Onya Lamoureux

Live at Club Europa (4/12/2007)

admin — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:40:00 +0000

You're not fooling me, Panthers. Despite your new, more marketable album The Trick, I know you're still the kind of absurdist intellectual revolutionaries who want to think things over and then go fuck them up--just with a little more focus on style this time round.

Front man Jayson Green's voice, more a hybrid of punk-50s, screamo-wail than a grating hardcore rasp, packs a whopping punch into a single verse. This megaphone is housed in the body of a corpulent, charismatic preacher with a charmingly sardonic onstage personality, and what I have reason to suspect is really a “nice guy” demeanor beneath it all. Panthers filled Polish dance Club Europa for their record release party, and Green’s playful sarcasm was on heavy rotation. “Someone told me to turn my vocals up, but I don’t want to melt anyone’s face off,” he said in a light, self-mocking tone. But when they started to play, it was obvious that face-melting was what they were aspiring towards even if not quite achieving it like their former hardcore outfit Orchid did regularly.

After feeling pretty rocked out, Green introduced his next song with “Here’s a slow jam for all you lovers.” I imagined Panthers were going to crank out a Yo La Tengo-ish shoegaze tune. Wrong. This band doesn’t do slow jams, and for good reason. They then burst into an only slightly less furious three-minute punker, which is one example of how conventionally hardcore punk their songs are – very short and very simple song structures.

Jeff Salane’s drum playing was nice and crisp, Justin Chearno’s guitarwork was a careful study in concentrated fury, and Geoff Garlock possessed a mean, consistent power on his Fender Jazz. Garlock also has the hair of Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale on top of a tough, stocky bass player’s build, which only serves to add to his appeal. These boys didn’t have a shitload of pedals or any special effects going on: just some nice big Orange cabs, some old guitars, and some talented, been-around-the-block musicians playing politically-focused hard rock. Dare I say the Panthers might be a political reference to the Black Panthers? This group isn’t explicitly feminist, but they are downright radical.

“Goblin City” is the obvious centerpiece of the new album and live repertoire: a catchy, little anthem that really cranked the crowd up. With the Panthers sounding more melodic than on previous albums, Green belted righteously about a "culturally bankrupt" city, then kicked in with a chorus contrasting the blind population with their role as political clairvoyants: "The city is right here and we can see right through it. The city is right here and you won’t look right through it." You could just rock out to this steady rhythm and love this music without recognizing its political element, but upon a careful listen, it’s evident how central a libretto is to this band’s oeuvre.

These are liberally educated sons, and I wondered if they thought of Christina Rossetti’s poem “Goblin Market”: a warning against a corrupt, desire-fraught society where goblins lure innocents into their trap. In Panthers’ songs, the goblins are hell-bent-on-consumption capitalists. On the highly theoretical end, past songs have included “Thanks for the Simulacra,” “Panthers Vs. the Automaton,” “My Commodities Have Been Fetishized” and “Post-Fascist Fantasies”; and on the lowbrow, Vice humor-approved end, little ditties like “Don’t Be a Dick” and “Stroke My Genius.”

Old fans seeking Orchid glory days may be disappointed by this move toward more melodic songs, but Panthers still put on a good show with substance. You won't be disappointed if you waver near the boundaries of hardcore and hard rock. Just skip the three hardcore bands opening for them unless you hear otherwise.

Written by: Onya Lamoureux, June 3rd 2007

Guide to Brooklyn: 2007

admin — Thu, 17 May 2007 23:44:00 +0000

Not for Tourists

Has the ganglial network that is today's Internet annulled the need for books, especially guidebooks? Printed matter tickles my aesthetic funny bone when it contains unique, antiquey fonts or luscious photographs, but when was the last time an urbanite rifled through the Yellow Pages to choose the perfect dark hideaway to romance her lover in, the price-is-right shop for a colorful spring dress or the school to send her children to?

The Not For Tourists (NFT) Guide to Brooklyn is an expanded Yellow Pages geared toward the hip, youngish city dweller. Attractions are grouped by neighborhood, with accompanying maps. My main complaint with the book is that the reader has to flip to the back of the book for descriptions of businesses, as if referencing footnotes. Although I’m sure the editors thought this would ensure the brevity of the neighborhood sections, it’s a pesky task to have to look to the back of the book for the category of Park Slope, then the subcategory Shopping, just to find a one-liner on a store I was looking for - Bird.

The one-liners zing and miss in equal doses. This may be because NFT employs a dozen or so writers to scope out and review these spots, so the feel is a bit inconsistent. The Williamsburg bar Larry Lawrence is merely described as "Smokers." What kind of smokers? What kind of décor? Most importantly, what kind of drinks and atmosphere? Also, the word "hip" (which begs the pertinent question: hip in what way? Is it gutter punk divey, mod fashionista or stylish Williamsburg momma with papoose sling sort of hip?) is used to describe many businesses, including Supreme Trading, a bar that as of recently, especially on weekends, is more filled with Bridge and Tunnelers from other boroughs than local "hipsters" of any kind.

My second complaint about the organization of the book (this is starting to sound like a list of union grievances) is that after flipping back and finally finding the Park Slope/Prospect Heights section again, I couldn’t determine the cross streets of the soul food restaurant I was looking for on the map because the various businesses were not numbered! They were just denoted as stores, restaurants or bars. This was more than I could handle from a supposed resident guidebook. My friend and I ended up taking a recommendation from the bartender instead.

One caveat: Brooklyn is, and always has been, its own ethnic, mini-United States (more so than uber-gentrified Manhattan), and it isn’t as encapsulated as Manhattan, so it’s not as easy to describe. Some parts of Brooklyn are so far removed from Manhattan that they’re hardly recognizable as being part of New York City. Other parts, like Williamsburg or Park Slope, resemble the Lower East Side or West Village. In either case, it’s a much larger area dominated by small businesses and dozens of different immigrant communities with events and services that can be quite private or off the radar, so it may be more impenetrable.

This book would be so much more exciting if there were lengthier descriptions of neighborhood histories, what kind of signs identify a Turkish bath, how and where to bargain, contact info for active community groups, or what kind of Chinese vegetables to look for in Sunset Park, rather than just listings of businesses that may soon close (NFT itself puts a disclaimer in the front of the book, saying that it can’t guarantee that these businesses will still be open and takes no responsibility if they aren’t). The guide also covered only the Western and Southern Brooklyn neighborhoods, which was a disappointment. These are mostly the neighborhoods that residents already know. I was looking for some new information.

I think this is a better choice for someone who has just arrived in Brooklyn, or someone who doesn't have access to the Internet (the whole guide is, after all, published in PDF on their website), but at $9.95, it won't eat holes into your credit card, and even if you don't consult it frequently, you might learn a thing or two. Editor Rob Tallia has the fervent love that a New Yorker needs to survive here for decades (see his article “City Life” on the NFT website), and through his good intentions, I’m sure that future versions will improve (last year’s Brooklyn book was even skimpier), though never with the speed of Citysearch via a Sidekick, nor with the relevancy that a good local bartender could provide.

Written by: Onya Lamoureux, May 17th 2007

Monotonix, Unfortunately, Lives Up to its Name

admin — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 14:12:00 +0000

Uncle Paulie's

Brooklyn, New York

Monotonix is a trio from Tel Aviv with the kind of cult power that attracts an audience that wants to be wowed more than transformed. Their music mimics the basics of power-vocaled American heavy metal – Black Sabbath Lite. It is not that these musicians are not skilled, nor is it that singer Ami Shalev does not have a strong enough voice (though it most certainly falls short of Gene Simmons or even good ole Ozzy) so much as that the stylized music can neither be taken seriously nor as a joke. These guys have obviously listened to the classics, but imitation alone falls short.

A prime example would be the song "On the Road" from Monotonix's self-titled EP, which starts with an anthemically rapid, discordant guitar riff that lapses into a Neolithically-simple macho-metal-crunching rhythm for the rest of the song. Ran Shimoni's drumming consists of steady double cymbal crashes punctuated by Shalev wailing: "It was the day that you spit me like the garbage out of your life." This is hardly the lyrical, heady music Kerouac heard in his head.

Monotonix’s chosen venue in Brooklyn, NY, Uncle Paulie's, is a truckstop shack at the edge of Greenpoint’s earth that requires a hike of several miles against mud and strewn sheetrock with ominous semitrucks and smelly garbage trucks bearing down on you most of the time. This Indie Rock Pilgrim’s Progress would make even the hardcore urban nomad think there must be something phenomenal at the end of the path. And usually, at Uncle Paulie’s, there is. But the highlight of Monotonix is not its music, but a stage performance that bears the features of the big tent revival, a combination of circus magic and holy water that entertains by way of being outrageous and derivative, which serves a double purpose of distracting from lack of substance and innovation. The predictably steady beat was acceptable enough for the mod Israeli Ladytron-alikes and froed hippie hipster boys in the front row to bash their heads around to.

Reeling back and forth and slamdancing into the giggling audience with his eyes peeled open comically, Freddy Mercury-esque Shalev almost convinces you that this is all a big spectacle for performance art – that he made up the band after being dared by his buddies to convince the world it was a real endeavor. He lies on the floor massaging the ground and writhing around like a big cat in heat, then leaps up and grabs a few pieces of plaster, setting them on top of cymbals and on the ground and lighting them on fire (a trademark move apparently, memorialized in immortal glory in their MySpace photos and videos). When smoke starts to rise, I look over at Uncle Paulie, the friendly guy who owns the place, and wonder if he's panicked. But he has the same expression on his face as I do – faintly bemused, as if he too has seen it all, and is not impressed. He keeps flipping burgers, popping beer and making change.

By no means am I making a treatise that there is no place for outrageous expression and performance in this kind of music -- I did enjoy the moments at the end of the show when they brought elements of their drum kit into the crowd and had crowd members thrash the highhat and snare. But on tape, I really don't feel there's any important reason to listen to this band when so many other bands are more sonically entertaining or artistically intricate. This is not the music Rob Harvilla would dedicate to his wife on a mixtape to remember as one of their favorite songs ever from that rowdy road trip across America. This is the music that you will barely remember in the nebulous haze of your hangover.

With the right marketing and costume changes, Monotonix could someday do stadium arena rock for the suburban, but it's the indie rock audience this band is angling for, playing with Silver Jews, Kimya Dawson, The Thermals, Oneida and Ted Leo on tour -- strange matches for a band that lists Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple and ABBA as its influences. With the right connections (which they already seem to have in the form of their charismatic rep Kevin Guthrie, who also represents Silver Jews), Monotonix could even become a modest critical success. Preaching to the choir on playful, faux-sinful fun, they fulfill the expectations of their name – monotonous in tone, emotion and performance antics. Imitation has yielded a beginning for Monotonix, but the best thing for this band to do would be to get more serious about making challenging music, play up their mass appeal marketing, or resign themselves to attaining Gwar-like status once they get better stunts.

Written by: Onya Lamoureux, April 1st 2007

Galaxy is Out of This World!

admin — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 02:01:00 +0000

Interview with Galaxy

Galaxy is a trio from Toronto, a land that seems to be catapulting all its potential stars across the upstate New York touring void and smack dab into our city. Emma McKenna, Maya Postepski and Katie Stelmanis bang out the brooding, plangent guitar rhythms and alternately pretty and snarling vocals of a young Sleater-Kinney, and in the painful absence of that band, S-K fans may be eager to turn to the raw rhythms of another female band with similar talent and political conviction. Galaxy is almost there, with its penchant for dirty, wailing rock that seems to start where "The Woods" would have decrescendoed. Their newest, "Go On," is a folk song of sustained, layered waterfall vocals recorded in the wilderness, just as "The Woods" was. While upstate New York elicited a startlingly different version of classic rock from Sleater-Kinney, a cottage in the woods two hours from Toronto seems to have drawn an intense folk song from Galaxy, an if-they-must-be-categorized punk rock band.

“When we first started being a band, we were so obsessed with everyone taking us seriously, so we rocked hard,” said Stelmanis. “We wanted to be taken seriously as guitar players, so we had all these riffs. It was too complicated and didn't flow that well. Now we don't have to rock out so hard or show off our riffs all the time. We're just writing songs to be good songs and it's got a more steady energy.”

But folk isn’t the future or indicative of their current style preference, says Stelmanis. And there are more often moments when the high-strung simplicity of Galaxy's recent guitarwork and vocals borders on emo, a word and genre that I mostly eschew but find to be youthfully intense and done right in Galaxy's songs such as "Bolero," which wails and laments its way across a depressed desert of sound that has been seemingly compressed to the size of a can, ready to burst but unwilling to quite yet do so.

The lo-fi Myspace recordings fail to convey the live performances of these songs, many of which I serendipitously experienced when I stumbled into Toronto bar Sneaky Dee's upon the recommendation of Toronto's version of the Village Voice. Expecting a pretty rousing performance by the D'Urbervilles and their charismatic lead singer, I thought I'd get a fairly decent opening band and nothing more. But there is nothing in the musical world as exciting as witnessing a band that's still developing, but holds great promise, during a time when mistakes are in plainer view. Their public image is still a bit nerve-wracked, and raw chemistry is still flinting off those, at times, nasty and, at other times, heady productive sparks. “I think we just really kind of get high off of each other. We fight a lot, but also there’s a lot of ‘I love my band,’” said Stelmanis. “We were thinking of getting a bassist, but we have such a good band dynamic, such powerful energy, we’re kind of scared to let someone else into the equation.”

This nervous energy and tension, and the three members’ different backgrounds are evident in Galaxy's onstage work. They are not entirely sure in their performance, as the three threaten to spring in different directions, but somehow manage to stick. Nonetheless, they are going to give you a hell of a time listening to the mess, the confusion, the amalgamated delight of it all. McKenna and Stelmanis's strong vocals are as different and complementary as Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein's (both are big fans of Sleater-Kinney). Stelmanis also lists power-vocaled Queen, PJ Harvey, Tori Amos and the White Stripes as influences on vocal style. Postepski's years of drumming lessons showboat a diversity of patterns from military beats to shimmery transitions into chaotic fury that make you wish there was a crowd to mosh and bop around in instead of just you tapping your toes insatiably and sort of wriggling around in minor seizure.

McKenna and Postepski are students at the University of Toronto, with the former majoring in women's studies and the latter in percussion, a musical praxis combining radical philosophy and careful practice. Stelmanis is the conceptually artistic element, with her own side career as an experimental music composer and training in piano and opera. Despite all of their training, however, they have still faced opposition from the classical music front at the university." (Maya) has had problems auditioning for orchestras because classical music is not very accepting of rock and roll music here," said Stelmanis. "They don't approve of her commitments outside school. We practice at the university faculty of music, but the students there don't take us seriously." For such a young band that has already played with Erase Errata, Kids on TV, the Stolen Minks, the D'Urbervilles and the Organ , maybe it's time the establishment started taking them seriously.

Written by: Onya Lamoureux, February 22nd 2007