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Column: The Switchback
The Side Projects of Jack White and Josh Homme
Over the past couple of years, my inbox has teemed with press releases making ample use of the word “supergroup.” It seemed that 2008-09 were to bands what 1978-79 were to marriage—indie artists worth their salt need to partner swap to stay with it. Sticking the tour van keys into a bowl at the beginning of the party, M. Ward and Jim James pulled out Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis’ to form Monsters of Folk, while James Iha and Adam Schlesinger got Taylor Hanson and Bun E. Carlos to form the weirdest generational mash up ever, Tinted Windows. But a couple of greedy gents dipped their mitts in twice, forming bands on the side of their side bands, and only one will be allowed to get away with it.
Jack White and Josh Homme are both reigning kings of the retro-rock scene: The former for founding two-piece garage-rock machine the White Stripes, and the latter for leading the rowdy riff rock of Queens of the Stone Age. White got a jump on the supergroup trend when, in 2005, he formed the Raconteurs with Brendan Benson and Greenhorns members Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence, and then doubled down in 2009, sliding behind the drum set and bringing Jack Lawrence along to form the Dead Weather with the Kills’ Alison Mosshart and QOTSA’s Dean Fertita. Homme’s first side project—Eagles of Death Metal,which started in 1998, with its first album released in 2004—avoids the supergroup label, as its main lineup contains only Homme and friend Jesse “The Devil” Hughes, while his 2009 collaboration with Dave Grohl and legendary Led Zepplin bassist John Paul Jones is the textbook definition of the supergroup cliché, bringing together three rock powerhouses.
Psych Dread: Grateful Dead vs. the Boredoms
I was randomly matched with two other freshmen in a large, undivided dorm and expected to live civilly for a full year. One guy I initially expected to get along with, since before moving we’d both thought to coordinate who should bring the turntable. Turned out his vinyl collection included mostly Phish, assorted ’90s alternative, and the compulsory classic rock albums.
He had recently begun growing dreadlocks. Each knotted, three-inch lump bobbed at an odd angle, unsure whether to be pulled up by the roots or down by gravity. When I ridiculed that he always cued Sublime when company was around, he was shocked and said, “I thought everybody likes Sublime.” He added derisively, “I guess it’s not one of those bands.”
At the time, it was clear that he couldn’t be any more wrong about my music. My CD book contained everything from folk to hardcore to jazz. I was too eclectic to grudgingly admit the truth of his statement. The truth was that both of us fell pretty neatly within opposing demographics. He was a crunch and I was a hipster. As infantile as these labels might seem, they tore us apart and made friendship impossible.
The chains of lifestyle marketing have become so pervasive that very similar musical styles can seem worlds apart to fans. The Grateful Dead lies near the beginning of a long tradition of psychedelic music. Every music fan is entitled to love the Grateful Dead without shame. Like almost any music from the Edenic 1960s, the Grateful Dead can appeal equally to high schoolers, investment bankers, artists, and jocks.
Side Projects: Dan Auerbach vs. Drummer vs. Blakroc
The Black Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney will be the first person to tell you that the duo’s hometown of Akron, Ohio isn’t the most exciting place. “Living in Akron, believe it or not, can be incredibly boring if you don’t have anything to do,” he told me not too long ago. “Akron is mostly a shithole.” The town, noted for its rubber, plastics, and polymer industries, and for suffering a steep decline in population since the 1960s, seems to provide a fitting backdrop for the group’s bluesy, throwback garage sounds. Their songs’ disjointed structures, distorted riffs, and displaced images seem culled from the most desolate of the town’s streets; it’s difficult to imagine this music springing up in Portland or Miami or Boston.
But with the group taking a hiatus between 2008’s Attack & Release (produced by rap mash-up specialist Danger Mouse) and a follow-up that should see release in 2010, Carney and the Keys’ lead singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach had some time on their hands. They didn’t feel like spending their time sitting around and soaking up the local culture, believe it or not, and so they worked on a trio of side projects in rapid succession. The first was Auerbach’s February 2009 solo debut, Keep It Hid, followed in September by the first album from Carney’s group Drummer, called Feel Good Together. The third (and the most surprising) was a collaboration with hip-hop mogul Damon Dash, called Blakroc, whose eponymous debut came out on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. These were three very different projects, which showcased varying degrees of artistic growth on the parts of both Black Keys members. Which was the best?
Pavement vs. Postal Service: “Best” Indie Rock
Let’s make some arbitrary judgments, shall we? Let’s make the subjective appear to be objective. Everyone else is doing it, after all. In fact, the imminence of the Gregorian calendar flipping a number in the tens slot has inspired just about every music publication in existence—not to mention some that aren’t—to make “best of the decade” lists. Here’s to you, Stylus.
But why limit ourselves to just the decade? Extremely cocksure music critics make even broader, more sweeping generalizations, and that’s why I will reveal to you in this essay the best indie-rock album of all time.
Now, in determining the “best,” I realize there aren’t mathematical formulas or statistics to be applied. Rest assured, though, that I am cocksure enough to consider my own highly arbitrary picks superior to all other critics’ highly arbitrary picks. That is, that I—music critic, cultural temperature taker, and attendee of people’s pads who are partial to indie rock—and I alone can conclusively determine who has most captured the hearts and minds of the indie-rock generation.
Williamsburg: Amazing Baby vs. Savoir Adore
Psychedelic indie act Amazing Baby has been in existence for less than two years. In that time, they’ve signed a record deal, filmed a video with naked hipster babes, rode a giant wave of blog hype, and partied with Bill Murray, who saw one of their shows and recruited them to help him find the fountain of youth.
Savoir Adore, meanwhile, arrived on the scene with just as much talent but far less razzle-dazzle. Though, like Amazing Baby, they hail from that mecca of artsy privilege, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, their irrepressibly giddy, pure pop tunes haven’t set the buzz machine in motion for some reason. While plenty of folks have fallen for their album In the Wooded Forest, the Fader profiles, groupies, and movie star camaraderie have been slow in coming.
Both groups have benefited from ties to MGMT, the psych-rock outfit that found worldwide success last year. Savoir Adore signed with Cantora, the indie label that released MGMT’s 2005 Time to Pretend EP, while Amazing Baby’s guitarist Simon O’Connor palled around with MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser at Wesleyan College, itself something of an indie music farm system.
O’Connor and Amazing Baby’s other founding member, lead singer Will Roan, met each other after their college bands were booked together for a New York show. “I think I was hooking up with the same girl at the same time as someone in Simon’s band,” says Roan, adding that he’s fairly certain it wasn’t O’Connor.
They played a number of shows together, and after O’Connor graduated, he moved into a pad in Brooklyn, where Roan would crash whenever he came down for the weekend during his final year at Bard College. The pair began collaborating on various band projects and later worked together in a music distribution office, where their duties included crafting ringtones. In 2008, they formed Amazing Baby, focusing on a studio-centric sound that included layer upon layer of percussion, guitar, and keyboards. Their live shows, meanwhile, featured as many as 10 people on stage at a time, and early praise for the group was swift and unequivocal. “I think people liked the spectacle of this crazy band,” Roan says. Eventually, the lineup was rounded out with bassist Don Devore, guitarist Rob Laakso, and drummer Matt Abeysekera.
After releasing an EP called Infinite Fucking Cross last summer, they were pursued by a number of labels and ultimately signed with Shangri-La, who put out their full-length debut, Rewild, in June. Many of the reviews focused on the album’s seemingly hallucinogenic-powered prog, psych, and goth rock, as well as the group’s hipster aesthetic. Some of this had to do with their video for Rewild track “Headdress”, which featured topless girls, wearing paint and capes, prancing around in the woods.
Then there was the encounter with Bill Murray, who dropped in on their 2008 Halloween show wearing a rubber mask with black glasses. He and Roan hung out all night long, attending a house party, smoking cigarettes on a roof, and drinking bourbon on a friend’s couch. Notes Roan: “It’s one of the few stories I can tell where my mom is jealous.”
Savoir Adore’s story is far less flashy. Principal members Paul Hammer and Deidre Muro met while students at NYU, where Hammer played in a group catering to “sorority girls,” he says. Both possessing musical backgrounds, they decided to play a show together and then later conceived an album almost spontaneously. While on a train ride to visit Hammer’s parents at their home in a bucolic section of Holmes, New York, Hammer and Muro brainstormed the plot for what would become their first EP, The Adventures of Mr. Pumpernickel and the Girl with Animals in Her Throat. A concept record focusing on a professor and his meetings with a troubled student and a fairy who lives among the trees, it showcased the pair’s great talents for collaboration. Taking turns on vocals and instruments, they introduced the harmony-heavy, ever-sincere fantasy pop that would become their signature sound.
They return regularly to Holmes, where Hammer’s father Jan—a jazz and rock 
keyboardist who was enormously popular in the ’70s and ’80s and crafted the Miami Vice theme song—has a studio. Savoir Adore recorded In the Wooded Forest there, trading off on guitar, drums, and bass for hours at Hammer’s studio, which actually is ensconced in the middle of a wooded forest. While successfully employing a sound that suits their strengths, the full-length lacks a unified storyline like their EP, but boasts more fleshed-out tracks. At times, the preciousness can be a bit overwhelming, but songs on the album like “MERP” and “Early Bird” are as euphoric and hummable as anything to come out of Williamsburg this past year.
Their work seems not to contain an ounce of pretension. Savoir Adore certainly isn’t trying to impress anyone with their cool, and their seeming lack of self-consciousness is responsible for much of their appeal.
Amazing Baby also developed much of their music during long jam sessions. While employed at the music distribution company, they spent their evenings making music until the wee hours, allowing themselves only as much sleep as was absolutely necessary. Their goals were somewhat different from Savoir Adore’s, however. Roan told Spin that they were “desperate to convey a feeling of ecstasy.” Indeed, almost every one of their tracks is epic, or at least strives to be epic. While they often succeed in this regard—songs like “Kankra” and “Pump Your Brakes” are full, bombastic, and satisfying—it often feels like they’re breaking off more than they can chew. Much of Rewild lags, bogged down by excessive instrumental wankery and semi-pretentious lyrics that are difficult to wrap one’s mind around. (“We are starving cannibals / She protects her animals,” from “Smoke Bros”, has been particularly derided.)
With only one album each to judge them on, one could make a pretty good case that both Amazing Baby and Savoir Adore have the potential for long, gratifying careers. For the time being, however, the latter act’s less pretentious way of conducting business has led to a more satisfying catalog.
Listen: Amazing Baby, Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Listen: Savoir Adore, Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Rainy Day Festivals: Woodstock ‘94 vs. APW ‘09
Music festivals have become more plentiful these past few years. In fact, they seem to be breeding exponentially, with a single summer weekend playing host to major festivals simultaneously, such as the weekend of July 17th through the 19th of this year, which held both the Siren Music Festival in Brooklyn and the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. As the number of festivals rapidly increase, not only do the lineups become more and more interchangeable, thereby making the festivals themselves more interchangeable, but an even stranger effect kicks in: Festival promoters moving farther out into less and less predictable climates and markets to find new places to hold their band-a-thons.
These days we will hold a festival anywhere, and the number of festivals held in the notoriously finicky weather of an East Coast summer has multiplied. Predictably, the number of these promotional gambles that get rained out is also growing, and the intensity of the losses is growing right along with it—which brings us to our “battle of the worst” between two East Coast summer festivals that experienced huge setbacks from rainy conditions. The winner will receive a lifetime supply of grass seed and pocket ponchos. Let the soggiest money pit win!
To place focus on a modern pair of festival adversaries, we have chosen, herein, to neglect the original Woodstock. History made Woodstock an exception to practically every rule, and readily available drugs, sexual freedom, and a lineup unavailable anywhere else trumped any amount of spite Mother Nature could throw at that gaggle of hippies. Also, with concern over global warming and the long-term effects of psychedelics and THC, not to mention STDs still making the rounds of our youth culture, music festivals are events only to be attended under the most hospitable of circumstances. And this means that festivals see huge setbacks in profit and entertainment value when the weather doesn’t cooperate with the promoter’s carefully laid plans.
Lou Reed’s Berlin 1973 vs. Berlin Live 2008
In his long career, Lou Reed has been more influential than successful, one of the founding fathers of garage rock, noise rock, art rock, and punk rock, unafraid to make intelligent, challenging music that did more than push the envelope—he tore up the envelope and set it on fire. By the time the Velvet Underground was starting to earn recognition for its revolutionary role in creating a new paradigm for rock ‘n’roll, Reed was already making solo albums. His post-Velvet albums have ranged from haphazard to brilliant, from commercially successful to commercial disasters. Recently, his most controversial albums—Metal Machine Music and Berlin—have come under renewed scrutiny, finally recognized for their genius.
Since its release and commercial failure in 1973, Reed has said little about Berlin, but again, anyone approaching the album without preconceptions should be able to recognize the album’s primal power and dark beauty. Like many, at first I was repelled by the raw, cynical emotion of Berlin. In the feel good era of Tapestry, Sweet Baby James, and the first Eagles album, Berlin came on like a speed freak tossing a cup of piss into the dreamy psychedelic punch bowl at a hippie slumber party. The first time I listened to it, I was unable to get through the first side of the record. I was going to toss it out. Then a friend of mine sat me down and asked me to give a careful listen to “The Kids.” I couldn’t believe my ears. Reed’s matter-of-fact portrayal of infidelity, jealousy, and rage was delivered so minimally and with such authority that I was immobilized. The track slowly builds to a quiet fury with Jack Bruce’s zooming bass and a tinkling acoustic guitar the only accompaniment until the end of the song. Then the sound of screaming children crying “mommy, mommmmyyyy…” crashes out of the mix—it’s still hard to listen to today. And that’s not even the most powerful song on the album.
Best Power Ballads: Guns N’ Roses vs. Aerosmith
Hard rock, heavy metal, and progressive rock were once known mainly for their break-neck rhythms, epic guitar wankery, and conceptual themes involving arachnids from other planets, journeys into the afterlife, and disabled pinball geniuses. But at some point in the ’70s, someone (a savvy record company exec?) got the idea that it might be about time to lighten things up a bit. There is some debate about what constituted the first power ballad; some say “Stairway to Heaven”, although its structural experimentation and cryptic lyrics run contrary to the distinctly commercial character we now associate with the genre. Two years later, Styx brought us “Lady”, which had the requisite heart-on-sleeve, piano-twinkling-gives-way-to-electric-guitar, predictably-climaxing format we’ve all come to love.
Power balladry went all the way mainstream in the second half of the ’80s with the runaway success of pop/metal-hybrid cock-rock stylists like Bon Jovi, White Lion, and Cinderella. Roughly kicked off by Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home”, the movement eventually took over radio, allowing people like Jani Lane and C.J. Snare to score with more women than a sheik. The format didn’t really hit its stride until the early ’90s, however, when a pair of established acts perfected it. In my mind, there is no doubt that Guns N’ Roses tracks “November Rain”, “Don’t Cry”, and “Estranged”, as well as Aerosmith’s “Cryin’”, “Amazing”, and “Crazy” are the most awesome power ballads ever. The only real question, if you ask me, is which band’s works are superior.
Let’s start with Guns N’ Roses, whose pair of 1991 Use Your Illusion albums weren’t as well-received as debut Appetite for Destruction. But though the works lacked hard-rocking adrenaline bangers as compelling as “Paradise City” and “Welcome to the Jungle”, there was no doubt that their so-called “Illusions Trilogy” was a powerhouse.
First Solo Albums: Gary Louris vs. Jason Lytle
.jpg "Gary Louris: Photo by Darren Ankenman")
Shortly before the release of Grandaddy’s fourth studio album, 2006’s Just Like the Fambly Cat, Jason Lytle announced the band’s demise, packed up his stuff, and headed out to rural Montana. The Modesto-based group, which was beloved by critics and devoted fans, never broke through to the mainstream, and his severing of ties with them was swift and left lingering hurt feelings. The decision also had a feeling of finality to it, even though his recently-released solo debut Yours Truly, the Commuter sounds very much like a Grandaddy album.
Minneapolis-based singer-songwriter Gary Louris, meanwhile, comes from another indie band that never quite achieved its commercial due: Alt-country act the Jayhawks. Also critically-feted, the group floundered after signing to a major label and Louris’ decision to continue on with the band after the departure of co-frontman Mark Olson—only to later dissolve the outfit entirely—was also, at times, stressful and acrimonious. But unlike Lytle’s solo debut, Louris’ 2008 solo debut, Vagabonds, flips the script of his old band, eschewing its later, radio-friendly sound altogether.
Louris and Lytle’s stories make for an interesting comparison. The decisions they made after leaving their bands have led them down sharply divergent solo paths.
Edumacation: They Might Be Giants vs. the Dimes
by: Ben Westhoff
Popular music made for kids often has an edutainment bent, and in recent years there has been quite a few indie artists working in this mold, including performers as varied as the Moldy Peaches’ Kimya Dawson (whose 2007 work Alphabutt is a parental favorite, despite its plethora of pooh and fart jokes) and the Dino 5 (an underground hip-hop supergroup composed of members of the Roots, Digable Planets, and Jurassic 5). The year just past saw a pair of particularly standout educational albums: They Might Be Giants’ Here Comes Science and the Dimes’ American-history focused The King Can Drink the Harbour Dry. Both are aimed at older kids, and both expertly incorporate fairly heady academics with catchy, memorable songs displaying high levels of musicianship. The question is: Which group sets the curve?
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by: Ben Westhoff
published: February 3, 2010
in column: The Switchback
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