|
Selby Tigers
Charm
City
Hopeless
www.
hopelessrecords.
com
|
|
Scared
of Chaka, Selby Tigers, Cutthroats 9, Diesto
Satyricon
125 NW 6th
Ave., 243-2380
10 pm Saturday,
Dec. 16
$6
It's tempting to say that They don't make albums like the
Selby Tigers' Charm City anymore, except
there it is, all sassy and spit-fueled, brand spanking new.
The Minneapolis/St. Paul quartet runs hot in the vein of back-in-the-day-day
punk rock, vicious and melodic, enervated and angry. Charm
City has raw volume and attitude, but it also shows a
spiky intelligence, reflecting the attitudes and experiences
of four people way past their teenage riot days. It's also
stripped way down, setting up and knocking down a dozen
gloriously agitated songs in less than half an hour. Tigers
bassist Dave Gardner got on the horn this week as the
band rampaged through California, on its way to Portland and
the end of a national circuit.
Willamette Week: The Twin Cities
have a great rock history, but at the same time they haven't
been 'hot' for a long time. What's been your experience
taking the band to a national audience?
Dave Gardner: One thing that's both great and a little
bit frustrating about being from a somewhat isolated geographic
area is that those scenes tend to be insular. On the one
hand, that gives you a great, distinctive scene that has
an identity--inevitably, when people find out that we're
from the Twin Cities, they want to know about the Replacements,
Hüsker Dü and Prince. We played
with a hippie crust band in Pennsylvania, guys who live
in solar-powered trailers. We got to talking, and after
a while they were like, 'Hey, what's Soul Asylum
up to?' But while you get a lot of comfort, after a while
you need to get out there and pound the pavement in order
to grow.
Has that happened on this tour?
Hell, I think it's made us better people. So much of the
reason we do this is the sort of human side. Punk rock--a
monkey could play it. On this tour, we've come in contact
with people who are just incredible.
In my experience, when you travel around the States,
you find that there's a lot more regional diversity than
the media would lead you to believe.
When we played in Chapel Hill, the second band we played
with was from Alabama, and as soon as they started playing,
I was like, 'My god, we're in the South!' Their music was
so obviously steeped in Southern punk and indie, that Athens,
early R.E.M. and Chapel Hill stuff. And these guys,
they were like 22, and they had no idea who I was talking
about. They sounded that way because that's what they grew
up with and absorbed subconsciously.
You've been playing bands for a while. How have your
perceptions of what you're doing changed over time?
I'm 30, and I started playing relatively late by punk-rock
standards. I started when I was 19 and played through college,
and then for a little while afterwards. And then there was
a period of about three years when I didn't play at all.
Now, the idea that we're able to go out and do this seriously
is incredible to me. If you would have told me five years
ago that my band would be one of the two or three most important
things in my life, and that I'd be making sacrifices for
the band and thinking they're worthwhile, I would have laughed
at you. I would have said, 'Oh, you mean maybe I'll have
to make the decision not to get so drunk that I stand on
my amp and fall off of it?'
What's up with the album's name? Baltimore is the 'Charm
City,' but you guys aren't from there.
The name's from a John Waters book, so that's the
Baltimore angle. I guess the thread that runs through all
of us is that we're children of the suburbs who've all decided
that the suburbs are a landscape devoid of humanity and
have chosen to live in the city.
As someone who's been involved in the scene for so long,
what do you find compelling about it these days?
Punk rock is almost as old as I am. It's as relevant as
it needs to be to someone who's 14 and is using it to get
through the crises of puberty. For us, I think, it comes
down to remembering that, as serious as you want to be,
it's still about a certain kind of levity, and about performing.
There's gotta be a connection between you and the music,
and between you and the crowd. It's more than the simple
execution of four chords. You have to feel it.
|
