The local artists formerly known as Tin Star got an unexpected boost when a British band with the same name started getting airplay on local modern rock juggernaut 106.7 The End. “Initially, it was kind of a bummer,” admits Pete Winkler, bass player and vocalist with the recently renamed Motorway. “But we know a couple of DJs on The End, and every time a Tin Star song would play they’d say, ‘That’s Tin Star from England, not Tin Star from here. Tin Star from here changed their name to Motorway.”
The inadvertent advertising might have helped Motorway build name recognition, but too many local fans their music remains a mystery. That’s too bad, because Motorway has become one of the city’s best up-and-coming alternative rock bands. If you need proof, look no further than Motorway, their just released self-titled debut CD. Produced by Better Than Ezra’s Tom Drummond, the four-cut EP is a showcase of rootsy power pop, with Beadesque melodies, jangly guitars and sweet harmonies in abundance. Lead guitarist Michael Blum supplies clever hooks and just enough flash to add a polished, commercial edge.
According to Winkler, who previously fronted the post punk power trio Of Human Bondage, it was a desire to write unapologetic pop songs that led him and former Blue Plate guitarist Colin Brown to found Motorway in October of last year. “I’ve always been more of a pop songwriter and I always thought that in Of Human Bondage, I was kind of held back from that,” Winkler says. “I got together with Colin and every time I’d write something that was pop, he’d say, ‘Yeah, that’s great. I got a lot more positive feedback so that just inspired me to write more and more.”
With all those songs starting to pile up, Winkler says that the band hopes to soon begin recording a full-length CD. In the meantime, you can catch Motorway at the Howlin’ Wolf on Sept. 4. Head 58, featuring former members of Dead Pan, is the opening act.
Techno isn’t the first style of music you think of when you think New Orleans. Come to think of it, it might not even make the Top 25, especially the quaint, quirky brand performed by local duo Squab Teen.
The two-year-old group, which last month released its debut CD, Dance America (Turducken/Chromosome 57), specializes in lo-fi electronica, a schizophrenic collage of sound built on the kitschiest of Casio beats and punctuated with samples that gravitate toward barnyard noises. It’s a far cry from the sleek, harsh grooves of contemporary electronica stars like Prodigy and the Crystal Method. “We’re really making fun of what electronic music is,” says Nicole Elmer, who founded the band with partner Austin Luminais. “We’re making fun of the production values of most electronic music, but at the same time we’re interested in the catchy element and the poppy sort of mentality. I wouldn’t really categorize it as extremely electronic. It’s more of an indie electro. “People who like Squab Teen,” she adds, “are probably people who would never ever think about buying a CO by Carl Cox or Juan Atkins or any typical techno producer.”
While Squab Teen is essentially a tongue-in-cheek take on electronic music, Elmer’s interest in DJs like Cox and Atkins-purveyors of what has come to be called 10M, or Intelligent Dance Music-is no joke. “I listen to people like Squarepusher, Aphex Twin or U-Ziq: Elmer says, “the guys in England who are writing music for the sake of music and not to move a crowd on the dance floor or to sell records for DJs, which is what a lot of electronic music is about.”
Squab Teen’s indie electro has begun to attract pockets of fans across the country. In July, they played a well received show in Detroit, where a pre release issue of the CO was a hit on a local college radio station, and Elmer has performed in Atlanta with her more experimental side-project, Neutral. New Orleans, however, has yet to embrace them, not too surprising considering that you could probably count all the techno bands to exist in New Orleans in the last decade on one hand, with a few fingers to spare.
“New Orleans is a really difficult place for the kind of music we do,” says Elmer. “When I say I play electronic music, people immediately assume techno and make fun of it, but I think when they hear the different types of music that techno can be they become a little bit more open to it.”
Elmer is doing her best to open local minds by organizing a group of diverse, mostly New  Orleans-based electronic musicians into a loose-knit artists collective dubbed Chromosome 57. Besides Squab Teen and Neutral, Chromosome 57 comprises a Luminais side-project, Lipid, as well as a handful of less-than well-known acts including the Mad Wikkid, Nommo Ogo, Olivetti, Plexitmind, Point and Click, Pong and Search Wound Infinirus. “We are trying very slowly to put out our own works and do distribution and the promotion and all that Stuff,” Elmer says. “But none of us has any money, so that’s kind of where we stop short of being a label.”
Squab Teen will perform in New York this month as part of the CMJ Music Marathon. Modern rock band Isaac’s Guns has a new look. Guitarist and vocalist Whitney Ann McCray has dropped out of the band to concentrate on solo, more folk-oriented material. According to a statement by the band, the rest of Isaac’s Guns-guitarist Ron Hotstream, bass player Mary Lasseigne, drummer Kyle Meades and keyboard player Eric Pitts-will diet on without
McCray. “Whitney was nt as much into the modern rock scene as Maty and I:’ Hotstream says. “Mary and I have been writing a lot together. It’s real current, modern rock sounding stuff, and Whitney wasn’t too excited about that. There was becoming more of a difference between her material and the rest of our material. She was dissatisfied.” In February, Isaac’s Guns released its debut CO, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
