Music Spectrum

Arriving late to the show had one benefit: an image for describing the evening’s experience. Stepping into a !!! (“chk chk chk”) show is like stepping into a dance club. I don’t just mean walking into a packed disco where everyone is on the dance floor grooving to the beats laid down by the DJ. I mean literally walking into the dance club, walking into the sound and energy itself, stepping behind reality’s curtain and becoming part of the music, rhythm, lights, and club itself.

When I finally got to Milwaukee’s the Rave, descended into the Eagles Hall, !!! was in full progress. I made my way into the heart of the dance floor and was struck by the freeform, uncoordinated, sloppy, silly, constant dancing of the crowd. That’s when I realized I had stepped into another dimension where !!! was leading us like hamsters to power some dance club in the first dimension. A dance club in reality was relying on us—and if we stopped, their beats, music, lights, and dancing would stop.

!!! frontman Nic Offer is the foreman of the hamsters. While his vocals and charisma certainly lead a portion of what !!! does, he also gave us hamsters directions for our dancing—like a third base coach, armed with plenty of hand gestures that were code for “dance more,” “take it down a notch,” “here comes the big push,” or “relax.” Offer’s dancing comes straight out of the perimeters of a high school dance, the guys who love music but cannot stand what is being played, the guys who are there because of a girl and the only way to cope is to dance—making fun of the unimaginative club moves the in-crowd is displaying. Offer’s movements could be part club redux, part cheerleader mimicry, part punk, part indie hip hop, part Offer. As coach and foreman, he gives his hamsters plenty of permission to be just run on whatever shaped wheel we designed in our little, alternative dimension cage.

Despite being late, I still worked for a hour knowing that somewhere in reality a dance club depended on me. When Offer declined requests for one more song, the house lights came on, signaling as they do in most venues that the band is really not coming back for an encore. However, here the lights came on, I blinked, I was done being that dance club hamster, I was back in reality, I was sweaty and tired, I was exhilarated. !!! takes into the music in a way that no other band offers, and I was glad to have that as my paycheck.

!!! on record: Myth Takes
Myth Takes obviously finds !!! in a much better environment to finely hone their craft at making intricately simple dance jams, letting individual lines of melody and rhythm come through more clearly than heard through the muddy PA at the Eagles Hall (why is that system always so muddy?). However, the album still seems to be in large part a live show souvenir—something cherished by those who have seen !!! live. I hear the passion, the abandon, and the “we can dance if we want to” air, but really it just channels memories of the show. Had I not attended the show, I may not find the same connection to Myth Takes.

Thanks to !!!, Tag Team Media, and Warp Records for their help. Thanks also to Brian Berry, music editor at 411mania.com, who wrote an excellent, much more reality-based review of !!!, and encouraged me to make sure I caught the Milwaukee show.

This review ignores the live show I saw in October which was immature, self-indulgent, an “in club” circus which overshadowed the music. Before the show, I noted that the album had such a live feel that it was “as if I was already at the show.” The show, though, had little relation to the fine brand of Country-influenced Rock on the album, so this review goes back to the my album notes which I jotted down on the way to the show.

On the self-titled disc, Stephen Kellogg’s voice—surrounded by the Sixers—recalls Tom Gillam, Charlie Sexton, John Mayer, Neil Young, and Rob Thomas. It’s a soft pop voice with music that kicks up the twang rock dust through rhythm not ballistics. The songs can be tender (why’d you have to be so goofy on stage?), the music can be sweetly pop while still being fresh (the band’s antics are distracting you, Stephen; you’re hiding behind their masochismo and humor). There’s even strong hints of James Taylor on “Such a Way.”

“Vegas” taps into Sun Records and that new thing Elvis “discovered” called rock ‘n’ roll. It sounds like the Charlie Sexton Sextet and perhaps would’ve been a good number to kick off the album.

“Start the Day Early” should’ve been the warning: Jam Band Ahead! The song is all about the groove (O.A.R.), still tapping into a country feel (Steel Train), but essentially is a party scene pleaser—“You bring the cup, I’ll bring the moonshine.” Even if I hear Stoll Vaughan in the bluesy country groove, the warning sirens were going off—Stephen Kellogg will be friends of the tokers not the music. And indeed, at the Rave in Milwaukee, the song was like pushing a cart downhill from substance to substance use to utter nonsense.

Go back to the album. Enjoy the band captured in the studio. Ignore the real band. Discover the music, but let it be a recorded artifact. You’ll be better off for it.

Thanks to Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers and Foundations Records for the review CD and their help.

It’s a tune of seduction, yet what seduces me is the music. Nathan Murphy picks out the tune on the guitar under Brent McKay’s initial chapter of the femme fatale story. Then Erik Nordin thumps out a building, driving rhythm which doesn’t just cheaply reach some high point like any other rock song. No, when Nordin reaches that climatic part of the chorus, that’s when he throws into the syncopated fills with almost jazz-like sensibility. The Strange’s song, “Texas,” ostensibly is just about the seduction of a girl, but musically this band seduces you rhythmically and melodically. Check out their 2006 self-titled disc, and you may just find yourself accusing them of romancing your heart’s beat, the pulse pushing your foot to tap the floor, your head to sway, and your arms to break out into air drum flailing beyond your control.

Thanks to the Strange for the review CD.

“Well, she’s climbing the stairway to heaven.” At least, that’s immediately what I started to sing when first hearing the open salvo on Love Tractor’s “Saturn Rings” from Green Winter. However, Love Tractor takes Classic Rock as an idiom, spins it around cooking sauce, and emerges with Neo-Classicism.

Mike Richmond actually sings, “Well, she’s walking out on the Saturn rings.” The song has the acoustic build up of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway,” but it also has sci-fi keyboards, 70’s funk rhythm, and a Jam Band breakdown.

This all shouldn’t be a surprise for a band that came out of Athens, Georgia, in the 80’s playing a blend of prog rock which has been described as fusion. Green Winter certain fuses those Classic elements that are recognizable from listening to hours of Classic Rock radio—although usually not found in any one band.

For instance, because you’re already in the Classic Rock mode, Billy Holmes’ flute on “Wrong Turn” immediately makes you think of Jethro Tull, but the jazzy turn on that flute echoes Van Morrison’s Moondance album even more. Close harmonies vocals and sitar-like wash on “Inventor of Worlds” brings the Byrds to mine, but then the disco dance ball bridges disrupt you from getting lost in a hookah dream. (Stepping back to Love Tractor’s own era of the 80’s, this track also has strong resemblance to the Mighty Lemondrops).

Thanks to Love Tractor and Fundamental Records for the review CD.

They’re the Country Jam Band. The Antiques take the elements of Jam Band groove and layer than with a Country barroom rock.

As Nicknames and Natives opens with “Down to No. County,” you can hear Wilco’s swaggering approach to AltCountry where the slide guitar twangs but there’s a soul/funk thing going on. You can almost picture the Antiques’ lead singer, Joey Barro, doing the head nod of a rapper with his hoodie pulled up. I always heard that in Shannon Hoon’s (Blind Melon) singing, too.

When Barro goes into a rap-sing cadence on the stanzas of “Pigless,” that’s where I hear Thomas Cunningham. Cunningham is another artist that I’ve called Jam Band—even if he doesn’t quite meet the usual definition—because of that groove. The Antiques definitely kick out the jam on “Pigless,” with Barro blazing the way on the harmonica while the rest of the guys bounce, jump down rhythm slides, and lead up to a Doors-like guitar break.

The album slags at times, especially toward the end, but tracks like the 70’s Valley tune “Dawn,” the snare-propelled (almost Better Than Ezra guitar) of “Gun Shy,” and the folk singer dreaming of being a rock singer on “Dead Ringer” give promise of greater things to come from whatever estate sale that turned up these Antiques.

Thanks to the Antiques and Banter Records for the review CD.

Imagine Sting doing Jam Band. That’s what I hear in Umphrey’s McGee and their newest release, Safety in Numbers. On “Believe the Lie,” I hear Sting’s voice, clear-toned yet chanting out with a reggae man’s syncopation—the reggae rhythms more apparent in the Police days. However, it’s the Sting of today, too, because unlike the Police days when it just came fully electric, Umprhey’s also includes those more organic, floating sections of Sting’s solo work (such as The Soul Cages) which you can hear on “Words.” Add to this that there’s some great blues rock guitar on “Nemo” and hints of the Allman Brothers on “Intentions Clear” (while guest saxophonist Joshua Redman brings out a Flecktone flavor), and what you have are the diverse, sometimes sprawling, funk-folk-roots rhythms of a Jam Band. Unsurprisingly, Umphrey’s McGee sound like a band versions of what label mate Keller Williams does by himself.

Thank you to Umphrey’s McGee and SciFidelity Records for the review copy.

They share producer (Daniel Duerr) and record label (Emerald City), so it shouldn’t be any surprise that Chadwick Hagan’s Otterly Road has a Jam Band sound in common with Thomas Cunningham. Neither are true Jam Bands, but both are singer-songwriters who let that Jam Band groove color their rhythms, melodies, and rhymes. Hagan lays down some great guitar licks to kick off tracks like “A Darling,” “So Very Sorry,” and “If It Will.” “If It Will” has that great line, “And is rock ‘n’ roll gonna save my soul? I never know/And I’ll never know if it will.” “If It Will” and “So Very Sorry” are the strongest tracks in terms of rocking, exploring, and landing in that groove without drifting off much. Keys from Marty Kearns really pick up the tunes with a Western saloon, Stephen Foster jauntiness.

Thanks to Chadwick Hagan and Emerald City Entertainment Group for the review copy.

Gooding delivers the organic, acoustic, driven rock of the Dave Matthews Band without the polished veneer that has glossed over recent DMB offerings.

I remember being in my apartment in St. Louis, bright sun coming through all of the windows, and I sat there in amazement listening to DMB’s Before These Crowded Streets. Whereas Crash started to show pop invasion, Streets reached back to Under the Table and Dreaming for that rock sound that gives life to every twinge of groove in a singer-songwriter’s strumming.

If you remember that same experience with Dave Matthews “back in the day,” then sit down with Gooding’s Angel/Devil.

Gooding came to my attention, because recently the Beatrice (Nebraska) High School Indoor Drum Line featured a Gooding medley for the drum line’s show. When you hear the made-for-drumline drumming on “Little America” or “Free,” it’s no surprise that the percussion section would choose Gooding’s music. Angel/Devil pushes forward with all of the backbeat coming in so many different ways from the drums of Jesse Reichenberger. My band director in high school, Dr. Earl C. Benson at Bloomington Jefferson Senior High School, was an incredible director who took our marching band musically where many others wouldn’t. However, his knowledge of independent rock music was limited meaning that we never did the R.E.M. show I thought needed to happen. That said, I commend the Beatrice drumline director for seeing the potential in Gooding’s music.

Aside from returning to the roots of the Dave Matthews Band, Gooding also has that Jam Band quality of taking in grooves from many places. “Free” is actually a disco ball jam rhythm. “Everything or Nothing Again” and “Dig” find a John Mayer jazz groove, but then get the full band jamming on that same groove in way that isn’t captured in some of Mayer’s work. “Living in a Land of Make Believe” is a bluesy, acoustic jam inspired by a street blues field recording of “a homeless man outside of a laundrymat/bar in Cinnci called Sudsy Malones” (from email with Gooding).

Finally, Gooding’s spiritual themes send the mind and soul on their own groove while your foot taps with the rhythm. The referent of the album title, Angel/Devil, is actually Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus. On the track named for the betrayer, Judas is said to be an “angel/devil in my eyes”—an apt description of the faith of Judas which was countered by Satan’s sinful deception. “Goldenboy” could potentially be about the frustration of Jesus not returning yet to bring an end to evil. Finally, “Dig” sounds like a call to God for help when in the midst of the madness of mind and world.

Thank you to Gooding for the review copy.