You Drive Us Wild

Salt Lake City Upcoming Concerts: Howard Jones, Alice In Chains, Zakk Wilde

By Brian Staker, 11-16-06

	Staker's Pick o' the Week: Tara Jane O'Neil

MTV $2 Bill Concert Series

It’s a great idea, in an industry where the marketing whizzes just don’t seem to get it a lot of the time, to promote artists with concerts costing next to nothing, in hopes that music sales will more than recoup the costs. This entry in what is becoming a well-awaited series features Rock Kills Kids. From the Paleolithic age, seemingly, at least from Buddy Holly down to Bob Pollard, socially awkward kids (‘middle aged kids’in Pollard’s case) have been getting cool by starting bands. One of the latest is Jeff Tucker, who started Rock Kills Kid in the late 90’s. After an initial indie release, the band’s post-punk answer to the musical question Are You Nervous? (Reprise) arrived earlier this year.

TV teen heartthrob Jared Leto (My So Called Life) makes his mark on music with his unit 30 Seconds to Mars, avoiding the sophomore slump with this year’s A Beautiful Lie (Virgin/Immortal), even garnering a nom for Best Rock Video from MTV for their viddy of “The Kill.” From the ashes of emo marquee name Midtown arose Gabe Sporta’s Cobra Starship. A Castaneda-like fable of a bite from a talking snake convinced him emo kids take themselves too seriously. Whatever. The lineup is rounded out with Head Automatica and The Receiving End of Sirens. It’s a cheap way to checkout what’s hip with the kids now, or in the vernacular, maybe it’s ‘post-hip.’

November 16, SaltAir

Starlight Mints

What hath the Flaming Lips wrought? As opposed to the Polyphonic Spree’s window dressing, the practically next-door neighbors of the Lips, Norman Oklahoma’s Starlight Mints get that it’s about great music first, then pseudo-neo-post-hippie regalia second. Before the words ‘orchestral’ and ‘pop’ had any kind of dalliance, let alone introduction in the late 90’s the Mints were creating catchy tunes that used chamber instruments to add depth rather than fluff. Always ‘dreamy’ in the sense of wryly romantic as well as mildly psychedelic, they are one of those bands that should have much more buzz than they do. For their third release, this year’s Drawaton, they signed with Barsuk Records, the label that brought you Death Cab For Cutie.

November 16, Velour (Provo)

Also appearing:

November 17: Denver, CO (Larimer Lounge)

Wolf Eyes

Another of those ‘Wolf’ bands after Wolf Parade and Wolf Mother emerged from their lairs to venture here earlier this year. After a while, the overused word becomes like a cipher, something that just takes up space and the band might as well just call themselves the ‘Eyes.’ Wow, think what an ‘eye-catching’ name that’d be. Any band that is trying to think of a clever name, contact me in care of… etc. See local band the Wolfs for theme and exposition on how to do a ‘wolfy’ band right, right down to their misspelling like the Beatles and edgy cigarette-tinged vocals of Eli Morrison battling with guitar noise like a man possessed. Michigan trio Wolf Eyesis at least as noisy, choosing the industrial route as opposed to Wolfmother’s metal gait to create the requisite menace in the moniker. Their middle two releases on Sub Pop remind you of how aggressively sounding the imprint used to be, in the beginning.

November 17, Urban Lounge

Also appearing:

November 18: Denver, CO (Hi-Dive)

Cute Is What We Aim For

Don’t get me started on my irritation at the lack of creativity in local venue names. From all the former incarnations of the Urban Lounge, including ‘Phunkee Squirrel’ or something and ‘the Holy Cow’ (actually a pretty clever one) to In the Venue, the ‘who’s on first’ of local concert sites. Where is the concert? What ‘venue?’ I know it’s in a venue. By now we know where this hole is. Actually it’s pretty good sound-wise, balancing all-ages and drinking areas to allow decent visuals for all. And Sonic Youth played here. Duude. Now don’t get me started on band names. I read Cute Is What We Aim For as a description of where some agro punk band directs its firearms. The quartet of emo boys actually is pretty cute, and their innocuous emo is easier on the ears than much out there. I’ll choose to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume the title is tongue-in-cheek.

November 18, In the Venue

Also appearing:

Month X1: City, CO (Venue Name)
Month X2: City, ID (Venue Name)

Howard Jones

What is love anyway? Does anybody love anybody else? Prepare yourself for a visit from the British musical philosopher who urged us ‘don’t try to live your life in one day’ to try to alleviate the pressures of the so very coked-up, go-go 80’s. But what does he have to say to the post-911 generation, let alone the epoch after his, the 90’s. Might Cobain still be with us if he had flipped a little Howard Jones into the player? Along with Lard or ‘Tard’ or whatever was poisoning Kurdt’s fragile mind. Oh yeah, there was Courtney. ‘Never mind.’ Now everything’s topsy-turvy, prescription pain killers are the hip drug and right wing talk-show hosts are the drug addicts, in a sense the real rock stars. Kinda like the televangelists of the 80’s, they are the people who are REALLY out there, in terms of doing the crazy stuff.

The 80’s gave us bands like Killdozer, Butthole Surfers and Foetus; it wasn’t all Pet Shop Boys. Yet perhaps in the mainstream domain, Howard Jones was the most milquetoast of anything out there with his bland dance pop. Yet also he really represented something of the zeitgeist of mainstream America, and to some extent Britain as well (except the Thatcher-haters, as the Tories experienced more opposition than landslide-winning Reagan here). Pop music has always tried to sell us on the malt-shop boy-meets-girl vision of the world in which everything is eternally OK. It’s just that there are the Beach Boys who do it intelligently and masterfully, and HJ whose songs seem meant to induce coma. By the 90’s he was dropped by Elektra, and he struck out on his own acoustically. He has apparently taken his own advice, deliberately taking his retro tour one day at a time, and offers the hits for those who would hear them.

November 18, Kingsbury Hall

Tara Jane O’Neil **Staker’s Pick of the Week!**

People say I am always choosing something cutesy for my Pick of the Week. I don’t claim to be unbiased, but I just gravitate towards songwriting craft, in whatever genre. It just usually tends to be folkies, by the nature of the mellow, seemingly docile beast. Remember the rage Dylan could pack into a folk song, nearly more than a heavy metal act? It’s a story-telling genre, with subtlety and narrative.

Tara Jane O’Neil came out of the unlikely debut with Louisville, KY art punk band Rodan. Any band named for a movie monster has to be pretty badass. Through stints with more folky outfits Ida and Retsin she has evolved into one of the most noteworthy singer/songwriters of the last decade, with emotional lyrics that never descend into melodrama. And this is one of those ‘quiet’ musicians that you have to hear in a miniature venue like Kilby Court, where on occasion you could hear the proverbial pin drop. The pin is holding up the hem on the lyrical fabric she is weaving. And her impressionistic paintings that grace her album covers recall the days when you could put an LP on the record player as dream into the artwork from which it was cradled, letting your mind fly free.

November 19, Kilby Court

Also appearing:

November 18: Denver, CO (Orange Cat Gallery)

Barenaked Ladies

At least this retro act gets the benefit of the vastly superior acoustics of the E Center, unlike the exponentially superior music of the Who, relegated to the fuzzy, echoic din of the Delta Center. What would you do ‘if you had a million dollars?’ One option is to quit your job and start your own band. Even money it would sound better than Barenaked Ladies, lyrically clever as they are. It is a novel idea to have a song in which the singer mumbles, although not as successful in execution. Unless you are REM. These guys are NOT REM. Oh yeah, that was a different Canadian band. See, in order to get attention down here, Canuck musicians have to either sound like Geddy Lee or look like Shania Twain.

November 22, E Center

Also appearing:

November 21: Denver, CO (Magness Arena)

Alice In Chains

Hello, record store. Do you have Alice In Chains? Yes, then let her out. Much like the ‘Prince Albert’ joke of our grandfathers, this joke was never actually told. In the 90’s ‘body modification’ rage, ‘Prince Albert’ came to mean something entirely different anyway. Didn’t that dude die or something? Not the Nirvana negative creep. (song reference) Similar to the other members of the grunge triumvirate of Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots (the real grungeys, nevermind the countless bandwagoneers. Did you ever see that sketch ‘the grungey’ on In Living Color? With a grunge version of the Monkees. See Youtube) the volatility of the music was echoed in the emotional turmoil of the band members. After years of battling addiction, singer Layne Staley was found dead of heroin and cocaine overdose in 2002. So when I saw this listing, I thought, is this some kind of joke? William Duvall takes lead vocals in this memorial to Staley’s legacy/grab for cash. You can decide for yourself how much of each it ultimately is. “Look here comes the rooster.” Lyrics to induce a drug flashback from Lollapalooza 94.

November 22, SaltAir

Also appearing:

November 20: Denver, CO (Fillmore Auditorium)
November 21: Aspen, CO (Belly up)

Zakk Wylde Black Label Society

Ozzy Osbourne’s former stringpinger, guitar impresario Zakk Wilde has worked on his own solo efforts in between supporting the Wizard of Ozz. He should get some sort of music award just for being able to decipher Osbourne’s instructions. And he has earned every bit of his heavy metal spelling and heavy metalnym stage name. Here’s hoping that for an encore the Zachmeister will perform his shreddin’ disortion of the Birthday Song from Aquateens. And arrive as on that show, on a coach with white horses.

November 22, The Depot

Also appearing:

November 21: Denver, CO (Ogden Theatre)

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