Hey, I'm really excited, Lisa Smith of Dangerbird
(http://www.dangerbird.net) asked me to review her show (I saw her
band play last Saturday night at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle - they
were really good) for local press. I told her I'm kind of out of touch
with the music scene these days, but you give me their e-mail address,
I'll send them something.
I didn't know anybody remembered my music journalism. I used to do
quite a bit of it - you may remember when Klaus Enterprises bought the
Banal Buyer's Guide, I sunk all my money into a new music magazine,
"The Vinyl Solution." I planned to go head to head, toe to toe with
Roll Them Bones and Spif, but I got my ass kicked, and my head handed
to me on a platter.
Anyway, before then I did a lot of writing - after that traumatic
event, I have only done one piece - she's pretty young, so she must
not remember me from the old days, she must have seen this one. It is
a damn fine clot of writing if ask me.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Matt Love
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 10:51:36 -0800
Subject: Alex Carr Concert Review!
To: alexcarr@yahoogroups.com
I was tremendously excited to learn that Alex Carr was making an
appearance in my hometown, in Wenatchee's own stately pleasure-dome,
"Rocky's Spuds and Suds." There was virtually no advance publicity - I
wouldn't have even known about it had I not received a call from my
old friend Joe Swordfish. Somebody should have posted it on the Alex
Carr list! I would have, but I was having computer problems.
My wife is in Edmonton lecturing, so I had to kennel the dogs, jump in
my car and drive like the proverbial bat. And I don't mean the blind
one, though I guess that fits too! Right after I passed through
Leavenworth, I got a flat tire, and of course the spare was flat too.
Just my luck, I had to drive the last 25 miles on the rim, which ended
up costing me plenty, but it was worth it! Alex put on the show of a
lifetime.
To my surprise, despite the lack of publicity, the place was packed.
Afterwards I thought about it and realized that I shouldn't have been
surprised, Alex has enough fans in every major city and every little
berg in the country that he can probably pack out a place everywhere
he goes.
I got there literally seconds before he took the stage – at first I
was in the back wedged in next to the bathrooms, but I managed to
squirm my way forward and by the 3rd or 4th song I had a pretty good
view.
He opened with the perennial crowd pleaser, "The Frog Responds." A
natural choice, the audience was seriously pumped by the epic sweep of
this powerful tune. Though he appeared solo (his crack backing band
was playing at the presidential inauguration, a gig that Alex refused
on principle – right on, Alex!) you hardly noticed, his performance
was so powerful, and his sequences were programmed with expert timing.
He kept the energy level up by segueing into his next tune, "Another
Rabbi for Nixon" without even a break to allow the grateful audience
the chance to applaud. He kept us off balance with a new arrangement,
all twittering birds and coked-up rhinos haunting all-night diners,
like a painting by Edward Hopper, only with seriously disturbed
wildlife.
When the song ended, he kept up the assault, immediately launching
into "Blowin' Chunks," as it turned out, the only song he did all
evening dating back to his tenure with the band that made him famous,
Motley Hoople. But nobody seemed to mind, his catalog as a solo
artist is so studded with extraordinary songs.
He attacked his keyboard with tender savagery – the delicately
filigreed harpsichord ornamentation was worthy of PDQ Bach. It was
like when you're driving down a highway of molten lava, and your
girlfriend says "I feel like having a plate of boiled gravel and a
side of lobster eggs," and then you see the golden arches through the
trees. Perfect!
At last he stopped long enough for the audience to give him a
thunderous ovation. He accepted it like the rock royalty that he is.
In a characteristically bold move, he performed the next song a
cappella, his strong lungs pumping out "Kim Fowley's Wet Dream" with
impeccable intonation. When Alex hit the upper registers, I can
guarantee that you'd be chilled to your spine, as were those of us
lucky enough to be there. Carr curled his voice around the song like
gift-wrap around a Christmas present. There wasn't a dry seat in the
house as he tenderly crooned the familiar lines, "A tornado, my
tomato, damn inscrutable, indisputable…"
He did an especially smashing job on his 2002 hit, "Plan 14 from Outer
Space." He captured the outer space ambiance by performing it in a
special tuning (14 notes to the octave), which he devised himself.
The 23/16 time it's in is so fiendishly complicated that he tangled up
the fingers of his left hand, and sprained his throat. Fortunately a
chiropractor in the standing-room-only audience sorted out his hand
and applied a splint to his throat, and he was able to finish his set.
Now that he had the audience eating out of his newly repaired hand,
(only occasionally having to slap the more rowdy members on the snout
with a rolled up newspaper) Carr moved on to play some material off
his latest, most exploratory album yet, "Danny Was An Ed."
Downshifting again, from the petal-to-the-metal attack he'd formulated
for the better part of an hour, he eased the clutch out, and slipped
into the tender love ballad, "Coat Hanger Abortion," as the keyboard
gently gibbered like a rabid chimpanzee, and drum machine he called
"Kevin in a box" – in homage of an all-to-easily replaced human
percussionist formerly on his payroll - chattering amiably like a
locomotive with square wheels.
I didn't catch the name of the next song – Alex, ever the innovator,
said that he had just written it, inspired by his tour of the Aplets
and Cotlets factory in Cashmere that very afternoon. You would have
thought he'd been playing it for years, so firm was his hand on the
pitchbend wheel. The song was structured as a titanic struggle playing
out in a tug of war between the bass notes in his left hand and the
drum machine. The evenly matched contest creates a tension that is
almost unbearable.
Suddenly, the tension is released as the drums get the upper hand,
cracking the rope like a whip, sending the bass sprawling into the
kitchen, smashing glasses and plates, falling to the floor and peeing
it's pants, laughing hysterically. Riotous good fun.
The genetically modified audience got a real treat when he launched
into the frankly sensual funk workout, "Bukkake Tsunami." Dorsal fins
were smacked lustily together as he laid down the supple groove, and
there were gasps of amazement when he tore into the koto solo like a
beagle into cheesecake. By the spazadelic conclusion the dance floor
was slick with bodily fluids.
Joy turned to dismay when he announced the evening's final number, but
just as quickly the mood of frivolity returned as he boldly assayed
into the prickly thicket of the sonic cactus patch known as "Dust
Monkeys." The highlight was the densely textured bridge, highly
reminiscent of an Alaska king crab swearing in Danish at a Chippewa
Indian feeding nickels into a parking meter. Hilarity ensued as the Indian's
squaw arrived, dragging a sack of prize-winning potatoes behind her.
All-too-soon the concert was over; many in the jubilant audience hit
the bar, while the faithful lined up for autographs and a moment or
two of banter with their savior. Again too soon, Alex went quietly
into that good night, his fans returning home fortified, the more
insatiable Carrheads returning to their garishly painted VW vans and
tie-died Volvos to caravan (Carr-avan?!) around the country behind
their messianic leader.
Don't miss Alex Carr when he comes to your town!
