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The
Wallflowers, Everlast
Arlene
Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 796-9293
9 pm Friday, Nov. 17 $29.50 advance
(Ticketmaster).
VARIOUS ARTISTS:
Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska
(Sub Pop)
After so many dodgy tribute albums, it's good to see a
labor of love undertaken in the name of a worthy original.
Nebraska, Springsteen's towering exploration of fly-over
country's ebony heart, is simply a great album, alive with
agony and steeped in an intuitive understanding of small-town
murder and desperation. This wandering tribute clearly holds
the original in appropriate awe, and some contributions
capture secondhand heat off the Boss's flinty masterpiece.
Hank Williams III yodels through "Atlantic City" with rueful
melancholy that would do his grandpa proud. Crooked Fingers
turn "Mansion on the Hill" into a shimmering wail reminiscent
of early (read: good) U2. Los Lobos inject EastLos bad-ass
spice into a swinging "Johnny 99," and Johnny Cash is his
best torrential self on "I'm On Fire," a bonus track. Unfortunately,
these stand-outs barely see a body through a mess of reverential
yawns. Ani DiFranco, Dar Williams, Son Volt and Ben Harper
flop down limp offerings that fail to expand on their templates.
Still, those who love the original album should find enough
to hold their attention here. If you don't own Nebraska,
well, buy that first, savvy?
NOT BREATHING:
Itchy Tingles
(Invisible)
While any machine freak can pile up racks of blinking equipment,
few can make those machines wreak such strange, stunning
and magical havoc as well as Dave Wright. Itchy Tingles,
his latest collection of jittery avantronica™ under
the name Not Breathing, is as joltingly bizarre as any beatmusik
out there, harnessing wormy acid squiggles to centrifugal
polyrhythms and dizzying whorls of staticky weirdness. Songs
begin with a simple reverberating swish or sizzle, then
punch in track upon ear-tingling track of bleeps, breakbeats,
honks and skronks until the mind reels like a DAT player
gone berzerk. A bewildering but buoyant antidote to the
2D flatline of most techno.
THE WALLFLOWERS:
Breach
(Interscope)
Bobby D's son has made half a good record in Breach.
When Jakob goes all soft and acoustic, he reveals himself
to be a pretty good songwriter, sounding like a lovechild
mix of Nebraska Springsteen and good ol' daddy Zimmerman.
Unfortunately, the other half of the record is overblown.
Blame it on the hand of Michael Penn, whose production style
tends to fill the mix with equal measures of each instrument
available. The result: a Wallflower that stands out too
much to be subtle, but not enough to be interesting. (Jamie
S. Rich)
DRESSY BESSY:
The California EP
(Kindercore)
Hey, Dressy Bessy, call for you. Yeah, it's the oldies
station. They want their melodies back. Your mom called
earlier and said the trust-fund check might be late, and
you should get a fucking job and a sweater that fits. Well,
gotta go--late for class!
DEXTER FREEBISH:
A Life of Saturdays
(Capitol)
Saccharine, sensitive-boy Dawson's Creek rock that
makes one lust desperately for the return of the relatively
awesome Gin Blossoms. At least the GBs' hooks weren't yet
rusty from our culture's corrosive overexposure to WB Network-styled
emotional shallowness. Someone give these sad boys a tissue
and a quick slap in the chops.
THE HIVES:
Veni Vidi Vicious
(Burning Heart/Epitaph)
Excellent--though not exceptional--garage punk that drops
a bomb packed with shrapnel on your head, rocketing you
out of your seat and onto the floor to show off those hysterical
"help me, I'm on fire!" dance moves. With its above-average
sense of dynamics (more than four chords per song? pretentious
chumps!) and churning energy, Veni Vidi Vicious makes
a fine complement to the Makers' much-acclaimed "middle
finger" record. And I doubt there's some hamfisted glam-opera
record in the Hives' near future, so you can relax and just
rock to the roll.
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