Volume 4
The music industry is still in the habit of complaining about
declining sales, but here’s another month gone by and still
no shortage of exciting news to report. Despite the spring
weather, my CD player and television are as active as ever, and
hopefully this edition of Moving In Stereo will provide
a few more reasons for yours to be as well. Either way,
I’m always open to suggestions of when, where and how I
might be better off spending my time, and can be contacted via
the e-mail address below.
…From The Island
Although former members of The Movielife
have recently popped up in Keep Breathing
and Nightmare Of You, I
Am The Avalanche is the new vehicle for frontman Vinnie
Caruana (who had been part of an early edition of Head
Automatica). Those who are MP3-savvy can catch some
demos at www.decoymusic.com…
The long-rumored second album from Taking
Back Sunday – whose guitarist Eddie
Reyes was a founding member of The
Movielife – is due out on July 27. Titled Where
You Want To Be, the disc will be produced by Lou
Giordano, whose impressive resumé also includes
Sunny Day Real Estate, The
Ataris and The Lemonheads.
Prior to that, appearances on The Warped
Tour and at the Reading and
Donnington Festivals will be on the
agenda…Not to be outdone, the former Taking Back Sunday
members in the just-as-hyped Straylight Run,
vocalist/guitarist John Nolan and
bassist Shaun Cooper, are hard at
work themselves. Following the success of their self-helmed
online-EP, the quartet’s debut full-length for Victory
Records should be in stores this September…From Autumn
To Ashes, who are currently on a co-headlining jaunt with
Atreyu, recently parted ways with
guitarist Scott Gross. No permanent
replacement has been announced as of press time.
…From The Ex's
Even though their albums are still in demand and the tours keep
selling out, Bob Pollard of Guided
By Voices has let it be known that the end is in sight
for GBV. Half Smiles Of The Decomposed will be
the last studio album for Dayton’s finest; the final gig
will be on New Year’s Eve 2004 in New York City… On
the contrary, after the minimal touring behind the not-up-to-par
Rewind & Record, it isn’t much of a surprise
that The Stereo has called it quits.
It appears that founder and songwriter Jamie
Woolford and bassist Chris Serafini
will be forming another band together in the near-future with
drummer BJ Wuollet going his own way
back to Minneapolis. Former Impossibles
mouthpiece Rory Phillips, on the other
hand, has been keeping busy with a variety of projects since his
days in The Stereo with released music in Slowreader
and The20Goto10 to speak of.
The latter looks to be putting out new material through Fiddler
Records while the bigger-budget albums Rory’s producing
for Recover and Armor
For Sleep have even higher hopes…Former Smashing
Pumpkins and Hole bassist Melissa
Auf Der Mar will be making her major label debut on May
18 in the midst of a world tour. Her long-rumored disc features
cameos from Queens Of The Stone Age
leader Josh Homme, Screaming
Trees singer (and ex-QOTSA sideman) Mark
Lanegan, previous Marilyn Manson
member Twiggy Ramirez and two of her
former bandmates of hers, Eric Erlandson
and James Iha… Seemingly more
active than Auf Der Mar and Iha combined is Billy
Corgan, who disbanded Zwan
last year but will soon be launching his solo career with a forthcoming
DVD, album and book of poetry.
…From The Stereo
Many choose to think of Fastball as
a now-extinct Top 40 group of the 1990’s, a la Semisonic
and the also-underrated Gin Blossoms,
but Keep Your Wig On proves that it was worth the four-year
wait since The Harsh Light Of Day. Miles
Zuniga and Tony Scalzo still
alternate between lead vocals, while keeping all of the songs
within the power-pop spectrum. Fans of Fountains
Of Wayne (whose bassist Adam Schlessinger
produced several of the Wig tracks) and The
Figgs will be pleased; those who are more captivated by
lyrics than music ought to check out “Perfect World”…
The four-CD Judas Priest box-set known
as Metalogy is also worth the price tag. Combining
the hits and favorites with some alternate versions and unreleased
selections, it is unfortunate that some post-1980’s Priest
had to be included; metallically speaking, it just doesn’t
get much better than British Steel and Screaming
For Vengeance. Either way, you can see the newly-reunited
Metal Gods on Ozzfest this summer…One
of the more interesting compilations to surface as of late is
Chrome Peeler Records’ You’ve
Got Your Orders Volume 1. For each of the 22
tracks on this limited-edition release, the contributing artist
was given a song title and with that had to write a song.
Amongst those who creatively indulged themselves were Sonic
Youth’s Thurston Moore, Mudhoney’s
Mark Arm, Mike Watt, Bluebird,
and Mike Gent of The Figgs.
It’d be nice to see somebody top that in terms of quality
and originality; hopefully Volume 2 will keep running
with this winning formula.
…From The Screen
It finally seems that comedian Lewis Black
is getting his due. Not only has the guy got a funny CD
(Rules Of Enragement) and worthwhile DVD (Unleashed)
to promote, but also some TV time. Beyond those weekly spots
on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, a recently-taped
stand-up special titled Black On Broadway will be airing
on HBO and a pilot for ABC
appears to have been green-lit with Lewis playing a disgruntled
history teacher-turned-principal… Andy
Richter also appears to be faring well with another show
in the works for Fox; this time he
plays the father of quintuplets. The name of the project
in these early stages, you ask? Quintuplets…
On a different plane of television programming comes an upcoming
VH1 spotlight on Brooke
Hogan, daughter of the almighty Hulk
Hogan. A blonde 16-year old singer of the teen-pop
kind, as affiliated with *N-SYNC svengali
Lou Pearlman, this ought to make for
a very interesting one-hit wonder.
…From The Stage
Neil Hamburger is known to those with
a sense of irony as “America’s Funnyman,” but
the comic’s following seems to be exclusively comprised
of in-the-know indie-rockers. This particular gig at Lower
East Side club Pianos saw Mr. Hamburger
playing to a well-packed room that knew all of the heckles from
his “live” CD’s by heart -- to which the headliner
gave the very same “off-the-cuff” comebacks.
Switching between his trademark outdated material and new bits
about the likes of Courtney Love and
Michael Jackson, this was satirical
comedy at its finest. Opener Nick Flanagan,
on the other hand, performed gross-out, wordy comedy that was
read entirely out of a notebook he was looking down at.
This was equally inventive and unnerving, but a lot of what the
guy had to say would catch you off-guard and bring you into minutes
of consecutive laughter…Coming up from West Virginia for
a one-off show at The Luna Lounge
was The Emergency, who relied upon
material from How Can You Move? for all but a handful
of songs. Although the always-melodic songs of the trio
are often indistinguishable and similar, there isn’t one
without an interesting hook, fill or solo somewhere – without
getting too “prog,” these three are real musicians.
Adding a cover into the mix would most likely make these charismatic
and cheerful guys even more exciting to catch live… Allister
didn’t have a new album to support upon this performance
at The Continental, but in their stellar
set at The Continental alongside The Goodwill,
Punchline and Drive-Thru
labelmates Hidden In Plain View, the
band did showcase a few songs from its already-written, pre-produced
third record. Economical as pop-punk bands come, the Chicago
quartet was able to merge more than a dozen of its catchy songs
into a 45-minute set, all while giving the near-capacity crowd
some fresh and witty banter. Around the time that Allister
starts its stint on The Warped Tour, the group shall be seen as
a house-band in a teen-comedy called Sleepover.
If you have news to report for the next edition
of Moving In Stereo, press releases and all other correspondence
for Darren should be sent to ASellOut@aol.com.
© 2004 – Column used with permission from Darren Paltrowitz.
All right reserved.
