This Week: Japan rocks, an Indigo Girl goes solo, and post-rock will eat itself
Thee Michelle Gun Elephant
Gear Blues (Alive/Total Energy)
Thee Michelle Gun Elephant isn't just another Japanese garage rock revival act. The band got together in 1988, prompted by a joint devotion to the Who, the Stooges, and Johnny Thunders (the band name is a bow of respect to the Damned album Machine Gun Etiquette, and the extra "e" was swiped from British proto-punker Billy Childish's band, Thee Headcoats.) They also adopted their look—sunglasses, frowns, and motorcycle jackets—from their idols.
But Thee Michelle Gun Elephant's first full-length U.S. release, Gear Blues, shows that they've outgrown their source material. Not that they're better than the bands that have influenced them—but the band has translated those influences into their own hard, raw sound. That the lyrics are a combination of Japanese verses and shout-along choruses in English doesn't really matter; the real meaning is in the music, an unsettling outburst of sneering, black-leather noise and serious get-down grooves.
Gear Blues kicks off with a dirty bass line and slashing guitar chords on the song "West Cabaret Drive" (issued as a single here in 1999); on the Brownsville Station-by-way-of-Iggy "Smokin' Billy," singer Yusuke Chiba sounds like he's swallowed barbed wire. The highlights are "West Cabaret Drive;" "Killer Beach," a disarming sing-along number with fuzz-tone guitars and a "whoo-hoo" harmony chorus; "Brian Down," which begins as a menacing stomp and swells into a climax of lacerating emotion; and the untitled secret track, a propulsive country song that manages to swing and hurtle out of control at the same time.
Gear Blues was originally released in Japan in 1998, and the band has already released a follow-up there—not to mention their extensive pre-Gear Blues catalog. We're waiting.
—Matthew T. Everett
The Sea And Cake
Oui (Thrill Jockey)
Basically a supergroup of Chicago post-rock and jazz musicians, The Sea And Cake sounds better as a theory than in execution. The band uses the sonic exploration of Tortoise as a jumping off point (S&C's John Mcentire is also a Tortoise member), adds vocals and comes up with a sum that is less than the equivalent of its parts. The vocals just take away from an otherwise engaging sound.
Vocalist Sam Prekop sings rather well, adding airy, meandering melodies to The Sea And Cake's aural stew. But Prekop's vocals fail to take charge as the lead instrument of the group, and the lyrics only serve to divert the listener's attention. The post-rock sound works best as a kind of meditative mantra, and the lyrics tend to take away from whatever internal dialogue the listener could have without being interrupted.
This is not to say Oui is a bad album. But it's just too airy, too pastel, too laid-back and too nice. The Sea And Cake is becoming the Y2K equivalent of pop/rock/jazz fusion of the '70s (see Spyro Gyra and selected Steely Dan) which is not necessarily a good thing. Oui succeeds as neither jazz nor art, instead delivering lackluster pop lite for the wine and cheese bunch.
—John Sewell
Amy Ray
Stag (Daemon)
Yes, it's that Amy Ray—one-half of Indigo Girls, boss-lady of the indie Daemon label, standard-bearer for earnest lefty folkie types everywhere. But you know what? Her first solo album ain't half-bad.
I've never been able to stomach the Indigo Girls, with their painful Poetry 101 metaphors and humorless harmonies. But cut free from partner-in-chyme Emily Saliers, Ray recruits some of the indie scenesters she's signed to Daemon over the years (mostly from Atlanta and North Carolina) and rocks pretty hard. The songs are in the riot grrl vein—sexual politics and genderf*cking galore—which is well-stomped ground by now. Ray (who is gay, yes) doesn't add anything new, really, but there's a sense of personal liberation here. Most of the lyrical pretensions are gone, replaced with a leather-jacketed determination to say what she means. Take "Lucystoners," for example, with its "Janny Wenner, Janny Wenner" chorus—I don't really care that Ray thinks she's been screwed over by Rolling Stone magazine, but I like that she cares enough to write a song about it. And when she sings to a lover, "Is it the boy you need in me/ Or the girl that you could be," she's getting close to some sticky truths.
She gets stellar assistance throughout from the likes of the Butchies, Danielle Howle and the Rock*A*Teens. The all-star jam "Hey Castrator," featuring real-rock goddess Joan Jett alongside members of the Breeders and Luscious Jackson, isn't quite the four-by-four blowout you'd expect, and is probably better for it. Jett's pomp-rock coda channels Elton John by way of Johnny Rotten, which probably sums up Ray's approach as well as anything. If Stag is the rock 'n' roll album she's always wanted to make, well, good for her. I hope there's more.
—Jesse Fox Mayshark
January 25, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 4
© 2001 Metro Pulse
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