Dr. Dog - Fate

With the release of Fate, the members of Dr. Dog have put themselves in a tricky position, ripe for pooh-poohing from the bloodthirsty gatekeepers of irony who are ready to pounce in their rolled-jean capris. See, Fate is the Philly fivesome’s third straight album of unabashedly catchy ’60s pop that harkens back to a certain moppy-haired foursome from that era, complete with la la las and na na nas.

In 2005, Dr. Dog’s Easy Beat was a lo-fi, ramshackle affair; last year’s We All Belong was a bit more polished, and Fate’s production is as slick as singer/guitarist Scott McMicken’s unwashed locks. But other than that, the song remains the same. It’s that point in a band’s career where others have felt the need for reinvention—time to deconstruct that pop and rip it apart like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-era Wilco, or infuse it with off-the-wall influences à la My Morning Jacket’s recent adventures.

But Dr. Dog has done nothing of the sort, and bully for them, I say. Deconstruction and reinvention isn’t a requirement, and shouldn’t be viewed as so. Why concoct something newfangled when the current recipe is tried and true?

Fate’s songs contemplate American malaise, as McMicken and fellow vocalist Toby Leaman tackle issues of action and inaction. “Army of Ancients” claims said army could arise and tear every nation apart, “and I’d still be sitting there counting my cards, wondering when will it start.” The chorus asks, “How did the fox get the raven to crow?” (followed by an “Oh yeah” that can only be described as Lennon-esque).

“The Ark” asks the question in a more direct way: “What does it mean to be here?” “Well I know because I can, and I will,” Dr. Dog answers, taking the easy route by implying the psychedelic-throwback maxim “Be Here Now.” But that bit of lyrical vapidity, which can also be found in a couple of other tracks, rarely overshadows the band’s knack for melody.

Carrying that melody on “The Old Days” is a saloon piano that fits right in with the album’s old-timey packaging, which will appeal to those who still like the tangible aspects of a record. The cover image is a quilted scene, and the insert is styled like a turn-of-the-century newspaper, each headline a song title with lyrics below.

As much as I’ve enjoyed the album, I’ll concede that Dr. Dog has planted its roots firmly in a sound and era that may not allow Fate’s songs to have endless staying power. But they sure do make for good sing-alongs. As the band advises on the opening track, “The Breeze,” if you feel like you’re stuck in time, just “put that needle to the groove, and sing.”

A Dr. Dog show scheduled for Tuesday at the Basement has been canceled, but the band is scheduled to perform for CD101’s Summerfest on Aug. 23 at the LC.
(From The Other Paper)

mp3: Dr. Dog - The Old Days

The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

It’s a pretty safe bet that an album by the Hold Steady will revolve around a few things: alcohol, drugs, sex and God. The formula is as old as rock ’n roll itself, but bandleader Craig Finn has done it better than most by weaving vivid tales of teen and twentysomething debauchery. And despite the new album’s title, Stay Positive is of the same mold.

People like to call the Hold Steady “bar rock,” whatever that means. Bar rock or not, the band excels at using classic rock archetypes and yes, Springsteen, to forge fist-pumping anthems soaked with beer and distortion. Since 2005’s Separation Sunday and the band’s breakthrough Boys and Girls in America in ’06, Franz Nicolay’s keyboard work has also become integral to the sound.

Boys and Girls captured the band in a more streamlined state, and Stay Positive takes that further with even more emphasis on production and some additional elements. You’ll notice a harpsichord on “One for the Cutters,” a talk-box solo on “Joke About Jamaica,” synth on “Navy Sheets,” etc. There’s even some guest vocals from the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood and Lucero’s Ben Nichols.

But the Hold Steady is a reflection of Finn first and foremost, his craggy voice talk-singing with almost audible spittle. In “One for the Cutters,” Finn tells the story of a girl who liked to party with townies when the regular crowd wasn’t around. They seemed pretty similar to her other friends, at least up until the night of the stabbing.

“Constructive Summer” and “Sequestered in Memphis” are classic Hold Steady rousers, while “Lord I’m Discouraged” is the album’s stand-out ballad--a piano-driven tune with a narrator who’s justifiably concerned about the “excuses and half truths and fortified wine” coming from a woman who won’t ever be his. “The sutures and bruises are none of my business,” he says, but “this guy from the north side comes down to visit. His visits they only take five or six minutes.”

The album as a whole sends decidedly mixed messages, though. “We gotta stay positive,” Finn says on the title track, and that glass-half-full mentality stems from the leadoff track’s assertion that “We are our only saviors.” Yet on the very next song, and for most of the rest of the album, we see story after story--told in squirmy, veracious detail--about humanity’s pitfalls. We have slave-like addictions to all the likely suspects. We sacrifice pieces of ourselves while trying unsuccessfully to fit in. We take advantage of other people. Sometimes we even kill each other. And we are our saviors? That’s supposed to make us stay positive?

Finn himself admits the glaring inconsistency in that title track again: “It’s one thing to start it with a positive jam, and it’s another thing to see it on through.”

A discrepant philosophy, though, is just another aspect of the human struggle, and embodying that plight is what the Hold Steady does best. After all, it wouldn’t be a Hold Steady album if Finn actually saw all that positivity through to the end. It’s his heartbreaking grasp of depravity that keeps us coming back.

mp3: The Hold Steady - One for the Cutters

The Other Paper joins the 21st century

It's true. The Other Paper finally has a new website that doesn't look like it was made in 1995. And all content is now online. (I may still post reviews here, too, for a while.)

I think what I love most about TOP is that the paper doesn't take itself too seriously. Case in point: The self-deprecating "Kicking things off" blog entry:

"Welcome to the World Wide Web! Here at The Other Paper, we've long been skeptical of the staying power of the whole Information Superhighway fad. That's why, until now, our website consisted solely of an animation of a flying toaster and a link to a local CompuServe provider.

But we've come to realize that the Internet (or "Internets" as the president refers to it) isn't going away any time soon. So enjoy our new, revamped site and all its awesome features and interactive options. We've spent the better part of two years putting this thing together (known as 'Project 1994' here at TOP Headquarters), so keep your negative comments to yourself.

You will now be able to find every story that appears in the critically acclaimed print version of The Other Paper, along with the Agenda, our weekly listing of goings-on around town. Readers can post pictures of themselves, local bands can upload videos and information about upcoming shows, organizers can directly post their events to our online calendar and people can post comments on our stories. We even have click-able ads for strip clubs.

Admittedly, we've yet to figure out how any of these features work, so bear with us for a couple weeks until we straighten things out. By the way, if anyone knows what the hell a ".pdf" file is, please get in touch immediately.

More importantly than the improved content and design, we figure there's a boatload of cash to be made by riding the Internet wave. What's that? People can get on our site for free? Oh well, back to the drawing board..."

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, Ha Ha Tonka, Our Cat Philip - Skully's

If Zach Braff were still making mix CDs of his favorite artists to soundtrack his movies, I imagine Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin filling the spots once reserved for the Shins. Like a more cumbersomely named cousin, the band’s hook-laden indie pop songs are in the same extended family.

But at Skully’s on Sunday night, SSLYBY couldn’t recreate its super-clean, catchy sound effectively. The Springfield, Missouri, band came off as young and inexperienced, replacing boyish exuberance with bland stiffness. On Pershing, the band’s latest and mostly solid album, even songs like “Think I Wanna Die” somehow come off as gleeful and peppy, which made the concert all the more disappointing.

To be fair, a lot of this was probably due to the lead singer/guitarist losing his voice. Those sweet harmonies didn’t work, and every note felt like the tippy top of his register--a bad combination for SSLYBY’s nice little pop songs.

Actually, referring to him as the lead singer/guitarist might not be completely accurate, as he eventually switched to bass, surrendering the singer/guitarist spot to the former drummer as the former bassist then sat behind the kit. But the sometimes-drummer’s awkward timidity and strained voice weren’t much better. He did a fine job with “Modern Mystery,” though, buoyed by the song’s bouncy beat.

The band also threw in a cover of Arrested Development’s “Mr. Wendal,” a song I hadn’t thought about in years. It was a good diversion and a pretty fun choice, but mostly for nostalgic reasons, as the drummer-singer had no flow whatsoever.

With no last-song warning, “Oceanographer” wrapped up the set unexpectedly while the crowd stood waiting for an encore that never came. It was an anticlimactic ending to an underwhelming performance.

Fellow Springfield natives Ha Ha Tonka fueled their set with more Ozark energy and a sound that made it much more obvious the band hails from Missouri, coating good ‘ole rock-and-roll with a crispy southern crust. If you sometimes wish Kings of Leon had a better singer and more ferocious guitar, Ha Ha Tonka would probably be a good remedy.

All four of these guys can sing their hearts out, as they showed on an a capella cover of the traditional Southern folk song “Hangman.” It knocked me out. Ditto for a newer song called “12-Inch Three-Speed Oscillating Fan.” Though he probably should have saved his voice, Yeltsin’s John Robert Cardwell hopped on stage for the tune, as did the headliner’s guitarist, though most of his contribution involved dramatically eating a sandwich. Oh, and a skinny, long-haired dancer dude joined the conglomerate, as well. With arms and legs akimbo, his oddly frenetic, hypnotizing gyrations were an entertaining sideshow throughout the night.

Singer/guitarist Brian Roberts stuck with an acoustic most of the set, letting guitarist/keyboardist Brett Anderson handle the big, chunky guitar chords and smoking leads. (Anderson also did a fine job on lead vocals for one of the set’s more mellow tunes, “Falling In.”) I didn’t pay much attention to the lyrics, but no matter--the performance spoke for itself.

Opening the show was local act Our Cat Philip, an OSU band I knew nothing about but really enjoyed. Singer Max Sollisch’s high-pitched, quavery, crackly voice was eccentric in a way that reminded me of the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle--a good thing. The songs were alternately driven by keyboard and guitar and always backed by a thick cello and/or violin string section.

It’s tough to put Our Cat Philip into any specific category, but the band employs the sort of simple, twee-folk melodies that make people bob their heads from side to side instead of front to back. The heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics could sometimes be a little cloying, but overall the melancholy ditties satisfied nicely. The band deserves some more of Columbus’s attention, and I anticipate they’ll get it soon enough.

Gentleman Auction House - Alphabet Graveyard

Gentleman Auction House's debut full-length Alphabet Graveyard came out yesterday on Emergency Umbrella Records, and it would be tragic if an album this good flew under the radar. So go grab it at Emusic, Amazon, iTunes or your bricks-and-mortar record store of choice.

In my live review of the band's show at the High Five last month, I said they were "best described as indie pop, but with an insatiable fire behind it. Think of the pop sensibilities of a less-precious Belle and Sebastian, the bombast of Arcade Fire and the eccentricities of Danielson all rolled into one." I think that pretty much holds true for the album, too.

And mark you calendars to catch the band the second time around at the High Five Sept. 25 with Yea Big + Kid Static, Bookmobile and Wing & Tusk.

mp3: Gentleman Auction House - ABCDEFGraveyard

Tim Easton - Rumba Cafe

Even though Tim Easton is an Akron native now living in Joshua Tree, California, it always feels like a homecoming when he comes back to Columbus, as he did for a show at the Rumba Cafe Saturday. And judging from the bursting-at-the-seams crowd, Columbus, in turn, still embraces Easton like a native son.

The man has certainly spent plenty of time here, dating all the way back to his days at Ohio State playing with Kosher Spears, then later during his stint fronting edgy, alt-country favorites the Haynes Boys, whose 1996 album Guardian Angel continues to feed crops of roots rockers.

Easton kicked off the night with just his acoustic and a harmonica, playing a couple of new songs from a home-recorded bootleg called Highway 62 Love Songs, which he had on hand. Before a drummer joined him onstage, he also played “Next to You,” a soft ballad from 2006’s Ammunition. It’s a song that shows Easton’s super-sensitive, gushy side that has surfaced more often in recent years. The tune even inspired a young couple in front to slow dance in front of the stage. You could almost hear them whispering, “This is our song!” into each other’s ears.

Needless to say, I prefer his grittier material, and he more than obliged as his ladyfriend drummer from Bucyrus pounded the skins the rest of the night. It was a new, unpracticed and probably temporary incarnation, but even with the dropped beats now and then, she gave songs like “Black Dog” some teeth and a fresh, forceful pulse to go along with Easton’s pleasantly croaky vocals.

He played a packed concert for a packed house, with two sets split by a break long enough to span just about all of Wilco’s Summerteeth over the PA, and both sets showcased Easton’s ability to appeal to just about everyone while still retaining every bit of his artistic integrity. He can go seamlessly from honky-tonk to blues, folk-rock to fiery roots rock. You could see it in the makeup of the crowd, too: old, young and in-between, equal parts hipsters, bumpkins, suburbanites and rockers. In fact, the most passionate front-row fan was a dude who looked just like the singer from Disturbed, faithfully hoisting the rawk hand multiple times during every song.

The Rumba crowd was also treated to an impromptu reuniting of old Haynes Boys drummer Jovan Karcic for a rendition of “The New Franklin County Woman.” Of all the songs off Guardian Angel, the tune has a punk ethos that shows Karcic’s overlap with former Columbus pop-punkers Gaunt wasn’t that big of a leap after all.

Easton took some requests during the second set, and they ended up spanning his career. Highlights included “Rewind,” a song off 1998’s Special 20 that Easton said he wrote on High Street at 3 am, along with “Poor, Poor LA” off Break Your Mother’s Heart, showcasing his knack for turning a memorable phrase (“You don’t have to break your mama’s heart to change the world”).

But of all the songs, there was probably one that carried the most significance for Easton’s one-night stand in Columbus: “Just Like Home.”

mp3: Tim Easton - Stones Throw Away (previously unreleased, off Highway 62 Love Songs)

Highway 62 Love Songs

I caught Tim Easton's show at Rumba Cafe Saturday night. He didn't disappoint. A full review will be coming shortly.

He also was selling a new "dirty boot bootleg" CD, complete with stapled construction-paper sleeve, titled "Highway 62 Love Songs." I put on the disc today, and it's anything but dirty--14 tracks of intimate, nicely recorded Easton songs, most of which are new. In the words of a McDonald's ad campaign, I'm lovin' it.

A couple tracks for your enjoyment:

mp3: Tim Easton - Two of Us
mp3: Tim Easton - Beat the Band