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Friends of Dean Martinez, Tarnation, Jim White Crystal Ballroom Tarnation's song "Two Wrongs Won't Make Things Right" appears on the G.I. Jane movie soundtrack. Recently, Tarnation toured Europe with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, a dream come true for Paula Frazer. |
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Way Out West |
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San Francisco band Tarnation makes music that evokes wind-blown, deserted, small-town streets. By Alyssa Eisenstein, 243-2122 EXT. 329 Not Even a Little Bit Country: Tarnation's Jamie Meagan, Paula Frazer, Joe Byrnes and Alex OropezaClose your eyes and listen to the band Tarnation, and your head will fill with images of a dusty, abandoned town somewhere in the West. The straight wooden buildings no longer hold windows, and if you peer inside, you can see remnants of life: rusty bedsprings, the hull of a chair, a charred bucket. Down the road sits what's left of an old gas pump, a single clue that the town held human life in the 20th century. The only sound is the gentle buzz of the wind. But listen closer, and you'll hear the crystal-clear voice of Tarnation leader Paula Frazer. "I grew up singing in the choir at church," the Georgia native recently told WW. "My mother was a piano teacher, so I took piano from her. I used to sing jazz and then punk rock, and then when I came to San Francisco [in 1980] I started singing with this Eastern European women's choir in Berkeley, and that's when I learned to use my range." And what a range it is. Frazer's multiple-octave voice easily reaches the highest notes on the scale and dips into the lower notes without faltering. Her singing is often compared to Patsy Cline's, but Frazer stretches her voice further than Cline ever dreamed, and the result is both beautiful and harrowing. There is clearly a twang in her vocals, but don't call Frazer's music country. "I don't like country music these days," she says. "I would say, after the 1960s, there is not a thing I like about country music. I like a lot of modern music like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Portishead, but most of my influences are from '60s psychedelic music or '50s rockabilly and lounge music." A founding member of the San Francisco punk band Frightwig, Frazer has been involved in the city's music scene for more than a decade. Six years ago, she began writing songs with a western flavor. After a stint performing solo, Frazer was joined by members of two of San Francisco's most peculiar bands, Caroliner and Three Day Stubble. But these borrowed musicians were too busy with their own groups, so Frazer played solo again until she met up with Lincoln Allen, Michelle Cernuto and Matt Wendell Sullivan. That incarnation of Tarnation stayed together for a year and a half, recording the album I'll Give You Something to Cry About for the San Francisco indie label Nuf Sed. "That first album was released on 1,000 copies of vinyl and 1,000 copies of CD, period," Frazer says. "When [the record label] 4AD started talking to me, I said, 'I hate to see those songs remain so obscure.' So we remastered and rerecorded some of them. I would hate to see songs like 'Game of Broken Hearts' and 'It's Not Easy' disappear." Before the release of Tarnation's first 4AD album, Gentle Creatures, however, the band split. But Tarnation is Paula Frazer's baby. Soon after the break-up, she found drummer Joe Byrnes, bassist Jamie Meagan and guitarist Alex Oropeza, and they recorded the new Tarnation album, Mirador (Reprise). Frazer sounds happy with the current lineup; this might be, finally, the one that lasts. "Alex is a dynamic guitar player and he writes ornamental parts. There are certain songs where it would be weird to hear without him. And of course, Joe is a dynamic drummer as well, and Jamie holds down the fort for everybody, because he is solid--and everybody else is kind of out there somewhere." |
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