Page 27 - the NOISE March 2013

Camper Van Beethoven; The Rising Cost of Livin’ High and Lovin’ Hard: A Tribute to Kris Kistofferson
Rhythm Devil Mickey Hart earned his chops as the drummer for the Grateful Dead in a round-about 25-year time period that shaped American culture. Since Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, he formed several in- carnations of bands that toured the world over, before settling on his present mix of strong percussion, guitar, and keyboard.
His “Worlds Within” tour began earlier this year, and the playlist is a blend of his “inter- stellar” 2012 album (truly a keeper) and new songs created with the victims of Hurricane Sandy in mind (a touching number entitled
“Jersey Shore” is available on mickeyhart.net). He’ll be playing the Orpheum Theater March 4th, along with David Schools from Widespread Panic, and the Ghana favorites, the African Showboys. Shortly before press-time, Mickey phoned in an interview with this reporter.
Now Mickey, you’ve played in Flagstaff be- fore ... Is there a difference in playing at 7,000 feet elevation?
It’s an interesting experience, because you’re not used to the altitude, so that kind of makes you light headed to begin with, so it can work to your advantage, but also to your disadvantage. You have to know your limits. You have to know how far you can push your- self, and watch your top end. I keep oxygen by my side and I take a couple hits, and that energizes me. But it’s doable, and it’s quite an adventure.
Tell me a little bit about Mysterium Tremen- dum, your last album?
I’ve been taking these radiations, these light waves from the cosmos and forming it into sound and using them as part of a musi- cal composition. That’s one of the missions of this band and this project was to be able to explore the sounds of the universe, from the Big Bang — 13 billion years ago — the begin- ning of time and space to the sounds of the Earth right now, the radiation of the Earth.
The universe is like music, you can think of it in musical terms, where everything that is vibrating has light and a sound, a radiation. We have instruments now that can pick up these old remnants of these epic events. Some of the sounds I’m using now, the origi- nal data from where it came from — that individual star or planet or black hole may not even exist anymore. It takes millions of years to travel to get to us and when I pick it up and change it into sound. It is a great mystery, where it happened, when did time and space begin? These are the big ques- tions — Einstein, the Theory of Relativity.
It’s really fun, it’s really exciting, it really gets me. It’s kind of ancestral in a way, a little of us into creation, kind of like a time line, a con- tinuum. But I’m not an astrophysicist, I sure as hell am into time lines. I really would like to know where it began, that’s what my books were about in the 90s. Where did the groove come from? Where did the rhythm come from? It goes back to the Big Bang. Then it comes forward to us after that. So once I real- ized you could hear most of it, that’s when I started seriously gathering these sounds.
What is the basis of the nonprofit you started?
Here we have music being used to raise consciousness in the human condition, and used as medicine, for Alzheimers and other mind-altering diseases. That’s one of the most exciting frontiers for music in this century, is the healing powers that are perhaps innate in music. People don’t re- ally know that much about music and the vibration, I mean, the neurology of music, what music does to the brain — we’re just starting to peel those layers and find out what part of the brain does what when a certain African rhythm hits it.
This is the new incredible science that is immerging, and that combined with peo- ple who love music, we are reconnected in some way. With all those motor diseases, the neural pathway is broken — music somehow reconnects that. That’s the grail, and once we figure out the musical DNA — which we will, it’s not too far away.
How would you say you receive your rhythms?
It’s not about percussion, it’s about the rhythm. It’s not about drums or drumming, drums are just a great way to lay down good rhythm. But it is the vibratory nature of sound, that is the power. It’s not so much the melodies or the harmonies, but it’s the zone that rhythm puts you into.
We’re shaping time and marking time, and that’s what a drummer’s main responsibility is. Like Popeye says, “I am what I am.” It all starts with your own rhythm. How prepared you are to address your skills, your task. You have to be physically, mentally, emotion- ally responsible that you make good rhythm. Even when you’re a professional, you have to maintain a certain level of skill to do really powerful rhythm, rhythms that are transfer- ent. That’s what I aim to do every night I’m playing.
Dream synthesizer stylings of “Dawn,” but that’s probably a minority opinion. They do close the album about as strongly as one can with, “Faded in the Morning,” (always, bro!) and “Secret Xtians,” which is maybe about In- sane Clown Posse? Wicked mad mothaf*ckin clown love, ya’ll!
Camper Van Beethoven
that starts with Simon Joyner doing “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” the Black Swans making “Moment of Forever” their own and Great Lakes doing “Nobody Wins.” Great ver- sions all, and here’s where the problem with this comp comes in: Most of the versions, and all of the really good ones, are fairly faithful to the source material, and largely because of that, I would feel extremely uncomfortable saying any surpass the original versions. So the bands involved are in a sticky situation.
However, the comp did introduce me to a few great acts, namely the aforementioned Great Lakes. And maybe, just maybe there’s some clueless indyrock kid somewhere that’s like, I didn’t even know the old dude from the Blade movies even wrote songs. Portland/ Tucson-based Ohioan does a great very lively version of “The Year 2000 Minus 25” (but call- ing it, “plus 7 & 5”) and Amo Joy! (another new discovery) does “Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down” and these are classic classics that deserve way more coverage by all kinds of bands. And for those of you unfamiliar, let’s just reprint the lyrics without permission to this more-relevant-than-ever classic classic song:
They’re killing babies in the name of free- dom/We’ve been down that sorry road before/ They let us hang around a little longer than they should have/And it’s too late to fool us anymore/We’ve seen the ones who killed the ones with vision/Cold-blooded murder right before your eyes/Today they hold the power and the money and the guns/It’s getting hard to listen to their lies./And I’ve just got to wonder what my daddy would’ve done/If he’d seen the way they turned his dream around/I’ve got to go by what he told me, try to tell the truth/And stand your ground/Don’t let the bastards get you down/Mining roads/Killing farmers/Burn- ing down schools full of children/Fighting com- munism/And I’ve just got to wonder what my daddy would’ve done/If he’d seen the way they turned his dream around/I’ve got to go by what he told me, try to tell the truth/And stand your ground/Don’t let the bastards get you down
Amen.
To sum up, this comp does highlight Krist- offerson’s versatility as a songwriter. Also, it’s a double LP, so it’s really long. And, thank Allah, no one attempts “Me and Bobbie McGee.”
| music@thenoise.us
La Costa Perdida
jjj
Though I think there’s very little chance Camper Van Beethoven will make many new fans with this, their newest album since 2004’s New Roman Times, title track “La Costa Perdida” has the stunning witty quasi-coun- try norteno charm any old fan, or new fan, can be uber-thankful for. It’s a hell of single, buried deep in the album; the kind of thing you could hear tearing up college charts (Campers and Replacements and the like helped create) on 90s alternative radio, but such high status for such quirky lyric-based songwriting (much like “Take the Skinheads Bowling”) has long gone the way of the dodo as radio has skewed to either the very old and nostalgic or too young and lowest com- mon denominator. I can’t claim much love for much else on this, even definite winners like
“Too High for the Love-In” which has a very Talking Heads quality, but there are some nerdy dudes in their 40s creaming their pants. And they won’t be disappointed.
V/A
The Rising Cost of Livin’ High and Lovin’ Hard: A Tribute to Kris Kristofferson
PIAPTK
jj
What this comp has, that most tributes and compilations do not, is a plethora of songs that are really hard to mess up. Some of the bands try. There are synthesizers in- volved with some of these tracks and that is just, well, I hate to be a fundamentalist about it, but... “The Highwayman” is done as a dance cut by Calvin Johnson and friends, and it’s a complete waste of time. But that’s the only serious dead in the water dud. Of course, the original song isn’t the greatest track in the world anyway. Golden Boots do a very Golden Boots-y version of “Best of Both Worlds.” Very hard to complain about that. Little Wings and Matt Hopper both do lovely tributes. There’s an outstanding block
thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • MARCH 2013 • 27
b Ugh
bb Eh
bbb Solid
bbbb Gold bbbbb Total Classic