Mike Bennett Reviews: July, 2001

Scroll down for Wolfie, The Elms and Larry O.Dean. Click here for reviews of the latest from Autoliner, Waltz for Debbie, Moods for Moderns, ELO and The Fleshtones.

Ass Ponys
Lohio

(Checkered Past)

assponys.org

Liking the Ass Ponys is totally dependent on how you feel about singer/lyricist Chuck Cleaver. He sounds something like Levon Helm after a bit too much moonshine and perhaps having tripped and bumped his head. Cleaver's voice is just right for his offbeat lyrical sense. Yes, Chuck Cleaver is what you might call a character. Thirty years from now, you can practically see him in some small town bar, or playing checkers outside a rustic filling station, spinning tales that sometimes lead to nowhere but the recesses of his fertile imagination.

The Cleaver emphasis isn't a slight on his fellow Ponys, who collaborate on the musical foundations for this low key madness. The remaining members of the quartet play a slew of instruments with a real feel for the material, providing an emotional context for the tunes. Still, from a compositional standpoint, the songs are solid Americana - The Band again would be a good reference point, as would a whole slew of past and current traditional bands. Not incredibly original, but always inspired.

The band is matched with Brad Jones, perhaps the best producer twiddling knobs today. The record sounds great - warm and spacious. No matter how many instruments the Ponys are piling on, there is space for each one. Like on the terrific "Butterfly", which opens with a plucked acoustic guitar, a jew's harp, a slight synthesizer sqwak (a Ponys nod to fellow Ohioans Pere Ubu?), each in the right place in the mix. The song is a great intro to the Ass Ponys sensibility: "You're a fifth wheel/a fourth-class, third string, second rate kind of guy/sometimes you feel like a pot lickin' limp dick butterfly" (No lyric sheet, so a little guess work on the last line, folks). The song builds into a pretty rocking number, breaking down and building up steam a few times.
The band has a few other musical motifs. Like the Little Feat-ish lite-funk on "Black Dot". A slow tempo and plaintive backing are perfect for "Fire in the Hole", which has a great opening stanza: "We burned leaded gasoline/rather fight than switch/found a stack of dirty magazines/hidden in a ditch." Almost as good is the soulful falsetto Cleaver adopts in the chorus. "Only" is the rockingest number of the bunch, with twangy pedal steel and a runaway freight train rhythm.
Lohio is a uniquely American, like an LSD trip with Junior Samples. Throw it on the next time you're sipping whiskey on your front porch.

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Wolfie
Tall Dark Hill

(March)

wolfieband.com

Beneath the cute, verging on twee, surface of Wolfie lurks three smarty arty indie rockers. Basic pop and rock concepts are run through their funhouse, leading to some nicely misshapen tunes. The downside of Wolfie's need to sweetly subvert familiar forms is that their tunefulness does not always end up paying off in the form of hookiness or familiarity. But if you've been yearning for a band that spikes the poppiness of Apples In Stereo with some college radio edginess, look no further.

"You Are a Woman" is a fine example of the Wolfie approach. It starts off with an old-school hard rock/metal riff and rockin' drumming, the riff stopping as the band locks into a keyboard part and melody more in line with Zumpano and The New Pornographers. The bouncy chorus is then accompanied by a sloppy guitar part that remains throughout the song. The skewed vision here is well executed.

Indeed, Wolfie likes to play around with the classic verse-chorus-verse structure. This pays off on the winding disc opener, "What I Want From the World". Leader Joe Ziemba's normal guy vocals are complimented by the co-lead vox of Amanda Lyons. Lyons has a real high, girlish voice that gives a sweetness to the material, even when the guitars take on a harsh Pixies-type vibe. The song anchors around a robust 4/4 rhythm, and takes a couple detours.

The band gets a little funky on "Everybody Knows How to Cry", in a college rock manner similar to bands like The Hardship Post and The Poster Children. Perhaps engineer Rick Valentin, a member of Poster Children, was rubbing off on Wolfie. The song moves out of the groove during a nice middle eight, and then heads to a melodic alternarock ending. The band also tries the arty waltz ("Gwendolyn" - strongly reminiscent of The Virgin-Whore Complex), the indie epic ("Happy State of Mr. Bubbins"), and a Sloan vibe ("Living Island is Real").

As stated earlier, the biggest problem Wolfie has, is that its melodic and riffing talents sometimes fail to fully coalesce into great songs. This is offset to a degree by the peppy tone of the disc. If Wolfie could get a bit of discipline and tighten up the songwriting a hair, they would rise to the top of the indie-pop heap.

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The Elms
Big Surprise

(Sparrow)

theelms.net

Owen Thomas, the singer and songwriter for The Elms, makes a number of overt declarations on The Elms' debut disc. The biggest declaration is implicit - the 10 songs on this platter show off a major league pop talent. The overt declarations are why this record has been released on Sparrow Records - these really are teenage symphonies to God.

Thomas has a stunning voice, a voice that is powerpop perfection and in its high range has the beauty of Thom Yorke (back in the days when the Radiohead singer actually sang!). As for his songwriting, Jason Falkner, Jellyfish and Owsley come to mind immediately - great melodies combined with splendid arrangements and gift wrapped in sparkling production.

Thomas is not quite so sophisticated lyrically, but he ain't shabby either. These are obviously songs about faith and God and such that manage to avoid either empty heading "God is good" clichés or coy Amy Grant-style love songs where it can be him or Him. The words are well thought out and have a personal aspect, kind of like Pete Townshend's spiritual work (for the Eastern variety o' religion), that prevents preachiness.

The album is centered around some dynamic stunners. The title cut is a dramatic and beautiful tale, which layers subtle instrumentation on top a spartan melody - the strings kick in on the haunting refrain. The passion is impressive. "The Buzzing Won't Stop" gets your attention through its beauty rather than drama. Thomas reaches the top of his range on a song that suggests what Radiohead would sound like if they decided to turn towards pop.

Not everything is so serious. The opener "Hey Hey" is a jaunty tune that has a retro '60s vibe not found elsewhere on the album. "Who's Got the Answer" is easy to answer coming from these guys, and it has a real Falkneresque groove, rolling out of the gate with energy and a relatively gritty vocal.

The album ends on with some mellower tunes that aren't as strong as those on the first half of the disc. But the strong tracks are so strong that this still scores as a high quality disc. This is probably the best pop band from the God rock camp since PFR, so if you don't have a hang up about that sort of thing, this is really God Damn Good Christian rock.

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Larry O. Dean
Sir Slob

(Zenith Beast)

larryodean.com

Larry O. Dean travels down the well worn path previously trod upon by singer-songwriters such as Lou Reed, Elliot Murphy and Steve Wynn. While Dean does not blaze any new trails on Sir Slob, his footprints make a distinctive mark on the path.

The hallmarks of this post-Dylan sound are all intact: literate lyrics, often in a narrative style, sung in a half-spoken manner; understated, but somehow stately, heartland trad-rock backing; and a relaxed pace that allows Dean's compositions to breathe and get to where they are going in due time. Dean's puts his own stamp on the material with subtle melodic touches and splendid arrangements.

Of equal importance, Dean is a fine lyricist, capable of both pithy observations and lengthy stories. "For the Best" starts off with a jaunty chugging riff (shades of Canadian rockers 13 Engines) and a terrific opening verse in which the protagonist gets wise to the ennui caused by his job: "I answered the phone/and wore a tie/they couldn't see me/so I wondered why/they had a rule about wearing a tie/when the customers/might as well have been blind/so one day/I did not arrive/I fired myself/for not wearing a tie." At the end of this verse there is a sweet and melancholy lead guitar part that emotionally captures how fondly the protagonist remembers this incident.

Even punchier is a song that will really appeal to Steve Wynn fans, "The King of Close Enough" who is "drunk on self-pity/and giddy on guff ". Dean smartly contrasts the dirty guitar parts with strings (!) heading into the middle eight. This is a fine example of how he integrates pop craftsmanship into a classic rock style.

Sometimes the moments of beauty aren't there for contrast, but to stand alone. "Lies Return" is a pretty piano piece with a subtle hook in chorus, as the piano plays a counter melody to the delicate bass guitar underneath. "Panning for Gold in the Litterbox" is the epic on the album, at nine minutes-plus. It's one of the few tracks on the album that doesn't really pay off. It's pleasant and listenable, but just isn't as compelling or lyrically strong as many of the other tracks on the disc, although the string accompaniment that kicks in toward the end of the song is lovely.

The album's best track is the bitter "God Owes Us Nothing". The gritty guitar that opens the track sounds like Television's Richard Lloyd, and has a rhythm that isn't quite reggae. Dean chronicles why he doesn't believe anymore. The musical background seems to mirror the spiritual crisis that Dean is singing about, giving the track extreme resonance.

Throughout the album, Dean gets great backing from his band The Me Decade and a variety of talented guest musicians. This is good music for smart people.

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