Reviews
Minimus, Honkeyball, Wide Wail, Sam Black Church, Sugarhigh, 27 Down, MAX, Canine, Annika Bentley, Lee Totten, Rick Berlin, The Best of Green Mountain Blues III, Passages, Benefit for El Chupacabra, Zola Turn
27 Down
Music Takes You Away
By Alex Masse
There will always be a place in people's hearts for classic arena rock. When it first started, the seventies seems to be the origin, bands like Ted Nugent, Styx, April Wine and Loverboy would pack stadiums all over the world with people who loved testosterone-filled rock and roll, turning the musicians into Gods with the f;ick of switch that would trigger smoke machines and many, many pyrotechnics. In the eighties, it was Guns and Roses, Poison and Cinderella who filled those same arenas. Today, that tradition continues with bands like Pearl Jam, Korn and Metallica, who seem to be able to make people raise their lighters high above their mullet-heads in some strange rock and roll religious ceremony. Will this strange fascination of sitting in row ZZZ and seeing the inner conflict of Eddie Vedder from 300 yards out ever end? Probably not.
Who knows in today's ever changing music industry. 27 Down makes that testosterone rock that makes you pump your fists in the air, if you are an arena rock fan, or turn away in disgust if you are an opinionated indie rock fan who expects everyone to be breaking new ground.
Put me somewhere in the middle.
27 Down's first CD, Music Takes You Away, is a solid debut from an upcoming rock band. A little weak in someplaces like in the lyrics, some shaky vocals and some overplaying... but oh well. Words that pop into my head after listening to the CD: grunge, alice, in, chains, pearl, jam, seattle, frat...
You get the idea.
Alex Masse hopes that he can do something with his B.A. in religion.
Annika Bentley
see you around lifegaurd
By Christopher Parizo
Oh, I am sorry... was there a CD playing? I fell asleep!
You know, it's one of those Tori Amos meets Jewel things and you can't seem to escape as it blasts out of almost every college girl's open dorm room door (Why don't they shut their door?).
Acoustic guitars, a cello, a violin and an acoustic bass are the backbone for all the music found on see you around lifeguard, a ten track CD where each track sounds like the last track (you know, that really depressing one) on other female folk-pop albums.
'Nuff said.
Christopher Parizo hasn't liked Tori Amos since she released Little Earthquakes.
Lee Totten
could have been king
ninibudu Records
By Michael Forgione
It's about time that a singer/songwriter came out with a CD that isn't boring or embarrassing. Have you ever heard one of these folk rock singers who just come off conceited or too damn pretentious that you don't want anything to do with them. They sing a lyric and you are like: "Oh God! I wouldn't be caught dead saying that!"
Lee Totten is not one of those people. He comes off as talented songwriter who writes cool songs that don't sound like a solo artists work, but more like a collaborative of musicians. I don't know, it's hard to explain.
I like the song "Searching For Something," a taste of Americana with smart lyrics and great vocal hooks.
Could have been king is a cool rock CD that deserves a spin or two. Check it out.
Michael Forgione likes jagermeister.
MAX
Ride The Dove
Dove Records
By Christopher Parizo
I am not a big fan of retro rock and I really can't explain the mainstream sixties craze that's flying around. Bands like The Doors and Jimi Hendrix don't do anything for me, really... I find them boring. Boston's MAX represent the cool part of the sixties rock, that people tend to look over.
Max's Ride The Dove is an extension of where sixties underground psychedelic rock could have gone. Such garage bands like The Nuggets, Mouse and the Traps and The Seeds are the early "indie rock" kids and their influences can be heard on Ride The Dove. These bands rocked and they rocked hard... like MAX.
I also hear a hint of Donovan.
Izzy Maxwell's lead vocals can at times be a little shaky, however, this might be intentional in order to secure that dreary-trippy rock sound. Songwriter T-Max knows how to arrange a song in true rock fashion and also how to name retro songs ("Celebrate Life", Psychedelic X-Ray Man", "Mother Sun" and "Love Invasion").
Think Pink Floyd, before Syd Barrett went nuts and tried to make love to a waffle iron or whatever he did.
Christopher Parizo is another brick in the wall.
Rick Berlin
Live at Jacques
GarageDog Records
By Mark Hamm
Okay, this guy is as gay as the day is long. Gay as a goat. Gay as a loon. I dunno, insert your sterotypes here. Rick Berlin is a piano playing singer-songwriter who organizes cabarets in the Boston area that are quite popular and have names like "Marlene Loses it All" and "Drags, Dicks and Dykes." If this was a perfect world, I would never mention that facts that Berlin is gay, but let's face it, there are a lot of people out there who need to grow up and deal with the fact that not everyone lives the same boring life that they do and not everyone thinks the same boring things that they do. Know what I mean? So, if all the boring people in the world need to see the word "gay" a lot to adjust their boring little minds to it, let us being here. Gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay. Bored yet?
Okay, Berlin recorded five Monday nights at Boston's "Jacques" night club, and sets the disc up like it's a single performance, even including opening and closing tracks called "The Club" that offer the ambience of an evening at the club. Berlin is an engaging performer, and a witty songwriter, as is evidenced by tracks like "Martha Graham at the Midway Cafe" and the ode to hetero's everywhere "Straight Guys." There are a few points on this disc where Berlin gets a little too Billy Joel for my cynical self, as men with piano's often do, but he displays more wit in one song than Joel has shown in his last four albums. I'd probably like Billy Joel a lot more if he was gay. He might be less boring.
Mark Hamm is gay. Gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay gay.
Canine
Sic 'Em
By William Smith
Boston's bad boys Canine really know how to play their instruments and they really know how to rip shit up. On their CD Sic 'Em, serious funk verses melt into hard rock choruses and the grooves deliver tastes of ska, reggae and classic funk. But make no mistake, while they certainly know how to funk, Canine also rocks. They insinuate little grooves and then when you get comfortable and all slinky and shit, they rip the groove out from under you and slam you up side the head with a rock hard chorus. I like that. "Sic 'em," I say. "Bite their asses."
Canine is very tight, very talented, very polished. Sic 'Em is a fine recording and a good introduction to a great live band. The songs are well written and executed flawlessly. If you're gonna play with the funk, you better have your shit together, and Canine has got their shit together.
Willliam Smith moved from Philly to Bel Air after he got into a fight. His mom made him go.
Various Artists
Benefit for El Chupacabra
Polterchrist Records
By Brandon Perras
When I was first handed this CD to review, I was really excited to get it started, I mean wouldn't you be excited to review a CD full of mostly metal/hardcore and off-beat, fast paced trash bands benefiting the blood-sucking creature that roams Mexico's forests? Notable bands and styles ranged from Porter's pounding distorted track "Take 3 To Give 1" complete with a trumpet weaving through the noise to a really bizarre track from the band Catholde also caught my attention when I noticed that the song was an instrumental cover of Hall & Oates "Man Eater". The vocalist's style bares a close resemblance to the lead vocalist of Unsane. The folky-bluegrass mayhem of the Bluegrass Mutantears on the track "Jamie's Pie" ('cover' of Van Halen's "Jamie's Crying") is one of the most crazy things I have ever heard, full of humorous sound effects, vocal styles and lyrics.
My excitement began to fade as I listened to this CD. 60% of the tracks on this CD were really unoriginal and generic and I soon got tired of listening to them. What's going on in the world of this genre of music? I seems like most of these bands are paying too much attention to just being as loud as possible and forgetting to explore different drop D chord progressions.
The first three tracks give a good example of what most of the CD sounds like, and are not a very appealing intro to this CD. Except the first track has something that the other bands don't have. A back up vocalist that sounds like MTV's annoyance, Jessie Camp, after he downed a bottle of testosterone pills. Some of the more offbeat bands are trying to pull off the barrier breaking style of Olympia's Unwound.
I noticed in the liner notes of this CD, there is an address to send donations to a foundation in Missouri for the El Chupacabra. Is there any solid evidence that this creature even exists? Well, I won't stop anyone who wants to send donations, but why not send them to a foundation closer to home? Send any donations to Brandon's Champ Research Foundation at the Good Citizen Building. The money will be used to buy me CD's, a car and the protection of this elegant creature that swims freely in the pure, sparkling waters of Lake Champlain.
Brandon Perras is the bass player for local future-legends The Implants. We suckered him into interning at Good Citizen and now we've even got him writing reviews. You too could be this cool. Just call us. We'll tell you how.
Various Artists
Best of the Green Mountain Blues Volume III
By Charlie Messing
Well, here's the third installment of Mr. Charlie Frasier's Best of Green Mountain Blues, this time a double CD. First of all, proceeds from the sales of this album help fund Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, a camp for children with cancer. If you buy this album, it will help them. So buy it.
As far as the blues, we got plenty here. It is amazing how many people are playing the blues in Vermont. I do know my blues, which I can partly prove by dropping some names -- a few personal favorites: Charlie Patton, Skip James, Blind Willie McTell, Howling Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Magic Sam, the old Rolling Stones. And so I review this 39-song double CD of blues, as I did Volume II. Whew.
Huh? Okay, some of these songs are not what I'd call blues. Like disk 1, track 4 -- the Chad Hollister song. But I like it more than many of the ones that are certainly blues. And Steph Pappas on track 8 -- it's bluesy, and strange and wild, but is it a blues song? It's not bad, that's what it is. I have to say that the Mighty Misfits on track 5, do a great job. And Kip Meaker plays a fine solo -- I haven't heard a better blues soloist in this town. On track 13, Steve Boothby does what you might call a Pink Floyd blues. Track 17 is Julie Tiller doing tough-girl pop-blues, similar to what Patty Lynch does with Texas Twister on Disk 2, track 11. Patty's voice is even more gutsy, I'd say.
Disk 2 starts with the Unknown Blues Revue, once again a standout. As I said about their track on GMB Volume II, they sound like they come from a whole blues planet. And Sandra Wright is a fabulous singer. Track 2 is also a winner, from East Coast Muscle -- it sounds like a single. Very well done. On track 3, Derrick Semler does one of his tender, vulnerable, funky blues numbers. Track 4 is a big soul production from Willie Edwards. Blues?
On track 8 and 9, we heard the late Andy Shapiro, to whom this album is dedicated. I like the lovely jazzy groove on track 8, and especially how his graceful keyboard brings him back to us. Track 9 is Rachel Bissex -- beautiful voice with lots of personality and a solid song. Andy fits in wonderfully.
Kip Meaker returns on track 14, with a kinda oblique vocal and truly wild guitar. Track 18 is the eccentric John Savlov -- nice piano on a blues parody. Track 19 is the N-Zones featuring the late Zoot Wilson -- an odd production, but with a lot of class. He was special.
That about wraps it up. Take it home!
Charlie Messing, a late bloomer, has a band called Be That Way.
Honkeyball
Down By Three
Wonderdrug
By H. Murphy
First thing I have to say is that the cover art on this CD is horrible. It looks like really bad, redneck, airbrushed tattoo art. But the band itself far exceeds the quality of the cover. This band sounds like a combination of Sam Black Church, Tree, and a little of the former local hardcore heroes Never Only Once. Even has a slight bit of Stone Roses in it. As you probably noticed, they have a lot of variety in their music. They've got the heavy bass sound of Sam Black Church, Tree's intensity and vocals. It has Never Only Once's tinny chords and Maximum Penalty's melodic hardcore sound to it. Stone Roses... yes, I know that's a stretch and you probably think I don't know what I'm talking about... well... you're half right. But listening to the Stone Roses this afternoon, just before listening to this CD, I heard some of the same smooth, soft vocals.
I like this CD a lot. It goes from bitter, biting anger to lonely sadness from one song to the next. By the end of the CD, instead of feeling exhausted by an overdose of anger and hatred, I'm ready go through the roller-coaster of emotions traveled once more (This is a good thing.) I only have one criticism other than the cover art. The name. Horrible, horrible name. I was expecting it to be a bad redneck, cheesy metal band. It's not. Don't let the name deceive you. Check em out. They're good.
H. Murphy is a little hotty who writes reviews for Good Citizen. She knows her stuff.
Minimus
hell America
By Leah McColgan
Being band members of the former Five Seconds Expired, these three guys had a lot to live up to and they're doing a damn good job. They're going with a slightly different sound and pulling it off very well. A clearer, more melodic, less gothic-sounding voice (belonging to Shawn Varney) fronts this three-piece and plays some difficult bass lines at the same time. Josh Cooper's guitar is still heavy and strong and Gary Williams on drums hold everything together really well. I'm impressed. I'm very impressed. The only critique I have is that the four songs in this EP all sound very similar. There isn't a whole lot of variety. But hey, they're good songs, so it's okay by me.
Leah McColgan knows too many useless facts... like Thelma Pickles was the name of John Lennon's first girlfriend.
Various Artists
Passages: the Skill Set
Reverse Curve Records
By Mark Hamm
Boston's Instant Magazine has assembled a collection of bands from the greater Boston area to contribute songs to this compilation, with proceeds going to the Make A Wish Foundation. Amazing Royal Crowns (now called Amazing Crowns after a threatened court battle from the Royal Crown Revue) lead off with their first national hit "Do the Devil." Cake Like follow with a beautiful ballad called "Pretty New." Tommy's Darkling Thrush offers a melodic song that just sounds too 80's for me. Shiva Speedway's "Devil Dog" is kinda cool, and Cheerleadr's "Astronauts" rocks. 7th Rail Crew offers up the hardest track on the disc with "Monster Zero." Standing on Earth's "15 Minutes" is fun and uses a turntable in a pretty cool way. "15 Minutes" is my favorite track on the disc. Ramona Silver contributes "Woman," another one of my favorite songs on Passages. Chin Ho!'s "So David Kamm Said" is a rocker, and one of the best songs on their new album. Canine gets a good groove going with "There For the Taking" and The Call end the disc with a remix of "Love is Everywhere." Did I say The Call? Yeah, I thought that was weird, too, but the song is quite nice, actually. All in all, as compilations go, this is a pretty good one, and it's for a good cause. You can buy it at the Big Heavy World Indie Co-op. Yes you can.
Mark Hamm is a student at the University of Vermont.
Sam Black Church
The Black Comedy
Wonderdrug Records
By Chelsea Condos
Let me just say, Sam Black Church is in control. Jet's domineering, commanding, imperious vocals make you want to either go destroy something or someone, or go hide under your bed for fear of what they're gonna do to you. "I turn my back on you / Left gloating the disease you do / Behold the beauty of the beast / It ain't over til I say it's over. " SBC's music is all about power. Jet demonstrated this power in one of the finest moments I've ever seen at a hardcore show, on December 4th at Club Toast. He came off the side of the stage, crawled, upside-down along the beam that runs above the pit, with the mic sitting on his chest. He stopped, directly above the pit, and continued singing. Then he dropped into the pit, stood there, solid, one fist in the air, still singing, while everybody around him was thrashing and swarming over him. He didn't budge. Sam Black Church is also all about their fans... and that's one reason I like this band so much. They know they're the shit but they show respect to their fans.
Okay... now to the CD. I love it. It captures their strength and fullness well. "Ice, Draft, Lite, Dry," and "Elwood," are both songs displaying their hatred and disrespect for rednecks, attacking child abuse and alcoholism. "Not Fit For The Force" had it's good and bad moments. It had a good strong chorus, but the rest of the lyrics could be a really bad rap song. "I can't take my time with my rhyme / Cause it's pungent like a lime / Tooty, fruity -- suck on this." Ugh. I can just hear Puff Daddy singin' that one. "Monkey" and "We Come In Peace," are my favorites. "Monkey" has some great lyrics. "Try to hold down the chain on / Another's dream / And you'll lose your fucking hand / Your arm will tear out at the root / Try it and see / Try to keep me down / You will lose." He's warning you and daring you at the same time. Good tactic... but he needs to make it clearer that he'll follow through on that threat. I have no doubt that he would, but lyrics with this much power should have the same strength in vocal sound. Jet says them too fast to understand what he's saying. That's what makes "We Come In Peace" such a good song. The title lyrics come through with so much strength and conviction that you have no choice but to believe him. "Just do what we say / As long as you obey / We come in peace." Every word is enunciated. You clearly have no options but to obey this band.
Chelsea Condos is the coolest sixteen year old girl we know.
Sugarhigh
Spuds
By Christopher Parizo
Syracuse, NY's Sugarhigh, make a strong debut with their first CD Spuds . For all you locals, Sugarhigh sound a little like Wide Wail... rocking guitar tracks with powerful female vocals.
Sugarhigh's lead vocalist, Ciara, can bounce back and forth between Liz Phair, Patti Donahue from The Waitresses and a little touch of Gwen Stefani from No Doubt. Cool pop rock songs of self-doubt, alienation and shame are what make up Spuds, eight songs with lyrics that I'd expect to read copied onto a high schooler's three ring binder.
The production leaves a little to be desired, the guitars are unfortunately a little too low, pushing the vocals too far ahead of the music... but you know, you'll have that.
All and all. Sugarhigh is a cool band with plenty of pop hooks and good songwriting. Songs jump from the poppy side of the spectrum ("Flirting with Madness" and "Personal Disaster") to the more hard and darker side of music ("Shameless Pain" and "The Hole of Regret"). Sugarhigh proves to be a band to watch out for. They debuted in Vermont at the Burlington Music Conference and they'll be back soon, so keep your eye out for them.
Christopher Parizo was born with the name Desi Rodriguez. Yeah, and you thought Christopher Parizo was bad.
Wide Wail
Like it Never Was
By Amy Bouchard
Wide Wail is probably one of the finest bands to ever grace a Vermont stage. I say that without much hesitation, frankly. Their self-titled debut, released several years ago, was a beautiful, haunting work of art that I've yet to see equaled in this prolific music community. Deep, dark and brooding, Wide Wail, the album, contemplated lifes mysteries without finding any answers, just like the rest of us. Wide Wail, the band, endured a massive load of accolades and expectiations after their debut release, and almost imploded as a result. They were courted by major record labels, got a management deal and had demos recorded by a world-famous producer. But all was not well: along the way, they lost two members, painstakingly re-invented their sound and spent two years crafting their second album Like it Never Was.
"Time well spent" would be a major understatement. The new Wide Wail is every bit as wise and self-assured as the band of old, but it rocks like never before. "Voodoo Camera," "All My Life" and "Wink Wink" are all power-pop-rockers wrapped in an artsy cape; smart pop. Damn smart pop. There are a number of staple mid-tempo Wide Wail rockers too, dreamy and ethereal pieces like "Downtown" and "Floating."
Glen Robinson produced half the songs and mixed them all. We're talking resume piece here for Robinson -- this album is thick and warm and rich and all the right things. Amanda Gustafson's voice is clear and throaty one minute and distant and effected the next, depending on what the song needs. The harmonies are incredible, I should add, and provide a cozy bed for the lead vocals.
Amy Bouchard is a student in Burlington and a live music addict.
Zola Turn
3 song 7 inch/ tape
By Christopher Parizo
You know, vinyl makes me thump. There is something about putting a needle down on a record, hearing the light scratches over the speakers and finally hearing that warm sound fill the room. Aaaaaaah. Too bad I don't own a record player, so I had to settle for the tape.
But I wish I owned a record player because I would live to hear Zola's new EP on a turntable simply because it's the best music they have released to date..
The songwriting is light-years above their 1997 release Cousin Battie, a CD that I played many times over the past year.
The opening track, "Is This Goodbye?", is a really interesting drum and bass song (not drum & bass like Goldie, but actual musicianship... a drummer and bassist) that are punctuated by the witty and elegant lyrics of Jen Karson. The second track, by far my favorite Zola Turn tune to date, is "Tastes Like Nothing". This song rips shit up. Buy this tape/record just to hear this song, so you too, can spend many a long nights driving in a van and singing the chorus over and over again because you can't get out of your frickin' head! Pop rock that does just that: It pops and it rocks and that is the best type of pop rock next to the pop rocks that pop on your tongue and and blow up 1970's TV commercial children when consumed with Coke. Great! Great! Great! The last ditty is called "Falling", I am sucker for songs that are unpredictable and this one falls into that category. It starts out with a dark, spacey kind of sound and eventually launches into a rocking ending! Very cool!
I never understood how Zola got labeled as a "goth" band... it doesn't fit them. They aren't goth. Okay?
Christopher Parizo doesn't go anywhere without his Brooklyn Dodgers hat.