"the View From Nowhere"
LOCAL MUSIC
Anthony Whipple has just release "Passengers to Nowhere"
"The View from Nowhere"
By Alan Goldsmith
Tower Records, Cava Java, The Tap Room, The Green Room, and Theo's. . .where I spent the month of April drinking lots of good and bad coffee, several ice beers, and a glass or two of wine and in the process saw lots of incredibly cool stuff.
First stop on the music venue magical mystery tour was catching a free set by Kiss Me Screaming at Tower Records. Pretty strange, I admit, seeing Khalid Hanifi and company under lots of bright lights. Surrounded by rows of CDs, dazed music buyers who didn't have a clue about what was happening, and scores of long time hard-core fans, the band was HOT and relaxed, joking between tunes and playing most everything from their new Schoolkids' release. This is a textbook snapshot of what a great American rock and roll band should be - wonderful intense pop songwriting, great twin guitars, and a rhythm section that you can set your watch by. Kiss Me Screaming is so far above and away from their roots and influences that you can't put this stuff into words. But lots of ghosts are watching over Kiss Me Screaming, from John Lennon and Keith Richards (I know, he's not dead yet) to Kerouac and Kafka. . . .
Later that same night a couple blocks away was a double bill of singer songwriters who have nothing in common except their gender. Kari Newhouse is pop, but with her complex guitar parts and her lyrics as poetry, she's a folk singer with smarts and a music complexity that is way too rare in this city. After several tapes and one of the best locally produced 45s of the 1980s, Newhouse was on the edge of being signed by a major label a few years back and it's easy to see why. With a soaring voice and a commanding stage aura it's almost criminal that Newhouse isn't a world-class star. It's going to happen if there's any justice in this world.
Opening for Ms. Newhouse was local overnight success (at least in the local media) Lisa Waterbury. Where Newhouse is melodic and sailing, Waterbury is slightly off key, plays only a handful of chords, and writes song after song on the same topic - it really is a world of hell but the only way out is to pour out your soul and plunge into the fire. But she's a total original and her new tape ("World of Heil" - recorded on eight track with Dave Monk on guitar and bass) is PERFECT. Note: ifyou were one of the two dozen or so music hipsters who caught this amazing pairing at Cava Java (which was Waterbury 's A2 debut), I salute you.
Later the same month, I put on the bulletproof vest (just kidding) and went to the Lower East Side of the Midwest - Ypsilanti - for more dangerous musical fun. The Prodigals, with the one-two punch of lead guitar and vocalists Chris Casello and Al Davron, is the best surfblues band in the state. They are the PERFECT bar band and the Tap Room, with it's down and out art deco-ism is the perfect place to check 'em out. They play the roots of rock and roll all the way, from covers by Otis Rush and Link Wray, to original songs that bring to mind Torn Petty andor REM . The club was packed - lots of smoke, gallons of draft beer being guzzled - and with the audience rewed to the max, Casello and Davron faced off in a killer guitar battleshootout as they climbed on top of the bar and various patron's tables and soloed their brains out. Great!
Then it was on to The Green Room for jelly beans, coffee, and a set by Run With Scissors. The four-piece guitar bass drums vocal group was formed by guitarist Richard Work, formerly of one of the best groups of recent years, Monster Bait. Run With Scissors has lots in common with Work's earlier work. Hellhounds, nightmare visions of death, and a love of classic Motor City rock and roll are in full force once again (á la the MC5 and the Stooges) in Run With Scissors. This is the stuff legendary rock and roll is made of. This was one of the band's first gigs and nothing is out in recorded form á la CD or tape yet, but RWS could be the best new band of 1995. We'll see...
Theo's on Cross Street is your basic student hangout, and the audience is a mix between drink-special-seeking EMU frat kids and a few Ann Arbor visitors there just to see the band, but the combination didn't stop Circus of Lao from blasting through an incredible set that deserved a MUCH bigger audience. Led by singer Lisa Matthews, who is hypnotically spell binding on stage (even in Ypsilanti on a slow weekend night), the Circus is a blend of anger, blues, hard-core punk-ism, poetry and melody. One tune, "Pain," could be a 199Os anthem of sorts, with thoughtful-but daring guitar lines (from guitarist Doug Padian) and enough vocal energy from Matthews to rip your heart out. Another original, "Ball and Chain," was more of the same stuff - complex, melodic, joyously emotional music that at times took your breath away. Circus of Lao sounds like nobody else in this city and if you care about rock and roll from the soul, you need to add them to your band-you-have-to-check-out list AT ONCE!
Tony Whipple is all over the place. I ran into him doing sound at The Green Room; he's the hot guitarist for the in-limbo Stand Fast!; he runs White Rose recording studio in the Michigan Militia stomping grounds west of Ann Arbor; plays bass with Spider the Cat; and has a cool new tape out - "Passenger To Nowhere." PTN is unplugged folk music, with an almost Irish-music feel, and sounds just fine with singer songwriter Whipple performing tales of drinking way too much and having your heart kicked in and stomped down. PTN just got a Motor City Music Award nomination in the Folk category and a gig is set for the Green Room on May 10th. Check 'em out.
God knows there are enough bands on this planet that sound a hell of a lot likePearl Jam, and Ann Arbor's South Normal is yet another, but their kick-in-the-head tape "Tomorrow's Yesterdays Heroes" isn't so bad. While I love bands that take chances, and especially bands who piss in the face of stupid-ass radio program directors (neither of which this four-piece hard rockin' guitar band does), this 14 song cassette is catchy and loaded with nice roaring guitar parts that are worth a listen (and could very well dazzle the above-mentioned radio biz types). Once South Normal gets the Pearl Jam-isms out of their system, we'll see....
Oh no, out of space. There are loads of things I didn't have room to cover (tons of CDs, tapes, and 45s) and I promise, cross my heart, yeah yeah, to get to each and every one in the next issue of AGENDA. Keep sending things to The View From Nowhere, AGENDA, 220 S. Main Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.