Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current, July 24, 2002, Image 25

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Newspaper Page TextKIM $H MAN LUNA, JIM WHITE . June 19, 2002 40 Watt Club Writing a live review is always a dubious exercise While Luna and Jim White V might play the 40 Watt again one ol these days, the June 19 date was a transitory, ephemeral experience Hit never happen again And it struck each person in attendance a bit ditterently, depending on a lot ol ladors unrelated to the show itself Luna draws heavily on The Velvet Underground, recreating that vibe ol studied moody nonchalance with more pop professionalism Considering the relative inoftensiveness ol what it does. Luna sure does draw a lot ohpassionate reactions gemstones from Romantica. the new album, and prompted reconsideration ol "Slash Your Tires,' an early hit which sounds more humble and ioaded-ish on record Bassist and occasional duet partner Bntta Phillips has a charming voice, and. with her Sunset Strip Barbie looks, gave the geeks something to sali vate over The gig was well-attended continue doing so He bragged ol kicking it with the band backstage He referred to blue-eyed ringleader Dean Warenam as a "guru" At one point. Warcham Y addressed the man, asking him "Don't you have a job 7 " One fellow near the front ot the Wall had been toliowmg Luna around this great nation tor weeks and planned to On the other hand, i heard that quite a lew peooie were storming around town the lot lowing day claiming that the show sucked " I'm no! sure wnal their problem was The setlist was The Davs 0* Our Nights intensive, and that ain't everyone's favorite rackerd The vocals were a bit shaky here and there, but that's Luna Wareham's guitar dominated the mix. and deserved to It teased the unassuming melodies out ot the real and Luna sounded as good as anyone had a right to expect, if not as transcen dent as some hardcore Galaxte 500 holdovers might've hoped And. by bringing along Jim White’s oddball Southern grotesquene. the show gave us something tresh to dis cuss. White represents Pensacola. Florida the way Lou Reed once repre sented the East Village, with his stories ol hard-luck characters looking lor a way around and wondering whether or not to trust their moral compasses His between-song monologues balanced righteous indignation and appropriately detached humor, and his setup (he was alone with his axe on stage, backed by an entertainingly obnoxious drum machine) made me wonder what the fuck he was thinking—enough to spend the next tew weeks spinning his latest disc No Such Ptacn Simply because you.ve tired ol Luna doesn't mean <Cs objectively soured, like Weezer So quit your Ditching If you worship the band that s a tad unusual, but weudness is good-when one con siders the norm You could do worse grasshopper Emerson Dameron ELVIS COSTELLO & THE IMPOSTERS June 24 2002 Chastain Park Atlanta Elvis Costei'O is a rarity among maiof artists While hes hugely influen tial ne has never bowed to expecta tions Over the past ten years alone, he has veered mto the edges ol classical opera and experimental pop He even collaborated with schmaltz king (not an insult) Burt Bacharach on a gorgeously- tense record Now Elvis is back to rock and roll Tonight at Chastain, he reinvigo- rated the masses with his acerbic insights, barbs and the edge ot his electric guitar Opening with the great new track "45." Elvis set ott on a 25- song journey through his entire career While some of the new songs ("Spooky Girlfriend' and Tart") lack the stream lined power of his earlier work, others ("Dust.” Tear Ott Your Own Head," "Tart." ''Alibi") rose far beyond the heights reached on When l Was Cruet » All the mafena 4 was fleshed out and more fully iea. 4> ed The brand new title track was truly exceptional Alter pulsing through six or seven minutes, it reached a disorienting, avant-garde conclusion that had to be heard to be believed To the chagrin of the passive Costello tan, a lot ot the show featured less familiar deep cuts such as "I Hope You're Happy Now." "Tiny Steps’ and "Uncomplicated" instead of "Allison" and "Every Day I Write The Book" which were conspicuously absent During the lesser-known songs, many of the audience members talked amongst themselves and'pretty much ignored the show It was a shame Some of the coolest moments were considered background to the biggest chunk of the Chastain crowd They missed some truiy inspiring stuff because of their mditterence to any thing not played to death when they were in college "All This Useless Beauty and Beyond Belief" managed to garner strong responses but every time a classic like "I Don t Want To Go To Chelsea' or "Watching The Detectives was played, it was clear that the heart of the crowd was with the most obvious choices To my delight, the band was perfect all night They wefe able to follow the sharp turns that Elvis look like stunt drivers Keyboardist Steve Nieve was espe cially vital Whether he was adding the jaunt to "Pump It Up* or adding free jazz touches to ‘Episode Of Blonde,* he was the core to the sound of The Imposters Ending with the double bar reled kick ol "(What's So Funny) *8001 Peace Love And Understanding" and "Radio Radio’ would've lifted the roof oft had there been one. By this time, the entire crowd was with Elvis and wouldn't let him go until after he'd dished out no less than three encores The second one saw the list-raising "Pump It Up.* but the final encore was the stunner After "Lipstick Vogue." he ran head first into the sparse, brutally pamtul "I Want You" With only a dull purple darkness shadowing the stage, Costello's head floated in a yellowish light No other lighting was necessary As the song built little by little, the chills on my arm built upon one another As Elvis devolved into a passionate repeti tion ol the "Did you call his name out" section that ended in screaming (on stage and ott). I realized that this perfor mance was one ol the coolest things I've ever been lucky enough to witness An out of control solo followed that sent dissonant notes flying past me This caused me to temporarily lose my usu ally jaded demeano* There was no way lo follow "I Want You" and luckily. Elvis was smart enough to know it Alter more than two hours. 1 was a bit numb . was a nice numb Chris McKay VARIOUS ARTISTS A Boy Named Sue Johnny Cash Revisited TrAont A Worn r\*ve stylus drops artlessly onto a warped scratched 45 A hollow rrodrwge-heavy speaker crackles to life tor the !*st time The Desert God speaker I broke m my first turntable mth 1 copy of Johnny Cash smgmg "The Little Drummer Boy * a record my mom lucked down knowing 4 was lucked beyond any kjrtbw damage my system could mAct This was toe first record * ever owned So. if you've gotta blame an entertainer for my wide-open range ot psychological maladies, you'll have lo go hack to the Man In Black Cash s voice is a great emotional dehumidilier To understate things considerably J Cash sings of headache and loneli ness No matter how sugary all his material dissolves beyond recognition ‘into his btack coffee voce He writes a lew lyrics here and there, but his mar ketable skill has always been almost hopelessly parched mterpreWion You wouldn't catch, say, Leonard Cohen even fantasizing about the fringes of ampheta mine psychosis and profound isolation Cash s characters navigate with detached ease No mutators could hope to come dose Theyd be immensely lucky to transcend novetty m the attempt This cot lection bongs together a heterogeneous crew of Europeans per forming pop electronic counfry and reggae versions of songs written or defined by Cash And there's a surreal biographical monte from Alvaro, en espanol I’ve nothing to add about teat one To teew cm*, most of these ranches and mencheHes ride CashS wave without affecting friendliness with the master or stooping to cutesy parody A lew contribute more or-less faithful covers, such as Smokestack Lightnin" ("Ring Of Fire" which can only be taulted tor its obnoxious lyrical mi$- emphasis) and Cow (a charmingly inno cent duet on "Jackson") Hack Mack Jackson re-recreates "Rusty Cage" with more bubbling vitriol than s to be found m Cash's disturbingly calm version on Unchained, but less than in Sound- garden s Zeppelin-on-crystal original A handful ol these covers are worth hewing stncfty on their own merits, out side the tributary context Guzs propul sive "Guess Things Happen That Way" sounds like Mike Ness jamming with Pere Ubu, and The Titman Rossmy Quartet and Whils transform "Orange Blossom Special" and “Thirteen." respectively into sultry elegant Teutonic pop with tust enough ol that subliminal sadomasochism teal makes German culture so compelling I could see myself passing this along to a youngn feUNe one distant day. though l m not sure it would do tee snapper enough psyche damage to be worth my sacrifice of Bernadette U Hengsts electro-boppm "Em Madchen Namens Gerd “ (tnkont de) WEEZER Maladroit Geffen 1994 was by and large a pretty good year tor geeky jittery guitar rock That Kurt Cobam's sincerity had uh, backfired$0 severely created a collec tive appetite lor goofy, diffident seff- deprecanon. and Weezer was there when the kids needed it The band's sett titled 94 debut may have ignored aH the mosl basic laws of pop psychology m its defusionalty naive lyncal masochism but tee flavor was popptei and fnendker than the creepy, ametodte sludge Cobam's displaced tans were getting from Mudhoney and company America needed a humorously sefMoatemg ver sion of The Cars, and got one 1996 was, by and large, a tucking odious year for popular music in gen eral littered with wretched albums from otherwise decent bands and overhyped gatbage from the decline ot the mid-90s alt-rock signing frenzy In '96, Weezer issued Pinkerton which, with ditties like "Tired Ot Sex" and lyrics that compared mushmouthed frentman Rivers Cuomo to a gentle winged insect, didn't win it any new converts But. in hindsight, most diehard Weezer buffs will point to this as their favorite album The fact that it didn't make any concessions to pop ular taste (or arguably taste m gen eral—Cuomo's penchant tor romantic bootticking isn't the sort ot thing I d want my kids obsessed with), along with the tact that not many people even the preppies that had been sporting "Weezer Ruck Music" tees a year earlier bought it rendered it Property Ot The Weezer Cult And it actually was a solid rock record, deserving of all the praise it did and didn't get Thus cult would grow steadily as it waited five years lor the tepid follow up nicknamed "The Green Album" to dis tinguish it from tee bands infinitely superior maiden voyage Of course, tee cutt dKknt have lo waif long for tee equally tepid Maladroit but tee damage is done ladies and gents The kids liked Pinkerton largely because ft underap preciatod The luds will tolerate Maladroit, and probably many more dull records just like it. because it's a product ol Weezet The record is too deadly somber to be taken lightly (Rivers lays on the neg ativity m mosl every song, particularly "Keep Fishin’." "Slob" and "American Gigolo’) and too cutesy to be taken seri ously ("Dope Nose’ talks of “bustling) itiymes." while the extremely faux sta dium rock of "Death And Destruction" gently tickles all the lifeless, atltuent suburban whiners that wish their lives were more like Heavy Metal Parking Lot. out snicker at actual metaihnads) Let it be known Weezer did rock during tee '90s However hatt-torgotten at its creative peak <n 96. Weezer stuck around to phone it in, and is now such a goddamn institution that its fans don’t dare tump ship Sad Oh PS. Let me issue tee following pre-emptive reassurance to all tee Rivers devotees mteose onion-skinned egos will be hurt by any denunciation ot their hero Considering my absurd loy alty to James Bond ail these years you re under no obligation to take my opinion seriously (220 Colorado Ave Santa Monica CA 90404) timer ptays M the tk-Fi Buys Amphitheater m AttanU on Monday Jury 29 Emertftft Damaro* JULY 24, 2002 • FLAGPOLE COM 25 CHRIS McKAY

Georgia Historic Newspapers

Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current, July 24, 2002, Image 25