i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know
Humongous makes my head spin and turns my gangly, narcissistic, fustian record review guesses and cross-references to at least 50 percent peanuts. My first listen involved a 1 AM text to Kris Abplanalp, gagging at him for letting me listen to a record I'm not sure I can describe. Was I cursing him? I think maybe I thanked him. Or maybe I just typed him with a blank stare "i don't know."
"Miniature Pinschers" is the return of local bizarro-rock band Humongous, and the return of and the latest from Alplanalp's long-standing Louisville-based record label Black Velvet Fuckere Recordings in conjunction with Adept Recordings and Consanguineous Records. It was recorded and mixed by Dan Willems, another underground legendary who plays with such groups in Louisville as Sick City Four.
Humongous plays rarely. I saw them once last year in the now defunct The Lounge. Eating popcorn on the outskirts of the Highlands and Downtown, they came with a reputation for talent and a left-turn originality, and that live show lived up to the described notoriety. I'm hoping the new album will bring them out into live situations more often.
The band is a four piece group of world-getters that tackle the international problem of predictability and boringness in all forms of life and love and art and all that. There is tension that reels and sways and drops and returns in these songs. Drums and guitars swim through an erratic river, sometimes racing each other with irregular timings while a cornet bleats above all the aerobatics and mathematics, eventually reaching a head-bobbing riff-verse that can drive you crazy with its catchy nature. We are talking spasm rock that crashes through a waterfall of smarts and fun.
Diving into the pressing, "Panty Boy" is a good start to try and describe the places this album goes. A lot of arithmetic is involved somewhere in the construction of this music, but not in any predictable "post-rock" bullshit moniker. Most of the songs seem to change structure and time frequently, coming back at times frantic, to slide into a jazz run, then into straight riff, making me think in terms of Zappa, although that would not necessarily describe the tonality or song sounds at all. But the influence might be in there. Somewhere. Along with a million others. Its a tossed-about conductance that mines a lot of variant rhythmic and melodic arenas.
And that's the big picture in which Humongous approaches music. There is nothing prejudicial in the gaggle of genres that they chop, slice, juice, cuisinart and saute together. It can come from anywhere and any direction. The guitars overdrive chivalrously through "Never Mind What the Czech Girl Said." "Click It Or Ticket" is song that you will not be able to amputate from your brain after listening to it once; the cornet, drums and chunky guitars prehend each other in some outer world bout only to flip the switch and let Jess Myers' vocals swing up and down. Lines like "In its infinite wisdom/the government has raised you to/talk to the people that/most closely resemble you in/any kind of way..." are delivered so addictively you sit and nod with them.
And then rising in the midst of the frenzy like a blind trap comes "If P Had W," a simply wonderful electric country song.
"The Hill" on side 2 leads into the most Zappa-esque experience on the album, at least to my ears. There's a tussle between voices as they vie for control of the song. "Hook Up the Keyboard" presents a rocking love tune to keyboards with Jess' voice soaring somewhere between Tom Verlaine and...I don't know...Bunnygrunt? "Intervention" is a theatrical jazz garage rock song describing what the name says and leading you to the conclusion of WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
"Miniature Pinschers" is not a selfish album; it fucks your soul up and gets out quick. Despite bob-tailing on a trail-drive down art rock lane, it ain't boorish and vain in any sense. Make no mistake, these are just rock songs that happen to be unclassifiable. The sense of experimentation reminds me of The Residents, but this album in no way sounds like The Residents, so strike that audial comparison. Humongous never sounds like a band that intentionally pulled the rug out from rock n roll in some pose-striking endeavor; they seem like they just started making songs without any subscription to any already-affirmed and formed music scenes.
"Sailing Stones" is the debut solo CD from singer-songwriter Kirk Kiefer. It was produced and arranged by the collective headed by Kirk known as Ice Gondola, which is also the name given to those that play with Kirk in live situations. "Sailing Stones" represents at least a year of writing and recording for Kirk, who immediately set out on this path once his country/rock band Yardsale went on "indefinite hiatus" in 2010. Having known Kirk since circa 2006, I've seen the work the man has invested in the band environment of Yardsale, and then saw that work ethic swung around and centered onto his vision here.
Despite this being his solo debut, "Sailing Stones" can also definitely be called an ensemble effort. Besides Yardsale, Kirk has performed with many bands here in the Louisville scene, including the Health and Happiness Family Gospel Band, Bad Blood, Adventure, Vrktm...the list is long, and members of some of those groups weave in and out of this recording. While Kirk handles the lead vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, bass and vibra-slap throughout the CD, appearances are made from Bob Dixon on guitar (Thomas A. Minor and the Picket Line) , Neil Hulsewede on pedal steel, Jacob Lee on harmonica (Yardsale), Scott Moore on violin (23 String Band/Joan Shelley), and Todd Hildreth on piano (Squeezbot/The Java Men), as well as a wide range of others. An entire horn section made up of Elmer White, Adam Heffer, Randy Burt and Todd Mullins doesn't fuss around on "Sailing Stones," either. [Full disclaimer: I play a little mandolin on one track.]
The bare center of Ice Gondola definitely seems to revolve around the presence of percussionist/drummer Colin Garcia and bassist/background vocalist/engineer Ted Stevens. Garcia was the drummer for the final incarnation of Yardsale. He's one of those few drummers in town that immediately blends his personality with his playing style; I can recognize some Garcia drumming almost from just hearing a recording. Colin not only added percussive tricks and variant paths to follow on this album, but seemed to be involved in its evolution from almost the beginning. The same can be said of Stevens, whose solo recordings and performances have almost coincided in timing with Kirk's. Stevens backs Kirk on vocals, and in the live setting maintains the bass. All three seemed to have locked into the arrangement and production of Kirk's songs, bringing them all into their own personality on disc.
And that leads to the anchor of this entire recording: Kirk's songs.
Kirk swims through a heavy repertoire of musical influences. However, none of them ever take over his sound at any point. These are Kirk's babies; his influences never direct him or turn into a smothering reference on any of this music. I think he knows what elements he likes, and has applied subtle notions that he has learned from the musicians, bands and albums he adores. Kirk has an undying love for the Beach Boys; however, unlike a lot of indie acts over the years that have based so much of their nucleus on the layered pop of "Pet Sounds" to a point of creating a swirl of unidentifiable generic-ness, Kirk's songs never pirate or rip from his influences.
"Sailing Stones" starts with the sound of a transistorized Kirk and his guitar that eventual fuses into full speed and stereo and band with the end of the first verse of "Call Home." The song is a great opening track that sets the pace for the entire album: carried by the drive of the acoustic guitar, its sees that "li'l bit rock; li'l bit country" mantra raise its head and sway back and forth between the two, happy to slide between genres and styles. It also acknowledges one of Kirk's biggest influences, Michael Nesmith. Like I said before, that doesn't mean the album or any of the songs sound at all like Nesmith, but Kirk's tunes have that penchant towards country-influenced pop rock that concentrates on the melodies and the lyrics. There is a catchiness that is patched and hardwired in these songs that ultimately is divided between the singer-songwriter playin' his songs boiled down and straightforward, as well as the addition of the full band to round out the sound and add to the music, while not overtaking the core of the song. I feel like I especially hear Nez's spirit hiding in songs like "An Old James Dean," "I Don't Care Anymore," "Kari I Know" and my personal favorite from the record, "Tomorrow Today."
Another aspect of the album that shines is the use of layering on the songs. Again, knowing Kirk, there is that love for Brian Wilson's multi-layered approach to even the simplest melodies. Kirk is subtle and doesn't predial every song using every musician and instrument available. Moore's violin pops up in just the right places, as in "Can't Figure It Out." Garcia's use of different percussion instruments throughout gives each track its own style. Hulsewede's pedal steel and Lee's harmonica in the middle of "Falling Ahead" is some of the prettiest music you can ask for, and that song sees Kirk's use of layered vocal harmonies the closest he comes to referencing them crazy Beach Boys. At the same time, there is rockabilly flavor added to "Settling" and "Surgeon's Sure Hands," and what seems like a Springsteenian full band blowout on "Like a Black Hole," especially when that horn section kicks in.
This dream last night made my mouth taste shut when I woke late for work this morning. It started with my discovering a video channel on archive.org called Shocker Drive-In: a digital recreation of going to a drive-in movie sometime in the 1950s through the 1970s. I stayed up past the safety bedtime watching cartoon popcorn boxes dance, the faux-invention of corn dogs, and public service denouncements of vandalism to the venue, followed by a screening of screams centered around both Roger and Gene Corman's films. When I finally forced myself to the hay nigh 2am, my brain was fuzzy.
I dreamed. Somewhere in my dreams, I attended a baumy, summer-nights-on-my-radio drive-in. After getting home late from the movies, I was deciding whether to go to bed or go get some late night pizza. I apparently was living in a college house, and my concern for making it to work on time somehow became twisted into my concern for making it to classes on time. I needed sleep to understand those upper level Geology classes, I kept thinking. Several mushy incomprehensible dream minutes/hours/chairs later, there was an explosion near the house; or a shootout! Or giant haunted cave-beast attack! Who can tell!? All my friends were scattering from the pizza-gas station. They yelled my name, telling me "Run, Sex Dragon! Run!" We were all running to our cars in fear from a monster/madman/giant mushroom/gorilla that was firing lasers/bullets/frowns from his fingertips or gun or red Satan-eyes.
I saw my friend Neal's white van skid off. I hopped into a car with Matt from local punk band The Teeth, and then realized we all ended at the same place: our dorm house, which was, in fact, The Cathouse in Germantown/Old Louisville. And then I realized all my roommates were the people who attended the Blues Control show at The Cathouse on Thursday, July 23.
"Listen to me, Sex Dragon," Dream Matt addressed me, calmly. "Classes don't start until late afternoon. So go back to bed, turn off that alarm; sleep in; all is fine."
I adhered to Dream Matt's advice and was actually very late for work today. But I don't blame him, or the real Blues Control.
But what is the real Blues Control, anyways?
Before that drippy Thursday night show, I knew they were a duo from Queens that had played Louisville in the past, being brought in by Sapat, the River City anchors of experimental carousing. A few days before the show, Old Baby and Sapat member Neal (see white van driver from above dream) informed me that Blues Control had cracked the Billboard New Age charts and had peaked at number 5. This fact intrigued me to just what sound was going to come from the two on a summer night that was so humid I felt like we were being cremated in our shoes on Preston Avenue. It also intrigued me that Sapat was bringing in leaders of the Top 40 New Age movement.
I showed slightly late, unfortunately missing tunes by young Louisville band Wet. I walked in disorientated and swayed to Parlour, after which we all commenced to wringing our shirts of sweat into the backyard during a passing storm of lightning almost directly above us. Before Blues Control began I found myself engaged in talks with a fan who had witnessed them in their prior visit here. He attempted to describe the experience and sound, and found it difficult. He talked of BC being one of those bands that denies as much as defies genres; that just takes the music where they take the music. Plus, he added that he had taken acid right before that particular show. I believe his exact words to characterize the experience were "it was like hearing (or seeing) a freight train run through Bobby McFerrin's voice."
photo by Michael Powell
With that, the lights went down in the Cathouse, and we entered. I hovered and skulked behind amps, glancing the duo from afar at first. Guitarist Russ Waterhouse was nearest me and as the resonance ran through time and vision I was already captivated by the sparkly Mustang he played, standing behind a wall of wires and unpredictable sound concoctions. Directly across from him, keyboardist Lea Cho underwrote the swell of music through the keys, parceling between melodies and rhythms. As the music began to climb, I was pretty sure my head became part of the amp near me.
photo by Michael Powell
Blues Control. are touring in support of their latest LP "Valley Tangents" (Drag City), which is the recording that has earned them the aforementioned recognition in the popular New Age community. I don't listen to much music in that record store category (I didn't even know it still existed as a category), but I'd be willing to bet that Blues Control presents more challenging music than what is often accepted in that realm. The guitar changes direction often, technologically hopping on board with itself occasionally into a piggyback of seemingly undesigned soundscapes and melted percussion. Only after setting a pace or melody line that swims somewhere in the waters of jazz fused with an almost children's singsong that dips and sashes into a noisier subzone before passing into an angelic spin.
The mugginess of the summer night parked itself inside the thule of all of us there, and at times I felt like a chant from the audience could have coincided with the hypnosis Blues Control creates in the live situation. The Korg created a groove out of no percussion, but the simple chugging of notes and aligning of Cho's fingertips, which would dip in and out of melodic refrains and themes, sometimes delicately, and sometimes forcefully; sometimes both. The set was a juxtaposition of temperate notes delving and diving because of their synchronicities within one another; the guitar would almost build a slide for the keyboards to tip-toe down, and then both would swerve into a jump through the puddle at the bottom, and ditch roll to the end of the song.
photo by Michael Powell
And then Waterhouse would hit the cassette player to his left and something altogether new would happen. There were references to 70s soft rock that had boils of melted heavy metal and warped old blues hidden in there, but that would all be a blind trap that would patiently pursue an end that was never expected.
Sapat followed, with Kris Alplanalp beginning the set seated with an old electrified acoustic guitar. The more I experience Sapat, the more I am endeared with the directions the band takes. Their songbook seems to expand into more pages than there are members of the band. Nothing is ever pre-dialed with Sapat, as Alplanalp's voice shifts the band through variants of rock filtered through key changes and keys from other planets. With the horn section bombastically wrestling amongst the guitars and Jeff Komara's drums, it was loud and perfect for such a sticky evening. At one instant I felt like I was watching a German big band populated by gypsy musicians playing a hypnotic Malaysian theatrical piece. And Dane Waters rose above everything with That Voice.
It all made being late for work worth it. Although I still don't know much about Geology.
I was in a band in high school called Black Angel. We were all freshly learned on our instruments. Two guitars and a drummer. Fascinated by making the music we obsessed over, we never made it out of the basement, practicing at the drummer's house on Saturday afternoons. We were still teaching ourselves, and regulated our playing to straight covers of what music we collected at the time: the drummer and I stuck ourselves in riffs and fills from Metallica's "...And Justice for All," and the other guitarist brought in Hendrix and (much to my disdain) Lynyrd Skynyrd. Vocals never really surfaced; we just jammed instrumental versions of metal and southern rock. Finding originality and our own sound and style never came about before we all split for colleges and other declining lifestyles.
Stumbling onto the freshly graduated members of The Debauchees at the Chestnut House earlier this year makes me feel a little inept that we never even tried to write real music at the time. A band this young cranking out such creative sounds makes me a bit jealous. The Debauchees aren't a band that you can say, "damn, they're really good for their age." They're really good period, even stacked against people that have been playing for decades. I finally managed to pick up their debut CD-EP "Schrodinger's Cat Is Dead" at a recent gig at the Rud, and am really impressed by it.
I really can't think of another band in or around Louisville that approaches the sound of The Debauchees. I feel like they've swooned into their own creative niche, but at the same time aren't cornered there and definitely diffuse themselves into other arenas of sound. Describing their style is problematic without relying on precipitant generic genre descriptors and overly-haunted band comparisons. The Debauchees take their root somewhere in the molecules of new wave, I think. They don't follow this genre like its their fuhrer, imitating and transcribing straight from "1979" or "Marquee Moon," but instead grow out of it and chase various smoke trails from that as a starting point. Their songs greet pop and shake its hand, but don't embrace it for the full hug. Often, they step outside the lines and the songs themselves run through unexpected blends.
Sometimes bands crash through a variety of genres, but The Debauchees easily blend them and deliver them paced and accurate. Sydney Chadwick's guitar talks like David Bryne's mono-noted picking on such Talking Heads' tunes as "The Good Thing" in one space, and then palm mutes blues structures a la the Modern Lovers, then bends notes into a surf zone that might eventually click upwards into a revived ska-strum. Cameron Lowe's drums add the style skips, segueing through various beats within one song, at times sound like a live rapid disco machine and others four-fouring it through a straight loud punk rock stomp. And Ashley Bowen's bass is the walking glue to the machine, often taking the front line and leading the trio. In a song like "Jack," my first thought was the power that Kim Deal references when leading a pack like the Pixies. The bass does not just serve as a backdrop to make things sound warm; Ashley actually swarms around the notes on her bass guitar, using it as much as a lead player as she does a rhythm supporter, running it everywhere.
Chadwick's voice sings strong, and often crosses into a pose that seems to bleed Nico meeting the lower ranges of Deborah Harry, especially in places within the tunes ""Whatever Just Go With It" and "I Just Sit Around." The songs careen into various time signatures, riding the loud quiet loud with confidence and unpredictable starts and stops that make me scratch my head with joy. I think my favorite track here is "Misty," starting with a solemn bass and drum prance, with the guitar poking in and out, until everything seems to fall apart and then rise back again, with the drums double-timing, the bass bobbing your head, and then everything swooning into a see-saw spaciness that is just beautiful. Later, the song reinvents along its own trail into a ska-ish beat that is blended perfectly.
And where else are you going to hear a song that takes lines from "The Shining" and dances them up for you? Nice. Recommended.
Check them out at the following upcoming shows:
1. Northside Tavern in Cincinnati, Ohio with The Minor Leagues and House of Feeble Minds - Free - August 11th - 9 PM
2. The Rudyard Kipling with The Uncommon Houseflies and To Light A
Fire - August 16th 3. The Bard's Town with Plastic Inevitables and Been to the Gallows - September 1st - 8 PM
I have this weird habit of killing two birds with one stone when I'm stuck on the couch and wanting to succumb to my need to be a media-consuming-whore. I'm halfway currently researching a longer term project about the history of horror films, meaning I need to watch a shit ton of horror movies right now. At the same time, I've been procuring a couple of new albums a week and am constantly trying to keep up with my own listening desires weighing the time I have actually sit and listen to the vinyl I've gathered over the weeks. So, whenever I watch silent films, I throw on said vinyl, open beer and absorb. This process usually works out because I have a theory that film moves to beat as much as music. It's just a theory; throw it out if you want. But put on a Sapat album and Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" and tell me they don't synch up way more than any Pink Floyd-"Wizard of Oz" bullshit.
I tested these waters again recently. Coming home tipsy with such goals in mind, Cori and I followed my precedents from the past and I inserted Robert Wiene's 1919 masterpiece "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." I had watched half of the film once while listening to the brilliant unsoothing sounds from the Kark vinyl "The Hermit." However, having just received the newest Sophomore Lounge release by the band Giving Up, the soundtrack changed and with lights out, we dove into both the nightmarish visuals of German Expressionism while getting completely bitten by Giving Up's warbly energetic post-twee-punk-pop knightliness.
Giving Up has been around, as far as I can tell, since 2007ish. It consists of people living everywhere in the US, I think, although mostly Iowa and Kentucky. Maybe Illinois, too. It's a three piece mainly made of Jenny Rose, Mikie Poland, and Sean Roth, although the trio is rounded out with percussion by Kaylee Preston and Doug Ryan. Ryan is responsible for the recording of this beautiful thing.
I love a lot of different types of musics. One of those loves is directed toward the blind trail of singer-songwriter stuffs. I especially love singer-songwriter stuffs that take a left turn warble. Especially when that left-turn warble is laden with sometimes vague, sometimes cryptic, sometimes extremely personal and point-blank personal and intelligent lyrics. Especially more if that left-turned warbled singer-songwriter sounds as though it was recorded with some lo-fi experimentation with a lot of room for creativity and the knack to leave cliche songwriting swerves and predictable verses/chorus structure on the wagon. And even more so if that lo-fi left-turning warbliness has a sense of sadness filtered through some catchy, nigh, nearly sing-along, vocals. These Giving Up folks understand me much too much, methinks.
The album is their second full-length. It's called a symbol, which roughly translates to "(Peace Sign/Frown Face)" and its on a limited blue vinyl pressing from Shepherdsville, Kentucky. There is a handwritten lyrics sheet and big ol' handmade poster inside. Everything about this album made me fall in love with it. Don't get me wrong; I love "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." But as the Somnambulist revealed secrets and took to the twisted dream streets causing havoc and fear, I was very much identifying with some of the words to "Pile of Books": "I moved away from the address where they would send me magazines from the underground press about anarchy and I've forgotten a lot since then and anarchy, that word never fooled me...Do you want to sleep in my bed? It's just a pile of books I wish I had read."
In fact, every song off this LP would have Cori and I nod to each other with "yeah, awesome shit" in our brains, despite keeping quiet. I mentioned twee and some people flee from that genre; this album seems to touch its ions, as it touches other genres briefly here and there and doesn't steal or take but assembles some great material. I can immediately identify with the Kill Rock Starsness that is present, but this Giving Up record isn't an album that sits and boasts unnecessarily about any particular eras or sounds that preceded. It never lets up its forward motions. I hear some early Isaac Brock in Mikie's shaky but pure vocals. There are points when I think of Quasi as Jenny and Mikie both heart their minds out in the drive of such great dueted bending verses over the prayerless organ and guitars, winding and attacking the points of the songs until they are infectious, parasitic diseases that can't let up. The "Blue Green Gray" end-of-summer description killed me like a compassionate low-budgeted chapbook you'd accidentally find under the condensation of a rationed short glass of iced whiskey. True story.
Highly recommended.
So is "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." Listen to this stuff. Watch that stuff.
These two books have it all: Cocaine, rock n roll, girls, murder, drunk driving, guitar solos, river pirates, beheadings, Spacemen, shock treatment, bandits, whiskey, rural terror...and more cocaine.
I've been a KISS fan since 1986, but have never read any of the KISS autobiographies. After inundating myself with KISS knowledge via pop magazine articles and interviews, reading everything I could get my hands on for years as a teenager and young adult, somewhere in my head I lost the desire to add more. I basically lost the desire to really give a shit about what Gene Simmons or Paul Stanley had to say, and whenever Simmons release a book about the foundations of KISS or how he invented heavy metal, my eyes kind of glaze. Since Stanley and Simmons have kept the KISS machine running for forty years, and have acted as the mouthpiece for said organization, the PR they write as as the official scrolls of its re-imagined histories and their ideas of it just have little interest to me at this period in my life.
However, when my drummer pal Stephen lent me original guitarist Ace Frehley's 2011 autobiography "No Regrets" (co-written with Joe Layden and John Ostrosky; Gallery Books/MTV Books). I was intrigued simply because it was from one of the members who spoke up much less in the interviews during the existence of KISS. I mean, Ace wasn't Mark St. John-level silent during his combined 16 years with the band, but he was most often overshadowed during interviews by Simmons and Stanley, as are all members. Seems original drummer Peter Criss is also about to release his own autobiography in the Fall of this year. To hear other side of things seemed interesting. Plus, sure, its a behind-the-scenes of the decadent 70s rock-n-roll lifestyle; why not? And Ace was the first concert I ever saw while he was on tour of his first post-KISS solo tour in the mid-80s.
In fact, I don't think I've ever really read many full backstage autobiographies of folks in big arena-rock bands. I went into this full speed (which is pretty slow). It all starts with Carl Frehley, who marries Esther Hecht, both kids of German and Dutch immigrants, and have Paul Frehley in the Bronx in 1951. Ace dives pretty quickly into the rough nature of his early life. His father was already 47 when he was born, and was often inattentive. Paul eventually found fun and friends in gangs, music and girls. There were fights and small brushes with the law, but he eventually dropped out of both high school and the gangs and started drinking, playing guitar, watching (and sneaking backstage at) all the coolest rock bands in the 60s, and apparently messing around with every girl in NYC.
The earliest half of the book is the most interesting, with Frehley explaining his life before he eventually joined and helped create the biggest rock band of 1970s. This section of the book contains the most interesting descriptions of his life, before he had fame, unlimited money, and access to everything. His memories of his first concerts when he saw Mitch Ryder, Wilson Pickett, Simon and Garfunkel, the Young Rascals, Phil Ochs, the Who and Cream at a series at the RKO 58th St Theatre in Manhattan in 1967. How seeing Townsend and Clapton and Jim McCarty onstage when he was a teenager blew his mind (along with some weed). How he started his first band (the Four Roses) when he was 13. How he met his future wife Jeanette Trerotola, and the inspiration she gave him to keep trying with bands. He writes about the joys of sneaking backstage in 1970 and accidentally getting to help Mitch Mitchell set up his drums before the Jimi Hendrix set at the New York Pop Festival. These stories are good, fun, pure insight; they're entertaining. And all lead to that one story that has been told a thousand times: the answering of the ad in the Village Voice for a guitarist "with flash and ability."
After the book gets passed the formation of KISS and the recording of their first few albums, every chapter eventually starts to read a bit formulaic. There are definitely some nice explanations of certain legends that have accrued concerning his songwriting contributions to the band and the development of his guitar style and onstage persona. It was interesting to read Ace's side of stories that I've only heard Simmons/Stanley describe, even down to the reasons for his mismatched sneakers during his audition for the band. It's all here and it's all for us KISS nerds who obsessed over these facts for decades. His stories about the immediate marketing ideas for the band before it had even started playing out are great. I especially enjoyed his take on the making of the controversial concept album "Music from 'The Elder'" KISS released in 1981, and what lead to his quitting the band at that time. In fact, Frehley does a good job debunking a lot of the revisionism KISS has spun for the last 30 years. Who's telling the truth? Who cares?
The problem is, the formula gets a bit boring. After Ace got money and fame, well, every chapter basically becomes story after story of how many girls he fucked at once, how many times he got fucked up on coke and crashed his car, how many times he blacked out and missed a plane, how many times his bodyguards and money bailed him out. During the period concerning his lifestyle in the late 70s all the way until the late 80s, there are so many sentences peppered throughout that read "I know a lot of guys have only dreamed of doing this...and I did it." The bragging about the girls almost outweighs the bragging about the drugs, money and alcohol. Ace was apparently a ladies man, and he brings that up a lot more often than I expected. Being used to hearing Simmons brag and brag and brag...and brag, I didn't think Ace would head down that lane.
I'm not knocking the book for the direction it goes in; this was Ace's life, and he tells it. There are moments when he comes off as an arrogant spoiled prick, sure. Especially the part when he drunkenly slams his Ferrari into a another guy's "$200 used piece of shit" in a parking lot. Hey, I drive a used piece of shit. I would have been mad, too. And many of his exploits end with a thank you to the "guardian angel" he claims is always watching over his shoulder; to me that guardian angel was having the money to basically do anything and get away with it. It eventually becomes regular rock star fodder. But, what can
you expect from a guy that was in one of the biggest bands in the world.
But, this is also why I don't read too many rock autobiographies.
I also haven't read too many rock biographies that were actually about rocks, but felt the need to check out an old tome written in 1922 by Otto A. Rothert called "The Outlaws of Cave-in Rock" (Southern Illinois University Press). Part of the beginnings of this blog were dedicated to a travelogue documenting my obsession with the Ohio River that I trekked along and wrote about here last year. My travels in following the Ohio led me into Southern Illinois to a small town called Cave-in-Rock that I stopped at for water and to do some spelunking. Well, not real spelunking. Cave-in-Rock itself a state park that features a large-mouthed cave in a high bluff overlooking the river. No guides are necessary; you can simply wander down to the shore of the Ohio and walk on in the cave. It's a humongous 55-foot wide opening that leads several hundred feet back.
After exploring the cave, I began to drive out of the town of Cave-in-Rock and stopped and talked to a couple of men selling vegetables who immediately gave me much more information than any pamphlets I had gathered at the state park. The town and cave itself contains a very interesting history, and the two gentleman added that there had been two books written about the sorted, bloody early days of both. Their recommended title was "Satan's Ferryman: A True Tale of the Old Frontier," written by J. R. W. D. Snively and Louanna Furbee in 1968. This book remains out of print, and copies are expensive. The other history of the area was Rothert's original 1923 publication, which has been reprinted a few times.
taken in July 2011 during my visit
Rothert's history, despite being written 90 years ago, is very lively and compelling, giving a history of the cave itself, a limestone behemoth that eventually began housing criminals, bandits, murderers and river pirates from about 1795 to 1820. He begins in detailing the earliest accounts of the cave, which dates back to 1744 by Charlevoix in his "The History of New France." It began appearing on maps in 1778, and was eventually converted into an inn by Samuel Mason, a former officer in the Continental army, in 1797. The cave offered a clear view up and down the river, allowing those occupying it to see boats and travelers long before they were upon it. The cave at first served as a stopping point for people traveling to new areas of the country, until eventually it became twisted into use by "banditti" who saw it as a as a perfect "a scene shrouded in crime."
One of the biggest dangers to pioneers sailing down the Ohio in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were river pirates. Often the pirates would act as stranded folks needing help. Once taken aboard the ships, the robbers would commence to all sorts of devilry to get what they wanted, resorting to whatever viciousness was necessary. With the use of Cave-in-Rock to serve as a decoy as an inn and resting spot, the river pirates became even more crafty, luring victims to its insides with a promise of supplies and drink (water or alcohol), even gambling and prostitution. The cave itself served as home to murder and what-all, according to Rothert. This book details crime after crime.
The main focus of the history Rothert offers, however, centers on two stories of bloody murder and deceit. Several chapters are devoted to the famous Harpe Brothers. Big and Little Harpe are considered the first serial killers of the United States, having started a murderous spree that cut through Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois. Rothert quotes Judge James Hall's 1824 accounts of the Harpes, who describes them as feral killers who had a "savage thirst for blood - a deep rooted enmity against human nature...Plunder was not their object...they destroyed without having suffered injury, and without the prospect of of benefit."
The Harpe Brothers
The tales of the Harpes take three chapters, and the further adventures of Little Harpe spill into subsequent chapters. Big Harpe was renowned for being the most savage, with one legend sporting him bashing his own daughter's head against a tree because she wouldn't be quiet. One story deftly recounted in the book, as well as related to me on the side of the main stretch in Cave-In-Rock by the kindly vegetable salesmen, was how they robbed a small boy carrying a bag of flour. Instead of merely taking he flour, they split him with a knife, filled his chest with rocks, and threw him in the Ohio. It's hard to say what's legend and what's all true, although Rothert had done his research. The stories of the Harpes are still passed around, especially in that area of Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky. The eventually tried to find shelter within Cave-In-Rock, but were driven out by the "aggregation of outlaws" living there because "in the Harpes they found two human brutes beyond even their toleration."
Another chunk of Rothert's lessons tell of Samuel Mason, he who had maintained an excellent military record in the American Revolution, but eventually became "one of the shrewdest and resourceful of outlaws." Instead of murder, Mason excelled in thievin', founding a traveling gang of scoundrels that roamed the wilderness stealing and the like. Cave-in-Rock was a perfect formation to create a den of gambling, prostitution and robbing. Mason avoided his fame by hanging a large sign on the river bank: "Wilson's Liquor Vault and House for Entertainment." Many stories surround his escapades, as well.
The history of Cave-In-Rock is pretty brutal, but damn interesting. Rothert's account backs up and adds to all of the things I had already heard about the place. If you go to the cave now, you can still ancient graffiti carved into the rock. True, a lot less cocaine (although I find it hard to believe the Harpes didn't party), but a riveting story nonetheless. Very few bodyguards and royalty checks to save the pioneers then.
"Just play somethin'," Mike said, his back to the crowd. His Adam's Apple bobbed the tattoo of a crucifix up and down his throat and he cleared it with more tobacco smoke and looked to me for some guitar. I sat weaving in my chair, bourbon slopping onto my knee.
"Play what?" I said, blurring the words a little.
"Chords, anything. The crowd's gettin' weird. Just whatever it is," He started to turn back to face the faces looking at us. "Make it sound sexy."
There are times in people's lives when the twenties, despite beginning a particular fade, seem like they have lasted too long and will last forever, and sometimes your behavior is dead set on challenging that immortality. Michael Crossley and I ran in social and artistic circles in the late 1990s that often criss-crossed like bubbles in the night. We seemed to get along immediately, and soon were partners in words, drinks, and our own individual races to fall-down hard on some warm, dark, Lexington nights.
It was one of those special moments in times that occur in scenes, when you feel like you fell into a cusp of something. We were 20something ghosts that lived and thoroughly inhabited that open stage backdrop in the late 90s, completely and honestly immersed in creating a community of shared music, writing and spoken word, all of us collaborating and contributing and critiquing, feeling like we were birthing a new era of poetry and/or song at the moment. We saw versions of each other haunting certain locations every night. Bob tending bar topless and the unpredictable dangers hidden at the Hip Joynt. Hiding in the foilage of the back patio at McCarthy's. The resurrection of that open mic at controversial Detour. And every night a beer at the original Buster's. We were our own little punk-hippy-weirdo-outcast circle that fed off each other, breathed by artists still surviving and working now: JT Dockery. Joe B. Roach. Trish. Crystal. Johnny. Charlie. Nick. Troy T. Warren Byrom. Anna. Others and others.
The Last Chances existed somewhere in there, taking up part of that time and space in a positive attempt at melding music and spoken word, trying to firmly formulate it into some loosened pattern that was half song, half poetic seance. Crossley and Joe B. fronted the band. I was ensnared on the guitar after Johnny quit one night. There were try-outs during a full performance, and trumpet player Warren helped quicken the audition down to me. To this day that always boggled my mind, because I'm sure I played the shittiest during the show, just drinking bourbon while all the competition were warming up. I guess I was warming up my insides.
Thanks to Roach for sending me the flyer
The Last Chances was a great experiment, experience and an interesting band to insert in the varied landscape that was Lexington's music/poetry scene at that time. Like most other endeavors, everything split; the bands, the crowds, the bars, the folks. Some stayed and started different bands, some moved on to different cites. I stayed in touch with Crossley for a while during his time and career in the pageantry of Cincinnati, where I knew he was keeping the faith, cranking out chapbooks of words and performing them. I discovered he traveled to Seattle due to Internet sightings. It was those same whispers on the social networks that I started to see he was playing again, and speaking again, and obviously writing again, this time through the microphone called French Letters.
French Letters started up in Seattle in 2009, founded on that tense take of uniting Crossley's poetry into a lyrical setting and creating a cohesion that roots and swims through several genres easily and adventurously. Their latest release is entitled "In Tongues," a follow-up to an EP called "Dead Letters." "In Tongues" doesn't trap itself in any one form or style, but instead positions itself astride several lines of music. A track like "When It Mattered" is a subdued bass, letting the words stand on their stage and deliver. The album then immediately begins to investigate differing portions of divergent habits.
All of the photos of French Letters are from rodtipton.com
There are the funky jazz ruminations that lead "West Ashley Crosstown." By "The Less Girls You Know," its turned to upbeat rock and roll that burns a chorus that is hellfire catchy, finding the words sung Lou Reed via Jonathan Richman via, well, Michael Crossley. And that scripture stays throughout. "Southern Streets" is almost-country verses that head off with a rising chorus that sees phantoms of a Stones-ish tantrum. There's rockabilly being trapped and caught in the clever tributes of "One for Buddy Holly," and a twisted bluesy-American-rock transuding through "American Skeleton." And what begins as a lazy, walking pose of Crossley's prose, surprisingly erupts into an intense winding of percussion led by Luke Steitz's warmly recorded drums on the epic "Wallflower Among Women."
And that's one of the interesting slants of a band like this; French Letters is both the originality projected through the music provided by Steitz, guitarists Connor O'Brien and Michael Puglisi, and bassist Courtney Steitz, and the fusion of lyrics, words, poems by Crossley, who spends parts of the album projecting in his swaggered voice, parts singing, and parts painting those letters with an aggressive, frustrated deliverance. I've heard Mike read about a hundred times; he doesn't come from that ugly line of spoken word poets that mumbles shyly at a coffee shop reading while staring at a paper and waiting for his organic Fair Trade Certified tea to cool. Nor does he read in that annoying ACCENTING every OTHER word to GAIN your momentous ATTENTION because his VOICE changes pitch and dynamic REGARDless of the content. Mike reads his poems based on its character and essence. And he also reads like he's fronting a rock band, which he is. There's some sway and arrogance to his delivery when he's waxing about sex and drugs, there's black strap molasses in there when he drips about rejection and falling, and there's nocturnal storms in his throat when he's burrowing into flashes of anger that can pop in his words.
"In Tongues" follows all of these lines over the length of ten songs, ten poems. Along with the CD there exists a book containing Crossley's poetry, as well. It's good to see the poem/song "Fried Chicken" contained here, an homage to Crossley's time in the South, in Kentucky, and probably the tune that encompasses the style French Letters transfers. It saunters through sex, morphine, sex, heroin, sex and the magic of greasy poultry. All starting with Crossley's own charisma: "O, you got a junky smooth/ like razor burn/ and that laugh was a broken glass/ with all the shards still stuck up in there..." Crossley's words have always been his own genuine convictions planted very rhythmically, whether on page or on mic. "You Golgotha, you ghetto,/ you're killing me, can't you see that?/ Haven't you noticed my horns/ you mad matador?" ("Southern Streets"). There's a beat there, and yeah you can muster beat poets in that comment, and you can charge the Bukowski horn or maybe the Billy Childish salute; at this point anyone who writes and reads with some confidence and without fear of popular opinion always gets those comparisons. Crossley's been writing this stuff for awhile; I think he has his own style at this point. Besides making music with French Letters, I'm glad to know he's still writing and cranking out chapbooks.
I was inspired to send some questions at my friend when I decided to review the "In Tongues" book/album.I didn't expect it to turn into a full-fledged interview, but by golly, it did.
american gloam: When did French Letters start? How? Who is in it?
Michael: French Letters
started in 2009. It was sort of a one off. I wasn't writing or reading
anymore when I moved to Seattle. A friend of mine had an art opening,
and asked me to read some poems... I was nervous about it, so I asked a
dude I worked with but didn't know to sit in and back me up on guitar.
We liked what we had come up with, so I asked Luke (drummer) to record it
in his studio just as a keepsake. Said guitarist was John E. Naffah,
he's the rhythm player on "In Tongues," but he has since left because he
had a kid... The drummer Luke, is married to our bassist Courtney, yet
there is absolutely zero Fleetwood Mac drama. The lead guitar is Michael
Puglisi, a diploma holding jazz master with a taste for metal. Our new
guitarist Connor, a bartender of great renown, and me...
ag: How were things going in the Cinci scene small press/spoken word-wise? Lifewise?
MC: I was releasing chapbooks every couple of years, and getting a few high
profile readings like the Cincinnati Center for the Arts' "Beautiful
Losers" opening... But honestly, I was at the height of my addiction in
that period. There's footage of me at the CCA reading, I have all of
these bloody tissues all over my hands. It's because I made the guy who
picked me up from Indiana (where I was living at the time) stop in his
truck & buy me crack. I'd hit the pipe, get paranoid and stick the
still hot pipe up into the foam under his passenger seat. Then... a few
minutes later I'd have to reach up through the springs to retrieve it
for my next hit, and over again ad nauseum. Tearing my hands open on the
springs in the process.
ag: What made you leave for Seattle?
MC: I was a decade plus dope addict, I had pretty much worn out all of my
resources and had managed to stay out of prison. I felt it's looming
shadow though, and when my good friend's girlfriend moved out here to
co-op, I decided to come along and find a west coast connection. I was
mailing stuff to Maine at the time. Being from the Mid-West, Seattle has
a reputation for being good at 2 things: drugs and music. As it turned
out though, the dope out here sucked, and there was no way I could've
flipped it. I lucked into a good job though, and actually found an ad
for treatment on the back page of an alt news weekly that I got into
pretty quickly. The treatment worked and I've never looked back since.
ag: Did you go anywhere else in-between Cinci and Seattle?
MC: I lived in Charleston SC briefly. I had done a quick detox and bussed
it down there to write another chapbook. I was sure at the time that
death or prison were encompassing me. The chapbook I wrote down there
was called "Dead Letters 843," and it formed the basis of French Letters'
earliest songs like "West Ashley Crosstown" and "Dead Letter Office," the
first 2 songs we ever wrote as a band.
ag: Influences you turned to for French Letters and this recording/writing.
MC: When I got off of drugs, I distanced myself as far as I could from the
way I used to be. I had to learn how to be responsible. I quit writing
poetry, pretended to be right wing, started collecting guns. I wasn't
listening to much music at the time other than Gaslight Anthem, Hold
Steady, and Springsteen when we wrote the principal material for In
Tongues. I mostly listened to survivalist podcasts or film podcasts. My
first iPod was full of podcasts. That being said; I had started
attending a community college, and was writing a lot. I knew I wanted to
create the best spoken word album since Patti Smiths' "Horses." As far as
a sonic inspiration for "In Tongues", it was Modern Lovers' self titled
for 70%, the rest was all Velvet Underground. I'd cite Nick Cave these
days, but back then, I'd never listened to him. People find that hard to
believe.
ag: Is this the first thing by French Letters?
MC: No,
we had put out a bandcamp EP called "Dead Letters" of some pre-mastered
songs that feature on "In Tongues," as well as a bonus track that doesn't.
"Melanie Says," a reworking of VU's "Stephanie Says." I love that song, but
the guitarist swears he's out of tune on it, so it lives in the
ether... Thank god there's a youtube video for it.
ag: More stuff from French Letters down the road? Playing live a lot?
MC: We are recording a single this week called "Los Alamos", and have 20
hours booked with a legendary Seattle producer in July to record a four
song EP of straight up rock roll we're calling "Rats Off To Ya!" After
that we have about 10 more fully realized songs that we plan on
recording with Adam Prairie who produced "In Tongues." Four of them are
blazing rock roll tunes, and six of them are ballads, so I lovingly
refer to this LP as "Use Your Illusion 3," although the working title is
"Dont Retread Me". But we write so frequently and fluently, that it will
probably be a different album by the time we go in for the LP this
fall. Playing live a lot? Yes. French Letters are a live band, we
record live, we thrive in that environment. We are getting the
oppurtunity to play bigger and better shows, and we're so versatile as a
unit of songwriters that we can fit into almost any bill. From the
neo-folk, or jazz jam bands to the fire breathing rock acts, we always
adapt and destroy. Music competition is fierce in Seattle, and there
are literally thousands of bands that fit into the broad genre of rock
alone here. There are about ten clubs worth playing at, and two nights a
week everyone wants to play out... We are getting the weekend bookings
at those clubs, I see that as a good sign.
ag: Do you play much
outside the city? How is the spoken word/rock n roll idea received?
How's the spoken word/small press-ish scene in Seattle?
MC: Luke,
Courtney, and Michael are all from St. Louis, I'm from Cincinnati,
Connor is from Tacoma... And it still means so much to all of us that we
get to be part of a great music scene. We could spend our whole lives
trying to tackle Seattle alone at this point, and I don't think we'd
want for more. Maybe that's just the now. But we all have professional
jobs, touring is secondary to recording as far as I'm concerned. I've
been involved in so many great projects that just vanish into thin air.
Who knows though? We might be starting a label (Art Thug), and once we
have a way to support ourselves on the road it might be an option. But
honestly, right now, I just want our own city to love us. As far as
how it's received? Well... People are passive here, but we also do
attack them. Provocation aside though, as a spoken word band, you have
no idea how hard it was to book a show back in our first year.
"Well, we're spoken word, but trust me... We'll rock." Luckily a few
bookers took chances, and I learned how to manage a band in the interim...All that being said, any band that lasts two years
out here might be worth paying attention to. It's that hard. When we
all moved here 5 years ago, Luke and Courtney and I went to some poetry
slams together. It was horrible. I kept getting booed off of stage, and
it soured me to the whole thing. I wasn't used to that kind of
treatment, I wasn't used to having to even try that hard at it. So it's a
good thing, the sour early reception. It's taught me that the band is a
gang, and we kill together. We ain't shit without the sum of our parts.
I've also since found my niche in this scene, I've been doing
readings at the Richard Hugo House for the past year and managed to make
a name for myself as a writer specifically, outside of the realm of
performance. That means a hell of a lot to me, when I came so close to
giving all of this up. This is who I am, I ain't capable of being anything else.
ag: What's the future plan for you or French Letters?
MC: Well... Here's the deal. I swore I would grow up and leave behind
foolish hopes of becoming a famous writer, or poet, or performer. When
we started this band, I was miserable. I had landed my first good paying
job and I was clean, but I hated my life outside of those two simple
facts. I called the Army, they said they could take me into NCO school
provided I had a certain amount of college credits, I enrolled in
school. My professor coaxed me into writing again, but not poetry. Poems
were always an irrational art to me. I considered myself lucky that I
could still drink beer and smoke weed without having an urge to use
harder things. I take it as it comes, then I make it into what I need, a
junky art if ever there was. I started this band, got what I was
looking for, and forgot about the Army. Thank god, I'd be in Afghanistan
right now instead of typing this here...I still want to be a writer, it's the most important thing in
the world to me. Learning how to write songs has been a great thing over
the last year, because it allows me the free expression of writing a
poem, without having to access the lows I used to submit to in order to
write said poems.
As far as French Letters? That's my fam. I will
accept nothing less than total Seattle domination, then we go on tour.
Hometown tour first... St. Louis, Cincinnati, Lexington, Tacoma.
Start this label, make it an LLC, record an album a year for the rest of
my days. I got my muse, and they happen to be my favorite people in
this world...With a band this good
everything I want is really only a question of how loud you want to
ask for it...
ag: What was that band we were in
together in Lexington? The Last Chances? I see French Letters continuing
some bits of that idea, although it sounds totally different with a
different direction. What other bands have you been in since leaving Lex
that combined the poetry with the rock n roll so much that its a full
band like this. I mean, the difference with the Last Chances was it went
from just having some folks play behind you at readings to being an
actual cohesive band of the same people, which seems like what you've
created with French Letters...these are songs and its a rock n roll
band, as far as I'm concerned. Just wondering what the history was that
led to this incarnation.
MC: French Letters are a natural continuation of
Last Chances'. This is the band I've always wanted. Everyone in the
band comes from such different places musically, yet we all come
together so naturally and organically. We can play anything. Funny
story, last summer I decided I wanted to do a country side project with
Connor (before he was in the group) called Nam Vet, I started thinking
about the reasons for this, then realized I could just ask the band if
we could do a few more country tunes, which they were down for. Now we
have more country songs than I'm even comfortable with, but that's
really a testament to how good these players are. Our sound now is
different than it was on "In Tongues." We adapted to cut throat hipster
club policies, and still came out sounding unique all of the time. I
love that about a poetry reading, I still don't prepare for those, I
just figure out the stage time I get and read dry... That was the beauty
of Last Chances, we were always improvisational and had brilliant
moments of which I have documented proof, but also, I'm sure we had some
horrible takes that people suffered through too. The difference now is
just like a writer that's toiled away at a typer for a decade or more,
it's found it's voice.
You and J. Todd were there the first night I
ever met what is now French Letters' rhythm section. My hip hop group at
the time (Ill-Literates) had put on a show called Abuse that the Smacks!
played at. My rhyming partners cousin was an MC from St. Louis that had
also driven up to be on the bill, they ended up getting in an argument
over some perceived slight and not playing that night. But they were
there all of the same, I met them while sitting in a plush red velvet
booth next to you two. Flash forward a year or so later, they are back
in Cincinnati on a visit, we're all at a pizza joint and Luke and
Courtney are talking to said rhyming partner (Christopher Eyre) about
moving to Seattle in the next year, they all made plans to do so... I
said "Nah, hell no."
I found myself out here a year later, and
remembered that conversation. So I looked Luke up on Myspace, and asked
if they were still coming out? He said they'd be here in the next few
weeks, they had Michael Puglisi in tow...And the Steitze's started dragging me to poetry slams.... That's how French Letters started.
Now we all live out here.
"In Tongues" by French Letters is available through group's bandcamp page, amazon.com, iTunes, and at the Seattle records stores Wall of Sound, Easy Street and Sonic Boom.
