Music
What music scene, you ask? There's more in Chattanooga than you think!
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Written by Stephanie Smith
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Tuesday, 11 November 2008 22:29 |
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 On Friday, Flying Fingers Productions will play host to guitarist Richard Smith and cellist Julie Adams at Barking Legs. Smith has been described as “one of the foremost guitarists in the world”. The Pulse’s Stephanie Smith finds out how he got those licks.
The Pulse: You were described as a child prodigy. Explain your first experience with the guitar—did you know it was something you were going to pursue right away?
Richard Smith: My dad was playing a song from a Chet Atkins and Merle Travis album, and I asked him to show it to me. Apparently, I got it pretty quickly, and was able to learn everything pretty fast after that.I started at 5 and pretty much knew I was going to pursue it when I was around 7, I guess. I’m really lucky that way. I always had a goal. I think that’s such an important thing to keep you focused.
TP: How did your parents foster your talent?
RS: Well, my dad got me out playing in front of folks and hooked us up with a lot of pro players, teachers and guitar players. We’d go to guitar society concerts and meetings, and I met Chet Atkins, Joe Pass, Jorge Morel, Big Jim Sullivan and a host of others. I learned a lot from everyone I could.
TP: Chet Atkins has said that you are, “the most amazing guy I know on the guitar. He can play anything I know, only better.” How did you happen to meet Chet Atkins? And how has that mentorship continued?
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 11 November 2008 22:43 )
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Written by Ernie Paik
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Tuesday, 11 November 2008 22:28 |
The Residents
The Bunny Boy
(Santa Dog)
 They’ve been called the most famous unknown group in the world; it’s the Residents, the 35-year-plus ongoing concern, whose members mask their identities, often by wearing giant iconic eyeballs over their heads. Weirdness pervades everything they make, and they’re always guided by concepts and theories. With a few exceptions, the Residents only make concept albums, including their latest, The Bunny Boy, which is about the titular character and the complicated mystery behind his missing brother, Harvey, who is apparently sending strange postcards from the Greek island Patmos. It’s peppered with odd clues and references, both apocalyptic and bunny-related; for example, the name Harvey is surely a nod to the play/film about the giant invisible rabbit, and Patmos is the island cited in the Bible where John wrote the Book of Revelation.
The Residents have always embraced multi-media technologies as they emerged, and for this project, they’re releasing a series of short YouTube videos (30 so far) filmed and narrated by the Bunny Boy and encouraging viewers to interact by emailing him. The Bunny Boy universe also includes their live stage performances and online forums where people theorize and share bits of info, like when David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. came out and everyone was confused and worked through it together. It’s a compelling, intricate story, sure, but how’s the music? That, like the story, bears some explanation. From the group’s founding until some time in the ’80s, the Residents adhered to the Theory of Phonetic Organization, which states that songs should be built up from sounds and not the other way around, like it is with folk music (where songs come first, then the sounds follow). During this period, the Residents made their most interesting-sounding and richly bizarre work. They abandoned the Theory and favored more dominant story concepts and more finely tuned songwriting, and they haven’t looked back since then.
The Bunny Boy manages to set a dark mood of intrigue, but its sonic execution is where it falters. Some moments show promise, such as the opening percussion of “Boxes of Armageddon” and some of the more distorted guitar playing throughout the album, but ultimately, the preset synthesizer sounds don’t create the nuanced soundtrack that would benefit the story. The Residents were always about concepts, but on their best albums, the concepts were simple and easy to describe: “commercial jingles,” “modern nursery rhymes,” “Eskimo life,” and others. In the last two decades of their career, the Residents have become more ambitious with the media for each new project, and as the scope becomes greater, the music seems to become a less significant piece.
J.T. IV
Cosmic Lightning
(Drag City/Galactic Zoo Disk)
 A record-crate digger lives to discover some unknown artist from decades ago and pick up a slab of vinyl for cheap, preferably with some crazy cover art. More often than not, when he gets home, he’ll discover that the album sucks, but the hope is that it sucks in some awesome way. J.T. IV is exactly the kind of artist that a crate digger would like to find. The late John Henry Timmis IV is an obscurer-than-obscure rocker from Chicago and has a sort of outsider appeal and odd back story, from his teenage stint in a mental hospital to his inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records for making the longest film ever (87 hours!).
As for the music, Timmis clearly wanted to be like his idols, such as Lou Reed and David Bowie. Regarding the former, the first song that kicks off the reissued compilation Cosmic Lightning is a sax-infused Velvet Underground take-off, entitled “Waiting for the CTA” that has a madman charm to it when J.T. ends the song screaming—especially considering that he’s screaming about waiting for public transportation. Regarding the Bowie fixation, the live track “One Fine Day with Karma Man” has a sort of low-rent Hunky Dory mystical quality to it, before dialing up the rock. “Death Trip” and “The Monitors” are two reasonably competent and appropriately sloppy tracks of upbeat D.I.Y. glam-punk. They’re followed by the laughably mawkish strum-and-sing “Song for Suzanne,” which features trite rhymes and a distracting echo effect, and the 7-minute “Destructo Rock” probably stands as J.T.’s masterwork (if one can call it that), with a sustained jam and lo-fi shredding.
This new version of Cosmic Lightning is only available on vinyl and includes a DVD of unreleased footage, and it’s hard to say there’s much going for J.T. without his down-and-outsider mystique and the smirkable amusement provided. But regarding his rock star posturing, one can’t say he was entirely delusional: after all, 20 years later, he got released on Drag City. |
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What the Heck is an AIDS Wolf? |
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Written by Kelly Lockhart
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Wednesday, 05 November 2008 14:17 |
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 Our prime pick for this week’s musical outing is the NoogaPalooza festival at Rhythm & Brews on Thursday. Of course, part of that is the fact that The Pulse is a sponsor and that two of the masterminds behind the show are our pals over at thenoog.com.
But even if we weren’t involved directly, how could we pass up on a lineup that features The Dylan Kussman Band, Taxicab Racers, Jettison Never, The Hey Kids, I Am Band, Sex Head Loosey, Roger Alan Wade, John Myers of Black Diamond Heavies, members of Up With The Joneses, New Binkley Brothers, Butch Ross, Arlo Gilliam, Nathan Farrow, Dana Rogers, Noah Collins, Gabriel Zane, Ben Scoggins, Ernie Dempsey, Amanda Cagle and Tommy Davis.
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