The Lowdown is an Up, A Tribute To Faye Hunter

Let’s Active was a gateway band for me. I got into them just as I was getting into REM, simply because I wanted to hear anything Mitch Easter produced. From there it was onto bands like Game Theory, the DB’s, The Paisley Underground, all the bands in that scene, Don Dixon and Marti Jones, and many more.

I loved Mitch Easter’s music, “Waters Part,” “Easy Does,” “Every Word Means No,” “In Little Ways,” “Reflecting Pool,” “Every Dog Has it’s Day,” “Room With A View,” “Bad Machinery,” and so on. But on the first two Let’s Active albums, Afoot and Cypress, I came to realize that as much as I loved Mitch’s music, I loved Faye Hunter’s more. Everything she sang,  and her terrific bass playing. When I wanted a pick me up, Faye’s songs were the ones that worked best with me. “Blue Line,” “Lowdown, “ just wonderful.

While Faye’s only lead vocal on Let’s Active’s third album, Big Plans For Everybody, on “Horizon” she also made her presence felt with her bass and harmonies.  That whole album is a tonic for the troops with me. 

After Big Plans, Faye left the band, and I lost touch, only to make her acquaintance on Facebook decades later. Her posts lifted me up like her songs did. I found her to be a very caring, giving, loving, funny, sweet person.  And a great artist. I’ve seen her work.

And now she’s gone. Her songs will live on with me, and give me strength, just the way Scott Miller’s songs will for now -- forever.  Long live Scott, long live Faye, two fantastic, and very underrated musicians, just the way Let’s Active is a very underrated band. RIP.   

Andrea Weiss

Smallpools

Smallpools

Self-titled EP

Video for “Dreaming”

RCA Records.

This band sounds a lot like Passion Pit, and what makes Smallpools better than PP is that Smallpools has none of the irritating quirks that make PP so hard to listen to.  Smallpools is a straight up rock/dance band, and perfect for the club floor.  And their lyrics make you think,

The video, and single, “Dreaming,” is sort of a musical riff on Groundhog Day, where the lead singer of the band finds himself at the same party over and over again, everywhere he goes. First he think it’s fun, then he panics, and he resigns himself to his fate. But then the time loop breaks at the end in a really sweet way. The situation is pretty funny, and the clip is a lot of fun to watch. 

https://www.facebook.com/smallpools

Andrea Weiss

Victoria M.

Kirin J Callinan.

Victoria M Video

Self Directed

Terrible Records/XL Recordings

From his debut album Embracism is a clip that is camp at it’s coolest, no bad taste here. If anything it’s a parody of the Young and the Restless  soap opera, with Callinan playing all the parts himself, He’s very convincing in drag for all the female characters; ditto for all the various male characters. 

The lyrics deal with falling in love with two people, and he can’t tell Victoria about it. But all the female characters embody all the women he loves, and the men he wished he could be. He also plays a single keyboard. Most of the backgrounds for the characters are trippy and drenched in red velvet.  All in all stunning, a lot of fun to watch, a standout track from a great debut.

http://www.stereogum.com/1405011/kirin-j-callinan-victoria-m-video-stereogum-premiere/video/  

Andrea Weiss

Kirin J Callinan

Kirin J Callinan

Embracism

Siberia Records/Terrible Records/XL Recordings

Callinan is a musician from Sidney, Australia, and this is his stunning US debut. He’s been performing in Australia for many years. 

What sounds like a fusion of rock and electronica is actually processed guitars. This is a relief because processed guitars sound better and more natural than synths can ever sound.   And while these are flowing, fluid, melodic guitar sounds, they’re also very hard guitars, pushing things toward the crunchier end of singer/songwriter rock. Alex Akers of the Melbourne, Australian duo Forces duets on “Halo” and his vocals add very good textures.

The lyrics, on the surface, come off as self-involved, but there is a fine line between self-aware and self-involved, and Callinan stays on the self-aware side. Self-involved singer/songwriters are a dime-a-dozen, but a consciously self-aware musician is not as common, which makes this album interesting, different, and even a bit original.  This makes me cheer, because he stands out, and he throws in some gay content to put a fine point on things. https://www.facebook.com/KirinJCallinan

Andrea Weiss

Queens of the Stone Age

…Like Clockwork

Matador

On some of the slower, more sedate songs, the band seemingly can’t decide if they’re heavy adult rock, or on the faster, louder songs, heavy rock, but that’s a minor quibble. This is excellent no-frills rock, smart, and extremely contemplative. The slower songs move with a lot of nuances, the faster ones tear it up.  The guitar playing is wonderful, never too much or too little the drumming is precise and not overdone,  and frontman Josh Homme has never sounded better.

Homme was hospitalized for 13 days, and then bedridden for four months due to complications of routine knee surgery.  He sank into a deep depression during that time, and his bandmates pulled him out of it by getting him to work on …Like Clockwork.  Needless to say, he had a lot to think about, but for all the darkness, this album is about moving forward. In Homme’s case, he could run away mentally from the situation he was in, or get into the thick of it.  He chose to run toward it. and it shows, because these songs aren’t downers. They’re more like waking up after a very bad, long day and night and finding it’s a new, different day.

Heavy rock can be a sludgy mess. This is anything but.  Lean, economical, exciting, a headlong rush, and for me, desert rock at it’s best.  The fans will have a ball with this. If it’s a little sedate, so what, it’s still QOTSA.  This album is a great way for new fans to get into this band, and they will have fun with it, too.

https://www.facebook.com/QOTSA

Camera Obscura

Desire Lines

4 AD

The big difference between this new album and their previous ones is that it’s more rock, less pop. No strings, more guitars.  Much tougher than in the past. And yet they haven’t lost their knack for the nuances, no matter how subtle, within music that is slightly harder, less edgy than their past work.  They had more help this time.  Neko Case sings backup on four of these songs, Jim James one. Tucker Martine produced the album, and the band had a wonderful time recording the album in Portland, Oregon.

Tracyanne Campbell will always sound beautifully beguiling, making bitter truths and heartbreak go down easy.  But this time around, her lyrics are happier and more loving and intimate which makes you feel as if you're talking over coffee.  

Adult rock can sometimes be bland and boring. And while Camera Obscura is adult rock, they are anything but boring and bland.  Their music and lyrics are fully mature and wise, from a band that has learned a lot about life and love.  It’s one of the best albums I’ve heard all year,  and if you want to hear an album that shakes things up, gently but very firmly, this is the album for you.

 https://www.facebook.com/CameraObscuraMusic

Andrea Weiss

Come

Eleven:Eleven

20^th Anniversary Edition

Come played the blues. Not like the White Stripes or the Black Keys.  More like Patti Smith and Black Sabbath, with a little bit of Joplin-like anguish thrown in to stir the pot. Two harsh, interlocking guitars, sounding grimy, dirty, dark and angry, yet flowing and highly melodic. It’s like this lyrically too, but for all the loss and dashed dreams sung about, there is also a strong thread of hope and redemption throughout, a break in the clouds on a rainy day. 

Thalia Zedek, who played in Dangerous Birds, Uzi and Live Skull, formed Come with guitarist Chris Brokaw, Sean O’Brien on bass, and drummer Arthur Johnson in 1990, in Boston. Their first release was the single “Car “ on Sub Pop’s singles club, a very good song.  Eleven:Eleven, their full length debut for Matador, won much acclaim in 1993,  and it’s easy to see why. Zedek was, and is, mesmerizing. Her anguished, gritty yet resolute and confident singing rang out furiously.  That she was out when you weren’t supposed to be was very daring, and getting sober after years of hard drug use helped, too.  Her guitar playing dazzles, as does Brokaw. Even though this was characterized as noise rock, I find their music soothing, a way to get out a lot of pain, if you’ve got it.  And the add-on to the album, the 7-inch “Fast Piss Blues” and “I Got The Blues,” fits in seamlessly.

The live disk from 10/10/92, a performance from the Vermonstress Festival included in the reissue, shows how powerful the band could be live. O’Brien and Johnson shine here, providing a moving yet sturdy foundation for the guitar wildness going on onstage.  While Zedek and Brokaw stretch out a bit on here, they don’t jam. For all the wildness, it’s just a twisted framework to work from and rock out in.  Zedek growls her words, and the frenzied way she sings matches the guitars note for note. Pavement, Sugar, Dinosaur Jr., and Nirvana requested them for tours, and they were absolutely right to do so.

The reissue of this wonderful album, that has been out of print until now, is also a reminder that there was more to alternative rock than grunge.  There was an underground, and Come was one of the best bands in it.  Don’t miss this album. Its reissue shines a light on what was going on below the surface of rock at the time, and it’s very welcome. 

 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Thalia-Zedek-Band/534135196606206

Andrea Weiss