Spinning Room
by Rob Browning

Superchunk
Maxwell’s
4/30/01
5/01/01
Superchunk are great wherever you see them, but seeing them in a small place with such a rich history as Maxwell’s is worth the trip across the river. And the pride of Chapel Hill didn’t disappoint. Fresh from recording new record in Atlanta, they did four dates up the East Coast, ending in this two night stand. Both nights featured a good amount of new material, with the second night proving to be more "hit" laden. Night two was also remarkable for the presence of the most irritating of scenesters: the guy in the audience who chats with the band as if he knows them. Nothing better than banal "notice me" chatter. Oh yeah, especially when you’re the "one man pit". That’s the frosting on the beater. Despite such irritations, Superchunk were the rock and roll juggernaut they’ve been for ten years now. The new material is very much along the lines of last years Come Pick Me Up, with prominent keyboard parts. More Marquee than Without Blinking, if you will, although their version of the latter was perhaps the highest of many high points of the two nights. Check them out for yourself on July 21^st in Coney Island.

Hangdogs
Star City
some Irish guy who was pretty silly
Mercury Lounge
5/4/01
There’s quite a little scene of good roots rock around this burgh. Thanks to the Rodeo Bar and in huge part to scene mainstay Roscoe Ambel, there are easily five venues around town where you can regularly see good double bills like these. Due to some silly Irish guy who was very earnest, but a caricature of the sensitive singer about town, there was very little time for the two headliners, forcing Star City and The Hangdogs to pull off a pretty much seamless Wetlands style set. Jason Lewis and Star City have turned into the Son Volt of New York, playing traditional roots rock with a dark undercurrent. Their Kissed A Girl lets a little sun shine in and shows the earmarks of a band that will do big things in the future. They’ve got a respectable bunch of songs and a great guitarist who doubles on really good steel. Go see them. Now the Hangdogs are the Gear Daddies of the scene. They, too, have great songs, but it’s a beer drunk rather than a whiskey drunk. They’ve got a little more of a sense of humor and fun than their compatriots in Star City. Frontman Banger is from the Steve Earle school of things, no stranger to melding great lyrics to a rocking tune. Their new record "Beware Of Dog" is their best record yet and the Dogs played much of it. Great stuff. These boys have a great album in them. See them before they get all Wilco on us.

Dashboard Confessional
Koufax
Fireside Bowl
5/9/01 early
So after the first flight I’ve taken in a year or so that didn’t involve me being stranded someplace, I hit the hard streets of Chicago and hit the Fireside Bowl. Another classic venue that is being torn down to build silly co-ops. It was like I never left home. The inevitable rehashing of the early 80s has fostered a host, or should I say blight of 80’s influenced bands. Not that the music wasn’t great then, but the last thing I want to hear is bad covers of Joe Jackson’s Stepping Out. Kids, don’t go there, especially when you’re not even Ben Folds. Bad Joe Jackson covers are best treated with alcohol so I retired to the bar to wait for Dashboard Confessional. Lotsa buzz about them, or should I say him, as he is pretty much a one man band, with rotating sidemen. They’ve got the type of strident singalong stuff that’s got all the kids singing along. Think variations on a theme of Journey’s Faithfully. I thought he was ok, and he was serious in that eminently respectable Jonah’s One Line Drawing sort of way, but wouldn’t go see him or Koufax again. They are two of Vagrant’s newest and brightest, but I don’t see them having a lot of legs. We’ll see if they outlive the Fireside.

Knoxville Girls
Tijuana Strongman
Empty Bottle
5/9/01 late
It never fails, I go to another city and end up seeing a band from New York that I never go to see when I’m at home. This time it was the Knoxville Girls, Kid Congo Powers’ new Lower East Side style blues explosion. Also featuring Bob Bert of Live Skull and a million other New York no wave bands, they played a bunch of songs that were pretty boring to my tastes. They look good and are pretty charismatic, but none of the songs really stuck in my head. Tijuana Strongman seemed to be the Chicago trio version of the girls: well-dressed, no bass player, very little in the way of songs. They did have a great percussionist who played a bunch of coffee cans, scoring them points for visual appeal, but adding little to the bare bones songs. Not my thing.

Dismemberment Plan
Cursive
Enon
Congress Theatre
5/10/01
This show was the reason I went to the Midwest Noise Pop. Cursive and The Dismemberment Plan are two of the best bands playing today and frankly, I would have flown twice as far. New Yorkers Enon opened up the show with a DC-esque bit of electronic mayhem that was sort of a more tuneful Blonde Redhead, although to be fair, it’s hard to be less.. They made up for their lack of songs with a pretty cool stage set of video screens ala Man Or Astroman and didn’t play that long, so they were ok in my book. Cursive kicked my ass when I caught the end of their Saddle Creek showcase last year and the last couple times have paled in comparison. Same thing this time around. They were really good, I was just hoping for great. Either way, they were a good time and it won’t be the last time I see them. Now the Dismemberment Plan have the uncanny ability to be better every time I see them and I’ve seen them many, many times. They’ve got a new record in the can for Desoto that should be out at the end of the Summer. Judging by the live versions of the new material, it should be another amazing one. Even more so in the wake of the brilliant Emergency and I, a record that set the bar high for future releases. Kudos to Scott Comeau at Billions Booking for booking a great show at a great venue.

Guided By Voices
Creeper Lagoon
Vic Theatre
5/12/01
Creeper Lagoon were the talk of the March Noise Pop in San Francisco, co-headlining and drawing lines around the block for their show at The Great American Music Hall. They remind me a lot of the kind of Game Theory-esque pop bands that Alias had on their roster in the early 90’s. A San Francisco Gigolo Aunts, if you will. They won over the notoriously finicky GbV crowd and definitely left with their respect. By contrast, Guided by Voices seem to be preaching to the converted at this point. Their songs are always good, but they haven’t done anything all that remarkable recently. The best new material was the debut of a number of songs frontman Bob Pollard had written with erstwhile guitarist Tobin Sprout, a foil that brought out the best in GbV. Bob’s pretty entertaining and always good for some smart ass banter, but you cheered for the old stuff. Much like Prince, it seems like Pollard is prolific to a fault. Too many releases dilute a drink that’s taken much better straight. Guided by Voices need to take some time off and get back to basics. They are Scat, not TVT and should retreat while there’s still time left.

Burning Airlines
Identikit
Desoto Records
The last Burning Airlines record was a great example of a band that I very much wanted to like, but never really took a shine to. The presence of J. Robbins and Bill Barbot from the late, great Jawbox made Burning Airlines a hot prospect that cooled rapidly for me. J. Robbins is a ubiquitous presence in today’s independent music, having had a hand in recent releases by the Promise Ring, Dismemberment Plan and Discount, among others. His time fraternizing with the new generation has served him well, infusing youthful vigor into Identikit. There’s a real 80s pop undertone to the proceedings, but gaffer taped to the DC sound that Robbins did much to define. Bill Barbot is absent this time around, but Robbins has taken a wife in the interim and the new partnership has influenced a lot of the lyrics on the record. The tone overall is a lot lighter, although the dark stuff is still real dark. Domestic bliss seems to have served him well. I’m looking forward to checking out the new stuff live.

Juno
a future lived in past tense
Desoto Records
I am as let down by this record as I was surprised by labelmates Burning Airlines’ new one. Juno’s previous record ‘this is the way it goes and goes’ was one of my favorite records of last year. Their wall of sound approach invoked the Afghan Whigs as much as they did Sunny Day Real Estate, whose Nate Mendel guests on ‘a future lived in past tense’. A lot has happened since the last record. Singer/guitarist Arlie John Carstens broke his neck in a snowboarding accident, painfully touring through his convalesence. They have a great new song on their split with labelmates The Dismemberment Plan that really whetted my appetite for the new record. In looking deeper, it seems that the new song was a vinyl-only track from the last record and explains the disparity between that and the new stuff. They have good ideas and the songs have good parts, but most of them drag on far too long. I’m willing to bet that they translate better live, though. Pick it up if you liked the first record, but this isn’t the one to start with.

Leatherface
The Last
BYO Records
This isn’t really a new release, as it’s really just the re-issue of the last record Leatherface released before they broke up in 1994. Of course, now they’re back and have released a bunch of pretty decent records, but get overshadowed by the new-school of Leatherface influenced bands like Hot Water Music. Truth be told, HWM and Leatherface have released a split together and even tour together regularly, but Frankie Stubbs and Co. seemed to have tragically had their heyday in the early 90s. This is a great record that will be well received by the record buying kids of today. Had it been released three years ago, The Last would have set the scene on it’s ear. It’s a shame that it’ll be looked upon as just another reissue.

Casket Lottery
Blessed/Cursed
Second Nature Records
This is a limited release CD-EP with a new song and two covers. The new song is good, but the covers make this worth picking up. One by the Cure and another by Kill Creek. Now there’s a dynamic duo. The Cure cannot be underestimated in their influence on the independent rock scene. There’s not an emo band from the Midwest that doesn’t have Disintegration in their collection. There are a couple bands whose wall of sound is taken straight from there. Now Kill Creek are a band I never though we’d see covered in this day and age. Those kids are a blast from Mammoth Records heydey of the 90s. Kudos to The Casket Lottery for reminding us of them.

Spiv
Everybody’s A Rock Star Tonight
Pop Sweatshop Records
This is Chris Barber from The Presidents of the United States of America’s new project, with Ken Stringfellow playing most of the accompaniment. I’m not sure whether this is an EP or a sampler from a forthcoming record, but there are some AM radio hits on this four song EP. Save for the fact that the title track makes reference to MP3s, albeit ironically, I have very little bad to say about this. If you enjoy hooky guitar and keyboard-based pop from the early 80s (i.e., the Spiv Rock referenced in the name), check this one out.