2006-10 Vital Source Mag – October 2006

Ciao-chow: Stacia Van de Loo storms Vucciria
Ciao-chow

Stacia Van de Loo storms Vucciria

By Catherine McGarry Miller + photos by Kevin C. Groen Stacia Van de Loo came into the world in a Trans Am hurtling down Highway 57. “I was almost born in a bowling alley, but Mom pushed me back up and gave birth going 120, headed for a small clinic in Adell (pop. 517). I think it was for humans,” Van de Loo says in a questioning tone. “I was blue when the doctor whisked me away, leaving my mom in the car. Someone asked her, ‘Patsy, you OK?’ and she said, ‘Can I have a cigarette now?’”   Vucciria’s right-hand person and creative innovator to manager Maria Megna has kept on her fast and independent streak through life. The thin, willowy Van de Loo looks like she often forgets to eat, which is probably true. To watch her at work is to witness a human tornado whose wake is littered with inspired creations, sometimes culinary deconstructions, but never disaster.   She grew up in the small resort town of Elkhart Lake with her single mom. “My first remembrance of food is of standing below the table watching my mother cutting a cucumber on a wooden board. She cut the skin off and sprinkled it with salt. It made a pop and sang on my tongue. I realized that the addition of one small thing, like a spice, could change the taste dramatically.”   Frequently left to her own devices, she experimented with whatever culinary opportunities presented themselves. Her first recipe was a peanut butter marshmallow sandwich with chocolate chips melted by the heat of the toast. Van de Loo made even the prosaic childhood staple of mac ‘n cheese her own by whisking butter into the dry cheese to make it creamier.   On a visit to Milwaukee at the age of six, Van de Loo was awestruck by the elegance of a small corner restaurant. “The black and white polka-dotted napkins were folded into wine glasses and a counter was glowing in the background. I knew right then that it was what I wanted to have as a business some day. That was Mimma’s. It was a diamond in the rough when the rest of Brady Street was really raw and gritty and here was this beautiful, highly-designed place.” In the intervening years before Van de Loo would come to work at Mimma’s sister, Vucciria, she entered the restaurant world by way of dishwashing at the age of 12. By 13, she was waiting tables at a small eaterie and soon thereafter joined the kitchen staff. As a child, Van de Loo created intricate sculptures in cheese by folding, stacking and arranging the slices. Art and food became the critical intersection of her life. She continued working in various breweries and bistros through her college years at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design where she majored in sculpture and interior architecture. There she became a master of mixed media. “I use whatever the idea needs – everything […]

Test Article For Jon Anne

Test Article For Jon Anne

By Jenny Doe

The Pernice Brothers

The Pernice Brothers

By Frank Olson Now that we know that The Pernice Brothers can make an album as solid as Live a Little, it’s time for them to show that they can do better. Live a Little would be passable as a debut album, but one expects 10-year veterans to develop a more distinctive (or at least less wussy) sound than the one on display here. And there is definitely only one sound on Live a Little; for an album only 41 minutes long, it sure overstays its welcome. Younger bands ranging from The Shins to Of Montreal perform the same type of throwback pop, but do so with far greater playfulness and invention. Live a Little does boast a handful of truly catchy songs (“Automaton,” “B.S. Johnson,” “Conscience Clean” and “Lightheaded” ), but the overall tone is so light and chirpy that the album seems to evaporate as you listen to it. Most of the songs are hampered by tinny orchestral accompaniment that sounds as if it was created on Casio keyboards (though real musicians were involved). It is hard to tell whether the fault lies in the unengaged performances of the session musicians, the uninspired arrangements of Joe Pernice or the airy production of Michael Deming, though I suspect it is some combination of the three. Live a Little isn’t bad, per se, but it does virtually nothing to set itself apart from (or above) the rest of the albums coming out this month.

Pegi Taylor

Pegi Taylor

By Blaine Schultz + photos by Philip Krejcarek Pegi Taylor is a performance artist and writer. And she herself has been a piece of art for the past 25 years as hundreds of photographers, painters and sculptors have used her as both inspiration and subject. But according to her, “Artists and the Model: A Quarter Century with Pegi Taylor,” her upcoming Gallery Night show at the Elaine Erickson Gallery, “is really not about me. It is about the artists who have drawn me. The chapbook I’m writing for the show has short essays about how all of them have changed me.” 1.If you were headed for a desert island and could only take one work of art, what would you choose and why? “The Flaggellants” by Carl von Marr. Marr was born in Milwaukee and the painting hangs in the West Bend Art Museum. It would remind me of home. The only reason I’d be going to a desert island is if the world had descended into ruin, and the painting portrays followers of a medieval religious sect flogging themselves as an act of penance for the plagues. I’d want to be right there with them. There are hundreds of figures in the painting, so I would have lots of “company.” It is 13’ by 25’ so I could use it to shelter me, if necessary. 2) What goes through your mind during your modeling sessions? I’m thinking most about the next pose I will take. There is so much to consider. Should I stand, kneel, squat, recline or sit? Where should I face my body? Should my legs be apart, crossed, together? Maybe one leg should be higher than the other. Is the pose short enough that I can twist my back and not hurt at the end of it? What should I do with my arms? What about my hands and fingers? Maybe I want my palms up, or to make a fist or point. Where should I turn my head? Do I want it tilted up or down or to one side? What attitude do I want to express with the pose? 3) Your job is to inspire artists. How do artists inspire you? The attentive quiet in the studio calms me and slows me down and ideas flood into me. Making art, though clothed, they are so much more vulnerable than me. Their willingness to expose themselves demands that I be as fearless as possible. 4) What is the craziest comment you have heard about donating your skeleton to MIAD? I don’t get crazy comments. It makes people think about how our bodies have value. If anything, it leads to discussions about the nefarious body parts trade going on throughout the world. After the show, I want to return to my goal of establishing a national maceration site where people can legally donate their skeletons. 5) As an artist you value and appreciate your senses. If your child were to have only one sense, which would […]

Jeremy Enigk

Jeremy Enigk

By Nikki Butgereit The new album from Jeremy Enigk, former singer and primary songwriter of Sunny Day Real Estate, is a melancholy trip to the depths of emo. Unfortunately, it never makes its way back from the pits. The album begins with the instrumental track “A New Beginning,” a jubilant symphony of violins and dramatic chiming bells. Here is where the pep begins and ends as the remainder of the album has a folksy, contemplative, philosophical vibe that’s rather depressing. Enigk’s raspy vocals are reminiscent of Perry Farrell, with a touch more whine. While that style fits in perfectly with the quietly dreary tone of the record, it becomes overwhelmingly grating as the songs tick by. Musically, the album is long on depth. The songs layer violin and mandolin on top of piano and guitar. The melodies are sweeping and sometimes powerful, but even the “upbeat” songs are downers. “City Tonight” has the closest thing to a driving rock beat you’ll find on this album, but it still keeps the pace at a slow drag. Enigk’s first solo venture in 10 years has none of the vigor and punch of the early Sunny Day Real Estate, which is unfortunate. While the songs are solid and the compositions lush, the moony lyrics and snail’s pace make the album exhausting to listen to and difficult to enjoy.

October Records Releases

October Records Releases

By Erin Wolf OCTOBER 3   Beck The Information Interscope   Jim Brickman Escape SLG/Savoy   Lindsey Buckingham Under the Skin Reprise   Cities Variations Yep Roc   The Datsuns Smoke & Mirrors U.K. – V2   The Decemberists The Crane Wife Capitol   Evanescence The Open Door Wind-up   The Dears Gang of Losers V2   Jet Shine On Atlantic   The Killers Sam’s Town Island   The Kooks Inside In/Inside Out Astralwerks   Amos Lee Supply and Demand Blue Note   Sean Lennon Friendly Fire Capitol   Pernice Brothers Live a Little Ashmont   Rodrigo y Gabriela Self-titled ATO/RCA   George Strait It Just Comes Natural MCA Nashville   …and you will know us by the Trail of Dead So Divided Interscope   Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 Olé! Tarantula! Yep Roc   The Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America Vagrant   OCTOBER 10   The Be Good Tanyas Hello Love Nettwerk   The Blood Brothers Young Machetes V2   Chin Up Chin Up This Harness Can’t Ride Anything Suicide Squeeze   Califone Roots & Crowns Thrill Jockey   Lloyd Cole Antidepressant One Little Indian   Albert Hammond Jr. (Strokes guitarist) Yours to Keep U.K. – Rough Trade   The Memory Band Apron Strings: Songs of False Love and True Bloodshot   Oxford Collapse Remember the Night Parties Sub Pop   Robert Pollard Normal Happiness Merge   OCTOBER 17   Patti LaBelle The Gospel According to Patti LaBelle Universal   The Slits Revenge of the Killer Slits SAF   Clinic Visitations U.K. – Domino   Diddy Press Play Bad Boy/Warner   Jeremy Enigk World Waits Sony BMG   Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Love Their Country Fat Wreck Chords   Badly Drawn Boy Born in the U.K. XL/Astralwerks   OCTOBER 24   The Blow Paper Television K   Converge No Heroes Epitaph   The Heart Attacks Hellbound & Heartless Hellcat/Epitaph   John Legend Once Again Columbia   The Walkmen Pussy Cats Starring the Walkmen Record Collection   My Chemical Romance The Black Parade Reprise   Brian Setzer 13 Surfdog   Sparta Threes Hollywood   OCTOBER 31   The Clipse Hell Hath No Fury J   Copeland Eat, Sleep, Repeat The Militia Group   Dead Poetic Vices Tooth & Nail   Jim Jones Bright Lights Big City Koch   Barry Manilow The Greatest Songs of the Sixties Arista   Aimee Mann One More Drifter in the Snow Super Ego   Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose Virgin   Willie Nelson & The Cardinals Songbird Lost Highway   Paul Wall Get Money, Stay True Atlantic   The Who Endless Wire Universal Republic

Indigo Girls

Indigo Girls

By Jon M. Gilbertson As cult artists go, The Indigo Girls are perhaps halfway between Richard Thompson and The Ramones. Unlike Thompson, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have had a couple of hits (although the big ones go back a decade and a half); like him, they have a dependable core audience. Like The Ramones, they have not been encouraged to vary their identifiable style; unlike The Ramones, they cannot claim to have invented, or at any rate, popularized it. For The Indigo Girls, this tricky situation means that minor distinctions take on magnified importance: one disastrous track throws an entire album out of whack, but absolute familiarity breeds boredom if not outright contempt. Under the circumstances, Despite Our Differences is a qualified success. As usual, Ray slips into the role as the plainer singer and more direct thinker of the two (the driving “Money Made You Mean” represents her side), with Saliers being the more sweetly melodic and more poetic (the waltzing “Lay My Head Down” epitomizes her side). Depending on who’s out front, their harmonies have either mid-autumn crispness or mid-spring breeziness. Really, that’s about it. Pink – returning the kindness the duo paid her by appearing on her album I’m Not Dead earlier this year – juices up the loudest track, “Rock and Roll Heaven’s Gate.” Famed producer Mitchell Froom manages, for once, not to bend the sound toward his quirks. True believers will love it. Casual fans will like it. People outside the cult… who knows?

The Places In Between
Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

By Blaine Schultz With Modern Times, Bob Dylan finds himself inhabiting the itinerant bluesmen’s spirits he merely impersonated when he cut his first album in 1962. As with the masterful Love and Theft, Dylan immerses himself in American music forms, touching on blues, old-timey country and Tin Pan Alley pop, and lets his band rip into these templates, reinventing them in his own image. If these songs sound familiar it is simply because Dylan is not shy about borrowing generously – a Muddy Waters line here, a slide guitar lick there – from source materials that were magpied plenty of times before he got to them. But like Miles Davis and Bill Monroe, Dylan reconfigures the very DNA of the music. This is the second album in a row Dylan has chosen to record with his current touring group and, musically, Modern Times excels when the players work in their signature driving, roadhouse blues that allows for real-time interaction and bits of improvisation. Not unlike his legendary work with The Band, this lineup is a stellar example of how songs are treated in the hands of sympathetic players. Unfortunately, in Dylan’s tour of the American songbook he seems to have developed a jones for crooners. While his cragged voice woks great for the Old Testament cane-stompers, there’s too much Bing Crosby included here; that’s my lone caveat. Consumer note: some pressings include a DVD of four fantastic performances, and orders from his website include a CD of Dylan’s Theme Time satellite radio show with his hilarious commentary on baseball-themed tunes.

The Eagle’s Throne
Jet

Jet

By Jon M. Gilbertson There was no denying that Jet’s 2003 debut, Get Born, was energetic. That distinguished both the Aussie band and their songs from Oasis, with whom they have otherwise shared numerous characteristics: brotherly consanguinity (the Cesters vs. the Gallaghers), a producer (Dave Sardy) and a fetish for wearing yesterday’s fashions as though they were today’s. Not a lot has changed on Jet’s follow-up, Shine On, but it is a stronger album because of how every little evolution accumulates over the course of its 15 tracks. The most noticeable improvement lies in the band’s ability to vary tempos. Get Born’s best songs were its faster ones, period, and never mind that the clumsy “Sexy Sadie” rewrite “Look What You’ve Done” was a hit. Now, whether tearing through the mid-tempo AC/DC-derived “Stand Up,” gently developing a Pink Floyd tangent via the title track, or throwing noise all over the garage in “Rip It Up,” Jet sounds just that significant bit less reverent of their sources. As frontman and lead singer Nic Cester spearheads the turn toward determined looseness, both his shredded-speaker scream and his Abbey Road-era croon have gained something akin to personality. Mostly, though, Jet and Sardy don’t tamper with what worked before: Chris Cester’s Ringo-solid drums, Mark Wilson’s power-trio bass (which sounds heavy in the quartet setting) and Nic Cester and Cam Muncey’s too-perfect guitar interplay. Yes, what worked before for Jet was actually what worked 35 years before Get Born got born. It still works, and probably shall as long as cheeky bastards like this have the energy and arrogance of youth.