NO EX-MAS METAPHORS
It’s that time of year again: time for everyone to remark how much earlier the Christmas ads have begun, time for good cheer to be piped into every coffee chain and, best of all, time for critics of all caliber to whittle down a year’s worth of music into easily digested sound bytes for their eager readership. I don’t mean to sound too cynical, it’s just that summing a year up in a list is no easy feat. Nevertheless, OffBeat’s intrepid staff of experts have done just that. This month, in honor of the year that was, ten of our music writers have picked ten of their favorite albums released in 2004 and written a little something about the state of music. We call it 10 X 10, a little something extra in your stocking. Don’t worry, there’s still more to come just after the New Year: the 50 Best Louisiana CDs of 2004 and the Best Of The Beat Nominees. If that isn’t enough for you, know this: as you read this, the entire OffBeat staff is putting the finishing touches on the annual Best Of The Beat Awards Show on January 21, featuring New Orleans’ hottest acts and, it’s rumored, free food. There’s probably a nice little way to wrap this up with some kind of Christmas present metaphor, but it would probably sound trite and I can’t think of one anyway, so I’m going to leave you hanging.
DISPLEASURE
Pleasure Club—the New Orleans rock band the Howlin’ Wolf’s Howie Kaplan called “The Best Rock Band in America. Period.”—is going on indefinite hiatus for economic and personal reasons following their December 3 show at the Howlin’ Wolf.
“We’ve all got various things going on. Michael [Jerome] (drums) has got various albums to record. He does session work in LA. Grant [Curry] (bass) is gonna be recording Black Fire Revelation. Mark [Hutner] (guitar) is moving from LA to New York. I’m going to spend some time with family,” says James Hall, guitarist and vocalist for the band. “This year has been a bit of a tough year, touring wise. [Our last album] Fugitive Kind hasn’t had quite the chance we hoped it would.” These problems have been compounded by distance, according to Hall. Half the band—Jerome and Hutner—live in Los Angeles full time, often making touring, recording and rehearsing unfeasible and making grass roots promotion nearly impossible.
“It’s not cost effective for us to fly a couple of us in to do Baton Rouge,” adds Hall. “Nothing against Baton Rouge, but the reality is we can’t afford to do this weekend warrior style. We’ve generally got to choose to be smart about making tour decisions to make sure we can do it in areas where we’re strongest.” Problems with their booking agent, Monterey Booking, have led to a string of poorly attended shows, the tour getting cut short and, ultimately, the decision to call it quits.
“It’s dawning on us that we probably would have done better in the last two years booking these shows on our own, because we have relationships where we go,” says Hall. “Our agent really wasn’t taking any of those things into account… We weren’t getting guarantees where we were worth a lot more, and the deals were on the level of a first time tour—a bunch of 19-year-olds. We just can’t afford to operate like that. Over the last six months, we’ve had tour after tour pushed back. This last tour, they were dropping dates in our lap that were crappy and quickly thrown together. We know that it takes effort at press, on the grass root level and on the clubs level to make an event happen.” Hall knows something about building a fan base and getting the attention of the press, as a bevy of local critics, including OffBeat’s Stephen Perrin, have touted Pleasure Club as the best rock band in New Orleans or anywhere, for that matter.
“It’s never been any motivation of ours to be the next big thing,” says Hall. “We soak in our influences and spit them back out in a way that’s unique; this isn’t a bunch of guys playing Duran Duran riffs, as popular as that may be right now. Our grand purpose is to make music we find interesting, and that’s effective in conveying emotion.” But what of the band’s future?
“Personally, I would rather for us to remain busy, but I understand that right now we’ve got forces coming down on us outside of music that are not under our control,” says Hall. “In the meantime, if people are curious about what Pleasure Club is like and what the New Orleans rock scene is like, they need to be at the Howlin’ Wolf December 3. Us, Rock City Morgue and Public are playing and, with the exception of Supagroup, who is recording a new album right now, that’s as good of a gauge as I can give you of where New Orleans rock is at.”
SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL
Call it Monsters of Rock meet Dr. Phil: Paradise Lost directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s 2004 documentary, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, follows the eponymous band through the trials and tribulations surrounding the recording of their last album, St. Anger. In 2001, thrash-metal pioneers Metallica entered a deserted San Francisco military barracks to record for the first time in five years amidst deteriorating relations between band members, alcohol abuse and fan backlash. The resulting film, culled together from over 1200 hours of footage, is a gripping story of childhood friends piecing their band—and their relationships—back together after years in the spotlight.
While the documentary is a serious look into the lives of rock icons, Some Kind of Monster is not without unintentional moments of Spinal Tap-like absurdity. People familiar with Metallica’s past—including allegations that they went soft—will laugh (or shake their heads) at psychiatrist to the stars Phil Towle’s presence in the recording studio, as he teaches James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and producer Bob Rock to use “I” statements instead of “You” statements. They may laugh when Ulrich, stifling tears, auctions off his multi-million dollar art collection so he can “move on” with his adult life. Whiny, petulant narcissism from multi-millionaire rock stars was never so entertaining.
The New Orleans Film Festival will screen Some Kind of Monster Tuesday, December 7 at 7 p.m. at the Prytania Theater—early enough for aging metal heads to “have plenty of time to get home for the 10 o’clock news and take their acid reflux medication,” according to Film Festival representative John Desplas. General admission is $7.50, while Film Society members can get in for $6.50.
THANK GOD IT’S MAU MAU
Another laborious explanation of the Mystic Knights of the Mau Mau would be redundant. Regular readers of OffBeat and music geeks of all stripes know exactly who they are and what they do. They’ll also know that any show with their name attached will be absolutely mind blowing, way more often than not.
This month, they’re bringing back pioneering black rockabilly singer Ray Sharpe, backed by West Bank rockabilly icon Joe Clay and “retro”-stereotype defying Deke Dickerson and the Eccofonics. Sharpe, a Fort Worth native best known for his Lee Hazelwood produced staples “Linda Lu” and “Monkey’s Uncle,” is the real thing—a true rock ‘n’ roll original and one of the highlights of 2003’s Ponderosa Stomp. Revel in the mayhem at the Rock ‘n’ Bowl on December 11.
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES
Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide (the Circle Bar’s monthly club night started by Jessica Boyd and Josh Nagel of the Fontanelles UK) borders on rock ‘n’ roll performance art, the kind of bizarro conceptual party more likely to be found in New York or LA. Each night features Nagel spinning glam rock, punk and other semi-underground rock under the name DJ Vanwreck, go-go dancers and, the capper, a “fake” one time only never to be seen again band made up of local musicians. This month’s event, to be held on December 18, is billed as a Battle of the Fake Bands featuring members of Black Caar, the Detonations, Rock City Morgue, the Scripts and others. Made up music acts Drug Gang, Teenage Gunslingers, the Black Panties and Stunt Napkin will compete for audience affection vis a vis the Quintron constructed applause-o-meter.
YET ANOTHER SUBHEAD
They tell me that this column’s supposed to be a run down of news items that I deem worthy of coverage. Have a release coming out? Got a scoop? Music news you wish to report? Want to say hi? Want to kiss my ass? Please email me at [email protected] and let me know what’s going on with your project.
