2007-01 Vital Source Mag – January 2007
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
Listening to the new album from Austin’s …Trail of Dead reminds me of a 1992 quote from Faith No More’s keyboardist Roddy Bottum, regarding their tour mates Guns N’ Roses, who had morphed from a gritty LA sleaze-metal band into a bloated juggernaut: “I’m getting more and more confused about who’s in Guns N’ Roses, and it’s blowing my mind. Onstage now there’s a horn section, two chick backup singers, two keyboard players, an airplane pilot, a basketball coach, a coupla car mechanics…” One gets the same impression from So Divided. Back when TOD was unleashing chaos-rock on 2002’s brilliant Source Tags and Codes, they were lean and mean, but with their recent releases – 2005’s Worlds Apart and now So Divided – the band has chosen to expand their sound through bizarre stylistic shifts and ballooning instrumentation until you’re left wondering what these guys care about more – writing huge, epic songs, or just being huge and epic? “Stand in Silence,” the first proper song on the album, summarizes this frustration. The track opens with a classic TOD riff; the rhythm marches with a staggering, swaying funk backbeat while the vocals call the listener to action. But just as the song is about to take it to the bridge, it skids off the rails into a confusing symphonic second movement that sounds completely removed from the rock & roll book-ending it. The same thing happens to “Naked Sun,” which inexplicably transforms from a bluesy shuffle into more overwrought Tolkien-soundtrack shenanigans. When …Trail of Dead keep it simple, like on the title track, they’re still powerful, but overall So Divided is a mess with a badass rock record buried somewhere inside. VS
Jan 1st, 2007 by DJ Hostettler
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
