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"TEAM CLERMONT'S BIG WEEKEND"
Want To Hear Some Underground Music, Huh?
earn Clermont is three years old, and
the baby music promotion company is
celebrating its birthday by inviting
music fans to a couple of nights of bands and
other entertainers that the folks at TC enjoy.
AT THE CALEDONIA
Friday, August 4: Team Clermont's weekend
kicks off at 6 p.m. Friday evening with an acoustic
showcase featuring indie-pop svengali and recent
Athens transplant Louis Schefano (formerly of
Remy Zero, Little Red Rocket and Regia), Jeff
Martin of the mood-pop band Idaho (also playing
this weekend), and a "special guest" or three.
The louder, prouder rock and roll kicks in later
in the evening around 11 p.m. or so with Ceiling
Fan. With the release of 1998's Trick Music, this
quirky trio shed the old "underdog" statu: and
emerged as a solid-but-unpredictable indie rock
band capable of creating yet-unheard-of round-
scapes and sneaking in a brilliantly post-ironic
cover tune (or four).
Next up: Cafeteria. Elements of twangy alt-
country, folk rock and classic Bcatles-esque pop
stylings collide on the band's new 14-song debut.
Knee Deep (Backburner). Cafeteria originally
formed as a duo in 1996 with Taylor Joiner on
gu’tar and Brad Morgan on drums. Morgan cur
rently keeps time with the Drive-By Truckers while
Joiner conducts a gaggle of musicians con
tributing backing vocals, pedal steel, banjo, man
dolin, guitar and tambourine to his already solid
repertoire.
Guitar-pop purists The Lures headline the
evening with their own sturdy blend of Costello-
meets 'Mats rock. This Athens quartet has been
finishing work in the studio with engineer David
Barbe recording the follow-up to the recent debut
full-length. When I Was Broken (Ten 23).
Saturday, August 5: A program of enjoyable,
uneasy listening dubbed "DJ Happy Hour" com
mences with turntable action from Very Nice
(local performance artist and smart-minded
chanteuse Miss Deonna Mann) and Dr. Irene
Moon—a young Athens entomologist (and Melted
Men associate) obsessed with the mysteries of the
sounds and aromas of life on this planet. (BL)
AT THE 40 WATT CLUB
Friday, August 4: Songwriters
Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink are
probably best known in Athens as the
two lovely songbirds fronting the
lovely-sounding rock band Little Red
Rocket. Taylor plays g’uita: and key
boards and sings. Fink plays guitar
and trumpet and sings. Both have
performed as a duo under the name
Orenda & Maria but have neariy com
pleted a studio session as The Azure
Ray with Eric Bachmann (Crooked
Fingers, ex-Archers Of Loaf) and Brian
Causey (Crooked Fingers, ex-Man... Or
Astroman?) behind the console for an
autumn album release on Causey's
WARM Records. Killer diller. The Azure
Ray goes on at 9:30 p.m. (BL)
Next on the bill is Idaho. I his California-based
duo clocked in back in '93 with the devastating
one-twc punch of The Palms EP and the full-
length Year After Year, both on the Caroline label.
To date. Year After Year remains one of the most
stirring and revealing musical monuments to
human longing emptiness and despair ever com
mitted to wax, and the number-one, post-breakup
album ever. Idaho is currently supporting People
Like Us Should Be Stopped, a sampling of typically
bravuric live performances culled largely from the
tour following the now obscenely hard-to-find
Year After Year. The band should also nlay a few
selection: from the forthcoming Hearts Of Pa:m,
due later this year. Leave your dancin' shoes in
the closet and prepare to be soothed and over
whelmed. (ED)
The four characters in the highly-explorative,
New York-based rock band Enon play next, and
they are determined to t p the ante and step side
ways away from the trends and
schemes that pollute underground
music. Eno.i formed two years ago
after the breakup of much lauded
bands Brainiac and Skeleton Key.
Vocalist-songwriter John Schmersal
(who was involved with Ohio-based
Brainiac and John Stuart Mill)
hooked up with and Rick Lee and
Steve Calhoon (both of Skeleton Key)
in New York, began tossing weird
musical ideas around, assembles a
few audio samples and—with ex-
Barkmarket guy Dave Sardy behind
the mixing console—managed to
record one this year's most intriguing
debut albums, Believe!.
"It's a logical direction from
where Brainiac was going, says
Schmersal, speaking by telephone
from his flat in Manhattan. "We're
consciously going more pop... I
think that Enon has gone more pop
than maybe Brainiac would have,
though. The record has a lot of rock,
but that comes out more live, I
think."
Believo!'s strangest songs pulsate
thanks to an abundance of samples
and audible signals, heavy-handed,
Bonham-on-Nyquil drumming and
debonair, dynamic vocalizations.
Songs range from skewed, freakish.
'70s-style radio pop to ominous exercises in
rhythms and noise.
While Steve Calhoun is currently too occupied
in New York with work and life to dedicate time to
touring, the current Enon lineup includes Toko
Yasuda (formerly of Blonde Redhead and The
Lapse) on bass and Matt Schultz on drums. (BL)
Five-Eight headlines the evening. I've been
worried about Mike Mantione, of Five-Eight. I
remember the dazed feeling I had in the day or
two after Kurt Cobain's suicide. It was right there
in Cobain's lyrics, over and over. The suicide was
inevitable.
A friend and I were downtown, and I said—
not wanting the words to come true—"Mike's
lyrics have all the same warning signs." My friend
paused, then said: "Yeah, but Mike doesn't have a
heroin addiction. That makes a big difference."
And he was right.
Years have passed, and Mike and his band-
mates—always bassist Dan Horowitz and now also
drummer Mike Rizzi—have wrung five amazing
albums worth of material from Mantiono's tortured
psyche. His lyrics might be about depression and
fear, but his on -stage antics are absolutely fear
less. He practically implodes on some songs,
thrashing about, foaming at the mouth, and deliv
ering the kind of shows you end up talking about
five years later
I thought the edginess Mantione had culti
vated over the years might be getting dulled by
the necessities of family and running a working
rock band. Instability seemed to be the root of
what was great about Five-Eight's songs. When
Gasolina! (Velvel) came out in 1997 (on April
Fool's Day, a cruel joke, it would seem), Five-Eight
was poised for stardom. That record deserved huge
success—it was practically flawless. The songs
were great and the production was about as
"national" sounding as it gets, but it wasn't
meant to be.
The new record, The Good Nurse (Deep Elm), is
the most beautiful of left turns. It is nakedly
hor.est, incredibly personal, full of the best kinds
of flaws and honestly one of the best records to
come out of Athens in ten years. It's haunting and
dark and hopeful and everything that good art
should be. (MP)
Saturday, August 5: Able to crank out the
ballsiest pile-driving anthems since the heyday of
Rush, while at the same time spinning a plate on
one finger and a basketball on the other, Trans
Am grabs rock and roll by the short hairs! Able to
pen tunes like "Television Eyes" and "Running
Standing Still" while miraculously remaining on
the nor.-nauseous side of cominess!
Able to ruthlessly rock large concert
halls with only minor structural
damage! More than a man... more
like three men, whose encyclopedic
range of references (ranging from
Kraftwerk to Pan Sonic and then
waaaay back into the dank closets of
'70s prog) make them far greater
than the sum of their talents.
The forthcoming full-length Red
Line, due out this fall, is perhaps
even more fragmented than the rari
ties smorgasbord. It's the band's
unapologetic "experimental" album,
where jock-rockers like "I Want It
All" and "Play In The Summer" are
buffered by shots-in-the-da r k like
the tribally percussive "Casual
Friday," the unsolvable math-rocker
"Village In Bubbles," and the white
noise of "Where Do You Want To Fuck
Today?" which would fit comfortably
on Ellipsis Arts' OHM: The Early Gurus Of Electronic
Music boxed set.
I hardly ever wear earplugs at rock shows, but
I'm damn sure going to for Trans Am, and I recom
mend you do likewise. Along with some of the
new material, expect a few archaic covers and
other surprises. And remember, indie kids, when
you put your fist in the air, it's thumb on the out
side. (ED)
The Krush Girls round out the evening in the
spirit of 40 Watt Disco Past. Two Athens music afi
cionados—sometimes known as "DJ Ass Money"
and "The Supervisor"... or Chris Bilheimer and Dan
Donahue—will spin a wild mix of danceable stuff
from the '70s, '80s and '90s. (BL)
Ballard Lesemann, Marc Pilvinsky,
Emerson Dameron
FRIDAY, AUGUST 4:
Caledonia Lounge
6-8 p.m. "Acoustic Happy Hour" with Louis Schefano
(Regia), Jeff Martin (Idaho) and "special guests."
11:15 p m. Ceiling Fan
12:15 a.m. Cafeteria
1 a.m. The Lures
40 Watt Club
9:30 p.m. The Azure Ray
10:30 p.m. Idaho
11:30 p.m. Enon
12:30 a.m. Five-Eight "CD Release Party"
SATURDAY, AUGUST S
Caledonia Lounge
4-6 p.m. "DJ Happy Hour" with Very Nice (featuring
Miss Deonna Mann and Dr. Irene Moon)
40 Watt Club
8:30-11:30 p.m. "Blue Ribbon Ball" (featuring Trans Am
and MC Calvin Smith). Invitation only.
11:30 p.m. Trans Am
1:15 a.m. The Krush Girls
Advance tickets are available at Lo Yo Yo Stuff, Big Shot
Records and on-line at pitchatent.com and 40watt.com.
Wt FLAGPOLE AUGUST 2, 2000