Month: May 2007

Take it up a notch, please!!

What I pasted below can also be read in its edited/less-embarrassing form if you loiter in a bookstore, flipping through the latest issue of D.I.W. Magazine.  

START!!

Check it out, Skank Williams Jr., I’m back with another installment of Pussy Eraser, DIW’s I’m-Not-A-Metalhead-But-I-Play-One-In-This-Column extreme music examination!! I recently started a sluggish day with the 2 CD live Sentenced set, Buried Alive (Century Media). The day remained sluggish. Bless their sort-of black hearts, they spent 14 years (and a lot of albums) trying to be In Flames, but Sentenced started out DECENT (not GREAT), and went BAD (not catchy BAD). Ever wish that Anal Cunt were smarter, less self-destructive, and more musical? Of course you did. That’s why I’m telling you to run into the loving arms of Chicago’s 7000 Dying Rats. Their expansive Season In Hell (He Who Corrupts Inc) assaults with coherent blasts of grind mixed with genuinely hilarious novelty hip-hop and a track that makes fun of free jazz. I love it!! If you’re the gambling sort, go ahead and bet that Jesu’s Conqueror (Hydrahead) will make every top ten list forced upon bedraggled freelancers come December 2007. Unsurprisingly, but good for us fans, it combines the pop of Silver and the pummel of the debut with at least four songs that annihilate anything on those two discs. Continuing the obligatory Hydra Head string (we are, after all, an indie magazine and not Metal Maniacs), let’s recall when Cave In, uh, caved in (HAHAHAHA!!!) to bad radio metal, then tried to get all loud and shit to save face. That’s applicable here because our favorite label has issued not one, but TWO Cave In side projects. Clouds is the effort of Adam McGrath, and it resurrects the LET’S ROCK….WHAT A FUN IDEA!!! movement of the mid-90’s – you know, when hardcore crusties discovered ZZ Top? Too bad he cut class when they were hitting the How To Write A Good Song portion of the course. Zozobra is Cave In’s bassist, Caleb Scofield – a far more experimental in a Melvins-meets-Wax Trax adventure. If you haven’t figured it out by this sentence, that means it sounds like mid-period Godflesh with a touch of Harvey Milk. Midwestern, cargo pants-rocking, meth-blowing fathers of three at age 20 are problematic on many levels, and I wonder if they’d use contraception if someone invented condoms that felt and appeared like the members of Slipknot. Collect all nine and avoid having nine kids!! Are their babies born wearing visors? Voliminal: Inside The Nine (Roadrunner) turned up in the PO Box – it’s a live DVD set – as far as I can tell, cuz I will not be venturing “inside the nine.â€Â The Handshake Murders (Usurper, on Goodfellow Records) just spent an entire song telling me that they’ll “rip my throat out,â€Â which they are attempting with rearranged Prong riffage and your standard issue metalcore throat shred. To conclude with uber-worthy reissue alerts: Snatch up both of the Trouble reissues (Psalm 9 and The Skull…on Escapi Music) and educate yourself on how lonely it must have been to be a an amazing, prescient, and Christian doom band in the early-80’s. Follow that up with Armored Saint’s CLASSIC March of the Saint on Rock Candy….wow, there was never a more perfect combo of thrash and L.A. pop-metal….fans of ANY metal variation will not deny the brilliance of this record. Check please!!!

–Andrew Earles

Hey, Hey, Heyman!

Hello all! Thought I would lead off this week with a little heads up about a new album from one of the best artists in all of power-pop and maybe music as a whole itself. Not only that, but a hell of a nice guy to boot. I recently had a chance to do an interview with Mr. Heyman and it was very fun talking about music with him. Not just his own, either, but his obscure desert-island faves as well.

Check out the review of his new album below and please pick his new disc up and give it a chance. Some of the best power pop around, in my humble opinion.

Anyways, here goes:

Richard X. Heyman – Actual Sighs
Turn-Up Records

A criminally overlooked melodic pop/rock auteur who usually only gains notice from the power pop underground, Heyman has had a much longer career than his cultish but impeccable reputation (creator of 5 of the greatest power pop CDs ever made, in my opinion) would suggest, a fact that comes into play in regards to this, Heyman’s latest CD release.

I’d like to say this is a new CD, and in a sense it is, but with a very interesting twist: for this CD Heyman has decided to resurrect his first 6-song EP Actual Size from 1986 and reissue it along with another fourteen songs recorded at the same time but unreleased until now. And, lest one think this is merely the twentieth anniversary celebration of that first EP, it is also in some ways a near 40 year anniversary celebration of his first musical forays.

A much sought-after drummer since his early teens in the mid-’60’s, Heyman began his career by playing for some of the hottest bands on the East Coast during that exciting decade (and beyond). Heyman also gained a wealth of valuable musical experience by backing up many musical legends as part of one of the most well-known backup bands on the East Coast. A CD comprised of stories about Heyman’s exploits with legendary musical figures would be a great buy at any price all on its’ own and maybe he will pursue that avenue sometime down the road. Heyman’s book “Boom Harangue” has some of these types of stories in it, but not enough for my taste. Time to write “Generation X. Heyman” as far as I am concerned. (Forward all royalites for the book title to my attorney, Richard!)

That he has managed to master a plethora of instruments in the intervening years and become a home-recording genius only adds to the immense musical shadow he manages to cast. By the late 70’s Heyman was plying his speedily improving guitar and songwriting technique in bands with fellow future stars like Tommy Keene. That it took almost another ten years for his first EP Actual Sighs shows Heyman’s devotion to his craft and not wanting any sub-par material to leak out.

Mixed back in the day by Ed Stasium, this EP-turned-epic-album has a cohesiveness which is more than just semi-surprising. Sure, all the songs were recorded at the same time so you expect a modicum of similar subject matter and musical ability, but all the cuts retain a brilliant freshness and a thematic parity that turns the album into more than just a cut-and-dried reissue project. It boggles my mind how undated these songs sound and how much they sound like some of the lo-fi pop that is all the rage today. All recorded in Heyman’s home studio, his living room. (And also the inspiration for another of Heyman’s great albums, titled ahem…..Living Room!)

I tried listening to the album before reading the liner notes just to test myself to see if I could pick out what was on the original release and what was left off. To my surprise, I couldn’t do it. I was sure I would be able to pick the wheat from the chaff but there is no chaff! What Heyman could have done (which would have rare and novel) would have been to let people listen to all the songs and compile six of their choosing for their own Actual Sighs EP. Though it would be criminal not to have all the songs, it would have more than illustrated the point that there is no filler on this album. Why he left any of these songs off of the orignal release is a mystery known only to Heyman, but thankfully he has corrected it and let these great tracks out into the sun after all these years.

Anyone into melodic pop on a par with Paul McCartney, Todd Rundgren and Emitt Rhodes will love this CD. Filled with sing-along melodies and hooks that burrow into your head like worms, this CD will no doubt become the CD you pop in your car stereo over the summer when you’re driving around looking cool. In fact, if I were to pick the first CD I’ve heard this year that could be classified as a great summer CD, this would be it. Pick it up and see for yourself.

Cheek –Do You Have A Soul?

Cheek –Do You Have A Soul?/ Take Me For What I’m Worth/ So Much In Love/ Still In Love –Voxx VEP-3002 (1980 US issue)

Powerpop Purveyors is what is says on the back cover and this is exactly what Cheek do… Do You Have A Soul? is an incredibly powerful remake of The Easybeats tune and with Vanda &Young producing it’s a remarkable update adding more than a hint of the AC/DC thud. ROCK!!!! It’s loud and so very good – exactly what Power Pop should be. This EP was put out by Greg Shaw’s Voxx label in the US and collects their two Aussie singles (was there more?). P.F Sloan’s Take Me For What I’m worth is a great song to cover, but it doesn’t quite come off. So Much In Love is the Jagger/Richards/Mighty Avengers track and the lone original Still In Love is OK, but how could anything follow that cracking opening number without being an anti-climax?

Click on title for a full version of Do You Have A Soul

4. Elliott Murphy Remembers

I was remiss in my last journal entry for not linking to Elliott Murphy‘s heartfelt eulogy of the man he called mentor, the man he called friend. Written on 7 July 2006, just a few days after Paul’s body was found in his Manhattan apartment, Murphy’s memories — as tough as they are fond and funny — spill forth in a nonstop fashion like so many years gone by. Thirty-four, to be exact.

Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

4. Elliott Murphy Remembers

I was remiss in my last journal entry for not linking to Elliott Murphy‘s heartfelt eulogy of the man he called mentor, the man he called friend. Written on 7 July 2006, just a few days after Paul’s body was found in his Manhattan apartment, Murphy’s memories — as tough as they are fond and funny — spill forth in a nonstop fashion like so many years gone by. Thirty-four, to be exact.

Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

4. Elliott Murphy Remembers

I was remiss in my last journal entry for not linking to Elliott Murphy‘s heartfelt eulogy of the man he called mentor, the man he called friend. Written on 7 July 2006, just a few days after Paul’s body was found in his Manhattan apartment, Murphy’s memories — as tough as they are fond and funny — spill forth in a nonstop fashion like so many years gone by. Thirty-four, to be exact.

4. Elliott Murphy Remembers

I was remiss in my last journal entry for not linking to Elliott Murphy‘s heartfelt eulogy of the man he called mentor, the man he called friend. Written on 7 July 2006, just a few days after Paul’s body was found in his Manhattan apartment, Murphy’s memories — as tough as they are fond and funny — spill forth in a nonstop fashion like so many years gone by. Thirty-four, to be exact.

4. Elliott Murphy Remembers

I was remiss in my last journal entry for not linking to Elliott Murphy‘s heartfelt eulogy of the man he called mentor, the man he called friend. Written on 7 July 2006, just a few days after Paul’s body was found in his Manhattan apartment, Murphy’s memories — as tough as they are fond and funny — spill forth in a nonstop fashion like so many years gone by. Thirty-four, to be exact.

Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

4. Elliott Murphy Remembers

I was remiss in my last journal entry for not linking to Elliott Murphy‘s heartfelt eulogy of the man he called mentor, the man he called friend. Written on 7 July 2006, just a few days after Paul’s body was found in his Manhattan apartment, Murphy’s memories — as tough as they are fond and funny — spill forth in a nonstop fashion like so many years gone by. Thirty-four, to be exact.

Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.

4. Elliott Murphy Remembers

I was remiss in my last journal entry for not linking to Elliott Murphy‘s heartfelt eulogy of the man he called mentor, the man he called friend. Written on 7 July 2006, just a few days after Paul’s body was found in his Manhattan apartment, Murphy’s memories — as tough as they are fond and funny — spill forth in a nonstop fashion like so many years gone by. Thirty-four, to be exact.