Playground Heroes feature (Orlando Weekly)

The path to punk-rock success is pretty clearly marked. Bedroom. Garage. House shows. Community center. All-ages nights. Eventually, you make enough money to release a 7-inch. It gets reviewed in a fanzine and you manage to book a few shows out of town. And then you start all over at house shows … but they’re houses in someone else’s town, which makes it cool and as close to “success” as most bands get.

Playground Heroes, a “foul-mouthed ska-punk” band from Kissimmee, doesn’t pay much attention to the path. Formed in 1999 (originally under the moniker Eye Q), the band tried to get a foot in the door of the Orlando punk scene, but met with resistance. So, instead of packing it in, it packed up and hit the road. “Orlando didn’t like us,” says vocalist Chris Daley. “We couldn’t catch on, so we just went somewhere else.”

That “somewhere else” ended up being nearly two dozen of these fair united states and a couple of Canadian provinces. The Playground Heroes’ self-booked tours — five since forming — have put more than 150 shows under its collective belt and most of those shows have been outside of Florida. Though the band may have neglected Florida — and particularly Orlando — in the early stages, that’s something it’s making up for now. After plenty of road work (and a handful of lineup changes), Playground Heroes is finally paying attention to its home turf. Ironically, that has put the band in the position of being the new act in town.

“It’s hard to get into the scene in Orlando,” says Daley. “There are only a few good places to play, and it’s hard to get into those places and get people to come out.”

“There are so many bands that have been around for so long that people don’t like to give new bands a chance,” concurs drummer John Vargas.

All this talk about being a “new” band may seem ironic given how long Playground Heroes has been around, but having worked the tour circuit for so long, band members understand how most scenes overlook homegrown talent. “When you’re from out of town,” says bassist Jose Laboy, “you get respect. But when you’re local, people take you for granted.”

Respect is exactly what the band has gotten on its road trips. Over the years, it has managed to make connections and build a fan base in such far-flung (and not-so-obvious) locales as Springfield, Ill. Though the going was rough early on, eventually, the band caught on.

“It was easy for us to get shows that ended up being for two people in some guy’s garage,” says Daley. “But it was pretty hard to get good shows. By the third tour, we knew bands, and we knew people in different towns, so it got easier to get better shows.”

“We can play a show in New York and have 100 kids come out. We play in Florida and it’s the five people we bring with us,” laughs Laboy. “We went a little too far too fast.”

Shifting gears to concentrate on its own backyard, Playground Heroes is “returning” to a scene that may not be prepared for its offbeat take on “ska-punk.” That may be how the band refers to itself, but in truth, its sound is a little more eclectic than such a label would allow. After all, we are talking about a ska band whose only nod to brass is a drummer who occasionally busts out a trumpet. Merging the melodic energy of ska-influenced punk with an angular assault that brings to mind new wave insanity like Devo or Spizz, Playground Heroes delivers a defiantly high-octane show that leaves some fans a bit confused.

“We get compared to Minor Threat a lot, and we don’t understand that at all,” says Laboy. “I mean, it’s a compliment to be compared to such a great band, but we just don’t get it.”

Daft comparisons aside, it’s easy to see why it might take the band a while to catch on here at home. Its sound is a bit at odds with the prevailing trends in Orlando. “The pop-punk and emo scenes are very popular here,” says Daley. “So if you don’t play that, it’s tough.” And for audiences used to easily categorizable bands, Playground Heroes certainly provides a challenge. And though the band may be forced to hit the road again, at least it gave you a chance.

First appeared January 2, 2003 in Orlando Weekly.

Ramallah: But A Whimper CD review (Orlando Weekly)

In August 1998, the United States hurled 80 cruise missiles at “strategic targets” in Afghanistan and Sudan in response to Al Qaeda’s bombings of embassies in East Africa. It turns out we strafed an aspirin factory and several villages. Al Qaeda was (obviously) unfazed, but thousands of Muslims were killed or displaced and the only thing America got upset about was that Bill Clinton was trying to distract us. It’s this type of arrogant apathy that has inspired Rob Lind (Blood For Blood, Sinners & Saints) to undertake a mission he calls Ramallah. Provocatively packaged as sort of a hardcore Muslimgauze, Ramallah daringly takes a stance that, on its face, could be construed as pro-Muslim, when in fact, it’s really just pro-justice. (Like Muslimgauze, Lind is the sole musician here, other than drum tracks by Neil Dyke and vocal contributions from Converge’s Jake Bannon on three songs.) The first three songs on this EP (“Ramallah,” “Sleep” and “Al Shifa”) are extreme both in their metallic approach and in their lyrical content, and they recall the nasty Reagan years in their sheer punk virulence. Clearly, Lind’s apocalyptic attack is motivated by the perception that the continued persecution of Muslims (by both the United States and Israel) is going to reap serious consequences. “But A Whimper” loses some of its steam when Lind moves away from his political statements, but the sheer boldness of this EP makes it worthwhile.

First appeared in the Jan. 2, 2003 issue Orlando Weekly.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

Siouxsie and the Banshees: The Best Of CD review (Orlando Weekly)

Given that the best work of Siouxsie and the Banshees has already been compiled on “Once Upon A Time” and “Twice Upon A Time,” this 15-track collection is a bit pointless. Granted, it skims the best off the top of both of those collections, but there are two distinct types of Siouxsie fans to consider: the “Hong Kong Garden” fans and the “Peek-A-Boo” fans. Though there’s certainly some crossover, many who love the raw, early Siouxsie have no patience for the latter, lush Siouxsie. When you consider that by the time of 1991’s Superstition album, even the Banshees had started to splinter due to differences of opinion over the group’s glossy direction, it’s easy to see why a “comprehensive” collection such as this is doomed to fail. Exacerbating the effect is the fact that the songs here aren’t presented in chronological order, thus the angular anger of “Happy House” gives way uncomfortably to the poppy, club-inspired “Kiss Them For Me.” A double-disc set would have served Siouxsie’s legacy much better, allowing the compilers to not only include the 28 tracks from the previous collections, but also some outtakes and lost tracks. As it is, “The Best Of” just isn’t.

First appeared in the Jan. 2, 2003 issue of Orlando Weekly.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

Sacred System: Book of Exit – Dub Chamber 4 CD review (Orlando Weekly)

Bill Laswell — an artist who certainly understands the power of simple, low-end sonics — and on this “Sacred System” album, he uses dub less as a definition than as a stylistic milepost. Yes, there are deep, throbbing basslines and airy, echo-drenched percussion parts. Yet, as Laswell is clearly besotted with Ethiopian vocalist GiGi, “Sacred System” stands more as a continuation of the themes the two explored while Laswell produced her U.S. debut. Far from a true “dub” album, this is more of a luscious, low-end soul album, built on complexity, not simplicity.

First appeared in the Jan. 2, 2003 issue of Orlando Weekly.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

The Sadies: Stories Often Told CD review (Orlando Weekly)

Sounding more like Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet than the alt.country bands they find themselves continually compared to, The Sadies have lovingly combined lounge suave, spaghetti western echo-twang, surf rock and a tiny dose of shit-kick into a pretty tasty blend over the course of three albums. Though far from being a purely instrumental outfit, it’s on wordless numbers like the Morricone-inspired “A#1″ that The Sadies shine most brightly. Sure, they can pull off a post-Byrds gem like “Such A Little Word” pretty easily, but this is a band that’s more about creating a vibe, and on the tracks where there’s singing, the vocals are quite secondary to the overall sound generated by the group. Of course, that sound can range from honky-tonk (“Tiger Tiger”) to “The Big Gundown” (“Lay Down Your Arms”) to downright psychedelic (“Of Our Land”), so expect your attention span to get a workout.

First appeared in the Jan. 2, 2003 issue of Orlando Weekly.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

The Complete Monterey Pop Festival DVD review (Orlando Weekly)

The unyielding cultural choke hold of the baby boomers has been a force to contend with ever since that generation started making money on junk bonds. From the fuzzy nostalgia of “The Big Chill” to the beatification of sub-par talents like Jefferson Airplane, there has been a constant modulation of history that has decreed thusly: If you weren’t born between 1947 and 1952, your popular culture is of substantially less value than of those who were. If you aren’t of “a certain age,” your politics are meaningless (you didn’t stop a war, kid), your counterculture is flaccid (you didn’t discover LSD, kid), your rebellion is recycled (everything now is so commodified, kid) and, most notably, your music is worthless.

All of which, of course, is bullshit. Sure, the boomers helped turn the disposable kid-culture of the ’50s into a socio-economic juggernaut called “youth culture” in the ’60s. And sure, that juggernaut is still plowing its way through the landscape today. But the continued snobbery of the 50-somethings has moved beyond being ridiculous to simply being offensive. Yet it’s that generation that still controls the corporate purse strings, so it’s that generation that still gets to pretend that their youth is better than your youth.

It’s that mindset that yields such behemoths as “The Complete Monterey Pop Festival,” a three-DVD set by Criterion that collates pretty much all the footage D.A. Pennebaker shot at the legendary rock festival in 1967. Truly, the myth of Monterey is well established. It was the “Summer of Love.” It was two years before Woodstock. It was the U.S. jumping-off point for Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Who. It was the mass genesis of pretty much the entire ’60s counterculture. It’s been written about, its music has been released and re-released (Rhino’s doorstop-sized four-CD box pretty much did all that needed to be done) and, like any legendary show, the number of people who say they were there exceeds the number of people who were actually there by about a factor of 10.

And somehow, the fact remains that the Monterey Pop Festival was truly an amazing event. And this DVD set — more so than any solely musical document — makes the case abundantly clear. Director Pennebaker managed with “Monterey Pop” to deftly capture the formative fires onstage, chronicling a shift in musical dynamics from the folksy pop of “then” to the acid-bathed electricity of “now.” Looking at the film now (masterfully restored here, with beefed-up 5.1 surround sound), it’s pretty easy to understand why it seemed so important at the time.

Ultimately, it’s easy to understand — when viewing the other two discs of this set — what was really going on that weekend. Pennebaker shot some amazing footage of some amazing acts and, unfortunately, most of it was left out of the main cut of “Monterey Pop.” Though the sets by Big Brother & The Holding Company and Hendrix are justifiably legendary, the additional footage included here is revelatory. Whether it’s the hilariously provocative on-stage commentary by David Crosby (and a pre-emptive run through “Hey Joe” by the Byrds that must have bugged the crap out of Hendrix, who had yet to take the stage), some pre-Devo oddness from, of all groups, The Association, blisteringly effective sets by The Who and The Electric Flag, or a four-song effort by Tiny Tim, it’s these performances that give a much more complete picture than what John Phillips probably would have preferred.

As it stands, the main film posits Phillips’ group — the haplessly square Mamas and the Papas — as the axis of the event. To some degree, given both Phillips’ organizing and the massive popularity of the Mamas and the Papas, that may have been true. And the lineup — heavy on folk-pop like Simon and Garfunkel, Laura Nyro and others — is highly reflective of the AM sensibilities of the time. But when viewing the outtakes, it’s clear the shift in taste that was occurring on that very day.

Yet, the main film also unintentionally captures the reality of the “counterculture” in 1967. On Pennebaker’s telling audience shots, you don’t see a crowd of radical hippies. You don’t see a lot of fringed jackets. You don’t see raised fists, paisley parkas or dope smoke. You see your parents. The regular-looking folks dressed in JC Penney’s finest, simply digging the music. It’s not a revolution you see. It’s a concert. And to those in attendance, it wasn’t cultural upheaval they were after. It was a good time. To watch the crowd, you realize that the casting of this event as the watershed event of the youth revolution is sheer hyperbole.

Two years later, Woodstock would push that hyperbole to greater heights. At that point, the culture had become far more polarized, putting young Americans at distinct odds with the ideas of their parents. Rock festivals had become less about music than about money. JC Penney had started stocking flares and paisley. And the cultural choke hold had begun. But on this foggy June weekend, the vision of rock utopia held by the participants might have seemed possible. Too bad it wasn’t.

First appeared in the Jan. 2, 2003 issue of Orlando Weekly.

Buy this DVD at Amazon.com.

The Styrenes: It’s Still Artastic CD review (Orlando Weekly)

One of the surprisingly nice byproducts of the ’70s prog-rock trend was the leftist “Rock In Opposition” movement that centered around British bands like Henry Cow and Slapp Happy. Rooted in revolutionary politics and compositional overload, this small klatch of bands was the too-artsy wing of a genre that was already overcooked. But R.I.O. was a decidedly European phenomenon, as America’s taste for pretense and socialism had begun to give way to blunt punk politicking by the mid-’70s. However, in Cleveland, Ohio (of all places), the angular peculiarity of R.I.O. took hold, and bands like Pere Ubu, the Electric Eels and The Styrenes wound up being the American wing of the movement. That these self-consciously “difficult” bands were making their way through a local scene enraptured with the brash, primal rock of groups like Rocket From the Tombs and the Dead Boys meant that their oddity was informed by sheer rock power, rather than the classical influences of their European brethren. The Styrenes themselves were less a true band than a rotating cast of musicians centered around Paul Morotta and Jamie Klimek, and the severely off-center attitude of these two meant that any time The Styrenes “happened,” something interesting would unfold. Of all the groups in Cleveland, this was certainly the oddest — and most rockin’. The 27(!) tracks here lay the groundwork for New York’s “no wave” counterpoint to ’80s post-punk and, covering a period from 1975 to 1998, they show a band that only got more insane with age, always nodding toward punk power but driven by severely looped-out songwriting. Thankfully, ROIR presents a good mix of studio work and lo-fi live recordings on this disc, so it’s easy to get a real feel for how overpowering this band could be.

First appeared in the Jan. 2, 2003 issue of Orlando Weekly.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

Linton Kwesi Johnson: LKJ In Dub, Vol. 3 CD review (Orlando Weekly)

Linton Kwesi Johnson has garnered serious respect among reggae aficionados both as a stirringly political poet (“Inglan is a Bitch” stands as an excellent chronicle of a Jamaican immigrant in Ol’ Blighty) and as a consummate master of dub. It’s a tricky balance, in that Johnson must simultaneously stand on his ability with words and on his ability to work without them. “LKJ In Dub,” Volume 3 continues a series that began in 1980 and, inasmuch as dub whittles reggae down to its barest, most primal essence — the beat and the bassline — Johnson pushes dub even further. Recorded in Switzerland, this collection is a perfect distillation of dub’s power: achingly sparse and profoundly deep.

First appeared in the Jan. 2, 2003 issue of Orlando Weekly.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

Albert Ayler: The Copenhagen Tapes CD review (Orlando Weekly)

Much like many other American musicians in the mid-’60s, Albert Ayler wound up a creative expatriate in Europe, where audiences welcomed the shockingly intense sounds of the nascent “free jazz” scene. That Ayler essentially created his own sound while living in Europe — rather than birthing it in New York and exporting it like many of his compatriots — meant that during his short life, Europe would be much like a second home to him. Much of Ayler’s prime quartet work in Europe has already been released, yet these two performances from September 1964 are truly revelatory. This was Ayler’s first trip back to Europe after resettling in the United States, and by this point, he had become much more of an infamous player, emboldening the quartet (Ayler, along with Don Cherry, Sunny Murray and Gary Peacock) to deliver some of the freest and best work from their time together. Sessions from this same trip yielded the groundbreaking Ghosts album, and much of that same material gets a unique airing here, making this disc an essential addition to any Ayler-phile’s collection.

First appeared in the Jan. 2, 2003 issue of Orlando Weekly.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.