Local Music
LOCAL MUSIC
The View from Nowhere
By Alan Goldsmith
OK, catch-up time. One of the problems with writing a local music column like The View From Nowhere is there is way too much going on in this town - live gigs, news flashes, new CDs and tapes - for 1,000 words a month to capture in a complete and total way. No, the answer is NOT writing 2,000 words or 3,000 words. Occasionally, regrouping and tossing out a line here, a paragraph there on things that would otherwise slip through the cracks is the only workable option, not to mention helping those out there with short attention spans.
One of the most dangerous bands on the planet is Ann Arbor's own Harm's Way and the L.S.G.H. Clan. The new five-tune tape EP "Pasa Me La Mota" is out, and it's more of the same dangerous, dope-smoking, black-as-night rap meets genius that only adds to the legend. Brilliant, complex and beautifully obscene, this is the stuff locals will be talking about decades from now in the same way old timers wax on about the day s of the Stooges and the MC-5. In an era of way too safe bullshit one-eye to-a-record-deal "pop," Harms Way and the crew is the real stuff. And the boys are doing an all too rare live gig at the Blind Pig in celebration of the new Epitaph Magazine Loud 'n Local Music No Frills Compilation III CD release party on Sát., March 8. The real tragedy of so many great musical artists in town is that sooner or later a great band will fall apart befare garnering the attention they deserve. The Deterants have a new CD out "Soled Out" (with a corny, dumb pair of shoes on the cover) and it's more of their American pop with a heavy influence from The Replacements and other Rolling Stones rooted bar band music that sounds so good. Good news is that more gems from the twin songwriting/guitar team of Jim Chatfield and Ian Trumbull has been captured on record for fans of their live killer shows. The bad news is that Chatfield has left the band; it's carrying on as a trio,and the Trumbull cuts are not so hot. At one point The Deterants were one of the best undiscovered rock bands in town. Sigh, life is so unfair...
Lisa Waterbury's guitarist sideman Dave Monk has been hanging out in the studio and doing weird things. His new tape, "The Chester Monkfish Experience" (Part one - Another Name for Mars is Death! and Part Two - Stone Bones) is part spaced-out trip music, part garage band railings and part orgasm soundtrack symphony . It's got a beat, yeah you can dance to it but . . . look out. It sounds like background music for some cheap futuristic sci-fi flick. Yikes! It's available on a new label called Shaolin Temple that's released stuff from Matt Smith of the Volebeats and members of His Name is Alive.
Lawrence Miller is probably the only Ann Arbor rock genre guy who deserves to have a multi-record boxed set devoted to his work. From his pioneering days in Destroy All Monsters to his quirky but structured pop recordings with Nonfiction and Empty Set and on to his over-the-edge days as Larynx Zillion's Novelty Shop, Miller is one of the singer/songwriters in this town who can honestly be called a genius. His musical visión is so complex, from pure pop to space music, and it all seems to tie into one grand THING that only a research career COLLECTION would give you an idea of how amazing he is. Two bits of news on the Miller front. One, his new tape, "Plague of Love (love, lust and lunacy) is a more hard-edge rock side of his persona that spotlights Miller's voice and grunge guitar skills. The other scoop - Mr. Miller is now gigging as a singer with David Swain's big band II- V-I Jazz Orchestra as Mr. Yours Truly . Like I've told you for years, Larry Miller is a genius. Wake up!
Ann Arbor is not just a town with a cool folk music scene, thrashers who go slumming with rappers, or bands who mingle with ghosts of Iggy and the Stooges. Occasionally bass-blasting dance music is in the air to boot. Cosmicity aka Mark Nicholas on vocals and computer generated keyboard European-style coolness has a new CD out on the TBL Music Label and it's a knockout. With remixes, the nine-track set is dreamy, heart-pumping dance madness that A2 could sure use a lot more of. Cosmicity is 3 am after a dozen drinks party dance/cyber/music that just SAILS.
Soon, soon, soon. "The Garage," the upcoming Big Pop Records CD from The Holy Cows should be in record stores shortly . The Cows have been putting out great rock and roll music for most of the 1990s and their last re-release of their classic self-produced "Get Along" on the same label got tons of attention (national airplay, press, etc.), so the band has high hopes for the new one. Produced at Detroit's White Room Studios by Michael and Andrew Nehra (who also produced and performed on "Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise") it should be a classic if tapes of the rough mix masters are any indication.
Jen Smith. I caught an opening set by this singer/songwriter a few weeks back at the The Gypsy Cafe and enjoyed it very much. Ms. Smith has a fine country-tinged voice and a strong sense of what it takes to write moving, emotional songs that seemed heavily influenced by mainstream country/folk performers like Rosanne Cash and others, but with more of a down-home kind of feel. One tiny flaw is Smith's tendency to write tunes a little past her vocal range. But, in spite of that, the voice is amazing, the tunes are world class and her shy, funny personality seem to shine on stage. Check her out.
The View From Nowhere, 220 S. Main Street, A2, MI, 48104 or email to (note new address): AlanGoldsmith @ compuserve.com.