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Saturday, December 5, 2009

GARY HEFFERN GIVES CONSOLATION There's an Elvis Costello song called “Man Out of Time” and that title is always one I’ve thought applicable to Gary Heffern. His voice, his pensive songs, and his outsized personality suggest a simpler and earlier era. Like the struggling men and women in the short stories of Raymond Carver, or the figures sitting at diner stools in the paintings of Edward Hopper, the characters in Heffern’s songs exist in a noir-ish netherworld of an uncertain time but one that surely is not ours. They drift and struggle in a place where the simple concept of consolation exists as a salvation.
Heffern is a songwriter’s songwriter, which is one of the reasons his work has always commanded so much respect from other musicians. Many stellar names contribute to Consolation including musicians from such noteworthy bands as the Screaming Trees, Young Fresh Fellows, Love Battery, Walkabouts, Built to Spill, Motels, Mad Season, and Tuatara, among others. Even when Heffern is singing with Alejandro Escovedo or Mark Lanegan, both of whom take vocal turns here, these collaborations come off as a further explorations of the Heffern’s worldview.
Nine of the thirteen songs here are Heffern originals but even the four covers have a melancholy. On “All His Children” Heffern takes a forgotten song from the over-looked film “Sometimes a Great Notion,” and turns it into an anthem of longing. Considering that Heffern’s voice is at times reminiscent of both Johnny Cash and Nick Cave, it is no surprise to see him take on a Merle Travis song, or to take a refrain from Gram Parsons. Still, Heffern’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Growin’ Up” is such a re-imagining that it now sounds like it came off Nebraska rather than Springsteen’s 1973 debut.
In Heffern’s own songs there is a constant struggle between darkness and light, between failed dreams and reckless prayer, between a world where all hope is lost and one where a consoling friend offers a sliver of deliverance. Even on a song as haunting as “(I Am Your) Destroyer,” which sounds like Iggy Pop could have written it, there is still a core of sweetness among the ruins. “That’s the Beauty (Of the Little Things in Life)” truly rings with a ghost: It was written in Seattle’s Comet Tavern on the very night that Gits’ singer Mia Zapata went missing (and later turned up murdered). Not only a remarkable time piece, “That’s the Beauty” demonstrates Heffern’s skill at creating a story arc that celebrates the fragility of life at the same time it bemoans it. It’s the kind of re-framing that is uniquely Gary Heffern and part of what makes Consolation a career-defining album. Charles R. Cross

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BY GARY HEFFERN
NANCY JEPHCOTE: SCHOOLING THE I-POD GENERATION TO LISTEN "I'm not setting out to start a career," says Nancy Jephcote. "I made the CD to honor what I was given. Every gift you have comes at a price. If a certain area of your life is compelling to you, you have to limit other areas of your life. "Garland of Rain" is an anthology of her career, and she admits to having spent much time and energy over the last two years designing a CD that would completely satisfy her.

In making the CD, Ms. Jepchote traveled from her long-time Martha's Vineyard home to Texas to do the recording with a long-time friend of hers, Tom Prasada- Rao. She describes the recording process as a perfect meeting of the minds. In the recording process, Ms. Jepchote, who was raised in a family of classical musicians, was able to play multiple instruments on a single track, painstakingly polishing the performances until they had arrived at a finished product.
The effect is orchestral. "Garland of Rain" is a two-disc set, each 35 to 40 minutes long. The songs sound full and nuanced. Ms. Jepchote has a wonderful voice that slides harmoniously through the songs.

Ms. Jepchote has made her living teaching music, both privately and throughout the Island school system. Thoughtful and considered as she speaks, she lights up when she describes teaching music: "Music is magical in its ability to bypass the brain and reach a person inside. It can really help people's hearts. When teaching, I would think, 'Who is this person, what's important to them, and how can I help them reach it.' Whether or not the music was their real goal, working with music could help them reach it."

With her emphasis on teaching comes a willingness to learn. "We are learning from the young how to be connected in this day and age," she says. "With the realm of computers, the way music is being listened to has changed greatly in just the last couple of years."

The Vineyard community has changed since Ms. Jepchote started playing on the Island, but its appreciation of live music remains. "I miss the sense that the Wintertide brought in the winter," speaking of the former coffeehouse in Vineyard Haven, "but we still have events such as potlucks and fundraisers that capture that energy. There is a certain joy in seeing your friends and neighbors performing. In many places people don't have that."

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about music with such richness, is trying to tack it into a genre.

"Music is freer than genres," says Ms. Jepchote. "They don't ask visual artists, 'What genre is that painting?' But you have to associate. Folk is a vast area, and this falls into it somewhere. There is rock influence, Latin influence... We carefully arranged the order of the tracks. The goal was to make something unique, make it sound like good music."
"I was told that no one listens to whole CD's anymore, that they take the songs they like and put them in an iPod on shuffle," Ms. Jephcote says. "I'm from a different generation. I like sitting down and listening to a CD, so I made my CD to the standards that I have and feel fulfilled for it."

The music has a refined, resilient energy, a fullness that comes with the life experience of its creator and reflects her positivity that has come from hardship. "There are a lot of health quandaries that can hold people back, times when your life is shaping you rather than you it," Ms. Jephcote says. "I've learned not to take any degree of health for granted. When I was healthy enough to do this project, I realized I had no excuse not to, late as it feels like in my life."

Having made a conscious choice to live a fulfilling life, Ms. Jephcote says, "It is much easier to observe loss than it is to observe improvement and wealth. We have to practice gratitude. We have to be able to turn our attention to what we want to grow. To recognize what's good, and not get stuck in what isn't."

Ben Williams, The Martha's Vineyard Times.
LISTEN TO 'ROBERT' & 'WALK ON'
BY NANCY JEPHCOTE

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Saturday, September 5, 2009

FROM PATAGONIA TO BUENOS AIRES AND NOW TO THE USA. OTHERNESS ARE GOING PLACES. OTHERNESS is a quirky alt/rock band that made their way from the furthest reaches of Argentina's Patagonia to Buenos Aires four years ago. Since then they have worked constantly, recording, playing. and touring. Now the hard work has begun to pay off with notice in their adopted city and as far away as London Seattle and New York . Their first South American CD titled Lite 2007 released in sold out almost immediately. A video of one of the CD's songs Once Begop went into rotation on MuchMusic Latin America. Now the band have set their sites on bringing their special brand of techno-punk to the US and Europe. It's a goal brothers Gonzalo and Martin Cativa have had since their days growing up in the cold desolate landscape of Comodoro Rivadavia Argentina.

While growing up Martin and Gonzalo Cativa and Adrian Bersais took comfort in the fact that some of their musical heroes- Leadbelly, Arthur Alexander, Kurt Cobain-were able to escape the gloomy confines of dull grey backgrounds that offered very little future. Comodoro Rivadavia was a boom town gone bust in the 1990's. There was little time or opportunity to put into dreams of becoming rock musicians. But their drive led them to uncover the music of Nirvana, John Lennon, Elvis Costello and the Argentine grand master of tango, Astor Piazzolla. Paying careful attention to the craft of artists like these has helped Martin and Gonzalo Cativa to become the authors of hundreds of catchy, exciting songs that are entirely the product of their own talents.

Along the way the three created their own sort of manifesto. It has become an outline of the way they view life in the 21st Century. The basics of this include observations such as;

• The pilgrim needs to travel, if he stops he can die at the hands of what he considers the final learning-or perhaps adoration.
• Everyone is addicted to something.
• What is achieved with drugs can be obtained by other means.
• Explore alternative knowledge.
• Human beings are simply sexual.
• Marriage is an obsolete institution that died in the 20th century.
And just for good measure;
• "El sexo y el dolor firman la identidad de la carne" - W. Burroughs

If this makes the band sound like earnest young idealists, the fact is they are also full of fun and a sense of wonder. There's a sense of hope and positivity in their music and lyrics that make them seem ...well....happy. The addition of drummer Pablito Gaggioni in 2008 has rounded out the band and given the extra drive they had been looking for. They have made a commitment to write and perform their songs in English which goes against the current trend in Argentine rock. These days Argentine pop seems a bit doctrinaire in it's insistence to be sung in Spanish when in fact most of it is nothing more than a re-hash of older British and English sounds. The sound Otherness has created doesn't even fit easily into today's pop music pigeon-holes. It's a quirky, upbeat sound that pays serious attention to the tradition of intelligent pop music. It also honors sounds like the traditional choros of Northern Argentina and Brazil, as well as the tango...a tradition that rose out of the Buenos Aires slums to become one of the most recognizable musical genres in the world. The members of Otherness show great deference to the master of Tango, Astor Piazzolla, but never overuse the style . Thus avoiding the pitfall of sounding like twee "world music". They are the furthest thing one imagines from musical archeologists. In fact, the August 2009 issue of London's Rock Pulse says:

"A fresh new rock group from Argentina are hitting the American and British music scene with their quirky and fun sound. Their name; Otherness. They have recently released their new single digitally. Containing the tracks Adorable and Pill-grim. They are an interesting four piece, sounding unlike anything I've heard before. Mellow and fiesty songs with a hint of electro. I love the vocals and rhythm that seems to come so easily to them, without trying too hard to impress. Otherness have passion and dedication and truly sound brilliant! Their first US tour is sure to be a success..."

Their first US album is being released on the eve of a tour that will take them across North America for the first time. It will fulfill a dream of following the spiritual journey of great American travellers like John Stienbeck and Jack Kerouac and fellow Argentinean Che' Guevara. The CD is being released by Seattle independent label dadastic! Sounds and includes eight new songs as well as Once Begop the hit from their debut album The CD is scheduled for release October 13th 2009. It will be available directly though the dadastic! sounds website at www.dadastic.com. As well as amazon.com, CD Baby, i-tunes and many other download sites worldwide. Check out the band's video of ONCE BEGOP.
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ONCE BEGOP by OTHERNESS


Sunday, April 5, 2009

STUDENT NURSE SAYS: STAND UP STRAIGHT! By 1981 Student Nurse were a mainstay on the alterative Seattle scene. Their angular, slightly dissonant and dancey sound set them aside from the darker, the punkier, or the heavier bands they shared bills with. The best of their contemporaries honed-in on their sound. Student Nurse expanded outward, sending the band on a trajectory headed somewhere between subversion and art-damage. The jittery guitars of Helena Rogers, Tom Boettcher and Eric Muhs stood just a little out front of Johnny Rubato’s jazz-influenced understated drumming. Helena’s Roger’s singing was disjointed, pointillist and determined.
The band put out the mutantly delightful “Disco Dog” as well as “As Seen on TV”, a one-sided EP with cover art hand-screened by Rogers. This is the kind of stuff collectors drool over nowadays, but Student Nurse wasn’t interested in the pre-manufactured collectible market that would later be a trademark of other Seattle artists and labels. For them the art was part of the ethic.
In early ‘81 Student Nurse entered Triangle Studios to record two sides for Pravda Records. The choice of songs seems odd…both had a real pop element to them. But both were still subversive. The A side ‘Recht Op Staan’ was sung in a foreign language and the B side “Electronic Pop Smash’ was devoid of the synth sound that was becoming so popular at the time. Just as odd was the choice of producer, David Javelosa of NYC/LA techno jokers Los Microwaves. But dig a little closer and it’s apparent this was definitely an inside job. Two and a half decades later, it’s a lot easier to see just how the band sought to subvert even the most accessible music they could muster up.
Although the band was fairly democratic, onstage Student Nurse belonged to Helena Rogers. Skinny but not a bit frail looking with piercing silver eyes with Phranc-ish hair. All shouts and smiles. Totally Lesbo-chic before Lesbo-chic was chic. She provided the caffeinated energy that led to them onto many of the best local bills of the era. They didn’t seem to mind that local promoters were unlikely to choose them as openers for touring acts. The were too oddball. Too difficult to pigeonhole. And let’s face it; promoters were scared by Helena Rogers butch dynamic.
Student Nurse didn’t spend time calculating what would have been best for their career. Otherwise they never would have released this single. The title ‘Recht Op Staan’ is Dutch for ‘stand up straight’. The song’s lyrics extol the benefits of good posture. Not a likely way to get attention from the American indie audience at the time, but ‘Recht Op Staan’ is a bit of a collectors item these days. In fact all of Student Nurse’s vinyl releases go for a fair amount of cash. A recent Seattle citing of ‘Recht Op Staan’ had an asking price of $28. If you’re after a copy of their EP or of Disco Dog be prepared to spend more. Likewise, many of the silk-screens that came out of Rogers silkscreen/design studio during the 1980’s are in demand. Posters for shows by Audio Leter, The Fags, Red Dress as well as their own are easier to appreciate these days. Like Student Nurse’s music, they are shiny examples of being the unknowing architects of the future.
LISTEN TO 'RECHT OP STAAN' BY STUDENT NURSE
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

THE REFUZORS FIND THEIR FAITH Remember The Refuzors back in their heyday? Back when they were A-list Seattle punk rockers. They were one of the best live bands around. Uncompromising, edgy and raw. They could have been lumped in with alot of hardcore bands from that era but for one thing. The songwriting, mostly by guitarist and vocalist Mike Refuzor set them far ahead of other great Seattle bands like The Fartz or The Blackouts.
These guys never made it out of the confines of the Vancouver/Seattle/Portland alt vortex. I'm sure they never made a penny, but The Refuzors were the real deal. Totally without guile or bullshit, their lives and music were undistinguishable. They were hombres, outside the lines with fiercely loyal fans. By the late 80's though, the band slowly unraveled from drugs, alcohol, a generational shift in music and limited recognition outside the Northwest. It's a typical story, but it's without a typical ending. Read on.
In 1993 Mike Refuzor got some of his band mates back together and recorded two sides for the now defunct Seattle label 'Bag of Hammers'. The results are spectacular. 'Think I Lost My Faith' and 'Jim Jones' might just be the missing link between the brilliant NW underground scene of the 1980's and the brilliant but over-hyped 'grunge' of the 90's. Unfortunately Bag of Hammers released only 800 copies of the single and without any promotion it went nowhere. That in itself has made this a long sought-after single. I'd bet my balls somewhere there's still a stack that were never sold....It's that rare. Meanwhile Mike ended up in a spiral that eventually left him on the street. In the early 2000's he suffered a mild stroke and without the support from his old friends and fans he became nearly unknown to the generation who cut their teeth on grunge.
Recently I came across a copy of the ‘Bag of Hammers’ single and was completely caught off guard. The Refuzors were always a great live act, but I only know of one other recorded song available anywhere. 'White Power' was included on the Seattle Syndrome compilation put out in 1981 by Engram Records. 'White Power' was a great track, and possibly could have gotten college radio airplay if it weren't for it's misleading title. The song was directed at one-time Seattle rock critic Regina Hackett and her assumption that Mike's black leather had something to do with fascism. Remember, this was 25 years ago. The chorus screams:

'I never said White Power to you...White Power, I'm sayin' it now. You put those words in my mouth"
Both 'Think I Lost My Faith' and 'Jim Jones' have big guitars and upfront drums & bass that defy the typical punk rhythm section. Mike's vocals are torn-ragged and raw, but not like every other cookie-cutter hardcore vocalist. This is real pain; not fake angst. There's a beautiful, passionate cruelty at work here. These songs are a brilliant mix of writing and delivery. This is classic stuff. Stuff that makes me want to howl and cry and bang my head at the same time. Stuff that proves my theory; The greatest bands in the world will probably never be heard. Most will never make it outside their garage door.
The atypical ending? The lives of some of The Refuzors have taken turns for the better. Mike's off the street, healthy and making a go at being clean and sober. Sixteen years after they were recorded both songs...along with an entire album's worth of material...Are about to be re-released. The Refuzors may never end up onstage again…who knows? But we'll have a permanent reminder of their contribution to the outrageous success far less talented Seattle bands had in the 90's. I don't know if The Refuzors were some of the 'Shoulders of Giants' grunge bands stood on, or if they were just garage-bound guys that got stepped on and tossed aside when the music biz smelled cash. It doesn't matter. Think I Lost My Faith' and 'Jim Jones' are fucking brilliant, fucking beautiful masterpieces even if they never get heard....But they will. Just you wait...You'll hear them.


LISTEN TO 'THINK I LOST MY FAITH' BY THE REFUZORS


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Tuesday, March 3, 2009

NW PUNK ROCK : 30 PLUS YEARS OF PUNK ROCK For two years Dave Alexander searched attics, basements and various storage lockers to come up with live clips of some of the Northwest’s best punk rock. Along the way he interviewed people like Joey Shithead (D.O.A) and Mark Arm (Mudhoney) to help tell the story of 30 years of hardcore punk from Vancouver BC, through Bellingham, Seattle and Olympia WA and on to Portland and Eugene OR. Dave’s D.I.Y. production culminated in this 2 DVD documentary. It shows the passion and life-blood of NW hardcore punk through it’s infancy to it’s current incarnation. It’s a gritty, down-to-earth and totally chaotic celebration. It contains little-seen archival footage of some of the Northwest’s legendary bands shot at some of the Northwest’s most famous punk venues: The Metropolis and The Funhouse in Seattle; Satyricon in Portland, and more. An entire disc is devoted to live music and the other is documentary, with an incredible line-up of bands. The Dishrags, Subhumans, The Fartz, Maggot Brains, Hot rod Lunatics, Solger, The Rickets, The Meyce, Mr. Epp and the Calculations, Zipgun, D.O.A., The Slashers, Subvert, The Insurgence, The Rebel Spell, TBA, Leper, The Dreadful Children, Potbelly, Swads, The Furies, Flash, Fitz of Depression….and….let me catch my breath….more. The 2 disc DVD is available now through our mail order catalogue for only $9.98.…yeah, that’s right…less than 10 smackeroos. Just click on the handy link to your right >

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

UPCHUCK: GONE BUT NOT FORGIVEN
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BY THE TIME CHARLES 'UPCHUCK' GERRA TURNED 17 he’d been locked up in juvenile detention for being gay, run away to Seattle, was arrested for offering an off-duty cop a blow-job in exchange for bus fare home and co-founded one or Seattle’s earliest punk bands. By the time he died in 1990 he’d left an indelible mark on everyone who’d ever met him or seen him perform. Onlookers were pulled in whether he was leaping around the stage like a psychotic elf or floating effortlessly in ecclesiastic robes and bishop’s miter. There were performances wearing a wig made of live squid. The poop head. The night he lip-synched on top of a pool table to Wayne County’s “Fuck Off” in his underwear, swinging the largest dildo mankind has ever seen. In Upchuck’s world Kabuki demons performed alongside malevolent gremlins and 18th Century dandies…and not just onstage
From the moment Upchuck woke up every morning there was only one goal to work toward? ‘How am I going to be a star today?’ Life was performance whether it was on the stage of local clubs or riding a bus to the supermarket. Watching his single-mindedness thrilled everyone who stood by and watched it; especially since the people closest to him were living in a slightly more modest version of the same world.
The theatrics of shock have become cheap gimmicks in today’s world of pop music. They no longer carry much more than marketing value. Outrage has become homogenized and commercialized to the point of being an embarrassing and cliché. Even in the 1970’s and 1980’s Upchuck’s antics wouldn’t have meant much if it weren’t for the a very important thing: He had talent and vision. It was almost enough to just hover across the stage, or stalk the audience. But the make-up and outrageous stage personae paled compared to the voice. Big and rich, just like Upchuck liked his men. It lay somewhere between a bass and a tenor, but he wasn’t afraid to teeter on the edge. It didn’t matter if he hit the mark or not. Most of the time he did. There was also the chance of a yelp, a howl or a caterwaul that betrayed his love of the work of Yoko Ono. Maybe a Toya Wilcox riff …or a Nina Hagen growl; all gutsy performers that Chuck admired, but never sought to imitate. He didn’t need to. He was his own creation and that was all he needed.
Upchuck created his own drag that had nothing to do with the bitchy caricatures most people associate with men who dress up. His drag was genderless, but at the same time sexual. It had elements of punk, but rejected the nihilsm of the black-jacket crowd. He also had a filthy mouth and wasn’t afraid to say what he thought. Day after day he’d shout out the “chuckisms” that he never seemed to get tired of. “POTTY!” was a favorite. And the endlessly over-used punch-line “I had a date like that once”. They were expressions so old and played-out that they took on newer, funnier lives simply because he blurted them out so often.
By the late 1980’s Upchuck had moved on from Seattle, like a lot of his contemporaries. The Northwest music scene was too limited and any chance of industry scouts showing up in Seattle was still unheard of. Upchuck with his band The Fags set off to New York City where they met modest success in the downtown scene that was exploding at the time. After a couple of years The Fags disintegrated as a band, but without the drama that usually accompanies that stuff. Everyone moved on to different pursuits, but still remained close friends. They remain friends still.
Upchuck remained in New York City to pursue a solo career in music and acting. He landed a couple of good roles and an especially wonderful part in the video “Eight Arms to Hold You” an Arthur Baker production that was to used in the film “Goonies” It didn’t make the film but the song and video became a “free-style hit. In 1987 producer Yorum Vazan introduced Upchuck to a brilliant young Israeli songwriter named Shlomo Sonnenfeld. Together they wrote inspired music that sounds as fresh today as it did when they came up with it. They named the duo they created ‘Such’. For live performances they were joined by the best musicians they could find: including McGinty of The Psychedelic Furs, Iggy Pop drummer Paul Garisto and bassist Kent Weber who’s worked with everyone from Donovan to Triumph The Insult Comic Dog.
Soon the team of Upchuck and Shlomo attracted the attention of John Holbrook, a multi-Grammy winning producer/artist/mixmaster who worked primarily at Bearsville Studios in Upstate New York. He became their producer and mentor. Together they entered the studio with a handful of songs that would be the core of their breakthrough album. Upchuck’s big break was just around the corner. 
Just as everything began to fall into place, he woke up one morning on a trip to Seattle to find he‘d lost his voice. It was TB. In the mid-1980’s an otherwise healthy young man contracting TB meant only one thing: AIDS. Fortunately he was back among the friends that he’d spent most of his punk years with, but he wanted to move forward. His voice eventually returned but he never recorded again. Ironically, he managed to do two of his most notorious shows during this period. Both were Fags reunions dubbed the First and Second ‘Annual Fags Reunion and Macaroni & Cheese Bake-offs They’re still talked about, and Macaroni & Cheese has never been the same.
Despite the AIDS Upchuck didn’t complain much unless the listener might reward him with a new pair of shoes or a shabby but stylish ‘40’s fur coat. Besides, there was always a project or an idea that needed attending to. There were friends and social gatherings, even though eventually everything became too much of a chore. Life became an endless struggle between living life full and not having the health to do it. Going on without his full voice, his music and his time onstage was worse to him than living with his illness. The last two years of his life were the most excruciating. Not because of the illness, but because it kept him from doing all the things he had yet to accomplish.

On the morning of May 28, 1990 Charles Gregory Gerra drew his last breath. It wasn’t an easy death, and it was clear he wasn’t ready to leave. At the very moment of his passing the most incredible bolt of energy exploded out of his body, into the entire room and beyond. He wasn’t going without leaving as much as he could behind. It’s an energy that hasn’t yet dissipated. It’s still here with us. He’s still here with us….with those who’ve loved him for so many years, and those who will love him after the next 40 minutes of listening to this CD. Charles Gerra may be gone, but Upchuck lives on.


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