Music Spectrum

Music Spectrum went on an unscheduled hiatus in recent months. This review is part of the “basement notebooks”—old reviews written by hand but only being posted online. Enjoy!

In the heat of the sun in the mid-afternoon of Summerfest Day 8, Australia’s City Riots sounded like British Invasion heavy metal doing skate punk. They me think of the Fever and Mardo with large doses of 80’s hair band flashes.

Yet, based on looks, it’s Wayne and Garth (Wayne’s World) creating new rock ‘n’ roll from their mulletized classic rock education.

This didn’t send me away, though, because City Riots were working hard, rocking out, too passionate to just be Spinal Tap, intriguing in little hooks that could almost get lost in the sea of people only there to see their text messages appear on the large screen at stage right.

I’m glad I didn’t walk away too quickly, because after getting their American tour EP in hand, I was able to hear why there’s more to City Riots than hair band and mullet classic rock. Recorded tracks sound much more like Jimmy Eat World—emo, hooks, introspective (somewhat), and more singing than shouting.

City Riots does not currently have a label—down under or stateside, but their studio recordings prove that they should be snatched up. Whatever nostalgia they garner from their classic rock/heavy metal glimmers, they gain that much more from some good songwriting.

City Riots

I was leading my two older sons, Samuel (4½) and Jude (2½), in a rite of passage: watching U2’s Live at Red Rocks “Under a Blood Red Sky”. I was thrilled to be sharing this with them—explaining who the band is, what Red Rocks is (and that I had been there once but not at this concert), and seeing my boys soak it all in.

We had been sitting on the couch for the first 20 minutes when Samuel suddenly said, “Let’s get up and dance.” Jude jumped right up to join him. And with a big grin on my face, I got up, too, just as the band on screen launched into “Surrender” with Bono shouting to the crowd, “Will you dance with me?” It was then I knew that I was teaching my sons to fully appreciate rock ‘n’ roll, seeing that Samuel had anticipated Bono’s invitation to dance.

Watching the newly reissued, remastered DVD—which comes with a remastered Under a Blood Red Sky CD in a package like a miniature coffee table book with pictures and stories about the historic concert, I returned to those days when U2 was new to me, shaping and forming my understanding of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a concert that captures U2 in their earlier stages, blending punk rock simplicity with swooping anthems aimed at taking the world by storm. What shaped me was now there on the screen shaping my boys.

Bono sang “cry,” and Samuel excitedly said, “Daddy, Daddy, he said ‘cry.’ Why did he say ‘cry’?”

It was then my role to explain U2’s lyrics about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and war in the world—yet put it in terms that a four-year-old and two-year-old can understand. “They’re singing about people who are crying because people are fighting in the world. U2 doesn’t want people to fight anymore.”

Then Samuel and Jude saw the picture from the cover of War, the boy being a backdrop for the band. Jude kept looking for another glimpse of the “sad boy” (“Where’s the sad boy, Daddy?”), and they both wanted to know why the boy was sad.

“The boy is sad, because people are fighting in the world. U2 is singing about wanting people to love each other.”

Samuel and Jude did really well in participating in my rite of passage assignment—whether watching intently, dancing, playing air guitar, playing with toys quietly in the vicinity of the TV, or in Jude’s case, crawling up in my lap to cuddle and watch. Yet, they started to get antsy before the final song which by now in my melodramatic nostalgia I had imagined being powerful for all three of us. I paused the DVD and told the boys that I really wanted them to sit and watch the last song with me. They complied, and I started the show again.

“Sing this with me; this is ‘40’,” Bono says.

Again, the boys asked about the lyrics, Samuel thinking that Bono was saying “hello.”

I explained, “No, he said, ‘How long?’ He’s wondering how long until people stop fighting. In fact, he’s asking God to come help people love each other.”

Then Bono said, “Thank you. Good night,” and it was time for Samuel and Jude to go to bed.

I hoped they were dreaming of the Edge’s guitar solos (a concept I had explained), Adam Clayton’s bass thumping (I had picked up each boy and pretended they were my bass guitar), and Larry Mullen, Jr.’s smashing drums (we had played plenty of air drums).

Even more, though, I hope Bono’s lyrics are part of their fabric as we look out on this new dawn under Barack Obama when perhaps there can be less fighting in the world.

U2
Universal-Island Records

Lead singer/guitarist Jim Adkins joked in between songs about knowing how to play guitar not helping him win at Guitar Hero; apparently top honors goes to drummer Zach Lind. No matter, though, because Adkins and Lind, along with guitarist Tom Linton and bassist Rick Burch were clearly the heroes of the evening at Milwaukee’s FM 102.1 Big Snow Show on December 16, 2007, at the Riverside Theater. The line-up included Coheed & Cambria, Shiny Toy Guns, and the Starting Line, but they all seemed to be giving homage to the grandfathers of the evening, Jimmy Eat World.

For a band that formed in 1994, perhaps they’re not old enough to be grandfathers. However, with each stage of the electrifying evening it became clear that the newer bands owe much to the headlining heroes.

For starters, Jimmy Eat World boiled down the evening into the basic rock band format—two guitars, bass, and drums—after the various groupings featured in the other bands. On the back of this basic format, Jimmy Eat World played a hard rocking set, laying out the tunes from August’s Chase This Light release while also digging back into the catalogue for early fan favorites (something they had told Shepherds Express they wouldn’t be doing).

It’s an incredibly satisfying experience to hear “A Praise Chorus” belted out live while standing in the midst of the crowd (“I’m on my feet/I’m on the floor/I’m good to go/And all I need is just to hear a song I know/I wanna always feel like part of this was mine”). Added to the joy of this song was when Davey von Bohlen (Maritime/The Promise Ring) emerged from backstage to sing the high, background parts—von Bohlen being the one referred to in the song (“Come on, Davey, sing something that I know”).

Lind’s rolling and pounding drums really got that the band going on “Seventeen” (Static Prevails). The new “Always Be” sounds like 80’s O.M.D. revved up—pop rock with a dance lilt. “Blister” (Clarity) has a punk layer to the introspection which is what made the band Emo instead of just rock (whether that’s a moniker they want or not). And the emotion just kept building even as the balladry of “Hear You Me” (Bleed American) just keeps building to its fever pitch.

The show itself reached its epic end with “Sweetness” and “The Middle.” The pit moved, jumped, swayed, swooned, and punched the air. There’s nothing quite like seeing your grandfathers rock on their best songs, your musical forefathers showing you why you like the new music that you do.

Jimmy Eat World
Interscope

As a front man, lead singer/bassist Kenny Vasoli commands attention like Vince Scheuerman from Army of Me—hand gestures, energy, heart-on-sleeve emotion—except that Vasoli can also throw in the occasional screamo chorus. While there’s a hard edge that jumps out at times, the Starting Line is a pop band cloaked in the cattails of Jimmy Eat World.

Opening FM 102.1’s Big Snow Show at the Riverside in Milwaukee (December 16, 2008), and simultaneously closing out a long tour, the Starting Line are well-beyond a good start. They’re the opener that captured most of my attention that evening.

TSL has a Britpop sound meeting the Police with some hard-working guitars (although the sound that night was much too muddy, needing more distinct guitar lines to make the songs really come alive). They dedicated “Birds” to Jimmy Eat World—a song where the headliners’ influence showed up the most.

Elsewhere, though, TSL takes an Emo sound and cranks up a rhythm appeal to dance. It’s built on the bass more than the drums, and shows up in the straight-forward bounce/pogo songs like “Best of Me” and in the ready-to-be-dance-remixed “Are You Alone?”

The set’s high point came on “Floating Away” when drum tech Matt added a tribal drum tom that skyrocketed the musical emotion.

The Starting Line
Virgin Records

Part of a series of reviews of concerts at the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod National Youth Gathering, July 28-August 1, 2007

They’re only young kids with that fun, open-eyed wonder of a band just hitting the stage of success like the `Oneders in the movie, That Thing You Do. Yet, Rough Draft has written a fairly good essay on this first time with enough of the ingredients to make this an excellent paper after some editing.

Spinning around and doing axe dips, the band is definitely developing a good stage presence. They have the showman moves, but they need the songs to hit high points to match.

The hard rock/Emo songs are fueled by this stage energy and Brent’s power rock guitar solos. There are also enough breaks with drum, bass, or guitar fills to add punch. Yet, as compared to the guitar sound on their debut album, Not Far Away, Rough Draft will have to work on getting more definition in their guitar sound on stage. It seemed muddy partly to the guitarists perhaps not getting their own volume knobs up at the right time.

When lead singer Andrew pulled out an acoustic guitar for “Winded,” they got into an amped-up jam band groove with started to give them a tighter sound. If they follow that outline, this rough draft will become a thesis of fine words.

Thanks to Rough Draft for the review CD.

Dude, it’s like some guys went down to that basement dorm room which had been condemned under a new fire code. The guys meant to just break in, explore, maybe find a place to have parties, but they found the door ajar. Inside is a long-haired guy wailing on an electric guitar. Instantly, the college guys recognize what they think is some Classic Rock song they should know. They look at each other knowingly, as if to say, “Oh, yeah, he’s playing that one song.”

But when the player hits the song’s bridge, the guys realize this is nothing they’ve ever heard. The neo-classicism threw them off, but this long-haired guy in the dorm basement had only been incorporating those blues rock riffs into a funk collection of indie College rock. Having no slick production, it’s open, accessible, free, wild, and live.

The guys call for help, “We need a drummer! Get us a bass! This guy is incredible, but he needs some support.”

A drummer and kits, a bass player and bass, some recording equipment, and other support crew appear, and Woodrow Lin’s Love Screams War is made ambulatory by electronic recording processes, freeing the long-haired Lin from his neo-classic College Rock basement.

At least that’s how I imagine it went down.

Love Screams War opens with “You Hide,” a dirty funk that rolls on waves of bass lines supplied by Alvero xxx, buoying the rhythm, bouncing it with jazzy soul. That’s what grabbed me, but while bass was from outside help, the genius of this neo-classic rock funk is Lin’s chops and riffs, such as on “I Like the Way You Walk.”

Thanks to Woodrow Lin for the review CD.