Short, Sharp, Brock: Modest Mouse's leader talks about Marr and more

Modest Mouse expands the 'dialogue'

By Chris Nixon
San Diego Union-Tribune
May 10, 2007

So, how's it going Isaac Brock?

“It's going OK,” said the 31-year-old lead singer of Modest Mouse in his best deadpan voice, giving a little chuckle before settling into a mini-rant about his current state of affairs. “It's going as good as any day that you wake up next to an oil refinery in a parking lot next to some sort of basketball stadium can be and it's raining and cold and you're sleeping on a bus. Yeah, it's great.”

Brock has often been portrayed as moody and mercurial in the media, but he's in a pretty good mood on this particular day: “We're having some really good shows. I'm still adjusting to playing to people sitting down. We've played a lot of seated venues on this tour, which kind of isn't what we do: places that you would go to see 'My Fair Lady' or 'Wicked.' So, that's been an interesting challenge. You end up working extra hard to really try to change the energy of a seated room.”

The rigors of touring aside, life is actually quite good for Brock and his bandmates in Modest Mouse. Since the release of their 1996 debut disc, “This Is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About,” Brock's band has gradually risen through the ranks of the indie rock world.

DATEBOOK
Modest Mouse, with Man Man, Love as Laughter
6:30 p.m. Monday; Cox Arena, San Diego State University, College Area; $33.75-$35.75; (619) 594-0429

“The Moon & Antarctica” – the major label debut on Epic Records – preserved Modest Mouse's indie cred while gaining critical acclaim, setting the stage for the band's successful fourth studio album, 2004's “Good News for People Who Love Bad News.”

Coming on the heels of the No. 1 singles, “Float On” and “Good News” (which sold 1.5 millions copies and garnered two Grammy nominations), the Portland-based group added two new members in preparation for the fifth album: percussionist Joe Plummer (formerly of San Diego's Black Heart Procession) and legendary Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr.

“It's six people. We all work on every song together,” Brock said of Marr's addition to the group. “It's a dialogue. So no one is pushing it forward any more than any one else. It's an interaction. (Marr) wasn't getting brought on board to push us ahead in any way other than being an interesting addition to the band. He writes in a different style than I do, so he brought another perspective on writing songs for the band.”

The songwriting collaboration between the six people in Modest Mouse (Brock, Marr, Plummer, bassist Eric Judy, drummer Jeremiah Green and multi-instrumentalist Tom Peloso) is “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank,” released on March 20 by Epic. Marr calls it “Guitarzilla,” referencing Modest Mouse's most guitar-heavy album. Brock describes it as a “nautical balalaika carnival romp.”

Following in the footsteps of “Good News for People Who Love Bad News,” Brock tapped producer Dennis Herring (Counting Crows, Camper Van Beethoven, Jars of Clay) to help polish MM's sound. Again, Herring and company hit the mark in melding Brock's lyrical fleets of fancy and guttural vocals with an accessible pop sheen, especially on the single “Dashboard” and the hummable “Fire It Up.” Marr adds bulk to the guitar lines, taking MM's musical quotient up a notch or two.

Brock further explained the relationship of Marr to his new band: “No matter how long you've been making records, you're still learning. Especially someone like Johnny, who was willing to do something as odd as sign up with this weird band from the Northwest he never met before. It's about learning more. We're all interested in learning from each other.”

Though most of the reviews are positive, some critics have been lukewarm to “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” compared to the gushing praise that followed releases of “The Lonesome Crowded West” and “The Moon & Antarctica.” Pitchfork.com gave “We Were Dead” a 7.8 out of 10. Rolling Stone gave it a 3.5 out of 5. British music mag NME gave it a 7 out of 10. But what do critics know?

“As far as worrying about whether people like what we do, at one point I decided that I really couldn't make good music if I was going to be concerned about that,” admitted Brock. “That whole thing would complicate everything too much for me. All I can do is make sure the people I write music with are happy with it and I'm happy with it.”

Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.

Hear sound clips from Modest Mouse's “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” by logging on to entertainment.signonsandiego.com/profiles/events/modestmouse.


MODEST MOUSE
Birthplace: Issaquah, Wash.

Current home: Portland, Ore.

Formed: 1993

Label: Epic

Lineup: Isaac Brock – vocals, guitar; Eric Judy – bass; Jeremiah Green – drums; Johnny Marr – guitar; Tom Peloso – multi-instrumentalist; Joe Plummer – percussion


SAN DIEGO ON HIS RADAR
Isaac Brock says he has been following San Diego indie rock bands closely for quite some time: “I'm totally a fan (of Black Heart Procession's music). I'm totally a fan of Pinback's music. I love the Hot Snakes. I love (Drive Like) Jehu. Jehu is one of my favorite all-time bands actually.”

Brock's respect for the San Diego music scene led to concrete connections with musicians with local ties. Joe Plummer – formerly of Black Heart Procession – is Modest Mouse's current percussionist. Black Heart singer-guitarist Pall Jenkins collaborated with Brock on his side project Ugly Casanova.

With a new Modest Mouse album out and the subsequent tour under way, Jenkins and Brock will probably be working together again soon.

“He and I are already talking about it,” said Brock about a possible future collaboration. “So, when things simmer down, we'll do something again. Only time will tell. To be honest, this is when you start thinking about other projects. I love touring, but the record's out. I don't have a new record to work on right now. I don't have a new project. So my mind is definitely wandering and I'm trying to think about other things I'd like to try to do.”

– CHRIS NIXON


A MODEST MOUSE PRIMER
“This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About” (Up Records, 1996):

The skinny: Brock and company are finding their voice on this, their first shot over the bow.

Favorite song: “Dramamine,” beautiful guitar lines intersect with Brock's growl.

“The Lonesome Crowded West” (Up Records, 1997):

The skinny: The indie crowd takes notice.

Favorite song: “Jesus Christ Was an Only Child,” fiddle-infused sea chantey with reflections on JC and “Teeth Like God's Shoeshine,” some of Brock's best lyrics.

“The Moon & Antarctica” (Epic Records, 2000):

The skinny: The major-label debut, setting the stage for commercial blockbusterdom.

Favorite song: “Gravity Rides Everything,” a quiet moment with Isaac complete with acoustic strumming and ambient keyboards.

“Good News for People Who Love Bad News” (Epic Records, 2004):

The skinny: The blockbuster, propelling MM into stardom and making the single “Float On” an ubiquitous presence on TV and radio in 2004.

Favorite song: “The Devil's Work Song,” Brock gets all Tom Waits with the help of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

“We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” (Epic Records, 2007):

The skinny: New and improved Modest Mouse complete with guitar legend.

Favorite song: “We've Got Everything” ranks among MM's most infectious tunes (complete with Marrs' guitar lines and James Mercer's backing vocals) though “Fire It Up” is set to become the summer anthem of 2007.

– CHRIS NIXON

Bright Eyes sidebar for the U-T

Sometimes I get the call from the editors at the Union-Tribune to write a last-minute sidebar to a wire story: obscure facts, local perspective or a selected discography of a band. The wire story in this case was a story by the Orange County Register's Ben Wener on Bright Eyes. Here's the sidebar I wrote for today's U-T.

Bright Eyes on a Dark Page: a selected discography
For the Union-Tribune
May 3, 2007

Omaha, Neb., is a speck on the vast horizons and empty plains of the Midwest. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter. Always desperately isolating, like the big sky and prairie could smother you like a blanket.

Oberst and his friends on his label Saddle Creek (Cursive, The Faint) came out of nowhere in the late 1990s. Literally. Bright Eyes is the story of small-town work ethic winning out over big-town money and talent winning out over major label distribution.

Here are four studio albums from Bright Eyes and Conor Oberst that cover the arc of their career:

“Letting Off the Happiness” (Saddle Creek, 1998): Singer-songwriter Oberst enlists the typical tools of the trade: Three chords, an acoustic guitar and lyrics. But it's his words that set him apart. He's drawn this generation to the craft of songwriting much the way Dylan did in the 1960s or Woody Guthrie did in the 1940s and 1950s. With stark-and-sweet Dust Bowl lyrics swept across the page like wind across the prairie, Oberst bares his soul through his words. While some naysayed his style as self-involved and annoying in its quivering self-consciousness and warbling vocal style (and put the tag “emo” on it), “Letting Off the Happiness” gave teenagers all over a voice to connect with, and the connection would grow deeper with each subsequent record.

“Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground” (Saddle Creek, 2002): Lauded as his breakthrough album, Oberst's fourth studio release yielded “Lover I Don't Have to Love,” Bright Eyes' first underground hit. The record's 13 songs wrap more orchestration, complete choir vocals and strings around Oberst's introspective lyrics. Arty and everyman in the same breath, the song “Waste of Paint” is epic and heartbreaking in its simplicity, establishing him as one of the premier tunesmiths of our time.

“I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning” and “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn” (Saddle Creek, 2005): Releasing two albums on the same day might seem like a big middle finger to the record industry and the way albums are marketed. But Bright Eyes seemed to be going in two different directions at once in 2004. The acoustic songs were sorted to the mellow “I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning,” while the electronic experimentations ended up on “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn.” Lyrically, Oberst is still at the top of his game. But the musical spark of “Digital Ash” provides Bright Eyes with an escape from the tired format of three chords on an acoustic guitar.

“Cassadaga” (Saddle Creek, 2007): Cassadaga is a town in central Florida, a permanent community (officially titled Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association) of mediums, mystics, masseurs and New Age types. It's also the latest release from Bright Eyes, a collection of 13 beautifully crafted songs in which Oberst explores spirituality with a keen eye for the emptiness of self-proclaimed prophets (The Bible is blind / The Torah is deaf / The Qur'an is mute / If you burned them all together / You'd get close to the truth).

M. Ward, Gillian Welch and Rachel Yamagata help Oberst create the down-home, folky feel of “Cassadaga.” And Oberst seems more comfortable with his voice and his place at the head of his generation's class of songwriters. He's recorded 10 albums with Bright Eyes, and this 27-year-old musician is only getting started on upgrading the lyrical content of modern music.

– CHRIS NIXON

Gwen Stefani review in the OC Register

Stefani peddles sweet escapism

By CHRIS NIXON
Special to the Register
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Remember when Gwen Stefani railed against feminine stereotypes, singing "I'm just a girl in this world" on No Doubt's breakthrough album, "Tragic Kingdom"? It's almost ancient history now: 11-plus years, to be exact.

Besides the drug-addled rants of Courtney Love, the '90s were extremely thin on strong feminine voices in rock. So girls connected with Stefani's clear voice and strong message: She was the essence of the anti-diva.

Gwen Stefani
Where: Coors Amphitheatre, Chula Vista
When: April 22
Next: Stefani performs Friday at Gibson Amphitheatre at
Universal CityWalk and June 22-23 at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine
How much: $75 for Gibson; $20.75-$75.75 for Irvine
Availability: Gibson
is sold out; only single seats and lawn tickets remain for Irvine.
Call: 714-740-2000
Online: www.ticketmaster.com

No longer wrapped in the safe confines of No Doubt, Stefani has stepped out in her quest for iconoclastic pop stardom. Since her 2004 solo album "Love. Angel. Music. Baby." Stefani has been just another pop diva backed by soul singers and an MC.

From the opening moments of Stefani's 79-date world tour, the vibe was way more Magic Kingdom than "Tragic Kingdom." Her concert was like a ride through a theme park: pretty to look at but lacking substance. The hour-and-a-half show felt a bit like eating cotton candy while taking a turn on the Mad Tea Party ride.

Moments before Stefani took the stage on a cool Sunday night at Coors Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, a scuffle seemed to break out in the first 20 rows of the open-air venue. Police escorted two beautiful troublemakers to the stage. Stefani emerged from a cage as the backup band launched into the opening notes of "The Sweet Escape," the title track from her 2006 platinum album. Stefani, the police and the troublemakers all busted into a synchronized dance. This little bit of scripted theatrics served as a safe form of drama, but the kids loved it.

Through her 17-song set and six costume changes, Stefani stuck with the criminal theme, complete with pinstripe outfits and props such as a huge safe. With a set devoid of No Doubt tunes, Stefani is clearly trying to separate herself from her past incarnation, trading ska-inflected rock for hip-hop and modern R&B bravado.

Those in the near-sellout crowd waved their arms in the air in unison when prompted, and generally squealed with joy at the show's pomp and pageantry. Stefani is clearly a star demanding attention on stage. To her credit, she seemed to enjoy every second as the crowd showered her with adoration.

If you're a fan of Stefani's solo material, you'll love this show, which comes to Irvine in two months. If not, you might be well served to wait another few years until Stefani hits her stride, as Madonna did with her later material.

One thing stands true after the Coors show: Stefani knows how to pick a backing band. For her second straight tour, she enlisted a couple of David Bowie vets (bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and drummer Zachary Alford), a couple of No Doubt players (Gabrial McNair on trombone/keyboards and Stephen Bradley on trumpet/percussion), a punk rock pro (Vandals guitarist Warren Fitzgerald) and a skilled musical director (keyboardist Kristopher Pooley, who has also toured with Jane's Addiction and Liz Phair). Bassist Dorsey deftly sang verses on "Early Winter" and a stripped-down version of "The Real Thing," the first song of the encore.

If you squint, you'll see that Stefani – under all the caked makeup, the choreographed dance moves, the thin live sound and the watered-down soul-pop tunes – is just an Orange County girl trying to make a living. Gauging from the reaction of the throngs of young girls taking their cue from her, Stefani is a master at capturing the hearts and minds of young people.

Deerhunter in the New Times

Deerhunter: Now with less fuzz!

By Chris Nixon
Phoenix New Times
Published: April 12, 2007

Where:
Modified Arts
Details:
scheduled to perform on Monday, April 16

Subject(s): The Ponys, Deerhunter

Santa Cruz's Comets on Fire. D.C.'s Dead Meadow. Japan's Ghost. Add Atlanta's Deerhunter to the list. With the summer of '07 fast approaching, a new slew of bands is channeling the ghosts of the Summer of Love, 40 years after the original hippie counterculture movement. Like their parents in the '60s, today's kids still want music to represent freedom, mental expansion and an outsider mentality. This time around, Deerhunter and others of their ilk deliver sound quality, musicianship and crisp songwriting, along with the psychedelic music experience (sidestepping the pitfalls of 25-minute guitar solos and drug-addled, nonsensical lyrics). Vocalist/guitarist Bradford Cox, drummer Moses Archuleta, bassist Josh Fauver and guitarists Colin Mee and Lockett Pundt have found their identity as an ambient neo-psych band. With a new lineup and a new album, Cryptograms, on Kranky, Deerhunter reloads with a barrel full of hallucinogenic buckshot for your headspace. Trickling water opens the new album on "Intro," an ambient journey that primes the listener for 48 minutes of softly humming keyboards, jangly pop tunes and quiet voyages into the psychotropic stratosphere.

Comments on The Killers

A nice music fan from Bath, England wrote a comment on The Killers piece which ran in yesterday's Night&Day section and I wanted to share it with you. Feedback is good for my writing and I encourage everyone to tell me when I'm full of it. Thanks, cn

Anonymous said...
Hi Chris, I'm a British Killers fan tracking you down after reading your piece in SignOnSanDiego.
Ironically its a warm sunny day here in Bath in the UK today,so before I go back outside I felt I had to respond to your comments.

Great writing style.Wouldn't want to face you in open debate given your deep knowledge of things musical,and as for the clinical way you deliver cutting remarks,boy,the band will feel they've been slashed by a 1000 samurai warriors!

As you might expect I take issue with your content-

-I lived through New Wave,nothing the Killers does reminds me of that era,whaever Brandon says.

-I thought mentioning The Buggles was a low blow!

-Hot Fuss and Sams Town are different,thank God, and I ,for one love 'em both.

-having seen them twice now ,the show is getting better and better.

-you'll love the show at UCSD !,although your pre-conceptions might get in the way.
My only criticism of the band is that there is no froth when they perform, they bang out the music, set themselves right, then bang out the next track. That's fine for the fans who follow them and know every track,not so good for "potential "fans who, I feel, would welcome a little acknowledgement from the stage and at times a bit of a back-story about the track that follows.
Still, who am I to say, each to his/her own!

I look forward to your review ,and if you are coming over for Glastonbury,come and see us in Bath ,we are only 20 miles away.Flights are cheap in June also !

P.S. I was last in San Diego for Superbowl xx11 ! Must be the bands oldest fan,no good for their image,eh!
-

10:10 AM


Chris Nixon said...
Hello to our friends in Bath --

Thanks for writing in and giving me feedback. It's just happens to be a cloudy day in San Diego with rain looming. I've gotten more feedback from this article than any I've written in a long time. There are lots of Killers fans out there who agree with you (using slightly more direct language), so I appreciate your "come let us reason" tone. A note on tone: This piece originally ran in the print edition of the Union-Tribune (in the weekly entertainment tab called Night&Day). The publication is going to a more "voice-driven" style, which includes less quotes from the band and more opinion-based writing. They want us to act more as critics than reporters. This is a new style for me so I'm still finding my feet.

That being said... I think you're comment about New Wave is justified. The original tsunami of New Wave encapsulized a pretty specific set of bands, including sub-genres like the New Romantics and . With time, the genre has broadened to include many different sub-styles and bands. Punk's the same way: A lot more bands are called and call themselves punk now than in 1980.

It's good to hear the Killers live show is getting better. I've seen them live and in person twice on a previous tour, and was not impressed. My paper (nor I) have the resources to send me to a show on this current tour, but I watched the band's recent half an hour show on Austin City Limits and dug around on YouTube for current live footage. I didn't get the sense that the live show had come a long way, but I definitely reserve the right to change my mind and hope these guys develop more of a stage presence.

But even if I rip on a band, it comes with the respect that these people are doing something artistic and creative with their lives and getting paid for it. So when you boil it down, it's pretty hard to criticize that way of living your life.

I also wanted to say that I have a deep love and appreciation for British bands and the musical knowledge of fans in the United Kingdom. Pardon the generalization, but music geeks in the U.K. know so much more about music from all over the globe than us here in the U.S. of A.

Thanks again for writing and the invitation to visit in Bath. I may have to take you up on your offer in the couple of years. Have fun at Glastonbury for me.

...And thank you for comparing me to 1,000 smaurai warriors. That may be the best compliment I've ever received.

Many thanks, Chris Nixon

Killers in the U-T

Can Killers regain form at UCSD? Stay tuned

By Chris Nixon

San Diego Union-Tribune

April 5, 2007

New Wave and the United Kingdom seem to go hand-in-hand.

The Killers' sophomore album, "Sam's Town," sold well in the U.S. and overseas but falls flat compared to the band's debut, "Hot Fuss." The UK can be a gloomy, cold place, with a penchant for all things musical. New Wave, a synth-driven pop style developed in the 1980s, is the antidote for English weather: just enough mope to relate to the rain and enough dance floor pop to get you through the day. From New Order to The Buggles to Duran Duran, Brits love New Wave.

Lying approximately 5,000 miles away from London, the newest wave of New Wave hails from the dry heat and sparkling glitz of Las Vegas. Rising out of the Nevada desert like a sequined impersonator wrapped in a Union Jack, Vegas band The Killers revives the classic New Wave sounds of the 1980s, gaining more love abroad than in the New World.

DATEBOOK
The Killers, with Howling Bells 8 p.m. Tuesday;

UCSD's RIMAC Arena, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla;

$41.50; (858) 534-6467

Born out of equal fascinations with Bono's iconoclastic frontman persona, The Edge's chiming guitars and Duran Duran's 1980s synth sounds, The Killer's version of New Wave plays better in the UK than in the States. The band's 2004 debut, “Hot Fuss,” caused a stir in Europe, propelling The Killers to No. 1 on the UK charts while going platinum (1 million sales) four times over in record sales.

Sporting singles like “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside,” the crisp production and insanely hummable choruses caught crowds in the United States, too (No. 7 on the charts, triple-platinum sales).

Following the debut's critical attention and popular success turned out to be a tough task for singer Brandon Flowers, guitarist Dave Keuning, bassist Mark Stoermer and drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr.

The sophomore effort, “Sam's Town,” falls flat compared to the band's first disc. Gone are the infectious hooks. Present are Flowers' tendency toward whine and cheese.
Building on the popular momentum of “Hot Fuss,” “Sam's Town” sold well both stateside and overseas – platinum-plus in the States, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
But musically, the album falls far short of the band's early promise, an indication that just maybe, The Killers got too big too fast. Recent appearances on Austin City Limits and the 2005 Street Scene were far from electrifying.

As the spotlight fades and fickle crowds grow bored with rehashed retro nostalgia, The Killers might consider a relocation into favored territory. Flights to London are cheap this time of year.

Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.

Hand of a government man and the holy ghost

Thermals make music from a dark place

By Chris Nixon

San Diego Union-Tribune

April 5, 2007

God reached his hand down from the sky / He flooded the land then he set it afire, sings The Thermals lead singer Hutch Harris over the opening notes of the band's 2006 album “The Body, the Blood, the Machine.”

The Thermals rail against the church, the state and the status quo. The band, whose latest CD is "The Body, the Blood, the Machine," is at the Casbah tonight.Rife with religious imagery and apocalyptic visions, Harris and his partner, Kathy Foster (bass and drums), envision a future controlled by a government with no distinction between church and state.

“(The album is) about a government totally controlled by religion,” said Harris, speaking from his home in Portland, Ore. “I feel we're moving toward it more and more. (The album told) a fantastical tale that took it way into the future to a way-crazy paranoid place.”

With titles like “Pillar of Salt,” “St. Rosa and the Swallows” and “I Might Need You to Kill,” Harris paints a dark future through his lyrics. Under all the religious rhetoric, the band's trademark din of populist punk and Harris' accessible croon bring the message to the masses.

DATEBOOK
The Thermals

8:30 tonight;

The Casbah, 2501 Kettner Blvd., Middletown;

$8-$10; (619) 232-4355

The Thermals certainly aren't the first punk band to rail against the church, the state and the status quo. Yet Harris admits on “Returning to the Fold”: But I still have faith.

“As a punk band, it's natural to write political songs,” said the singer-guitarist. “I was trying to write about what's controlling politics right now, what's pushing things in these directions and why are we focusing on these kinds of laws. Things like anti-abortion or anti-gay rights. It's because of religion, or Christianity specifically. It's kind of ridiculous when we're supposed to separate church and state in this country.”

“The Body, the Blood, the Machine” is The Thermals third album on SubPop Records, home to grunge bands Nirvana and lo-fi bands like Sebadoh in the 1990s. Along with The Shins, Band of Horses and San Diego's The Album Leaf, The Thermals are leading a new generation of bands on SubPop shaping popular alternative and indie music.

“We were raised on SubPop bands, from the grunge bands to the lo-fi bands,” recalled Harris. “The Shins had just put out their first album when we were signed, so SubPop had already started its rebirth. In our press kit, we described ourselves as 'Nirvana and Mudhoney meets Sebadoh and Eric's Trip.' We were really stoked to be on SubPop. All the inspiration for our band came from SubPop bands from the past.”

Harris and Foster also achieved another dream on the latest disc. Brendan Canty, drummer of the seminal post-punk band Fugazi, worked with the duo in producing the album's 10 thundering tracks.

“(Canty) was pumped and stoked to work on the record. He had a real good time,” said Harris. “He would turn the sound all the way up when we were mixing, to the point where I really couldn't stand in the room. I would stand in the door way and he'd just be jumping up and down laughing. It was a dream come true to work with him and have him get along with us so well.”

Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.

Ambulette in the New Times

This is my first piece for the Phoenix New Times, with more on the way:

Serial poposity
By Chris Nixon
Phoenix New Times
Published: March 29, 2007

Getting hotter: Ambulette
Where: Modified Arts
Details: Scheduled to perform on Friday, March 30
Subject(s): The New Trust, Ambulette

"Cold, remotely desolate, permanent." That's how Denali (the Richmond, Virginia-based band, not the Alaskan mountain) described its brand of spooky, down-tempo pop during its four-year lifespan. Formed with her older brother Keeley in 2000, Maura Davis' former band (R.I.P.) released a pair of highly regarded albums before calling it quits. The discs revealed a four-piece band drawing from the rainy-day soul and dreary down-tempo of Portishead along with the hipster croon and heady lyrics of Metric's Emily Haines. While picking up the tempo, Davis has progressed from sweetly morose goddess to slightly more chipper chanteuse since 2004. Previously known as Bella Lea, her new outfit Ambulette isn't exactly American Bandstand sing-along bubblegum pop. The 2007 EP The Lottery (Astralwerks) ranges from the breezy rock of "I've Got More" to the twangy balladry of "If You Go Away." Along with bassist Howard (Pinebender) and drummer Rapsys (Euphone, Heroic Doses), Davis teams with guitarist Matt Clark (Pinebender, White/Light, Joan of Arc) to broaden her sound. If her career were a game of hot/cold, Maura Davis would seem to be getting warmer.

TV on the Radio sidebar for the U-T

TV ON THE RADIO
Hometown: New York City/Brooklyn
Year formed: 2001

LINEUP
Tunde Adebimpe – vocals/loops
David Andrew Sitek – guitars/keyboards/loops
Kyp Malone – vocals/guitars/loops
Jaleel Bunton – drums
Gerard Smith – bass

A LOOK AT TV ON THE RADIO ON RECORD

“Young Liars” (Touch & Go Records, 2003, EP): The first proper TV on the Radio album, setting the stage for later successes. Technically, the 18-song collection of four-track recordings cleverly titled “OK Calculator” represents TV on the Radio's first album. But the self-produced disc sounded more like a demo than a proper debut, and only a scant few copies made it into wide circulation. The EP “Young Liars” gave the world its first taste of the band's stratospheric indie rock doo-wop sounds. From the fuzzy bass and skipping beats of opening track “Satellite” to the brilliant a cappella cover of The Pixies “Mr. Grieves,” “Young Liars” established TV on the Radio as a creative force and set the stage for the critical success of “Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes.”

“Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes” (Touch & Go Records, 2004): Winner of the Shortlist Music Prize in 2004, chosen by a panel of musicians, producers and journalists. Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone's hair-raising harmonies are all over TV on the Radio's full-length debut. It's a revelation, lifting the hair on the back of your neck. Adebimpe and Malone use overlapping patterns and extremely high registers to create otherworldly music. Words like “seminal” get tossed around a lot, but this is a big album: big sound, big ideas, big voices. “Desperate Youth” is a benchmark, a record that symbolizes the height of creativity in our current era of blog buzz bands and insta-rock-stars. Critics loved this album; popular success had to wait.

“New Health Rock” (Touch & Go Records, 2004, EP): A short compendium of the band's work through 2004. This three-song EP features one new original song (“New Health Rock”), the opening track on “Desperate Youth” (“The Wrong Way”) and a cover song of fellow Brooklynites The Yeah Yeah Yeahs (“Modern Dance”). Released seven months after “Blood Thirsty Babes,” this short blast of TV on the Radio's power harkens back to the band's first album more than to the second, “Return to Cookie Mountain.”

“Return to Cookie Mountain”; (Interscope Records/4AD, 2006): The most accessible and best-selling album to date for an ardently non-commercial band. Full of horn loops and processed samples, this beat-driven album finds TV on the Radio focusing on more stripped-down compositions. Less atmospheric congestion from other instruments allows for more space for the band's trademark vocal style. Past outings have created more dissonance and tension between the instruments and the harmonies. “Return to Cookie Mountain” feels more like an album of songs. David Bowie sits in on “Province,” a beautifully simple track that has come to define the record. TV on the Radio may never reach the ears of millions. But the music is deep and more rewarding on each subsequent listen.

– CHRIS NIXON

Killswitch engages

Intensity is the bond for Killswitch's metal, melody

By Chris Nixon
Union-Tribune
March 23, 2007

Anchored by the tough, post-industrial cities of Springfield and Holyoke, Western Massachusetts served as a desperate stage for teens growing up in the area during the '80s. Kids raised in the Connecticut River Valley had long winters, rundown suburbs and crumbling inner cities as backdrops to their daily lives.

Killswitch Engage straddles the border between metal and melody. The band's mainstream rock melodies pushed record sales on its first three albums beyond 100,000, with 2004's “The End of Heartache” reaching almost half a million units moved.

The soundtrack was even worse. Beyond the cookie-cutter pop spoon-fed by radio stations, most local bands fell neatly into one of two categories: post-hippie troubadours strumming formulaic folk songs, or tacky cover bands hanging on to dreams of rock stardom by a fingernail.

Out of the dissonance came metalcore, a merging of metal angst and hardcore, lo-fi punk. Western Massachusetts emerged as a hub for disenchanted kids forming garage metalcore bands. One of those bands was a couple of kids calling themselves Killswitch Engage.

After many years, countless miles on the road and long hours crafting a sound in the studio, the five-piece band evolved into the one you see today. With the addition of current singer Howard Jones (whose menacing stage presence couldn't be further from the typically frail English pop star of the '80s) and the precise beats of drummer Justin Foley, KSE is beginning to make the journey from the garage to the living-room stereo. These five guys from Western Mass seem well-equipped to make the trek.

DATEBOOK
Killswitch Engage, with Dragonforce, Chimaira and He Is Legend
7:30 tonight; SOMA, 3350 Sports Arena Blvd., Suite I, Midway District
$22, (619) 226-7662

Killswitch Engage manages to straddle the border between metal and melody. In the insular world of metal, the tattooed masses might look down their pierced noses at KSE's accessible choruses. On the 2005 DVD “(Set This) World Ablaze,” one of the band's touring mates jokingly calls Killswitch the “Def Leppard of metal.” But the same mainstream rock melodies pushed record sales on their first three albums over 100,000, with 2004's “The End of Heartache” reaching almost half a million units moved.

“We really don't get a lot of flak (from harder bands),” said Jones, resting up before a show in Florida recently. “We're influenced by a lot of metal, and we're influenced by a lot of melody. I'm sure there are straight metal bands that don't care for what we're doing. Then again, there are probably a lot that like us.

“Same with us: We like a lot of metal bands, but we listen to everything other than metal, too. That's what helps round us out. Adding the melody . . . keeps the music from becoming monotonous.”

After basically two straight years of touring, the band decided to let the creative well refill with an eight-month break last year.

“You think clearer when you're not living out of a suitcase and a moving tube for a couple of years,” Jones said. “You're basically living in a large soda can. We got to take a nice little break, and I think that really changed the writing and recording of the (new) album. Everyone was mentally in a much better place.”

Advertisement As fall approached, Killswitch's record label, Roadrunner, inquired about new material. It didn't take KSE long to oblige. After just two weeks of writing and six weeks in the studio, Killswitch Engage emerged with its fourth studio album, “As Daylight Dies.” Released last November, the disc combines Pantera, Iron Maiden and Faith No More-era Mike Patton into 11 tracks of infectious metal.

“I guess it's easy to relate to,” said Jones. “Our lyrics are pretty positive, and I think kids just click with it and connect. You never know what to expect when you're a band. You could have five people come to see you or 500. We've just gotten real lucky.”

Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.