Six Questions for Shannon Carey of Luray

Shannon Carey is the ethereal lead singer and banjo picker for Luray, a new presence on the bluegrass scene. Make that post-bluegrass, as Luray’s sound is an ambient mix of grass, country, indie folk, and splashes of lots of other things–a bit like the kind of stuff her brother Sean plays in Bon Inver. Luray have just released The Wilder, the band’s debut recording.

Your PR material mentions that your past has involved a lot of wanderlust. How has this affected your music?

SC: I grew up in Wisconsin and Arizona, but I’ve moved around a lot. I picked up country music from my dad, who was in bands that played at country fairs. I also lived in New Orleans for a year, where there’s so much street music. I learned about bluegrass in the Bay Area of California, where amazing musicians are creating new versions of it. When I moved to the Washington, D.C. area I decided to see how what I could meld together.

Were there specific musical influences you picked up in your travels?

SC: Well, you try not to sound like anyone else, but I love the singing of Patty Griffin and Emmylou Harris. You also hear things you have to learn on your own. Bluegrass singing has a kind of yodel thing going on. I had to teach myself how to do that.

I don’t have specific influences for the banjo, though Alison Brown has been a strong role model for women for many years. Of course, I love Béla Fleck. But I also like a lot of the banjo that’s been in recent Indigo Girls records. Mainly I liked melodic banjo.

I like to ask musicians how they describe their sound and you’ve just released your debut record, so what’s it sound like to you?

SC: (Laughs) Well… I wrote a lot of the promo material, so I don’t want to repeat myself! The sound of the record is supposed to be textural and comforting. It has earthy, natural sounds, but also layers of banjo picking and vocal lines. I wanted it to be transporting and ambient, but with the sense of joy we get from country and bluegrass music.

I want to ask you, in turn, about my three favorite songs on the album, beginning with the title track “The Wilder.” Tell me about it.

SC: It was actually the song that inspired the entire project, which is how it ended up as the title track. It’s about trusting the universe and stepping into an unknown space both spiritually and physically. It came as I was turning toward music to reinvent myself after a career in social work. I had to step into that unknown space and trust that things would work out.

How about “Crying,” a sweet little song I really like?

SC: I wanted to see if I could write a country song. It’s about getting in touch with my feelings, even though the story is told from the perspective of a man trying not to cry. It also came out of my social work job that involved families and children. You try not to let it happen, but that kind of job can shut you down emotionally. I had to relearn how to be sad and cry. As it happened, my dog died and I cried for months!

Kalorama is bouncy and unlike a lot of the other tracks.

That’s actually the name of the D.C. neighborhood where my husband (Luray guitarist and Greenpeace employee Gary Wisniewski) and I lived. It’s in the northwest of the city and we had an apartment on the corner of Kolorama and Columbia. It was all new, including trying out apartment living, which we had never done before.

The song tries to capture the experience of being a newcomer and feeling like you don’t belong in the first place. The neighborhood is next to Adams Morgan (a historically black neighborhood in the process of gentrification), but it’s also a mixture of college kids, embassies, and middle and upper class people, all living near Kalorama Park. It often felt like being an alien. We live on a farm in Maryland now, which makes for a longer commute into the city, but it suits us better.

NOTE: Those living near Northampton, MA can catch Luray at the Parlor Room on September 6. Others can hear tracks (or order the CD) from www.luraymusic.com

Breathtaking Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker Release

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JOSIENNE CLARKE AND BEN WALKER

Fire & Fortune

Navigator Records 082

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New releases fall into categories such as old friends, familiar voices, and promising discoveries. But few are as delicious as those that make us exclaim, “Who is that?” The London-based duo Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker induce the latter reaction. Fire & Fortune is their third release and if it gets half the play it deserves, Clarke and Walker will be the hottest duo around. (Fortune is always problematic in folk music!) Clarke’s voice is the sort that only comes around a few times in a generation: crystalline clear, supple, and gorgeous. She lists Sandy Denny, Linda Thompson, and June Tabor among her influences and, for once, it’s no stretch to say that the new kid is equal to her mentors. Half of the album’s 12 tracks are originals, many of them evocative of Denny’s trad-based contemporary offerings. “After Me,” for instance, is bell-like in tone and fragile in feel, yet contains soaring register shifts that let you know Clarke’s nobody’s china doll. When Clarke and Walker draw from the public domain, though, they tend to evoke Lorena McKennitt and the John Renbourn Group, if we imagine stripped-down ensembles. Clarke’s take on “The Seasons” is especially McKennit-like in its mix of magic, mystery, and drama, and her voice is a dead ringer for Jacqui McShee’s on “Green Grow the Laurels.” Guest musicians add tasteful contributions throughout but it’s always Ben Walker’s fretwork that’s the foundation from which Clarke’s voice leaps. Pay attention, folks, a coronation is in order. --Rob Weir

Think I exaggerate Clarke's voice? Check her out. watch her quiet a restive crowd.

Miley Cyrus and Duns Scotus

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Color me bored, not shocked.

Yesterday morning I did something I've never done before: listened to a Miley Cyrus song. It made me think of Duns Scotus and I’ll bet you don’t know too many people who can say that with a straight face.

I was previously able to escape Miley because I don’t have cable and good old WUMB doesn’t play her music. But the uproar over her VMA routine made me curious enough to seek an online video. I wasn’t shocked by Miley’s performance because that’s exactly what it was–a performance that no rational human should confuse with music. Instead of quaking with outrage or fearing the moral corruption of America’s youth I roared with laughter at the tacky banality of it all. And, like I said, it reminded me of Duns Scotus–sort of.

Duns Scotus

That name probably doesn’t many ring bells. Scotus is Latin for Scotsman and Duns the Scotsman lived a long time ago (1268-1308). Although he is considered by scholars to be one of the most important thinkers of the Middle Ages, his very name gave us the English word “dunce,” a person too dense to learn. Scotus wrestled with some of the weightiest questions imaginable, but he is often discredited as the author of the ultimate stupid question: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Leaving aside the possibility that Duns wasn’t the first to ask that kind of question and probably never posed it that way, it’s actually a very profound way of contemplating the differences between the natural and supernatural realms. If the latter exists, it would not be subject to the laws of physics. In a Duns/dunce-like way, the answer to the question is: As many angels as want to twerk and they can bring dates. No pin could contain them.

Scotus may have asked that “dumb” question because he was the victim of bad timing. Brilliant as he was, he had the misfortune to follow in the footsteps of one of the most stunning intellects in all of Western history: Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Aquinas was the apex of a religious/intellectual movement known as Scholasticism. The anti-intellectualism of the modern evangelical movement would make Scholastics spew if they were around today. Scholastics didn’t battle their culture or its ideas; they engaged in intellectual query that sought to harmonize faith, reason, and science. Aristotle occupied a lower throne than Jesus, Moses, and the prophets, but only slightly lower. The problem for Scotus was that Aquinas was so good at this kind of thinking, that he answered most of the good questions! (He mused upon 631 of them in his Summa Theologica.) The Scholastic movement hung around for another century or so, but it was on the downslide by the time Duns came along. And, really, what more was there to add to what Aquinas said?

By now you must think I slipped off the stripper pole. What the hell does this have to do with a twit like Miley Cyrus? Let’s go back to timing. I’m shocked all right–shocked that anyone would be shocked by Miley’s twerking. Have such people been living in a bubble even bigger than my cableless living room? The whole point of a lot of pop culture is to shock. Or did you think The Beatles really preferred Edwardian suits, or that Mick Jagger was simply ‘more comfortable’ in purple stretch pants and a leopard-print open jacket? Pop music has been the repository of outré costuming forever: Little Richard’s pompadour, Elvis’s tight-trouser gyrations, the glitter gay of Liberace and Elton John, the androgyny of Alice Cooper and Prince, glam rock, Flower Child psychedelia, punk safety pins and Mohawks…. But let’s hand the crown to one who topped them all: Madonna. Love her or hate her, Madonna didn’t just push the envelop; she ripped it open and tore it to shreds. Expose the hypocrisy of virgin versus whore images of women? Consider it shattered. Parody religion? Check–several times and several traditions. Nudity and lesbianism? Flip the pages of Sex. Death by copulation? See Body of Evidence (1993). Foul language, bullet bras, crotch shots, bondage, celebrity marriages and breakups, cowgirl sluttery, Kabbalah mysticism, outspoken political commentary…? Done that. Hell, the woman has even gotten away with playing a wholesome mom who writes children’s books.    

Did Madonna leave anything? If she did, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry grabbed it. So what’s a half talent like Miley riding the coattails of her old man’s career to do? The VMA spectacle was an attempt to push boundaries (plush toy sex anyone?), but it’s a vacuous flop–and not just because she can’t really sing or dance very well. It failed because Miley doesn’t have a vivid enough imagination. Her act is just soft porn with a Disney twist. In other words, it failed because it is neither original nor shocking–it’s just stupid and lame. What a dunce!

Ten Food Trends That Are So Over

Among the collateral damage of TV food shows is that foodie culture has become as trendy as any other form of popular culture–and in some ways, just as vacuous as the rest of television. Here are some “gourmet” (word used ironically) trends that should just go away.

1. Food as architecture. Remember the 1950s TV dinners that came in tin foil trays with ridges that walled off the potatoes from the peas and the meatloaf? We should stock restaurants with these so that chefs stop stacking the food. What am I, six months old? I don’t want my food smushed together so that the flavors “marry.” (Read: Every bite tastes the same.) Some of us actually like to taste the distinctiveness of vegetables, or enjoy the mouth feel of buttery potatoes. Can we please lose the food towers? If not, let’s go the next step and put everything into a blender and serve it adult-Gerber style.

2. Raspberry has been done to death. I used to enjoy raspberry picking. I associated it with a brief moment in summer in which Nature ripened and yielded her bounty. Now I hate raspberries. Thanks food industry. Raspberry is a very singular taste that shouldn’t  be consumed year ‘round. Tell that to chefs that put in on everything and proudly taut their raspberry coulis and raspberry drizzle. It’s as ubiquitous as parsley used to be. Unlike parsley, you can’t just push it aside and ignore it; raspberry gets into everything on the plate. I want roast beef au jus, thank you, not roast beef swimming in strained fruit. And I sure as hell don’t want it drizzled on chocolate, because...

3. Chocolate doesn’t need any help. I routinely send back chocolate desserts that come with unwanted raspberry. I do the same with mint sauce, orange swirls, and other such unadvertised overkill. You only need to dress up molten-center chocolate cake or a mousse if the chocolate is crap, in which case the chef should be sent back! There are just a few ingredients that should ever be mixed with chocolate. Peanut butter is one. I’ll get back to you with another. I’ve no objection to a dollop of cream and a strawberry on the side, but if I wanted to eat the equivalent of Neapolitan ice cream, I would have ordered it.

4. Pomegranate is an acquired taste. I actually like it, but it’s on its way to becoming the new raspberry–or so trendsetters would like you to believe. It won’t succeed; as more people dislike it than enjoy it. So lose it already. Like you did with mango, the last fruit you told everyone they’d love and they didn’t.

5. Panko is Japanese for breadcrumbs. Sorry, but I refuse to be impressed by “golden cod encrusted in panko.” When I was a kid we called that what is: a fried fish cake. Look up the word panko and it tells you that it’s an “inexpensive filler” to extend meat and other entrees. It doesn’t say this, but it should; its other meaning is: “ordinary bread crumbs under a pretentious name that adds 20-30% to the price of a so-so restaurant offering.”  

6. Greek yoghurt is no better than any other kind. Yes, it has a slightly different texture. It also tends to be a tad more sour. It’s hyped because it’s strained to remove more whey, which theoretically makes it healthier. Except that it has way more calories than fat-free regular yoghurt, which tastes just as good. Mainly Greek yoghurt just costs twice as much.  

7. Grapefruit and beet juice. They are very au courant. Just two thoughts: You’ve got to be kidding. Why?

8. Coffee and beer should be flavored with coffee and beer.  Infused coffees are like drinking a cup of Beyoncé’s perfume. I mean it. Hazelnut and other flavored coffees engage my gag reflexes. Restaurants serving this kind of swill should be required to state so on their menus. A cup of Maxwell House would be preferable.

            I once enjoyed the occasional seasonal beer flavored with things such as blueberry or pumpkin. Then a friend bought me a case of blueberry ale and I had the raspberry reaction. Mainly I just think coffee and beer should be what they are–not fruit and/or nut delivery devices.

9. Bacon is farm food. These days the only thing longer than a list of foods with bacon in them is Lindsay Lohan’s rap sheet. Bacon is yummy because it’s mainly salt and fat. It’s one thing to load up on bacon if you’re a farmer burning a few thousand calories before noon; it’s another altogether to pig out on bacon if you’re going to park your fanny on a chair in front of a computer.

            Chow down on artery clogging bacon if you must, but can you please keep it out of food combos that border on the surreal. Among the weird places it shows up these days are in ice cream, beer, fudge, vodka, and peanut butter. That’s just gross! 

10. Bring back bread and water. Enough with the gluten-free diets already. Bread should be eaten in moderation, but if you eliminate it altogether, you’ll crave it and binge. Note to restaurants: If you really want me to order another glass of overpriced wine, bring me some bread so my body can absorb the alcohol. And bring some water too, lest the alcohol cause dehydration. And, no, I won't walk away thinking your establishment is saving the planet because you didn't automatically bring water to the table. 

How to Surive a Plague Inspires

How to Survive a Plague (2012)

Directed by David France.

Public Square Films, 120 minutes, Not-rated.

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When A.I.D.S. first showed up in 1981, diagnosis was a death sentence. That was just fine by conservatives such as Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, and George H. Bush, who were willing to see it as God’s punishment upon immoral homosexuals. And then Rock Hudson died of the disease and Magic Johnson contracted it. So too did heterosexual men and women. When middle school student Ryan White, a hemophiliac, came down with AIDS, even bigots found it expedient to keep their mouths shut. Inexorably, the stigma attached to AIDS began to erode (though they never disappeared totally). Millions perished, but by 1995, an effective drug cocktail treatment plan was in place that dramatically prolonged the lives of HIV positive individuals.

As David France’s Oscar-nominated film shows, don’t applaud science–give the credit to the activists that forced drug companies, public officials, and the National Institutes of Health to research the disease, end the demonization of homosexuals, and speed clinical trial approval. France’s film centers on New York City and the activities of ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group). It’s not an easy film to watch and its graphic images of final-stage victims are often sickening. It’s positively heartbreaking to watch the transformation of ACT UP spokesperson Bob Raferty from a robust beefcake to a deathbed stick figure in just three years. Nor is it comforting to contemplate that AIDS still has no cure and that millions still die because they can’t afford the medicine that can save them.

We care deeply about Raferty because filmmaker David France understands the need to personalize the AIDS crisis. Just as Hudson, Johnson, White, Freddie Mercury and a few other high-profile cases awoke the collective conscious of a nation, so too does France take New York’s large gay community and personalize AIDS by focusing on a handful of individual stories. Call it an Olympics profile style if you will, but it’s effective. Segments are linked by flashing each new year while a counter of AIDS-related deaths clicks away in the background. France’s technique puts human faces to otherwise sterile numbers.

How to Survive a Plague tackles a depressing subject, yet it’s ultimately upbeat and inspiring. Among its many virtues is that it demonstrates the power of citizen advocacy  at a time in which cynicism over the efficacy of politics is skyrocketing. Think individuals can’t make a difference? Tell that to activists who recall the day they met Iris Long, a frumpy straight housewife from Queens. She also happened to be a trained chemist and righteously angry that people were dying and nobody was doing anything about it. She appeared at an ACT UP meeting, told the mostly male crowd that they didn’t know what they were talking about, showed them how to put science into their rhetoric, and challenged them to develop their own treatment plan if nobody else would. From her challenge, TAG was born and, by the early 1990s, the NIH, Merck, and others wanted TAG representatives on their boards. 

The film is also an antidote to the no-we-can’t crowd that thinks everyone should fend themselves and that problems won’t be solved by spending money on them. Nonsense! We went from knowing nothing about AIDS in 1981 to AZT trials in three years, and a very effective treatment plan in 14–not quick enough for Bob Raferty, but enough to save the lives of playwright Jim Eigo, writer Larry Kramer, and former broker-turned TAG activist Peter Staley. If you think that these drugs came about through anything less than tens of millions of taxpayer dollars added to the private money, you probably also still think AIDS is the “gay disease.”

For the record, the film is just as hard on the brand of mushy-headed “Yes We Can” liberalism that thinks good intentions and petitions will win the day. ACT UP was often coarse and ill informed, but its “Yes You Damned Well Will!” tactics ultimately triumphed. Watching the film made me wonder what would happen if women with breast cancer stormed the gates of the NIH, or if individuals lacking health care coverage held cough-ins in the halls of Congress. ACT UP is testimony to what desperate people can accomplish if they get organized instead of getting depressed.-- Rob Weir

Summer of Love Posters on Show until September 15

Take a deep look inside 1960s posters.

If you’re going to Smith College before September 15, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. By all means, be sure to see the colorful–and I do mean colorful–exhibit “Summer of Love: Psychedelic Posters from the SCMA.” As advertised, it’s a collection of great rock posters, most of which come from the San Francisco Bay area from the 1967 Summer of Love. It features works from acclaimed graphic artists such as Alton Kelley, Rick Griffin, Bonnie MacLean, Peter Max, Victor Moscoso, Stanely Mouse, and Wes Wilson.

You will notice that I used the term graphic artists. Many of the SCMA (Smith College Museum of Art) images are, on the surface, mere advertising props for music concerts, especially those at the Fillmore West or at Family Dog Productions venues. Ahh, but look deeper. Among the many ways in which the history of the 1960s is misremembered is the myriad ways in which the period is stereotyped as one of stoned, vacuous hippies. Only a blind fool would deny that drugs were a big part of the 1960s–and an entire section of the exhibit is devoted to images devoted to the glories and of controlled substances–but to reduce the era to an orgy of wild child trippiness is to miss the day-glo bus on many levels. In a far more profound sense, the 1960s were about new ways of “seeing,” be they chemically induced visions, challenges to the traditional social norms, probing critiques of politics, sonic explorations, or spiritual journeys. Among those individuals that knocked down old walls were African Americans, women, young people, and artists. The imagination of poster artist Victor Moscoso, for instance, was fueled more by Diego Rivera and the Bauhaus movement than by LSD. Look carefully at Wes Wilson’s images and amidst the block letters, the swirling images, and the bright colors you’ll see Art Deco and Art Nouveau. In many respects, 60s poster artists anticipated today’s mash-up culture. In the case of Peter Max, he did so literally by assembling collage images of all manner of things that wouldn’t normally go together, but which magically create a harmonious statement. (You will definitely see Max’s influence on Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam.)

The SCMA show is divided into several major sections: aesthetics, the counterculture, drugs, and music. One side exhibit features a few black light posters, and another is a running video loop of outtakes from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, which was the era’s musical signature event–Woodstock’s outsized reputation notwithstanding. (It will also remind you what an amazing band The Byrds were.) The explanatory texts are insightful, though I do have quibbles with curator Aprile Gallant’s incomplete take on the counterculture. The counterculture comes off as too much about LSD and hippies (Ginsburg, the Human Be-In, acid tests) and not enough about politics. (Where are the Diggers? The San Francisco State and UCal Berkeley student protests? The antiwar movement?) To be sure, the Summer of Love had a turn-on vibe, but by the fall the party petered out and other issues rose to prominence. Can we finally get it straight and understand that hippies were a small part of the counterculture, not its essence?  

Still, the SCMA “Summer of Love” show is–if I might–a groovy trip. It’s well worth an impulsive trip to Northampton. Freak out among the colors. Enjoy the music. If you’re of a certain age, take a nostalgia trip. But also take some time to appreciate the fact that you are standing in a room of wondrous art objects that just happen to involve unconventional subjects. One wonders if we shall ever see such likes again. Stand in the middle of the room and try to imagine any of this on a CD cover or an MP3 download.  --Rob Weir

Reminder: This show closes September 15, and then the Age of Aquarius goes back into storage. 

Postscript: More images from this exhibit can be viewed on my Facebook page.

Ryan Dempster Should Be Suspended

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Yeah--you--Dempster. You're as big a jerk as the guy you threw at. 

I’m a Yankees fan but, like millions of others, I dislike Alex Rodriguez. If you ask me whether or not I think he has used PEDs and other substances banned since 2005, I’d say he probably did. I would hasten to say, though, that I can’t prove that–and it’s possible that Major League Baseball can’t either. Like Lance Armstrong, there’s a lot more innuendo than material evidence ,and Rodriguez strikes me as such an egoist that I’d certainly not hold my breath waiting for an Armstrong-like come-to-Jesus confessional. 

For all of what I suspect about Rodriguez, the guys playing the he said/he-said accusation game are no more credible than A-Rod. Unless there’s a smoking syringe out there with datable A-Rod DNA on it, I’d not be surprised to see A-Rod beat the rap. It happens–bad guys with good lawyers beat charges even if they’re actually guilty as hell. But for all the flaws of official channels, be they league standards or the legal system, they beat the alternative: vigilante justice.

This brings me to a guy who proved himself as big a horse’s posterior as Rodriguez could ever prove to be: Red Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster. In case you missed it, in the second inning of last night’s Red Sox-Yankees matchup, Dempster through his first pitch at A-Rod’s knee. On a 3-0 count, he hit him on the elbow and side. The tape on this shows the obvious: Dempter’s pitches didn’t get away; he was playing headhunter. Home plate umpire Brain O’Nora blew the call–Dempster should have been ejected immediately. Instead, Yankees Manager Joe Girardi was tossed for giving O’Nora the cursing out he so richly deserved. The next trip to the plate, Rodriguez blasted a Dempster pitch over the centerfield fence, which just goes to prove that at this stage of their careers a diminished Rodriguez remains a better hitter than Dempster is pitcher. And it certainly proves that he has more pride.

Plunking A-Rod makes Dempster a folk hero in some circles, but it shouldn’t. Vigilante justice is never a substitute for the real thing. Who is Ryan Dempster to think that he is the guy to deliver A-Rod’s just desserts? .) A-Rod is a major distraction, maybe even a disgrace, but he has the right to appeal and confront the evidence (or lack thereof) against him. Maybe someone out to remind Dempster that his own union, the Players’ Association, negotiated such an agreement. Now the ball is in Joe Torre’s mitt. As Executive VP for Baseball Operations, it’s his job to review the tape and determine whether or not Dempster should be suspended. One can think what one wishes about Alex Rodriguez, but if Torre is interested in playing by the rules rather than yielding to lynch mob mentality, he ought to rescind Joe Girardi’s fine and suspend Ryan Dempster for at least ten games. (Fifteen would be not be inappropriate.) Until A-Rod’s fate is settled by due process, Torre needs to nip in the bud vigilante behavior such as Dempster’s.

To all Red Sox fans flooding the talk radio shows in defense of your folk hero, consider this. What if Dempster does get the 10-15 game suspension he deserves and misses a few starts? He’s not a great pitcher–he never was; he’s 130-133 lifetime and his ERA is well over 4–but in a crucial September series against Tampa or Baltimore, do you want to hand the ball to a not-yet-ready AAA pitcher like Webster or Workman? And what if the Sox miss the pennant by a game and go on to play and lose the one-game Wild Card matchup? How then would you feel about your folk hero? I know the label I’d put on him: jerk.