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May 2007

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True Story31 May 2007 10:19 am

I am becoming one of those people who talk about his or her pets. I also like wearing an apron when I wash dishes and bake. Yes, I bake. And Flip This House may be my favorite show on television.

I don’t know what’s happened to me.

Published Articles31 May 2007 08:16 am

What the hipsters are doing

Notes from the underground
Local and national bands collaborate at the 111
By Molly Coulter
Published on 05/31/2007

Last Summer: The ladies of Flag’s soon to be disbanded Red Dress Press. Photo by Mihio Manus.

Flagstaff’s underground scene exposes its skin to the general public this Friday at Studio 111. All ages are invited to attend a gritty festival of electro, progressive, punk, rock and metal featuring two traveling bands, a couple of local groups, a reunion show and a gaggle of experimentalists.
Headlining the event is Oakland’s one-man-band Hawnay Troof. Formed in 2003 when Vice Cooler was still roaming the halls of his high school, Hawnay Troof’s hip-hop mocks the MTV-overkill bling, bling scene with an artful and defiant stance. The solo project blends hip-hop with electronic music making for a pleasant reprieve from the typical gansta lyrics.

Check out www.myspace.com/hawnaytroof for an appreciated and amusing parody of Gwen Stefani’s 2004 song “Hollaback Girl.” Warning: Stefani fans steer clear or prepare to cower.
     The Pajamas head up the hill from Tucson to suit up for some stripped down punk. A bassist, snare-heavy drummer and guitarist/vocalist make up the unsigned trio that boasts pillow fights and sleepovers as its influences.
     Local band Red Dress Press parades on stage. Organ grinding punk, crunk, funk roars from this feminine three-piece. Rounding out the night’s line-up will be welcome back fodder for Meanface’s rock show. These five punk rockers might incite a riot with their metal-influenced and melodic tunes. Don’t skip one of your last chances to see both groups which plan to disband come autumn. Red Dress Press and Meanface’s impending breakups have inspired the “Last Summer” nickname among their local fans.
     The rock ‘n’ roll extravaganza showcases a scene that generally keeps itself under the radar and out of the local spotlight. True to its roots, the members of this punk scene know the value of including all ages at live shows and because of this, the underground exists. Loud, hard and in-your-face, these guys and gals are the artist’s artists with respect to individuality and experimentation. It’s rare to catch these acts in downtown bars, but they’re filling up undisclosed basements and living rooms at all hours and it’s due time the rest of us get an invitation.
     You’ll break a sweat and leave with your ears ringing. Don’t miss out. The punk fest pours into Studio 111, 111 S. San Francisco, Fri, June 1 during Flagstaff’s First Friday Art Walk. Art by Pedro Dia will be on display. The show is open to all ages and costs a measly $5. Go to www.robothouse.org for audio and video clips of Hawnay Troof and Red Dress Press. For more information, call 779-1820.

Published Articles31 May 2007 08:16 am

Meet The Giranimals

New slang
The Giranimals give indie pop radio-friendly depth and feeling
By Molly Coulter
Published on 05/31/2007

Desert creatures: the Giranimals’ (from left) Maury Crandall, Connie Crandall, Fox Fletcher and Jamie Rushad.

Imperfectly Timed Words fits the definition of a pop album: upbeat and jingly with swinging guitar chords, bouncing bass rhythms, light drums and a sugary sweet lead voice. But unlike the top 40 pop music you can’t turn off fast enough on your car stereo, or shove your fingers in your ears deep enough to drown out as it blares from a teeny-bopper’s cell phone, the debut album from Albuquerque’s Giranimals is a refreshing throwback to pop songs of the ’60s tightly woven with sharp, modern indie rock. It’s catchy, sure, but it undeniably deserves to be.
     “We’re poppy but I don’t think that we’re sappy,” says drummer Maury Crandall. “None of our songs are like ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to write in my diary about it.’ We don’t want to go to that extreme. I would definitely put us in the indie pop vein—kind of a cross between modern indie rock and mid-’60s pop bands.”
     Crandall and his wife Connie started the band a few years ago on whim.
     “Connie and I decided to start a band one night,” Crandall says.

“I played drums in high school in the typical band where you get together and play covers and suck, you know. So I had a drum set in storage. Connie had been in vocal performances and musicals and she played piano some, but not in a band. We thought we’d try this. So I bought her a guitar. We wanted to get other people in the band because we didn’t want to be something like the White Stripes. So we got another guitar player and we started playing shows as a three-piece.”
     Finding the right bass player was difficult, Crandall says, but in 2005 bassist Jamie Rushad joined the lineup including Fox Fletcher on guitar. The Mr. and Mrs. split vocals, as he drums and she plays guitar and keyboards. Crandall says new bands like the Shins, the Fruitbats, Built to Spill and Pavement influence the Giranimals’ indie rock threads. The Zombies, Beach Boys and mid-’60s pop “before music started getting really trippy and before drugs set into the scene” impel the band’s retro sounds.
     “It’s a lot about melody and songwriting,” he says. “We are influenced by anything really heavy on songcraft.”
     The Giranimals recorded Imperfectly Timed Words at Del’s Studio in Clarkdale, Ariz. and will return in June to lay down their follow-up. Along the way the band will stop by Studio 111 for a show with New Mexico’s indie pop-rockers Cherry Tempo.
     “For now we’ve played around New Mexico and Denver,” Crandall says. “We’re kind of to the point where we want to get out of town now. You can be a bar band locally and be like the big fish in a small pond. There are those bands in every town that stay around forever and end up ruling the town, but don’t really do anything. Since we’ve been around for a couple of years, we have a little bit of weight here in town. We don’t have to play Monday nights when there’s not going to be anybody or we can get out on the road. We want to take it to the next level and think beyond just being a local band. Try to get our music to more people and not just be local dudes.”
     Fellow Albuquerque locals the Shins invited the Giranimals to open at a hometown show in El Rey Theater, as well as the historic Fillmore Auditorium in Denver.
     “The live show is definitely a little noisier and more energetic than the recordings might tend to seem,” Crandall says. “We’re livelier and louder. We’ve evolved since we’ve recorded. We don’t take ourselves super seriously. We have fun, bounce around, but at the same time there’s not any gimmick in the live show. No uniforms or matching clothes. Just everybody smiles and taps their feet.”
     The show in Flagstaff will be somewhat of a homecoming for Maury Crandall. “Flagstaff seems like a good place. I lived there for about six months in 1997,” he says. “I went to my first year of college at NAU.”
     Be sure to stop in for Cherry Tempo and the Giranimals at Studio 111, 111 S. San Francisco, June 2. The show starts at 8 p.m. and is open to all ages. The Giranimals has national success nipping at its heels. Don’t miss your chance to watch a mostly undiscovered indie pop powerhouse. For more information go to www.thegiranimals.com or www.myspace.com/thegiranimals or call 779-1820.

Published Articles24 May 2007 09:36 am

Ambiguous Tone

Live elasticity
The shape-shifting sounds of Ambiguous Tone
By Molly Coulter
Published on 05/24/2007

[ view additional photos ]

Enigmatic power trio: Ambiguous Tone’s (from left) Tim Triplett, Jamie Anderson and Matt Pahler.

When seasoned guitarist Tim Triplett and his bass-playing buddy Jamie Anderson put out an ad for a drummer they didn’t expect a man nearly 20 years their junior to take the throne. The unlikely threesome found unity regardless and one year later the band is gaining attention for its sound, which the members say is hard to pin down.
     “You can’t put your thumb on it,” Triplett says. “You can’t say we’re rock. You can’t say we’re reggae. You’ll hear jazz in there. You’ll hear metal in there. You’ll hear some funk in there. We stretch styles. We were going to name the band Elasticity because we bend so much of rock, reggae, jazz.”
     Stretching styles and tightening the age gap, Ambiguous Tone plays the Monte Vista Lounge Sat, May 26 at 10 p.m.
     “We’re all the same age as musicians,” Anderson says of Ambiguous Tone’s 18-year-old drummer Matt Pahler. “Age to me is just an age. The maturity comes out in the music. He’s got a lot of talent and he’s got abilities to bring new ideas to the table. Maybe me and Tim are from the ’80s and ’90s, but he can tell us what kids are into now. It’s one learning off the other for me.”
     Buddies before bandmates, Triplett and Anderson discussed starting a band between raising children, coaching little league games and working full-time jobs with the city.
     While Anderson has a solid understanding of the entertainment industry formed from prior gigs as a wrestler, football player and stand-up comedian, he didn’t sink his teeth into the bass guitar until a year ago.
     “These guys are the Beethoven and Mozart,” says Anderson as he points to Triplett and Pahler respectively. “I’m the comedian who plays bass.”
     Much of the band’s maturity stems from Triplett’s experience as a studied touring and recording musician. His former band Duglawelon recorded a song that served as the batting music for former Arizona Diamondback’s outfielder Luis Gonzalez. The same band also won the title for most downloads from an unsigned band in VH1’s 2002 Unsigned Artists Awards.
     “I studied music in college so I got into the theory party of it then and started learning how to site read,” Triplett says. “I got kind of bored of it, but I was learning the tools of how to write songs, so I got more into punk rock music that had some musical intelligence, combining jazz chords and rock chords.” While the band covers songs like most new bands choose, Triplett says the results are atypical.
     “The songs we cover are ’60s to present day and we don’t just play really older songs. We put our bounce on them,” he says. “We don’t appeal to just one age group.”
     The band members explain their fan base. Pahler’s peers are out to support at all ages gigs, whereas Triplett and Anderson’s friends keep the bar scene crowded.
     “At his age, I wouldn’t have been able to play clubs,” Triplett says of Pahler, who splits time practicing with the band and completing his degree in visual communication at Northern Arizona University.
     “We’re making him grow up a little faster than he should,” Anderson says.
     “We’re kind of dinosaurs because when we write something he refreshes it,” Triplett says. “My favorite music is from the ’80s and ’90s and I’ll kind of stick with it. I’ll hear a riff as I would have heard it back then. It helps to have somebody that has an input. I don’t want a 35-year-old drummer. I don’t want a 25-year-old drummer. We put songs together and if Matt hasn’t heard of it, he’s open-minded to it.” Ambiguous Tone opened the door for an unusual cover of “Stand By Me” and drafted a ’90s rap parody that always excites audiences.
     “It’s funny,” Triplett says of the song that blends Sir Mix-a-Lot, Vanilla Ice, Run DMC and Tone Loc. “It’s the least effort that yields the greatest response.” Pahler says the cover songs are unexpected, which “slaps people in the face.”
     The band members joke about the live show.
     “We do some magic and ventriloquism. We make Matt disappear,” Anderson says.
     Pahler pokes back. “Yeah, and live cougars jump out of my bass head.”
     The band’s camaraderie is unmistakably present, which Pahler says is the main drive behind their tenure together.
     “I’m in this for more fun than anything and if anything comes out it, great. It’s just fun being able to hang out and play music,” he says.
     Triplett and Anderson agree.
     “If you play music because you love to play music, then you play it your whole life. It’s refreshing to play music with these guys and that’s more enjoyable than anything,” Triplett says. “I could be doing an open mic to three people in a dive bar in South Dakota when I’m 50 and I’ll still enjoy myself.”
     Look for Ambiguous Tone this Saturday at the Monte V Lounge, 100 N. San Francisco. The show starts around 10 p.m. and there is no cover. For more information, see www.myspace.com/ambiguoustone or call 774-2403.

Additional photos for this story:

Published Articles03 May 2007 11:20 am

Social D!

Punk purity
Social Distortion is in it for the long, true haul
By Molly Coulter
Published on 05/03/2007

Social D (from left): Guitarist Jonny “2Bags” Wickersham, drummer Charlie Quintana, frontman Mike Ness and bassist Brent Harding. Photo by Shigeo Kikuchi.

Twenty-five years ago a pack of angst-ridden, fame-seeking Southern Californians went on tour with fellow punk rockers the Youth Brigade. They saw the states, circling our borders and crossing into Canada, camera in tow. “Another State of Mind” was released as a documentary carrying the same name as an original song front man Mike Ness penned while on the road. Near the end of this ground-breaking punk rock journey, all but one of the members took off for home battered by bar managers screwing them out of due compensation, a broken-down school bus that almost saw it through, and the general attitude that “this sucks.” Ness, a lone 19-year-old, stood tall in a dark suit as he conceded to his return flight and boarded a plane for Los Angeles. But he said his band would continue. Social Distortion would always continue. He’d just have to replace the players.
     So he did.
     Countless tours and seven albums later, Social Distortion will initiate the 2007 summer season at Pine Mountain Amphitheater Wed, May 9.
     “I will guarantee you that we’ll put on a good show,” drummer Charlie Quintana says. Quintana played with ’70s punk band the Plugz and toured with Bob Dylan and Joan Osborne before landing a spot on Ness’ solo tour as well as recording with him on his second solo album Under the Influences. Released in 1999, the compilation covers 12 country, rock and bluegrass songs and a honky-tonk version of Social Distortion’s essential “Ball and Chain.”
“I was a journey man, paradiddle practitioner for many years jumping from band to band and I was in L.A. looking for some work,” he says. “Mike and I were at this bus stop two days before the end of the tour and he says, ‘I’m thinking of getting Social D up and running again. Want to play?’ So I said yes and it’s almost 10 years now.”
     Quintana joined Ness and guitarist Jonny Wickersham. Brent Harding on bass rounded out the current line-up, replacing long time member John Mauer.
     “I think that John Mauer was in the band for 20 years, maybe a little more. I would definitely consider him part of the band and of course Dennis (Danell) who passed away. I think he’d be with us now,” says Quintana. “The most changes have been drummers. I don’t really worry about that much. It’s not as Spinal Tap as it sounds … Mike’s the boss, you know, but the good thing about this band is it’s extremely versatile and opened a lot of doors for Mike’s songwriting. That might not have been possible with his former lineup … It’s a very strong band. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.”
     While Social Distortion’s sound embodies the constant punk beat with a hard, loud edge, it possesses a polished sense of determination. The band harnesses this sound on the road. Ness has said in interviews that Social D doesn’t release albums in a hurry. The band will create a tune and run with it, sharing it with audiences and honing its destined sound before it gets tracked in the studio. Quintana says the band will share one new tune with Flagstaff that will be released on the band’s next album.
     “The latest album is a greatest hits album coming out at the end of the year with one new track we’re playing live,” he says. “It’s called ‘Far Away.’” Quintana says the band will play “all the good stuff and a pretty wicked little cover of ‘Maybellene’ by Chuck Berry.”
     For those of us who haven’t taken in the live show, Quintana says the crowd is a mix of all ages. “The old timers in the back, the mosh pit in the middle. There’s a lot of little kids in the front with their parents kind of barricading them. Mike pulls them up on stage, asks them some questions sometimes. There’s regular guys, doctors, lawyers, kids; it’s just a big mish mash, but it all seems to work.”
     When the band formed in 1978 suburbia, the crowd certainly did not include the straight and narrow. Encompassing the essence of punk music, Social Distortion blasted the white picket fence and 2.3 children scenario, calling on kids to go against the establishment. During the nearly 30 years since the mainstream swallowed up punk and Social D’s radio and video play pushed the band into the global spotlight.
     “That was sort of the whole point of the punk movement, to change things. Everything on the radio was excessive. Stuff you didn’t feel. Like everybody was on such a pedestal. They were unreachable,” Quintana says and lists a slew of ’70s arena rock bands like Fleetwood Mac and Journey. “With punk the whole thing was breaking down those barriers and becoming more accessible to your audience. A goddamn label wouldn’t touch us anyway … I was at the first Go-Go’s rehearsal and me and the guitar player (in my band) laughed our asses off all the way back to the apartment. A year and a half later: “We Got the Beat” and it was all happening. The record companies had no choice, but it was a hard struggle I’ll tell you.”
     Staying power proves a band’s worth and talent, though some great bands fade away just as quickly as they reached the top. I ask Quintana how Social D has stuck it through.
     “Mike’s got a really honest connection with his audience. There’s no bulls**t there,” he says. “He has gone through bad times and wrote about that. He’s also gone through good times and wrote about that … When Mike started writing songs the smart thing he immediately did was stuff that was out of the mainstream punk song. But read the lyrics, it’s a f**king punk song.
     “There’s no such thing as a boring Social Distortion concert. We don’t play huge places. We like 2,000-seaters for four nights instead of playing an 8,000-seater for one night. You never lose that closeness. That doesn’t mean you should throw anything on stage because we’ll kick your ass out.”
     Social Distortion will play with I Hate Kate and the Black Halos at Pine Mountain Amphitheater at Ft. Tuthill County Park Wed, May 9. The all ages show starts at 6:30 p.m. and doors open at 5:50 p.m. Tickets are $25 in advance. For ticket info, see www.pinemountainamphitheater.com or call 556-1580. For more in Social D, see www.socialdistortion.com.

True Story01 May 2007 11:28 am

Coming soon…

state quarter.jpg

48th state quarter will be issued next year.

May 2007

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