Page 32 - the NOISE October 2013

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mike donovan, Wot
jjj
I saw California band, Sic Alps less than a year ago. They played their feedback-punc- tuated psych-boogie for maybe thirty min- utes before singer, Mike Donovan fled the scene while the band played on.
The exit seemed quite staged, but it was sort of hard to tell what exactly was going on. The set didn’t impress everyone, and the show wasn’t all that well attended. I read somewhere recently that the band was done, and now here’s this. That’s enough backstory.
From the first bar of Wot, there’s a toe tapping down home quality Sic Alps never achieved (if they were trying. Theirs was more a noisenik quality.) And it’s hard to get a band to step back long enough to achieve something like “Fly Them Yourself.”
T-rex is still not the worst reference point in the world, particularly “Do Do Ya” which also apes Great White’s “Once Bitten Twice Shy” without mercy. Though maybe men- tioning Ian Hunter would make it a little less of a strange moment.
Donovan is American but this album seems to be celebrating that strange mo- ment England begins aping Americana through the lens of psychedelic pastiche. Van Morrison singing about Tupelo, Missis- sippi (and, yes, Van the Man is not English, but, I mean, to us Yankees, c’mon.)
“Baroque Ass” sounds kind of like Pen- tangle or richard Thompson covering Neil Young. It’s a nice little instrumental thing, with a nice cinematic soundtrack quality to, I don’t know, a fishing scene?
“Sexual reassignment Surgery Blues” is pure Muswell Hillbillies Kinks magic. Not as catchy as “Lola,” but, well, what is? “MP3 Farm” is along similar lines, sort of, and just as nice.
“Still in Town” is another solo ballad, and quite wonderful.
All said, very solid. If you’re wondering why Mott the Hoople or the Move aren’t the influential household names they perhaps should be, this could be your must have for 2013...
Grant Hart’s post-Hüskers output has been erratic. Nova Mob recorded two LPs then dis- banded in 1994. After another solo album in 1999, a ten-year silence followed where Hart
“pursued interests outside of music” (save for a two-song onstage reunion with Mould in 2005) before the release of Hot Wax in 2009.
In January 2011, a fire partially destroyed Hart’s house, in the family since 1919. The next month, his mother, an early and die- hard Hüsker Dü supporter, passed away. And in June 2011, Bob Mould published his auto- biography, in which he spewed much vitriol in his former bandmate’s direction.
Way back in 1985, Hüsker Dü contributed to a Giorno Poetry Systems LP and the group met William Burroughs. He and Grant Hart struck up a friendship that lasted through the legendary writer’s remaining years.
In 2008, curator James Grauerholz showed Hart an unpublished Burroughs manuscript. It was a profane retelling of Milton’s Para- dise Lost entitled, “Lost Paradise.” He asked if Grant was interested in setting it to music.
Which brings us to The Argument.
This is the record all of us fanatics knew Grant Hart had in him somewhere. A double disc concept album from a former ‘80s hard- core drummer based on Paradise Lost filtered through William Burroughs sounds like a recipe for disaster, but Grant pulls it off with style to spare.
The Argument is infused with so many hooks and textures and catchy melodies that the album can be enjoyed as both a simple collection of songs and a complex singular piece. Like most of his solo material, Hart plays nearly everything: drums, percussion, acoustic and electric and bass guitars, piano, organ, autoharp, glockenspiel, and layers upon glorious layers of vocals.
Knowledge of the recent events in Grant Hart’s life (his father also passed away in May 2013) gives songs like “I Am Death” and “I Will Never See My Home” a deep sadness, but the overall vibe is uplifting: heavenly choirs of angels and the music of the spheres. The Ar- gument is going to wind up on a lot of “Best Of 2013” lists and Grant deserves the atten- tion.
It’s an album Bob Mould could never have
Mike Donovan
Wot
Drag City
dreamed of making.
— Tony BallZ
— Frank Chipotel
32 • october 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us