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Swell
02/09/04
Swell
is Well…. Well Swell is great. The San Francisco quartet
returned to Austin with a new album and an old set. As soon
as they took the stage, lead singer, acoustic guitarist, and
founding member David Freel went to work followed by drummer
Mat Mathews. Electric guitarist and keyboardist Greg Baldzikowski
and bassist Doran Bastin were still tuning up but the show
was already underway. The sharp acoustic guitar sound, followed
by the dark lyrics and deep voice of David Freel started alone.
This was followed by the in and out off-time drum beats that
are common to Swell. Next the straight ahead bass lines and
slide electric guitar, a bit of keyboard and a few samples.
With this the full-blown Swell experience commenced.
Touring in support of a new album released late last year
“Whenever You’re Ready” on Beggars Banquet
Records, but there really wasn’t much support for it.
The band stuck primarily to the old material, only playing
two songs off the new record. Instead most of the set was
from their days with Rick Rubins Def Jam / American Recordings.
Playing old favorites such as “At Long Last”,
“It’s OK”, and crowd favorite “Suicide
Machine” off their second album Well…. and “Is
It Important” plus many other from their third album
“41”. Swell stuck mainly to the first half of
their fifteen year career live also playing songs from their
earlier Beggars Banquet releases “Too Many Days Without
Thinking” with songs like “What I Always Wanted”
and “Sunshine Everyday” and a few off the heavy
sample-laden “For All The Beautiful People”. After
about an hour and fifteen minute set of back-to-back songs
the band tried to leave the stage. The crowd’s cheering
convinced them of a few encores, but not before the band asked
the crowd for a ten minute smoke break. After a ten minute
smoke break on stage the band kicked back in. The music started
back up with an old track off their self-titled debut and
closed with the usual closer “Kinda Stoned” off
of “41” which was also the slogan on the back
of the T-Shirts they had for sale. All in all, for a Thursday
night in Austin with a small crowd that just kept getting
smaller as the set went on, Swell was dead-on with precision
and a great sound and rocked the fuck out of EMOS. --
Mike Rock
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| Boys
Night Out
Sunday, Feb. 8, 2004
Smells like teen spirit - no, not the Cobain metaphor for
his search for something real in consumer driven society,
but the actual scent of sweaty teens is what permeated the
all-ages 5:30 PM venue. Filled to capacity by pimple-popping
'emo'-rockers and some of their soccer moms, the place was
abuzz with anticipation for Ontario, Canada's own Boys Night
Out. Upon arrival I asked the door guy about BNO's musical
bent. "They’re one of those teeny-bopper bands"
he stated with indie-snob disdain. Personally, I am about
as much into the idea of tear soaked rockers as G.W.B. is
into books. I basically felt like I was on the outside looking
in. It’s a genre of music heralded mostly by angst-ridden
adolescents. Although ‘emo’ bands vary, the current
incarnation of emotional rockers seem to gravitate toward
playing generic Fugazi-ish guitar licks combined with emotional
lyrics that occasionally will drive a hypersensitive lead
singer of an emo band to moan and sob on stage. Good times…
I’d never heard Boys Night Out, so I proceeded to ask
about BNO among the mass horde of potential statutory rape
victims who attended the sold-out venue. "They're like
the best 'screamo' band” uttered one girl. "They’re
not screamo, they're more like violent-core" said another.
“Violent Canadians” I mumbled to myself as I conjured
up images of Bob and Doug McKenzie on a violent Moose Head
and meth binge. Or, imagine Geddy Lee of the1980's power trio,
Rush, coming at you with his bass guitar as he screams obscenities
with his eerie falsetto voice. And, let’s see here,
other Canadians include Bryan Adams and Celine Dion, which
may help explain the apparent sudden upsurge of violence in
the Canadian psyche. The punctual Boys Night Out started playing
at exactly 5:30 PM and immediately the soccer moms marched
in unison to Emo's lovely outside patio. It was like a Starbucks
out there without the bullshit foofoo coffee. There was even
one particular mom getting quite tanked. Interestingly, her
teenage son looked like he was quite at ease with his mother's
display of public drunkenness. Perhaps he was used to it or
maybe it was the emotional equivalent to a calloused finger.
Anyhow, he probably should start saving his money now for
many future years of intensive psychotherapy.
BNO played what I would describe as a juxtaposition of sweet
sounding, melodic-punk and a brutal brand of hardcore. Ironic
sensibility was evidenced by the placement of their more violent
lyrics along side their sweeter sounding songs that might
fool even the most avid of soccer moms to take the Yanni CD
out of the stereo of their SUV with the Jesus fish on the
back, and be duped into enjoying some tunes with their most
beloved teens. There was a lot of audience participation in
the form of good-natured moshing and the bar was uncharacteristically
empty for more efficient beverage consumption for the old
and jaded.
A Beautiful Mistake, Moneen, and Senses Fail were also on
the venue. -- Adam Kalled
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Speedealer
@ Emo’s 2/8/04
by Alice Frehley
Speedealer’s
curse and run of bad luck was broken during their most recent
rock-n-roll assault upon Austin. Since their birth as REO
Speedealer in Lubbock, TX in 1992, the band has undergone
numerous line-up changes. The original-original line-up consisted
of Jeff Hirshberg on vox (he now plays guitar as well), Chris
Brown on drums, Rodney Skelton on bass, and James Follis on
guitar. The list of ex-members is too lengthy to list, although
the various reasons for their departures make for some pretty
crazy stories. Add legal problems that ensued when pop rock
burnout singer for REO Speedwagon found out what his teenager
was listening to, got fucking pissed and threatened to sue
the “Dealer of the Speed” (who subsequently dropped
the REO), plus a series of crack smoking bass players (or
should I say one in particular) who ripped off the band and
fucked everyone over, and a series of van troubles and you’ll
still find Speedealer jamming with Honky @ Emo’s on
a Saturday night, preparing to go on a three-week tour.
Unfortunately for them (again) their V-10 van has been broken
down in Austin since last summer, so Eric and the boys were
forced to pile themselves and all the equipment into his pickup
and drive to Austin, in the hopes of getting to take their
van on a three-week East Coast / Midwest tour without having
the $1,500 to pay for repairs (they were hoping to coerce
a mechanic they didn’t know into letting them pay post-tour).
Well it didn’t end up being an issue because the van
still wasn’t fixed. On top of that they had no bass
player, still unable to find a non-crack-smoker-available-to-play-fast-as-shit-and-go-on-tour
(for the record, the current lineup consists of Hirshberg,
and now-long-time members Harden Harrison on drums and Eric
Schmidt on lead guitar). This made no difference. “Fuck
a bass player! “I found myself yelling while Speedealer
busted out hits (at least in my world) off of their last two
albums like: You Lose I Win, Hit It and Run, and Macchinations.
They ripped and shredded their relentless way through a mind-numbing-ear-drum-blowing
experience that left the crowd agro and screaming for more.
These guys just straight up do not stop in between songs.
And call me crazy but they sounded fucking awesome without
the bass. With no van and no bass player, Speedealer was looking
at canceling their upcoming three-week tour with J.J. Paradise
Players Club (which features former Unsane member Dave on
bass). But luck shined on the Dealer for once as Chris Spencer,
vocals and bass player for Unsane and Cutthroats Nine just
happened to have driven up from New Orleans for the weekend…in
his van. Well you can see where things are leading. He ended
up not only driving Speedealer on the whole tour but also
playing bass for them. My only regret…I didn’t
get to see him rocking with them. If unfamiliar with these
fucking rockers, they have two new CD’s out and available
now, “Bleed” (Seattle’s Dead Teenager Records)
and “Burned Alive”, recorded at CBGB’s featuring
a classic Speedealer live recording.
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