2007-07 Vital Source Mag – July 2007
Josh Rouse
“The title was conceived during a 70-mile walk through the north of Spain in October. I thought it was a funny name and it’s similar to Aesop’s tale by the name of Country Mouse and the City Mouse,” Josh Rouse says of his seventh full-length album. Filled with reflective lyrics, the sounds around the words reflect the lyrics themselves. “Put on your winter coat my dear / they say the snow is coming hard / gonna be the worst in years / seems my old wool hat’s disappeared,” he sings on “Snowy,” his blue velvet voice against a backdrop of sparse organ notes and a snare being tapped like a naked tree bough against a frosty window. Rouse still manages to make winter feel sunny by popping horns into songs languid with reverb-y guitars and docile upper octave piano (“Italian Dry Ice” ) and by hooking quickly into “Nice to Fit In” with an upbeat tempo incongruous to lyrics about being alien to a new country and feeling out of place. Rouse uses his trademark classic ‘60s and ‘70s pop sound to pay accidental or intentional homage to pop-folkies Bread, infusing his music with many of the same folk qualities and plenty of jazz. Rouse’s vocal team-ups with Paz Suay (who also works with Rouse in the duo known as “She’s Spanish, I’m American” ) is a sweet addition. Suay’s accented but perfectly complementary vocals lend an even more velvet quality to Roush’s smooth delivery. Country Mouse/City House is a summer release, but perhaps this is makes it captivating. Its seasonal timing is askew – a cold front riding on the heat waves of summer’s usual overly tripped-out pop. Conflicting themes of wanderlust versus holing up at home with one’s sweetheart mirror the feelings of cabin fever normally associated with the winter months. It may not be the hit of the summer, but when “mitten weather” comes (as Charlie Brown once called it), this album will be the one to warm up to. VS
Jul 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
Crowded House
Fourteen years since their last album, 11 since their last show and yet it feels almost effortless the way Crowded House pick up where they left off. Admittedly, Time on Earth represents an incomplete reunion – original drummer Mark Hester died in 2005, and keyboardist Mark Hart wasn’t part of the initial lineup – but lead singer and songwriter Tim Finn papers the cracks. It’s not too remarkable that Finn remains a lively creative presence; after Crowded House broke up, he continued to write with his brother Neil, carried on a solo career and collaborated with artists like the Dixie Chicks. (That specific collaboration, “Silent House,” was on their album Taking the Long Way and shows up here as well.) You could say Time on Earth puts Finn back where he belongs, or at least where he’s most comfortable. From the opening track, the lucent and lovely “Nobody Wants To,” Finn and Crowded House don’t seem to have been away. In their absence, no one else really emerged to make mid-tempo pop-rock seem so simultaneously effortless and brilliant. And, at times, a little facile. With his smooth voice and acute ear for accessible melodies and smart lyrics, Finn is like a cousin to Paul McCartney, all prettiness and no edge. But the descending melancholy of “Pour Le Monde,” the sleek romantic hope of “Don’t Stop Now,” and the hushed glimmering of “A Sigh” cannot be denied. Time on Earth spends its own minutes well. VS
Jul 1st, 2007 by Jon Gilbertson
July 2007
July 3 Ash Twilight of the Innocents Infectious/Warner Circus Diablo Circus Diablo Koch The Rodriguez Brothers Conversations Savant Kelly Rowland Ms. Kelly Music World Music/Columbia Silverstein Arrivals & Departures Victory Velvet Revolver Libertad RCA July 10 Against Me! New Wave Sire Bad Religion New Maps of Hell Epitaph Beatallica Sgt. Hetfield’s Motorbreath Pub Band Oglio Crowded House Time on Earth ATO Gallows Orchestra of Wolves Epitaph HIM Venus Doom Sire/Warner Interpol Our Love to Admire Capitol Reel Big Fish Monkey’s For Nothin’ and the Chimps for Free Rock Ridge Music Kim Richey Chinese Boxes Vanguard Smashing Pumpkins Zeitgeist Reprise Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Merge They Might Be Giants The Else Zöe/Rounder The Unseen Internal Salvation Hellcat/Epitaph July 17 The Cribs Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever Warner Minnie Driver Seastories Zöe/Rounder Editors An End Has a Start Epic/Fader Label Federation It’s Whateva Reprise Mick Harvey Two of Diamonds Mute The Magic Numbers Those the Brokes Astralwerks Meat Puppets Rise to Your Knees Anodyne MxPx Secret Weapon Tooth & Nail Rooney Calling the World Geffen Suzanne Vega Beauty & Crime Blue Note Matt White Best Days Geffen Yellowcard Paper Walls Capitol July 24 Adema Kill the Headlights Immortal Peter Criss One For All Silvercat/RED Emily Haines & The Soft Skeletons What is Free to a Good Home Last Gang Talib Kweli Ear Drum Blacksmith/Warner Mobile Tomorrow Starts Today The Militia Group Sum 41 Underclass Hero Island Tegan & Sara The Con Vapor/Sanctuary UNKLE War Stories Surrender All Jon Vanderslice Emerald City Barsuk July 31 Luka Bloom Tribe Cooking Vinyl Recoil subHuman Mute Shivaree Tainted Love: Mating Calls and Fight Songs Zöe/Rounder The Thrills Teenager Virgin
Jul 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
There is an old joke that starts, “A man comes home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.” It goes on to elaborate on the mess inside the house as well: dishes in the sink, broken glass and sand on the floor, toothpaste on the bathroom mirror and toys everywhere. When he finally finds his wife, she is curled up in bed reading a novel. He says, “What happened here today?” To which she replies, “You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I did today? Well, today I didn’t do it.” As much as I hate to admit it, this joke accurately represents the view many people still hold about stay-at-home parents of both genders. When Mom stays home with the kids, she is bombarded with questions about how she could possibly fill her day if she doesn’t have to work outside of the home, plus the more modern “concern” about whether she is lacking necessary “career fulfillment.” When Dad stays home, he has to answer the same questions while fighting societal stereotypes that cast him as less masculine than his male peers. The truth about being a stay-at-home parent is that it is some of the hardest work a person will ever do. The day starts as soon as the first child wakes in the morning and doesn’t end until the parent climbs back into bed at night. Even then, it is the stay-at-home parent who typically manages any nighttime needs because first consideration is given to the working parent, the one who has to leave the house to earn a living. I know it might sound like hyperbole to say that a parent’s work is never done, but let’s look at a typical day in the life of my friend, Jesi, mother of a 3- and a 1-year-old. A day in the life The 1-year-old wakes up at 6:30 a.m. to nurse with his mama before the hectic day starts. After he dozes off again, Jesi checks her email and attends to the administrative details of the household and the La Leche League chapter for which she volunteers. If there’s time, she grabs a bath. Because her bathroom is next to the bedroom, at least one of the kids wakes up while she’s in there and joins her in the tub. Then everyone needs breakfast. Jesi makes some food for 3-year-old Nora while nursing 1-year-old Max in the sling. While the kids eat, she gets dressed as quickly as possible while making a phone call to another friend to finalize details for a play outing. Once plans are firm, it’s time to pull out clothes for Nora and Max and pack a bag for the day with extra clothes, diapers, board books, snacks, water, sand toys and sun block. She hangs last night’s laundry on the […]
Jul 1st, 2007 by Lucky Tomaszek
Temporary Beauty
The phrase “art on wheels” conjures images of taxi billboards, tour vans with flaming skulls and purple ponies, fancy ice cream trucks with neon graffiti and occasionally even cleverly wrapped buses. But look a little further – specifically, further down – and these words might also encompass another, much more fleeting form – skateboard deck art. Primarily placed on the flip side of skateboard decks, these graphics are unnoticeable until the skater gives a peek of paint and sticker via a kickflip or railstand. Although it’s tough to appreciate a deck artistically while in motion, decks have still garnered appreciation for their intense graphics that are political, religious, gender-infused; smacking culture around with a flippant force that ranges from the shocking to the quirky and is seldom dull. For this reason, skateboard decks are becoming a focus for many an art gallery in the last few years, forcing them to stop rolling and stay put, fascinating many an art aficionado who might not otherwise encounter a seven-ply piece of North American maple on wheels. It’s authentic American art in its essence, with many of the artists being skaters themselves. Most involved in deck art start at an early age, while they are still learning how to drop onto a board and roll. Twenty-year-old Milwaukee skater and illustrator for Stuck Magazine, Huey Crowley, is a perfect example. “I started messing around with deck art when I was in 7th grade, and I made my first actual attempt for Black Market Skateboards when I was a junior in high,” he explains. “The deck was called ‘Fear of a Black Market Planet’ and had all the members of Public Enemy on it.” His art made it all the way to Japan to be mass-produced. A technical issue kept it from release, but it was enough to light Crowley’s fire. “From then on I was always making stuff for skateboard companies. Skater artists like Ed Templeton really psyched me up to do skateboard art. It’s nice to be able to go out and skate, and when you’re done you can come home and still keep the creativity flowing on a different scale.” Gene Evans of Luckystar Studio also started early in the mixing of skating and paint. “Skateboarding is just something we did in the trailer park I grew up in. I drew and painted on everything as a kid. I’ve always painted over existing artwork – something I still do to this day. I’ve been painting and trading painted decks since I was a kid [in the late 70s].” + Building a Better… Board Most young skaters start out on plain decks – or ‘blanks’ – because they cost less. “The more bland or boring decks (blanks too) are basically for people that just want to skate (or are poor like me),” Crowley explains. Mike ‘Beer’ of Beer City Skateboards owns a shop in Milwaukee that offers both decks with graphics and blanks. Beer said that his blank decks are about $15 – […]
Jul 1st, 2007 by Erin Wolf
