Urban Folk-issue 2

Urban Folk: issue two

I want to start by thanking everyone for the great response we got from issue one. I’ve learned so much about this city and the scene from doing this, and I’m thrilled to know we can keep going with it. In this issue you’ll find out about some amazing artists you might never have heard of, and hopefully learn more about some that you have. It never ceases to amaze me how alive and inspiring the community is here and I consider myself lucky to be a part of it. The more we continue to support each other, the better it will get. Feel free to drop us a line to pitch a story, tell us how we’re doing, tell us off, or just say hi. I want to thank all the contributors, advertizers, and everyone who helps to keep this thing going. Enjoy! -Dave Cuomo, Editor

we want to hear from you: [email protected]

on the cover: Erin Regan

In This Issue:

www.erinregan.com

cover photo and design by Jamie Ferri

Wayne Penlon – dave cuomo tells a village icon’s story

Get in the Minivan – brook pridemore gives tour advice and reminisces Jeff Jacobson – paul alexander looks at a local heavyweight

Stain Bar – krista madsen tells her story of d.i.y. bar creation Exegesis Department – with dan penta of cockroach

Kirk Kelly – jonathan berger profiles an antiFolk originator Subway Stories – dave cuomo gets busted and rejected

Poetry Page – jonathan berger, tyrus gray, arlene cassarino, dave cuomo

Paul’s Perspective – paul alexander goes in the studio and battles with his producer Alec Wonderful – alec gets nostalgic for past fanzines Air Wasn’t Air – fiction by krista madsen

CD Reviews – amy hills, pantsuit, and more...

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If You See Something, Say Something

Wayne Penlon finds his voice underground

By Dave Cuomo

of Curacao in the Caribbean, Wayne walks into a pharmacy. The girl behind the counter gives him a once over and continues eyeing him as he makes his way through the little shop. Wayne is defensive at the girl’s accusing stair and resents the way she so obviously and rudely assumes he is there to shoplift. He browses the sun tan lotions while she continues to check up on him periodically. He takes his purchase up to the counter and squares his shoulders ready to prove her suspicions wrong by proudly paying for his item. She looks at him confused for a minute more before ringing him up and finally says “Hey, are you from New York?” “Yes, I am.” “Yeah, I used to work at the Dunkin Donuts on Christopher St. I’d see you playing down there every day on my way to work. That was some of the most beautiful guitar playing I’ve ever heard.” I met Wayne at the Caffe Vivaldi. He seems confident with the wisdom of someone who’s seen enough ups and downs to be comfortable with his position. I can hear this in his playing. His lyrics tell of lives, people, and places that are familiar, and he tells their stories with a calm wisdom of understanding. His guitar playing is filled with expertise and cool passion. He starts telling me his story from the end, as a subway performer who is eager to share his experience, and someone in the midst of a leap of fortune in the world outside of his adoptive home in the West 4th St. station. After years of perfecting his craft he is in the studio with a well known and well connected producer, recording his first solo album. It is an album that he is only now ready to make

when after many years of going where ever the music winds were blowing, he now understands who he is as a musician, how he fits in the tradition he has become a part of, and how to sing for his adoptive home of Greenwich Village. Before the island of Curacao and the W 4th St. subway station Wayne was busy making himself heard in Rochester, New York. In the early 90’s the scene was beginning to dry up there, and though he had written a few songs of his own he was finding his luck more as a sideman in various projects. He did not consider his songs anything more than a personal means of expression, written for himself rather than any audience. He was content as a sideman and band member. He knew Ani DiFranco and played shows with her. He played with Bill Lambert and they recorded a college friendly album that enjoyed a 35 second spot on “All My Children.” He was part of the punk eclectic band Woody Dodge who had some breaks opening for Hootie and the Blowfish and other up and comers. It was in this band that Wayne would meet the man who would end up having a huge impact on his life and music, Jeff Buckley, who in a round about way would lead Wayne underground to find his solo voice and the talent that puts him where he is today. Woody Dodge was approached by BMI for a record deal only to find themselves in the studio asked by the suits behind the glass, “Could you maybe sound a little more like Lover Boy?” Amused and frustrated, the band stopped working with the label, but was soon being eyed by Virgin records. Excited, they made their way back into the studio only to have the executives once again asking if they could sound a little more like Lover Boy. The project that Wayne seemed

to enjoy most was playing guitar in the Kate Silverman duo. They opened for Patty Larkin and Paula Cole and Wayne felt comfortable and happy as the sideman to her ambitions. Pretty soon the band members in Woody Dodge found themselves getting older and having families and the confining jobs that come along with such responsibility. Kate Silverman too found herself getting frustrated, and as Wayne tells it she was looking to become a personality in whatever way she could so she went off to become a radio DJ. For Wayne it was never about becoming a personality or trying to make a name or a career for himself. He was just looking to become a better guitar player. Wayne was profoundly affected by meeting Jeff Buckley in Rochester. He says that along with the most amazing voice he’d ever heard, Jeff had an aura about him that could be felt. Jeff too was appreciative of Wayne’s musicianship and encouraged him to start playing in New York City. With Rochester slowing down, Wayne took him up on this and began making excursions to the city to make contacts and check out the scene. When his projects began falling through upstate, he made the move. He took a job as the guitar department manager at the legendary Manny’s music, which he considered an honor. In his time there he witnessed the store’s decline and found himself the last person to hold the job before it was bought out by Sam Ash in 1999. “They weren’t just buying a name, they were buying an institution,” he tells me. It wasn’t long before differing philosophies led Wayne to seek other employment. One day on a whim he answered an ad in the back of the Village Voice for a guitarist wanted and soon found himself rehearsing with Henry Cory. Cory ran a semi national children’s radio broadcast out of Nashville until he was ripped off by management and walked in one day to find his office and equipment entirely sold out from under him. He had come out to New York after that to care for his parents and try to escape the limitations of children’s music by playing contemporary folk. He wrote poppy, ballad type songs that were designed to be appealing. Wayne would then take these songs and polish them to completion. Comfortable again as the sideman Wayne worked well with Henry. Together they found the Fast Folk Club with its scene and magazine that Suzanne Vega, John Gorka, and Christine Lavine came out of. But as with much of what Wayne was used to encountering, this scene too was in a decline and on its last legs. About this time things began looking up for Henry and Wayne. Far from escaping children’s music, they were offered a deal to create an animated show for Nickelodeon. Negotiations went well and everything was all set to go into production when something terrible happened. It’s often forgotten all the small things got lost in the fray of 9/11, but a children’s animated show, and a big break for Henry and Wayne was one of those small things. Immediately after the tragedy the production crew was laid off and Henry never heard back from the network again. Heartbroken by what had happened to the city and with his show, Henry called Wayne from a Nashville bound car to say goodbye.

Wayne found himself out of work again, Henry having been paying him for his time over the last couple years. Luckily Wayne had an independent streak that had begun to surface itself during his time in New York. Wayne was not a complete stranger to the idea of street and subway performing. He had played mandolin on the street with bluegrass bands, and also talks about a report on NPR he once heard when he was younger about New York’s subway performers making a decent living. Intrigued, he had filed the idea away in the back of his head for a rainy day. Despite the ease and familiarity of working with Henry, a new urge had been awakening in Wayne in their later days of working together. He found himself wandering underground not to play, but merely to study the art and craft of the job. How does one perform for that kind situation, how do you deal with cops, and what could you expect to make? How free must it feel to sit down there and play the days away for a passing audience. These men impressed him and the idea of performing alone intrigued him. He still did not consider himself a solo performer or a songwriter, but he felt the call to take a station for his own. He was intimidated though. How to play in front of strangers so that they would not only want to hear you as they pass by, but to appreciate and even pay you? This was a hard thing to imagine. When Henry left, taking Wayne’s livelihood with him, the idea became a little easier to picture. He started at the W 4th St station just trying to get his feet because he figured Greenwich Village, with its history and lore, was the most logical place to play. Looking for better money and bigger crowds he moved up to Grand Central Station playing at the end of the S train. Here the idea began to work out and he found himself starting to make enough money to get by. But the musicians from the Music Under New York program, with their time scheduled spots and permits, kept bumping him, so he tried playing out in front of the turnstiles only to get booted by the cops. The competition was frustrating for Wayne so he made his way back to the Village and the W 4th St tunnel. Here again he found the same problems of competition, until one day a Guatemalan man, whose name Wayne can’t now remember, approached him. “You’re pretty good, you want to make some real money?” the Guatemalan asked. The next thing Wayne knew his solo career was on hiatus as he fell once again into the role of the sideman, riding the trains playing La Bamba in the cars with a man who had smuggled himself into the country and was a husband and father to four different families in the city. Not content just to play La Bamba they also worked out a Santana medley that Wayne would play on mandolin. In this medley he would lose himself and go out all out, playing on his knees, using the bars inside the car, playing behind his back, putting on a real show. They would do this from 7 in the morning to 9 at night and pull in $100 - $300 each a day. When they grew bored with their limited repertoire, Wayne learned to play along on some traditional Spanish songs that would haunt and delight the commuters. This went on for a month well enough until one night he got a call from the Guatemalan asking Wayne to bail him out of jail, where he

was stuck for getting drunk and beating up a girlfriend. He knew Wayne had the $2000 because they had been working together and he knew what they had made, which made it all the more awkward when Wayne offered a roof but no money. They tried working together again after that, but the Guatemalan’s attitude toward Wayne had changed and things never went back to the way they were. Wayne’s final gig as a sideman soon ended and he knew that the time had come for him to become his own artist. On his own again Wayne wasn’t quite sure what to do next. He tried riding the trains playing solo mandolin, but this didn’t get nearly the response that he was used to from working with the Guatemalan. He tried singing sea chanties on the train down to South Ferry thinking he would get a rise out of the tourists, but unfortunately no. Not knowing what else to do he went back to W 4th, where need and circumstance kept driving him. Mostly Wayne played covers and instrumentals. He had a couple originals, a few love songs and a song to his inspiration, Jeff Buckley. In an attitude reminiscent of early Dylan, he didn’t give these much thought and considered himself a guitarist, not a songwriter. This was about to change though, as one day he was playing down in W 4th when the voice hit him. He was back at the station where he always found himself when things fell through and he had no where else to go, just strumming the music that was on his mind when he found himself singing, “Been down this road so long.” Right there in front of the tourists and commuters, it all burst out of Wayne’s throat. He didn’t write the song so much as he found it. It would be a year before Wayne would finish his next song, a song about a homeless man called “Little John,” but from that first heartfelt spontaneous moment he now knew he was a songwriter in his own right. Today he tells me that most of his living doesn’t come from just playing underground alone, but rather teaching gigs and private parties that he’s picked up while playing down there. What draws him back to W 4th every week isn’t the lure of getting paid, it’s the chance to practice and play in front of an audience. His ambition has always been to simply become a better guitarist, and listening to him you get the feeling of a man on a quest for perfection. People say of him that he knows how to make a guitar sound acoustic, how to bring out all the melody and tone that the wood is capable of. He is known for his impressive arrangements of instrumental pieces. He will spend all day working with a piece, improvising and trying different parts, following it out as far as it will go so that if you were to listen to it as it happened it might have a

symphony’s length. Then he will go back and whittle these down piece by piece until the shorter arrangement is packed with exactly the melodies it needs and not a bit more. He says that playing down there will make you intuitive. Like his song “Up Down” which he wrote from the inescapable rhythm of people trudging up and down the steps going about their day. The songs he writes today have a feeling of someone who knows their streets and his own place in the history of them, with the Village and New York and the people who live here being at their heart. The public service poster that reads “If you see something, say something” has become Wayne’s inspiration for writing. He wants to write with an understanding of the city and the Village’s history, with the sensibility of Dylan or Fred Neil. “Folk music isn’t supposed to be about ‘me, me, me,’” he says. Wayne sees his job more as writing and singing about the world he is a part of, the New York and Greenwich life and history where he now comes from. Wayne has built a nice life for himself underground. Through playing W 4th St., giving guitar lessons, and side gigs that he picks up from passersby he makes a reliable living. For a while he did a Saturday night residency at the Village Bistro, and was even able to pull in an audience from the subway crowds. I asked him if he had considered auditioning for the Music Under New York program, and he seemed unconcerned. “Why would I?” he asked me, pointing out that cops will still tell you to move on when they want to even if you have your banner and permit, and that nobody knows who the “industry professionals”

who judge the auditions actually are anyway. Through a friend who is in the program, Wayne had actually looked into the idea before, but in a situation reminiscent of his studio experience with Woody Dodge, they told him they were most interested in him doing a James Taylor tribute for his act. In the end he is content as things are, he gets by and plays underground on his own, and has the freedom to concentrate on the most important thing, perfecting his craft. What more could he want?

Enter Roy Halley Jr., chief audio engineer for 60 Minutes Two and son of the legendary producer. Wayne was underground playing when Roy approached him a little over a year ago, mesmerized by his arrangements and original songs. Initially he hired Wayne as a guitar teacher, but this quickly turned into the two of them collaborating to make Wayne’s first solo album. This means free studio time for Wayne and the chance to work with someone who knows their way around both the control booth and the industry. It is the break that Wayne was never counting on or waiting for, but one that he is not going to squander. Listening to him now, one gets the impression that Wayne knows he’s come full circle with the album he is currently recording. Having gone from sideman to front man, Wayne is now comfortably in command of where his music is going. He would like this album to showcase more than just his impressive guitar playing and arrangements, although it certainly will do that. He would like it to be part of what he calls the “Village songwriter ethic.” Something he sees Van Ronk, the Village folksinger who was one of Dylan’s inspirations, as a primary example of. This means songs about people, their stories, and the big picture that overarches them all. He says the songs he has for the album are gems that were handed down to him by the muses with little or no effort, and will include instrumental pieces and folk songs about people and the Village. He sees it as an album that will honor rather than mimic the Village tradition. While this album will be in a sense Wayne’s masterpiece,

a culmination of everything he’s done and been a part of throughout his life, it is not the last word for him. He is already looking forward to the next album. He would like to put together a band, and in more evidence of how far he’s come, he would like to trade in his solo work for a truly collaborative effort in which he is neither sideman nor front man. He would also like to free himself from the limitations of acoustic guitar and see how it feels to go electric. He will probably always play in the subway to cut loose and create new music, but he wants to be a part of something larger as well. He says he wants to see something like Jeff Buckley come through and give the scene a kick start. He doesn’t want it to necessarily be himself who does it, but he wants to be a part of whatever does. The way the city looks today, and with the way Wayne’s album and career are shaping up, it is a good bet there will be a lively scene with Wayne right in the middle.

Get in the Minivan

some things to help you on tour

by Brook Pridemore

1. No gig is too small. When we played Asheville, NC for the first time, the only gig we could get a hold of was an open mic night with an acoustic in-the-round-type hootennanny. We didn’t know anybody in Asheville, so we were facing the prospect of sleeping in the van, in the second week of February. My fellow songwriter on that tour, Chris Martin, realized he was developing strep throat, so Dan and I dropped him off at an emergency care center. We hiked over to the bar anyway, and found ourselves warmly recieved by the Deadheads and their Jim Croce covers. One guy had dreads and Dan said, “That guy’s got dreads, he’ll give us a place to stay! Guys with dreads are always nice.” I knew a guy in high school who had dreads, and he was a dick. Anyway, we’re playing these songs, these old tunes, and Dan asks the waitress to point us to a cheap motel. She offers her place instead, and we ended up staying in her house for two nights, our whole stay in Asheville. I don’t like the word “serendipity,” mostly because of that awful movie with John Cusack. Also, cause I once tried to

get a job at that “serendipity” place. So, through a moment of serendipity, we ended up being connected with some of the coolest people in this little town. What seemed like a wash-out, turned out to earn us some friends we’ve had ever since. The point is: play every gig. Even if it’s just the bartender, you probably at least get some beer out of it. 2. Stay comfortable/ find a distraction. You’re gonna be crammed into a small space with a bunch of strong-willed people for an extended period of time. You’re gonna get on each others’ nerves. The first time I went out, I kept a journal of everything that happened. Mostly funny stuff, but also how the gigs went in different places. It was an excuse to bury my head in something and not talk to the other guys if I didn’t feel like it. Tour journaling got pretty dull after the first trip (although it’s an easy way to talk shit about whoever gets on your nerves), so I do a lot of reading now. I think Michael Azzerad’s book “Our Band Could be Your Life” should be required reading for all music people. Another time, we were in Baton Rouge, and were invited to a crawfish boil. Have you ever been to one of these? There’s like a hundred pounds of bugs on a table, and a bunch of people standing around pulling them apart. I don’t eat meat, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pull apart a bunch of dead bugs. They even had a crawfish liberation ceremony, where they keep one live crawfish, and show him all his dead brethren. Then they give him a name and set him free. They let me name him, and I called him Steve. Anyway, I ate about half a ton of crawfish. It was the first meat I’d had in a long time, and I was sick for two days. My point is, touring is a really bad time to try and change regular things about your lifestyle, like going vegan, or quitting smoking. Personally, I’m a drunk. 3. What goes on the road, stays on the road. It’s like Vegas. There’s just some stuff you don’t talk about at home. After a trip, I find myself acting really abrasive to the people around me, for no real reason. I will tell you that one person I’ve toured with earned the nickname “Foghorn,” for reasons I will not go into. www.brookpridemore.com

Jeff Jacobson

Heavyweight? Undisputed.

Despite the fact that he appears as polished as artists who have been playing the New York City acoustic songwriter scene for years, recent finalist in the annual Williamsburg Live Singer Songwriter Competition, Jeff Jacobson, has really only been playing shows as a solo singer/songwriter for just over a year. It was December of 2003 when Jeff played the Baggot Inn’s Underground Music Online Sunday open mic, and had the first song he ever played in public recorded live and selected for inclusion on the UMO’s “Best Singer/Songwriters of Greenwich Village” compilation CD. After that, it was only after many Wednesdays at the DTUT open mic that Jeff Jacobson finally booked his first solo show – April 26th 2004, when Larry Oakes helped him secure a gig at CBGB’s Underground Lounge. All this after Jeff took a ten year hiatus from performing in public at all, solo or otherwise, to transpose and compose. Jeff got his first guitar when he was only five. After many Long Island afternoons with an acoustic guitar, by age twelve Jeff had discovered Van Halen, the electric guitar, and an obsession with becoming a great guitar player. Honing his music theory skills in high school and further developing them in college at NYU through course work and private lessons, Jeff became more than a great songwriter and guitar player, he became a well rounded musician. Jeff Jacobson’s eclectic songwriting draws from his many phases of listening. From early on Jeff played classical guitar, though he began his independent musical exploration with heavy rock. His first concert experience was the Black and Blue Tour of Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult, only later becoming a fan of R&B music, such as Prince, Stevie Wonder, and James Brown. Somewhere along his journey as a fledgling virtuoso, Jeff also discovered the blues, which he admires because he feels that the blues greats create a lot within a limited rage of possibilities, counting Stevie Ray Vaughn, Albert King, and Albert Collins as some of his favorite bluesmen. Eventually, Jeff was drawn to jazz, which he appreciates for its lush melodies and harmonies, and like R&B, its elaborate and varied chord voicings. Jazz also shares Jeff’s appreciation for the freedom of form, something Jeff was drawn to in college when practicing his classical repertoire. Jeff had been known to add notes to pieces he was practicing because he thought it “sounded good”— blasphemy to his classical teacher who held the written music as the messiah. Jeff includes Van Halen, Stevie Wonder, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie in his list of major influences, along with jazz saxophone player Michael Brecker, who he champions for creating so much passionate and meaningful music within the vast vocabulary of jazz. In the future, Jeff would love to have the opportunity to work with Brecker, but

by Paul Alexander

he also said collaborating with Beck would be a dream come true. Still, before having reached these lofty goals, he has already recorded an album with Rus Irwin, making respected producer Phil Ramone’s cut to remain in Rus’s band and play electric guitar on a major label album, later touring the country as the band opened for Roxette. He even go to play with Rus on the Tonight show in 1991. After his time with Rus, Jeff continued to do session work as a guitar player in Phil Ramone’s personal rolodex, playing on many other albums including Laura Branigan’s “Cover My Heart” album for Epic. Besides winning over audiences almost every evening in some musical manifestation, Jeff has also been working with music everyday since he answered an ad in the

Village Voice in 1989. Jeff transcribes regularly for both Hal Leonard Publishing and Cherry Lane Music, though he has worked for other companies in the past. Jeff’s job entails getting a CD and then painstakingly analyzing every second of the recording in order to notate all of the vocal lines and all guitar parts, complete with chord voicings and fret positions, both in musical notation and in guitar tab. According to Jeff, sometimes the job of transcribing an album is easier than others, as the last Jack Johnson album he transcribed only required him to notate a lead vocal part and several different guitars, while he recalls transcribing Queen’s album, “A Night at the Opera,” as one of his hardest

tasks yet. Transcribing albums may sound like an ideal job for someone as musically inclined as Jeff, but because of his daily onslaught of musical microanalysis, listening to music is often tedious for Jeff, and when he first returned to the music scene, he wanted to listen to other people, but had to work very hard to do just that – listen and not analyze. As a finalist in the annual Williamsburg Live Singer Songwriter Competition, Jeff has been receiving accolades from people across the city, and paired with his membership in a band with growing fame, the Undisputed Heavyweights, Jeff is beginning to notice people not only coming to shows, but returning for more. He prefers to play venues where people come to listen to music, not just to have a beer. Jeff finds it much harder to play when he is only the background music, finding that places like the Rockwood Music Hall, the Kavehaz’s Monday Singer/Songwriter night, the DTUT’s Wednesday open mic, and the Sidewalk Café are his favorite places to play primarily because people come to them for the music. Many people have become Jeff Jacobson fans over the course of his relatively short playing out, but Amy Hills, host of the DTUT’s open mic, has know Jeff since he arrived on the scene just over a year ago. Amy sees so many great songwriters every week, yet of Jeff she has said, “When it comes to his songwriting he brings more to the table than anyone. He has a wealth of experience and knowledge about the guitar and music theory and how things should or shouldn’t sound that I cannot begin to understand. He looks at the guitar and sees a playground, and I just see a guitar…he makes it look so easy but he practices and decomposes and reconfigures and has more drive and determination than almost anyone I know. There is a reason why he has only been performing his material for a year or so and has achieved the success he has. He works hard. He deserves it. Actually, he deserves way more, but he doesn’t have the god awful ego and selfishness—he’s cursed with kindness and humility and patience.” Since the Williamsburg Live Singer Songwriter Competition, Jeff has been joining fellow finalist Jaymay on stages across the city, most recently the Living Room. Additionally, Jeff still regularly plays solo shows, drops in as a guest artist with other friends and songwriters around town, and rehearses and performs regularly with his most serious collaborative project, the Undisputed Heavyweights. As a member of the Undisputed Heavyweights, a group which includes Jeff, Casey Shea, and Wes Verhoeve, Jeff has been amazed at how organically the group has come together, genuinely songwriting as a collective, and playing great music to an ever increasing audience. Founded to fill out Ed Purchla’s CD release party at the Sidewalk Café, Jeff and the Undisputed Heavyweights began their myth at midnight that first night, and have gained momentum every minute since, hosting their own “Heavyweight’s Night” at Piano’s Lounge, playing regularly at Rockwood Music

Hall, making the trek to play in Philadelphia, and generally impressing audiences anywhere they go. Being intimately familiar with the fret board, Jeff realizes that virtuosity can bore, and both as a singer/songwriter, and as a guitar player, he reminds himself to focus on being a good musician, and tries not to focus on just a great guitar line, asserting that “attitude affects how you play.” Jeff even suggests to friends and fellow performers, “Just do your thing,” assuring them that if they stick to that, there’s no reason to be nervous, as nothing could go wrong when you “enjoy who you are…enjoy it for the moment, and keep going.” According to Jeff, the secret to success in front of an audience is to, “Assume you are good and stop trying.” Although Jeff does not place overt messages in his songs, as some songwriters may, and he does not have some agenda which fuel his songs, he does feel like many of his songs revolve around finding courage to do things you didn’t think you could do, not giving up, coming to terms with who you are, and accepting oneself. Inspired not by other music, though indebted to other musicians for turning him onto the art, Jeff Jacobson finds his inspiration in a need to feel alive by creating a song, in reading the autobiographical stories of others who have spent their lives overcoming their own struggles, and especially in his friends and family, such as his nieces, who recently inspired the song “Castles” after returning from a trip to Spain. Besides continuing to build a fan base one person at a time, and undoubtedly continuing to wow listeners of all shapes and sizes at every turn, Jeff would love to begin playing larger venues in the city, such as the Beacon Theater or the Bowery Ballroom, and he has plans to release several CDs of his solo catalogue, even shooting to have one available by the end of this summer. Still, beyond the music, Jeff has been pleasantly surprised by the warmth and support he has found in the NYC acoustic songwriter scene, calling many of the people he has met at various open mics close friends—often attending shows of all the artists featured on his website. Bringing more to the New York City singer/ songwriter scene than merely virtuoso guitar playing and memorable songs, Jeff Jacobson’s humble yet awe inspiring presence has helped foster the warm and supportive scene Jeff has blossomed within, and despite a breakout first year, there is undoubtedly much more groundbreaking music to come from the undisputed heavyweight. Jeff Jacobson: jeffjacobson.net Undisputed Heavyweights: betterthanelvis.com

The Big Onion

breaking through the layers to create Stain Bar

We all have our theories on what constitutes a New Yorker. Some say five years here, others say never. For me it took opening a bar in the further reaches of Williamsburg, becoming a real member of a neighborhood, learning how to tear down walls and build new ones, cranking up and down the squeaky metal gate every day, shoveling the walk when it snows and attempting to grow something in a metal-filled dirt patch. Before all this, I was going south. For several years I had been reading, researching, taking classes, and even buying knickknacks for the arts/wine lounge I had in my head. I knew the name, Stain, and the logo, the red ring a wine glass leaves on a napkin, the décor and the theme. But the overwhelming difficulty of this task, with the added impediment of no money or experience, was crippling. It began to seem simpler and slightly more realistic to do this instead in New Orleans, perhaps the only other place in America I could ever imagine living. As a writer I’ve never been willing to hold down any career-oriented full-time job and have made a rule against office work, which means that for the sake of my “freedom” I’ve always worked far more hours in menial positions for far less money, and I was pooped. Despite my debt and next-to-nil bank account, I somehow managed to get preapproved for a mortgage that could buy maybe a plasticcovered shed in Bensonhurst or…a two-story, two-bedroom, two-bathroom Victorian cottage with a red door, a lush front garden, and a porch swing just a ten-minute free ferry ride across the mythic Mississippi from downtown New Orleans. But something still tugged. I had built a life for myself in New York in the past nine years, this was my home and I’m no quitter. Perhaps I could live in my new cottage seasonally or not at all? I had already subletted my apartment for the month of May and booked a flight when I finally mustered the courage to call one of the phone numbers I had amassed from “For Rent” signs I saw during my regular jogs. I looked at one place in Greenpoint – spacious, exposed brick, perfectly clean – but part of my dream life entailed riding a girlie bike with a basket to my bar, and this seemed too

by Krista Madsen

far. I looked on Craigslist to see what the going rate was for commercial spaces in my area of south/eastern Williamsburg and called the number for 766 Grand. This was it. But I had a flight to catch. Instead of looking at homes or doing anything at all related to my surroundings, I used my trip to New Orleans as a means to hole up anonymously in a room of a former orphanage and churn out a fifty-page business plan, spreadsheets, market surveys and all. I signed up for every credit card I could, dizzied myself with building code regulations and liquor laws, bought temporary tattoos with the Stain logo, created a website, and started contacting local vineyards to see if they would donate some wine for the benefit parties I would throw to raise money. At the end of two weeks in which I slept little and ventured out of my room only to seek out Internet access or a $2 po’boy from the nearest gas station, I did it up New Orleans-style at last by getting a real tattoo of the Stain logo on my arm, a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of wine. I signed the lease for the going-out-of-business Price & Style (a sad clothing store that seemed to feature WWJD tee-shirts, clothespins, plastic vases, and brown nylons, all of which were now mine) based on the weather really. The few times I came to check out this wreck, the sky was a miraculous shade of blue and the view to the church from the junkyard of the backyard looked like it belonged in some European village. My friend calmed my jitters by saying it didn’t matter what the inside was like, it’ll be dark. Phil from the hardware store came to change the locks and he, on the other hand, peered up at the base of the second floor bathtubs you could see from the huge rotten hole in the ceiling, and surmised I was insane. People were also starting to say I was brave, and I do believe signing the lease in the first place was brave (or crazy), but the rest of this three-month adrenaline-fueled renovation was out of pure necessity. Now there was officially a gun to my head saying GO, and AS FAST AS YOU CAN, a grueling race I had to win because I no longer had any choice. It was the hardest

thing I’ve ever done, yet somehow I now get all nostalgic because it turns out sitting every night in the bar I’ve created is far more challenging. A crow bar half the length of me became my friend, along with a long series of unexpected and lifesaving volunteers. I was homeless for another two weeks and dragging luggage from friend’s place to friend’s place when I stopped by my apartment to get my mail and ran into Chris, the unemployed actor still subletting my room. He just wanted to drop by the bar and see what I had gotten myself into, but maybe pity or concern or simple good samaritanship set in and he wound up spending weeks of extremely long days helping with the demolition, broken up only by Dominican Bakery snack breaks and Negra Modelo. I like to refer to this time as the Dark Ages, or Vietnam, as my brother and I had yet to rewire the place and it’s the closest I’ve been to war. I thought we’d remove the wall paneling and the dropped ceiling with its grid of fluorescent lights and just paint the place, instead, the removal of one layer revealed another and another until it felt like archeology, each new store through the years – and apparently there were a lot, perhaps this place was cursed – seemed to feel the need to cover up rather than expose. I was hoping to discover some grand artifact or time capsule, instead there was rat shit and in the layer I figured belonged to the ’70s I found a can of Tab and a rainbow poster. A hole above the back door was stuffed with bottles, chicken bones (I’d like to think it was chicken), and corncobs. I discovered tin ceilings, tin doors, woodwork, a cool curve in the wall, plaster bolstered by clumps of horse hair, the original chain pull windows that were broken and cardboarded over decades ago, patches of ornate wallpaper, and so many different coats of paint it peeled off like fabric. Growing anything in the garden required sifting deep into the dirt. We discovered various rusted metallic objects including what seems to be a 38-special. In the curiously oblong pile of dirt in the basement I dug up a boot as the sole light flashed randomly on and off and I repeated in order to convince myself “I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid.” My demolition trash, mixed in with roomfuls of clothes hangers and clothing racks that the landlord happened to overlook removing before I began, was reaching the ceiling and the walls and threatening to outgrow the room. I pulled a nail out of my foot and decided it was time for a dumpster and a few hired hands. I thought this would take a day and a $1,000 but it took weeks and more money than I like to think about. For fucking garbage. When one of the biggest dumpsters wasn’t enough, it got to the point after many man-with-a-van rides to the dump, that I solicited the help of a few local thugs and rented a U-Haul. They lowered the project to new illegal depths, but

garbage became my white whale and I would do anything at this point to see it dead. Between them dumping bags in abandoned lots, we started burning wooden trash in a pyre we created in the backyard with the old air conditioning ducts that lined the ceiling. Were it not for the drug addict in army fatigues tending the flames and the six engines from the Fire Department making a visit, it would have felt like camp. Sometimes I had to emerge from my dark cave and attempt to wear the trappings of normal citizenship (harder and harder to pull off these days as I was becoming known in the ‘hood as “The Girl With the Dirty Pants”), and circle the rings of Hell known as City Hall. Red tape is a euphemism. I went to one window and they sent me to another window, as this automated voice reads incomprehensible numbers over the loudspeaker, and around and around again until one lady asked for my ticket number and sent me back to the first window to get one and so on. Finally, some kinder gentler person took me under his wing and set me up with a teller who would actually talk to me for a second. I came to collect a Certificate of Occupancy for my building, but apparently it didn’t exist, so I had to create one. This man sent me on a scavenger hunt to do so, involving many offices and trains to places like East New York. When I arrived back from my two-day journey, flushed with my folder of ten found items of maps, pictures, plots, someone closed their window in my face. “But you close at 5,” I whelped. “Not today.” The next day I came back only to discover that all I had done was futile, my building did in fact already have a certificate but it wouldn’t fly for a bar so I needed to start over in the office of… My roommate at the time happened to be an architect and I dragged myself all hangdog and demoralized to his office. His boss mandated No More City Hall for You, as he phoned a liquor lawyer, an expeditor and began drafting plans for my work permits. All this “help” amounted to more money than my DIY self was prepared to pay, but in the end I’m sure my time was better spent on that eight-foot ladder, where I was beginning to feel quite comfortable. As the core of this place emerged, I felt if I squinted I could see what it must have been. The first record I found of this building in my expeditions through government offices was from 1915, when the retail space of the four-floor tenement was a liquor store. Back then a liquor store would have also been a bar, but then Prohibition happened. I learned from the owner of the laundromat next door that our buildings date back to 1890. My dad independently came up with the same year when he saw the handcut wooden beams holding up the basement predating mechanized saws. My brother pointed out the entire history of electricity on the

basement ceiling from the first delicate wires to today’s sturdy rat-proof BX. The name “Leon” is spray-painted in the basement and the back wall of the garden and I often wondered who and how long dead Leon was. One day, Leon showed up and said he and five Ukrainian siblings grew up upstairs in a two-bedroom railroad. He described the long series of grocery stores that would get shut down in the ’80s when they started selling crack, and the dead body he once had to step over to get in the building, which was for sale not long ago for a few ten-thousand dollars. Then the bad clothing stores began, and the ladies who illegally cut hair in the back room, putting the “Style” in the Price & Style. At least they weren’t referring to the tee-shirts. I relish these stories, dead bodies and all, and I take pride in knowing that I too am playing some minor role now in the history. Through this trial-and-error education in plastering holes, sheetrocking, plumbing, electrical work, demolition, perseverance, the kindness of many, and simply magic, I have changed a piece of New York, bringing it both full circle and somewhere else entirely. My goal has

been to create more of a community center than a bar, with an obsessive commitment to local products (wine and beer from the state), talent and events (open mics, art openings, theme parties, craft nights, readings). Now I’m trying to read as many New York history books as I can in order to regale patrons in the wee hours with tidbits like how the first subway was propelled down a short tube by a fan and other stories that make this city more of an endlessly layered onion than a big apple. I’ll never know a fraction of all there is to know about this city, but I thrive on the continual challenge of a place that never lets you be complacent. You’re a New Yorker, I think, when you choose to be. www.stainbar.com. Stain Bar, open daily, is located at 766 Grand Street (L to Grand), in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 718/387-7840. Owner Krista Madsen is the author of the novels Degas Must Have Loved a Dancer, and Four Corners (out in July).

Exegesis Department Justify the music

with Dan Penta of Cockroach

Devil Come Madness In the padded room Where I was born with a million thorns To a black eyed boy From a cotton amnion With cheap vinyl lining How could I compete With the ancient glue The quire shreeked “Motherfucker, shoot!” I did They locked me up for being crazy From the day-glo tree’s where they hung my head The maggots fed on asphalt bread Her fuzzy creepers snuff you like a faggot Devil come madness You’re on your own Devil come madness No one knows Devil come madness No one ever knew you I wanna touch you but I can’t even say hello I wanna touch you but i can’t even say... You know

Dan, why the hell did you write this song? I woke before the birds. In a darkened room. On a mattress made of cold white viynl. Wrapped in a white sheet and a heavy blue blanket. I was pregnant. A nest full of hatchlings. I was chewing my food and spitting it back for them to eat. When I was 17 my parents had me institutionalized. They had no choice really. I was a weeping wreck. Everything was beauty to me. I felt intense strife between people. It shattered me. And when you’re out there all alone, you’re really alone. Friendship has expired. Blinding white bulbs now less than dim. This is where loyalties die. They can’t help you now. Except they do. I was reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Freedom. This freak flag. Proud deformity. Running free. Like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest where he sees that dog escaped from the kennel sucking in the night get hit by a car and die there in the street. A bloody death. But he dies free. I knew this girl Laura. Sometimes she was there. She had this pair of creepers with fuzzy leopard print. The grace of her snuffing out a cigarette on her front lawn. It struck me then. I had forgotten the code. The numbers you punch to move unnoticed thru the sane world. Psycotic, I had my own equations. What if you took every dare. “Shoot, Motherfucker!” Well you asked for it. No one really knows what it’s like to be anyone else. I tried to break through but the walls were nothing but air. I knew this other girl back there, later on. She told me people come and go. She was saying of course that it was time for her to go. And she was right. Goodbye. hearthmusic.net

Profiles in AntiFolk

Kirk Kelly, model citizen

In the beginning, there was Kirk Kelly. Actually, if you count - as many of us do - the beginning to be when the AntiHootenanny started way back in the mid-eighties, then even before the beginning, there was Kirk Kelly. Back when some jacked-up punk kids were kicked out of the West Village acoustic clubs for playing too loud or saying ‘fuck’ too much or mohawking their hair or just not sharing their drugs, Kelly was there. He was kicked out, too. It’s strange to imagine Kelly abandoned by the West Side established folk scene, considering how traditional so much of his material is. After all, Kirk Kelly is a leftist. Kirk Kelly sings traditional folk songs: union songs, celtic songs, political songs, all that stuff. Kirk Kelly is an activist, and he covers Joe Hill in his sets. Despite his credentials as a card-carrying folky, he was ousted by Folk City for promoting some East Village show. So, along with fellow rejects Lach, Roger Manning, and his then-girlfriend Cindy Lee Berryhill, Kelly went East, and discovered AntiFolk. Kirk Kelly founded the Folk Brothers with Lach – even recorded a cassette back in ‘85. If you’re very good and attentive to the schedule, you can still see them play their annual “rehearsal” at the Sidewalk Café. They don’t play often, and they’re sets are shambling, absurdist events, but they’re a lot of fun. The two acoustic players obviously enjoy each other and the two or three songs that they’ll only perform together. Kirk Kelly was there at the start, and, it seems, he’ll be there at the end. Of all the original AntiFolksters, Kelly is alone in his continued presence within the community. Lach, of course, does the same, but he’s in charge of a club, and, in essence, a scene. As a member of the scene, only Kirk remains. Only Kirk abides. Perhaps it’s Kirk Kelly’s relationship with communities that keeps him involved. His professional life is, after all, informed by his folk-singing history. He’s a unionizer. It started organically. He’d spent time as a day laborer,

by Jonathan Berger

picking fruit on Long Island, where he worked “an honest day’s work, for a half a day’s pay” (hear all about it in “Working in the Vineyards”). It got him started playing union rallies and picket lines. Working as an airline reservationist, he became shop’s steward, and has been working in, for and around unions ever since.

His vocation and art feed off one another, as evidenced by May 12th’s Go Time!, an irregular entertainment series that Kelly hosts. This one was to support the organizing campaign for the IWW/Starbuck’s Union. As MC and curator for the event, Kelly selected acts he’s known during his over-20 years performing in the City. Zero Boy, John S. Hall and Seth Tobacman were old friends. Cover girl Erin Regan and Beau Johnson are newer vintage. Together, they all did their part to raise awareness of labor movements and help fund the IWW’s effort to unionize Starbuck’s. During Kelly’s own set, he revised an old Joe Hill song, “Rebel Girl,” as a rollicking sing-along, performed the traditional “What Do you Do with a Drunken Sailor” with new lyrics about Fighting Wobblies, and sang his own usual set-closer, “We Won the War,” written about the original Gulf War, but obviously, just as resonant today. Kelly has been called “The Billy Bragg of NYC,” and there’s much truth to that. Just like Bragg, Kelly has the same first and last initial. Just like Bragg, he has five letters

in his last name. Just like Bragg, he does not record as often as he should. And just like Bragg, Kelly mixes “pop and politics” on a regular basis. Just like Bragg, of course, he runs the risk of being heard as too much of a firebrand, and not enough of a troubadour. In both cases, the love songs resonate more strongly than the political. There is probably nothing more powerful in his set that “Shenagh Says,” recording a breakup. Kelly’s more recent “New City,” about the changes in a regentrified New York, is also great, as are innumerable others. His pop hits are best though, just like Bragg. Back in the day, Kirk Kelly was one of the first AntiFolk artists to expand beyond the East Village. His first album was on punk record label SST in 1988. Entitled Go Man Go, it did about as well as you’d expect an acoustic record to do on a punk label. His next album, 1997’s New City (after than song mentioned above) came out on Kelly’s own Mugsy Records, as will future releases (based on the math of his recording history, we should expect something new late next year). Kelly explains his reasons for independence: “I realized then I had to do it myself. The entertainment industry is organized the same way that the old robber barons organized the railroads.” Mugsy Records has other artists, including Kelly’s other project, Paddy on the Railway, which features the Violent Femmes’ Brian Ritchie. The other bands, presumably adhere to Kelly’s ethos: In order for us to become who we want to be we must know who we are and no political revolution can endure without cultural revolution. America belongs to those who build it, fix it, run it, clean it, protect it, feed it, care for it and educate it. In the work we do we forge a common identity and it is the work of its most progressive artists to

give voice to that identity. America’s popular culture must tell the real story of its people and reflect its true identity. This is the mission of MUGSY Records. Kirk Kelly has got lots of gigs. Between rallies, solo shows, Paddy on the Railway, and occasional Go Time! Events, he’s always in gear. And his albums are available over at Mugsy Records. There’s no reason not to check out this Architect of AntiFolk. mugsyrecords.com

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Subway Stories

tricks of the trade

VI. I Get Busted I got cocky. Cops can be dicks, but sometimes a ticket is just evidence that you don’t know when to shut your mouth and move on. 110th St. had become my home. I had been playing there long enough to know a lot of the regular crowd and they were generally friendly and keeping my bills paid. The station manager and other attendants saw things a little differently though, telling me to move before the cops came and got me, and generally being snotty and rude about me playing there. Having read way too much rhetoric about fighting for our first amendment rights as subway and street artists, I didn’t want to be pushed around. Standing my ground, I would always politely inform them that the law was on my side and keep playing. One night one of the younger attendants came out and threatened to call the cops. I went through my usual routine of telling him the law when he threw up his hands in exasperation. “Goddamnit, I have a headache and a long shift and that shit is just too loud in there!” he said, pointing towards the booth. Knowing I needed the money, and not wanting to lose my platform, I simply moved over a few steps and kept playing. Not ten minutes later two cops showed up. “Do you have a permit?” they asked, already more unfriendly then most transit cops I had dealt with. “I don’t need a permit.” “You don’t tell me what you need, either move along or I’ll write you a ticket right now.” Usually I would, but something told me that between the cops and the station attendants, if I left now I might lose my platform for good. Not that arguing with a cop had ever gotten anyone anywhere. “Yeah, what for? This is perfectly legal. You have to know that.” “Don’t tell me the law, you move on or I’ll write you a ticket for playing here without a permit.” “You can’t and you know it.” My face was getting hot, and my adrenaline started going (it never helps that cops are always taller than me), but I think also I was a little curious. What exactly was he going to write me up for? I figured they had to have some kind of an actual offense to bust me on, or were they just going to make something up? It was time to

by Dave Cuomo

find out. “I know the exact law. It’s transit code section 1050 c something. I can read it to you if you want.” “What are you, a fucking lawyer? You read me the law and I’ll write you a ticket.” “For what?!” “I already told you! Fucking lawyer.” By this point a crowd had gathered to watch, and I will say in my defense that between the rush of arguing with a cop and the tension and energy the crowd brought to things, I began to lose my head. Pissed and exasperated I grabbed a copy of Urban Folk issue one and opened to the part where we had printed the transit code about subway performing. Loudly and with my finger raised sternly in the air I quoted him the law while the crowd around us watched on. When I was done the cop shook his head and laughed. “All right, give me your ID.” I handed it to him, my blood still boiling, but also curious as to what they were going to do. I watched with some amusement of my own as he and his partner stammered around with the ticket for a while, whispering back and forth, and apparently not knowing what exactly to do. My ego rising, I began thinking I might have actually won this round. I pictured them handing me back my ID sheepishly and taking their leave when they realized they had nothing on me. After some time of letting my smugness rise, watching them whisper over what to do, a man I had seen sitting off to the side in a plain hoody got up and walked over to the cops. He was now wearing a police badge around his neck. He leaned over and whispered something about a certain section of transit code 1050.6 c, no playing within 25 feet of a token booth. The cop nodded and finished the ticket and handed it to me. I felt stupid. My pride vanished instantly and I felt about two inches tall. Of course the cops had won, was there ever any doubt? Anything you ever do in life, a cop can find a way to bust you for for if they want to. This wasn’t about first amendment rights, it was about me annoying a station attendant and a cop doing him a favor. I took my $25 ticket and left, knowing I would never bother to fight it or pay it. Of course I told the cops that they were wrong about the distance, and that I would measure it (I did actually measure it later, and it turns out I was just barely too close, but they

didn’t know that when they wrote the ticket). “See you in court,” he laughed, knowing neither of us would go to a hearing over $25. As I left the station a high school kid stopped me and asked for a copy of the magazine. “Man, that was so cool how you printed the law. And then you read it right to the cop like that. Man, that’s awesome!” I felt far from awesome. I felt like a kid too big for his britches that hadn’t done his homework before opening his big mouth. “Sure man, thanks,” I mumbled and walked off. I tried playing 110th St. one more time after that, standing as far from the booth as I could while still being near the people. The crowd was great, but within a half hour two cops showed up. Extremely friendly this time, they told me it was really loud in the booth and hard for the attendant to work, and would I mind doing the guy a favor and moving down to a different platform? They were being honest and friendly and I’m really not in the business of trying to ruin someone’s day, so I complied and haven’t been back since. It was a shame losing the spot that had become my home, but no matter how well the crowd and I got along there, the nagging feeling that every song I play would be annoying someone took all the joy out of it. I said goodbye to the station and set out to find myself a new home downtown. VII. The Audition All too often it is too late before we realize the sheer joy that performing can be. In the last verse of my audition I felt it. When all the anxiety had faded, when I remembered that I already knew these chords, knew this song, knew how to say what I was trying to say, I was finally left in the moment to just play. Alone in the middle of a circle of stone faced judges in the corner of an enormous room with all of its excited performers, supporters, and press, I felt the weight of it all as something great to be a part of. I sang them a song of revolution and hope. I called it out to a hundred foot high ceiling with all the passion that had brought me to New York in the first place with the idea that I had something to

say if anyone walking by wanted to listen. I played as hard and well as I ever had and in the final moments of the song I lost myself in the dance in front of the judges knowing I would forever miss the pure joy of singing off the stone in that great room. I struck the last chord hard, and without thinking I took a sweeping bow as the applause washed over me. I sat in my room with the envelope in my hand, not really wanting to open it. Jennie was sitting next to me smiling, telling me its thickness could only mean good things. It didn’t feel that thick to me. Most of my emotion surrounding the whole thing had faded. In the weeks since my audition I had talked and thought about it too much, and felt I had made my peace with whatever they decided. I could play freely wherever I wanted no matter what any panel of judges said. Still there was something nice about the idea of New York City putting my name on a banner and asking me to play for them. I hated the fact that opening the envelope was going to either make me feel like I really might be as good as I like to think I am, or that I had failed and was still just struggling along with no sign of things getting any easier. Who were these anonymous “industry professionals” to have that kind of power over me anyway? I’ve heard both sides to the Music Under New York program. To some it is an attempt by the city to control the free world of subway performing. Other see their banners as something to be proud of, an endorsement by the city, and an easier way to make a living underground. For me it was a way to tell myself that what I do really is a legitimate job just as valid as any other. Also, it sounded like an easier way to make a living. I was tired of the hit or miss days, never knowing when you went down if you were going to find a good spot, or even if you did, if the crowd would be in any kind of a generous mood that day. I saw the permit as a way to provide some sense of reliability and reassurance to what I was doing. The transit board has set aside twenty or so places in the subway system they consider to be the best playing spots and every week a schedule is drawn up for the

Dave Cuomo + Jes Cuomo = Cuomo! tuesday 6/14 10pm at the Sidewalk Café (NE corner of Ave A & 6 St.)

performing their full length album -Three Chord Plan of Redemption

hear the songs; myspace.com/davecuomo [email protected] for album info

artists in the program and they can pick specific times to play at each location. Other performers can play at these spots as long as there is not a scheduled artist there. Auditions are held once a year in Vanderbilt Hall at Grand Central Station for a panel described only as industry professionals. Each year around 250 artists apply, of which about 70 are asked back to the live audition, and around ten of these are finally admitted. Once granted, the permit is valid for life. When the first envelope came I was excited. I felt confident, but still a little scared. In all the demos I had ever sent out, I had never heard back good news. Still, I had also never been rejected after a live audition. All I had to do was make it to Grand Central and I would be fine. Jennie sat next to me anxiously while I tore into it and pulled out the letter. “Congratulations!” was about all I got to read before rolling over and laughing happily. Entering Vanderbilt Hall I was greeted with an excited buzz. It is an enormous room, and I got goose bumps at the thought of the acoustics in a place with hundred foot high ceilings and pure stone walls. As I took in the sight of performers milling around with any number of imaginable instruments whishing each other luck and mumbling to themselves, supporters gawking along the sidelines, and all the press sticking their cameras and microphones in everyone’s faces, my dark mood and fears began to fade and give way to a calm determination fueled by the energy surrounding me. Jennie had come to meet me and I found her with moist eyes. I appreciated knowing that this felt important to her too. We were ushered over towards the judges to wait my turn. There were about twenty of them seated in a semi circle facing the corner like some grand council. There was a wooden flute duet taking their turn before me, and I felt a little guilty for wishing them to sound dull so that I might come across as fresh and exciting after them. They finished and I took my place in the middle of the semi-circle. The judge’s faces were impassive and gave away nothing, except for an older man seated right in front of me beaming from ear to ear. I greeted them confidently and started into my song. I started slow with a song that I knew would rise, hoping that by the time I hit the high dramatic Spanish bridge at the end that the judges would be able to rise with me, and we could take the trip together. Immediately after, I would launch into a fast and powerful rendition of Dylan’s “When the Ship Comes In,” the most empowering song I know and one with lyrics that say most of what I would ever like to say in a song. As I went through the buildup of the first song, I knew I was thinking too much about the judges. I also knew that by the time I reached the

Spanish bridge I wouldn’t be thinking about anything except the feeling I had when I originally wrote the part one night during an insomnia fueled madness, endlessly repeating those same chords over and over, singing as loud as I could on the bank of a little river with no one around to hear. Finally I made myself open the letter, with Jennie gripping my arm excited. We scanned through the parts about how hard the decision was and how wonderful all the performers were, looking for the familiar “Congratulations!” “Oh no,” Jennie said after a minute. I placed the letter down and laid on the bed. I had been telling people that if I didn’t get in I would be surprised more than anything else, because I really thought I had shown them whatever it was they might be looking for in a subway performer. I found myself less surprised than hurt. Immediately my head began filling with bitter rationalizations about how the program is just interested in gimicky bullshit like one man cover bands or a guy playing bad organ music for mechanical dancing dolls. Besides, I don’t need anyone to tell me that I can play underground. I’ve been doing it for the better part of a year. Really it’s just an unnecessary system set up to try to control the free world of subway performing. Of course a week ago I had been walking around loudly singing the praises of the program and the audition. For a moment I thought I should take it as a sign and go get a real job. But honestly I’ve come too far to go and do that any time soon. I’d have to just take the rejection for what it was and continue on. In the days immediately after my audition I notice a change in my performances. Something about the feeling of grandeur I got while playing in Vanderbilt Hall hasn’t completely gone away. I feel like I passed some sort of a test as a performer and will always be a stronger player for it. Now whenever I wonder how to play for an audience, all I have to do is picture myself in the middle of those judges and I instantly find my feet and voice. I think it took playing in a place as grand and historic as Grand Central Station to remind me that every song you play can carry that same weight and importance if you let it. Setting up my case and tuning my guitar in Union Square I look around at the commuters and smile at them pleasantly. Some smile back, some don’t. I strike up a C chord and sing out a song for both. www.myspace.com/cuomomusic

AUGUSTULUS (for Danny) Gussie got fucked early and often by his uncle who adopted him so he could do it more. Gussie got raped by his new dad a powerful man that no one dared contest. Against his will Gussie got fucked. He didn’t like it but it didn’t matter because at that time with those people no one talked about it. His uncle had his way and Gussie got touched Gussie got molested Gussie got fucked.

Poetry Page Don’t Play with Tachyons if You Can’t Afford the Time!

If love is c the universal constant the only parameter the only thing true in a room with skewed perspective frustrations a world that cannot see the same angles hope and joy contracting to a bottomless stop time well while the lover’s smile remains a constant upturned 90º light cone an ice cream cone that always holds its shape

untitled I had become quite tired Of my troubled mind So, I sought the advice Of a wise old friend He advised I exorcise My demons With discipline Run them out Then embrace my creativity Make love to life ‘Til I’m plain worn out

Than you were the Tachyon who outran c broke the parameter’s backbone called constants stupid shown right angles dull So I climbed the flights of fancy arrived before it was sent Counted each step to tell us we’re going to need a new theory To mark the memories The assent so high I was breathless - Dave Cuomo I believed I could even fly

Eventually his uncle died badly and Gussie grew up and became as big as his uncle as his dad. Gussie was the most powerful man anyone had ever seen and that’s when the real fucking began. - Jonathan Berger

Afterthought What he intended to express was for naught. And what sounded?--he can scarcely recall. It was some awkward burst of safe words. But in his mind, he expressed everything. His mind enlivened with eloquent precision. The intent mind proposed a touch... and an eager surrender... and an otherworldly sensation... and a momentum... And he doesn’t even know the entirety of it... The words never came. - Tyrus Gray

But the discipline wed me to the staircase And the steps were ever mounting And determination to reach the top Kept me moving By then I couldn’t stop. I climbed for what seemed like hours Then days turned into months I realized this staircase was endless And I was only given one hour for lunch So I turned with the intention To make my descent If I ran perhaps I could save my job But the flight of fancy I had mounted Had disappeared into a fog. - Arlene Cassarino

Paul’s Perspective

You can’t do it all...

Doing many things doesn’t always constitute doing things well. In fact, doing many things may actually lead not only to doing some of those things poorly, but actually sabotage all of the things you are doing, devour, your every waking moment, alienate your friends and loved ones, leave you tired, leave you poor, leave you rich but alone, leave you wondering how with everything on your plate you ended up starving for more accomplishing less and two steps behind where you began — or then again you could just succeed in all of your endeavors equally well, and make people like me incredibly jealous. Since our special first issue extravaganza, I have been working a day job in order to pay rent and eat occasionally, running a weekly open mic which I hope some of you come to checkout, booking showcases, interviewing the famous and personable Jeff Jacobson, and when I find a free moment, I’m recording an album… “Ghost tracks” (Thursday March 24, 2005) Before anything else can happen in the studio, my producer and I had to spend some time today discussing how my songs should be structured, how long the intro should be, if the musical interlude I wrote really belongs, change the ending, or modify a bridge, and then, I have to lay down what Benjy calls “ghost tracks,” or a guide track for all the other musicians to follow as we build the album from my solo performance up. After about an hour and the occasional heated debate, Benjy and I were able to begin setting click tracks for me to follow for the first three songs we decide to tackle, “Flood,” “Run to Me (He Said, She Said),” and “Maybe.” It’s amazing how long it takes just to determine the tempo of a song you swear you’ve been playing at the same speed for years. While recording the tracks, Benjy kind of conducted me as I was playing, and sometimes it was hard to follow the click, remember my lines, sing in the new keys we’ve put a few of the songs in, and make the changes on the fly that Benjy made as the tape was rolling, but in the end I think we ended up with decent enough rough versions of the songs for people to play to. I over sing and over emote a lot on the tracks, but Benjy wanted me to give the other musicians a “feeling” of the song. I can’t wait to see how these songs sound as they begin to flesh themselves out — Benjy’s other recordings really make it sound as though everything is happening all at once, as though a solo artist is really in a band. Gone but not forgotten (Friday March 25, 2005) While I was at work yesterday Benjy had a drummer come

by Paul Alexander

into the studio and add the drums to my first three songs. He seems overly confident of the drummer’s ability and he assures me that they ended up with some really great work, but I wish I could have been there to help in the process. I just hope I can live with the results of their efforts, since Benj is paying for the drummer and without more bread I really have no basis to object to what they’ve done. After spending more time with the rough “ghost tracks” and some albums I left to him to peruse, including everything from the Counting Crow’s “August and Everything After” to Bob Schneider’s “Lonelyland,” Benjy also had many “constructive” comments about my voice and my vision for the album. He reminded me that many of the albums I love come from the mid-90s and that according to him, my album has to sound “fresh,” while being more critical than before of certain vocal tendencies I have and suggesting that we look into the voice lessons we had discussed at one point early on. The Real guitar (Thursday March 31, 2005) Tonight when I showed up I was more concerned with my strings staying in tune and not popping off my guitar than I was with actually recording my parts. Even though I have been changing the strings on my twelve-string guitar for years now, it never seems to get any easier, and they stretch so much for what seems like forever, that since I’d only changed them two days before and even had to dust off my old six-string to play at my open mic on Tuesday, I was really nervous about how good it would sound. Not to mention the fact that I’ve always been especially self conscious about my voice and I was still preoccupied with Benjy’s recent barrage of critical comments, and I was certain that despite Benjy’s opinion that my album should sound “fresh,” I still think my album can and should still possess some of the flavor of all the mid-90s albums which helped shape my vision of what an album could be, and I happen to adore. Still, as it turned out, the intonation of my guitar, my vocal abilities, and the overall sound of my album really should have been the last thing on my mind tonight. As confident as I thought I was with the songs, some of which I have played for years, I really got a workout tonight as we re-recorded my guitar parts for the first three songs of my album. Evidently unbeknownst to me, I play things in my songs that suggested drum parts that, though probably more interesting

than others I have had put to my songs in the past, really threw me tonight. All in all I think I handled my self fairly well, but I’ve got to learn to shut-up and play. Benjy can be the warmest most comforting presence at most times, but when the tape is rolling and we’re at work, I learned real fast tonight that I’ve got to just play my part, concentrate, let my own opinions go, and just listen to his directions. It sounds easy enough to just follow directions I know, and I did hire him for his professional advice, but he changed the ending of one of my favorite songs after we argued about it at length when laying down the “ghost tracks.” I was so thrown by the change tonight that I kept screwing up the ending, and I just couldn’t bite my tongue, so we ended up arguing over the merits of both endings, though looking back the argument really was futile, given that he was bound to win since he had the drummer end it his way on the recording. Aggravating as that is, it was even more aggravating to have my producer tell me that it was not appropriate to end the song my way because according to him I had just done it that way at some point and not really thought about how it should end, when I know I couldn’t have thought more about it. At any rate, after hours and hours of playing the same songs over and over, the first take almost always blew the others away, but for minor mistakes. In the end, between the new strings, great mics, and good mic placement, the drums and guitar tracks sound really good. In addition, I finally even convinced Benjy to let me bring a rough copy to my friend Matt who I really want to have play bass on the album because he knows my songs and I am sure he is good enough, despite the fact that Benjy really only wants

to work with people he has experience with for the other parts of my album. Benjy really is a great guy and he made me feel like I’d done a really professional job tonight as I was leaving. I just hope I can learn to let go even more and trust that Benjy knows what’s best. I don’t need to play all of the parts on the album to feel ownership or know that the line will be “right,” and so I need to remember that if I want this to be the best album it can be, I need to openly accept my own limitations and inexperience, remembering that I can’t do it all, and know that has to include not making all the decisions. palexandermusic.com

WHAT YOU DO IS NOT ORIGINAL; WHAT I DO IS ORIGINAL Alec Wonderful speaks of earlier fanzines

by Alec Wonderful

Seeing the new kids do their thing at Urban Folk, I think back to the good old days, when I was young and Wonderful. I used to put out a fanzine, too. It had a slightly narrower scope than Urban Folk’s, and yet, strangely, it covered all things under the sun. It was the print organ of my fan club, which maxxed out in the early nineties at 50 million members. No joke. It seemed that certain Indonesian families subscribed their ancestors and the unborn, anxious that the club would someday cancel its open enrollment policy. How ridiculous! As if I would ever refuse anyone the chance to live with a Wonderful light shining upon them – plus, the ten dollar entrance fee paid for my chateau in New Jersey. Yeah, I said Jersey. You wanna make something of it? Anyway, the fan club, Friends of Alec, they deserved some benefit from membership, something more than the sense of belonging they got, knowing they were part of something greater than themselves. So I started putting out a fanzine called Wonderful News, dedicated to the goings-on of everyone’s number one AntiFolk All-Star, which, in case you’ve been dead forever, is me. To be sure that only the best writing and morst accurate news got into the monthly newsletter, I kept a watchful eye, ensuring complete quality control over the product. I wrote the first issue myself. I thought it would stretch different muscles than writing perfect AntiFolk song after perfect AntiFolk song. I figured it would be a test of my creative skills. It wasn’t, really, because it turned out I filled out the magazine like I fill everything else: extraordinarily, amazingly… Wonderfully. So I was disappointed by the lack of challenge, but the people, they loved it. I mailed it out to certain old friends, so they could keep abreast of my goings-on. It affected many in many different ways. Here’s how: • There was an advice column. I posed theoretical questions, brain-teasers that have plagued man for generations, and then I answered them. I believe it inspired Clinton to run for office. The column was called Alec Says, and soon afterwards, Lach had this song, “Stephen Said.” I know that Kirk Kelly’s got a song called “Shenagh Says.” Brenda Kahn’s got “Christopher Says,” and Beck, he produced an album for K Records called Wunderful Sayings. Coincidence? Maybe, except I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe in me, and Yoko. But that’s another story. • Jann Wenner started retooling Rolling Stone around then. His fonts are suspiciously like mine. • One of my articles was about the genesis of ideas. I cited

a song-cycle I had blasted out one drunken afternoon, about a young wizard and his coming of age. It was the result of a drunken brainstorming session, but I thought the fans should see how I allowed ideas to germinate, fulminate, inculcate in my skull. I called the song-cycle “Harry Warthog, Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. According to my subscription list, a Jo Rowling received a copy of that first Wonderful News. I’m not asking for royalties or anything; I’m just saying. After that first issue came and went, I had a bunch of people begging to submit to Wonderful News. Several were obviously groupies who just wanted the chance to interview me – or, that’s what I thought at the time. This happened during my short-term addiction to Elmer’s, and sometimes, my suspicions got the better of me. Some guys, like Hunt Thompson, Tommy Wolfe and Little Georgie Plimpton, they obviously were just trying to jump on the Wonderful bandwagon. In fact, Bob Guccione Jr. tried to intern with me back then. But I felt I couldn’t trust any of them. One kid caught my eye, though. He’d written a letter to the editor, asking me to come to his hospital and sign his cast (he’d broken his leg, apparently, trying to jump my fence). The letter was simply written, but profound. There

were footnotes, and the typing was moderately accurate. When he healed up, I invited him to my chateau in the South of Jersey and asked if he wanted to work on Wonderful News with me. I swear, watching grown men weep is always a turn-on. Long story, short, that young kid that I gave a break to? Turns out his name was Dan Brown. Or Jonathan Safran Foer. Or Norman Mailer. Or Michael Glass. I’m never too good with names. But he helped me out for a while, and I gave him the experience he needed to pull himself up by his bootstraps, become the writer he always wanted to be. I don’t need thanks. I don’t mind that he – whoever he is – has yet to dedicate any works to me. I don’t even mind that my lawsuits were denied due to “inadmissible evidence.” I’m the kind of guy who’s totally willing to suffer in silence, so long as everybody knows about it. Anyway, I eventually saw that by editing my own fanzine, I might have given the kids the best possible product, but they missed out on something important. The fans, they didn’t get the chance to express their own love and appreciation of Alec Wonderful themselves. What would the fans do without a chance to make their own personal macaroni sculptures of their heroes? Or their own insipid epic poems singing my praises? I just couldn’t do that to them. So I sold controlling of Wonderful News to News Corporation, which promptly dismantled my infrastructure for parts, selling them to the highest bidder. I’m not one to meddle, but I think they made a cool fifty million on the

exchange – coincidentally, the number of subscribers that were receiving Wonderful News at that time. I think back on that money fondly. And I never wrote another article for another fanzine ever again.

Air Wasn’t Air

fiction

I met him in May and saw him die in February, when what looked like air wasn’t air. He and the others pelted like a slanted hailstorm against the glass, and fell. Dead upon arrival, I surmised from my own stupored position on the cold grass, no trace of any external injury. He fell near me, as if I was his idea of heaven, or home. I want to believe it happened so fast he had no time to register the reflection of himself in the glass before it knocked him senseless, no time to see me either, squawking to get his attention, too late. Just replete with berries, impossibly happy with the memory of crimson color and sweet juice, he crashed into the windows of the office buildings enclosing our courtyard. The office workers too deep in their cubicles to emerge on time to stop these dozens upon dozens from bursting their blood vessels all in unison like some opera chorus reaching crescendo. Better this way surely, leaving me when there were still so many things too good to be true. Before the dissolution that would surely set in, bitterness, regret, onto-the-nextbird but still the hurt. We counted our love by more berries than your average couple, more months. There are many reasons to feel blessed. But that day, mine was a drunken grief, unsure of the line between my nauseous belly and my broken heart. May to February, it was as fast as that, but longer than our kind can usually lay claim to, when the fledglings disperse and the practical union has run its course. In the beginning, in the spring mating dance, we hopped back and forth, passing our berries between our beaks. Soon I squeezed our five eggs from my body into the nest we made. He perched on a branch overlooking this position I was stuck in, incubating for two weeks, and fed me the berries we love most, always berries, and flower petals, beetles, weevils, ants, cicadas, caterpillars. Soon there were young ones to feed and we caught insects at first, then onto berries by the second day. In a month’s time, our babies were gone, unlikely to return again, perhaps we’d recognize a note or a feather someday and feel a tinge but never be sure. He could have left then too, all duties done, but I begged him to do better than that, could we not surpass our biological clocks, I asked with my buzzing trill, he called it. Begging. His face that black mask we all have, particularly hard to read, particularly at times like this. Come with me to the Carolinas, I said. Let’s go south. It’s a gregarious flock, I would have seen him regardless, moving in on next year’s mate, and I would have had to admire the orange striped tail of the male in front of me just to spite him, but instead – and I could have never dreamt for this – he stayed by my side as we flew ahead of the coming

by Krista Madsen

snow. He hinted that he knew a place for us to summer in, a veritable paradise of berries. You and your berries, I joked, always with the berries, trying to seem light and humorous when tangible waves of adoration and relief rolled through me and I had to flap even harder to steady myself in the formation. Other couples only had berries on time for the children, the whole mating thing timed so the berries are ripe for the babies. But we always had berries, nine months of fruit, an abundance of berries. And the way he served them to me, beak to beak, like passing bits of his red heart, until I suppose there was none left to pass.

***

I am all eyes, all nose, all taste. I can sense the berries before any of them, far off in the inscrutable distance, in the future, in the past. And the desire for the fruit becomes larger than anything, engulfs the world, until the sun itself, all burnt in the winter afternoon, looks like the best and biggest berry of all, and we fly closer and closer, and I lead them. Until we burn too. We burn on the inside. But it burns in a way that reminds you which organ is which and where and how inside you are insides, not just this idea of self, soft and soulful, but real, blood and guts, acid, churn. All else recedes. The hunger is insatiable, impossible, overpowering, simplistic, until suddenly there is fullness beyond repair, and no recollection of how you let it go this far. There was no set path between not-enough and too-much, no markers, no stopping mechanisms. Our species, if I can blame it on the species, should be fat or extinct, but we’re birds, and whatever piggishness we have is somehow accounted for in the formulas and the hyperactive digestive patterns and the way it all just is. So we consume, we are engines of consumption, and when presented with a field of berries, we will continue eating them until the supply is exhausted. If the berries are late in the season and softened by a few too many frosts and temperature increases, they will be fermented but we will eat them all the same. Until we fall drunk off the branches with whole berries clogging our throats, our entire systems steeped in this toxic ambrosia, falling to the grass until we groggily retrieve our bearings and do it again. Or we will have the fuzzy confidence to think we’re fine and stagger off toward wherever it is we think we need to go, only we will go about it clumsily. Being always in a flock and never just isolated incidents unto ourselves, others will follow, until before we know it, we smash against whatever it is we’re smashing against and just that snapping sensation of something breaking inside and the clarity for a second in which all one can think is how clear they seem to be thinking

and then: nothing. I led us to this, we, she and I, all of us. I knew from a few states away that the berries weren’t right, that the buildings surrounding this courtyard of holly bushes were dangerously close with their panes and panes of illusionary glass. Glass is always a problematic material for us. Holly berries, a rare treat, not particularly desirable to most species, but how could they not be. The red is so vibrant it shows through my eyelids when I blink, when I sleep. The fruit is female, pollinated by the male, and I desire her. There is one black slightly protruding dot on each round globe of red as if an all-seeing eye. Looking at me looking at it. Unblinking. The skin breaks in the mouth, there is no lust like this, washing the pallet with this bittersweet rush, sour and sugary, and the one impulse is more, more, more. It’s not just me, the more takes over us all. The more threatening the fruit, the more rancid, the greater the tangled pull, the more the more, and it becomes an addiction, all we need. She is a glutton for it as much as I. The more I fed her from the first moments of our early courtship, the more it justified my own habits, the more it disguised the truth of the matter, that berries are all to me. All to all of us, like it or not. And I’m tired of the hope and delusion of something greater than this, the imposition of meanings and feelings and words on what is only smell, taste, sight. I am tired too of the reality of the smell, taste, sight. The inevitable pressures of patterns beyond our control and how we so falsely believe, must believe, we can control. The only way I could fly outside of the cycle was by stopping the cycle. I knew the ends. I led us all to this, a few of them my own children even, former mates. We are only eyes and beaks and bellies full of berries. En route to our images in the glass, we will be dead already. But I saw her for a second, drunk in the grass, as I led my intoxicated army elsewhere. Too drunk to join us, and I hated her for that. *** We stuck blue tape in Xs on the windows but the damage was done. Fifty or so dead birds in the courtyard, another fifty stunned, devastated, but alive. Smear stains here and there with a bit of brownish feather stuck to the glass. Cedar Waxwings, I surmised from their markings, as I ate Pringles from the personal-size can I buy every day from the vending machine in the break room. Lucy and I were the first to hear the ruckus, being the closest to the windows at our adjoining workstations, for this view we usually consider ourselves lucky. I have ten cats at home, two parrots, a gimpy-legged mutt of unknown origins, a turtle named Shelly, and a few bird feeders I position myself in front with identification books and binoculars, so Lucy was particularly gracious with her tissues when I started to weep for the dead. I try to find the beauty in things, the way the Xs sort of add some color and pattern to our barren décor, like tilted crosses all in a row. And from the list I find online of edible and inedible plants, I figure

maybe some poet could turn them into a rhyme…narcissus, amaryllis, bleeding heart, belladonna, datura, destroying angel. I love the names. Whether male or female, these birds have the same bold coloring, rare, it seems, for the bird kingdom. So they all seem male to me – and dare I say – sexy even, with their regal, svelte bodies of satiny finish, like taut pre-pubescent schoolboys playing soccer on the fields adjacent to our building. After the media left and the area was cleared, it’s impossible to return back to labeling tabs on manila folders with this recent carnage in the courtyard, so I surf the web in the remaining fifty minutes until quitting time, seeking out facts on the waxwings, fantasizing about what I would eat if I too were blessed with a digestive system as fast as that, or how decadent it must be to go on an annual food tour from Canada to Costa Rica. They can strip a field of its fruit in minutes. Perhaps the way to avoid such catastrophic incidents as this in the future, I realize, is if I myself gather next year’s berries before the birds arrive. Sieve the seeds, spice the pulp, sweeten the pot into some kind of jam. But despite my efforts, I can’t find any edible berry resource willing to suggest the toxins of the holly berry can be cooked out entirely, most websites warn against human consumption altogether. As I wash down the last chip in my third can with a swig of Diet Sprite, lamenting how fast these chips go, I follow links to other recipe sites and find myself clicking my way to instructions on fowl. Why let this beautiful specimen go to waste, this stiff yet surprisingly light bird I snatched from the lawn and placed in my empty lunch baggie when no one was looking. But I can find nothing on the cedar waxwing as far as cooking suggestions, and I imagine it’d be a bitch to pluck. He, I don’t know if it is a he, but like I said, they all seem male to me, he seems content there, confidant even, in clear plastic between the correction fluid and the emergency Skittles in my desk drawer. Lucy would have something to say about this I’m sure. But she is too busy IMing her Internet lover to notice me now, her hot pink fingernails clicking the keys. I open the Ziploc seal enough to insert my index finger and give him a little stroke. Sweet, sweet bird, I murmur, noticing the bit of berry stain under his stubborn beak, or is that blood? When I replay the scene of what happened today, I wonder if it was in fact not the reflection of the outside that did them in but the view to the inside. Perhaps the angle of the light was such that they could see into our offices, could see me, were trying to fly in to relay some sort of message. Had I known, I would have opened the window. Krista Madsen is the author of the novels Degas Must Have Loved a Dancer, and Four Corners (out in July).

CD reviews

in alphabetical order

by the editorial collective

Cecilia This The family Veltz (parents, two sisters, one brother), have been performing under the name Cecilia for six years now. They’ve been shopping This for close to a year. It’s a well-produced release, featuring the harmonies of Allison, Jeannie, and Laura Veltz. Most of the songs are written by the daughters and father Ken, who’s the drummer for the group. The best material features Laura’s lead vocals and songwriting. The best cuts on the album are “SNL,” about a crush on Jimmy Fallon, “Be Mine,” pretty much a comeon, and “Hey,” a boppy number that often closes their sets, about watching the stories passing on city streets. These are accomplished players. Under the governance of Ken Veltz, the songs are strong, though sometimes a little slick. They sound good, on record, but some of the obvious charm of hearing the family interact is missing from the album. I mean, more people watched the Partridge Family than bought their albums, right? ceciliatheband.com Creaky Boards s/t Creaky Boards have a sound as much throwback as it is modern and hip, possibly slightly ironic, although there’s no way to tell for sure. Listening to their full length I’m most reminded of the lighter side of the Beatles or Beach Boys in their later artsy days. Piano and guitar blend with occasional horns and harmonica to bring you songs that range from feel good to angry to sentimental with strained vocals, crooning, shouting and everything in between backed up by frequent doo wop and call back gang vocals for good measure. All in all, a good time. I don’t think their style comes across as well on the more serious ballady songs, but this isn’t all that frequent a problem on the album. The recording itself can be iffy, most of the tracks sound home

made but decent, some are live, and a couple sound like they came off a four track tape recorder. Even still this album is usually flat out fun, rarely taking itself more seriously than necessary. creakyboards.com Tracy Aspden Gibbons Made Red This album is a commercial sounding radio ready piece that feels like it came straight out of Nashville. I think Tracy is a good songwriter, but it is a little hard to hear from behind the production what is her and what is the producer. She has a strong well-trained voice that she uses for good variety from sweet and inviting to strong and confident on songs that explore mostly herself and relationships, although I appreciate the songs that take a critical aim at religion which makes a bit of sense as she hails originally from Utah. It has a southern Americana feel, albeit a poppy one, that I think falls somewhere as either pop-country or alt-country, although I’m not sure I know how to use either of those labels correctly. The best thing to say about this album is that everything on it is done exactly as one would expect it should be. There is nothing innovative or particularly interesting done with songs, and instead it has been made to sound exactly professional and correct. cdbaby.com/cd/tagibbons Amy Hills Heroine

Amy Hills

Songwriting is a lot about choices. In a world of similar subjects, stories, and messages, the writer can give these things to the audience however they choose, and in turn give the listener any of a number of different experiences. For so many writers it is enough to look out on a harsh lonely world and simply lament. This is why Amy is so refreshing. Without whitewashing or glossing anything over she gives us an optimism and hope in what she sings. She shows us an often lonely and heartbreaking world and than tells us that while all that is true, this doesn’t have to be the whole truth. The opening track, “Baby,” is a perfect example of this as she sings to a child “What

second cd, all self produced at no if you become just like your mother/ small cost to Lesley. The videos and what if you become just like your the packaging reflect this, looking father/ what if you become more pretty slick and impressive. The songs than anyone could ever hope for?” are fairly simple, based mostly on Always digging a little further and traditional folk melodies sung with a deeper, her lyrics are full of wisdom quirky voice and strummed happily and insights like in “Aaron’s song,” on a nylon string guitar with the when she sings, “What happens to occasional accompaniment of lead babies born in November? it gets guitar, harmonica, or kazoo. Most of cold before it gets warm and that’s them clock in at less than 2 and a half what we remember.” In her presence minutes with the exception of Buttery and clear strong voice we get the Jingle, which starts off haunting and feeling of someone wise beyond her a bit more complex before building years, unafraid to sing intimately back into her characteristic fun and about friends and lovers and not easy going sound that makes up the too proud to give us bits of what rest of the album. The lyrics are cute she’s learned along the way. Her and can be funny with personal stories sound reminds me of old folk giants and anecdotes about life, farms, and like Joan Baez in her strong vocal people’s foibles, reminding me a bit of presence and crafted acoustic songs, Jill Sobule. With titles like “The Shower but she does it in a way all her own Song,” “The Farmer John Song,” and that feels outside any one scene or “Sittin’ On The Can,” she seems very genre. The recording is good and comfortable letting the music come clean, just her voice and the guitar, Lesley Littlefield across simple and cute. The recording and I could see room for something is good, although not as good as the more on the arrangement, but with packaging. Given the simplicity of the songs like these I would much rather see them stripped down than risk losing them in over songs and the recording, it does strike me as odd that she put production that wasn’t done exactly right. With melodies so much effort into the videos and packaging. I find myself that take the listener out and away before coming back wondering if some of that energy might be better served home, the sound is pleasant and enjoyable and this album going towards the songwriting and arrangements. It’s a long sits like a good friend on the shelf ready to give enjoyment album at 22 tracks and I find it hard to listen to the whole thing straight through seeing as the sound doesn’t vary all and perspective whenever needed. that much between songs, but each song does contain its amyhills.com own story worth hearing and the overall feeling is good and catchy. Taken in smaller doses this can make for a fun Keygrip the unaimed arrow never misses listen. lesleylittlefield.com Having only seen frontman Mike Dillala play acoustic, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the powerful full electric Pantsuit sound of this album. Catchy, at times heavy, yet not averse The path from the house to the lawn to the occasional pretty breakdown, this is a good solid rock album. I’m reminded of Soul Asylum by the way they’ve Wow. I like the Pantsuit CD. I didn’t think I’d like it this taken songs that work acoustically, and turned them into much. Nan Turner, lead voice and mastermind of the group, something harder. The harmonies are good and the sound is often sounds precious when she’s not in a collaborative full and well produced, helping these songs to get stuck in setting. Starting in the all-girl Bionic Finger, then playing your head and drive you. Punk/grunge influenced and more in the dynamic duo Schwervon, Turner always sounds best honest than any of the manufactured corporate radio rock to when she has active partners to share the creative burden. come out in recent years, I recommend this album to anyone This made me anxious when anticipating her band’s debut like me out there in need of some good catchy hard hitting release, since she’d be calling all the shots. But either I’m wrong about her needing strong collaborators, or she has rock. them here, in Christine Murray (also of the lamented Bionic keygriponline.com Finger) and Tina Harris (who’s been around – if you know Lesley Littlefield what I mean). Because the ten songs on Pantsuit’s first album sound great. It was recorded at Olive Juice Studios, little songs with Major Matt Mason manning the boards, which means This is a two disc set including music videos on the good, low-fi production choices were made. But it doesn’t

sound messy. It doesn’t sound precious (well, xylophonestyle keyboards on Work Song 2 do). It sounds good. There are two songs called “Alaska” and “Texas,” each about the largest states in the nation, each about a different kind of isolation. The second was co-written by Murray, back in the Bionic Finger days. Murray also wrote the Pantsuit theme that closes that album, which suggests, really, that I was right all along, and that Turner works best with good collaborators. And they’re cute, too! olivejuicemusic.com Pilotbox s/t Somewhere between Jack Johnson and Coheed & Cambria we get the fun eclectic pop of Pilotbox. Songwriter Michael Schulman has an intriguing voice that I would have thought had to be digitally enhanced if I hadn’t heard him sing live. High and pure it works with the complexity of his chordings and melodies as well as his impressive guitar playing. The bass and guitar backing up Michael fill out the sound of the clean recording, enhancing the complexity with interesting arrangements and voicings. The music is quite poppy, but smart in a way that shows an understanding of jazz theory and classic pop writers like Burt Bacharach. The lyrics are abstract and off beat and when added to the full sound it gives the brain a bit of a tickle. The band is at their best when upbeat, and I find my finger heading for the skip button on the really slow tracks which don’t carry the same interest or energy as the others, but this is more than made up for by songs like “Spinning Like Caffeine” that sounds just like the name suggests or “Acrobat” which couples a steady beat with a bouncing off rhythm guitar part that is one of the best showcases of Michael’s skills as a composer and guitarist. Really it is a strange and intriguing sound at first that may take a few listens to fully sink in, but once under your skin it becomes an undeniable urge that leaves you helpless to keep from putting on this ep over and over. cdbaby.com/pilotbox Setsuo Cosmic Vibrations Setsuo is not a bad songwriter by any means. His songs take us back with an early sixties vibe, reminiscent of John Lennon and beach songs, with a little bit of lounge or island sound thrown in. The best part of the album, and the thing that keeps us most engaged, is the lush harmonies and back up vocals that fill out the sound and add to the nostalgic feeling. His lyrics are sentimental, mostly love songs, and

some songs that I think are in his native Japanese which work quite well. It is always refreshing to hear someone sing in their native language. His voice by itself is thick and carries a heavy vibrato, and when coupled with the equally thick tone of his guitar and the muddy quality to the recording it isn’t always the easiest album to listen to. The songs themselves though are solid, and they show a man with some talent hiding behind the sound. setsuomusic.com Sousalves ...to self & Messin With Records Getting both of these ep’s, I was naturally most looking forward to the acoustic one. My mistake. Messin With Records sounds like a home practice recording, useful only to the artist as a demo to prepare for making the real thing. Paul Aves’ voice is nasally and harsh, and the songs are abrassive and equally harsh, making for a sound that does not work well with just the voice and guitar. It sounds at times like acoustic metal, which is an idea I’ve always found intriguing but have yet to hear pulled off well. The highlight was the second track “dance tango” which showed some impressive Spanish sounding guitar work that made good use of the acoustic. ...to self makes more sense. Snotty garage indy rock, it better explains what Paul is going for. Slightly heavy, Alice in Chains influenced, it can be jarring but this works in the electric context. His voice too sounds much more appropriate in this setting. The first song “kings & queens” is the best and starts it off exciting with an interesting progressive sound and a good hard beat mixed in with some nice acoustic layering. Unfortunately the rest of the songs don’t follow this strong lead, and by the third track we find ourselves bogged down in a slow and winy drawn out ordeal. Overall ..to self shows some promise and good ideas that need to be thought out and refined a little before they’re ready for general consumption. messinwithrecords.com

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