Strokes of Luck

Salt Lake City Upcoming Concerts: KMFDM, The Strokes, Queensryche

By Brian Staker, 9-27-06

KMFDM

Falsely rumored to stand for Kill Mother F-ing Depeche Mode, KMFDM is really the apogee of the hard industrial style of music, though they never reached the superstar status of Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. They actually get more cred for not ‘selling out to the mainstream,’ and they predated either of those outfits by almost a decade, starting in the 80s, so they can be seen as the forerunners at a time when mechanized music was still a pop artifact. The graphic novel/propaganda poster graphic style of their albums adds to their individuality.

World War III Live reprised a career’s worth of favorites like “A Drug Against War,” particularly pointed in the political climate. On last year’s Hau Rock (Metropolis) the hate is still there, as vitriolic as ever. This show will be a chance to give your Halloween getup a trial run a month before the holiday, if you haven’t already at one of the local haunted houses that open their doors pretty much all Autumn long. With the Goths in attendance, the Avalon really will live up to the religious side of its surname.

September 27, Avalon Church

Also appearing:

September 29: Denver, CO (Ogden Theatre)

The Strokes

What does a buzz band do after the buzz is over? The Strokes had stardom in their genes, as singer/songwriter Julian Casablancas is the son of Elite Model Agency head John Casablancas, and guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.’s father was the Albert Hammond who wrote “It Never Rains In Southern California.” So that maybe the eagerly awaited-ness of their 2001 debut Is This It (RCA) was expected, and the postpartum letdown after the birth of the band on audiences’ awestruck ears was not as anxiously feared. 2003’s Room on Fire didn’t disappoint, extending their sound into reggae and synth-rock directions.

This year’s First Impressions of Earth, however, is finally the letdown that was perhaps inevitable given their ease of access to stellar billing with relatively less labor than unknown quantities have to exert. With the talent evidenced in the first two, however, it’s just a matter of time before a return to form, and perhaps a creative breakthrough. When your first album is as great a work to evoke Velvet Underground comparisons, you have set the bar high. And this is a band that’s just cool to watch live; one of the few pure rock acts girls can still swoon over.

September 29, In the Venue

Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, the Velvet Teen, Bound Stems **Staker’s Pick of the Week!**

It doesn’t seem quite right to call any songstresses in indie rock a diva, but Jenny Lewis is one of the genre’s leading lights. The Las Vegas native evokes a long tradition of female vocal personae from Loretta Lynn up to more recently Neko Case. Founding Rilo Kiley in 1998, she has since then warbled at one time or another for The Good Life, Cursive (also coming here several weeks hence) and the Postal Service.

During production of Rilo Kiley’s 2004 set More Adventurous, she began work on her solo debut Rabbit Fur Coat, issued this year on the Team Love Label, owned by indie luminary Conor Oberst, who also was entranced by her voice. Not as commanding, yet more vulnerable than Case, her solo work travels into country music’s rich territory of sadness and loss, bordered by the almost Greek chorus of the Watson twins.

September 29, Kilby Court

Also appearing:

September 30: Denver, CO (Fillmore Auditorium)

Queensryche

The Depot has really made a solid attempt to continue where the Zephyr left off, with a presentable club-sized venue for bands not quite big enough for arena shows, with a calendar of quality acts, managed well enough that the money engagements would make up enough of the difference to be able to book more obscure combos like the Fall (huge in Europe) and Dinosaur Jr., who had indie cred in spades but whose best moments are snapshots of the grunge era. The only thing the Depot lacks, sadly, is the character that the Zephyr had built up after decades of local affection. The Depot makes up a bit by being in the upscale Gateway mall, and the capacious former Union Pacific depot of its name makes for excellent acoustics, but in its second season out, it can’t help but seem a bit sterile somehow. Some band needs to trash it at some point, to break it in.

Dinosaur Jr.’s sheer volume might have broken in our eardrums, but the latest billing won’t smash any amplifiers. Like Dream Theater, Bellevue Washington band Queensryche tempered their heavy metal with progressive and art rock tendencies in addition to guitar pyrotechnics, if less proggy than the sometimes obtuse Dream Theater. Their creative apex was 1988’s Orwellian concept album Operation: Mindcrime, whose artsy impulses were discarded for further releases which saw sagging sales, leading eventually to this year’s follow-up and return to form, Operation: Mindcrime II. This is a band that will really stretch the acoustic possibilities of the medium-sized venue, leaving one to ponder their sound in a large site with perfect sound might sound like. Oh yeah, we don’t have anything like that here. If you miss this show, the band will be back November 28, which you might want to note since this date is sold out. I’d rather ponder another puzzler: if Hitler were running his government today, would he call it the ‘Thyrd Ryche?’

September 30, The Depot

Also appearing:

September 29: Denver, CO (Fillmore Auditorium)
October 1: Albuquerque, NM (Kiva Auditorium)

North Mississippi Allstars

Comes the beautiful daze of Octember, when if we are lucky the ‘Native American summer’ (PC lingo) will remain with us for a few weeks rather than the all-too-common Northern Utah weather pattern of abrupt gear shift from summer into winter chills. And with schools being back in session, edumacated audiences are back from vacation and ready for refined live musical fare. As opposed to breezy, party-atmosphere of summer concerts, live music this time of year seems to carry more gravitas. Or somehow more depth, in this case literate yet gutsy blues rock. The genre has always maintained a paradoxical distrust of academicism while a fairly dogmatic structural base, and that tension is what makes the music fascinating.

Dickinson brothers Cody and Luther moved into more rootsy musical range than their previous punk band DDT, and created the North Mississippi Allstars, named not so much in self-aggrandizement but in tribute to musical forefathers like Mississippi Fred McDowall and R.L. Burnside. Their own father was Memphis production stalwart Jim (“More Cowbell!” not really, that would be Bruce) Dicksinson, so they had their own personal heritage to draw from. Their punk sides came through in a music not unlike Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The two have explored various musical lexicons, with John Medeski of Medeski, Martin and Wood in Gospel-blues band the Word; and with Burnside’s son Duwayne in their own band’s release Polaris in 2004. Last year’s Electric Blue Watermelon (Ato Records) carried the musical mixtures even further with guest slots by Lucinda Williams, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and the since-departed Otha Turner.

October 1, Suede

Also appearing:

September 30: Denver, CO (Fillmore Auditorium)

Meg & Dia, Action Reaction, Ronnie Day

The latest musical export from the Beehive State, Meg & Dia Frampton at least deal in a musical genre a little bit more progressive than Memphis-by-way-of Magna country divas SheDaisy. The Frampton sisters sing their own form of alternative singer-songwriter stuff that isn’t incredibly experimental or ground-breaking, but feels authentic, like they are drawing from their own experiences, limited as they are by their under-20 lifespans. That reality is born out by the title of their Doghouse Records debut, Something Real. But then what is ‘reality’ anymore in the age of staged reality TV shows? At least their bio page online is titled “I Am No Masterpiece.”

October 2, Bleachers (Provo)

Also appearing:

October 3: Denver, CO (Marquis Theater)

Jedi Mind Tricks, Outerspace, RA the Rugged Man

Hip-hop music has undergone a myriad cycle of change since its incipience barely a quarter of a century ago, going from breakdancing backdrop to soulful pop sensibility to gangsta rap to lately, seemingly a torpor, mired in the post-gangsta backlash and the nihilism of commercialism and hyper-sexuality. But there are some signs of hope for the genre, with new ‘underground’ artists emerging as musicians tend to do whenever their chosen art form needs rejuvenation. Philadelphia duo Jedi Mind Tricks first ‘threw down’ just about a decade ago, and their cult following has expanded to the point where they can tour a larger radius, thus bringing them to our gates. Their latest album title, Army of the Pharaohs: The Torture Papers and Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell, is downright Wu-Tangian in its epic length and verbal dexterity to pronounce.

Their Illadelphia or Killadelphia, whichever you prefer, brethren Outerspace share the bill and evoke an early 90’s influence, evidenced in the deftly executed rhyme style of MCs Planetary and Crypt the Warchild. And it’s also a watershed moment for the genre, when proponents can start to look back at the history of their movement for moments to model and celebrate, while looking to the future.

Avalon Theater

Also appearing:

September 29: Colorado Springs, CO (Black Sheep)
October 1: Denver, CO (Bluebird Theater)
October 2: Boulder, CO (Fox Theatre)

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