Even in clamorous Fellini, the where-it's-happening-baby restaurant
that springs from Satyricon's forehead, it's not hard to home
in on Michael George Johnson. He's the one reading
Nabokov.
While this defiantly tranquil scanning of Lolita
is in keeping with the introspective music Johnson makes
under the name Reclinerland, his T-shirt is the real
tip-off. On worn black cloth, ironed-on Cyrillic letters
exhort the world to "bugi bugi kahshdii deyn!" (boogie boogie
every day).
It's rare to find a record where the artist's name is transliterated
into Russian and the graphics recall the old Soviet Union
"youth culture" boffins' more elegant pop-aganda. Reclinerland's
new disc, the first release from Portland's new Expanding
Brooklyn label, boasts those off-kilter marketing hooks
on top of Johnson's forays into gorgeous, Beatle-filtered
pop. So I walk into Fellini certain that Johnson has a fairly
advanced jones for the Land of the Czars--an obsession serious
enough, perhaps, to beat my own.
Sure enough, after his literature choice and shirt give
him away, Johnson and I hash over our respective post-Soviet
fixations so thoroughly that the Reclinerland-centric grilling
I'm supposed to give him becomes an afterthought. He tells
me of hanging out at a tutor's Rock Creek house reading
children's stories and of an old Ukrainian couple who helped
him hone his speaking skills. I tell him about seeing the
Rattlesnakes, a rockabilly band sporting architectural pompadours,
in the Corsair bierkeller in St. Petersburg back in '96.
"Oh, yeah, I love Russian rock," he says. "I mean, it's
terrible music usually, but I love the spirit of it. I'd
love to start a record label there.
"When I was a sophomore in high school, they showed us
a video of 'typical Russian life.' It was supposed to turn
us off--like, 'Look how primitive these people are, kids!'
But I saw the richness and depth of their culture, and I've
loved Russia ever since. I used to write love notes to my
girlfriends in Russian, just with the letters since I didn't
know the words then."
Those letters sum up Johnson in a nutshell: He's as earnest
and engaged as can be, punctuating his talk with effusive
stabs of his hands. In a post-everything musical milieu
flooded with cynicism, this guy is honestly excited about
life in general and music in particular. In conversation,
his enthusiasm is infectious; that same enthusiasm forms
Reclinerland's gleaming core.
Johnson says he performs under a name more befitting a
band (or a factory outlet store) than a solo artist because
his vision for Reclinerland goes beyond dreams of singer-songwriter
glory. While he says he has many miles to tread before his
plans hit full bloom, the new record opens with a delicious
hint of what he's got in mind.
Reclinerland begins with a swell of strings. "Venezuela
(Hating Trains)" is a mellifluous pop-classical score played
by violinists and a bassist Johnson recruited from the Portland
Youth Philharmonic. Topped with Johnson's plaintive,
love-struck voice, "Venezuela" is a gem; the only problem
is that its complete execution leaves some of the album's
more frugal tracks sounding a little flat. It's a rare event
in indie rock--you keep hoping the chamber music will come
back.
"I've been working on writing for classical instruments
for a while now," Johnson says. "You might think the result
would be prog-rock--y'know, 'thunder bolts and lightning,
very very frightening!' But fortunately I've managed to
make it something else. I'm very anti-dogma. I love classical
music, but I hate the dogma that goes with it--that you
have to charge a bunch of money for it, that everyone has
to be dressed up. And then the indie world has its own dogma
that's just as rigid. That's what I'm working against."
Later, Johnson fills the middle slot in a Satyricon line-up
with Corrina Repp, Lael Alderman and Larry Yes.
Johnson/Reclinerland fits comfortably into the show's whispery
vibe. As he strums and sings, it's hard to believe that
this is the same room where just one weekend ago Dead
Moon, the Fireballs of Freedom and the Viles
drove a huge crowd primed to celebrate Satyricon's 15th
anniversary to the edge of a riot. While that show had the
ragged-edged, raw feel of History-with-a-capital-H in the
making, Johnson's soft, sweet set has a texture and taste
of its own. Reclinerland's revolution may be a quiet one,
but it's epic all the same.
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Willamette Week | originally
published May 26, 1999
|
