Mudhoney feature (Orlando Weekly)

[I took the above picture in Atlanta, the night before the below-mentioned Jacksonville Beach show.]

[Oh, and for the record, Mark Arm announced from the stage in Orlando that Steve Turner did, indeed, remember the bar in question.]

“Maybe you went with some other band,” laughs Mark Arm. The singer and guitarist for legendary Seattle band Mudhoney is in the process of poking a giant hole in the middle of one of my favorite anecdotes. The story has a young me, circa 1990, heading off with the Mudhoney boys after a show in Jacksonville Beach. We’d been drinking all night, and after they finished playing a show at the (dearly departed) Einstein a Go-Go, we all headed down the street and happened upon a midget bar. Three-quarter-scale pool tables and all. Except the short people in this bar weren’t cute, reality-TV midgets. This was a midget biker bar, with the patrons decked out in leather and bearing no patience for the intrusion of full-sized gawkers. After some threatening glances from the regulars, we decided the place wasn’t for us.

I’ve told this tale dozens of times, once in these very pages, because the memory of this occurrence is as vivid in my mind as the day I married my wife – and now, thanks to Mark Arm, I’m digging around in my mental safe-deposit box for my marriage certificate.

“I don’t remember the midget bar, but you know, if you drink enough, things can start to look a lot smaller,” consoles Arm. Then, laughing, he says, “Or maybe you just did some dust.”

Probably not. I’m forced to console myself with the supposition that Arm’s memories of that long-ago tour stop may be a little fuzzy. After all, the guy and his band have played hundreds of shows in their 20-year existence. Maybe he just forgot this Florida midget bar?

“No, I doubt it. I’m pretty sure I’d remember a midget bar.”

Regardless, it has been quite a long time – 15 years by Arm’s estimation – since Mudhoney graced the state of Florida, and midget-bar trauma or no, Arm is quick to point out that the band’s decade-plus absence from the state was not intended as a slight.

“I don’t know, exactly [why it’s been so long],” he says. “Actually, you know, we haven’t played Germany since 1995, so Florida shouldn’t take it personally. Germany hasn’t taken it personally, and I know this because you’ve seen what those people can do [when they get angry].”

These stretches of time – 13 years since playing in Germany, 15 years since the last Florida show, 18 years since an imaginary sojourn to a midget bar – are especially notable for Mudhoney this time around. The band is celebrating their 20th anniversary in 2008, and they’re doing it in style with both a new album, The Lucky Ones, and a two-disc, deluxe-edition reissue of their infamous Superfuzz Bigmuff record. The latter, a six-song slab of punk slurry, combined with the potent force of the band’s instantly legendary debut 7-inch single (“Touch Me I’m Sick”) to kick-start the grunge movement that would dominate rock throughout the early ’90s. The reissue is fleshed out by the inclusion of the “Touch Me” single along with other 7-inches, compilation appearances, demo tracks and two live concerts. Now that they’ve been given the “deluxe edition” treatment, does that mean Mudhoney is now officially part of the rock & roll canon, a true legacy band worthy of having their music assessed alongside the giants?

“Well, you could just say that anyone who does something like [this reissue] is forcing themselves into the canon,” laughs Arm, fully aware of the silliness and seriousness of Superfuzz’s significance among alt-rock fans. “So I’m not sure how much doing a deluxe edition has to do with actually being in the canon.

“It’s crazy, though. We never thought we’d make it past three [years], tops. Even in the beginning, the only goal we had was to put out a single, which came pretty quick and easy. At that point, we could have said, ‘Our job is done,’ but instead we kept going.”

But why keep going at all? With a genre-defining EP, a clutch of classic singles, and an exalted position during the Grunge Years, why bother making new albums and expanding the palette of the band’s sonic signature? Why not be legends and move on?

“Because we enjoy it. It’s as simple as that. We’ll stop doing it when it stops being fun. Obviously, [original bassist Matt] Lukin thought it stopped being fun around 1999, so he left.

“But the actual ‘doing it’ – the writing and recording of songs – is still great, and it’s still fun. I love writing songs and recording them and watching them turn into something from just a nugget of an idea.”

As the band simultaneously reflects on their 20 years of history and the excitement of promoting a new record, one has to wonder if Arm worries that with all the nostalgia wrapped up in the reissue, people will forget that Mudhoney just released a brand-new album.

“It’s funny, because I’ve seen people be like, ‘Oh, it’s more of the same,’ and then some people are like, ‘Oh, it’s too different.’ But it doesn’t really matter to me. I’d assume it’s different … and somewhat the same?” he laughs.

“There’s really no grand goal that we’re trying to achieve anymore. It’s just that we really like playing together. We get this opportunity to travel to different places around the world – but not Germany.”

First appeared June 12, 2008 in Orlando Weekly.

Heavy Metal in Baghdad movie review (Baltimore Citypaper)

Acrassicauda is a fairly typical heavy metal band: four middle-class guys with a bleak outlook on life who find the aggression and release provided by metal to be a rather effective emotional salve. The band has trouble getting gigs. It also has trouble promoting those gigs. And when the shows do happen, they tend to be sparsely attended sausage parties. In fact, Acrassicauda is so similar to most metal bands that they even need to find a new practice space. Unlike most other bands, however, the reason it needs a new rehearsal spot is because its was decimated by a Scud missile.

Being the only heavy metal band in Iraq means that Acrassicauda is actually not all that typical after all. And for that reason, the folks at Vice magazine thought it would be a good idea to profile them. Vice’s relationship with the band started with an article written by Gideon Yago that appeared in the January 2004 issue. That article was as much a look-at-the-oddity-in-the-war-zone piece as it was a unique look at life on the ground in post-invasion Iraq. After the article appeared, the idea was hatched to do a short video profile of Acrassicauda, which quickly blossomed into a full-length documentary. Surprisingly, the same Vice people who brought you the “Bands That Suck” and “Anal Sex” issues may have delivered the most enlightening and emotionally resonant documentary about the Iraq war to date.

Filmmakers Suroosh Alvi and Eddy Moretti do an exceptional job at threading together several disparate elements: the unique status of Acrassicauda as Iraqi metalheads, the members’ singular devotion to capital-M Metal, the devastation of their homeland, the psychological turmoil the civil war has engendered among everyone in Iraq, and, most notably, the massive refugee crisis spawned by the war, which is largely ignored by the U.S. media. Furthermore, the more subtle implication made by the movie–that Iraq is on the verge of becoming a failed state–is a strong statement that has yet to be fully grasped by either side involved in U.S. political discussion about the war.

What Alvi and Moretti don’t do so well is separate themselves from the process. Perhaps this is part and parcel of Vice’s generally self-indulgent methodology, but the movie’s entire midsection feels devoted to proving how brave and determined Alvi (Vice co-founder and the documentary’s narrator) and Moretti (the director) are for forging into Iraq.

Still, with so many movies attempting to put a “human face” on the civilian impact of the Iraq war, the hat trick that Heavy Metal in Baghdad pulls off is notable. By focusing on guys who look (and talk) like the heshers who practice in the basement next door, the movie forces viewers to relate to their struggles in a very real way. We know that Acrassicauda will never open for Metallica–hell, by the end of the documentary’s year-plus time span, the band has only played three gigs–but we’re not rooting for their success. We’re rooting for their survival, not least because these guys are likable, funny, and, like many struggling musicians, a bit delusional. “We’re not a political band, we are not System of a Down or anything,” drummer Marwan Hussain says, as if anyone would mistake the haphazard riffing of Acrassicauda for the work of stadium-filling professionals. “I don’t give a fuck about the news.”

These guys, however, are living the news every day, so when guitarist/vocalist Tony Aziz casually philosophizes about the vacuum left by the removal of Saddam Hussein–”They took Ali Baba and they left the 40 thieves.”–it’s an analysis that’s as astute as it is heartbreaking, as hopeless as it is defiant.

Statements like that combine with extensive video footage of the street-level destruction shot by the Vice team to make for a movie that, more than any other well-meaning, agenda-driven documentary, gives viewers a strong, personal sense of the devastation wrought by the war. And, surprisingly enough, it does it in a way that’s largely agenda-free–the Vice guys never make any declarative statements about the validity of the Iraqi invasion. They merely point out just how fucked up the country has become, and leave it to drummer Marwan to sum up the feelings of many of his countrymen regarding their newfound freedom. “Fuck this,” he says. “Fuck this democracy.”

First appeared June 12, 2008 in Baltimore Citypaper.

Buy the DVD at Amazon.com.

The Night Marchers: See You In Magic CD review (Blurt)

Whether he’s just gotten tired of playing music for 20 years or whether we’ve just gotten tired of listening to him play music for 20 years, there’s a distinct sense of laziness to the latest project helmed by John Reis. His excellent taste and willingness to rock have been dependable touchstones, which makes the sluggish, by-the-numbers sound of See You in Magic that much more disappointing. Coming off a six-year stint that found him splitting his time between the blistering Hot Snakes, a reunited Rocket From The Crypt and the more garage-rocking Sultans, Reis should be more focused and powerful with the Night Marchers, but he just sounds winded. Midtempo numbers like “And I Keep Holding On” and “Open Your Legs” routinely promise roof-blowing thrills, but consistently show themselves to be half-formed, while “Jump in the Fire” – with its chiming ‘80s rock radio guitar passages – is probably the closest Reis has ever come to actually sounding pretentious. For a man with his pedigree, that’s probably the most criminal mistake of all.

First appeared June 2008 in Blurt.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

Steve Von Till: A Grave Is A Grim Horse CD review (Blurt)

More than any other aging punk rocker who’s felt the urge to strap on a hollow-body and belt out a few bare-bones numbers, Steve Von Till has shown that he’s easily able to drop the yoke of his “regular” band (Neurosis), but equally ready to make an acoustic album that refuses to conform to expectations. For his third solo disc, Von Till again indulges in stark, desolate soundscapes that are both sonically and lyrically evocative. Even though he takes the tried-and-true path of covering folk and country artists like Nick Drake, Townes Van Zandt and even Mickey Newbury, Von Till puts a distinct sonic stamp on these numbers and his original tunes that’s as ominous as the heaviest Neurosis track, but decidedly less claustrophobic. By refusing to adopt an unnatural twang or squeeze into an ill-fitting cowboy hat, Von Till again proves the fierce strain of individualism for which his main band is known.

First appeared June 2008 in Blurt.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

Various Artists: Nigeria 70: Lagos Jump CD review (Broward-Palm Beach New Times)

British label Strut made a name for itself in the late ’90s as a prime catalyst for the burgeoning revival of interest in Nigerian Afrobeat, due to their reissues of Tony Allen’s early post-Fela work, along with two mind-blowing compilations — Club Africa and Nigeria 70. The latter was a hefty, three-disc masterpiece, with two CDs of tunes by artists both well-known (Fela, Allen, Peter King) and otherwise (Gaspar Lawal, Monomono) and, interestingly, an audio documentary on the Lagos music scene. By 2002, however, the label had taken to electro-funk and post-disco collections, and soon enough it disappeared. Now, under the distribution wing of !K7 Records, Strut has returned and along with the label’s revival comes a nice, compact follow-up to Nigeria 70. The single-CD Lagos Jump moves away from the extended funk jams of its predecessor and focuses on soulful pop concision, allowing for the inclusion of 16 songs. Pushing artists little known outside of African tape-trading circles, Lagos Jump shows off the three-minutes-of-perfection that talents like Eddie Okwedy, Ify Jerry Crusade and Olufemi Ajasa were capable of. Only one song — the grindingly funky “Wetin De Watch Goat, Goat De Watcham” by Eric “Showboy” Akaeze — cruises into extended jam mode. The rest of the material here reflects a giddy evolution of the highlife sound that Fela aficionados may be unfamiliar with.

First appeared June 12, 2008 in Broward-Palm Beach New Times.

Buy this CD at Amazon.com.

Gogol Bordello show preview (Broward-Palm Beach New Times)

There’s a line in Gogol Bordello’s 2002 song “Let’s Get Radical” that goes something like: “You know mother, some things are actually sacred, and tapping your foot to the ceremony just won’t do.” The song has one of the New York group’s more abrasive and melancholy lyrics (it actually starts out with Eugene Hütz moaning “Oh fuuuuck”) and may not be typical of their sonic approach, but that one line sums up the group’s musical philosophy about as succinctly as possible. By straining the minor-key musical heritage of their Eastern European backgrounds through the smart-party sensibilities of their current Lower East Side residence, Gogol Bordello has translated the relentlessly danceable music of the gypsies into relentlessly danceable (and politically charged) counterculture experimentalism. But the neat trick about what Hütz and company have done is that they’ve made their musical heritage accessible to contemporary audiences without sucking any of the energy or historical context out of it; Gogol Bordello shows are powder keg parties, with a velvet rope line that stretches back to the Middle Ages.

First appeared June 12, 2008 in Broward-Palm Beach New Times.