Saint Maybe’s Debut Album: A Southwestern Gothic Rock Classic

Things As They Are, the debut album by Tucson supergroup Saint Maybe, sounds like the great lost sequel to the Dream Syndicate’s 1983 classic Medicine Show. That’s not to say that Saint Maybe are a ripoff: in their most anthemic moments, they evoke Willie Nile; at their jangliest, they remind of the Wallflowers, or Neil Young, or even Dylan, which makes sense since this project features Bob Dylan drummer Winston Watson. What they play is retro 80s psychedelia with some great tunes and deliciously unhinged, off-kilter lead guitar from the Patti Smith Group’s Oliver Ray. Guitarist Chris Sauer – who a few years back put out the intriguingly dark Desert Whale Ghosts – is also part of this project, as is southwestern gothic guru Craig Schumacher. If this album had come out in 1985, it would have a cult following today; without question, it’s one of 2012′s best.

These songs are long, typically unfolding slowly over seven or eight minutes, intricately arranged with layers of guitars and keyboards. The opening track, Everything At Once (And More) is a psychedelic tour de force. Ray’s surreal lyrics can be deliberately off-the-cuff and inscrutable, but he can really nail a phrase when he wants: this one’s a study in paradoxes. “We wanna live forever before we die,” he intones over a catchy, simple blues riff that eventually decays to a fluorescently hypnotic Brian Jonestown Massacre-style interlude layering ethereal mellotron against crashing fuzztone guitar.

With its bristling layers of acoustic and electric guitars, Houses for Ghosts reminds of paisley underground legends True West as the band mingles aphoristic, apocalyptic Steve Wynn-style imagery over a backbeat with pulsing keys: “Is that a dust storm approaching, the highway’s disappeared, they’re building houses for ghosts.” With its oscillating Rhodes piano, fuzz bass and staccato reverb guitar, the funky Delicate Prey owes a debt to Wynn’s desert rock classic Here Come the Miracles. By contrast, She’s Alright works a brisk but casually nocturnal country groove, a launching pad for another series of surrreal lyrics and smartly terse Americana guitar solos. It’s Dylanesque in the best possible way.

The Dream Syndicate influence really starts to show itself on the broodingly swaying Way with Words: the way they work a slow, steady crescendo, riding a sunbaked slide guitar lead (is that Schumacher? Sounds like him) is artful to the extreme. The centerpiece here is the epic Everything That Rises, driven by a venomously twisting Ray guitar riff. Rising from the ashes slowly with a wry Grateful Dead reference, it coalesces into a roaring, jangling, hallucinatory swirl, a wickedly catchy chorus and then a long bridge that builds to a devastating crescendo over wild layers of chord-chopping:

What’s that coming down the line
The question? Fires answered in your eyes
Are we to be reduced to ash
Or will we choose to be free at last?

They keep the Medicine Show menace going full throttle with the even longer Take It Easy (But Take It), a jaggedly catchy 6/8 anthem echoing with reverb guitar, pulsing drones and more of that offhandedly vicious slide guitar, the organ finally taking over to drive the hauntingly surreal narrative home. If that song is the album’s John Coltrane Stereo Blues, the title track is its Merrittville, a low-key but murderous Americana rock dirge with some deliciously terse, bluesy wailing by Ray. As much crazed improvisation as there is here, the orchestration is meticulous: an enormous amount of creativity went into this album. Let’s hope this isn’t the last we hear from Saint Maybe.

Ian Hunter Never Gets Old

Ian Hunter’s new album When I’m President is the good rock record that the Stones should have made this year (or around 1986, for that matter) but didn’t. It’s hard to believe that the former Mott the Hoople frontman, somebody who’s collaborated with everyone from John Cale to Mick Ronson to the Clash’s Mick Jones, is now past seventy. But Hunter is absolutely undiminished as both a frontman and a songwriter. On the mic, his rasp is as relentless as ever, and his poison pen still kills: as a stinging, surrealist wordsmith, Hunter still has few rivals. As usual, he plays acoustic guitar and piano here, backed by the Rant Band: Mark Bosch and James Mastro on guitars, Paul Page on bass and Steve Holley on drums, with Andy Burton on keys and Andy York (of John Mellencamp’s band and Mary Lee’s Corvette) adding subtle shades of guitar, some keys, and instruments like baritone guitar and dulcitar.

The music here chugs along with a familiar, Stonesy growl: if Keith Richards could be cloned, he’d sound like them. Mastro plays in the left channel, Bosch in the right, firing off the occasional solo with expert command of five decades worth of rock styles. The catchiest song on the album is the title track (available from Hunter as a free download). With its familiar janglerock melody and an irresistibly funny allusion to a certain “classic” rock riff, Hunter defiantly takes a stand with the 99% against the fat cats: “Still whining about your bonus? Man up, you’re ridiculous…” But as much as trying to buck the system may be like “the pit and the pendulum,” it ends optimistically.

With another amusing allusion to a well-known song (this one from the new wave era), What For is a rant worthy of any other in Hunter’s vast back catalog, a slap upside the head of a clueless conformist, suggesting a break from the cellphone in exchange for “a little recreational skulldiving.” Likewise, the big, dramatic 6/8 anthem I Don’t Know What You Want takes a jaundiced look at generational dissonance.

Other tracks work a psychopathological vein over a roaring backdrop. Bosch channels David Gilmour with an searing, angst-fueled solo in Black Tears, a kiss-off to a psychic vampire, that faux melancholy being “just another weapon in your arsenal of fear.” There’s also a Pink Floyd influence in the suspensefully percussive Ta Shunka Witco (Crazy Horse), the Indian warrior out for revenge anthem against those “paid by the rich to steal from the poor.” The down-and-out junkie in Saint, a pretty standard-issue garage rock number, rails that “I ain’t no saint but I could never be you.” And Fatally Flawed gets a crushing crescendo on the first verse and an all-too-brief, screaming Bosch solo: “Lookit that trainwreck, purring like a Cadillac,” Hunter snarls.

The other tracks include Just the Way You Look Tonight, a casually majestic anthem that’s a dead ringer for Willie Nile, lit up by Mastro’s mandolin ; The Wild Bunch, a bankrobber ballad with saloon piano by Burton and an unexpected gospel choir; the rakishly seductive Comfortable (Flyin’ Scotsman), with some cool syncopation to fit the lyrics at the end as the chorus stretches out; and the surprisingly upbeat, amusing closing track: “Did you blow it on Myspace, did you twitter when you was clean outta your face?” Hunter wants to know. At this point in his career, his greatest shining moment is still Rant, his savage 2001 response to creeping fascism in the wake of 9/11. But this is a clinic in good tunesmithing and good playing from a bunch of guys who’ve been there and done that, and are still there and still doing it as well or even better than before. One of the best albums of 2012: long live Ian Hunter.

Band of Outsiders’ New Mini-Album Could Be Their Best Yet

Formed in 1980, Band of Outsiders became a popular CBGB act and recorded with Ivan Kral of the Patti Smith Group. They called it quits at the end of 1988, seemingly at the peak of their career, after touring Europe and releasing a tantalizingly small output of incandescent guitar-fueled songs. Their swirling, intricate yet powerful twin-guitar sound foreshadowed the dreampop explosion of the late 80s; their post-Velvets songwriting drew apt comparisons to another legendary CB’s band, Television. Band of Outsiders influenced an entire generation of dark psychedelic and garage bands, from the Jesus & Mary Chain to Brian Jonestown Massacre. Reuniting sporadically, and then for good in 2008, they’ve been playing around New York and have a new ep, Sound Beach Quartet that’s arguably the best thing they’ve ever done. They’re at Local 269 tomorrow night, June 5 at 9 PM on a great bill with Lakeside all-stars Los Dudes opening at 8, then their longtime pals Certain General at 10 and legendary John Cale collaborator and Floor Kiss frontwoman Deerfrance  headlining afterward.

As usual, the twin guitars of Marc Jeffrey and Jim McCarthy are the drawing card here with their edgy blend of jangle and clang. The opening track, As It’s Written has a surprisingly airy early 80s Feelies vibe, working its way up to an irresistibly catchy chorus on the new wave pulse of Dave Lee’s bass and Richard Maurer’s drums, with some deliciously circling tradeoffs between the guitars as it picks up steam. Likewise, One Life is Not Enough opens with spacious acoustic guitar interplay and then turns into a backbeat anthem with bright Tex-Mex guitar that wouldn’t be out of place in the Willie Nile catalog. The strongest track is the absolutely gorgeous, bittersweet Gods of Happenstance: it’s the missing link between Television and the Grateful Dead (there’s a very clever quote in there) as REM would have done it if Peter Buck had been a world-class lead player. The epic concluding track, Trickle of Love first builds slowly and gently, then hypnotically, then majestically as layer up on layer of acoustic and then electric guitar enters the mix. After a Beatlesque bridge and a slide guitar solo that finally sails up with a wailing intensity, it winds out on a surprisingly gentle, ornate note with a handful of piano flourishes. Short and sweet as this is, it’s a fair approximation of Band of Outsiders’ intense, crescendoing live show – and one of the best rock albums of 2012.

Willie Nile – Still a Great Performer in Daylight

“How’re the levels? How’s my guitar? Is it wallpaper folk music, or let’s-blow-up-this-building?” Willie Nile asked the crowd at J&R’s downtown Friday. On one level, it was weird seeing Willie Nile play in broad daylight. On the other hand, Nile is the rare rock musician who plays well before sunset: his recently reissued Live in Central Park album is legendary. It’s been thirty years since Nile debuted on Columbia Records as the latest in a long line of New Dylans, at least fifteen since his last misadventure with a major label; not surprisingly, his independence is what gained him a worldwide following (he’s off on European tour again next week after a VH1 live appearance Monday morning). This time out it was just a trio, Nile playing acoustic (but still wanting to blow up the building with it) plus Alex Alexander on drums and Johnny Pisano on bass.

Rock bass solos are usually a recipe for disaster, but Pisano got all the solos this time and still left the crowd wanting more: elegant, thoughtful rises and falls, torrents of eight-note punches and a few bluesy bends, basically guitar voicings simply moved a couple of octaves lower. And he sang harmonies while playing a lot of them. Yet he didn’t overshadow the frontguy, who’s become the undisputed champ of the killer chorus, and Nile launched into one after the other. The opening track, Singin’ Bell (from Nile’s new album The Innocent Ones) sounded like a Woody Guthrie song done as a big rock anthem. The title track, a dedication to children endangered and killed by violence around the world, moved from a verse that reminded of Bob Dylan’s Hurricane – thanks to the soaring bass – to a singalong as the chorus kicked in. As a chronicle of a strung-out talent wasting her life away, Rich and Broken could have just as easily been sarcastic and vicious, but it wasn’t: it could have been an Amy Winehouse requiem. And while Cell Phones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead is actually very sarcastic, Nile firing off one surreal, sometimes twisted image after another, he left no doubt at the end that the song was in memory of the victims of the Madrid train bombings, right down to the false ending and explosive chord-chopping outro.

The slow ballad On the Road to Calvary, dedicated to his friend Jeff who’d perished when the twin towers were demolished, was even more poignant than usual (it’s usually a vehicle for a long guitar solo). But as deeply aware as Nile’s music is, he’s an old pro at working a crowd, deciding in a split second that he wanted to do Champs Elysees, a proto-Ramones hit whose narrator isn’t so starstruck by the sights of Paris that he doesn’t notice the pretty girls before everything else. “It’s simple, just follow me,” he grinned at Alexander, whose swinging backbeat brushwork was absolutely perfect for the space they were playing.

Since J&R’s is a stone’s throw from the Occupy site/s, Nile took care to offer his solidarity with them. “I believe in the dream of America. I think it’s all about information. If we all had the same information, we’d make the same decisions. No matter what your beliefs, if a seven-year-old on a bike gets hit by a car, we all come out of our houses to help,” Nile explained before running through One Guitar, a surprisingly New Order-ish anthem that USA Today recently picked as their #1 song of the week. Nile closed with a request, House of 1000 Guitars, the title track from his previous album, which covers the same turf that Leonard Cohen did with Tower of Song except that this isn’t the kind of place you’d hear Hank Williams coughing all night long – but you might hear a holler or two, alongside Hendrix and the rest of Nile’s guitar pantheon.

Yet more evidence of how the scales have tilted in favor of independent musicians: this was Black Friday. There aren’t many record stores left in New York, so J&R’s pretty much has their pick of who they want for in-store shows like this one. Maybe they could have had Rihanna, or Lady Gag. But they got Willie Nile instead. That pretty much says it all.

Amanda Thorpe’s Promenade: Stunning and Seductive

Amanda Thorpe has been a somewhat more elusive presence in the New York music scene lately, but the British expat singer/multi-instrumentalist continues to put out tremendously captivating albums. Her new one, Promenade, is a little more melodically diverse, less overtly dark than her 2008 masterpiece Union Square. As usual, the vocals are astonishing. By turns seductive, aching and charming, Thorpe can still say more in a single wounded bent note (or a raw, soul-infused wail) than most singers can communicate in an entire album. This time around, although most of the songs here are more straight-up rock, she’s followed her jazz muse into territory that most singers simply can’t reach: it’s not just a matter of chops, it’s a matter of soul, and Thorpe has both.

The attractiveness of the tunes often belies a darker undercurrent. Bar Tabac, which is essentially the title track, bleakly traces a woman’s steps from Cobble Hill to the Brooklyn Promenade, daydrunk on bloody marys, alone and miserable, while the band swings along on a jaunty bossa nova bounce lit up by Ray Sapirstein’s blithe trumpet. Monica Says, by Philip Shelley (who also serves as co-writer on the poppier numbers here), sets a portrait of a woman insisting she’ll never be happy again against crunchy Willie Nile-esque powerpop with some snarling slide guitar by Tony Scherr. Thorpe’s hypnotically gorgeous layers of vocals give the Nashville noir of Once Lovers and Bury It a creepy David Lynchian edge, while Harold Arlen’s Paper Moon gets reinvented as edgy urban country. And the jaunty closing track, Aloha Bobby and Rose, is the best song here. It’s got all the elements of a classic retro pop hit: a singalong, anthemic, country-tinged tune, and just enough imagery to keep the listener on pins and needles waiting to find out how this particular story of a drunken evening ends. When Thorpe finally cuts loose at the end, the impact is viscerally chilling.

The vocals on several numbers here are transcendent. On What Love Is (no relation to the Dead Boys classic), she’s torchy, and tender, and spine-tingling against Matt Trowbridge’s tersely echoey Fender Rhodes electric piano and Rob Jost’s slinky, soaring bass. It’s hard to resist Thorpe’s logic here: “”Try to believe in the dreams that you’re dreaming, that’s how they come true.” The country-tinged Amber pairs sultry, crystalline vocals with gentle ukulele from Craig Chesler, while Catching the Light builds from a wintry backdrop to a towering crescendo. When Thorpe asserts that “I would walk until sunrise if you needed me to,” she owns it: it’s impossible to believe otherwise. And Goodbye, with its oldtime swing sophistication, wouldn’t be out of place in the Moonlighters catalog.

And not everything here is all white-knuckle intense,either. Waking up in Brooklyn dares a guy to walk away from his daily drudgery, while Hey Hey Hey is an irresistibly cajoling, playful, indelibly New York song – Thorpe wants some fun, maybe a walk up Museum Mile and then a stop for biscuits and tea and she won’t accept no for an answer! What else is there to say about this artist that hasn’t been said already: tremendous singer, tremendous material, someone you should get to know if you haven’t already.

Edward Rogers’ Porcelain Hits Hard and Pure

Edward Rogers has made a name for himself as someone who can write expertly in any retro rock style he wants, whether solo or with the artsy, jangly Bedsit Poets. The Birmingham, UK expat’s new album Porcelain is his hardest-rocking effort so far, and not only is it his best, it’s also one of best straight-up rock records of the last couple of years. Maybe it’s because he’s been so closely involved with the Losers Lounge scene, or maybe it’s just because he writes such good songs, but either way he always has an A-list band behind him. This time around the rhythm section features members of Cracker, Nada Surf or Graham Parker’s band, alongside Ian Hunter’s guitarist and a whole slew of other NYC talent. Rogers’ vocals are typically understated: he’ll snarl but he doesn’t usually scream. Rogers looks back fondly, sometimes bitterly; he looks to the future with extreme apprehension. The songs here range from blistering rockers to delicate chamber-pop laments.

The title track takes garage rock snarl, subdues it a little and turns it into insistent, propulsive new wave in the same vein as the Church, at least in that band’s early years, leaving its troubled intensity just below the surface to leap up when least expected. Likewise, the best track on the album, Topping the World, has the same fast 2/4 beat, a forest of burning, psychedelic guitar layers, and lyrics that capture a moment when the banks have repossessed everything, the temperature keeps climbing but still nobody questions the magic of the marketplace. “Chaos rules your destiny,” Rogers reminds over and over as it winds out.

Nothing Too Clever is gentle chamber-pop – it’s Kooks by David Bowie updated for the teens, with a stunning Claudia Chopek orchestral arrangement featuring Tim Dutemple’s oboe and Eleanor Norton on cello. Love with the World, a sarcastic eco-catastrope anthem, goes even more deeply into Thin White Duke territory, with some brightly wry Mick Ronson-esque slide guitar from James Mastro.

The opening track, a reminiscence about a hellraising bar crowd, is Irish-flavored glamrock that wouldn’t be out of place in the Black 47 reel book. Diamond Amour also has an Irish rock vibe and a ridiculously catchy, singalong chorus straight out of the Willie Nile catalog. “The world is changing from grey to black-and-white,” Rogers intones on the pensive ballad Link to the Chain – it’s the personal as political taken to its vividly logical extreme. Separate Walls is like Oasis with a Ph. D., a pummeling rocker with some memorable dueling between Don Fleming’s machete guitar and Chopek’s stiletto violin. Silent Singer also potently features those two contrasting savage/incisive attacks. The album closes with a hallucinatory, nightmarish psychedelic tone poem of sorts, Fleming’s axe-murderer guitar cutting its way through a hellish Lower East Side milieu that bears little resemblance to the once edgy, working-class neighborhood that Rogers has called home for years. “Take the train to Fancyland/My magazine well in hand,” he sneers at the fulltime tourists who’ve transformed his old stomping ground from a fertile incubator for bands into a Bernie Madoff style Florida shopping mall. Other bands – notably the Brooklyn What - have chronicled the destruction of New York by gentrification over the past ten years, few as memorably as Rogers. For people who like a good tune, this album’s a lot of fun – for New Yorkers, it’s also an important piece of history. The album officially releases next month; watch this space for news of the release show, most likely at Bowery Electric.