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Sleater-Kinney with The Ponys
Wednesday · Southgate House
Several months back I was listening NPR staple Fresh Air. Its host, the always genial and generally well-prepared Terry Gross, was talking to the three women of Sleater-Kinney about their latest album, The Woods. She asked them a poorly-worded question about their Riot Grrrl roots, one they’ve no doubt received several thousand times over the years. Carrie Brownstein, the Portland, Ore., trio’s guitarist extraordinaire, was clearly agitated. After a sigh, she said, “Uh, you better take this one, Corin (Tucker, the band’s co-founder).” It was a telling, somewhat surprising reaction, one that underscores Sleater-Kinney’s M.O.: They care deeply about what they do and how it’s perceived. It was also one of the few times I’ve heard Gross flustered (“Should I have not asked that question?”). Moments later the resilient host played the new album’s raging lead track, “The Fox,” which, even when diminished by NPR’s producers, sounded something like the end of the world. Brownstein and Tucker’s guitars collide and careen recklessly as the locomotive that is longtime drummer Janet Weiss holds everything together. Heightening the song’s apocalyptic effect is Tucker’s piercing wail, as rich and robust as ever as she throws off the first of many “Land ho!”s. Yes, those who thought Sleater-Kinney would soften with age can step to the back of the line: The Woods is as powerful as anything they’ve mustered in their decade-plus existence.
Producer Dave Fridmann, the guy behind head-tripping works by The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev and Mogwai, brings a looseness, a sense of spontaneity, that has largely eluded the band’s half-dozen previous efforts. “Jumpers” has an enticingly dark edge, marked by snaking guitar lines and intriguing phrases like, “The only substance is the fog” and “The golden spine of engineering.” Subtle with a typically big-voiced chorus, it’s an intoxicating ride that has my repeat button begging for mercy. Elsewhere, “Entertain” is possibly Brownstein’s finest moment, singing with rare assurance while reveling in her trademark Townshend-esque guitar theatrics. And while the 10-minute “Let’s Call It Love” leaves me scratching my head, I appreciate the effort, one that should prove compelling when rendered in the Southgate House’s intimate confines. (Jason Gargano)
Josh Joplin with Cosmo Go
Thursday · Southgate House
Five years ago, Washington, D.C., native/NYC resident Josh Joplin parlayed a vocal resemblance to Michael Stipe and a penchant for incisive and well-crafted Folk/Pop songs into a fairly decent hit with the track “Camera One” from his Artemis Records debut, Useful Music, produced by former Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison. Joplin’s follow-up, 2002’s The Future That Was, had a similar feel and any number of equally worthy successors but didn’t quite click to the degree that its predecessor had. In the three years since, Joplin had something of an epiphany concerning his music, inspired by an impromptu acoustic sidewalk concert by his Brooklyn neighbor Dan Zanes, former guitarist with the Del Fuegos. Realizing that he was burdening his songs with unnecessary production and overwrought arrangements, Joplin was determined to strip back his music to its essence while retaining the things that made it so viscerally appealing. Teaming up with childhood friend Issa Diao at his Monster Island studio in D.C., Joplin translated his latest set of masterfully rendered songs with old friends rather than slick session guns and producers, resulting in the spare but irresistible Jaywalker. Unfortunately, Joplin’s champion at Artemis, Danny Goldberg, had left the label, and the remaining powers, deciding Jaywalker did not fit the label’s new profile, relieved Joplin of his cumbersome contract. Thankfully, smarter people at indie Eleven Thirty saw the value of Joplin’s new direction, a heartfelt cross between Richard Shindell’s confessional Folk autobiography (“Empire State,” “Jaywalkers of the World”) and Michael Penn’s soul stirring Pop melodicism (“Mister New Year’s Day,” “The World on a Shoestring”). Even more exciting is the prospect of hearing the brilliant songs from Joplin’s first two excellent albums stripped of their gloss and presented in the same unvarnished glow as the material on Jaywalker. (Brian Baker)
Rose Hill Drive with Junior Revolution
Tuesday · The Viper Room Cincinnati
Boulder, Colo.-based trio Rose Hill Drive are the kind of band that quietly tours consistently and earns their fans the old-fashioned way — by blowing their minds in concert. Then, not long after, you start hearing about them at every turn. Similar to the route Dave Matthews and his band took, RHD doesn’t appear to expend a lot of energy working “the industry” (though they’ve certainly received a lot of attention from it), realizing that having a bubbling, enthusiastic fan base ready to overflow from the underground to the mainstream will allow things like “hits” and big-time record deals to take care of themselves. The Jam scene has taken the band in as one of its own, giving them a dedicated pack of followers, but the band’s hard-driving, Blues-tinged Rock & Roll doesn’t have a lot of counterparts in that scene. In fact, the band’s trend-defying Rock doesn’t give the young group a lot of peers at all, outside of more timeless, historical acts like Led Zeppelin, The Black Crowes or The White Stripes. The band — which features brothers Daniel (guitar) and Jacob (bass/vocals) Sproul, plus their longtime pal Nate Barnes on drums — has made the most of having talent to burn, an explosive live show and few acts that completely match up with their sound. Instead of waiting for a neo-Classic Rock explosion, the band’s skills have landed them shows with some of music’s heavyweights — The Crowes, MC5, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Van Halen, to name a few — putting them in front of new eyes and ears on a regular basis. Another indication of their genre-crossing impact and potential has been their successful high-profile festival gigs, which have taken them from the Punk Rock Warped Tour to the eclectic, Jam-centric fest, Bonnaroo. Though only in their early 20s, RHD’s music has a very lived-in sound, bursting with volatile guitar riffage and soaring, kerosene-drenched melodies. While most “artists on the verge” today have some link to whatever the “hot” sound of the moment is and have an image that is easily transferable to MTV and glossy magazines, RHD seem solely about the music, which is something a lot of artists say, but scant few live up to. (Mike Breen)
This article appears in Oct 5-11, 2005.