What's cool? Ovenizer, "Satan's Washing Machine"

Campy goodness, but solid post-metal delivery

Scratch the surface on most stuff and it's all the same, whether it's the latest tween girl pop fluff or a technically accomplished bluegrass banjo picker. What you see is what you get, and either you already like it or you don't. Like everyone else, I have my share of simple tastes, but I really love music with some layers to it, where you can dig in and find something unexpected. It's why I love bands like Too Much Joy, with tight-rocking, smart ass songs that often turn out to be more serious than they seemed at first.

With all the bands that I come across, it's always pleasant when something surprises me, and that's what caught my attention with the Finnish post-metal band Ovenizer and their new single, "Satan's Washing Machine". The title alone is powerful in its ridiculousness: how deep in the barrel of metal imagery did they have to scrape to come up with the idea of Lucifer's home appliances? Before I even listened to it, I was ready for either the most pathetic metal band ever, or some group trying to pull a Spinal Tap.



The opening lines recall Spinal Tap's "Stonehenge", suggesting it's more likely a parody play: "Spark flew from the tree/ Spawned in Satan's Washing Machine." But I've watched the video a few times and they treat it pretty seriously, avoiding any sly, subtle winks. Regardless of how offbeat the theme is, though, the song is well made. The opening imports some folky acoustic guitar to give the tune some roots while the lead singer's husky voice adds the visceral punch. The open, airy arrangement quickly fills up with solid drumming and a tight guitar riff. The chorus expansively edges into post-rock with thick walls of cymbal, guitar, and bass The double pedal kick drum work gets more impressive as the song builds, hitting a climax during the bridge.

The video adds its own perspective. It may have been shot on a budget, but it's lovingly constructed. The band plays on packed snow, surrounded a stand of tall trees with a torch burning in the background. In a nod to the inspiration, the set also includes the titular washing machine. You can tell it's Satan's because it's been eviscerated and it's conveniently labeled with "666". To match the rising intensity of the song, members of Flamma Fire Group add some pyro excitement with spinning torches and spitting flames. Eventually, everything is on fire, including the instruments. By the end, the camera tracks through the snow to find the smoking, demonspawn Kenmore and then cuts back to the instrument pyre, merrily burning.

The video may revel in campy goodness, but the band plays it straight. If you don't pay too much attention to the lyrics, it's a solid post-metal outing. Maybe it's less Spinal Tap than Frank Zappa. Zappa was happy to entertain his audience with silliness like "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow", but that was the sugar to get them to swallow his musical ideas. Ovenizer certainly isn't the metal Mothers of Invention, but their growling tribute to Hell's laundry room is weightier than the first glance.

"Satan's Washing Machine" is from Ovenizer's latest album, SWM, on Norwegian Pope Records.

Concert review - That 1 Guy

2 January 2015 (Hodi's Half Note, Ft. Collins CO)
^4.5/5.0

Superstition claims that whatever you do at the start of the new year will drive the rest of the year, so people fill up their cupboards, wear new clothes, and clear their debts to ensure prosperity. I'm skeptical, but I do think that doing the things you enjoy will help cement those patterns in place. So, I visited with friends on New Year's Day and made it out to Hodi's for the first available show of the year to see That 1 Guy.

That 1 Guy

The last time I saw That 1 Guy (AKA Mike Silverman) at Hodi's, he had Captain Ahab's Motorcycle Club (Cory McAbee) opening and his own show had grown to include a flashy dual-screen multimedia element (review). Last night's outing was a bit stripped down; there was no lead-off act and the screens were gone. It might have been nice to have someone warm up the audience, because the two hour interval between the doors opening and showtime had the crowd a little restive. We had to make do with Captain Beefheart's Safe as Milk and Frank Zappa's Apostrophe/Over-nite Sensation blaring from the club PA (along with a few tracks from David Bowie's "Heroes"). On the other hand, the simpler stage presence worked in That 1 Guy's favor. The animations and camera tricks had been fun, but without those distractions, Silverman held the audience rapt for more than two hours straight, making up for the long wait.


As always, That 1 Guy put on a stunning performance, juggling synth riff triggers, foot-tap drumming, and the mix of percussion and melody demanded by his one-of-a-kind Magic Pipe. Watching him play is hypnotic. He rocks from side to side as he lays down the drums, all while building a full harmonic sound on the strings mounted to the two sections of pipe. The mix ranges from bass heavy grooves and cello style bowing to distorted guitar-like tones and the warm feel of marimba. Putting this all together has to require crazy amounts of practice and concentration, but Silverman not only makes it look fairly easy, he throws in pantomime, clowning, and sleight of hand tricks to make it more entertaining.


This stage work key to Silverman's charm: a meaty slap sound effect accent for the song is illustrated by a mimed punch or flick of his hat brim or his duck puppet is voiced by a squeak tone from the Magic Pipe. This all fits together with the quirky nature of his music and lyrical themes. like "Step Into Striped Light", "Mustaches", or "Weasel Potpie". As silly and playful as it can get, though, the songs are never throwaway. The heavy poly-rhythms are perfect for dancing and the lyrics have plenty of hooks for the crowd to join in on.


As expected, That 1 Guy featured several songs from his latest release, Poseidon's Deep Water Adventure Friends (review), tweaked for live performance. In particular, his arrangement of "Whale Race" developed a rich character of synth-driven post rock that fit well with the exotic minor key scales of the piece. Of course, many of the crowd favorites made their appearance, too, from an intensely danceable "Ft. Collins remix" of "Buttmachine" to "The Moon is Disgusting", which he eased into slowly before letting it become the audience sing-along it usually is.


That 1 Guy was a perfect show to start the year off. Technically impressive, his show blended intellectual fun with insistent visceral grooves. Most of the crowd was already very familiar with his catalog, but he still managed to throw in some surprises. Playing in the moment, he reacted naturally to everything from song requests and losing a drum stick, to a woman's demand that he wear her tutu. Acquiescing to this last request, he might have been our puppet, but he owned it by incorporating it into the song. Most importantly, he reflected the crowd's energy with a grateful appreciation for our attention. We, in turn, were just as beholden to him.



More photos on my Flickr.

Video pick: Team Spirit, Teenage Heart

A bloody wonderful video from the thrash pop savants

First off, I need to offer a full disclosure: I am in the employ of Team Spirit and have been for some time. It's a loose arrangement; they pay me in killer recorded music, great videos, and amazing shows. Oh and the occasional interview. Every critic has their favorite bands and Team Spirit is one of mine. Aside from their joyous, irreverent thrash pop sound, they're genuinely friendly guys. Now, after waiting for more than a year, they're very close to releasing a new album, Killing Time, scheduled for the end of September.

Their latest video is a teaser single for the project, featuring front man Ayad Al Adhamy and his "Teenage Heart". It's less weird than the animated videos from the Team Spirit EP and less irreverent than some of their earlier videos, too, but it's every bit as intense. It also encapsulates much of what I love about the band: it's simultaneously over-the-top with theatrical cheesiness and it's deeply committed. The plot is as sketchy as the song is simple - there's a motorcycle accident and Al Adhamy plays both patient and surgeon in the Grand Guignol tradition. But that simplicity strips the song down to its roots as a sincere plea for mercy, sung straight from the doghouse: "Come on, baby, give me another second chance."

History lesson - MC Paul Barman, Paullelujah! (2002)

Quirky and clever - erudite juvenalia

Working in the cube-farms of corporate America in 2002, pleasures were hard to come by and distraction was a blessing. I don’t even know where I first came across “Cock Mobster”, but I do remember being gobsmacked. It wasn’t the crudity of the juvenile humor as MC Paul Barman checked off women from his fantasy black book ; it was the mix of cultural references and wicked sharp rhymes. Name checking The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and KRS-One’s “Rappaz R.N. Dainja” in the same verse blew my mind. The combination of audacity and rolling rhymes in lines like “My dandy voice makes the most anti-choice granny’s panties moist” was staggering.

Immediately looking for more, I bought Paullelujah! directly from his web site. Then I found out that Prince Paul (De La Soul) and MF DOOM had produced some of the tracks. It wasn’t until a year or two later that I realized that Barman had provided the brief, but inspired interlude “Meet Cleofis Randolph the Patriarch” for Deltron 3030 (2000). Paullelujah! showed that his quirky delivery and the satisfying linguistic gymnastics were no fluke; the album was packed with more of the same thing that grabbed me in the first place: scatological humor aimed at a 14-year-old audience blended with superior lyrics and a crazy quilt of cultural allusions. Without a doubt, it was a flawed, uneven collection, but I had to respect Barman’s talent as a wordsmith and unbridled creative force.

The opening seconds of Paullelujah! immediately overturn the usual rap stereotypes. Instead of swagger and a heavy beat, Barman drops any pretense of cool and gleefully proclaims, “Check it out, man. It’s the best day of my life! The MC Paul Barman full-length is finally out,” over Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”, which he shortly hijacks and repurposes to hype the album title. It’s the first of many goofy moments and it does make it harder to take him seriously as a hip hop artist. But what should we expect? A white Jewish kid who graduated from Brown University is hardly likely to pull off a gangsta pose. Instead, Barman follows the age-old advice to write what he knows and that includes everything from literature he picked up in school to the uncomfortable contradictions of self-righteously liberal middle class politics. And mostly being a smartass. So, he skewers the local anarchist bookstore scene after name-checking John Cage and Jeff Koons in “Excuse You” and it’s all of one fabric.

When confronted with the question of cultural appropriation that faces every middle class, Caucasian rapper, Barman has his own unique response. On “Old Paul,” he tackles it head on, first asking “Is it ‘cause I go for the laugh?/ Because I’m not from the Ave? Because I target the fans that you wish you didn’t have?”. It’s a cogent point, hitting at hip hop’s discomfort with white popularity. But he follows up with some soul searching: “Had I made a mockery of a culture, like the Choco Taco?/ Was I to rap as France was to Morocco?/ Was I colon rap colon colon France colon Morocco?” Those lines do it all. They capture humor, racial guilt, a desire to be sensitive and also his geeky self-expression, breaking down the analogy to the format of an SAT question.

Paullelujah! is full of Easter eggs like this. He also manages to shoehorn in palindromes and incorporate a Buckminster Fuller song into “Bleeding Brain Grow”. If anything, Barman is a bit too eager to prove how clever he can be. He is sharp, but he often sacrifices meaning to satisfy a lyrical formula or he’ll drop into lowbrow humor to get a cheap laugh. This gives the album a weird kind of dynamic balance. His twisty rhyming passages demand a lot of attention and often trigger a sense that you know there’s a joke in there somewhere if you can take the time to unfold them. Then, about the time he’s worn you down enough to surrender to his multisyllabic onslaught, he throws a change up like “Burping & Farting.” To some extent, that makes Paullelujah! a novelty album, but it’s one that still stands the test of time; a dozen years after my first listen and I just caught the math mnemonic reference in “PEM Das EFX” from “Excuse You”.

(This review first appeared in Spectrum Culture)

Recording review: Beatallica, Abbey Load (2013)

Metalloid covers rather than full-on mashups

Like Dread Zepplin, Beatallica has always been clear about their musical mission: blending the Beatles and Metallica into a powerhouse mashup. It could be argued that they're a one trick pony, but both source bands have a rich enough back catalog that Beatallica hasn't exhausted the possibilities. Their 2009 album Masterful Mystery Tour (review) was well crafted, packed with songs like "Everybody's Got a Ticket to Ride Except For Me and My Lightnin" and "The Thing That Should Not Let It Be". These songs showed real ingenuity, finding common ground between their sources and coming up with lyrics that fit thematically with both groups. I came to Abbey Load looking for the next installment, eager to hear how they'd marry late-era Beatles with Load's bluesy metal sound. I imagined a mutant "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window", supercharged with DNA from "King Nothing".

Instead, the band has settled for metalloid covers of an assortment of Beatles songs. The album is anchored by "Come Together" and the medley from Abbey Road, and filled out with a hodge-podge of miscellaneous tracks. Dropping songs like "Oh, Darling" and "Octopus's Garden" seems reasonable, but "Something" could have had potential. By substituting songs like "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Please, Please Me", the project feels more like a random collection.

Of course, Masterful Mystery Tour wasn't a slave to a tracklist either, but the crucial difference is that Beatallica has abandoned their mashup home-base to make a less interesting cross-genre cover album. Each of the songs maintains the original Beatles' melodies and lyrics. This places them more squarely into Dread Zepplin's camp. Sure, Jaymz Lennfield still dials his James Hetfield impression up to 11 and the riffs are heavy as ever, but it's a let-down from the band's earlier work. The familiar musical references, like "For Whom the Bell Tolls" embedded within "Michelle" or the "Four Horsemen" intro for "Mean Mister Mustard" don't make up for the missing spark.

In an interview with Metal Assault, Lennfield blames the creative decision on their distribution channel, Sony International. "...he basically strong-armed us into either shutting the whole thing down or doing the next record by using the Beatles lyrics and the Beatles vocal melodies. So those were our choices..." That explains why they didn't include their song "Ktulu (He's So Heavy)" (from 2007's Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band), which would have fit in perfectly. Evidently, Beatallica has already come up with real mashups based on this material, but was blocked from releasing the songs. Knowing that we could have listened to "Mean Mister Mustaine" is a bitter pill.

Lennfield seems philosophical about the situation and stands by Abbey Load. He's also mentioned that the band idoes include their more interesting interpretations in their live show. Even without that incentive, I'd recommend catching them if they ever tour nearby.

Recording review - Convalescents, Armageddon (2012)

Breakneck punk pop in perfect bite-sized chunks

Dylan Busby's DB and the Catastrophe has reformed as Convalescents after a topsy turvy year of line up changes. The name change signals clarity of vision rather than a major shift in direction. Where DB and the Catastrophe's Don't Look Back (review) allowed for distractions like ska horns and virtuoso bass lines, Convalescents keep the focus on the high energy pop punk foundation they've always had.

Armageddon keeps a relentless pace from start to finish. Not to deny Convalescents' originality and impressive execution, this could be considered the best Green Day album in years. If not quite another American Idiot, it is on par with 21st Century Breakdown. Before anyone takes that comparison as a dig, consider how many bands have aspired to Green Day's mantle and fallen pathetically short. It's not that Convalescents are aping Green Day (no more than Johnny Winter ripped off Muddy Waters). Instead, they're taking the inspiration and injecting their own energy and personality.

The opening tune, Scratch Scratch, set the tone right from the start. The lyrics offer the kind of socio-political commentary that latter period Green Day has settled into:

The press has taken over now
Their words of wisdom are mass controlling
They say the world's gone to hell
Panic surges, the neighborhood burns down

Busby's vocals aim for Billie Joe Armstrong and nail it. The wall of guitars chop through the tune at a breakneck pace, but there's still some room for some subtle walk-up fills here and there. The drumming is particularly impressive during the bridge as Ben Duncan lays down some thunderous low end rolls.

Armageddon does a good job of stirring the musical pot. The tracks flow together well, but Convalescents change up their progressions, giving each song a unique feel. Where Scratch Scratch runs at a steady frantic rate, Stay Pure crams a double-timed, Kinks-style set of chords to a thrash beat. Chunked palm mutes and speedy drum fills anchor the whipsaw feel of the song. True to the punk standard set by the Ramones and the Minutemen, the songs are short. This lets the band swing for the fences, packing each tune with sparks and thunder.

Punk is all about attitude, but too many bands seem to use punk as an excuse for sloppy playing. Convalescents capture the intensity and expressive emotion, but the clean production and spot on playing make Armageddon a great album.

Concert review - They Might Be Giants

3 November 2011 (Boulder Theatre, Boulder CO)

They Might Be Giants

They Might Be Giants (TMBG) are touring with two fresh albums. Earlier this year, they released Join Us and their new album, Album Raises New And Troubling Questions releases later this month. As they played material from both albums, the band suggested that Join Us is better, but Album makes up for it in quantity. That kind of low key, self deprecating humor set the mood for TMBG, who delivered the full package for the excited crowd: quirkiness, humor, sincerity, and exceptional musical talent.

After the first song wrapped up, TMBG thanked us for coming out, "We know you have your choice of ossified alternative rock bands, and we're happy that you chose to fly with us tonight." This was a special show on the tour. On the downside, opener Jonathan Coulton didn't join the tour for this show. Still, TMBG performed their full album, Flood, albeit in reverse order. The rationale was that the conceptual second side of the album shared their real emotions and feelings as a band.

The show was structured with a short set at the beginning followed by Flood. Finally, they tagged the show with a 20 minute encore split into two parts. This gave them a chance to share a mix of old and new material.

The stage set up was roomy, giving guitarist John Flansburgh plenty of room to move around, hauling his mike stand with him. John Linnel spent the bulk of his time anchored stage center at the keyboards. A projected backdrop adapted to the various songs.

The first section of the set had a number of wonderful moments, from a spirited vocal performance on Alphabet of Nations (Here Come the ABC's) to new track Cloisonné (Join Us) featuring John Linnel on bass clarinet. The audience participation piece, Battle For the Planet of the Apes, was a lot fun and proved to be a recurring theme. The crowd often reverted back to chanting, "APE! APE!" or "PEOPLE!" at random moments, eventually leading Flans to blurt, "Please! It was just part of the show. It was not supposed to be the whole show" with exasperation.

As TMBG wound their way back through the songs on Flood, they stayed true to the band's earlier personality, but changed the songs to take advantage of having a full band. So, Hot Cha had a nice, jazzy interlude and We Want a Rock had a stronger, anthemic feel. The peak of the set, though, was Istanbul (Not Constantinople), which featured a wonderful "Miller Time" intro by guitarist Dan Miller. He riffed off the melody to start, but soon took off into a jazz interlude with elements of George Benson and Allan Holdsworth before settling into a flamenco groove.

In typical eccentric fashion, TMBG threw a break between the two theoretical sides of Flood. It was a tribute to Don Kirshner's Rock Concert with a song by their sock puppet alter-egos, the Avatars of They (and a photo of Meg Ryan!). The band wrapped up this hysterical break with a solid cover of Free Ride before getting back to Flood.

The only negative for the show (aside from the missing Coulton) was the sloppy musical mix in the house. The sound was fairly muddy, with an over-dominant kick drum. Birdhouse In Your Soul suffered the most from the mix problems. Despite this, They Might Be Giants gave the crowd both what they wanted and deserved: a great mix of old and new songs, an full night's show, and quality entertainment. Keep an eye out for their visit near you.

More photos on my Flickr.