cross their fingers. Although Rubalcaba sees the potential for more opportunities to arise in the future, for the time being, he is pretty content with the way things are.

"It’s just really fun to be involved in something like this. I feel pretty lucky."





i:scintilla under the lens
By Lisa Zyga

On May 19, i:scintilla played their CD release party at Cowboy Monkey in their hometown of Champaign, Ill. Despite the fact that the foursome had performed in the town just once in the past year, they (along with openers Relenter and Cruciform Injection) drew a full house of worshipful fans. The "I love you"s echoed with abandon, and the musicians returned the amour in their own dark, emotional, intense way.

To get all the indie hipsters in this central Illinois eye-of-the-cornfields college town to recognize their awesomeness, it seems i:scintilla first had to be embraced by a land far from home. In 2006, nearly three years since their formation, the Belgian label Alfa Matrix signed the band, adding i:scintilla alongside great electro bands such as their idols, Front 242.

Despite having not yet set foot on that continent, they won a handful of awards such as best newcomer by German magazines Orkus and Zillo!, as well as being unanimously voted by the press as the most valuable and outstanding discovery for Alfa Matrix in 2006.

Their new CD, Optiks, is the first full-length released by Alfa Matrix, and the album features all the qualities from their first bedroom-recorded album, The Approach, but magnified, polished, and expounded upon.

On Optiks, Brittany Bindrim’s voice releases power as if from a bomb, while her words sting like pieces of shrapnel of the human soul. Then enters Vince Grech’s high-speed-train drumming that sounds manipulated until seen live. Finally, Jim Cookas’ and Chad Mines’ equally caustic guitars merge with the programmed synth that has a melodic force of its own. Together, the band is an industrial, dance-techno, goth-rock concoction with a name implying "I (am the) spark."

"Sometimes we have a hard time explaining our style," said Cookas. "We’re too rock for electronic, and too electronic for rock."

While three members of the band still live in Champaign, they’ve mostly been running with the Chicago crowd, where Grech lives. Chicago has better suited playmates for them, as the big city is home to a lively industrial-electronic scene (including Cruciform Injection).

"Compared with Chicago, Europe is more techno/dance oriented," Cookas said. "They seem to like hard dance songs that people can move to at a club."

It’s easy to see how i:scintilla excels with one foot in Chicago and one in the European scene, which seems like a strategically beneficial position for all. Marking a new milestone, the band was recently invited to perform at the prestigious gothic fest, Wave Gotik Treffen, in Leipzig, Germany in late May. To date, their largest audience had topped 300, but more than 10 times that attendance was estimated in Leipzig.

"That was really exciting, and we are very happy to be a part of it," said Bindrim with a bright smile. "I haven’t even been out of the country before."

Just a few days prior to the festival, Cookas had other concerns. "Eleven hours on the plane is not my cup of tea. I think I’ll need to take some medication or something."

Bindrim then immediately called dibs on the window seat.

In addition to the Germany trip, the band plans to tour a little this summer to promote Optiks, which includes several catchy danceable songs, as well as their signature tight synth rock. While it’s all brand new material, three songs — "The Bells," "Scin," and "Havestar" — are remixes, the first two from The Approach, and the last from the Havestar EP the band released to promote themselves when first joining with Alfa Matrix.

"There’s a huge difference between those songs on this album and their original versions," said Bindrim. "Wade Alin produced Havestar and the Optiks CD, and he’s amazing."

Cookas echoed her enthusiasm for Allen. "If you listen to the two versions back to back, it’s night and day," he said. "We didn’t know what we were doing on our first album [production-wise]."

Cookas added that Alin, a member of Atomica ("like a down-tempo Portishead") also does commercial work for stations including HBO, A&E, and the History Channel. That little moment of music right before the commercial break could be his touch.

Bindrim’s lyrics have previously focused on dark topics inspired by Pablo Neruda and Nicole Blackman, and Optiks offers more of her truthful, often painful, observations. Since, as Cookas revealed, she has stacks of notebooks of lyrical material, i:scintilla will be set for a while on that note — not that she plans to stop writing any time soon.

"The album’s title reflects different perceptions and viewpoints on the world," she said. "There are a lot of themes explored, such as politics, the war in Iraq in ‘Toy Soldier,’ the media, religion, and past addiction. … But also, sometimes I don’t know what I’m writing until I write it."

One change on Optiks, on the other hand, is Cookas’ changing style in synths, programming, and writing musical material. Going from a 13-year-old with a midi sequencer to program out all his favorite songs to laying down the base of i:scintilla’s songs, Cookas said he is continually learning and trying out new things.

"I discovered some tips and tricks," he said. "While The Approach songs were written on guitar, the Optiks songs were written on programming, so they’re more electronic sounding."

I:scintilla fans will have another treat, as the band is offering a limited edition 2-CD Optiks package. The second disc includes a variety of their songs re-mixed by other bands, which also provides a buffet of tastes of other similar bands. They especially enjoyed Combichrist’s rendition of "Havestar."

Because they were racing against the clock with finishing Optiks, they’re taking a few months off but have plans to begin writing material for their next album when things slow down a bit. Although time, work and gas prices limit their touring to an extent, the band agrees that performing live is addictive. Future plans might make i:scintilla shows a doubly sensory performance, too.

"We’d like to use more lights in our shows, and eventually create synchronized backing video," said Bindrim. "For example, Skinny Puppy has done this phenomenally since the ’80s, but it takes an enormous amount of work to really do it right. Sister Machine Gun is also impressive."

I:scintilla will pace themselves, though. Just as in their music, the musicians themselves understand control and that nothing happens overnight. As they see it, four years is just the beginning of this "spark."





Only Children: Finding hymor (and rebirth) in the tough times
By Troy Michael

The Lawrence, Kan.-based band The Only Children is the brainchild of guitarist/vocalist Josh Berwanger. But being the captain of the ship sometimes comes with its hardships.

After The Only Children’s debut Change of Living (Glurp Records) was released, Berwanger took the show on the road. A grueling six-week tour later, Berwanger came home to find himself broke in all aspects. His touring vehicle, which was a modified school bus, was broken down, and he was financially broke as well.

Berwanger did the only thing a die-hard musician could do. He threw caution to the wind, cut his losses and took a break to regroup – literally.

Keeper of Youth finds Berwanger with a new label, new songs, a new backing band and a new hope.

Band struggles are nothing new to Berwanger. He touched indie hardships and success with his previous band The Anniversary. But after they were winding down a successful career, Berwanger knew he didn’t want to throw in the towel, so he started his new project.

"The Anniversary broke up, and I think The Only Children started practicing about five minutes after we broke up," Berwanger said. "Staying in The Anniversary was one of those things where I had no idea what was going on in my life at that time — I had been doing that for so long that I didn’t want to fully quit it and didn’t want to fully be in it."

With music still beating through his veins, Berwanger and The Only Children issued their debut Change of Living in 2004. The milestone and back-breaking tour followed, and now Berwanger can look back on it with a sense of humor even though he found himself deep in debt.

"Well, no one died, so I guess it wasn’t that bad," he said. "But I’ve been touring since I was 18-years-old, and every tour I’ve ever went on, I came home with some money. On that tour, three of us came home $4,000 in debt."

After the tour and much speculation, Berwanger decided to carry on with The Only Children and began writing new songs with a vengeance.

He also decided a move would do him some good. So in a head-clearing relocation, Berwanger and his musician wife Heidi-Lynne Gluck (Some Girls) packed up, pulled stakes and left Kansas in the rearview mirror if only for the short term. Once they hit their destination, Berwanger and Gluck found them selves north of the border in Winnipeg, Canada.

With a new lease on life for The Only Children, Berwanger prepared 30 songs to be unleashed. Since they were a struggling new band, a double album wasn’t in the cards.

Moving back to Lawrence, Berwanger reached in his bag of songs and took enough material for one album. The Only Children entered the studio to begin work on their sophomore effort in May of 2006 and also found a new home with SideCho Records.

The rotating cast of characters for The Only Children included Berwanger (lead vocal/guitar), his wife’s movement from keys to bass and an all-star line up of drummers including Ryan Pope (Get Up Kids), Bill Belzer (The New Amsterdams) and Christian Jankowski (The Anniversary). Casey Prestwood (Hot Rod Circuit, Limbeck) came in to contribute pedal steel and new guitarist/organist Ricky Salthouse was also added.

"We had things a little more figured out," Berwanger said. "I took the time to realize that I really wanted to do this, to make music and make it a living. I really believed in the songs and getting them out and to keep going at it. I just wanted to put something out that other kids could listen to and find something that doesn’t sound like anything else. I don’t pigeonhole myself into one genre of music. It just comes out how it comes out."

Keeper of Youth, which was released in April of this year, is a mixture of alternative indie rock with elements of early rockabilly and Memphis-based rock ‘n’ roll thrown in. The album also features a realness to its recording with a warts and all approach including the rough edges left in tack.

"I wanted the songs to be fun, rock ‘n’ roll and back to the basics," Berwanger said. "Something that drives me nuts about today’s music is how everything has to be so perfect. I wanted to do the opposite of that and do it how they did from where my influences came from, in the earlier days of the music.

"I know it’s kind of a risk doing that because everyone’s used to everything being so polished," Berwanger adds. "But emotion to me isn’t some guy singing perfect pitch, having recorded the same part 70 times."

As for conquering the monster of touring, Berwanger will once again face the trials and tribulations of the road to promote with Keeper of Youth, only this time hoping to come home with a better outcome and a bit more money in his pocket.





Grant Lee Phillips: Creative lyricist and "Gilmore Girls" regular
By John B. Moore

Despite turning in some of the most satisfying alternative rock albums of the mid-90’s, Grant Lee Buffalo never really made it beyond the college music scene. Even with four powerful records of distorted guitars mixed with aggressive acoustic romps, the band never got the adoration lavished on peers like Soul Asylum and Cracker.

Nearly a decade after the band split up, front man Grant Lee Phillips is continuing to release music. Gone are the full-time backing band and the fuzzy guitar, as Phillips, cradling an acoustic guitar, now focuses on more subtle, introspective songs.  His knack for writing a remarkable hook and strong melodies, however, is still there.

On Strangelet, his fifth solo record, Phillips is at his lyrical peak, offering a dozen songs mixed with pessimism and optimism. He took time recently to talk to about the new record, his part-time gig as resident troubadour for the TV show Gilmore Girls and the prospect of getting back together with his old band.

Innocent Words: How different is it to go from being the front man of a band to being a solo artist?

Grant Lee Phillips: Where do I begin? I suppose there’s a lot about it that is different.

IW: Is it more nerve-wracking knowing that it’s just you out there?

Phillips: I never looked upon Grant Lee Buffalo as me and a back up band. It was a different kind of situation. No matter how a band comes about, its material is still collaborative among many levels, and Grant lee Buffalo was certainly like that. I guess there’s a great deal of freedom and responsibility that you have to encounter and balance when you go at it alone. Some of that is stressful certainly, but having said that bands certainly carry their own set of stresses. It’s just different I guess. I always wrote 100 percent of the material when I was in Grant Lee Buffalo, as I do today, so in that way my job hasn’t changed too much. I’ve certainly become a lot more involved with the recording process. I’ve become more self-reliant, at times of necessity, but also out of curiosity and my want to get my hands dirty and really get inside of that whole process.

IW: Was a lot of Stranglet recorded in your home studio?

Phillips: Yes it was. My home studio, however limited and humble, allows me to work through ideas and kind of bring things along from the very beginning, little touches as I go, which is nice. There’s something to be said for working within the structure and the constraints of a recording budget and that time crunch and all, but you also need solitude as a writer and you need time to explore. That’s the kind of thing where a home studio is really invaluable. You can try things out and throw them away if they don’t work out.

IW: In writing this new record, did you have a band for most of the recordings or did you play a lot of the instruments?

Phillips: A lot of it was done on my own, and I’ve actually fleshed the songs out quite a bit with drum loops and percussion I had played and I replaced that later on with live drums. I added on a few overdubs in the tenth or eleventh hour. That’s when Peter Buck (R.E.M) came in for an afternoon and played guitar and ukulele on another song, and a string quartet came in and played on two or three tracks. So those little touches that I was seeking to give it that album kind of thing, these are the kinds of things that are nearly impossible to do on the road unless you are Yes. For me, I’ve always had to pare it down on the road, so that meant when I was recording I took that liberty to add vibraphone to everything, sometimes to some excess. It is such an exciting thing to play around in the studio for me. I could get lost in there forever.

IW: You recorded a covers album (Nineteeneighties, 2006 Zoe Records) before this record. Where there any songs that you wanted to record, but for whatever reason never made the record?

Phillips: I had a longer list of songs to begin with, and I typically do. There was a Siouxsie & The Banshees song "Spellbound" that I really wanted to record, and I think I’ll probably play it live. You kind of go in with certain notions and you quickly realize well, that’s working or that works, but it doesn’t necessarily need to be on this album. "Ashes to Ashes," the (David) Bowie song, was another one of those that I had played live on the road quite a bit, and when it came to making the covers album, I thought that’s an obvious one and yet it didn’t make as much sense in the context of the album. So I recorded it with a string quartet and made it an exclusive track that you can get via iTunes. That’s the thing; records can only be pushed around so much. They’re going to be what they choose to be.

IW: So don’t try and force it?

Phillips: No, that’s true. That happens with bands as well. Maybe more so because there are more components, more personalities and everybody’s kind of putting it out there. But in the end a record’s going to surprise you, and hopefully it surprises you for the better and surpasses what you were looking for.

IW: On the new record Stranglet, was there a central theme in your mind when you were putting it together?

Phillips: I don’t know if there was a conscious theme, but it’s true that when I complete an album I stand back from it and begin to see threads that run through the songs lyrically. I had a few sort of mental Post Its. I was really inspired over the last couple of years, going back and listening to some of the more primitive rock and roll albums by Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly. A couple of years ago I had been on the road with John Doe from the band X, and he’s definitely steeped in the country’s best music, so those kind of things played an influence. I thought I’d really like to find a way to tap into that immediacy and that vitality of the really early stuff, and yet I’m also strongly attracted to music that’s more dissonant and harder to pin down lyrically. How to find that combination and that was sort of my goal, to fuse together my record collection in a way. If you can imagine Scotty Moore jamming along to an Eric Satie song with words by Baudelarie. I had a certain set of inspirations, but it’s always going to be filtered through my own sensibilities, which are pretty varied, and at some point in time it comes out sounding, looking and smelling like me.

IW: Have you had a chance to play any of these new songs live yet?

Phillips: I played a lot of them live in a solo acoustic fashion before this tour and some of them I’ve played with a band in LA at a local club called Largo. This is kind of a new line up with Paul Brian on bass and Jay Melrose on drums. It’s really ferocious; I have to say it’s been a work out. I feel like I go to the YMCA everyday to rehearse with these guys.

IW: This year in particular it seems there are a lot of bands reuniting that were playing when Grant Lee Buffalo was still around, either for one off shows or full tours and albums. Have you ever thought about getting back together with the guys from your old band?

Phillips: I’ve been asked about it and it’s crossed my mind from time to time, but we haven’t remained in close contact to tell you truth, and I don’t know, personalities being as they are, I think we’re all stubborn enough that it’s very doubtful.

IW: Let’s talk about your cameos on "Gilmore Girls." How did that first come about?

Phillips: Well, the creator of that show, Amy Sherman Palladino, she’s a big music fan, and she basically sought me out and invited me to come on the show. I’m not sure how extensive my involvement was determined to be at that point, but I came out and lo and behold I guess they’re just wrapping up their seventh season, and I’ve been on the show quite a few times. It’s so much fun.

IW: Was it a surreal experience, your first couple of times?

Phillips: It definitely was. I think the most surreal was the final episode of the last season, which involved several other musicians turning up, posing as buskers and town troubadours and that included the band Sparks, Sonic Youth, I mean it was a real eclectic bunch that had gathered under the lamppost and the trees.

IW: It was a great excuse for me to introduce my niece to your music.

Phillips: I’m happy to hear that. I think that’s kind of a common phenomenon, that there are a few generations that are enjoying that show. I think that’s the great thing about Amy’s writing. They’ve had Yo La Tango on the show; they had The Shins a few years back. She defiantly was a real supporter of independent music from the very beginning. That’s all to her credit, and it’s been a blast working on the show.





Poison the Well - Striving to be unique in a sea of sameness
By Brian Campbell

Poison the Well has been leading the way of metal music for the past several years along with Killswitch Engage, From Autumn To Ashes and Every Time I Die. Over their nearly 10-year span, the group has issued five albums with the latest being Versions on Ferret Records.

The metal scene is flooded with Christian bands with smart haircuts, but the music isn’t what it used to be in the metal scene. Poison the Well displays the band’s raw talent and adaptability to make them stand out from the crowd. Versions is grandiose and intelligent. The music could be seen as atmospheric, prog, post-hardcore, or something along those lines. It is clearly bigger than anything they have done in the past.

Sitting down with Poison the Well’s drummer, Chris Hornbrook, I had the chance to talk to him about the band’s growth on Versions.

Innocent Words: How long did it take you to record Versions, and where did you record?

Chris Hornbrook: Well, it took us two different recording sessions spanning over a year and a half in between each session. It was recorded in Umea, Sweden with Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Lovstrom. We also recorded the material in two different "studios." All the basic tracking took place at this place called "the barn," which was a lodge turned into a studio.

IW: Did you have any issues finding a producer for this record? What went into the final decision?

Hornbrook: No, we knew we wanted to work with Pelle and Eskil again. We worked with them on the last record (You Come Before You), and it was understood that we were going to work with them on this one. They bring a certain something when recording us, and we wanted to have that in Versions.

IW: From record to record, your songwriting style has changed, affecting the final sound. How have you changed your writing approach?

Hornbrook: I don’t think it is an intention to change. The approach is the still the same, I just think we as musicians and songwriters have changed our ideas about music, the approach and the composition. We just sort of work with what comes out, I don’t think something like that should be forced. Just let it flow.

IW: How do you go into writing songs?

Hornbrook: Ryan (guitarist Ryan Primack) will come to me with a riff or an idea or vice versa, and we will see where it goes. Most of the time it starts with a guitar riff and goes from there.

IW: Versions is a huge record in terms of sound. You have moved away from a lot of the smart metal, into a mature, overwhelming post-hardcore sound. Can you attribute that to anything?

Hornbrook: We want to do our own thing and want to be different. I think there is an over saturation of bands now that all sound the same. They’re all marketed the same, and they all look the same. For me, this was a big turn off as far as wanting to be apart of it. Punk rock and hardcore to me have always been about forging your own road and doing what you want to do and that’s what we’re doing.

IW: Tell me about your current tour. Did you get the chance to choose who you took out on the road?

Hornbrook: Of course. When it comes to our tours, we put them together in conjunction with our booking agent as far as bands are concerned and where it’s going. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

IW: You have done tons of small clubs, and you have done Warped Tour. Do you have a preference when it comes to tours, and why?

Hornbrook: I would have to go with a nice 800-1,000 seat club. I mean playing Warped Tour and other festival style traveling tours is awesome and all, but nothing beats a nice, tight club.

IW: Now that Versions is out, do you have a favorite song to play from it?

Hornbrook: I really like playing "Nagiania." I like the groove that comes with it. I also enjoy playing "You Will Not Be Welcomed." It’s a super fun song. I pretty much enjoy anything with a nice slow or mid-tempo groove.

IW: Who are you listening to in your downtime?

Hornbrook: Radar Brothers and Sole. Good stuff.

IW: Speaking of favorites, do you have a favorite record?

Hornbrook: That’s a hard one! I would have to go with Nirvana’s In Utero. To me, this is classic record.

Sherwood: Adventures in cyberspace
By John B. Moore

While record labels scramble to figure out just how to sell music in a world of file sharing and dirt cheap downloads, the guys in Sherwood have managed to successfully forge ahead with a whole new blueprint, regardless of whether a label is along for the ride.

Formed in the dorms of Cal Poly State University, the four piece put out Sing, But Keep Going with SideCho Records, then found themselves on their own. Not wanting to wait around for someone to come to them, they decided to just give the music away. Available on a number of different Web sites, the indie rock Summer EP became a word-of-mouth success and helped them pack the clubs on a cross-country trek.

Well on their way to building up a genuine community, label offers began to pour in. Sherwood, looking for career longevity rather than a quick blip on the charts, decided to ignore the tried and true route and give the just-launched MySpace Records a shot. Their first release since signing is A Different Light, brimming with Brian Wilson-worthy melodies, and sun-soaked lyrics.

Calling in from Rochester, NY, where they’re playing with Reliant K and Mae, keyboardist Mike Leibovich talked about giving away their music, plans for the summer and their Beach Boys/ELO-inspired new record.

Innocent Words: How’s the tour been going so far?

Mike Leibovich: It’s going great. Almost every night has been sold out. We’ve been playing to anywhere from 1,500 people to upwards of 3,000 people, and we’re having so much fun.

IW: Are these some of the largest crowds you have played to?

Leibovich: Yes, definitely. It’s actually a lot of fun for us to be the opening band because although we have a decent amount of people who already know who we are, we’re still trying to win people over. So it’s just a different kind of feeling than when you do a headlining tour. There’s more pressure now, and we kind of have to prove ourselves every night.

IW: I actually first heard about your band, like a lot of people, online. You were offering free downloads of your last EP. What made you decide to give those songs away?

Leibovich: That’s a really good question. Most of our ideas come from late night brainstorming sessions and in kind of a weird way, the Summer EP, from a business perspective, we kind of felt like we were backed into a corner as far as what our next move was. Our first record came out on SideCho Records, and it was just a one album deal, but after that release, there wasn’t a whole lot of momentum going for us. We had a few offers from record labels, but nothing that we were incredible excited to move forward with. We’ve always been a do-it-yourself band, so the idea was just to release the next record ourselves and try and get distribution, and then it evolved into what if we do an EP, then what if we actually give the songs away for free. So we funded it ourselves and decided to give it away. It was not only a means to get more fans, but hopefully also to generate momentum as far as maybe our next label. And it happened exactly the way we hoped it would.

IW: Was there anyone that was saying don’t give it away?

Leibovich: The truth is that anybody who was in our camp was all about it. Anybody who was looking at it from a record label stand point was "why would you give them away, when someone could make money from that." And even MySpace Records, who we ended up with, said "what about these songs you gave away for free? We liked them and really hope that some of them will be on the next record." We’d love to re-record them with an actual in-studio recording budget. For us, it wasn’t about money as much as advancing our career.

IW: Have you found that a lot of people discovered you through downloading?

Leibovich: Actually more than I ever would have expected. We put out our first EP like two records before that, and not a whole lot of people have that one. Even at that point, we were advocating that people burn a copy and pass it out. The longevity of a career is much more important to us then selling a few extra records. Plus we are a touring band, and we spend a lot of time on the road, so we’d rather them come to a show and hang out, maybe get a shirt and listen to the music live.

IW: Did you guys all meet at school?

Leibovich: Yeah, we did. The band was originally started by Nate (Henry) our lead singer and Dan (Koch), the guitar player, who were playing in another band together – sort of a Ramones cover band. They had met in the coffee shop circuit and Joe (Greenetz), our drummer, was playing in another band in town and that band was ending. So Nate and Dan snatched Joe because he was an incredible drummer. Coincidentally, my junior year of college, I was roommates with them and was living with them at the time Sherwood was forming, so I ended up joining because they needed a keyboard player.

IW: Did you all end up graduating?

Leibovich: No. I dropped out at the end of my junior year, which was the same time our singer and drummer graduated. I have probably another year and a half or two years, so we just decided we had to seize the moment. Dan and I have not graduated. I keep telling them if and when the band’s career is over at least I know what I’ll be doing.

IW: With A Different Light, did you approach recording this record a little differently?

Leibovich: We’d heard about other bands renting places to write, so we decided to rent a house ourselves in Mexico for about six weeks, right around October and November. We were basically holed up on this beautiful beach with no neighbors and nothing to do but play music, eat tacos and go swimming in the ocean. That ended up being an incredible inspiration. We’d also never had that much time to write and record before.

IW: Where you guys listening to a lot of Brian Wilson and Beach Boys when recording?

Leibovich: Yeah, very much so. We had this kind of like morning ritual when we were in Mexico. The first hour of waking up we would play the Beach Boys or Electric Light Orchestra. It just kind of gets your mind rolling, listening to music and getting ready for the day. It was our way of getting ready to go into the office.

IW: How did you guys end up on MySpace Records?

Leibovich: It was entirely done through Tom, the guy who runs MySpace. It was his idea to start a record label and it was kind of his idea to find the bands he was interested in. He found out about us through a friend, I think, and he sent us an e-mail through MySpace. It was incredibly impersonal, it wasn’t very explanatory; it was just "Hey, are you guys unsigned? I like your EP." We wrote back "Is this a joke?" About a week later, we started talking about it. It was initiated through MySpace, and then we started taking face to face.

IW: What was it about MySpace that appealed to you guys?

Leibovich: Kind of the same reason we went with the Summer EP. The music industry on a whole is going through this crazy morph, and we’re very aware of it and are very aware of how many bands sign to major labels and you never hear from them again. So for us, we sat down and talked with him for about five or six hours and talked creatively about all the ideas we want to do over time. They seemed just very much on board with the same things. They’re very innovative. Definitely in comparison to other labels we talked to they are much younger and less proven, but the fact that they were willing to try new things was the reason we decided to go with them. Everyone else just wants to do things the way they’ve always done it.

IW: Did you guys realize early on the importance of the Internet in getting your music out there?

Leibovich: Yeah, we actually first got our band MySpace page over three years ago. We were one of the first bands to kind of make the transition from PureVolume.com. We found out how successful the new music Web sites can be. People are looking for new music all the time. We were still in college and got a MySpace page and were definitely very proactive. We were sending out messages and searching for other bands that people might like which are similar. We’ve kind of always been aware of the potential of (MySpace); it’s kind of funny we ended up on the label three years later. We also like being able to do videos, and it all seems to kind of play into the same thing.

IW: What are your plans after you get off this tour with Reliant K and Mae?

Leibovich: We’re doing a few different things. We’re going to do about two weeks of headlining shows. Then we’re meeting up with Motion City Soundtrack, who we’ll be touring with for the rest of the summer. We’re also playing Summer Fest, a festival that I think is in Pennsylvania. We’re going to be main support for Sum 41 at that show. We’re still kind of putting things together after that.





Even while spread across the nation, Smoke or Fire pushes a pure form of punk rock
By John B. Moore

The Richmond, Va., by way of Boston, band Smoke or Fire play the type of prefix-free punk rock that has helped the genre survive for nearly three decades. Almost 10 years in the making, the band has perfected three-minute bursts of aggression, juggling contradictory themes of hope and despair, reminiscent of groups like Avail and Hot Water Music.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on their latest full length This Sinking Ship (Fat Wreck Chords). The dozen tracks show subtle growth from their debut and spotlight a band that may very well be on their way to inspiring future punk rockers across the globe.

Smoke or Fire front man and co-founder Joe McMahan recently talked about the band’s early beginnings, signing to their favorite label and life in a touring indie punk band.

IW: You guys formed the band in Boston, than moved to Richmond – are you all back in Boston again?

Joe McMahan: We’re kind of all over the place. The band started in Boston – it’s been about nine years for me – and then went through different line up changes and moved to Richmond about five years ago and we spent four years there. Marriages and relationships and stuff kind of took people different places; Jeremy (Cochran, guitar) lives in Oakland, I just moved back to Boston with my wife, Dave (Atchison) our new drummer lives in Portland, Oregon, and Ken (Gurley), our bass player, lives in Sales, Mass.

IW: You really are all over the place. Did you notice a big difference between the Boston and Richmond music scenes?

McMahan: I’d say in Boston we didn’t really feel like we fit in so well, I guess. For what we were doing, the bands that were similar were bands like Avail, and they were located more South. It was more kind of working class stuff we were attracted to, and we just didn’t feel like we fit in too well in Boston. It’s a great city and all, but music-wise, there wasn’t a real camaraderie there, it was more competitive. In Richmond, we were immediately embraced by the music community. Everyone pulls for each other, everyone helps each other out, it was a real community of music and that’s one of the reasons we moved there.

IW: Is it tough being spread out all over?

McMahan: It is. It’s harder. It’s weird going from practicing everyday in a room writing together to living all over. But it’s become something where we hit the road so much and tour for so long that it’s not too big of a deal. It’s almost more of a trade off, because we know it’s really important for us to have our personal lives and have our relationships, and it’s not 100-percent band because that’s when people are at each other’s throats and start getting resentful. We all have lives outside the band, and it seems to work well.

IW: When you started the band, did you have any intentions that this was something you were going to make a living out of?

McMahan: No, never. Me and Jeremy grew up together; we’ve known each other since little league, and we went out in high school and bought our first guitars together, and we played in a cover band and tried to write some originals, but we were terrible.

IW: What kind of music did you play?

McMahan: Basically punk rock, but if the tab was in a magazine or we could figure out how to play it, we’d play it. It would be anything from Rage Against the Machine to trying to play Fugazi. So when I moved to Boston for college, and the first day of school I walked into my first class and the kid in front of me had an Avail patch on his backpack and I said "Hey, want to start a band?" His old high school band was starting a new project called Jericho, and he asked if I wanted to try out for bass. So I tried out and got it, but they told me I had to sing if I was going to play. I couldn’t sing, but wanted to be in the band, so I did it anyway. So, it started off as Jericho and myself and the drummer who just left were the only two original members when we moved to Richmond. Jeremy joined the band pretty shortly after our guitar player left.

IW: It must have been easier having someone you grew up with playing in the band now?

McMahan: Yeah, it was rad because this is all we ever really wanted to do. So when Chris left the band to move to Italy to paint, I called up Jeremy and he joined and it was just awesome. It’s still kind of weird to us that we’re doing what we always said we would do.

IW: You had to change the name Jericho, didn’t you?

McMahan: Yeah, it was actually a band from Virginia called Jericho, and they were a Christian rock band. They just played churches and stuff, and they wanted us to pay them a ridiculous amount of money to use the name. We were like, "We don’t have enough money to fill our gas tank and you guys want us to pay you thousands?"

IW: How did you guys end up on Fat Wreck?

McMahan: We moved to Richmond to do this full time because we decided we were either going to break up or do this full time, 100 percent. We moved into this big house and wrote "Above the City" in Jeremy’s bedroom, and our friend in Boston was working in a studio and heard the demos and said "This stuff is really good, let me record it and whoever picks it up will pay for it." We were worried no one would pick it up, but he said it was good and someone would. We went to Boston and spent 10 or 11 days up there, recorded the record and then just started sending it to labels. We almost didn’t send it to Fat because we didn’t see it happening, but then went "What the hell." All of the labels we sent the record to started calling us and were interested. I was sitting at home one day on my couch playing video games in my underwear and it was (label founder) Fat Mike. He was like, "I got your record, I love it and I want to put it out" and that was it.

IW: That must have been weird. Did you listen to NOFX growing up?

McMahan: Oh, yeah, all the Fat Wreck bands, Lagwagon, all of them. It was absolutely insane, that was our number one label; the one we always wanted to be on. It was really bizarre. Apparently they got it, put it on in the office, everyone liked it and said let’s give it to Mike. Ten minutes later he said let’s sign these guys.

IW: Fat seems to have built up a lot of loyalty and bands stay there a long time – especially for an indie. Why is that? Is it because it’s a cool place to be, is it because they’ve got great distribution…

McMahan: It’s all those things. You sign a contract, but it’s always for one record, so if you want to stay, you stay, if you don’t you go. Mike told us, "I want you guys to be the best you can, you have a home here and we’ll put out records for you." They are just really good about letting you be your own band and letting you do things the way you want to do it. Plus, they’re there to give you guidance and suggestions, but ultimately it’s your band and you have control over the way things go.

IW: Is there still a taboo about punk bands leaving for the major labels?

McMahan: It’s a weird thing for us to think about. I don’t know if we would ever be in a position where someone at (a major label) would want us. There was a label that was bought out by a major, MCA, and they had us come out to California for the sole purpose of, they told us, "We want to sign you guys and sell you to MCA, and you guys will be rich and be on TV." They had just done this with New Found Glory and Midtown and all these other bands. We just wanted to go to California because we had never been there. So we went out there, played a couple of shows and said "No thanks, not our thing." I guess it’s something we’ve thought about, but we don’t have that anti-major label thing, we’re just all about having control of our band. We don’t want anyone to buy us and market us the way they want to sell our records. We don’t want someone telling us what we can and can’t do. Against Me! got a great deal. They get to do what they love to do their way, and they got paid to do it. There’s nothing wrong with making money. We still all work in warehouses when we’re not on tour. You don’t make a lot of money doing this, and I think people don’t realize that it’s really hard to be approaching 30 and have no money in your bank account. So it’s not necessarily selling out if you go to a major, it’s when somebody pays you to change the way you are for them. That’s my definition of selling out.





The chameleon that is seductive songstress Rose Thomas
By Troy Michael

Amidst the wailing sirens and bustling traffic, Rosie Thomas walks through New York City telling me about her cold and treatment methods. The perky singer songwriter is preparing to leave for Europe with her friend and fellow musician Sufjan Stevens for a three-week tour. Then she will come back to the states and play some festivals and a wedding in June.

"I am the proverbial wedding singer," Thomas tells me over her crackling cell phone. "I seriously play weddings. People I don’t even know ask me to play their wedding, and I can’t say no. It is such a beautiful event I don’t want to spoil it for them. So I always say yes. I guess its better then a bad DJ pulling out a crate of dusty old 45s or eight-track tapes to play."

Despite her not feeling well, Thomas is bubbling with enthusiasm about her new album These Friends of Mine on her new label home Nettwerk Records. Thomas previously released her first three records on the infamous super indie label Sub Pop Records to major critical praise and a growing fan base. Now on Nettwerk, Thomas feels change is good and is important for any person, especially musicians.

"I left Sub Pop out of rebellion or because they didn’t want me," she laughs and clarifies she is just joking. "Seriously I had a long talk with Jonathan (Jonathan Poneman, owner of sub Pop Records), and things just worked perfectly at the time. Sub Pop ran its course, and we both knew that. So much has changed in my life over the few years with me, and I love Jonathan and everyone at Sub Pop. I felt so loyal to stay there, and they were the first label to come to me and say they believe in me and told me they wanted to put out my records.

"Jonathan told me when he first came out to see me, and we talked and walked around the city, that he wanted to be the launching pad for my career and that is what he and the label has done. I love him dearly. I am indebted to him forever. It’s kind of like a first love. I’ll continue on, but it won’t have that newness that Sub Pop gave me. I am extremely blessed and thank God I am in the time of my life where I can handle changes."

To help her through the changes of life, labels and almost a move to New York City, Thomas enlisted her friends to come hang out and play songs for fun – which ended up being her fourth full-length These Friends of Mine.

On the album, Thomas went to Sufjan Stevens’ house, set up a few microphones and some recording equipment, and just played.

"I was staying at Sufjan’s because I was in New York City thinking about moving there from Seattle. But I decided not to because it’s so damn expensive," Thomas said. "It got to the point where the music became a business for me was not fun. I and Sufjan wanted to do something different because I needed a break. Me and Sufjan were talking about just getting together and have fun making music again, like the old days when you’d just sit around a living room and play on any given night. I told Sufjan I needed something new in my life, and he said he did, too. And that’s how this new album was born."

For the album. Thomas and Stevens brought in fellow friends and musicians Denison Witmer, David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), Damien Juardo, Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate, Fire Theft) and about a half dozen others.

"It was refreshing to work with my friends because I didn’t care really. We were just having fun. I had no pressure in writing. I would just sit at the kitchen table and knock out a song in ten minutes. I don’t know if that good or not but it was fun," she said.

Two of the ten songs on These Friend of Mine are cover songs. Thomas plays a very elegant version of R.E.M.’s "The One I Love" and a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s "Songbird."

"The cover songs were just being in the moment and someone suggesting recording a song we loved. Sufjan and I have played some covers live over the years, and that is how we started the recording session. I think the R.E.M. song was the first one we recorded of all the songs. I didn’t think we’d ever use it, but they found their way on to the album, and I like how they turned out because we were all just having fun."





Tuatara: Creating with a montage of musicians
By Troy Michael

Not many music fans know the name Barrett Martin.

They don’t know he is an accomplished jazz musician, percussionist, record label owner (Fast Horse Records) and producer. Martin also played and toured with blues legend Ceedell Davis and has cultural music influences stretching from West Africa to Brazil.

However, one mention of the 1990s Seattle rock band Screaming Trees will probably best anchor Barrett Martin in the minds of the public.

In 1996, Martin formed his new band Tuatara with friend and fellow musician Peter Buck of R.E.M. The two have made their new album East of the Sun an eclectic adventure in music with a who’s who of musicians joining the party.

Now residing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Martin is keeping busy with writing, recording, producing, playing in jazz bands and going to college.

"We have a nice little music community here," Martin said. "A lot of people are moving here because it is really diverse spectrum of jazz musicians. I play in a few jazz quartets to keep my chops up. Plus you can afford to live here. It feels just like the Seattle scene in the early 80s and 90s before all hell broke loose."

Santa Fe and Seattle aren’t the only music communities he has learned and grown from. Martin is a worldwide student of music. His laundry list of musical accomplishments include studying with Garifuna drummers in Belize; drum masters in Senegal and Ghana, West Africa; Cuban percussion and Santeria drummers in Cuba; Brazilian percussion and Candomble religious drummers in Brazil and master’s fieldwork on the music of the Shipibo tribe in the Peruvian Amazon.

 "While I was working on East of the Sun, I turned 40," Martin said, "I remember when my Dad turned 40 they had a black coffin cake, and I thought 40 was so old. But now, I certainly don’t think that and I don’t feel that old. But they did use black candles on my birthday cake, which was kind of symbolic."

Being 40 isn’t like being in your 20s when Martin was in Screaming Trees and part of the "grunge movement" out of Seattle. The Trees’ Sweet Oblivion was a hit, and they and toured the world. But like age, music is always changing.

"The thing about music now is it comes in these waves, which come and go in layers and repeat," Martin said. "Now there are so many genres that have braches which are trying too hard to incorporate too much to be different.

"As an example, I recently pulled out a Skin Yard (Martin’s first band with Jack Endino) record, and I haven’t listened to that in years. And you know, it’s not a bad record for DIY (do-it-yourself.) I remember in those days you recorded a seven-inch or two, booked your own shows and sent your story to press because no one else did it for you. Now with these bands you hand off a computer download to a label and hope they do it for you. Music has become lazy."

Like many musicians from the do-it-yourself era, Martin feels the digital craze is a blessing and a curse all at the same time. Now, you can make a record in your living room and anyone with a guitar and a decent computer can put out a record or songs online, which in turn floods the market with over saturated crappy music.

Sticking with his moral principles, Martin keeps churning out songs with Tuatara for fun. They are beyond looking to hit it big. Tuatara is a collection of musicians getting together, trading ideas and putting out their own music.

Tuatara, composed of Peter Buck REM) on guitars; Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows/REM) on guitars; Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees) on drums, percussion, keyboards, vocals; Kevin Hudson on electric and upright bass; Dave Carter on trumpet and flugelhorn; and Craig Flory on saxophone and flute, is primarily an instrumental band. But with East of the Sun, Martin and Buck brought in several guest musicians to lay down vocals on the tracks.

"Peter and I wrote most of the music in the last five years, and then we had all these acoustic guitar songs," Martin said. "We got together in my house when I was living in Seattle, and we just recorded some 20-odd songs on a four track. The intention was to get one or two singers, then I moved and took some time off. The demos sat there, and when I was writing in my new home I was writing a demo called Spaghetti Western which had cowboy song titles. While doing that, I called Peter talked about shipping these songs to all the same singers we worked with over the years. The Spaghetti Western demo was sent to everyone and luckily everyone like the music picked different songs to sing on."

After Martin and Buck finished up the song writing via e mail and postal mail, they went into the studio in June of 2006 to record and produce the record. Martin handled all the production duties and enlisted everyone who would be on the album to give their input of what they wanted on East of the Sun.

"We recorded the songs and sent the finished instrumental edits to the singers; they recorded their own vocals and sent them back to me. Then myself and another engineer enhanced everything and mixed the songs."

The singers brought in for the songs on East of the Sun included long-time friends of Martin and Buck – spoken word artist Coleman Barks; Mark Eitzel (American Music Club); John Wesley Harding; Gary Louris (The Jayhawks/Golden Smog); Mark Olson (The Jayhawks); Gina Sala (Sonic Tribe); Dean Wareham (Luna/Galaxie 500); and Victoria Williams.

After writing East of the Sun, it became clear Martin and Buck had two albums worth of material, but it was two separate-sounding albums. The rest of the songs will be released later this year on the Tuatara album West of the Moon.

"It seemed the men picked the acoustic western songs, and the women picked the more groovy and R&B tunes. So what we did was recorded two albums in about a week."

Although Tuatara originally formed to write and record songs for soundtracks, the band has surpassed all stereotypes with East of the Sun, the songs envelope a spiritual excellence with various vocals evoking personal struggles and recovery.

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------------- CD REVIEWS -------------

Animate Objects
Riding in Fast Cars with Your Momma
(Self-Released)

Picture your favorite local jazz combo teaming up with your favorite club MC and DJ, and that only covers the surface sound of Animate Objects. Originating in Champaign-Urbana and winning local awards during their college tenure, Animate Objects took it back home to Chicago. Like the city, their sound is big, rich, and just the right amount of dirty. Perhaps not dirty so much as a bit clouded, like smoke at a backyard barbecue.

Even if you can’t afford fancy rims and Cristal (mentioned in "The Weight"), there are many beautiful moments in life (the title track). Yet as beautiful as life can be, there are moments, like in the bonus track "The Battle of Now," where life doesn’t move: "Keep my eyes wide open and I’m hoping for change/but the older I grow, the more it stays the same. It may be a shame we can’t save today/live for tomorrow, we’re gonna be OK." Nonetheless, the need to keep moving is apparent in the lyrics "though it’s dark in the streets, it’s still blue in the sky" in "Midnight Blue."

In the end, it is possible to make positive hip hop without being unrealistic. This album is a prime example of what looking at the past (with its soul and jazz hooks) while looking to the future (with its optimistic lyrics and subtle production work). In other words, this is the perfect summer album, whether it’s between school terms or between graduation and "the real world."
~ Valerie Enriquez

Blacktop Mourning
No Regret
(Tyrannosaurus)

Imagine listening to Hawthorn Heights, Fall Out Boy, or Atreyu. If you can imagine those in your head, you've pretty much already heard Blacktop Mourning's No Regret. Don't get me wrong, this album is enjoyable, but if you're bored of the whole pop-punk scene, don't bother. This is Blacktop Mourning's first major CD, recorded to Counting Crow's Adam Duritz' record label, Tyrannosaurus Records. This Chicago-based band features five fame-bound guys who know how to gain a reputation (apparently they've appeared on 11 MTV shows and are in the June issue of Rolling Stone).

The music is upbeat and full of electrifying guitar riffs. One of the more notable tracks is "Don't Defend." The way they arranged their lyrics to fit the music is surprising and curiously creative. The vocals are sung as more of an anthem in a truly charismatic, strong voice. They make you eager and anxious, as though something big is about to happen. But when the album ends, and you realize nothing is going to happen, it leaves you disappointed. Like I said, this could be just another addition to your stacks upon stacks of pop-punk artist CDs. But at least it deserves to be on the top of the stack.
~ Ashton McCrate

Blessthefall
His Last Walk
(Science)

I have been disappointed in every new metalcore album that has been released lately. I assumed that the once-revered genre was dying out because it was extremely overpopulated and watered-down. Then Blessthefall released His Last Walk.

His Last Walk is easily the best metalcore record I have heard in the last year. It has just enough of everything you would want—a versatile and talented vocalist who can weave his way in and out of chugging riffs and sudden breakdowns, going from screams to spoken word easily, and a backing band with some balls. The guitars on this record are not reinventing the wheel, but they are powerful and shredding, at times soft and caressing with the drum work following closely behind. Blessthefall are not afraid to utilize more emo than metal, and it comes through in their music. They also have worked in more start/stop musical qualities, and I feel that’s what made a lot of metalcore’s predecessors successful. His Last Walk has breakdowns, too, a lot of breakdowns. This is something a lot of newer metalcore bands have gotten away from, which makes their music sound bland. From the onset, "A Message to the Unknown" will blow you away, while "With Eyes Wide Shut" will work to punish your ears. "Guys Like You Make Us Look Bad" is a nice track that employs everything that should be in a metalcore song. Metalcore needed an album like His Last Walk.
~ Brian Campbell

Blonde Redhead
23
(4AD)

"Immersion" should be the first word to come to mind when thinking about Blonde Redhead. Sonically, they are the equivalent of placing a lobster in a boiling pot (and I mean this in a good way), hot and roiling. Other times, they are like falling through a thin crust of ice while ice skating (even though the sign clearly read "no skating: thin ice"): a slow chilled pull downwards until you’re so cold that you don’t even care about drowning. These musical "temperatures" are well covered in their latest album, 23, sometimes demarcated by the vocals of either the ethereal Kazu Makino or the more grounded Amadeo Pace (both also provide the pastry-like layers of guitars). Simone Pace complements and sometimes even contrasts the vocals with his elaborate percussion using both kit and machine to create the tension in this album.

This release is best taken as a whole, perhaps while staying in bed, not to mention while procuring make-outs (Makino’s voice is often like the sigh one would like to hear coming from a woman during orgasm). It takes a quirky, but generally sane, partner to get into 23, not to mention the fun you could have experimenting with the rhythms going on all at once. If the person you’re trying to score with isn’t feeling this album, check their pulse. It’s probably for the best that it’s not working out, because I’m certain that necrophilia is illegal in most states.
~ Valerie Enriquez

Blonde Redhead
23
(4AD)

The threesome of Kazu Makino and the brothers Simone and Amedeo Pace have often flirted with the possibilities of a good pop song; it's something they've always eschewed in favor of dream-like introspect. That's why it comes as a something of surprise how different an approach is taken on 23. The new album is more song-driven, with more high energy than Blonde Redhead has taken on before, and while it avoids some of their previous jamminess in favor of this new-found vividness, the overlying principles of the band are the same.

The title track, for instance, draws layers of Makino's breathy, almost Parisian vocals around the warmth of a shoegazy guitar drive. "Dr. Strangeluv" and "Silently," on the other hand, combine Amnesiac surf-soaked songcraft with Moon Safari's courageous coquettishness. Makino has always had a lush, perfect, meringue quality to her voice; here it's matched on songs "Heroine" and "The Dress" with complicated interlocking guitar melodies and electronic harmonies that really highlight its pop aesthetics. That's not to say Amadeo Pace is outpaced in vocal duties: "Spring And By Summer Fall" is one of the best tracks on the album, centering around his terse delivery and a center stage guitar hook that gives off a surreal, shadowy "PDA" vibe. It's as though 23 is Blonde Redhead taking an outward, expressionist look at the last five years of their musical contemporaries, and it's challenging them to deliver on their own ideas. To achieve this, they've brought in an A-list production crew of Alan Moulder (Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails), Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio), and Rich Costey (The Mars Volta, Cave In's Antenna). While the results of this are a bit scattered in emotions and so face-forward that they're less uniquely the Blonde Redhead standard, it's still the wonderful astounding pop album you knew they always had coming.
~ Joe Pence

Bockman
Chasing Dragons
(Co-opt)

Bockman is a talented four-piece band whose name was adapted from Kurt Vonnegut's short story "The Euphio Question." Bockman's debut album Chasing Dragons is a perfect start to what should be a successful musical career. For the most part, this is a fun, light-hearted album. It's a less jarring version of Modest Mouse with a touch of modernized Styx. Vocal responsibilities are shared by Wil Reeves and Sean Canan (who, going along with the styx influence, sounds a lot like Dennis DeYoung) while Andrew Weir and Danny Carroll contribute with their instrumental talent.

For Chasing Dragons, the collaboration of piano, cello, trumpet, violin, and synthesizer is the underlying key that ties the album together. The second song on the album, "Isis," contains the lines "maybe the sandman continued the game and it would be a loss to wax and wane." As intriguing as these lyrics may be, they are hard to make sense of. This isn't really a bad thing; it just makes the listener that much more curious—and that much more likely to keep listening. It’s easy to appreciate this album, and Bockman definitely deserves a round of applause for this one.
~ Ashton McCrate

Brain Failure/Big D and the Kids Table
Beijing to Boston
(Bad News)

The thing about split CDs is that inevitably there is one band that shines brighter than the other, regardless of how good the other group sounds. Boston’s ska band Big D and the Kids Table turns in a solid performance—actually one of their best thanks to songs like "Taking Back the Rhythm" (a great jab at the current slate of punk bands that line up to appear on shows like TRL)—but China’s best-known street punk band Brain Failure does such a stellar job with their six tracks that you can’t help but wish they had another half dozen songs.

Big D did a laudable job, but the album is clearly owned by their Chinese counterparts. With only two other releases in their catalogue (only one of which was released in the U.S.), Beijing to Boston only highlights the fact that Brain Failure desperately need to record another full-length. Their six songs are produced by Dropkick Murphys’ bassist Ken Casey, who has been shouting the band’s praises louder than anyone, and includes guest vocals from fellow Boston punk and former front man for the Bosstones Dicky Barrett. On songs like the opener "Coming Down to Beijing" and "City Junk," Brain Failure demonstrate that they can write and sing American street punk better than most U.S.-based punk bands.
~ John B. Moore

Bobby Conn
King for a Day
(Thrill Jockey)

While listening to King for a Day, Bobby Conn’s sixth solo album, many words can be thrown around to describe his pop-rock, prog-rock or good old glam-rock style, but one that keeps coming back to mind is, odd. The album feels disjointed and all over the place, but at the same time is able to come off as an atmospheric concept album with multiple layers to uncover.

The opening track, "Vanitas," gets the ball rolling with strings that lead into a chorus singing in Latin and then segues into a high energy ‘70s rock anthem, complete with the necessary guitar solo. See what I mean by odd?

For those able to make it past a few head-scratchers, Conn makes sure you’re rewarded. The title track, "King for a Day," is one of the standouts of the album. The song is slowly led by various percussions, while Conn talks about his dreams sitting on a "cardboard throne," only to be rudely awakened by some heavy guitars and the realization that "I’m back at my job every Monday morning."

The highlight of the album has to be the one-two punch of "Punch the Sky!" and "Anybody." "Punch the Sky!" is a spoken-word song where Conn’s voice bounces from speaker to speaker and relates his theory that some people may just be 70 million years old. Conn then screams for the listener to "raise your fist in the air and punch sky," only to be immediately followed up by the high-energy—and dare I say, the hardest rocking track of the album—"Anybody."

King for a Day, probably won’t immediately grab you. In fact, you may just be put off by a lot of the songs—that’s ok, I did say it was odd. Just give it a few chances, and you may just be rewarded by Conn.
~ Greg Walker

The Cringe
Tipping Point
(Listen)

Rock band. Take a few dudes, mix in some beer, give a couple of them guitars, a couple of them microphones and you have yourself your uncle’s version of U2. The reality, unfortunately, is that there is only one Bono and there are very few people who can rename themselves "The Edge" and get away with it. And, there are even fewer people that can create a rock band that will ever stand in comparison to the greats that inspired the musical endeavor in the first place.

The Cringe wants to be a mix of U2 and Stone Temple Pilots. One member is married to the 30-minute-meal-guru Rachel Ray and another member is an alum from the Saturday Night Live band. That alone is enough to create the funkiest and degraded lyrics that would really draw in a solid fan base. The failures of U.S. politics, the failures of sobriety and the failures of prayer are by no means new ground for rock music, and have been covered before and with more original insight.

"Freedom Ban," "Undone," and "Someday" sound more cliché than anything else. "Undone" is a less-inspired version of Filter’s "Take A Picture," where creativity is replaced by drunken rants; "Stretching in the aisle fly another mile drinking ‘til I’m good and stone. And I’m way undone."

There must be some stories from SNL worthy of conjuring up lyrics that tell the stories of celebrities turned musicians who really sucked it on live television. I bet Rachel Ray’s eternal sunshine on her EVOO mind is enough material to fill an album with the humor and frustration of living with a Betty Crocker on uppers. Maybe it’s only wishful thinking, but enough is enough with the recycled conscientious lyrics of middle-aged men.
~ Janelle Greenwood

Foreverinmotion
The Beautiful Unknown
(One Eleven)

At 23, most of us are fumbling through life, our feet barely wet. Brendon Matthew Thomas, the man who is Foreverinmotion, is well beyond his age in wisdom and talent, which is something that seldom flourishes before its time.

Thomas’ second album The Beautiful Unknown weaves reflective lyrics deep into melodic instrumentation that will reverberate through even the most hardened of hearts. Not since Jeff Buckley has the music scene seen one individual who is able to silence a crowd through an outpouring of one’s soul. Imagine how it feels to simply sit alone while his music quiets the mind.

Each song paints a picture that is soft and multi-faceted. "Hot Air Balloon" and "Magic" both showcase Thomas’ ability and range; he plays a multitude of instruments for each track, with his acoustic guitar as the backbone that holds it all together.

What really works here is that The Beautiful Unknown is not a lovelorn mess of songs or a sorrow-driven collection of ballads. He is one to stand alongside Ryan Adams and Damien Rice and really contribute something to this fine conglomerate of musicians. Think of Thomas as a painter who is creating a delicate landscape of possibilities with every stroke of the guitar, every breath of his voice. Now that’s something beautiful.
~ Janelle Greenwood

From Autumn to Ashes
Holding a Wolf by His Ears
(Vagrant)

I was the first one to panic when vocalist Benjamin Perry left From Autumn to Ashes. He’s the guy who used to scream, opposite the clear singing of Francis Mark, their drummer. Well, after hearing Holding a Wolf by His Ears, I shouldn’t worry. I thought they would release a garbage record and eventually break up, but this is one of their best records.

You need to look hard to find a bad song on this record. The music seems to be back where it was after they released Too Bad You’re Beautiful, and Francis Mark as FATA’s true frontman? I love him fronting his other band Biology, which is indie not metal, but he does an absolutely superb job handling the vocal duties here. The guitars are more riff-centric than they ever have before, and they really drive the music straight ahead. Unlike Abandon Your Friends, the guitars grab hold of you and keep you pinned down for the entire length of each song. The riffs are so catchy; you are going to bob your head to them. Since Mark does both the drums and the vocals, I have to commend him, as the drumming is still wonderful, and the vocals are the best they have been in years. Nothing on this disc is bland or regurgitated, and that gives me hope for the future of From Autumn To Ashes.
~ Brian Campbell

The Gena Rowland’s Band
Flesh and Spirits
(Lujo)

Having never heard of The Gena Rowland’s Band, one is expected to have two possible ideas of what to expect. The first is a sweet-mannered group, headed by a female lead that focuses on agelessness and love in a Hollywood ending. The second is the post-punk anti-Gena Rowlands featuring blood curdling vocals that bludgeon any notions of love and affection with a large wooden club.

But The Gena Rowland’s Band is neither of these gross misinterpretations. Bob Massey heads up this alt-country, neo-folk band that will stupefy any average listener tuning in for something complacent and forgettable. The lyrics are what really tie together this song consortium Flesh and Spirits. The poignant storytelling that Massey takes us through dissects the rituals of daily life and our mulled aspirations and reveals them for what they really are. That’s not an easy task to accomplish.

Massey’s fascination with the female spirit and existence also drives this album. "God and the Way Women Walk" magnifies something simple, like a waitress gracefully sauntering through a diner as a metaphor for God paying attention to the creation of elegant details. It’s a charming song that nails it right on the head so much that listeners will not only nod to the melody, but also nod as if to say, "Yeah. I get it."

Massey is a clever man who is able to construct equally clever lyrics that are engaging and thought provoking. The music is also able to hold its own without drowning out the words that make the songs so expressive. Having Eric Axelson and Jason Caddell, formerly of the Dismemberment Plan, on board certainly doesn’t hurt, either. Overall, Flesh and Spirit is a solid effort that will put Massey in the ranks of some of the best singer/songwriters to come out of more recent generations.
~ Janelle Greewood

Glenn Hughes
Music for the Divine
(Demolition)

While Glenn Hughes is best-known for his bass playing in Deep Purple, as well as in hard-rocking Trapeze in the early ‘70s and as the lead vocalist for Black Sabbath in 1986, he’s also been vigorously writing and releasing at least a dozen solo albums since 1992. Music for the Divide, recorded in drummer Chad Smith’s (Red Hot Chili Peppers) Hollywood Hills home, hits many nerves emotionally, while exhibiting Hughes’ soulful, booming vocals on these 10 songs. But Smith’s experienced drumming, along with JJ Marsh’s guitar work and Mark Kilian’s keys and strings enforce a powerful presence of their own. In fact, many songs have a supergroup quality reminiscent of Audioslave, but on a more complex, sophisticated, and creative scale.

The opening track, "The Valiant Denial," opens with a classic arena rock riff and deftly transforms into a funk-inspired performance that gets your heart pounding from the get-go. The songs on Music for the Divide are often intense, with lyrics reflecting experience with pain, loss, hate, and fear, which is no surprise for Hughes’ work. Semi-spiritual references appear in the lyrics, explaining Hughes’ discovery of his "higher power," and perhaps its shades of this entity that inspire the few positive references. Both the intensity and a hint of hope show up in "Steppin’ On," where Hughes sings, "Cuz the music’s my religion. I gotta new place to dwell. Forgiven, I’m liven, I’m driven. I got a lone vision, precision, decision. So make it go faster, I gotta outlast ya. I’m a low-rider beside ya. I’m steppin’ on." And maybe it’s not surprising that RHCP guitarist John Frusciante’s single appearance on the album is on the pleasant "This is How I Feel"—and it’s hypnotic and a little different.

Overall, whether it’s the funk rhythms of "You Got Soul," the acoustic guitar opening on "Frail," or the electricity on "Black Eight," all ingredients on this album kick ass. It’s a 50-minute weight-lifter’s marathon, an album to get physical with, and Hughes fortunately can’t seem to hold it in.
~ Lisa Zyga

i:scintilla
Optics
(Alfa Matrix)

While summing up albums in one word usually doesn’t work, I’d like to try with i:scintilla’s third release, Optics, with the word "intense." Brittany Bindrim’s lyrics, dark poetry that slices air and flesh, maintain true originality as they cover classical themes that lurk inside every human. Not one word during these 55 minutes is unessential, resulting in a density that makes this album contain some of the best lyrics ever, without exaggeration. From "The Bells’" simple inquiry, "Do your wings make a sound?

Sometimes I swear I can hear them," to the rephrased intro on "Toy Soldier," "Boy of the search, the fights won’t make you a man. Now you have deciphered the secret written in the sand," and highlight "Salt of Stones," Bindrim brings the messages out with the ethereal power of her voice.

While the deep female vocals make i:scintilla distinct, there is much more to this guitar-driven, industrial electronic band. Most songs open with a danceable synth melody, which gets blown up with the guitars of Chad Mines and Jim Cookas. For listeners who may not appreciate the effects of electronic programming, the guitar skills of Mines and Cookas make i:scintilla highly impressive at crunchy, controlled strumming work. The synth, along with Vince Grech’s mind-blowing percussion, gives the songs a rapid heartbeat which underlies that intensity mentioned earlier.

While most of the songs on Optics are original material, a few are remixes from their two previous releases, The Approach and Havestar. Producer Wade Alin (Atomica) does justice to i:scintilla’s creations, resulting in a mix of emotionally charged, fantasy-inducing sounds that makes one wonder what their next great leap will bring.
~ Lisa Zyga

In Theory
This is it
(Shelter From the Storm)

Punk rock has thrived for decades in the underground, thanks, for the most part, because it was largely ignored as a genre. Photocopied zines, basement shows and word of mouth was enough to turn the small but loyal crowds onto better bands. Now that the spotlight from major labels and mainstream glossy magazines has been shined on the scene, every kid that steps into Hot Topic is now trying to throw together a punk band.

Groups like LA’s In Theory, though certainly not the main cause of the problem, are defiantly one of the symptoms, threatening to ruin the genre. Their debut, This Is It, is so formulaic it could easily have been created on a laptop. Take cues and liberal amounts of inspiration from every flash-in-the-pan-band from the last two years (Panic! at the Disco, check; Fall Out Boy, check; Cartel, check), polish off anything remotely resembling an edge, create a MySpace page, and rush the single to a radio station before your sound is deemed passé.

It’s not that In Theory are offensively bad musicians, it’s just that their debut lacks any semblance of an original musical thought. Here’s hoping the record-buying public will collectively decide to move on to the next big thing and allow punk rock to go back to rebelling against whatever that sound happens to be.
~ John B. Moore

Innocence Mission
We Walked in Song
(Badman)

Lancaster, PA’s Innocence Mission will always suffer from inflated expectations. Their now-nearly-two-decades-old self-titled debut, a remarkable collection of beautiful soft folk guitars backing up Karen Paris’ lilting vocals, was a staple for liberal arts college students across the country. The follow up Umbrella, though not as consistent, was also a fantastic album of mellow acoustic strums. Unfortunately every release since then pales when held up against the band’s first two.

This comparison is particularly obvious with their latest, We Walked in Song. It’s not that the album is intrinsically bad; it’s just not close to being as powerful as the group’s first couple of efforts. The album also suffers a bit lyrically. While P