Metro Pulse/Music/Eye on the Scene

Madame Georgie has been a lazy sod of late. S/he's gotten plenty of local releases sent to her in the past couple of months, but has been negligent about reviewing them. Well, Madame convinced some friends to have a crack at some. Here's what they thought:

The High Score
Sexy Losers (Lynn Point Records)

A Knoxville super-group of sorts, The High Score really racks up the points on their excellent debut CD. Boasting a who's who of the last decade of Knox rock, the 'Score features 2/3 of Ramblin' Roy, half of The Faults (both fractions represent vocalist/guitarist Robbie Trosper and drummer Jason Peters), former Mustard frontman Chris Cook and bassist Dave Walker. Together, the band creates an amalgam of indie rock, punk and country sounds that never fits an exact category.

Let's face it: rock, punk and country all come from the same wellspring. And since all three genres have become firmly established components of popular music, crossover is inevitable. The High Score is adept at utilizing elements of all three genres to maximum effect, making music that just sounds good, feels good, and goes down as smooth as that third can of Pabst.

I could go the obvious route and compare The High Score to the big R's: The Replacements and The Rolling Stones. Their bluesy, rockin' swagger is in the same time-honored tradition. But then the band throws a curve ball and sounds kind of like Bob Mould ("Laid Up") or even The Pixies ("Call It Vicious"). Chris Cook's trademark guitar skronk adds a welcome edginess to the sound while Robbie Trosper's rock-steady riffage hammers it down with total exuberance.

The High Score could easily make it big, if'n they really felt like going out and doing it. But somehow, I think they're content to just make kick-ass music and see what happens. And if that's not a high goal, then what is? Who knows, these guys just might be Knoxville's next export. Stranger things have happened. Sexy Losers definitely succeeds on the sexy level, but this one's a winner for damn sure.

The Pecans
Staking Our Claim in the Information Age

The Pecans are insane. Utterly mad. Doubt it? Then listen to their latest local CD, Staking Our Claim in the Information Age, available on-line or at finer public restrooms near you. It gives awful testimony as to just what sort of debasements may transpire when five art students in the throes of permanent psychosis are given guitars, recording equipment, and free rein to use them.

The eight songs on Staking wax freakish about subjects ranging from marsupials, voodoo pimps, Nietchze and Mongols to a certain wayward Metro Pulse writer, who shall remain nameless, at least until the end of this column. The lyrical and musical discourse on each tune vacillate madly between bug-eyed cleverness and blithering insensibility; it's as if the band improvised the entire disc in one take, with no discernible editing of the weird mumble and scrape that resulted.

That lack of discrimination—or maybe discretion—is part of the point, though, and the moments of truth and twisted humor that emerge are almost worth the effort it takes to cull them from all the silliness. Maybe the moment where the Pecans come closest to removing the veil of absurdity is on "Helene," the fifth cut. Singer-guitarist Slick Surface (also listed as jaw harpist and dulcimer player) wails tunelessly about a heartless lover who's "got a darkness in her soul, and it's not shallow, it's a deep deep hole."

Helene reads Nietchze and stares at me. If I'm an Ubermensche she may let me be. But I'm thirty, read Rowlings and it only takes a glance to figure out I ain't got a chance. I'm not quite sure whether that's a snippet of inchoate profundity, or just more pedantic goofiness. With the Pecans, you're never really sure.

Go.

Thursday: We're at war. Hope no innocent lives are lost, and hunker down with Low Skies at the Pilot Light.

Friday: The Streamliners Big Band at Fairbanks will make you dance your troubles to the back of your mind.

Saturday: Did I mention we're at war? It seems kind of odd to talk about drinking and listening to music. But at the same time, art, emotion and sharing are one of the few things worth doing. Do it with New Brutalism at the Pilot Light.

Sunday: I and the public know/ What all schoolchildren learn,/ Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return.

Monday: Let Lizzie West and Jodie Manross soothe your nerves at Blue Cats.

Tuesday: God save history/ God save your mad parade/ Lord God have mercy/ All crimes are paid.

Wednesday: I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',/ Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,/ Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',/ Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'.

—Madame "I don't understand this bit at all" Georgie with John Sewell and Mike Gibson