The Strange and True Story of Your Life, Lousy Robot

Lousy Robot The Strange and True Story of Your Life

Lousy Robot is a band that sounds totally different than the way they look. Hearing them, you expect to see ocean-frizzed curly-haired surf punks or maybe ‘60s mods, but instead you get a bunch of good ol’ boys sounding all of nineteen. They play youthful pleasing pop perfect for a sunny afternoon bopping around the pool. It’s the opposite of emo; it’s the happy punk of the late ‘80s with depressing lyrics and fun melodies. “Train Wreck” takes you back to the dance clubs of England circa ’66. It’s got that Monkee-ish bounce to it that makes you wanna do the swim. They even take lyrics of totally awkward small talk and covert it into a song you can immediate sing along with. Recorded at Pleasantry Lane Studios here in Dallas by Salim Nourallah and produced by John Dulfilho, The Strange and True Story of Your Life is their debut album. It’s perfect that they are from along Route 66 because Lousy Robot combines that happy feeling from southern California and mixes it up with some old English beats and heads to the mall. If New Wave is back, this isn’t far behind. Maybe despite the Bush White House, we’re all feeling a bit happy again, just like we were in the days of Reagan. Fuck it, let’s just go dance! To quote Lousy Robot, “La, la! La, la, la, la, la!”

Originally written for DallasMusicGuide.com

The Strange and True Story of Your Life, Lousy Robot

Lousy Robot The Strange and True Story of Your Life

Lousy Robot is a band that sounds totally different than the way they look. Hearing them, you expect to see ocean-frizzed curly-haired surf punks or maybe ‘60s mods, but instead you get a bunch of good ol’ boys sounding all of nineteen. They play youthful pleasing pop perfect for a sunny afternoon bopping around the pool. It’s the opposite of emo; it’s the happy punk of the late ‘80s with depressing lyrics and fun melodies. “Train Wreck” takes you back to the dance clubs of England circa ’66. It’s got that Monkee-ish bounce to it that makes you wanna do the swim. They even take lyrics of totally awkward small talk and covert it into a song you can immediate sing along with. Recorded at Pleasantry Lane Studios here in Dallas by Salim Nourallah and produced by John Dulfilho, The Strange and True Story of Your Life is their debut album. It’s perfect that they are from along Route 66 because Lousy Robot combines that happy feeling from southern California and mixes it up with some old English beats and heads to the mall. If New Wave is back, this isn’t far behind. Maybe despite the Bush White House, we’re all feeling a bit happy again, just like we were in the days of Reagan. Fuck it, let’s just go dance! To quote Lousy Robot, “La, la! La, la, la, la, la!”

Originally written for DallasMusicGuide.com

Ones and Zeros, Dynah

Ones and Zeros, Dynah

Austin


Tall and thin, stringy, and lethally slack, Rion Basius possesses rock star bravado. He's Bowie, Jagger without the swagger, and Iggy Pop, a bit less strung out. He also does the most convincing cover of Pulp's “Common People.” You believe he's lived it, in the best fake British accent ever. But you don’t want to be the band that does this song, don’t listen to us. It's the greatest Brit-poser cover ever, yet Basius is the best in Texas to pull it off.
Ones and Zeros is full of cascading keyboard, layers of pop goodness, and Basius' attitude. He rails against labels and materialism and religion, but is determined to win popularity. He wants the trappings of stardom, to have the platform to rail against the mediocre. Yet, he's frustrated, he's misunderstood, at least, so he says. “What’s the use, where everyone determines where I stand?” he sings, “don’t know why I care.” It's hard being a Brit-pop alt-rocker in Texas, especially when he wants you to “lay me down, so what if I don’t pray?”
"Philosophy and a Kiss," defines Dynah in its title alone, but is also the standout song. Basius' philosophy may be a little petulant, a bit hard to swallow, but the music he writes around it is danceable, beautiful, and sexy. And it's just lovely pretend we're in Camden Market while hearing Dynah.


Originally written for DallasMusicGuide.com

The Hourly Radio - Interview at Sons of Hermann Hall

Video interview by Torr Leonard (I think).

THE HOURLY RADIO
Interviewed by Kate Mackley

One amazing sell-out night at the Gypsy Tea Room isn’t enough to drive a band forward, but for The Hourly Radio it’s not a fluke. Balancing humility about their present and hubris for their potential, three of the guys chronicle their progress. They’re taking it one unexpected step at a time.

Despite the ‘pickers in every room’ at Sons of Hermann Hall on songwriters’ Thursday night, The Hourly Radio and DMG found a spot to share the development of this exciting new band. Aaron Closson, making a name for himself as a singer, and Ryan Short, the guitarist and impetus behind the group, drove the conversation, but drummer Adam Vanderkolk got props from his mates. Missing was bass player Tim Jansen, but we were told, “he doesn’t talk much anyway.” Closson, Short, and Vanderkolk clearly have aspirations for The Hourly Radio that extend beyond the Dallas music scene.

Dallas Music Guide: You guys definitely have everyone talking about you. When and how did you officially form?

Ryan Short: A year from October, so October 2003.

Aaron Closson: I answered an ad that Ryan had put out. He did the whole Observer ‘musician’s wanted’ pages where he listed a bunch of bands I was into, and I had never done anything like that before. I remember telling my mom I was trying for a band and she was really mad. But it ended up working really well. I played two songs and I was disappointed because in my mind, trying for a band would be this rigorous… but they were like, ‘Cool, that’s pretty good’ and I was like, ‘What! That’s it?’ Really disappointed.

RS: I was on the giving up stage because I would get the guys singing the most ridiculous things on the answering machine; heavy metal, Incubus, terrible people calling. So when Aaron came I was just like, ‘OK, cool.’

DMG: (to Adam) You’re the famous drummer from the Observer article!

Adam Vanderkolk: Apparently.

RS: (sarcastically) We’re very upset.

DMG: How did you get involved?

AV: Ryan called me and said that he had these couple of friends that had instruments and they had a place to practice, and I kept blowing him off. Then about a year later I ran into him a concert at the Curtain Club, and he was still looking for members for his band, and I agreed finally because he was back in Dallas. That’s how I joined.

DMG: A whole year later?

RS: Well, nothing ever happened. I just had a guitar and I was like, ‘Well, I’m gonna start a band’ and I just talked about it a lot. For about a year.

AV: and then…

RS: Adam and I went to high school together and I knew he played drums, so I called him and said, ‘I have this singer now.’

AC: When I started I couldn’t play with a drummer. I just couldn’t do it. We had never played at all. We had no idea what we were doing. Another drummer got us off the ground, but it never would have worked with him. Things just came together with Adam.

DMG: ‘The Hourly Radio’; where does the name come from?

RS: It came from a book, Brave New World, and I had always thought that would be a cool band name, long before I even knew how to play guitar. One day before we were going to play a show, we were writing down band names and we needed to pick one. Adam thought that one was cool.

AV: When I first practiced with them, they had a dry-erase board and it had five names and they were wanting to get rid of Hourly Radio and I really liked that one, and they were leaning toward ‘The Scallies’ I believe it was.

RS: Yeah, when we first started out we wrote rock songs. They weren’t bad, but they were rock songs.

AC: As far as the name, I like it and I don’t like it at the same time. But it’s what we did and our music is our music. From the very start, we were like, ‘Well it has radio in it, and that’s pretty generic, with Radiohead and so many bands have Radio.’ So we were aware of it, but we also didn’t care because we didn’t think anything would happen. I’m sure a lot of bands do that. They come up with a stupid name and then they… I like it, but I’m not crazy about it, but I’m not worried about it.

AV: Whatever, I don’t care.

DMG: Describe your sound for me.

AV: That is the worst question.

RS: I have the hardest time with that.

AC: At its very core it’s pop music. For a long time, I was afraid to call it pop because there’s some kind of pejorative, negative connotation and maybe it still is because of MTV’s existance. It’s still something we shy away from. But at the very root, I think the hardest thing to do is to make a three-and-a-half minute catchy song. If you can run up and down the guitar neck, you can drag out a song for six minutes. We do want to be memorable.

RS: And I hope we do it with atmosphere and texture, combining the sounds of our influences.

DMG: Who are your influences? What are the bands that drive you guys?

AV: I’m not allowed to talk about mine. (he laughs, and Ryan scoffs, but agrees.) I like bands that that have good drummers, so I listen to heavier stuff.

RS: (teasing) Rush.

AV: No, no Rush. I listen to bands, like Incubus that was mentioned earlier, that Ryan doesn’t like … (laughs)

RS: (faking anger) This interview is over.

AV: …that’s where I learned beats, so that’s what I listen to. A lot of the drummers in the bands that they listen to are flatline.

AC: That’s true. Nothing against Coldplay, but their drummer creates standard issue drumbeats. He doesn’t take a lot of chances, he lets Chris Martin handle it. Adam’s background is a huge contribution. It really does add. It’s a little more aggressive than other drummers would do. Some would hang back.

RS: Yeah, having a drummer that was into Coldplay and Keane and Travis wouldn’t add. It’s nice to have a singer who looks up to those guys, but a drummer… It actually helps having Adam be into the more aggressive stuff. As far as other influences, British music, obviously. I don’t know why it just seems that bands from there are better.

Ac: I remember looking at my CD collection early in high school and counting mentally the bands that were from England. The great majority were from Manchester. Small mining towns. Shitholes. They made the best music in the last twenty years. It’s not a coincidence; people of our education are pre-disposed.

DMG: Where is your education from?

AC: It’s still occurring actually, studying 19^th century Russian literature with a minor in philosophy.

DMG: Whenever I see you, I get this “Holden Caulfield” thing from you.

AC: What does that mean?

DMG: Like you should be from back East, old school prep stuff; Catcher in the Rye.

AC: OK, good. Cheers!

DMG: Which is unusual here in Texas.

AC: I wasn’t born here, but I’m very proud to be here. My family’s from Chicago.

RS: I think if you can’t tell we’re from Texas, then we’re doing something right.

AC: Yeah. Mission accomplished.

DMG: You look different, you sound different. If I was to take anywhere, you guys seem like you should be from Boston. Not ready for New York City…

RS: Not quite New York. Maybe Connecticut.

DMG: You guys just put out your debut EP, The Lure of the Underground. Tell me about that.

AV: I wasn’t really involved in a lot of it, I just laid down the tracks and then let these two basically run the show. They seemed to have good ideas, because it came out alright. I liked it.

RS: Adam hasn’t actually heard it yet.

AV: I don’t have a copy of it.

RS: $5. (laughs) Someone heard our music, a demo we had made on our own, and thought it was really cool, liked it and wanted to hear what we sounded like with a proper CD, so paid for Taylor Tasch, who’s a local engineer/guitar player with a studio, to record us. We recorded eight songs quickly. There was no producing, it was just engineering; ‘this is how we play the song live, so this is how we play it on our record.’ Adam played the drums and we layed everything on top of it and it sat there for a couple of months. We’re not signed to a lable, we weren’t paying for it, so we didn’t have the right to say, ‘let’s finish this record’; it was all an experiement to see what we could do. It finally got mixed two weeks before it came out, which was January 8^th.

AC: Yeah, it got mixed, we put it out, played a CD release.

DMG: Yeah, and played quite a CD release show! (with Deathray Davies, Pilotdrift, and Black Tie Dynasty at the Gypsy Tea Room on 1/8/05)

RS: We knew that if we did it, we didn’t want it to be a normal show. Up to this point, being a new band, we played a lot of the random club calls because they’ve got a hole in their schedule and you play with bands you’ve never heard of that sound nothing like you. Since we book our own shows, we’re learning as we go. You learn quickly that you have to put the bill together yourself for it to be good. We stick with bands that we really like. Deathray had been around forever. Black Tie (Dynasty) we’ve been playing with a lot. Pilotdrift, we didn’t really know them, but we had just seen them and were blown away by their whole sound, called them all and they were down.

DMG: You just called them?

RS: Yeah, we emailed them and said ‘We’re doing our CD release…’

AV: ‘You want to be on?’

RS: Obviously, we did Deathray first, and once they were in, everybody else was going to be in, and yeah… the Tea Room was packed, sold out.

AV: We were lucky to get such a good bill put together for a show like that, having those bands available, and helping us. We were nervous before the show, ‘what if nobody comes, that would be embarrassing’ and it was the opposite.

RS: It really floored all of us, seeing all those people there.

AC: That Pilotdrift opened for us, I was really flattered. They have no business opening before us.

AV: I really appreciate that.

RS: I think a lot of bands get caught up in the ‘why would we play first?’ and when bands do that… This city has a ton of bands that should play a third or fourth slot. If you want to have a good show, someone’s going to have to open. It was really really cool of them; for Black Tie to play before us, and Pilotdrift to play before us because they don’t need to do that.

AC: No egos were involved at all. In the long run, it helps everyone out.

RS: It was a cool night, though.

DMG: Were you originally at Trees?

AC: Um, kinda. Online it said Trees at one point, and they had talked to us about doing a show, but we weren’t available for that date, and then we started talking about the CD release, so in our heads we were thinking Trees, still. It’s never that it was at Trees and then it got moved because they didn’t think it was going to sell out. We were like, well, Gypsy’ll feel more crowded anyway, because we didn’t know. We probably could have filled up Trees because people were getting turned away.

RS: My mom actually got turned away.

AC: They finally let her in. She was like, “It’s my son! My son’s gonna play.”’

DMG: Aaron, are you really a perfectionist?

AC: Am I a perfectionist, live? Playing a show, yeah. (Adam chuckles) Adam’s laughing out loud. Let him answer that question.

AV: It’s a funny question. I’m waiting for you to give your answer.

AC: But you’re seen me come off shows and be pissed.

AV: Aaron’s never had a good show, according to him. Yes, he’s a bit of a perfectionist all around, I think. Not just with music.

DMG: I have to say, I’ve never see a typed set list before, from anyone.

RS: We usually don’t have them! It’s usually a napkin this big (spreads fingers just a little bit apart), but this was like ‘We can’t fuck this up!’ It was pretty much for this show. I was at work, thinking about what else we could be forgetting, so…

AC: I can’t even remember the show because I was thinking so hard. It’s something we’ll never attain. I don’t know that we’ll ever be that band that plays sod-on perfect, perfect sets. I don’t think musically we’re loose. If anything’s wrong, it’s gonna be me. And the way I want to compensate for that is that I want to be as genuine as possible and convey that I’m sincere about what we’re doing.

DMG: Were you vocally trained?

AC: No, I never really sang until I went to Ryan’s apartment. The opportunity was gonna pass and I didn’t know if I could do it, I just wanted to see.

RS: When we first met, I was working for a company that had a studio and would produce background music for BMW and commercials and they were looking for a male singer and I said I was working with Aaron in a band. He comes in to do it and my boss asked the same question; ‘Are you trained? Do you sing with a choir or a church or something?’ and Aaron said, ‘No, I’ve never sang before in my life.’ He was just like, ‘It’s quite ambitious just to show up at a recording session as a singer getting paid however much an hour and you’ve never sang before!’

AC: I said ‘I hope I’m not wasting your time, but sorry, give it a go.’

RS: (imitating Aaron) ‘I think I can sing.’ (laughing) But he could, so he pulled it off. And he pulled it off here.

DMG: What’s next for you guys?

RS: I don’t know. Seriously, when I put the ads in the paper and started this band, everything was such like, the next step and that’s all we cared about. I was like, ‘I just want to write a song.’ If we could just play through that song without stopping, that’s all I want to do. And then it was, if we could just record a song, and have it on CD so we could hear it years later, that’s all we were going to do. And then what if we play a show? And then what if we can play Trees? And then… we’re never really thinking except past the next step. I never would have, a year ago….

AV: When I met up with Ryan at Curtain Club, after he finished school, we talked about it and the whole time it was ‘I don’t want to do it unless it’s just a hobby.’ Ryan was, ‘oh yeah, it can’t be anything other than that because I’ve got a job…’ We both had jobs and everything just escalates. You get a piece of something good and whatever you set your goal out to be is like a ladder and you keep going up.

RS: I don’t know what the next step is, really.

AV: Our next step now is that we want to play SxSW because that’s next month. That’s literally as far as we go. Do we have any song that we wrote that we think is the greatest song ever? So we want to record that next. And that’s how we continue, I guess.

AC: I’m excited about the notion of our abilities, our talents, catching up to our songwriting capabilities, really our taste. If I was to name one thing that would set us apart from every other band in this state would be our taste. I think that taste matters way more than your ability to play scales, like we were talking about earlier. We’re not trained musicians, we don’t know what we are doing, but more importantly we do know good from bad. Musically, we know what we want to hear, we know what we are not hearing, so I think that’s what matters. If we can keep a clear vision of what we want to hear and what we want to do musically, our talent will catch up with that. We’ll become better guitar players, we’ll become better vocalists, and that’s what I’m excited about.

AV: When you’re allowed to not know what you’re doing, and when you are really and truly allowed to do that, you make a lot better music. Even U2, their first album, they weren’t that good of players and they didn’t have a producer come in and totally change everything. They were allowed to just go in there and work it out like a band works it out. And they made awesome records. Now they are brilliant musicians, they’ve played forever.

RS: But they weren’t at the time. A lot of people look back and see those first records as some of the best stuff. I think that is our benefit. We don’t know what we’re doing.

AV: If you learn other peoples’ music, which learning music, that’s all it is, reading music, then all you’re gonna do is do what they do.

AC: It keeps us being naïve and new at our instruments and our art, it keeps us song-centered rather than instrument-centered. There are a lot of bands you go see and it’s like, ‘insert guitar solo’ and it’s like a two minute run up and down the neck. We don’t have the luxury of doing that. Literally. There has to be something there that we find catchy or melodic outside of a contrived guitar solo, so I do look at it as a benefit that we can’t fall back on our instruments. We have to write good songs.

DMG: What are your favorite songs?

AV: The new one you haven’t heard yet.

RS: I think every time we write a song, we get real excited. You know, ‘This is it. This is the song.’ Then we play it for a couple of shows and we’re like (sounding bored) …whatever…

AC: I think the newer songs will be our most recognizable and commercial. They’re our most catchy mainstream pop songs, but they’ll always be songs that mean a lot to me and maybe that has something to do with the fact that I write lyrics. Probably “Lost + Found” and “First Love is Forever” are the two that mean the most to me.

DMG: What do you consider your philosophy as a band, why are you doing all this? You know, the classier version of “Sex, Drugs, or Rock-n-Roll.”

AC: Absolutely not.

AV: One, it’s fun. We enjoy it.

RS: I’d say our philosophy and why we are doing it are pretty different, for each person.

AC: That’s an individual question. I wouldn’t say it’s fun.

RS: Our philosophy and focusing on how we write is serious as far as what we think is good. Philosophy towards the band is very serious. But why we’re doing it and why we started doing it is very not serious. But we’re not going to get up there and screw around; when we write songs we’re dead serious. I would disassociate those two questions.

AV: I think all of us like the challenge too. We get frustrated because we always want to beat what we’ve done already. Just get better as musicians and that type of thing.

DMG: What is the new song?

RS: We played it at the CD release; “Closer.”

AC: On tape it’s going to be good, but live we can’t really nail it yet.

AV: Yeah, we don’t really practice our new songs before we go ahead and play ‘em live. (laughs) Which I don’t know is the smartest thing.

RS: Yeah, once we can play it all the way through, we’re like ‘let’s go ahead and do it.’

DMG: Do you have plans of moving on; New York, LA?

AC: I don’t see an opportunity existing outside of Dallas that makes Dallas unacceptable. There are a lot of positive things happening.

AV: It wouldn’t make any sense to leave now.

AC: The few bands we played with at the show are standing out, are standing apart, and I think for a reason.

RS: If we move on, and by move on I mean move up, we might start touring and be out and about but we’re still from Dallas. I don’t think we’ll do a Secret Machines ‘we gotta go here to be discovered’. I don’t think Austin gives you any better chance. We drive three hours and play there, I don’t think we need to move to Austin. If we played our show in New York, no one would care. I don’t think a lot is going on in Dallas, musically interesting, but I definitely think more is than was a year ago. There’s a very obvious class of older bands fading out, and a class of newer bands coming in and those bands have similar influences, stuff that’s relevant nationally and internationally, so I think that’s a positive, a lot less from bar band type music.

AV: Authentic music for the thinkers.

AC: For us this band is a special thing and it works because of who we are with. I’m not interested in being a professional local musician.

RS: As long as all these clubs can stay open, people are exposed to a lot better music now than they were six years ago. A lot cooler music, and that helps.

DMG: Well, I’m trying. Thanks.

RS: Thanks for taking the time.

The Hourly Radio play regularly on the club scene in the DFW metroplex and will be in Austin during SxSW at Hot Shots on March 19^th. RIYL: U2, New Order, Radiohead, The Promise Ring, Jarvis Cocker, The Cure, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Britpop, Incubus (but just the drumming).

www.thehourlyradio.com

© Dallas Music Guide 2005

Meeting on a Train, Red Monroe

Red Monroe: Meeting on a Train, 3Concentric

The problem with writing about music is that condensed to words, it’s just stupid. Ever read lyric sheets? Thank God for the guitar. Songs tell stories, but the instruments fill in the gaps in meaning. That is what Red Monroe is all about. The depth and breadth that you don’t grasp from the first listen, but are apparent after the third, fifth, and fifteenth hearing separate true art from yesterday’s pop hit. And when you find there’s still more to discover on the fiftieth time through your iPod, you know you’ve found something special.
“Althea” defines what it means to be Red Monroe. Built with background noise from the kitchen, people moving around, and powerful lyrics, this could have been the money song on Meeting on a Train. That is, if the band had decided to use that other version: the studio-produced one with orchestral instruments and a big sound. Instead, they unceremoniously ‘dumped it in the river’ in favor of the track recorded on their porch in one perfect take. They chose the song to stand on its own; simply Eric Steele’s tonal vocals and folk-rock guitar.
Meeting on a Train begins with thirty seconds of scratchy noise before Andrew Snow’s guitar line of “To Be Your God” kicks in, then near monotone vocals and only after the verse do Matt Moffitt’s ominous spacey keyboards enter, pumping the blood of the tune. Steele finds beauty even in dark, violent impulses; the something wild. “Lorelei” could have come off U2’s Joshua Tree. Classically trained, schizophrenic Steele channels Bono with high notes nearly beyond his range and certainly beyond the Irishman’s. “She Waits on a Tidal Wave” is in the same vein. This is the pop anthem, within everyman’s grasp and my personal favorite; Neal Wadley’s bass line gets me all worked up. Da da da da, dum dum dum dum dum – it’s ludicrous to write that out- just go hear it. Remember: you’re in Dallas; you can go hear these guys. Vocal chameleon Steele stretches on every song; on jazzy, apocalyptic “Green Light” he does his best Jim Morrison. “Our Love” was recorded complete with clinking beer glasses, crowd cheers, and countrified hoots for this boot-stomping, hand-clapping bar song. Lyrics such as ‘cupcakes in your hair’ lift up Snow’s crisp, clear guitar and the inventive drumming of Jeff Gilroy.
Do you get the idea that this CD is all over the board? Country, jazz, and rock are infected with intricate experimentalism. Red Monroe isn’t your average band and Meeting on a Train isn’t an average album. This is a music-head’s band, rooted in folk and rock, rising with a good dose of innovation. They are either perfecting the next evolution of rock or are five guys way off in their own heads; the next Pink Floyd, Phish, or even Velvet Underground. This debut release goes a long way to getting them there.

© 2005 Dallas Music Guide

Interview with Pilotdrift (their first ever ? interview!)

Pilotdrift’s music is epic rock for adventurers, but the guys from Texarkana who compose it are humble and passionate about their art. DMG entered their world to find what drives them to create lush musical landscapes.

It’s New Year’s Eve in Dallas and an auspicious ending to 2004 for the Texarkana band. Pilotdrift has just finished playing an instore gig at Good Records, crammed into the back of the shop with more instruments than band members. Their set not only filled the store to overflowing –by the staff’s estimate, the biggest turnout Good has had yet for an instore event- but Tim DeLaughter also came to hear the music his employees were so excited about. This is a multi-instrumental band, and everyone does everything, sometimes. When I list what they play, that’s what they play most of the time. The enigmatic Micah Dorsey and approachable Kelly Carr are the singer and songwriter team of the group, both contributing equally to the catalog. Skater-boy keyboardist Eric Russell and Jay Budzilowski on guitar are fine with kicking back and letting the others work hard for the press. Ebullient John David Blagg, with a voice as bass as his instrument, and serious Ben Rice, the drummer, help Carr and Dorsey get it right during our interview. Their slow-talking East Texas twangs are a surprising contrast to their far-from-the-hinterlands style. Pilotdrift’s cinematic sound is much bigger than any space it’s in. Someday, these guys will be scoring movies; sweeping dramas about desolate lands and men on a quest. Scratchy records, music boxes, jazz, and circus sounds all come together in the art rock of these versatile artists. Pilotdrift as a band is quiet and shy in the laser attention of a press interview; they barely speak above mumbles, but are happy for the chance to talk about what drives them.

We’re finally sitting in the band room of Trees, waiting during the time between load-in and soundcheck, wondering about the cushy foam furniture (is this hygienic?) and checking where Carr scratched their name in the wall at the last show (it’s still there, by the mirror). The guys are coming down from the artistic high of the instore performance, but recoup rapidly for the night’s New Year’s Eve show with North Texas compadres, Radiant* and Eisley. They seem a bit subdued in contrast to the expansiveness of their music. I’m about to enter the hive mind of six guys completing each other’s sentences. We’re admiring the new recorder I just scored for Christmas…

Dallas Music Guide: It’s an iTalk; this is new technology for me. It’s a voice recorder for the iPod.
Kelly Carr: I don’t have an iPod, but when I do get one, my big thing is artwork. I have to know what the music looks like. There’s a new iPod with album artwork that you can have.
DMG: Yeah, that’s cool because what a band does visually, that makes such a difference.
KC: It does. Yeah, yeah. You don’t know what kind of landscape the music’s in.
DMG: Can you start by describing your sound for me?
KC: You want to know what we think it is?
DMG: Yeah.
KC: I guess cinematic rock.
Ben Rice: Orchestral. Maybe.
John David Blagg: A lot of people would describe it as art rock.
KC: Art rock, yeah. I always feel weird describing it as ‘art rock’ because it’s like I’m saying ‘I’m very artistic.’
Micah Dorsey: (sarcastically) Yeah, like nobody else is artistic.
KC: Experimental. We do make a point to make every song a completely different world. Though it’s hard. There is a common denominator, I suppose. It’s hard to tell exactly what that is. I guess the easiest way to say it is if you like these kind of bands… If you like Flaming Lips, Polyphonic Spree, Radiohead, you’ll like this. Not to put us up with them or anything.
BR: Musically, we’re a multi-genre mix.
KC: In closing, cinematic rock, I guess. It does seem like our music we do make a point to make it seem like it plays a movie in your head for each song. It’s very visual. I like that.
DMG: At the Good Records’ instore, I was standing next to Tim DeLaughter during the show and as soon as you guys finished playing, he turned to Rubberman and said, ‘That was awesome.’
JD: Did he really?
BR: I was really surprised at the compliment. That someone of that caliber, to look up to musically, gives a genuine compliment. (sighs)
KC: (looking at hands) That’s the first time, I’ve ever… you know. I’ve seen a couple people I actually met; Royston Langdon from Spacehogs. I’m a huge fan of his. But that was really cool. Especially for him to hear our music. That was a weird twist.
BR: To get a chance to play for (Tim DeLaughter), that’s the exact opposite.
JD: It’s so weird, I haven’t really thought about that yet.
DMG: Who are your biggest influences?
BR: We kind of said, I guess. Flaming Lips, Beatles, Air, Radiohead.
MD: Elbow.
BR: U2 for me, but that doesn’t go for everyone else.
DMG: Are we split on the U2 camp?
BR: Well, not split. I’m just a die-hard fan, some are mediocre fans. My whole thing is that I’m a big fan of Joshua Tree and those are the best. And just Bono as who he is.
KC: I guess Bono’s just someone to look up to.
MD: As far as just in life and in music. Air, Sparkle Horse, there’s a lot.
JDB: Phish.
BR: Not for everyone.
KC: I’m not a Phish person, but my favorite song actually is a Phish song; ‘Ester.’
BR: I don’t think you’ll hear any Phish in our music, but we’re fans of them.
KC: But I’m also a big fan of score writing. Thomas Newman, huge fan, Danny Elfman, of course, and also regular classical; Stravinsky, Gershwin, I guess all kinds of stuff.
MD: One more: Goldfrapp. (everyone laughs)

DMG: You incorporate a lot of stuff that’s unconventional in your music. Some of your songs sound like music boxes, or you sound like circus music. Where does that come from? Can you tell me a little about that?
MD: I think it would come from the cinematic elements of just trying to capture pictures or atmosphere in your head.
BR: Musical landscapes.
MD: A dynamic like a progression, like if you were watching it as if it were a movie. Kindof hard to explain. Just going for that cinematic element again.
KC: I think you might be referring to ‘Elefant Island’ which has to do with the true story of the antarctic explorers with Shackleton, who got stranded and they were on the brink of insanity. I was just using that as a musical tool to capture that sort of insanity, the confusion of feelings.
DMG: Usually you don’t think ‘arctic explorers’ - ‘circus music.’
KC: It’s just the whole idea of things not making sense any more.
BR: Which is what happened to them.
DMG: What are your own personal favorite songs?
KC: Well, there’s a certain feeling that because there are two singers, if you name your own that’s… (laughs)
MD: Well, no, I could name the favorite ones of mine; you could name your favorite ones.
KC: My favorite song on the album is probably ‘Traitor’s Brain.’
MD: I would probably say, I think, ‘Traitor’s Brain’ actually.
KC: I think that’s a good indication of what we may do in the future, on a bigger scale.
DMG: Tell me about recording this album. Face any big challenges?
BR: We have the advantage of recording on our own gear and having our own time so we’re not pressed for paying by the hour to anybody. It’s under our own construction. That’s a big advantage.
MD: A lot of the songs were recorded right before we were even a band.
BR: Like half were.
MD: Several of mine were. Kelly had some that were recorded before we formed the band and then after we formed the band, we re-recorded some of them. A lot of mine, like ‘Winter,’ that song has been recorded for three years now. Three or four years, same as ‘Picturesque.’
KC: Towards the end of recording, we got more experimental. My mom’s a choir teacher. She teaches a kid’s choir. So they got to use them. Record them for the last song, ‘So Long.’ That was fun, just to work with other people.
MD: But it was over a huge period of time that we recorded.
KC: That’s how we like doing it. Right now we’re recording….
MD: We’ve already started recording other stuff. We haven’t ever just sat down and said, ‘OK, we’re ready to spend all our time just working on recording this.’ We just do it as we go. Work it in, work on a song at a time.
DMG: Have you been out touring?
BR: We’ve just played mainly Dallas and Little Rock, we’re gonna be playing Houston, Tyler. We have a big fan base in Tyler.
Eric Russell (who just returned from set-up, with Jay Budzilowski): Our very first show was last December. We’ve only been doing it just about a year now. Just trying to get going.
MD: I would say mostly East Texas. We’ve done Little Rock.
KC: More a 400-mile radius of our hometown (Texarkana).
BR: That’s definitely what we want to do, you know. That’s what all of us want to do; we want to tour.
JDB: We all have jobs where we’re able to… when opportunity arises, when the tour happens, that we’re able to leave. Everything’s set for us to be able to do that.
DMG: What are your day jobs?
JDB: I weld.
KC: I drive a delivery truck for a hardware company.
JB: I’m a TV producer. (John David sniggers) Why are you sneering, dude? Is that not a proper title? That’s my title. I produce videos.
JDB: It just sounds like those rap kids. (imitating rapper) ‘I’m a Producer.’
MD: I’m a painter. I do other stuff, but a house painter.
ER: Picasso!
MD: (laughing) Not like an art painter.
BR: I work in a recording studio in town.
ER: I’m a sound technician for a church.
KC: He’s a professional E-Bayer.
ER: Chopping wood, sometimes, whatever I can do.
JDB: He doesn’t want to strip his shirt off.
DMG: (to Russell) So every band has that one cute guy that’s always put out front. Is that you?
ER: I don’t think so.
DMG: You look like you’re having fun on the maracas.
ER: I have fun, definitely.
KC: (deadpan) It’s easy to be confident on the maracas. (everyone laughs)
ER: Thank you, very much.
DMG: When you look at the bands out there, who do you want to be touring with, pairing yourself up with?
KC: Polyphonic Spree. (everyone laughs)
MD: Honestly, that’s what I was going to say. It’s very similar, what they do.
KC: That’s not going by actually seeing (Tim DeLaughter) tonight.
BR: What they do is so big and orchestral, it’s the same vein of what we want to do, but it’s different approaches to music.
MD: I mean, heck, we wouldn’t love touring with Radiohead. (everyone laughs)
KC: (sarcastically) Heck. That’s shooting for the top right there.
ER: Air, Flaming Lips, any takers.
MD: A lot of the bands we list as our influences.
DMG: How about anybody local, that you could actually tour with?
JDB: Midlake is one of our favorites.
MD: We’re real good friends with Midlake. That would be the top choice. Eisley also. I’m trying to find what local means. There’s nothing in town where we live. I guess Dallas.
DMG: How about Austin?
BR: We are supposed to be playing SxSW. That’s going to be our debut. We’re working with different management people, discussing different things. All I can say is that if these deals work out, we’ll be doing showcases with them at SxSW.
DMG: You guys are not signed, right?
KC: No.
DMG: And you self-produced this album?
MD: Yes.
DMG: It sounds like you have a lot of experience producing and recording.
JDB: It’s a hobby, really.
MD: We learn as we go. I mean, I think that we all have good ears and we’re confident in that.
BR: We know what sounds good.
KC: We just spend so much time and we’re able to be tedious.
MD: Right, exactly. Because we’re not in a hurry, we just take it one song at a time. We have the chance to really take our time with it and be real tedious.
BR: Like ‘Walter Champion;’ me and Kelly were recording like hundreds of hours, not necessarily like re-recording it because we couldn’t play a part right, but just thinking. For him thinking and me trying to record it.
DMG: ‘Walter Sham-pe-own’ as opposed to ‘Walter Champ-yon’? Where does that come from?
KC: It’s a name I made up. I always thought that it would be cool to …
ER: It’s French!
KC: I don’t know, I’m not saying that Walter Champion in the story is me or anything, but it’s fun saying it. ‘Walter Cham-pi-on’ (imitating a French accent); I love saying it. It’s not a real name.
MD: And if you used ‘Champ-ion,’ it just wouldn’t fit in the song.
JDB: Sounds like a boxer song.
KC: I also like it because there’s a little bit of irony in the fact that his last name is champion and he’s somewhat…
BR: … of a nobody.
KC: Yeah. I think I got the last name from one of the guys from Coldplay; Will Champion.
DMG: What’s next for you guys?
ER: (deadpan) We've got a show at Trees. Tonight.
MD: The main objective is that we want to play as much as possible.
BR: Exposure.
KC: That’s really really hard because we don’t know how, necessarily. To be able to get people to know -who would want to see our kind of music- how they would know to come see us.
MD: There’s the obvious thing of going around to post flyers.
KC: But we’re out of town.
MD: It’s kind of like where can we even post them? There are only so many places. There’s definitely something obviously deeper than that.
KC: It’s playing with bands that people like.
BR: This is a business of connections, like anything is. We’ve been real fortunate to make good friends and that’s helped us along the way as we’ve tried our own efforts. We definitely don’t take that for granted.
DMG: Personally… You talked about that you do things for your church, what’s your philosophy as people? Are you Christians?
JDB: Yes. Devout Christians.
KC: And a liiiiiitle hint of Hinduism. (holds fingers inches apart)
(Ben grimaces, everyone laughs.)
MD: Aw come on, Ben!
KC: I was gonna say a little sprinkle. But how’s that possible? A little Hindu…
BR: That’s not fair.
DMG: But you play very mainstream music, you don’t play Christian….
KC: No, we’re not.
JDB: We are Christian people, not in a Christian band. Not singing Christian music.
MD: It’s not worship music in the sense that we’re not saying ‘Oh God, we love you.’ But we all feel that in what we are doing we are worshiping God, that we’re using our talents he give us to praise him.
KC: The big thing is that there just needs to be a positive influence on people, and there’s so much negative, especially in music. You hope that you leave a positive impression.
BR: It’s building relationships with people along the way. Sharing music with them; that’s really our influence.
JDB: Music that’s not degrading.
JB: It’s really all about relationships, who you meet and the effect that you have on people.
DMG: So you guys fit great with Radiant* then.
(All agreeing) Yeah yeah.
MD: And Eisley as well. They’re the same way; they pretty much have the same outlook as we do in our musical career, as far as their beliefs and stuff.
KC: Bono is a good example of …
BR: That’s why I feel that he’s a role model in a sense to me -not just to me, to everybody- just ‘cause of the positive influence that he’s shared with the whole world. The impact they’ve had over everybody. It’s just a tangible thing and that’s what I want to do with our life, that’s what all of us want to do with our lives. Through music. Just through being who you’ve been created to be. There’s nothing supernatural or super-special; just using the talent that we have, to create influence and build relationships with people that we meet along the way.
DMG: But some of your songs are very dark.
MD: (dismissively) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just goes back to the… we just consider it an art.
KC: It is art.
MD: We’re trying to create atmospheres and feels, and when we say positive, we mostly mean how we …
ER: relate to people that we meet.
MD: Our music isn’t necessarily negative.
KC: It’s about negativity on some points. About negative things. The thing about us is that it gives us …
BR: Keeping it real!
JDB: It touches that dark side that everyone has and it brings you back out of it.
KC: I think there should be an honesty of even someone who’s a follower of Jesus that there’s things you just don’t understand that you struggle with and you’re honest. I’ll write songs that… I don’t know, sometimes I just struggle with things that I don’t understand about God. It’s not a preaching thing, it’s just more …
JDB: an outlook.
KC: These are things that everybody thinks about.
MD: ‘Traitor’s Brain’ is about a guy that murders a family. It doesn’t even really… That’s all it’s about, basically. It’s not like I’m trying to be dark or anything. It just so happens that the music that I wrote … I actually wrote the music first and then wrote lyrics and I just wrote whatever went with the music.
KC: As far as actual message, of any sort that would be spiritual, on the album there might be like, two? really.
ER: And mostly indirect.
KC: The other songs are just about other things.
MD: About life.
DMG: So you guys must be looking forward to your first video. I can only imagine what a Pilotdrift video would look like. That would be so cool. You’ve got such cool cover art; expand that out to four or five minutes.
KC: Oh, yeah.
MD: I haven’t even thought that far ahead, but I mean, you saying that, yeah. Definitely.
KC: He did the cover art (pointing to Micah). He’s Mr. Artiste.
MD: (modestly) Yeah, I did.
JB: He’s the painter.
BR: Maybe we should do that on the next one, just have you paint it.
JDB: He can do corners pretty good. He doesn’t even tape corners when he paints. Seriously.
KC: (faking surprise) He doesn’t tape corners?
ER: I don’t tape corners either, that’s cool.
KC: (opening his hands out to Micah) But, Micah-
ER: (sheepishly) Um, OK. I just wanted a little glory.
KC: I’ve had a video idea for quite some time.
MD: We’ve been talking to someone who’s gonna do it.
JDB: We do actually have videos we made that go with our live shows when we’re headlining.
KC: Yeah, we made about eight.
MD: There’s no video of the band or anything we shot personally, it’s mostly atmospheric images and clips of other films we use.
KC: It wouldn’t be a music video or anything.
BR: They just fit with the music.
MD: Like for ‘Winter’ we have clips from 'It’s a Wonderful Life.' It’s a winter collage.
BR: Don’t say that. It’s against the law.
KC: We’re not breaking the law. Don’t tell people that!
MD: I don’t know if it is or not.
BR: It is! You can’t show it because you’re showing….
MD: Let’s just stop. Anyway, we got videos…
ER: Something to help pull you into that atmosphere. Just a little addition.
KC: It gets a little hard to set up, so we haven’t set up the TVs in a while.
MD: It’s not to the point of Midlake, where that’s almost the focus of the song is watching the video. It’s not like that. A little extra thing that we do. It’s a lot of work. We have enough stuff to tote, really.
KC: Are we answering these questions way too much?
DMG: No, no, not at all.
MD: What if we destroyed that? (pointing to the recorder)
ER: No, she’ still got notes…


Pilotdrift returns to Good Records for the store’s birthday bash on February 19th. You can find them on MySpace, but don’t miss their website; you’ll want to get out some antique National Geographics and go off with the explorers. Rumor has it they’re confirmed at SxSW as well.

www.pilotdrift.com


© 2005 Dallas Music Guide

Black Tie Dynasty: This Stays Between Us, Idol Records

Black Tie Dynasty combines New Wave and Britpop with gothic style and sublime energy, a Psychedelic Furs for the aughties. With cryptic and compelling lyrics, This Stays Between Us has my vote for best-titled album, and I’m fine with it that’s it’s only January. It’s a solid debut for the Fort Worth-based band. Beginning with organ-like synths that impart a gothy darkness and nicely balance the bouncy beat and danceable guitar, “Crime Scene” is the single. Best is the lyric: “It looked like a crime scene, covered up in ice cream.” The bridge, however, extends the song just a bit too long. Three minute songs should be the forte of BTD, but most on the EP stretch past four or, gulp, nearly six. The seamless transition between “Ghost of a Secretary” and “Souls at Zero” makes them almost two parts of the same song. The consistency between these six songs leaves me wishing the band would stretch their musical chops a bit more, but also firmly establishes their sound.

What to say to that soon-to-be ex-girlfriend insisting she can’t live without you? Sweetly sing her the second song for starters, with its catchy hook “I’m gonna let you, diiii-iiiiii-iiiii-iiiie.” There must be a few broken hearts trailing vocalist Cory Watson’s kohled eyes. With a voice more silken than Morrissey’s and more masculine than Robert Smith’s, Watson wanders paths New Wave left wide open. Brian McQuorcodale on synths/keyboards showcases his counterpoint to Watson’s Echo and the Bunnymen-inspired guitar riffs while Eddie Thomas’ pulsing drums and Blake McWhorter’s bass complete the band. Black Tie Dynasty is heavily ‘80s retro, but freshly done, not rehashed. It’s good to have this energy coursing again after Grunge and Emo have burned out.

You’re thinking about it right? What exactly would a crime scene covered in ice cream look like? I told ya. And the forecast reads: MTV.

Interview with Red Monroe

ooored monroe

What are the Ronettes, Dylan, U2, Pink Floyd, and Radiohead? If you said the influences of experimental band Red Monroe, you’d have found the only likely answer. Honed at the Opolis in Norman, Oklahoma and just breaking onto the Deep Ellum scene, this is a band to be experienced. With their first release Meeting on a Train coming out in days and a show this week at the Double Wide, Red Monroe are starting 2005 hot.

DMG sat down in the dining room of bassist Neil Wadley and guitarist Andrew Snow’s Lakewood home/recording studio/rehearsal area for a humorous, tongue-in-cheek interview with one of the most articulate bands in the Metroplex. The members of Red Monroe don’t take themselves seriously, but do their music. New to Dallas, except for their exceptionally well-connected drummer, Jeff Gilroy, the band is finding their footing in the music scene here. Vocalist Eric Steele and keyboard player Matt Moffitt cite influences as diverse as the Ronettes, Dylan, U2, Pink Floyd, and Radiohead –most barely apparent in their first album, Meeting on a Train. Red Monroe has fused their listening library into experimental rock with the potential to revolutionize how we hear music. Studio-produced tracks are dumped for ambient recordings, freeform drumming is celebrated, and the experience of listening to music is what drives this band. Red Monroe melds rocket science and folk singing into one interesting group of musicians. And if you want to call them babies about their art, well, that’s OK, too.


Dallas Music Guide: Tell me a little bit about the band, who’s your songwriter?
Eric Steele: We’re all songwriters, I guess. As a band, there’s two ways we write. One, all of us will be in this room behind me; we’ll drink some wine, couple bottles, someone will start an idea and we’ll just play around with it, see where it goes, all of us writing. The other way is I’ll have something that I’m working on and I’ll bring it to the guys and then everyone will take it from there, add to it, and see where it goes. There’s not a main writer, it’s just all of us.
Neal Wadley: Most of it’s freeform, we start with an idea of some sort, Andrew’s got a guitar riff, and we start building layers on top of that.
Andrew Snow: Most of the songs on the album, Eric came in with an idea, a cord progression and lyrics and we used that as a skeletal structure. We’ll change little tiny things but probably eighty percent of the songs started with Eric. Two of them were old songs, one of them Matt wrote back four years ago.
Matt Moffitt: You can hear it on the album because it’s a jazz song, and it starts with the piano.
AS: “Our Love” was Eric and I drunk one night, two years ago. Those are the only two songs which were the oldies. (laughing)
DMG: When did you form as a band?
ES: That’s a long, weird response; (pointing at Neal) you’d probably be best to answer that.
NW: As the format of the band is right now, February of last year (2003). But some combination of these members has been going now since three years.
ES: Andrew and Neal have been playing together for a long time, they grew up together.
AS: And then we met Matt our freshman year at college, and we started playing.
ES: And I was just playing, doing my own thing, embarrassing myself by playing folk songs. And then stumbled upon this, via a response to a ‘singer wanted’ ad.
NW: We’d been playing for about a year and a half with another lead singer and he left to move out to L.A., and so we put out ads for a singer. We were kind of a cover band then.
ES: I was a Woody Guthrie-Bob Dylan cover folk artist.
MM: (laughing) We were a U2-Pink Floyd-Radiohead-Rush cover band.
AS: (imitating a stoner) No man, we were a trippy band.
MM: As soon as Eric got in, we started writing all original stuff, and we just quit the covers, almost completely. The band really took off from there.
NW: A couple of choice U2, maybe some Bruce Springsteen…
AS: We did what we had to do in Norman.
ES: I was doing some stuff with Oddibe back in the old days, prior to Red Monroe in the Dylan-Guthrie-folk-writing era and was opening up for them. That was actually the show where Jeff, our drummer, had his appendix removed. The night before our big Dallas debut show. We had just moved down from Norman.
NW: We had to take Jeff to the hospital because his appendix almost ruptured. My little brother is a drummer and he drove down the next morning. Andrew put the songs up on the website and he burned a copy of the CD and my brother learned the songs, in the car, on the drive down from Oklahoma. We rehearsed one time and it was a disaster!
ES: Yeah, we had one run through and it was a train wreck.
NW: We set up and played and closed our eyes. We actually turned our backs and looked at each other in a circle and played so we could communicate and it was amazing. It was a perfect show.
AS: Jeff is our red-headed Irish drummer. (laughing) He’s true to the stereotype! Don’t put that in…
ES: Jeff’s role in the band has been huge. When we came down from Norman, we lacked any real connection with anything musically in Dallas, we didn’t know where to play, we didn’t know who to get shows with, and when Jeff became our drummer, he was plugged in. He played with Ethic and they played a lot of shows with Course of Empire, back in the day. He’d been in a couple of other bands, really early in the Dallas scene.
NW: Ethic was the big one, though, an industrial band.
ES: So Jeff started helping us get shows at Clearview and at Curtain Club and that’s how we started to play, and Jeff also is a producer. Even before he was playing music, he was engineering it.
AS: He’s at Alamos Studios, which is his sound studio and he’s done that for years, too.
ES: And he’s a real fiery, passionate lad. (laughing)
AS: He’s the icing on the cake, I mean, can you imagine? We really tried to hold onto our ties to Oklahoma when we moved to Dallas, our drummer, Brian, was a great friend of ours, he had a family, he had ties to Oklahoma, he couldn’t make the move with us and we did our very very best to hold onto him because we knew that moving to a city where we didn’t know anybody, if we lost any band members, the band would die. Because Brian was married and he had another kid on the way, we had to let him go for his own good. I don’t think he wanted to, but we had to be like ‘Brian, it’s OK man, just step away from it.’ We put up an advertisement at Guitar Center and Musicians.com and that’s where Jeff found us. And he was the first one?
NW: He was one of about seven people that responded.
AS: We knew right off that he was the guy.
NW: Once he showed us some of the stuff he had done, we were pretty certain.
ES: We love his drumming style, it’s really freeform. We have a tendency to just go for this real beautiful big thing and what Jeff did with drums is that he just created this separate raw, shredding drumming style.
AS: He never plays the same drum line twice.
NW: But it works.
ES: It’s helped us writing-wise. It’s been a great backbone for us because it keeps us constantly changing and evolving what we are doing.
NW: Songs like “Meeting on a Train” especially, his drumming on that song is so unconventional.
ES: And if he was here, he’d be talking about it, too.
AS: It’s different every time, yet it always does exactly what it’s supposed to, always. It’s consistent, yet freeform. He loves it, too. It’s a funny thing, he’s always grooving along to it when he’s listening to the recording. But we knew Jeff was the one, too, because the first time we met him, he was playing for us some of the things he had worked on, and I asked him, just out of the blue, so what have you done to our stuff? It was the first time we had met him, and sure enough, he had downloaded some of the MP3s off the internet and he had messed with them. He had rearranged some of the songs, put in effects, mastered them on his own, and played them for us. The ideas he was doing, they were brilliant. And he was saying, ‘My wife and I can’t stop listening to this song, which is the piano song that Matt wrote…
MM: “Green Light.”
AS: We knew right then. The thing about the band that has worked so well, is that we’ve been absolute best friends and we’re oversensitive, overanalytical, babies. We’re a bunch of babies.
NW: We fight all the time.
AS: We fight all the time, but we fight in a way that’s like …
NW: brothers.
AS: We fight, but we don’t want to upset. I would venture to say that Matt would be the most sensitive person in the band… Matt or Eric.
ES: I don’t know about that.
AS: You’re the most worrisome. We’re always afraid of hurting Matt’s feelings.
ES: I’m neurotic, I’m not worrisome. (everyone laughing)
AS: I’m serious! ‘What’s Matt gonna think? I don’t know!’ See? We’re just a bunch a babies!
MM: I think my skin’s a little thicker than that.
ES: I think the drinking has something to do with it, too.
AS: But anyway, I don’t know what my point was with that….
ES: For some reason, as far as drummers are concerned, they’re always married and have children. It’s our grounding.
MM: We’re pretty fortunate; Jeff has an awesome wife, too. He’s over here all the time.
AS: We have to send Jeff home to his wife, like, ‘Go! Spend time with your family!’ But she’s totally cool about it. She hears the stuff and she’s like, ‘Go Jeff, go do what you gotta do.’ God, we all want to have a girlfriend like that.
DMG: Matt, you live in Houston, right? You spend a lot of time in your car.
MM: (laughing) It’s a four hour trip each way. One of these days I’m gonna do a gas calculation in money, see if I get anything back. But I love driving anyways, so it’s not the big a deal. Every time I come up here I have such a great time. Eventually I’m gonna move up here. I’m trying to find a job; I have a good job there.
AS: Matt has his dream job there. That’s the thing.
ES: He works on the rocket ships. He really does.
AS: The space shuttle!
MM: (shrugging) I got an engineering degree and I always wanted to work in the space industry and you’re kind of limited with that. You either go to California, Florida, or basically, Houston. I was taking great steps toward a good career there, and then the band came along, and screwed up everything… (laughing) It’s a battle of my two passions. I’m young enough to know the music needs to happen now, and engineering can wait. My priorities with the band.
DMG: You’re hanging out, not being a rocket scientist to do this?
AS: Matt’s the brains.
ES: Whereas with the rest of us, if the band doesn’t work out, we’re fucked. (everyone laughing)
DMG: When is your CD release coming up?
AS: We’re shooting for January 18th. We’re going to do Ft. Worth, Dallas, Denton, Austin, Houston and do CD releases in all those places.
ES: We’ve basically just stayed in Dallas and played shows in Norman, but we haven’t really branched out to Ft. Worth, to Denton, to Austin, and that’s something with the CD, we think we’ll be able to start doing. We’re definitely excited about doing that.
AS: We’ve got it ready to go.
ES: We’re playing the Double Wide on January 7th. We’ve wanted to play the Double Wide for a while. That place looks so cool and a band we love, at least that I love, the Strange Boys are like the resident band at the Double Wide. They played there every Friday in August and September; love, love that place. Playing there, drinking some Lone Star beer.
DMG: What are your favorite songs of all time?
NW: ‘Where the Streets Have No Name,’ that’s my favorite song, unabashed.
DMG: OK, so we’ve got U2 covered, who’s got The Cure?
AS: Crap! We can only do U2 once? (to Neal) Why’d you have to say that one?
NW: And I’m gonna put a stipulation on that: it’s live. Live. ‘Cause it’s awesome live.
ES: For me it’s just Dylan or anything by the Ronettes. “Be My Baby” or any Dylan anything.
MM: I like a lot of British bands, like Elbow, and Doves. Of course Radiohead is one of our biggest influences. Any song they produce is pretty much beautiful, take anything out of those.
AS: Now that Neal has taken U2, I would have to say the song I could listen to over and over again is “The Great Gig in the Sky,” Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon. I could listen to
that for days.
NW: Jeff would probably say some industrial band you’ve never heard of, or Pink Floyd, Aphex Twin, maybe Celine Dion.
AS: Sidenote: if I could say any U2 song, I’d say… ‘Zooropa!’ That’s my favorite song! But I can’t say U2, Neal took it.
ES: There’s a big split in the band as to who appreciates the post-Achtung Baby era and who doesn’t. There’s a chasm.
AS: (to Matt) Are you on board? You liked Pop better than I did, didn’t you?
MM: Yeah, but anything else, I’m not really sold on.
AS: You guys are assholes. I’m the only true-blue fan here.
DMG: What are some other local bands that you like?
ES: Really like the Strange Boys and Timeline Post.
MM: Timeline Post.
NS: Pilotdrift is a good band.
ES: We just played a show with Coma Rally. Those guys are really good guys and we like their sound, too. The Ills.
AS: I wish they were a local band. They’re a band from Norman called The Ills and they are our favorite band.
ES: Those guys are just brilliant; they play progressive rock, jazz.
AS: There’s nothing in Dallas like them. What’s cool about the Norman scene is the Opolis. ES: It’s the best place in Oklahoma to play, one of the best places in the region. People experience music in Oklahoma, and at the Opolis, there was no booze, just coffee, just cash, just Coors Light, and it was just about the music. There’s no venue here to just hear music, to hear what’s created that’s new and off the beaten path.
AS: There’s an artistic crowd in Oklahoma.
NW: Which is unexpected in Oklahoma.
AS: The Opolis is about music, and they promote a band because they believe in them. Deep Ellum is obsessed with bringing back Deep Ellum. The bars are worried about keeping themselves afloat. But I do love to play at clubs. Chad at Clearview makes us sound like a rock band. He’s our favorite sound guy.
ES: Gene Coleman’s a genius at Liquid Lounge.
DMG: You have two versions of the song “Althea,” tell me about that.
ES: We threw the studio version away and in its place, one night, we were on the porch, trying to catch the moment of songs, trying to capture when you’re in the moment, when you got it, when you get it, you know. Jeff set up the ambient mic near the porch and one-taked ‘Althea.’ It was one of those really good takes, and I just played through it, sang it, and we took that and compressed it enough where it sounded really good, the guys went around and came up with this beautiful, ambient, really unique background.
AS: We played the title track of the album backwards, in another room, and let it seep in. Noises in the kitchen.
ES: So that’s track 4 (“Althea”), which is my second favorite song on the album, after track 11 (“I See San Bernardino”) and those are the two that we did at our house.
AS: Eric wrote “Althea” at a time when we thought the band was going to fall apart, and he came in and brought that song and we were wasted and started writing parts to it. And it sounded great at the time and we loved it because we were sentimental…
MM: and drunk…
AS: … and putting all that stuff in the studio totally cheated the song. That song should be played as if Eric was at an arena with just him and the acoustic guitar and it sounded so big, that if we made it any bigger with other instruments it would diminish the whole song. It was kind of fun to just tear it down.
ES: One of the things all of us finally learned is that a song is a song. If a song can stand on its feet with an acoustic guitar and vocals, then that’s a song. Parts of songs are not it, all the other shit, the effects, layers and layers. Just the simple stuff.
AS: When we rehearse, we just make sure the instruments sound as they’re supposed to sound, how we want them. We have rhythm mistakes, we have a lot of personality, a lot of character. The whole album was recorded in four days. We just captured and simplified the songs. We could have slaved months more over the mixing and the tonal placements, but ultimately we just had to let it go and say the art is there. If people like the song, then they’ll like the song. We like the song, and that’s really all that matters at the end of the day.
ES: The happiest, most pleasing thing is that everyone is really pissed off that we didn’t put the other version (of “Althea”) on the album.
AS: Maybe in a year, though, when we could have had money for that song, we’ll be like, ‘Damn it! Why did we do that?’
ES: Yeah, maybe it’ll be on the box set. But anyone who listens to track 11 (“I See San Bernardino”) and that’s their favorite song, that person will be a Red Monroe fan forever. (laughing) Those are going to be our true fans.
MM: That song is a true moment. If someone gets it, they get it, but otherwise….
AS: It’s their loss.


This month, you can experience Red Monroe at the Double Wide and pick up their first release, Meeting on a Train.
www.redmonroe.com

The Hourly Radio (EP) Lure of the Underground

THE HOURLY RADIO - LURE OF THE UNDERGROUND (EP)
(Kirtland Records)

Brave beginning from Dallas band The Hourly Radio, Lure of the Underground is a showcase of influences. Britpop evolved with Southern sentiment, their music is expansive, effusive, and beautiful. Every song is a departure from the previous. The radio-ready, The Strokes meets My Bloody Valentine, “Lost + Found” is pleasing pop waiting to be added to any playlist. But track five, “On and On” made me double-check my iPod to confirm I hadn’t accidentally cued up the Secret Machines. “First Love is Forever” is the slowest; an anthemic, pulsating beginning, but The Hourly Radio end strong with the dreamscapes of the trippy, synthy instrumental “Travelsigns.” The heavily drum and guitar song, “Fear of Standing Upright” is the hook that kept me enthralled with this album. The only inhibition comes from Aaron Closson’s vocals; subdued against the background of screaming riffs of Ryan Short’s guitar, their control and elegance is a flawless juxtaposition against raw animal energy, the human dualism of rationalism and emotionalism perfectly portrayed in a song. With a band this young, Lure of the Underground could easily become a sick addiction.

Live review: Flickerstick, Radiant*, [Daryl]

11.06.2004 @ Lakewood Theater- Flickerstick Tarantula Release

Three Dallas bands -[Daryl], Radiant*, and Flickerstick- played the Lakewood Theater and showcased three styles of indie rock that had depth and stamina and amazing presence. Three solid bands kept (most of) the crowd out of the plush comfy seats for the night.

The show was Dallas music in evolution. Radiant* are local, having played mostly around the metroplex with the occasional foray into Oklahoma, [Daryl] is on tour, having hit the eastern states and now moving westward, and Flickerstick is, well, Flickerstick. Winners of VH1’s Bands on the Run reality show and veterans of tours in the U.S. as well as the U.K., Brandin Lea, Cory Kreig, and crew have an international following. From lovable homeboys to notorious rock stars, the music and personalities at Flickerstick’s Tarantula release party ran the gamut.

[Daryl] was the sacrificial first band on stage. The line at the theater’s door at 7pm guaranteed a good turnout for later, and the fans were ready to go tonight. Lead singer Dylan Silver’s The Who-style guitar thrashing and rollicking was entertainment enough, but [Daryl] is a huge ensemble group. Seven members, from horn player Dave Hayes to keyboardist Justen Andrews, filled every inch of available stage. This group of best buddies, lead by the angsty Silvers (who only looks like Robert Smith of The Cure without the makeup and bad hair) are reviving the 80s phenomenon of synthy, bouncy rock. They made me long for my jellies and safety pins. Playing a set mainly from their latest, Ohio, a concept album about Silver’s childhood in that state, [Daryl] got the crowd moving and shaking their fists. In this band, there’s something for everyone to like. Drummer Spammy Lamm tossed out a sweaty towel but the audience politely stepped aside and let it fall. “Nobody wants that?” chuckled Silvers, “Here, toss it back. We’ll put some Justen sweat on it. I guarantee you that always works.” It did.

Radiant*’s fans were vocal. Chanting until the first riff, and screaming when vocalist Levi Smith peeled off his jacket, the girls in the front row were none too happy about a pushy reviewer trying to get photos. Radiant* is a must-see band. We Hope You Win is due out in spring 2005 and they played “160,” “That Girl,” and “She’s Alright” from the new album. It promises to be a bit harder and faster than the previously released The Sound of Splitting Atoms, a tour-de-force of cathartic ballads. Radiant* is supremely consistent live; every show is better than the last. Smith and guitarist Dragan Jakovljevic are consummate showmen, backed by the powerful bass and drums of Jon Shoemaker and Daniel Hopkins. Ask any band that has shared the spotlight with them and props are always forthcoming. “Radiant*’s a good band,” chips in Brandin Lea, the lead singer for Flickerstick, “one of my favorites.” If you leave Radiant* show uninspired, you weren’t paying attention.

After intermissions filled with Jet’s Get Born, the crowd was revved for Flickerstick’s return home. True to their reputation, yes, there was a fight, but, no, the band wasn’t in it. Yes, there was alcohol, but, no, the band wasn’t falling down pissed. There may have been drugs, but Brandin Lea says grass makes him hungry and he doesn’t smoke it anymore. There definitely were groupies. But mostly there was one freakin’ great set.

I have a confession: I wasn’t feeling the love for Flickerstick before they hit the stage. I’m, a bit too mature to envy the rock star life. I’m not cute enough to get past the bouncer, not hip enough to hang out without being in the way, and totally geeky with my little notebook. Completely out of my element around anyone cool, actually. I wasn’t a Flickerstick convert, even backstage, drinking their beer. When Tarantula arrived in my mail in its sterile brown paper package, it left me lukewarm. I stuck it in the CD player a few times, but nothing. This morning, though, in the grog of my hangover from too little sleep and not enough beer to alleviate the boredom of the hurry up and wait last night, I’m listening with a newly educated ear. My little computer speakers bring back the pounding in my chest of the Lakewood’s monsters. I’ve been sucked in by Flickerstick’s persona, by watching Brandin up behind the Korg Trinitron and seeing his world. It’s a glimpse of brilliance. The live show is the songs given the flesh they need; it’s Brandin and Corey and Rex bouncing off each other. Three spinning stars held in check by Fletcher’s flatline personality and Todd’s just plain niceness. It’s all about the music and the band on stage broke down my internal barriers like no piece of shiny plastic ever could. As polished as Tarantula is, it can’t capture Flickerstick live.

In the echoing reverb of the Lakewood Theater, more suited to civilized movie dialog than the wall of noise emanating from Flickerstick, true rock-and-roll hit Dallas. Waiting to go on, Brandin quipped, “I see empty seats out there; I’m not used to that.” After their orchestrated entrance, he got down to what they are known for: his clear and concise vocals, the frenetic guitar of Rex Ewing, and Cory Kreig’s words. Lea is a minor rock god with ragged hair and an obtrusive yellow daisy pinned to a jacket that bled red under the spots so that his hair matched it precisely. Behind them ran a psychedelic commentary of vintage commercials hawking the benefits of caffeine and dancing Muriel cigarettes. Repeated screams of “I love you, Brandin!” and flowers came from front row fans whose ages easily covered the span of fifteen to fifty.

Lea conducted the crowd and worked hard for it even though the crowd sang along from the first song. Despite the unfortunate similarity to that other Brandon’s matador hand-on-hip style of delivery, this Brandin is no over-produced MTV pretty boy. What you hear on the album is pitance compared to what you get live. Sitting on the edge of stage, Lea connects to the audience and jokes that he’s enjoying “playing in a nice neighborhood like Lakewood, instead of getting shot.” Climbing on the speakers to drive the energy even higher, he ratchets up the frenzy of rabid fans.

“I like the way that it’s killing me… I love my nicotine, I love my alcohol… I love the way she screams, my teenage dope fiend.” The words from ‘Teenage Dope Fiend’ are the band’s anthem. Smoking on stage, Fletch’s cigarette hangs apathetic and limp from his lips, while Brandin holds his between fingers, in jaded, tired style. In the break before the sad, pitiful ballad, “Bleeding,” Lea graciously accepts flowers from a fan and places them on the drum set reverentially, as if on top of a tomb. Lead guitar Cory Kreig stands absolutely still doing his licks until the music catches him in its wave and rips him off his heels. Dangerous boy Rex- all soaking six feet of him- is down on his knees, a bouquet of flowers dangling from his back pocket. Generating the driving beat in the smoke halo and strobing light show, he’s transported by the music, with his preppy Asian princess staking out her territory from the wings of stage right. Fueled by political frustration and preceded by a tirade on the current administration, Flickerstick delivered a far more inspired “The Ones” than the plodding version on Tarantula. After a final wave to the fans from Brandin, Rex tossed his guitar with abandon across the stage to the crew. A trailer of noise that wouldn’t stop confused the crowd into thinking that Flickerstick wasn’t coming back and began the exodus of the comfy chair sitters. But the band came back for the requisite encores of “Coke” and “Direct Line to the Telepathic,” after which a bewildered Rex roamed back out on stage, hanging onto the vestiges of the energy and a foaming beer. Instead of any musical last effort, he tossed out an extra towel or two to the remaining diehards.

With homage to Pink Floyd, U2, and a bit of Britpop, sometimes all in the same song, Flickerstick is nearly impossible to label. Maybe that’s why we don’t hear them on ClearChannel. In an interview prior to the show, I asked the band about the diversity of their fans’ taste in music, but none of the guys would narrow down their sound for me. After experiencing the show, I realize my search for a label is pointless. Flickerstick is rock, in totality. They encompass all that went before. Exiting the stage, a sweaty Fletcher asked me, “So, what would you call us?” I had to say I didn’t know. In his typical brevity, he smiled and said, “See.”

As Brandin said in his parting words, the night was “Mucho craziness.”

Flickerstick Set List:

Lift

Catholic Scars and Chocolate Bars

Girls & Pills

Smile

When You Were Young

Pistol in My Hand

Got a Feeling

Never Enough

Teenage Dope Fiend

The Tourist

All We Are Is Gone

Bleeding

Beautiful

Sorry… Wrong Trajectory

The Ones

Coke

Direct Line to the Telepathic

Radiant* Set List:

That Girl

World

160

Save Yourself

The Way You Make Me Feel

Wondermaker

Waltz

She’s Alright

Do Not Delay

[Daryl] Set List:

Make Up

You Were Way Too Young

Just Because the Lake Was Frozen Over

Uneven Surfaces

The Make

Leak in the Media

Serious

Rooms 31 & 30

Happy Accidents

Jenny

The Crash That Took Me

Originally written for www.dallasmusicguide.com in November 2004.