popwreckoning

Upon setting foot into the Knitting Factory, my cohorts and I were caught in a stranglehold of sound.

Angus Khan had ascended the stage. At first sight, they looked like a joke. All older men, one sporting an army helmet, another who was obviously influenced by Jimmy Page, and a lead singer decked from head to toe in dark brown leather and a mane down to his shoulders. But, appearances aside, they can definitely put on a show. The performance was marked by lewd comments, spitting on stage, and bubbles. Yes, I said bubbles.

Their sound paralleled Iron Maiden, Motorhead, and AC/DC; from which they forged an up-tempo, hard-hitting, good old-fashioned, classic rock show. Their on-stage antics were entertaining and reminiscent of rock/metal bands of a more glorious age. The lead singer flailed the mic stand around and braced himself against it with a scream so forceful that you would have thought he was Axl Rose himself (although at one point in the show he pulled out a harmonica and started wailing on it like it was nobody’s business…let me see Axl Rose do that). Although lyrically quite cheesy, it was a delightful type of cheesy, which careened the audience’s attention more so towards their heavy guitar riffs and intense drumming. During their song “Big Balls”, they threw out two dark purple beach balls (ironic?) into the crowd, and for “Machine Gun Funk”, the lead guitarist pulled out an electric guitar that was literally a machine gun (no lie, check out the pictures). Overall, they played an excellent set, one that left my ears ringing when I alit from the venue for a quick smoke.

The following act, Warship, was quite possibly the best set of the night. Warship is the most recent project of former From Autumn to Ashes members, and they have definitely taken their initial genre to a completely different level. Their guitarist was more than talented and had a number of face-melting riffs up his sleeve. The drummer, who was eclectic in style (he actually ripped one of his drums in half on stage out of frustration), was also their lead singer/screamer. Although the guitarist was stoically silent, the drummer and bass player exuded an odd humility on-stage, they were comedic and endearing, putting out a message that they were just happy to be there. Their lethal output of sound was intriguing and drew me in with each introductory riff.

And finally, we come to Goblin Cock. Awkward name, I know, and everyone at the venue was commenting on it all night, but they put on an engaging performance of drone metal. Their vestments? Grim Reaper robes (I told you it was interesting), creating an eerie atmosphere for the audience that was further enunciated by strobe lights, creeping fog, and strategically placed plastic skulls (that were often picked up and paraded around by the band). I left the Knitting Factory with throbbing ears, but a good heavy rock show was well worth the agony

Angus Khan: website | myspace
Warship: myspace
Goblin Cock: website | myspace

Photos by: Tatum Hengel

Welcome back to another installment of “Under Cover: Showdown Edition”.  Last week’s feature was so much fun, I’ve decided to keep going with a slew of cover songs that also seem to outshine the original and take it to new realms of musical genius.  I know what you’re thinking… how can great acts like Paul McCartney & Wings, Grateful Dead and the Meat Puppets ever be upstaged?  Well, all it took was the innovation of latter-day rock legends Guns N’ Roses, Sublime and Nirvana to add an updated spin on classic goodass rock n’ roll.  Who wins this week’s showdown?  Let your ears decide!
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Paul McCartney & Wings (1973) Vs. Guns N’ Roses (1991): “Live and Let Die”

Is that a timpani I hear?  This song is what I like to call a quintessential rock opera.  It starts off sweetly with Paul Mccartney‘s earnest advice on how one must “live and let die” and that unforgettably layered Queen-like background vocal response of “You know you did, you know you did, you know you d-i-i-i-d.” But before you can chalk this number up to elevator music status, the music kicks in.  With the help of Wings, the song takes off in this frenzied flight of electric guitar, a blaring brass section, an upbeat tempo, and a dizzying array of percussive instruments likely to be found in high school orchestra class and marching band.  Featured as the theme to the James Bond movie Live and Let Die, this orchestral breakdown is one of the most recognizable ones ever created.  One minute it’s fast and up and away, next minute McCartney is gently cooing you to sleep.  Basically, this is track is the musical equivalent of manic depression… and it’s never sounded so good.

Leave it to Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses to sink his teeth into a big musical production of epic proportions.  GNR takes McCartney’s version of “Live and Let Die” out of the driver’s seat, throws it out the car window, and drives over it with its high-octane electric guitar work and overwrought masculine energy, making McCartney’s rendition seem fit for a retirement home bingo party playlist.  Screeching vocals?  Check!  Hard rock edge?  Check!  Snarl and attitude?  Check and check!  This cover song is better than the original and GNR have made this song their own entirely.  In fact, it fits so seamlessly in their entire catalog that I bet classic rock neophytes don’t even know it’s not an original.  I fucking love this song!  Quite simply, it makes me want to turn it up real loudly and drive my car off a cliff in one last Thelma & Louise-like blaze of glory… but like, not.

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Grateful Dead (1974) Vs. Sublime (1992): “Scarlet Begonias”

Grateful Dead had a penchant for more than just teddy bear artwork.  They also liked bestowing us with great jam band ditties about drugs, love, feeling good about life… and songs about pretty girls with scarlet begonias tucked into their hair that are beautiful enough to inspire a catchy little number.  With piano, organs, twangy guitar riffs, and a mellow tempo, this is perfect summer BBQ music.  The vocals are sweet and flow softly like an island breeze, the music makes you want to shake and sway like a 1960′s hippie, and this song takes you back to a simpler time in life.  If ”Scarlet Begonias” doesn’t instantly relax you, maybe it’s time you switch to decaf my friend.

Never one to shy away from songs about sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, cheap beer, and good time, Sublime took this classic Dead song and added a little dub sensibility to it.  It shares all the same feel-good elements as the original, as well as tempo, background vocals, the punchy organ-synth sound, yet with an updated 90s alternative spin.  I’d even venture to say that I like this version better just because I didn’t grow up as a flower child of the 1960′s and find Sublime’s version more relatable.  Maybe because they changed the lyrics to be about a man-eating woman who gets them in trouble with the police, haha.  Or perhaps my favorite lyrics are the “A tight tye-dye dress she was a psychedelic mess / We toured to the north, south, east, and west / We sold some mushroom tea / We sold some ecstasy / We sold nitrous, opium, acid, heroin, and PCP.” But this could just be for sentimental college reasons because my friends and I used to try and see who could sing the “we sold nitrous, opium, acid, heroin, and PCP” lyric without messing up.  Try for yourself, it’s damn near impossible to sing it as perfectly as the late, great Bradley Nowell.

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Meat Puppets (1984) Vs. Nirvana (1994): “Oh, Me”

What an odd little song, eh?  Does lead singer Curt Kirkwood purposely sing off-key and in notes that don’t quite make sense?  Could this song stand to have a quicker tempo?  With twangy acoustic guitars and unintelligible lyrics, they almost seem to be slightly out of my scope of understanding.  But don’t be quick to dismiss the Meat Puppets as one-hit wonders for penning “Backwater” because their talent lies mostly in their lyrical content.  My favorite part is the chorus, which goes: “I can’t see the end of me / Oh, me / My whole expanse, I cannot see / I formulate infinity, and store it deep inside of me.” You don’t have to be an English major to appreciate something so stunning, thought-provoking and full of insight.

The Nirvana rendition is the classic example of a cover that sheds a brilliant light on a relatively unknown (to non-Meat Puppets fans, rather) song.  The entire Nirvana Unplugged album was legendary in its own right in showcasing acoustic versions of many of their hit songs.  But Kurt also featured a few covers of his favorite musicians, like David Bowie and the Meat Puppets, particularly “Lake Of Fire” and “Oh, Me”.  Their stripped down version of an already acoustic number is so incredible that it floored me upon first listen and made me curious to hear how it stood against the original.  Kurt Cobain‘s solemnly strained vocals tend to work better than Curt Kirkwood’s, hitting the notes in a way that is much more aurally pleasing.  The tempo is a tad quicker, the guitars are twangier, and the background vocals groan in a way that definitely compliment Kurt.  Even the lyrics read like something a confused and ever-poignant Cobain could have written in a past musical life… and perhaps he did and the Meat Puppets just didn’t know it.  Or maybe they did?

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Another week, another musical showdown.  Who wins, and who sins?

The Smashing Pumpkins ventured forth for a worthwhile and exhilarating, if unusually awkward, two-night stay at Kansas City’s The Midland by AMC (one would be remiss to not note the corporate sponsorship of this music venue). Singer and guitarist Billy Corgan would surely be unhappy, or would he? Despite ceaseless battles with record companies (the band is currently label-less), Corgan is palpably torn between a need for notoriety and fame, and a dogmatic, unbridled artistic freedom, and has been for some time. I quite vividly recall an intimate, sold-out performance in Lawrence, Kansas during which Corgan at some length ranted against the commercial success of Korn, and this in the early 2000s.

Band relevance is something about which Corgan obsesses. Standing in the front row and watching Corgan glance to see if I know and parrot the lyrics to “I of the Mourning” tells me that he still holds such a concern; he appears strangely pleased and displeased with his current plight, but he has a cold tonight too.

The previous evening he draconianly chastised the audience for failing to recite the lyrics to one of his key hits: Siamese Dream‘s outstanding, ironic “Today”. He had a point there, but here’s the paradox: Billy Corgan eschews success just as much as he seeks it. As much as he despises the audience, he will shake its collective hand: Corgan tonight willingly admits that he has spite for audiences, but he also mingles with the crowd, even entering the seated areas. He, for instance, does not share the same malaise that his 1990s musical rival Kurt Cobain did concerning notoriety and fame, but notwithstanding, like Cobain, Corgan certainly does not wish to pander to the audience, in principle. He, too, finds that a grave offense against his musical integrity, and perhaps rightly so.

This latest incarnation – including new players Ginger Reyes (bass guitar) and Jeff Schroeder (rhythm guitar) – is amidst a so-called anniversary tour; the band that ignited the 1990s with its drama king, artsy, theatrical Queen and Black Sabbath indebted take on “grunge,” particularly in the wake of Nirvana’s unfortunate self-immolation, is celebrating twenty years of “infinite sadness” (drug abuse, band in-fighting, major depression), as well as, no doubt, substantial commercial and aesthetic, creative success – in the past.

But one must wonder at the entire notion of an anniversary tour with a new band, let alone a new corpus of songs. The band also is planning to record a new album, the follow up to Zeitgeist (2007), after it completes this tour. As Corgan concedes tonight, the band is not a “jukebox,” which means that it wants to attain commercial success again, but by absolutely functioning artistically on its own terms. Think Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead here. It’s possible, but it’s also incredibly improbable. (New single “G.L.O.W.,” however, could help Corgan attain such heights, as it is a true, obscure, satiric late-Halloween treat.) Its appearance on video games may indeed influence youthful fans.

But to the tour: it’s exceedingly difficult to applaud such an endeavor given that two main band members are noticeably missing, and that, technically, the band did say its farewell in 2001. The band reformed only recently, after Corgan’s FutureEmbrace (2005) solo tour, and after Corgan posted an emotional, romantic ad in the Chicago Tribune. The original Smashing Pumpkins emanated a sense of eccentric, artistic sincerity and materiality, a defined, reliable notion of integrity, even if it sought and accepted financial, commercial success. The music was undeniably great and cathartic, and the lineup was part of the music. Now Corgan finds the concept “reunion” to be a negative, and he is correct because it’s not an actual re-union. But perhaps that’s no matter; new music must be created by Corgan, as he is too talented; the band must move on, although the majesty and singularity of the Smashing Pumpkins of 1990s will be forever mourned.

Corgan, Pumpkin King, has conveniently retained the band’s name, but this band isn’t the Pumpkins of yesteryear; the latest incarnation is analogous in its lineup to the band that now dubs itself Guns N’ Roses: in GNR, for instance, all of its original members, save for Icarus-like, perfectionist, egoist crooner W. Axl Rose (who notably is, like Corgan, a notorious puppet-master) are nowhere to be seen. That said, Corgan’s new band (though doubtlessly Zwan-like) does dramatically and compellingly rock and roll; one can certainly appreciate a band’s pragmatic evolution, in spite of a wistful, desirous nostalgia for this seminal, alternative group in all its magisterial brightness: The musical universe simply would not be itself without the prodigious, masterful “boy wonder” Corgan and his several comrades, without The Smashing Pumpkins, past or present.

Ironic though it may be however, the bulk of the three-hour set entailed cuts from inarguably the band’s most “commercial” CD: the superb double-album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995): from the heavy metal-leaning, torturous, amorous poetry of “Bodies” (“Love is suicide!”) to the light-sounding, catchy, and youth-evoking “1979″, basically a new wave pop song , and a song into which one can enter a lost, surreal state of idealism, the band reveled in past dignity and stardom.

Corgan and his new band embraced its triumphant history, and all of this despite Corgan’s redundant, vociferous claims to refrain from playing solely hit songs, from pandering essentially. He did spend, however, a solid twenty minutes teasing the audience with song snippets on acoustic guitar: Corgan playfully mocked the crowd by turning down song requests; he and Schroeder had fun with this, with Corgan claiming his music was all just about “good times.” Hardly. Really it was, again, Corgan’s need to be both pertinent and idolized.

Corgan is, after all, a veracious, remarkable contradiction in terms. No requests, but he will play major songs. Maybe that’s a compromise of sorts; maybe it’s Corgan simply teasing. Corgan’s zeal, for example, was most evident in quite possibly the biggest and most recognizable song from the CD, excluding “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”: during the mercurially irate and morose song “Zero,” Corgan proved that he still both relishes playing songs from the recent past and pleasing an appreciative, devoted audience; a noticeable, gothic and passionate, hyperactive intensity accompanied Corgan’s performance , and he confidently deferred to the audience for one of its critical if bawdy, encoded lines: “Wanna go for a ride?” This time the audience nailed it; it was an excellent, energetic if atypical, rushed rendition.

The band played several other songs from Mellon Collie, including a moving, pristine version of “Galapogos”, with guitarists Corgan and Schroeder underscoring the quintessential soft-loud sound dynamic of alternative music. New songs were a mix between acoustic balladry (“Sunkissed”) and Sabbath-like metal sound and fury; probably the most stimulating new bit was “I am One, pt. 2,” which was part of the two-song encore. Other highlights: show opener “Ava Adore,” during which Corgan literally skirted about the stage in full-on Freddie Mercury mode, both kicking an amplifier and throwing confetti; and also the delightful Fleetwood Mac cover about mortality, “Landslide,” which appeared on the band’s rarities CD, Pisces Iscariot (1994). If this is the last time Corgan plays his major hits, so be it; tonight –tonight — was a rare, awe-inspiring and beautiful moment.

The Smashing Pumpkins: website | myspace

Written by: William Carl Ferleman

For a Halloween show, I can’t think of two better bands to see than New York’s Gang Gang Dance and Georgia’s Of Montreal. A friend said to me, “Everyday is Halloween for Kevin Barnes” so it only seemed appropriate to check out the indie dance rockers on what could only be called their holy day.

The show kicked off with a very avant garde set from Gang Gang Dance. The band, of course, dressed up for the occasion, as did most of the crowd, and front woman Liz Bougatsos made the perfect Axl Rose, down to the headband and dreads. Her brilliance didn’t stop at her costume, oh no. The band killed a trancey, dancey set with echoing melodies, Afro and Caribbean beats, distorted vocals and lots of reverb.

The set was both fully orchestrated and an all out jam session. Certain points of the evening saw the band just go crazy on their instruments, creating nothing short of a clusterfuck of noise that the audience didn’t really know what to do with. It took only a short time before the crowd got over the sound’s initial awkwardness and got lost in the dope beats and heavy melodies. If you’re into exploring new musical landscapes, Gang Gang Dance is definitely a band you shouldn’t miss.

The main event came in the form of an extravagantly elaborate stage show put on by Of Montreal. Of every single concert I’ve seen in 2008, I’m pretty sure I can declare Of Montreal the most fun band ever. If their electronic pop and dance beats don’t you get moving (the entirety of the Electric Factory was, in fact, moving) their antics on stage will definitely win you over. Each member of the band wore a Superman costume (homegirl Dottie Alexander owned her Superwoman threads!) and front man Barnes was carried out onto stage by golden Buddhas who later danced around the stage and supported Barnes on their backs as he laid down across them.

The visual goodies didn’t stop there. Giant screens behind the stage offered some trippy scenes of the band in infrared and solarized while a cowboy poker game turned into a bar fight, ninjas taunted a pig (guy in pig mask, no animals were harmed!) before Batman stepped in to kick some ninja butt, Barnes came out dressed as the Pope with a sexy nun at his feet before he stripped down to almost nothing. Of Montreal brought an amazing show full of wonderful theatrics to the Electric Factory for a fantastic Halloween.

Gang Gang Dance: website | myspace
Of Montreal: website | myspace

20 years have passed since Nine Inch Nails have burrowed into our heads with Pretty Hate Machine and Trent Reznor still seems to be just as angry as he was then. Since NIN didn’t tour the US behind Year Zero they had 6 albums of new material to pull from; the four disc Ghosts and the freebie The Slip. The newly retooled lineup seems to have a new life; with former Beck musical director Justin Meldal-Johnsen helming the low end and Axl Rose‘s guitarist Robin Finck stalking the stage like Aaron North during a seizure.

About halfway into the concert, an LED backdrop was lifted and the band delved into tracks from Ghosts in an acoustic format. With Meldal-Johnsen playing upright bass, drummer Josh Freese on a mini kit and Reznor manning a marimba; they displayed mastery of their instruments as well as the art of dynamics. The screens of LED’s were washed away by a flashlight shifting back to the rock setup and the sensory pummeling resumed. Arena shows lack intimacy and sincerity yet, somehow, this band manages to avoid the cliche and keeps the fans engaged throughout the two hour set. If you have a chance to see this show I highly recommend it, the visual aspect is groundbreaking and the music speaks for itself.

Setlist:
999,999
1,000,000
Letting You
Discipline
March of the Pigs
Head Down
The Frail
Closer
Gave Up
Corona Radiata
The Warning
Vessel
5 Ghosts I
17 Ghosts II
19 Ghosts III
Ghosts Piggy
The Greater Good
Pinion
Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
The Big Come Down
31 Ghosts IV
Only
The Hand That Feeds
Head Like A Hole
\\
Echoplex
God Given
Hurt
In This Twilight

Nine Inch Nails: website | myspace | virgin mobile fest