Photo by Michael Alan Goldberg

Planes Mistaken for Stars, Cursive, Against Me!, Mastodon. There is no artful way to describe it. These bands all played together, and I was there.

It’s a different kinda show that happens at the Fenix in Seattle, WA. Located in the heart of the, I don’t know, let’s call it the mostly-abandoned south industrial district, the Fenix used to be a dance club in the center of the 2 am stabbing district. It’s basically a large auditorium-esque space for people with blacklight stamps on their wrists to drink heavily. There is also a large space for people to do their slam dancing and what-have-you dancing in front of the stage, but I placed myself towards the back of the beer-drinking crowd, eager to investigate the people associated with a show like this.

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Rating: 6.0

Everyone seems to adore the new Grinderman album. The band, if you are not familiar with them, is basically a stripped down version of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and features Nick Cave, who has decided that he should grow a ridiculous handlebar moustache, Warren Ellis, Jim Sclavunos, and Martyn Casey. Their new self-titled CD is getting great reviews as people are likening this project to the Birthday Party, Nick Cave’s vitriolic first band. The truth, however, is that this group couldn’t be further from the fury and intensity that defined the Birthday Party. It was destitution, youthful angst and copious amounts of drugs that drove them at their core. Grinderman is nothing of the kind. In many ways, they are the opposite of the Birthday Party, as Nick Cave is fairly uninspired, wealthy, drug free and pretty much has nothing to say these days, so he relies on mundane catch phrases and jokes in the place of the his first group’s glorious, often psychotic prose.

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I’m not going to fuck around here. I started really listening to BRMC about a week before the Seattle show. But man, did I bombard myself with Baby 81 and Howl during Black Rebel Motorcycle Crunch Week. I would listen to these albums in the tub, at work, on the can, at other shows, at the Seattle physic convention. I created elaborate musical mnemonics that helped me to remember song titles in sequence. I made flash cards. For instance, I would draw a cold, cold wind on one side of the card and instantly remember the corresponding BRMC song is called “Cold Wind”. None of this actually helped.

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Rating: 8.5

The horrendously rare talent that is Michael J. Sheehy has finally released his fourth solo album after a five year period that began when he was dropped from Beggars Banquet, a huge mistake on their part, in 2002. This probably happened because Sheehy, although incredibly gifted, is so unfathomably unknown as an artist. From London, he started out in the mid 1990’s as the singer and songwriter in Dream City Film Club. His former band combined the incendiary with the sorrowful, sounding like an amalgam of the best of Bauhaus, The Stooges, Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. What set them apart from the others, however, was the voice of Michael J. Sheehy. His fragile, often vulnerable sounding vocals are the antithesis to the bravado of singers such as Iggy Pop and Peter Murphy. Sure, he adjusted his voice for the more raucous and cacophonous material, but on the slow, doleful songs, his talent as a singer truly shines. Dream City Film Club disbanded in 1999, and Sheehy has gone on to create a succession of solo albums that focus on the down tempo, mellow side of his songwriting. His first record, Sweet Blue Gene, is perhaps his best release as he found the perfect balance between swampy, delta blues and heart wrenching ballads on that album. Although he becomes a little bit more placid with each release, Ghost on the Motorway continues in much the same manner, and focuses most on his gospel, country and blues influences.

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Photo by Michael Alan Goldberg

From the first note hit on Wednesday the Showbox stage was abouncin’. James Murphy, the pot-bellied, white t-shirt wearing head honcho of LCD Soundystem and co-founder of dance-punk label DFA Records, strode on stage amidst fanatical cheering from the minors corralled in the center floor area.

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Between August and September, I unwillingly volunteered to drive an oversized Hot Wheels car across the second notch on the Bible Belt. Without time to spare or plan accordingly, at four in the morning, I packed several peanut butter sandwiches, a bag of trail mix, a six-pack of Jolt, an extra pair of just-in-case jeans and a kitten named Jello. I found her two months earlier in my yard, stalking blades of grass scraping against her white chin. The black fur on its back was almost covered by eager weeds, as it fearlessly overcame the terrors in a rarely mowed front lawn.

Almost Ready mp3

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Rating: 5.5

What do you get when you mix a former guitarist of a respected indie outfit, chiming guitars, a piano, and a lot of ooey-gooey feeling? Well, generally you get shit, but in this case it’s not quite that extreme and at least it’s not a major label doing the dumping. All Smiles is the name for the pet project of former Grandaddy guitarist Jim Fairchild. The Modesto axeman teams up with Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney and Joe Plummer of Modest Mouse to form his solo debut, Ten Readings of a Warning. Although Fairchild certainly knows how to spin a yarn and deal out wild poetry with both his voice and his instrument, the album is largely a mixed bag of a few standouts and a lot of dull.

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