Midwestern Audio Vol. 1, Part 2--The Horns, The Beat and the Jagged Grain of Debt

The next movement starts with Grand Marquis' "The Jungle," shifting to a thematic focus on getting out from under that carries through Hearts of Darkness's "Debt on Me" and Reach's "Move." All three speak to the economic insecurity that's been growing among those living below middle for over three decades--an insecurity that's had its fingers playing at the throat of anyone likely to be reading this at least since the Great Recession that arrived in 2008.  In that sense, though none of these three is a blues song (the closest might be the NOLA-flavored jump blues of Grand Marquis), all three place a strong emphasis on what Ralph Ellison called the "blues impulse"--survival songs based in keeping "the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism."

The mix of tragic and comic is most apparent in the boasts of singer Bryan Redmond's character in "The Jungle." He's a gambler, bluffing and cheating his way out of debt, plotting his escape "on a paper sack" and studying "an old weathered map of the promised land." It all sounds as tenuous as the next deal gone wrong. What really emphasizes the absurdity of his claims is the almost cartoonish interplay of Lisa Mackenzie's percussion with the horns, Ryan Wurtz's guitar punctuating each statement like the sour turning point in a movie.  I'm guessing it's Chad Boyston's trumpet and Ben Ruth's sousaphone that have a wonderful battle at the song's climax, dying off with bent notes before Redmond states "If the wheels don't fall off....Everybody knows just how my story goes." Yeah, nowhere...fast.

Hearts of Darkness's great horn section (Jolan Smith, Sam Hughes, Andrew Ford, Ken Walker, Hermon Mehari, and Bob Asher) blasts a 10 note descent and vamp against Pete Leibert's funky bass and Brad Williams, Sean Branagan and Miko Spears's rapid fire percussion. These blues have jumped into James Brown/Tower of Power territory. Rapper/frontman Les Izmore introduces the cut, along with singers Brandy Gordon, Erica Townshend and Rachel Christia, but quickly hands it off to tenor sax player and vocalist Jolan Smith, who tells a tale of seething self-loathing due to the quicksand of debt that's got hold of him. After a pause held by Richard Gumbel's rhythm guitar, Izmore fights back, calling out the creditors that play off peoples' vulnerabilities. Izmore's call and response with the singers at the end rallies for a battle not over any time soon.

MC Reach's "Move" rides a 3 a.m.-lonely mix of bass, percussion and seemingly random stabs of keyboard effects.  Like the singer in Grand Marquis, Reach dreams of making his move, but the difference is he'd like to do it being true to ideals that gambler has long since forgotten if he ever had them. Caught on "the campus" of "the school of hard knocks," Reach doesn't want to sell out, but he increasingly doubts the advice (the myth? the lie?) that all he has to do is "keep it real and wait for the check." His ultimate analysis is one of the deepest on this record--not only the story of 99% of the world's working musicians but also the story of 99% of those listening.  No matter what he does to try to get out of this place, "it's funny, 'cause still don't nothing move but the money." That's a 21st Century blues if I've ever heard one.  Music like this doesn't pretend to have answers, but it does remind us that the things that isolate us can also bring us together. Therein lies what I call hope.

Please check out this wonderful local release, all proceeds going to the Midwest Music Foundation, "an educational arts organization that unites performer and audience and fills a health care gap for Kansas City musicians"--www.midwestmusicfound.org

More soon....

A note to anyone following this particular review:

7 down, 36 to go. I'll get there, but these blogs will be interspersed with other reviews. Those who care, hang in there.  Also, if anyone has corrections on any of the personnel or details, please let me know.  I'm riding on more intuition than I'd like here at times because there's so much to cover, and I want to do it justice.  I'll make corrections as I get them. DA

Midwestern Audio Vol. 1--The Opening Salvo

Last weekend, with 16 hours of solo driving ahead of me, I got a chance to play the new Midwest Music Foundation compilation, Midwestern Audio, Vol. 1, straight through. Well before I reached Tiny Horse's beautiful, "Ride," with its plea "to chase a little something," I knew I had to write about the whole of this record--43 cuts by 43 bands blending genres ranging from country to hip hop to metal, all of it better than it needs to be to set the mind reeling. When I set about chasing this something, I found I couldn't write about it all at once and do it justice, so I'm improvising my way through--movement by movement.

The album starts with a sort of blitzkrieg of dance-oriented rock. I use the term "blitz" intentionally because of the way the first four cuts call to mind the early 80s Brit-punk soul bands.  That's not to say this music sounds revivalist.  At least since Timbaland's records with Nelly Furtado, the 80s have been made fresh for this century by everyone from Lady Gaga to Fun to Gotye. These qualities particularly define Antennas Up's "Coming On," which is indeed a pretty irresistible come-on with its exuberant vocals (in back and up front), muscular rhythm section and sparkling keyboard effects.

Everyday/Everynight maintains a darker, more frenetic edge chasing the physical transcendence suggested by the song title, "Body Electric." The emphasis is on fast insistent drums, throbbing guitar and vocal distortion, but the effect is gorgeous in its own way. The soundscape created here starts in that raw center but pushes rays of jumping neon to every far horizon.

Molly Picture Club's "Fanclub" centers on a disjointed percussive groove punctuated by what sound like bleeps of Moog synthesizer and shouted backing vocals. The mix of ragged harmonies, gut-bucket and art house here call to mind what might happen if The Talking Heads and X had a three headed baby. The cut manages to find fun reveling in ambivalence.

Soft Reeds close off these opening cuts with Gang of Four-urgent rhythmic guitar and a passionate plea summed up by the song's title, "Funky Friends Breathe, OK?" Tamborine and sharp bites of guitar and keys play off one another, while the singer's sorrowful vibrato searches for the answer to the question, "What do we do with all our problems/When nobody hears a word you say?"

In a world of information overload, narcissistic social media and a collapsing base for all the old tools of survival--not least important here, that old rock and roll dream--that question seems fundamental. At least since the rock and roll explosion of the 1950s, pop music (famous or underground) has been one way our culture has tackled its most intimate and thorny problems. In a culture where thousands of musicians throw benefits every week to help others in need, The Midwest Music Foundation formed, initially, to help musicians with their own needs, starting with health care. These first volleys from the organization's new compilation celebrate the most fundamental tools that bring us together--infectious rhythms and passionate voices, all on the line.

More soon....

Meanwhile, find this release at www.midwestmusicfound.org

Home Makers: The Lower Ninth Ward, Daniel Wolff's The Fight for Home and Jonathan Demme's I'm Carolyn Parker

   

             When I think of Daniel Wolff’s new book, The Fight for Home: How (Parts of) New Orleans Came Back, one moment stands out. Ninth Ward resident Carolyn Parker is struggling to get in a car after knee surgery.  The moment’s written so concisely, I can’t paraphrase it—

Carolyn, grinning, starts the slow process of getting into the car.  “This is a big butt,” she announces.  “It’s not that easy.”  And when she’s finally made it: “See! That’s how it is.  I’m like a puzzle” (229).

                With that “puzzle” line, she’s said something that goes to the core of why this book’s companion piece, the Jonathan Demme documentary I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, The Mad and the Beautiful, is all about her. Ms. Parker isn’t particularly odd or mysterious at all, but she is a wonderful mix of contradictions. 

At the opening of Demme’s movie, neighbors talk about Ms. Parker calling the police on them, laughing as they talk, showing their love for her. When she confronts the New Orleans mayor and Chamber of Commerce over the fate of the Lower Ninth Ward, she commands the room. Though she spends five long years struggling to truly get moved back into her home (fighting her aging body, opportunistic workmen, thieves and the entire city in the process), she most often does all of these things with a sparkle in her eye and an ornery sense of humor.  She gooses her brother and flirts with the mailman.  She’s the best kind of puzzle, and it’s a gift the way both Wolff and Demme help us to get to know her.

                Both the filmmaker and the author of these life-after-Katrina documents try to stay out of the way of the story.  They do very little narration.  Demme provides brief transitional reports between visits to the Ninth Ward--to sum up new living conditions, offer appropriate context, and deliver essential narrative not caught on film.  Rather than ignore the elephant camera in the living room, Demme asks questions when he has to (not often) from behind the camera, and even winds up in front of it enjoying one of Carolyn Parker’s famous dinners.  In this way, he allows the Parkers and others to interact, as naturally as possible, with the process.  At one point, Ms. Parker warns a cameraman walking backward, “Watch your step!”

Wolff manages to avoid first person from beginning to end, allowing the Ninth Ward residents to simply explain things directly to the reader, turning the reader into a visitor who only implicitly asks questions and watches and listens very carefully.  Wolff, more than Demme, provides journalistic context regarding relevant national and local governmental decisions, celebrity efforts to lend a hand to the Ninth Ward and parallels to the nationwide mortgage crisis. Demme’s movie engages us in the life of a family struggling to rebuild a home; Wolff’s book makes us ask fundamental questions regarding community and how our fight for home parallels that in the Lower Ninth Ward.

To help us make those connections, The Fight for Home shows a cross-section of America fighting side by side. Ex nightclub owner Pastor Mel leads a group of ex-cons and addicts in the work. With a strong faith in God as his guiding light, he wrestles with contradictory feelings about Katrina—he wants to see a blessing in disguise and keeps running up against deeper injustices. The book also follows various residents and volunteers touched by Common Ground, an organization formed by a former Black Panther and largely fueled by the energy of college age volunteers.  Though the organization is beset by factionalism and outright betrayal, it’s also responsible for some of the book’s most memorable stories, including the warm relationship that forms between Suncere, one of Common Ground’s older black activists, and Mike, a white resident whose racial fears whither as a vanished society gets replaced by a new kind of community.

Another character in the book who becomes a star of the movie is Carolyn Parker’s daughter, Kyrah, a young woman whose first semester at Syracuse University comes to an abrupt end when the levees break.  On film, this former homecoming queen shines as both her mother’s equally high-spirited daughter and as bit of a foil for Carolyn.  Sometimes in the background as her mother speaks, sometimes in split screen next to her, Kyrah grins and laughs in both (a relatable every-child) embarrassment and genuine good humor as Carolyn jokes and flirts and revels in her dreams. At times, particularly when she’s interviewed alone, the losses Kyrah’s suffered (including the death of her beloved father) resonate in moments of reflection, showing a mature determination to use her life to right social wrongs—that, too, a quality very much like her mother.

As colorful in word and action as Carolyn Parker’s purple, teal and yellow home, both book and movie reveal a rich spectrum of humanity shining through the harshest adversity.  Author Wolff and director Demme quilt a tapestry that tells a story both terrible and beautiful. Together, they search for what it is that keeps the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward fighting for their homes.  What they find, taken together, adds up to a rich vision of what community could and should mean. The Fight for Home leads every reader to reconsider the very meaning of home in his or her own life, while I’m Carolyn Parker raises the bar on both the concept of the good neighbor and the American hero.

Thanks to my MWF ENGL 121 students for your enthusiasm and insight!

You Wanted a White Flag, Right? The Brannock Device Refuses to Let Up

The only moment I sense hesitation on The Brannock Device's EP Into the Witness Chamber comes at the beginning.  Marco Pascolini's guitar tries out three chords, lingering on doubled notes, shimmering. It's like he's put his key in the ignition of a very powerful machine, and he's taking a moment to admire its fine lines before firing it up. He vamps around searching for a riff, and, when he settles in, the Brannock Device roars to life.

Or maybe he isn't admiring the machine. Maybe he's simply enjoying a moment of peace before he has to contend with all of the varied forces that drive this band. After all, the drums on opening cut "Sightseer (I Read It So It's True)" are built around a charging fill. The bass pattern may only have four notes, but it moves as fast as those drums.  Even when the band coasts behind Elaine McMilian and Jason Beers' declamatory refrain, the bass keeps pulsing, the snares stay shimmering and the guitar flashes light through the spaces between.

In a recent interview with KC's The Deli, drummer Bernie Dugan says The Brannock Device is "about pushing and being shoved, but in a good way." He's ostensibly talking about what it's like playing drums in the band (like everyone in The Brannock Device, he plays in a few), but he also sums up something elemental about this particular group. The Brannock Device is no one's elevator music; it won't stay in the background.  In an age when it's an asset for music to sound alterna cooing through your workplace computer speakers, The Brannock Device promises to make your cubicle unapproachable. It's assaultive and manic and brilliant.

Into the Witness Chamber isn't an ironic record; it's a record filled with irony.  On "King of the Soapbox Derby," some jazzy equivalent of slapstick incidental music answers McMilian and Beers' stentorian calls to "Know This! Believe This!" The whinging complaint of "Monochrome" begins with the boldest herald here and finds its way to some of the record's funkiest guitar and bass exchanges. "Into the Witness Chamber" seems to race forward with all of the energy of every other song, but the beautiful melodic bass riff highlights the dread in the vocals. And the album ends with "Deus Ex Machina," which swings from McMilian and Beers managing a delicate Anglican choral rendering of the title before dropping to a bloodthirsty call to "unleash" whatever kraken might bring this violence to an end.

Nope, you're not getting your reports finished while this thing's on.

You are getting four of Kansas City's finest musicians throwing all of the raw energy of punk into a head-spinning, groove-centered improvisational charge against the very idea of limits.  Maybe that's why there's a particular poignancy to a song like "The Consequence of Hope," which climaxes with McMilian's soaring admission to "going nowhere" intertwining with Beers' rougher-edged agreement, both trying to leapfrog out of the truth even as they name it.  Or there's the way the guitar on "You Wanted a White Flag, Right?" never stops searching for a way out despite the rest of the band's pounding admissions to being beaten down, despite the fact that the bass and drums seem to pace and flail in vain.  Pascolini's guitar lights a flare behind the voices, and the song ends with its cries of inspiration bouncing against the walls of some echo chamber.

As surely as the lyrics on Into the Witness Chamber suggest a band that has been beaten enough to sound convincingly cynical, the music argues hope's consequences certainly include a few dreams come true.  As much as they poke fun at the arrogance of the loudest voice in the room--even when it's their own--the members of the Brannock Device make a case for dreaming big and fighting hard.  When I hear "King of the Soapbox's" "Know This! Believe This!," I can't help but smile. A soapbox fighter myself, the Brannock Device is shoving me with its satire, and I'm shoving back with an equally earnest counterweight.  If the derby sounds this true, damn straight I believe in every beat, every rhyme and every word.

Know this--

http://www.facebook.com/TheBrannockDevice