// Category Archive for: Reviews

The Heartless Bastards, Arrow

By Danny R. Phillips

The Heartless Bastards are a bit of an anomaly in the world of music. They are a rock band led by the charismatic and clever Miss Erika Wennerstrom. Instead of taking the manufactured pop road much traveled like Katy, Britney, or Lana, Wennerstrom charges ahead like Chrissie Hynde, strapping on a guitar and scorching the Earth.

Arrow, the Bastards fifth album and first for Paristian Records, is full of exceptional lyrics, 1970s rock stomp, and just a sprinkling of country twang. Where 2009’s The Mountain (my pick for album of the year) was full of heartbreak and cathartic reflection (Wennerstrom had ended a nine-year relationship), Arrow is packed with wonder and acceptance of life.
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Postcards From Divine, by Noah Brodie, Dan Marshall, and Michael O’Quinn

By Eric Weber

In John Waters’ book, Shock Value (1981) he writes:

“The oddest question I ever get from college students is ‘Do you have parents?’ The first time I heard this, I was shocked. Did they think somebody found me under a rock and dragged me home? What person in his right mind would clone me, I wonder. ‘Everyone has parents, ‘ I tell them. ‘Even Lee Harvey Oswald had a great mother.’ I guess by this question they are tactfully trying to ask, ‘What on earth could your parents think of you?’ and this I can see, because whenever I read about some lunatic I admire, this question is the first thing that pops into my mind.”

One could easily imagine this question being asked of Divine—the late, great character actor who rose to fame as the female star of several of John Waters’ films. From Mondo Trasho (1969) to Hairspray (1988), Divine played a gamut of roles that ranged from deranged model (Female Trouble, 1974) to loving mother (Polyester, 1981). Divine became so associated with his over-the-top female characters, that many felt that he was in fact authentically female and lived up to his moniker, “The Filthiest Person Alive”—a title his character earned in the notorious Pink Flamingos (1972).
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The King and (F.B.)I: Elvis Found Alive

By Christian Lipski

Elvis Presley is alive and well and living in Simi Valley. Or at least that’s the claim of Elvis Found Alive, a new faux-documentary from Highway 61 Entertainment, who brought you Paul McCartney Is Really Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison (reviewed here). This time around, they’re doing a complete 180, revealing a conspiracy to fake a death instead of a life.

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New Artist: Kris Korey

By Kai Shuart

Kris Korey’s interest in music—and making music—began at an early age; he wrote his first song at age seven. He started playing drums in his high school music class and soon branched out into playing with other local bands, touring around Ontario until 2006. From there, Kris picked up the electric guitar and started writing songs, taking voice lessons, and even recorded some home demos on an 8-track. In 2010, Kris recorded a couple of songs with Canadian producer Chris Perry which he intends to release on a full-length release titled Class Act.
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Pan Am: Music From And Inspired By The Original Series

By Melissa Bratcher

I love a good soundtrack, even for things I’ve not seen. I love the way that carefully chosen songs can convey a feeling and even a look, and that the use of music in a show or movie can make or destroy a moment.

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Various Artists, Meet Me At Mardi Gras

By Melissa B.

How fortunate the New Orleanians are: Once Christmas and New Year’s are over, they get to move straight into Carnival season. Parades, food, music, revelry, and the finest of these things, I’d wager, is the music.

I’ve often wondered how New Orleans can have so many obscenely talented, homegrown musicians. Is it the food, the humidity, the heritage, the proximity to water? Is there a great funk reservoir that all of the drinking water comes from? Do they put it in babies’ bottles at birth? Whatever causes it, there is a bumper crop of amazing New Orleans music out there and Meet Me At Mardi Gras puts it all in one convenient disc, making a party in your living room, or car, or ears. What have you.

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Misterman, With Cillian Murphy

By Maureen

Let me just get this disclaimer out of the way: I fucking love Cillian Murphy. I would crawl through a river of shit, Andy Dufresne-style, just to listen to him read the phone book. Which, in a twisted and complex way, he kind of does in Enda Walsh’s play Misterman.
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Melody Walker, Gold Rush Goddess

By Kai Shuart

In the interest of full journalistic disclosure, I have to say that I know Melody Walker—the artist behind this CD—personally; I had the privilege of playing with her many times when we were both attending Humboldt State University and seeing her talent grow from her early days playing at Muddy Waters. We remain great friends to this day.

However, that does not diminish the fact that this is an outstanding record. The opening title track, “Gold Rush Goddess” intertwines the earthy images of dynamited mountains and the lusty image of a woman dancing for money and melds them into a cohesive allegory for exploitation, as evidenced in the lyric “Come down off that mountain/come down all you men/but don’t you come knockin’ without money in your hand.”
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The Fall, Ersatz G.B.

By J Howell

To trot out, once again, the nearing-cliche bit about The Fall said by the late John Peel, “they are always the same; they are always different.” Simple wisdom from Peel regarding the Fall, and always applicable: Ersatz G.B. is no different in that regard. Whether that’s a good thing or not is entirely up to the listener.
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Peggy Sue, Acrobats

By J Howell

The concept of the “sophomore slump” may be a tired old critical cliché, but it’s applicable often enough that when a band with a great debut gets around to that second record, one may find oneself a bit nervous. Thankfully, Peggy Sue—whose Fossils and Other Phantoms was likely the best debut album of last year—have not only avoided the second record hex, they’ve completely obliterated it. It’s difficult to recall another sophomore effort that so masterfully retained the best of its creators’ aesthetic while expounding upon it by orders of magnitude; the example that springs to mind is Castanets’ First Light’s Freeze, and like that record, Acrobats may well stand as a modern classic.
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