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Local Music

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Parent Issue
Month
February
Year
1997
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
Rights Held By
Agenda Publications
OCR Text

Voices; voices. As l've babbled on in the past, if I have fallen victim to any addictions, it is to the combination of songs and voices. This month, four local CDs have made their way to The View From Nowhere mail box, all different and diverse, each and every one attached to cool, self-penned tunes that add evidence of what range of class stuff continues to spring from the streets of the Ann Arbor metro area. (This definition is expansive enough to include points east of US-23 like Ypsilanti, Detroit and other meccas that rotate around A2 . . . ).

If you want to compare addictions, Audrey Becker's debut CD "Where I Draw the Line" (Turnabout Records) would have to be compared to a glass of wine or something. Her voice has all of these flavors... One minute there's this soft, fresh innocence and naive air, mixed with an aloofness and detachment. The next it cuts to the heart with a hint of Lou Reed, and a "the-world-has-worn-me-down" edge that cries I GIVE UP. There's this sweetness that mixes with a directness too. When she sings/pleas "What do you want me to be?" on the chorus of the kick-off track "Putty in Your Hands" or puts her soul on the line artistically with the beautiful ballad "Bound, " Becker can sound both vulnerable and in control emotionally at the same time. The voice, with all its shadings and undercurrents just pulls you into the songs. A couple of the tunes here are weak (I don't know about bugs being song material ... and "We All Fall Down" is a Iittle too long) but Becker more than makes up for these minor flaws with the risks she takes on the Jazzy "Wait and See" and the old English poem set to music "Elizabeth's Song." That having been said, Ms. Becker is one of the best singers/songwriters in town and this CD will no doubt convince lots more of those not yet familiar with her talents and genius.

From a soloist with a guitar to a powerful voice fronting a large, soulful R&B band, Lady Sunshine and the X Band on the debut "All Kind of Men" (self-released) is like strong Tennessee whiskey brewed in someplace in downtown Memphis circa 1965 and then trucked back to Ypsilanti, Michigan circa 1997. Lady Sunshine and the boys are a classic Stax/Volt hom band with nothin' but the blues tossed in for good measure. Her voice ís straight ahead, explosive and rooted in gospel and Aretha Franklin and when she Iets loose on the Etta James-influenced "Baby Come Home' or the funky "Thang for You" Lady Sunshine is as good as it gets. And with the X Band - blazing away like a midwest version of Booker T and the MGs with the Memphis horns, original songwriting (lyrics by Lady X and music by the boys) of this high level and a voice this hot and unique - you don't need to fly to Memphis for a soul fix. A trip to The Tap Room when Lady Sunshine and the X Band are gigging on a Saturday night and buying this record are all you need.

I suppose if we're into alcohol references, singer/songwriter Jen Cass would have to be brandy. With another unique vocal style, this time one that seems guided by the ghosts of early country music pioneers the Carter Family, Cass has a homey, small-town feel that reminds you of really early Nana Griffith, but a little closer to the earth. The voice is like a hand-made rocking chair on a farmhouse front porch - special, calming and unique. With her tunes, Cass stays mostly detached from the action. Most of the songs on her debut CD "Brave Enough To Say" {self-released) are like little short stories, usually with sad, sad endings whether it's a saga of a prostitute's murder in "Violent Times" or a Eugene O'Neill-like mini play of what happens when you don't follow your heart on "The Train Song." Jen Cass mixes old country folk-roots in a new country folk-roots way and paints these heart-breaking snapshots of lives gone wrong like nobody else. The songs are great, but it's the voice that does it. Cass isn't always detached (the ballad "Daedalus" seems too real not to be autobiographical or humorless ("The Pick-Up Song" is a hoot). But her power as an artists in using her voice to capture pictures of broken American souls.

Straight vodka right from the bottle, no chaser with a crack pipe on the side describes Paula Messner. Messner, lead vocalist for the Motor Dolls lives up to the band's namesakes - Rob Tyner of the MC5 and David Johanssen of the NY Dolls - with her atomic meltdown of a rock'n'roll voice that is the sonic version of machine gun fine (this is a compliment) on the band's second release, "Burning Memories (Sludgecake Records). It's rough, grainy and right on target and the perfect voice to front the Dolls, the guitar/bass/ drums trio of dangerous Motor City women. Their metal-pop tunes are drenched in pain, death and betrayal and are sound-bite sagas of sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and death. Messner gets SO into the songs. The mindset and the thunder sometimes can send chills to the center of your skull. The press pack includes a compliment from Iggy Pop, but the grandfather of Detroit's punk hasn't done anything this dangerous and cool in decades.

The View From Nowhere, 220 S. Main Street, A2, Ml 48104 or e-mail to Alanarbor@AOL.COM.

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