emprie state troopers
CIRCLE OF BUZZARDS
MITCHELL
Valentines
Albany, NY
February 1, 2009
It was a damp, but relatively pleasant beginning to February, that found me up in the capitol region roaming around Albany with my friend and guitarist of my band Kirk Hansen. Kirk had recently moved up to Albany, and had gotten in touch to tell me that Jason Loewenstein, (best known from his work with the band Sebadoh and more recently in The Fiery Furnaces), was playing at the small, downstairs room of popular rock club Valentines with his new punk/fuzz duo Circle Of Buzzards, (also featuring Fiery Furnaces drummer Bob D'Amici). On the bill as well was our friend’s band Empire State Troopers, a group recently picked by Albany's Metroland paper as 2008's best Metal act for Albany.
It was Super Bowl Sunday, to be sure, but as far as we were concerned, last year was the real Super Bowl, with the Giants so eloquently snatching it away from the Patriots at the last second. This year I was more ambivalent about the big game, and as Sebadoh was one of my favorite, favorite bands as a teenager, (like obsessively), and a handful of tunes sung by Lowenstein in that band particularly meaningful to me, like "Drama Mine" from Bakesale, for example. It's been fifteen years or so since I was totally immersed in Bakesale, III. and Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock like nobody's business, but I still go back to those records and feel deeply rewarded at times. Loewenstein's voice was a great foil to Lou Barlow's more plaintive vulnerability, a just as moving and often even more cynical, fuller shout. When the group reformed with Eric Gaffney the last few years I was even more psyched about that then Lou Barlow also reuniting with Dinosaur Jr, his pre-Sebadoh legendary outfit of feedback drenched mopers. I also love The Fiery Furnaces cornucopia of attitude and experimentalism, one of the best bands in years to hit the indie-world, so was psyched to see Bob D'Amici play drums as well.
We'd also come up to Albany to surprise an old friend at the show, Nate palace, the drummer of Empire State Troopers. Nate had originally been in the Upstate,NY Woodstock/Kingston/New Paltz scene we all grew up in that spawned Metal Blade artists Three, Coheed and Cambria, me and Kirk's band Pontius Pilate Sales Pitch and Nate Palace's old band Mearth. Mearth were a sort of barreling train meets Unsane and Jesus Lizard affair and released one record LB. on an indie Magadee records in the 90's. They toured with Agnostic Front and that's about it, but were fucking amazing and put on the most killer live show. It's too bad they aren't around still because they slayed with the utmost. As it was, after college days Nate had relocated near the capitol region and started playing with Empire State Troopers.
The Troopers are a great band, repetitive grooves and sort of bluesy stoner rock mated with the stunning howl of sings-it-like-she-means-it fuzz-rock siren Kelly Murphy. The band comes from a very 90's rock background although salt-haired guitarist Thomas Hall also confesses a true love of Judas Priest. Metal is definitely also part of the equation, mixed with 90's and 70's bear-baiting. Murphy even sounds like a man on occasion, with a real low dips to her howling range but a rich, feminine depth to her voice. She's pretty damn impressive.
The funny thing is, Nate Palace was no longer in the band! I found out from the group shortly before the show, though I didn't mind the one hour drive to Albany as I really wanted to see Buzzard's and loved Empire State Troopers debut CD so much that I was still psyched to see them live even without our old friend pounding the skins. New drummer Nic Fera doesn't hit as hard (I've rarely seen anyone play like Palace, who was a fucking chain smoking beast man/cave man drummer when I best knew him), but Fera has a cool, more laid back but still intense style all his own. We weren't disappointed when we watched them later in the evening, but did have to prank call Palace, now a forensic photographer, and drunkenly chastise him for going back to school.
Empire State Troopers had met and befriended Loewenstein in Brooklyn where Jason was a neighbor of Empire's bassist Jeff Fox. He helped produce the bands self-titled One Cell Records debut a few years ago. Loewenstein has recorded bands ranging from the Furnaces to Coliseum to Breather Resist and certainly has enough of a punk rock aesthetic to really know how to bring out the best in a band like the Troopers. They don't need a lot more than a great, live vibe to be captured and represented in its' reality. At present the group have finished up their newest release Turn Lights Out, also tracked with Loewenstein, due out soon.
"We went to a lake house in Lake Champlain," said EST bassist Jeff Fox. " We went for 5 days with Jason and he brought his mobile unit. It's my parents house and they were cool enough to let us crash there. It has twenty foot high ceilings, a log cabin. So it sounds great." I asked Jeff also if he thinks it is more important for bands these days to seek record deals, pursue publishing or just spend money on ProTools rigs so they can record everything themselves.
"For us, the money we're putting into it, we aren't renting studio time. We find good rooms and bring in Jason, who doesn't cost us an arm and a leg.We had more time than we would've had going into a real studio. The room just sounded great on its' own! He hung a mic way up from the ceiling to get backgrounds."A snare drum probably sounds pretty good ricocheting off a fucking lake, so be on the lookout for Empire State Troopers next record. Some of the songs are older from six or seven years mixed with newer material from the last year.
Once the show was underway, opening band Mitchell started things up. Mitchell are a plaintive, sort of bookish indie-rock band that evoked The National's vocalist singing for Jets To Brazil or something. They had good, tight arrangements and cool, high pitched guitar work. I kept wanting their songs to be a bit longer and told Kirk, who replied 'That's 'cuz you want them to be Sonic Youth." A lot of their chords were reminiscent of Sister-era Sonic, but with under-stated accents and again, tighter reign on arrangements that actually fit the material well and made you want more. We didn't catch all of the bands set but a good healthy portion, as we kept running to the cheaper sort of redneck bar called "Red's" at the end of the block for $2 Coors. I much preferred Valentine's selection but cash was tight and it was the Super Bowl and a great rock n roll night, after all. Plus, it was fun between bands to go hang out with some gnarly old dudes and curse at the TV. I was definitely rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers, just out of an East coast meets Old School sensibility, but Kirk summed it up when he added that it would be great if the Cardinals lost so Kurt Warner, Arizona's Quarterback, couldn't thank Jesus for everything for twenty minutes. A weird side note also is that the bartender at Red's lost $2,500 when the Cardinals got that damn safety, whereas Kirk's landscaping boss upsatte later won $2,500 that night Upstate. Synchronicity. Trippy.
Circle Of Buzzards played second, supporting Empire graciously. The group hit the stage and snarled their way through an over-driven set that was all thump and circumstance, punctuated by Loewenstein's jokes about Bruce Springsteen's half-time Superbowl performance.
"Did you guys see! The boss slid his balls right into a camera," Loewenstein cried. " I want to do that!" Thundering music aside, props also must be given out for the band hanging their own t-shirt (which i think I later bought as it had black electrical tape stuck to it), from Jason's bass amp. He also thanked the audience for not caring about the Super Bowl, which for us wasn't really the case once we got five or six beers in us each. The bartender at the Red's place gave us Miller Lite necklaces and puffy Superbowl footballs, which I was gonna give to the Troopers before drunken Kirk threw a football past my head and almost hit someone in the band during Empire State's set. After that I just hid mine. (Note: I was pretty drunk too though. Listening back to my recorded notes I am slurring "3:15, 4th Quarter...review that shiiitt!").
But back to the Buzzards! "Realizing Emptiness" from the band's in-progress EP is a great little snapshot of sludge and spitted vocals, with Jason's voice sounding killer over just bass and drums. Surprisingly the opening few notes work really well against the background of Lisa Lisa and The Cult Jam's "Head To Toe" also, as I accidentally started playing it in another window when I visited the band's MySpace while Rhapsody was already open for my girlfriend. Weirdest mash up of the year, anyone?
Talking to Loewenstein and D'Amico at the show, both cited Godheadsilo as an influence on Circle Of Buzzards' minimal yet big two-man approach. A lot of great two-man bands have been popping up in the two person stoner/punk/art rock genres from Black Horse to Big Business to Dax Rigg's work in the bluesy Deadboy And The Elephantmen a few years ago. But the Godheadsilo sound on 90's skater-weed records like Sub Pop's Elephantitus Of The Night was a great, spirited mind fuck or rhythm and slacker meets snarl. It was as great a soundtrack for suburban mischief as for blowing stuff up in the woods. I mentioned to Loewenstein that Godheadsilo were so ahead of their time and the style was only now kind of getting it's due. "You know where it came from, so it is actually fifteen years past it's time," he joked ,"but we love it."
Over the years I hadn't followed Jason Loewenstein's career as closely since Sebadoh's original hiatus around 2002, and had completely missed his solo record At Sixes And Sevens. Bob D'Amico of Fiery Furnaces started working with Jason for his solo record around this time and eventually brought him into the Furnaces when they needed a bass player. They'd played together a long time.
"Jason was thinking about getting his own band together again and we'd been listening to some bands like Om, a big influence. Older bands like Godheadsilo. A lot of Flipper in there," says D'Amico. "Basically, it's a band to do and go out and tour and hopefully people will give us a lot of weed."
As a fan of the Furnaces, I'd been really upset when I missed their touring with Dax Riggs (my favorite singer) when he was doing Deadboy and The Elephantmen as a White Stripes-esque Gothic/Blues duo with drummer Tessie Brunet. I also asked Bob about Dax.
"It's funny, me and Jason were practicing in our basement in Brooklyn and my friend works at this club in New York. He gave us some stuff from his club to make the basement sound not as loud. It's in where I was living in Brooklyn, a space we commandeered," said D'Amico. "My sound guy friend gave me this rug and when I unrolled it, it had a big D-A-X written on it, which was funny 'cuz we'd toured with him for a month with the Fiery Furnaces. he's a cool guy."
When Empire State Troopers hit the stage the crowd appreciatively loosened up even further and rocked out hard to "Dogs Of Odessa" and the angular, post-punk of "Upstate Again". The latter song celebrates being from Upstate and having a weird cool to your band and meeting fellow people who might not be from the hippest, urban locale but who really care and connect with the music.
These bands have good things
going and are making music on their terms in trying times. Let's support
artists like this and remember that you can live your musical life on
your own terms.
