2008-03 Vital Source Mag – March 2008
yes we can
If there’s one thing we owe to George W. Bush and his disgraceful presidency, it is thanks for the fact that we have reached a point where voters, even traditionally apathetic young people, are tuning in and turning out, paying attention and voting. It’s way too early to predict what will happen in November but, at least in the primaries and caucuses so far, folks are voting in droves, especially Democrats. The stars may be aligned for a historic turnout this fall and that’s a good thing. Let’s face it: the 21st century hasn’t been so good to the American brand of democracy, and it sure could use a shot in the arm. Who can forget the debacle of 2000, when the Supreme Court decided who would reside in the White House in a dubious 5-4 vote? On 9/11, the nation withstood the most violent attack on its soil since Pearl Harbor and, for a short time, grew more unified internally and garnered near-universal support internationally. But it didn’t take our president long to squander that goodwill through an ill-advised preemptive war and a host of unconscionable policies and practices – authorized torture, spying on Americans without a court order, a prison camp for detainees never charged with a crime. This administration’s ends-justify-the-means decision making and with-us-or-against-us foreign policy has decimated our standing in the world. Its willingness to coddle dictators in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere while spilling blood in Iraq doesn’t pass the smell test, and the no-bid contracts of Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies profiting from the war call the entire enterprise into question. In office, Bush and Cheney consistently fashioned themselves as freedom-loving, nation-building democracy exporters – but the world didn’t buy it. History has witnessed its share of shifty-eyed snake oil salesmen and these two will be judged among them. If our nation can agree on one thing, it’s that Inauguration Day 2009 can’t come soon enough. But as the cliché goes, elections aren’t about the past, they’re about the future – and thank goodness for that. One of the remarkable things about a democracy is how restorative and energizing an election can be. The nation is hungry for change and all of the candidates have positioned themselves as the most worthy agent of it. But there is certainly plenty to be cynical about, and even true believers can be forgiven for throwing up their hands in frustration at times. Look at what still lies ahead and what could go wrong: Democratic Party leaders apparently want to see a convenient deal worked out so that the party can unify behind a nominee before the August convention in Denver, lest the so-called superdelegates determine the victor and overrule, seemingly, the will of the people. I say, chill out. Give your Rules Committee and the process it created some credit. The idea was to empower voters with a majority of delegates assigned to candidates through the primaries. The uncommitted superdelegates would ensure that professional-class politicians would have […]
Mar 1st, 2008 by Ted Bobrow
The Mountain Goats
There’s something truly romantic about the solo-artist-with-guitar archetype — the tortured balladeer who can only express feelings through song. Of course, the inherent populism of that simple formula (anyone can pick up a guitar and learn three chords — you can too!) attracts scores of aspiring amateurs who lack the personality to realize the conceit. All you’ve got is a guitar and your voice, pal; if you have nothing interesting to say, the coffee shop isn’t going to ask you back. Thank god for John Darnielle, the man who began the Mountain Goats with a guitar, a boom box and the most charming disquietude this side of Danny Torrance. The Goats’ latest, Heretic Pride, showcases everything that makes a great singer/songwriter — driving guitar work, fictionalized lyrics that paradoxically, chillingly bare the artist’s soul — and everything that’s not-so-slowly turning Darnielle into a borderline cult hero. The lyrics are Darnielle’s real strength, as they expose him for the confidently awkward acoustic nerdsmith he is. Who else would drop lyrical references to H.P. Lovecraft and former NFL running back Marcus Allen into a song about suspicion and paranoia (“Lovecraft in Brooklyn”)? While nothing on the slickly-produced Heretic Pride quite achieves the sing-along triumph of early low-fi classics like “Cubs in Five,” the presence of a tremendous supporting cast – including Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster – makes up for it. Erik Friedlander’s cello resonates with a warmth that recalls the immediacy of those signature boom box recordings, if not the aesthetic. But production aside, Darnielle’s broken, optimistic personality is what sets the Mountain Goats apart from your everyday jerk-off at the open mic. For Pete’s sake, he cribbed the album title from a lyric by a black metal band. Don’t you wanna just pinch his cheeks and snuggle?
Mar 1st, 2008 by DJ Hostettler
The scene is massive
Items discussed: early 90s raves, gay flash mobs, the hopeless sincerity of youth Items pointedly ignored: death, disease, the stalled film career of Rick Moranis I was never a raver [ra-ver, noun: one who attends large dance parties; see also: casualties of the 1990s], though my flirtation with the early Midwest rave scene provided me just enough experience with glow-sticks and awful music to make me more than a novice. After a certain point, however, common sense and a natural aversion to giant pants got the best of me, and I left the scene behind, though not without some lingering admiration; from the stupidly infectious (and often chemically enhanced) sense of unity to the ridiculous lengths one had to go just to figure out where the damn things were held (call a certain 800 number, drive to a certain gas station, find of set of directions under a certain pack of Gummi Worms), the early rave scene had its wonky charms. Unfortunately (or, in hindsight, fortunately), I simply didn’t fit in. Two decades later, I make my way through the ravenous mob of homosexuals invading Steny’s Tavern, all of us trying to make some sort of sense of the monthly Milwaukee Guerilla Gay Bar. For the uninitiated, MGGB is a loose collective of gay and trans-type folks who stage “friendly takeovers of traditionally straight bars” on the first Friday of every month. Like the raves of yesteryear, part of MGGB’s appeal is the element of surprise – the group’s organizers reveal the location of each month’s infiltration less than 24 hours beforehand. Of course, disseminating this crucial information is much easier than it was 15 years ago: cryptic gas station directions have given way to MySpace bulletins and abandoned warehouses have been replaced by unsuspecting south side sports bars. I’m accompanied on this night of gay revelry by the lovely Amy Elliott. Doing our worst to fit in, we spend most of the evening talking about the least gay things imaginable (marriage, babies, movies not starring Kevin Spacey). Further proof of our naiveté lies in our unspoken expectations of unbridled flamboyance: flocks of hot pink boas, crotchless leather chaps, Bette Midler karaoke. Instead, we find ourselves surrounded by a fairly normal cross-section of the gay/lesbian/bi/trans-fat scene. In fact, if not for the three drag queens holding court near the bathrooms and one fellow’s insistence that Amy and I are actually a gay brother/sister duo, the scene could easily pass for any normal weekend bar crowd, albeit one with slightly more hair gel and collared shirts. Wondering how this sudden influx of hot queer action has affected the staff of the normally straight Steny’s, I sidle up next to the door guy: “So, is it always like this in here?” I ask. “Um, not really. Whatever.” Taking his indifference as a positive sign, I head back into the crowd and push my way towards the drag queens in hopes of a few quick questions. I’m too late, however, and they quickly […]
Mar 1st, 2008 by Matt Wild
Geek Squad
I wonder sometimes how my kids play off our family’s inherent nerdiness at school. After a full evening of fondue and folding origami, do they tell their friends what we did and how hard we laughed? Or do they stay quiet as their peers regale everyone with tales of playing the latest Wii game or watching a new release on the flat screen in hi-def? I feel certain that my youngest, Jeffrey, complains the way only a seven-year old can about the fact we don’t have a game system in the house. He’s good at video games; I’ve seen him play at our friends’ houses. He’s quick, intuitive and very, very focused. But I’ve also seen the way his entire demeanor changes after about 30 minutes in front of a screen, and it’s not pretty. He grows surly and openly defiant with everyone around him. So instead of plugging in with a video game, he and I solve Sudoku puzzles together. He is just as good at those, using his focus differently and figuring out the answers quickly. We laugh while we do it, and really enjoy ourselves. I am not at all ashamed to say that he is better than I am at Sudoku. My middle child, Emma, may well invent stories about our life for her friends. She invents stories about everything and I have had to redefine the term “lying” in our house so that she can be openly creative without getting in trouble about it. When the kids were very young, I would call them out for little white lies by euphemistically saying to them, “Is that true, or are you telling me a story?” Now we know that Emma is often “telling a story” on purpose, working to make it as big and colorful as possible. I’m sure that if Emma decides to tell her classmates that we once spent an entire road trip making up a story about Martian squirrels with purple hands, she’s will invent a story around the story. She might talk about how her mom “made her” participate, and about how her part of the story was the best, “everyone said so.” Or maybe she’ll change the details. Maybe we weren’t simply driving to a friend’s house up in Oshkosh. Perhaps instead we were stuck in the car during a blizzard for two whole days with no food except half a box of Cheez-its and it was the only way to keep warm and stay awake until rescue workers could save us! The truth, of course, is that Emma loves to create all kinds of things, not just stories. She draws cubist seahorses, paints fairies in flight, colors her fingernails with markers and costumes herself daily in splashes of hot pink and day-glow red – at the same time. My oldest, Lena, loves to spend free time on our home computer. She researches Harry Potter characters and builds huge files of information about them. She chats with friends, sends emails out […]
Mar 1st, 2008 by Lucky Tomaszek
For the health of it
By Catherine McGarry Miller Photos by Erin Gebhart Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know we should eat healthier. We Americans are overfed and undernourished and we know it. Still, to most of us, the words “healthy” and “tasty” seem incompatible. It’s Judy Mayer’s job to bridge that gap. As Nutritionist for Outpost Natural Foods, Mayer guides clients toward healthier lifestyles. She is neither zealot nor evangelist. Personally, she’s a meat minimalist but not pure vegetarian. Her husband is a hunter who prepares his venison alongside her in their kitchen whilst she prepares her vegetables. They come together over side dishes, proving that vegetarians and meat-atarians can successfully coexist. Mayer comes to her present position after many years in the retail grocery business. Her father died tragically young in a car accident when Mayer was just 12. It’s still tender ground. Her mother, an occupational therapist, did not remarry but raised her three children alone. From that young age, Mayer was impressed with her mother’s devotion to her children and her ability to keep food on the table, even with a very demanding schedule. “My mother was a good cook and that’s all I knew. At home we ate the same 10 meals over and over again.” The menu included good old Sunday pot roasts drenched in gravy, broccoli swimming in butter, the “best pork roast ever,” tuna casseroles, fabulous pies and the “best sugar cookies in the world.” Still, it was a limited palette. When she started a job at Red Owl at age 16, Mayer was amazed at the range of foods available. “My love of food came from that first job and working in retail groceries my whole life. I think I’ve worked for every chain. I love being around people and food. As a cashier you get to talk to a lot of people. You also see all the foods people are buying and all the foods they shouldn’t be buying. It really bothered me to see what parents were feeding their children and I experimented at home with recipes. Most people read magazines; I read cookbooks. I’ll take a good cookbook instead of a novel any day.” At home, Mayer experimented with healthful alternatives. “I started adding more fiber, reducing fat and using whole grain instead of the white flour we all grew up with. We were always adding to our repertoire with recipes like cherry crisp with oatmeal crust with cherry pie filling – my kids still love it.” Mayer started in management at Outpost 13 years ago. “Outpost helped me through school and helped me create my own job and I love it. Every day is different – I get to share my passion for good food and my mission is to get everyone to eat a healthy diet one step at a time.” Her main duties are store tours, individual nutritional counseling, nutrition classes and cooking demonstrations at the store and in the community. For just $25 an hour, Mayer offers nutritional counseling […]
Mar 1st, 2008 by Cate Miller
The Mars Volta
Popular consensus holds that The Mars Volta reached their creative summit with their debut Deloused In The Comatorium. I would argue against this with the notion that creative masterminds Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals and melodies) and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitar and creative direction) aren’t reaching upward – they’re reaching outward. These gentlemen are essentially a protean entity, constantly moving and shapeshifting within their own limits (a term one must use loosely). And while The Bedlam in Goliath, their fourth full-length in five years, doesn’t quite have the impact of their debut, it’s still effective and highly praiseworthy. Their melodies in particular cover new terrain. Album centerpieces “Wax Simulacra,” “Goliath” and “Tourniquet Man” contain Cedric’s most streamlined phrasings, even taking on a pure pop-couplet form at times. The music is still rhythmically aggressive – poly-Latin with a hardcore lean – with signature emphatic punctuations. The instrumental interplay is dynamic and cohesive throughout. Bedlam might not be their definitive work, but I’m not sure that’s the goal. They’re still a “tight as a mosquito’s ass” group of confident and explorative musicians, songwriters and sonic sculptors. “Definitive” implies a destination, and I don’t think they want to have one. (Though I’ll probably lose cool points, I strongly urge you to pick up the Best Buy edition, as it comes with a live DVD that showcases their fiery initiative, muscular chops and their definitively brilliant cover of The Sugarcubes’ classic “Birthday.”)
Mar 1st, 2008 by Troy Butero
These New Puritans
By Kyle Shaffer Beat Pyramid, the debut full-length release from UK dance-rock stylists These New Puritans, tows the line between brash post-punk and freak-out electronica. The record, which would sound as appropriate in a voguish pub as it would on a catwalk, brims with dance floor drums, noisy samples and artsy/obscure references sure to have the hippest of hip scratching their heads. After the creepy opening piece, “I Will Only Say This Twice,” “Numerology AKA Numbers” sets the mood with a skittering guitar line and Barnett’s dissection of the psychological significance of numbers. It’s a sign of things to come: great beats driving frantic, noisy compositions about everything from global climate change to the kidnapping of a BBC journalist. The entire record is an aural overload, cramming in enough sounds, samples, beats, melodies, layers, blips and beeps to induce epileptic seizure. This method at times culminates in devastating, white-noise virtue on tracks like “Infinitytinifni,” but proves distracting and even incoherent on tracks like “Swords of Truth” and “Colours.” While the disc’s talk-singing single, “Elvis,” proves a rewarding listen, perhaps the stand-out track is the instrumental “Doppelganger,” which springs with space and groove — an antithesis to the album as a whole. These New Puritans have crafted a heady record that, though a bit pretentious, warrants a good listen, even if it’s only born of curiosity.
Mar 1st, 2008 by Vital Archives
Destroyer
Destroyer’s Dan Bejar has always been the sort to overshadow his music through his verbosity and the sheer precociousness of his vocal inflection. Fortunately, with his 3-D attention to production and his knack for atmospheric, cabaret-style ballads populated by pianos, strings and jazzed-out guitars, he pulls it off. Like the love child of David Bowie and Bob Dylan and the sibling of Luna’s Dean Wareham, Bejar has attracted fans and critical praise for his bombastic used-bookstore brain, his affably indecipherable nasal croon and his penchant for drifting into reverb-y, shimmering space jams. Bejar’s eighth album under the moniker Destroyer (Bejar has also collaborated with the New Pornographers and Swan Lake), Trouble in Dreams was concocted with much of the same band behind his last release, Destroyer’s Rubies. Trouble in Dreams is a bit more restricted, more sonically dense, more sweet than crass, peppered with Bejar’s poetic sailor mouth and washed in the osmotic environs of fresh, vaporous Canada. Bejar sugars his usual dose of medicinal lyrics with delicacies such as “common scars brought us together” (“Introducing Angels”) and “blue flower, blue flames / a woman by another name is not a woman” (“Blue Flower / Blue Flames”), an obvious reference to his new beau Sydney Vermont and their duo Hello, Blue Roses. Trouble in Dreams is balanced by a more direct sound than Destroyer’s Rubies’ meandering one. Tracks such as “Dark Leaves Form a Thread,” “The State” (complete with a ghostly organ solo) and the shining “My Favourite Year” cut the meandering ‘Euro-blues’ to a minimum, adding percussion that is more characteristically drum-y than filler-y and vocals that are more spot-on than anything that Bejar has completed to date. It isn’t necessarily a pop album, but it has little pockets of silver lining peeking through that previously didn’t exist.
Mar 1st, 2008 by Erin Wolf
The new film coast?
By Matt LevinePhotos by Jeff Kenney With local film icons as disparate as experimental luminary James Benning and the ubiquitous Mark Borchardt, Milwaukee’s cinematic offerings have always been eclectic and fruitful. But in the last several years, our film scene has seen rapid development — the onset, perhaps, of a new period of national exposure to compare favorably with that of New York or Los Angeles. Sound unlikely? Maybe not after the recent initiation of Senate Bill #563: the Film Wisconsin bill. Signed into law in May of 2006, the bill went into effect on January 1 of this year, granting Wisconsin some of the nation’s most film-friendly tax incentives. Filmmakers may claim an investment tax credit of 25% for Wisconsin-based productions, as well as a 0% tax for all film and television services contracted by out-of-state production companies, a 15% state income tax credit for media businesses that make a capital investment in Wisconsin, and other magnanimous boons. The bill is unofficially named after the non-profit organization that helped usher in its existence — Film Wisconsin, whose efforts are dedicated to sustaining Wisconsin’s film and media industry. Film Wisconsin was created to fill the void left by the Wisconsin Film Office, which, due to budget cuts, was forced to close in July 2005 after 18 years of service. In April of the same year, aware of the Wisconsin Film Office’s impending closure, a task force of filmmakers set out to create Film Wisconsin, touring the state and working closely with its production community. A grassroots effort began to grant competitive statewide tax incentives, an effort that gained surprising speed as its economic payoff became apparent to state legislators. Following the bill’s inauguration, Film Wisconsin has touted our state as the “new affordable, film-friendly third coast.” And why not? The bill’s economic, cultural and artistic returns are so obvious as to be practically inevitable. You’ve probably read about Public Enemies, the new Michael Mann/Johnny Depp film that has committed to shooting on location here in Wisconsin — an arrangement that has Wisconsin’s film industry salivating for the big-budget commerce yet to come. “You’ll see an increase in the number of independent films made in Wisconsin and in the number of commercial films that come here,” says Scott Robbe, head of Film Wisconsin, which is based in downtown Milwaukee in office space shared with Visit Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Cultural Alliance. “The logistics of making movies will be much easier, and you’ll have a much greater synergy with Chicago’s film scene.” Indeed, Robbe speaks with enthusiasm of a partnership with Chain Reaction Studios in Milwaukee and Fletcher Camera in Chicago, the “Midwest contingent” that recently spread the word at the Sundance Film Festival about Wisconsin’s plentiful filmmaking incentives. CLASH OF THE INDIE TITANS The benefits the bill brings to Wisconsin cannot be overstated. There are tangible gains: the direct and indirect sources of revenue, the jobs a new industry will create both on and off sets and soundstages, the profits for […]
Mar 1st, 2008 by Vital Archives
John Vanderslice is practicing disable-ization
“I don’t even have a suitcase right now – i’ve gotta go out and buy one. The zipper is broken on my old one and it’s still got the tape on it.” John Vanderslice is one week shy of heading off on his European/ United States tour. First stop: Café Mono in Oslo. “‘Disable-izing’ is the perfect word for right now,” he says of the whirlwind of activity surrounding the creation, production and release of his new album – Emerald City – and his impending tour. The 40-year-old musician is also the owner of San Francisco’s Tiny Telephone, an indie-centric recording studio famous for its excellent but affordable production. The studio equipment is not playing nice today, but Vanderslice still manages to be conversational and good-natured despite his distractions. Emerald City (named for the Green Zone in Baghdad), his sixth album, combines the efforts of Scott Solter (Mountain Goats, Spoon) on production and band mates Ian Bjornstad, David Douglas and David Broecker. Emerald City is Vanderslice’s second album to address 9/11 and its aftermath; the first, Pixel Revolt, garnered mixed reviews, and while Emerald City follows the same themes, it is grittier, a bit more cut. A sonic “study in distortion,” Emerald City ditches the lush orchestral arrangements of Pixel Revolt and muddies things up. “I don’t know if we went far enough [on Pixel Revolt … so] we got rid of the strings,” he says. You can’t blame him. Vanderslice’s juxtaposition of big, bright Technicolor sounds with words born of intense, introspective paranoia played out as gorgeous but confusing. Emerald City settles into place so the dust and debris can register. Don’t expect Vanderslice to brush the orchestra away completely, though. He’s simply relocating it, keeping it just enough within earshot to be influential without dominating the sound. It’s not the only thing that’s changed this time ‘round. “On Emerald City I wanted to get away from the ballads that were so much a part of Pixel Revolt, and now all I want to do is write frenetic, electric guitar songs. I want to feel disable-ized … there are very few electric guitars on Pixel Revolt and none on Emerald City.” This constant urge for transformation is evident in Vanderslice’s jump from former band mk Ultra into his varied solo career, as well as his avid adoration of other art forms: literature, film and especially photography, his counterpart addiction. Photography has lent a new depth to his songwriting of late, he says. His photographs are rich with perspective, showing Vanderslice’s love for architecture (he calls Milwaukee’s architecture “stunning” based on its “industrial powerhouse” roots) and the people he encounters in the studio and abroad. Spain holds a particular charm for the artist. “If I’m close to the Mediterranean, I’m happy,” he says. “The people have so much energy; the streets are so alive at night.” It fits with his overall sensibility regarding imagery and how it relates to the music he writes. “I think about photography, and photography can […]
Mar 1st, 2008 by Erin Wolf
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
Despite his reputation as a weirdo, Stephen Malkmus’s fourth solo record plays like the work of an average dude hashing out life’s universal kinks. That’s right — even beatniks like Malkmus struggle with the same “sometimes it feels the world’s stuffed with feathers, table-bottom gum just holding it together” thoughts that we all do – though maybe he does have a more imaginative vocabulary. The instantly relatable “Gardenia,” a tidy pop song about the dissipation of a relationship’s honeymoon phase, actualizes how easy one can flip from doted-on (“I kinda like the way you dot your Js with giant circles of naiveté”) to damaged goods (“Are you just a present waiting to be opened up and parceled out again?”) and delivers some of the record’s best lines. Malkmus’ savvy lyrical poetry is recurrent with the former Pavement front man’s previous Jicks releases, as are his percussive vocals and gritty, southern-Calfornia guitar noodling. Composed of multiple movements that host peppery prog-rock interludes, the 10-minute title-track, which documents a trek through the southwest, and the single “Baltimore” are elaborate epics. The unfussy “We Can’t Help You” is accompanied by ragtime piano and a coy female harmony, while “Wicked Wanda” is curiously redolent of the “lemon drops” bridge of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” It’s the clincher that brings Malkmus, “the Grace Kelly of indie rock,” and now a dad in his 40s, closer to the ground. All 10 tracks are indispensable and fully realized, making Real Emotional Trash a treasure. VITAL Source welcomes Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks to Turner Hall on March 20 with John Vanderslice. For more information call 414-286-3663 or visit The Pabst Theater online. And check out Erin Wolf’s interview with John Vanderslice.
Mar 1st, 2008 by Amber Herzog
