2007-01 Vital Source Mag – January 2007
We are the new year
By Matt Wild “You always seem to have the same problems, month in and month out. It’s like you never fucking learn.” This gem comes courtesy of an honest-to-a-fault friend during a blurred, never-ending round of drinks at Foundation. It’s nostril-freezing cold outside, and while it pains me to admit it, I know she’s right; nearly every one of my past 20 columns for this fine monthly have trod the same emotionally stunted, unemployment-fueled territory. So if you, dear reader, find yourself in agreement with this assessment, I implore you to brace yourself, because as far as repetitive and depressing columns go, this one’s a real doozy. Hate mail from jilted ex-lovers? Check. Half-hearted suicide attempts? Yup. Soppy, self-indulgent final paragraphs bemoaning a misspent, penniless Milwaukee youth? You better believe it. It’s a few weeks later when I find myself grudgingly attending a rock show at – dear God in heaven, help me – Live. It’s not the bands on the bill that give me pause (although all but the excellent Highlonesome will prove to be utterly useless), but instead the familiar list of aforementioned woes: a perpetual lack of money and a recent email from a former female acquaintance detailing my lack of “…conscience, courage, integrity and a spine.” Nevertheless, I’m placing my bets on the dim hope that some live music – along with the possibilities of the impending new year – can pull me through the evening. Tonight’s crowd is a schizophrenic mess, and can be divided up thusly: the kind of folks that currently frequent Live, and the kind of folks that haven’t stepped within a 20 foot radius of the place since it ceased being The Globe. (So long, bastion of all-ages Milwaukee rock; hello, 2-for-1 Jager bombs!) Style-wise, the assembly is equally polarized: button-ups crowding the bar, tattooed lunatics crowding the stage. Up first are The Sensible Pant Suits (Author’s Note: due to the extreme awfulness of the first two acts, I feel it’s only good manners to use aliases; if you care to know the true identities of these bands, contact me courtesy of this publication.) The group peddles in the kind of boring, outdated punk rock dreck that used to dominate the scene before every local band changed their music to boring, outdated “classic” rock. Their set is filled with the typical “Dude, we’re like, totally wasted!” between-song chatter, as well as the always popular “Come up front and dance!” demand that usually signifies barely-disguised desperation, a collective mental handicap or both. Next up is a solo set from Barry Getz, lead singer for local upstarts Let’s Hear It For Remedial English. Getz’s “sound” is hard to nail down, though imagining a 14-year-old boy giving birth while repeatedly picking up and dropping a series of electric-acoustic guitars seems to sum it up quite nicely. The straights seemed pretty miffed at all the racket, however, and a particularly oafish goon soon gets the boot after repeatedly screaming something about all the “dirty punk […]
Jan 1st, 2007 by Matt Wild
My greatest teachers
By Lucky Tomaszek I am lying on the couch with one child spooned up against my belly and another lying on my side. We are covered with a blanket and the television is quietly playing in the background. I doze in and out while they watch a movie. Jeffrey, my youngest, whispers, “You’re the best snuggler in the world, Mama. I love you.” I melt into the couch and drift off once again. A very long day The scene above happened the day after I had disappeared for 14 hours to attend an all-night birth. When I came home in the morning, I was exhausted. Fatigue made me achy and cranky. We had a busy day in front of us, with chores and obligations scheduled throughout the afternoon. I had attempted a brief nap in the morning, but had given up when I couldn’t fall asleep easily. My temper was so short the kids kept their distance and waited the day out. I don’t even know how many times I snapped at them as we moved through the afternoon and into the evening. By the time the sun went down, I was frustrated with myself for my behavior toward them. It wasn’t their fault that I was tired, and I knew it. My inner voice was berating me with vigor and I wondered again if my children would only remember these hard days when they looked back as adults. But then, as if by magic, we found ourselves curled up on the couch, passing the evening in peace. The haves and the have-nots of feelings My kids are good. It’s my opinion that almost all kids are good kids, actually, even when they have a hard time holding their behavior together. They come equipped with enormous hearts to give and receive great big love, and with a desire to do so. They also come with all of the other emotions that we have as adults: sadness, anger, frustration, joy, fear and on and on. What they don’t have is the ability to communicate about those feelings. As infants and toddlers, they don’t yet have the words to tell us exactly how they’re feeling. As school-age children and teens, they often don’t have the context to explain it coherently. The fact that the ability to articulate their emotions haven’t developed doesn’t mean that those feelings are any less real or valid than any of ours. When a toddler is jealous enough to bite, when a second grader is angry enough to punch and when a 16 year old is crazy to proclaim true love all over their biology folder – it’s as real as it gets. Behavior needs to be molded, and corrected in many instances, but the emotions are pure. When my own behavior is out of line, like it was many times during the day I described earlier, I apologize to my kids and tell them why I was misbehaving. I don’t do it to excuse myself, but just […]
Jan 1st, 2007 by Lucky Tomaszek
Just like real life?
By “Life here is painless, that’s what they choose,” the old Receiver of Memories tells Jonas in Lois Lowry’s book The Giver, awarded a Newberry Medal in 1994 yet remaining on many lists of banned books. And yet today, 13 years since its first publication, The Giver is still creating controversy. First Stage Children’s Theater made a bold choice to produce Eric Coble’s adaptation, opening January 26. Because of the provocative material contained in the book and script, Jeff Frank, artistic director for First Stage, is encouraging parents and teens to read the book before attending the play and to then discuss them both as questions arise. Frank believes, “It’s incumbent on us as a theater to present plays that promote challenging discussion in the schools, and for families.” The Giver provides “a richness of idea and thought,” continues Frank, “that will resonate deeply with everyone.” For Lowry’s book presents a future world without any pain. “Sameness” pervades this world, represented by dull gray in the production and the book. There is no color, no choice; climate control contains the snow, wind and rain. At 12, adolescents are awarded their “assignment,” or occupation, in life after careful evaluation of their talents by the governing group of elders. Adults petition for a spouse, also chosen by the elders, and for the “two children each family unit is allowed.” Adults over a certain age are confined in “The House of the Old” and celebrated, “released,” at a certain time. Above all, Jonas, the protagonist in Lowry’s world, is without love. For love is considered imprecise language, without a clearly understood meaning, obsolete. Love is seen as a dangerous way to live. For love involves choice, sorrow and risk. The Giver’s world is perfect, without sadness, only similitude. That leaves love and pleasure as remnants of an antiquated way of life, recorded by the “Receiver of Memory,” who stores all the memories of the past in case they are needed by future generations and whom Jonas has been selected to succeed. A world without pain is appealing at first, seducing the reader into thinking that without suffering life would be wonderful. “It is easy to be seduced into thinking a perfect world, sameness, would be better,” Lowry says. “I created the book to be seductive in the beginning.” Why wouldn’t society choose to be free from war, illness, uncertainty and even snow? But would giving up all choice be worth a perfect world? A world without even the simplest of diversity? Imagine a world of continual grey, not only in the skies, but people’s faces, clothing, everything. Jonas realizes the “perfect world” in which he lives is empty and shallow, a world created by Lowry to be both utopian and nightmarish. This imagined loss of color in the book is visualized, translated to the stage as a constant theme. The set, scenery, costumes and skin tones are all shades of grey. Only The Giver will have a touch of color as he retains […]
Jan 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Down on the farm with David Swanson
The doughboy ditty that poses the question, “How you gonna keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?” has a simple answer for Chef David Swanson. It’s where the food is. Swanson has seen and studied in “Paree.” His many culinary credits include a degree from Kendall College in Evanston, Illinois, and employment with renowned chefs Roland Liccioni, Pierre Polin, Don Yamauchi and Sanford D’Amato. Still, his focus is on the farm. He is a slow food activist, basing all his creations on locally-produced, in-season foods. His recipes are parochial in foundation and if a food is not in season, he will not plate it. Swanson is entranced with ingredients, their provenance, their chemistry and their possibilities. An inquisitive child, he pulled apart every toy he ever got to see its base components and how it worked. In the kitchen, he peppered his mother and grandmother with questions. Babysitters were forewarned that it was normal for David to play in the kitchen, stirring up concoctions, not necessarily edible. Fortunately, his curiosity was welcomed and encouraged. It is the basis of everything he does. Swanson’s educational and professional training has imbued him with a deep understanding of and appreciation for classic French cuisine. Starting as a dishwasher at 15, he worked through every station of the kitchen at Le Titi de Paris, Le Français and Sanford – Midwestern restaurants with national reputations. His time in Paris was short but pivotal. Working sessions at Le Cordon Bleu and a stage at local restaurants (working free for the opportunity to learn), he found a food philosophy that matched his own. “In American kitchens, everything revolves around the chef. In France, there is a reverence for the ingredients. Everything starts from that point, and the chef is just a cog in the wheel.” When Swanson came north to work at Sanford, Milwaukee was not even a blip on the culinary map. But he came anyway, and it was a fortuitous move. “Sanford was finishing school for me. Sandy D’Amato is a fabulous chef and I had worked with a lot of great chefs, but didn’t have my own identity. Coming to Sanford I found out who I was as a chef and became comfortable in my own skin.” After six years there, Swanson left to establish his own enterprise: Braise. The traveling cooking school he currently operates is actually phase 3 of a 5-part business plan that includes opening a restaurant in the Greater Milwaukee area. The restaurant was to come first, but Swanson is still engrossed in the complex process of finding a location for his project. He takes his road show to farms, open markets, breweries and local food providers several times a month, with classes that range from $45 to $80 for a multi-course extravaganza. The night after the first big blizzard of 2006, 16 inchoate chefs slogged through foot-deep slush to attend Swanson’s class. At long wooden tables in the kitchen of Wild Flour Bakery, the students purge […]
Jan 1st, 2007 by Cate Miller
January 2007
By Erin Wolf January 2 Carly Simon Into White Columbia January 9 Blinded Colony Bedtime Prayers Pivotal Recordings Ty Herndon Right About Now Titan/Pyramid/Universal Lang Lang Dragon Songs Deutsche Grammophon Lil Jon Crunk Rock TVT Erin McKeown Sing You Sinners Nettwerk Rich Schroder Your Kind Words Anova Recording Company Kenny Wayne Shepherd 10 Days Out: Blues From the Backroad Reprise Ron Sexsmith Time Being Ironworks Music Sloan Never Hear the End of It Yep Roc Sqad-Up We Here Now Emergent/92E Trashlight Vision Alibis and Ammunition EVO John Waite Downtown: Journey of a Heart Rounder Yo-Yo Ma Between Friends: A Romantic Journey for Cello Sony Classics January 16 America Here & Now Burgundy/Sony The Holmes Brothers State of Grace Alligator Coco Montoya Dirty Deal Alligator Diana Ross I Love You Manhattan Stars of Track & Field Centuries Before Love and War Wind-up Wanda Sykes Sick & Tired Image January 23 Get Set Go Selling Out & Going Home TSR Kristin Hersh Learn to Sing Like a Star Yep Roc Dustin Kensrue Please Come Home Equal Vision The Affair Yes Yes to You Absolutely Kosher Blackfield Blackfield II Atlantic Doyle Bramhall Foodland Yep Roc The Chemical Brothers title TBA Astralwerks Deerhoof title TBA Kill Rock Stars John Mellencamp Freedom’s Road Universal moe. The Conch Fatboy Pretty Ricky Late Night Special Blue Star Entertainment International/ Atlantic Ken Navarro The Meeting Place Positive Music Only Crime Virulence Fat Wreck Chords Xavier Rudd Food in the Belly Anti-/Epitaph Saliva Blood Stained Love Story Island The Shins Wincing the Night Away Sub Pop You Am I Convicts Yep Roc January 30 Lily Allen Alright, Still Capitol Everlife title TBA Buena Vista/Hollywood Clinic Visitations Domino Harry Connick Jr. Oh My NOLA Columbia Crime Mob Hated On Mostly BME/Reprise Art Garfunkel Some Enchanted Evening Atco Norah Jones Not Too Late Blue Note Hella There’s No 666 in Outerspace Ipecac Dave Koz At the Movies Capitol Permanent Me After the Room Clears Stolen Transmission The Smithereens Meet the Smithereens! Koch 2XL Neighborhood Rapstar Monopoly/Tommy Boy Youth Group Casino Twilight Dogs Epitaph
Jan 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
Of Montreal
The eccentric title, packaging and track listing initially intimidate, but Of Montreal’s latest is actually quite accessible. It kick-starts as a lively, logical continuation of 2005’s The Sunlandic Twins, then capriciously plunges, only to rocket straight back to the skies. All the while, Kevin Barnes, currently Of Montreal’s lone orchestrator, delivers downtrodden narratives almost sociopathically. He holds a pep rally for controlled substances (“come on, chemicals!” ) and sets “spending the winter on the verge of a total breakdown” against a roller rink jam. Listeners are held, mesmerized “particles in motion,” through his impulses to arrange catfights, cling to seclusion and vandalize property. A sinister sound hits on “The Past Is A Grotesque Animal,” a 12-minute climb of perpetual guitar, dense tremolo and what I can only hope is a pterodactyl. Conversely, “Bunny Ain’t No Kind Of Rider” and “She’s A Rejector” are sing-along singles, exhilarating enough to allow a mere cheek turn at the blatant Prince-riff rip-off on “Labyrinthian Pomp.” Though Barnes’ voice is unarguably more pleasant in a lower register, the record’s best moments are when his singing is utilized as a gadget in its own right, no different from a drum machine or synthesizer. Even better is that, despite the hardships he reveals lyrically, Barnes doesn’t take himself too seriously. “Let’s just have some fun,” he decrees; and who shuns fun? Hissing Fauna is sure to captivate adventurous pop fans of any genre. VS
Jan 1st, 2007 by Amber Herzog
Beyond the Beltway
By Donald Kaul Remember “earmarks”? They’re those awful things Democrats kept railing against during the recent election, shabby political deals made “in the dark of night” that funneled taxpayers’ money into the districts of powerful politicians. Perhaps the worst of a bad breed, you’ll recall, was the infamous $200 million “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska. (Actually, it was to a small island where 50 people lived, which technically may not be “nowhere” but you certainly can see it from there.) Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was the project’s godfather and he was insulted – positively outraged – that anyone would find fault with spending $4 million per person on a bridge in his state. The practice of attaching these earmarks, often anonymously, onto legislation without discussion of their individual merits, simply as a favor to the legislator involved, had gotten entirely out of hand, said the Democrats. Under Republican rule, the cost of earmarks had ballooned to $64 billion a year and Democrats were going to do something about them; yes they were. Now that they are about to take control of the appropriations machinery, however, the Democrats have morphed into Roseanne Roseannadana. “Never mind,” is their battle cry. Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the 82-year-old Democrat who is taking over as chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, the largest pool of discretionary spending available for earmarking, said that he didn’t contemplate any “monumental changes” in the system. He said that he’d met with Sen. Stevens, the current defense appropriations chair, before the election and they’d come to an agreement. “We pledged to each other that no matter what happens, we will continue with our tested system of bipartisanship and we’ve been doing this for the past 25 years, and it’s worked.” Yes it has, particularly for Alaska and Hawaii. Those two states get more bucks per person in earmarks than any other state. Hawaii gets about $750 per resident per year, Alaska $1,677. The way the system works is that the majority party gets 60 percent of the booty for its projects while the minority settles for 40 percent. Now that the Democrats have become the majority, is it really fair to expect them to give up their turn at the public trough? “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, set to become chairwoman of the transportation subcommittee. She, incidentally, threatened her colleagues with reprisal if they voted against Stevens’ bridge. Who said there’s no bipartisanship in Washington? These projects, after all, are a way of rewarding political contributors and convincing working stiffs that you have their best interests at heart. Some of them are even worthwhile. Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa Democrat, says he is an unabashed supporter of earmarks, which he prefers to call “Congressional directed funding.” He claims that 14 years ago he started directing millions of dollars out of the defense budget into breast cancer research. “Now, was that bad?” he asked The New York Times reporter […]
Jan 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
The Broken West
By Heather Zydek Prior to last fall, The Broken West were The Brokedown, until a Midwest punk band claimed they came up with the name first. After the name change, the quintet released one EP (The Dutchman’s Gold) until Merge recently snapped them up. The band’s own MySpace page describes its sound as “ghettotech/regional Mexican/rock” and cites influences like Unicorn, Spinal Tap and George Harrison. The sound on I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On, their debut full-length rlease, falls somewhere between the boozy frivolity of classic party rock and the artful pop of classic alt/college-rock. The dozen songs on I Can’t Go On unroll at a medium pace, revealing songwriting that is melodic, if a bit clichéd. The songs are pretty enough not to offend the ear, but stubbornly refuse to stick in the mind the way really, really good songs (and really, really bad songs) do. The exception is “So It Goes,” a lovely, slightly melancholic pop-rock ditty reminiscent of something Teenage Fanclub might have written circa 1990 (see: “Star Sign” on Bandwagonesque). Serious power-pop aficionados and fans of more upbeat classic rock will probably enjoy I Can’t Go On, as will those who prefer the tried and true over the gimmicky and novel. For the rest of us, The Broken West’s music is respectable but more or less forgettable. VS
Jan 1st, 2007 by Vital Archives
