THE ASTRONOMERS

Charlottesville's the Astronomers are ready to rock the Hill City Roots Festival

The Burg Staff

by Matt Ashare 

"We sometimes refer to ourselves as an anti-jam band."

This weekend’s Hill City Roots Festival promises to deliver plenty of what its name suggests: singing and a’strumming guys who wear broken hearts on their tattered or tattooed sleeves; twangy, Southern-flavored roots-rocking Americana; and a fair share of what you might call jam-banding. But there’s one up-and-coming act who are more than likely to shake things up with their aggressive yet melodic, cerebral yet playful, angular yet oddly accessible brand of indie-oriented rock — the charmingly skewed Charlottesville foursome who go by the name Astronomers.

     Led by singer/guitarist/pianist Nate Bolling, who moved to Charlottesville with his soon-to-be-wife and Astronomers’ bassist Alexandra Angelich just a few years ago, the band formed around an unabashed mutual fondness for the neo-new wave of the early Killers, the intoxicating cool of the Strokes first album, and, well, astronomy. In fact, Angelich and the band’s original guitarist Kyle Woolard (who know leads another promising Charlottesville outfit known as the Anatomy of Frank) were both stargazing students when Astronomers first formed.

     While those nascent influences may have been easy to spot on Astronomers’ self-released 2009 debut "Think Fast," the band, which includes bassist David Brear and guitarist Graham Partridge, are clearly well on their way to defining their own frenetic aesthetic on the new "Size Matters." Bolling took a little time out of his hectic schedule to talk about the evolution of Astronomers and their upcoming folk fest performance. Here’s some of what he had to say. . .

Q: It’s surprising that the name Astronomers hadn’t already been taken by another band when you first got together. Is there truth to the tale that you were all astronomy buffs? Well, I think there might be a British band called the Astronomers. It is a pretty universal, simple word as far as band names go. But it’s true: our bassist Alex was an astronomy major and our former guitarist was also an astronomy major. So it just made sense when we started the band. And we’re pretty much all around science geeks and nerds. So it fits us. It’s also really good when it comes to artwork, design, and that sort of thing.

Q: Two Astronomers songs that come to mind — "Two Suns" and "Perpetual Emotion" — give me the impression that the name has also influenced your songwriting.

Sometimes it works that way, and I’ll intentionally write lyrics that relate to our name. And other times it just ends up with me spouting out words as they pop into my head. I guess it’s kind of 50/50. Every song ends up working itself out differently. I write most of the lyrics, but the melodies and music generally are a group effort. It’s definitely not something I could do by myself.

Q: Along with the Strokes and the Killers, I hear echoes of the early Pixies in your songs. Am I wrong?

No. I guess you could say that that was the style we were going for when we started — something upbeat, catchy, and accessible that was a good blend of all of our influences. Personally I never got into the Pixies as much Alex and our original guitarist Kyle did. But I definitely respect what I am familiar with as far as their music goes and I’m pretty sure they’re an influence on our sound. It’s something I’ve definitely noticed it as I’ve gone back and listened to our music, even if it wasn’t entirely intentional at the time we wrote and recorded particular songs. But it’s in there.

Q: Did the band meet at UVa?

Kinda yes and kinda no. Alex and I moved from Dallas to Charlottesville because she was going to UVa. But the rest of us all met through the music scene in town. Our drummer Dave is from Culpeper, just north of Charlottesville, and our guitarist Graham is from Philly. So we’re all basically non-natives as far as Charlottesville goes. There are just so many musicians here, and it’s such a small town. There are times when it can feel a little crowded.

Q: Charlottesville is probably best known musically for the Dave Matthews Band. You’re obviously coming from at things from a rather different angle. . .

We sometimes refer to ourselves as an anti-jam band. We kind of do things the complete opposite in terms of how we write and perform and want ourselves to be portrayed. It’s just because there’s so much of that and there’s so little of everything else. Not that there’s anything wrong with jam bands. It’s just that we tend to be a little mathy with how we put stuff together and we like to overthink overthinking things. It seems to come together in the end pretty well.

Q: Does it feel a little strange to be playing a folk/roots festival?

Kinda, yeah. But from the lineup we’ve seen it seems like they’re keeping it pretty diversified. So I’m not sweating it too much. I feel like it’s pretty open stylistically. So I think we’ll fit in. The Invisible Hand are playing right before us and we’re kind of in the same scene here in Charlottesville. It’s funny; we’ve actually never played with them before, which is a strange thing. But we’re definitely part of the same scene.

Q: So, what’s next for you and the Astronomers?

I actually went to school for audio engineering and we recorded the new album ourselves in a studio in the basement of my house. It was really just a matter of us getting the right gear together. I did a lot of producing in Texas for a few years before we moved here, and I’ve just been getting back into it here. So right now I’m working on other projects. But, we’re in the process of writing some new and somewhat different stuff so that we can put out a little three-song EP early next year. We’re having fun with it and we’re writing together more so than ever. It’s been a lot of fun seeing what comes out based on everybody’s input.

ADAM FAUCETT

Adam Faucett Turns It On Again With His New More Like a Temple

The Burg Staff

by Matt Ashare 

Adam Faucett's More Like A Temple

It’s four in the afternoon and Arkansas-bred singer/songwriter Adam Faucett has just woken up on a floor in Chicago where he and his band spent the night after a gig at the Ace Bar.

"We played late and we hung out real late," he says in a gravelly voice that only intensifies his syrupy Southern drawl. That’s nothing new for the big, bearded Faucett, who’s more or less been perpetually touring — and crashing wherever he’s welcome — since the release of his first album, The Great Basking Shark,in 2007. In fact, by this Saturday, the road will lead Faucett, longtime bassist Jonny D., and drummer Will Boyd (who’s currently filling in for the band’s usual drummer, Chad Conder), to the Lynchburg area to support his new "More Like a Temple" as one of the headliners at the Hill City Roots Festival.

     Faucett was born and raised in Benton, which happens to be where the film Sling Blade was filmed. "It’s kind of attached to Little Rock," he says. "If you leave Little Rock headed toward Dallas, you go through several towns, and Benton is the last one you hit. After that, it’s nothing but country. It’s kind of an old suburb of a town that doesn’t really deserve suburbs." 

     When he was 18, Faucett relocated to an even smaller Arkansas town, Russellville.

There he found a teeming scene of fellow singer/songwriters zeroing in on a midway point between the Texas troubadour traditions of Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the contemporary Americana leanings of indie outfits like Eric Bachman’s Crooked Fingers, Chan Marshall’s Cat Power, and Will Oldham’s Bonnie Prince Billy. It’s probably also worth throwing Ryan Adams in his rootsier incarnations into that mix as a touchstone.

     "We had a bunch of DIY venues, and we were all pretty much friends who played at each others’ houses every weekend," Faucett recalls, referencing some names who are also playing this weekend’s folk fest — Blake Reams, Justin Sherry, Fatty, and William Blackheart.

Faucett, who plays guitar, banjo, and piano, didn’t exactly start out as a rootsy songster. As he puts it, "I was in another band before this and everybody was like ‘You guys are like a redneck Pink Floyd.’ I’d be like, ‘whadaya mean?’ And they’d say, ‘you sound like a hick when you sing.’ That was news to me."

     And he had an epiphany of sorts when he moved to Chicago for a short time in 2006 that put him on the path that led to the soulful, acoustic fingerpicking that characterized his first album and remains one of his strengths. "You know, I didn’t even realize I had a Southern accent until I moved and everyone there was like, ‘sounds like you got marbles in your mouth… what’s Bill Clinton like?’"

     Faucett’s now based out of Little Rock, although you get the sense from the songs on More Like a Temple — his third album — that he’s more at home on the road.

"Man’s Not the Answer," one of the more affecting acoustic ballads on the disc, takes the point of view of a young, small-town girl from one of the dozens of odd places Faucett’s found himself stranded.

     "I was sleeping in the back of a head shop in a tiny New Mexico town for half a week with a hitchhiker I picked up in Arizona," he recounts. "He was a street performer who could play the hell out of a slide guitar. And there was this musician from New Orleans who was trying to get back home. I pretty much begged them to finish out my tour with me. One night there were 15 or 20 people there, and we basically got into a contest drinking whiskey to see who could write songs faster. That song just came out. We stopped there, so I think I won that contest."

     For the most part, More Like a Temple sticks to the spare, dark, moody template Faucett laid out on his first two discs. There’s no banjo this time around, but the addition of strings and more piano adds an alluring lushness to the arrangements. And "Blood Is Blood," a hard-storming rocking that builds to a noisy peak reminiscent of Band of Horses, is as outright anthemic as Faucett’s ever sounded.

    "It’s more fleshed out, I guess," Faucett admits. "And it’s sold more than the other two," he laughs. "You know, things just end up working out in a way that you never expect. You go into the studio and you think you’re going to come out with this record with these songs and at the other end of the pipe you come out with that record with those songs."

 

MARIA TAYLOR

Maria Taylor delivers another gorgeous 'little' album

BACK IN BIRMINGHAM: Maria Taylor returns home on her new CD

The perennial drought of "big" new releases, which has seemed particularly acute over the past couple of months, ended last week, courtesy of I'm With You, the first new Warner Bros. blockbuster from those sock-hopping, bass-popping californicators in Red Hot Chili Peppers in five years. Regrettably, despite my best intentions and producer Rick Rubin's proven track record when it comes to reviving waning careers, I just can't seem to muster the enthusiasm to care one way or another about what the silly Chili Peppers are up to these days. My bad, I suppose.

Instead, I've been finding myself increasingly drawn to Overlook, a gorgeous "little" album by sultry-voiced singer/songwriter Maria Taylor. Perhaps best known as the better half of the harmonizing indie-folk duo Azure Ray, a project she started with her Alabama School of Arts pal Orenda Fink after the two had a quick brush with mainstream success straight-outta-high-school in the late '90s with the Geffen-signed, Veruca Salt-style outfit Little Red Rocket, Taylor began recording and performing as a solo artist six years ago. By that time, Azure Ray had relocated from Athens, Georgia to Omaha, Nebraska, where they became an integral part of the teeming scene surrounding Saddle Creek Records — a scene dominated by Conor Oberst and his shape-shifting "band" Bright Eyes. Taylor became one of the dozens of guests Oberst tapped into for Bright Eyes recordings and he later returned the favor on one of her solo albums. (The two were also rather notoriously linked romantically for a time.)

Meanwhile, both Taylor and Fink were collaborating with singer/songwriter Andy LeMaster in the Saddle Creek group Now It's Overhead up through '07. Oh, and as if those aren't enough biographical tidbits to keep straight, Azure Ray have woven a somewhat twisted web of their own: in 2004 they went on hiatus, only to regroup to record an album of new material, Drawing Down the Moon, late last year.

If there's a point to all this — and I'm fairly certain there is — it's that Taylor had evolved into far more than just a strum-'n'-sing folkster long before setting to work on her first solo album, 2005's 11:11. (In fact, I recall seeing her play drums on a Bright Eyes tour a little less than a decade ago.) The beguiling intimacy of her voice does lend itself particularly well to spare acoustic guitar numbers, but that hasn't stopped her from employing it equally effectively as she's branched out into programmed dance-pop, full-on electric band rock, and even, on 2007's Lynn Teeter Flower, a little indie/hip-hop collaboration.

In keeping with that general approach, the new Overlook is as musically adventurous as any of her previous four discs without being overly or self-consciously eclectic. Taylor resettled in her native Birmingham before she wrote or recorded any of the album's nine tracks and you get the sense that the change in venue, not to mention a whole new cast of supporting players, had more than just a subtle impact on the sound and feel of Overlook. The disc opens on an explosive, very rockist note with "Masterplan," a track that finds Taylor sparring in call-and-response fashion with hammering drum fills and strumming softly on her guitar for almost two-and-a-half minutes before producer/drummer Lester Nuby II locks into a steady backbeat, and friend Browan Lollar and brother Macey Taylor enter the fray on guitar and bass respectively. Taylor throws a little synth solo into "Masterplan" for good measure, and yet somehow it all makes perfect sense — not a wasted note or cymbal crash.

Elsewhere, a skewed guitar line gives way to a dreamy pop chorus with Taylor proclaiming, "He was the chosen son/He was the chosen one/The pitiful deceit has just begun/I was the lucky one/I was the lucky one" — just the kind of line that's likely to have indie kids thinking she's still drawing on her break-up with Oberst for inspiration. Before the track ends, we're treated to nice little marimba solo and a noisy slide-guitar salvo from Browan.

Taylor returns to her acoustic roots for the short, bittersweet "Happenstance," a lullaby of sorts about a cold and lonely night in Alabama. But it's the southern accents that begin to come out on the jaunty, playful, mandolin-laced "Bad Idea?," and on the lightly countrified "This Could Be a Lifetime," which opens with Taylor "waiting at the Greyhound station. . . trying to change her pattern so I could love someone like you," that distinguish Overlook from her previous albums.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing particularly obscure, "difficult," or anything less than accessible here. Which only leads me to wonder why a Maria Taylor disc can't be considered a "big" release? Oh well, for now we'll just let the Chili Peppers hold down that end of things.

 

STEPHEN MALKMUS

Stephen Malkmus gets a little help from friend Beck on 'Mirror Traffic'

THE BURG STAFF
By: MATT ASHARE
Published: September 01, 2011

Nirvana were far from the only paramount band to come out of the ‘’90s underground.

In fact, surveying the current rock landscape, where an off-kilter Toronto band like Arcade Fire can win top honors at the Grammys and Portland’s brainy little band the Decemberists can debut at No. 1 on the "Billboard" charts, one could easily credit the lesser known but no less influential California-by-way-of-NYC band Pavement for having a bigger impact than even Nirvana on today’s odd state of the musical arts.

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

     Indeed, if the band’s lanky, unapologetically cryptic, often willfully obscure slacker of a frontman Stephen Malkmus didn’t exactly invent the idea of indie-rock as the smart-guy wing of the alternative nation, he certainly did more than anyone else to popularize the notion.

Malkmus, a UVa grad who led Pavement through five acclaimed albums from ’92 to ’99 before packing it in and moving to Portland, Ore., has quietly been recording and performing a raucous, jammy, guitar-centric brand of grown-up indie-rock with his band the Jicks since 2001.

      But, the singer/songwriter/guitarist’s solo work has largely been overshadowed by deluxe reissues of the Pavement catalogue and last year’s Pavement reunion tour. Chalk that up to Malkmus’ preferred method of songwriting — contorting a riff borrowed from a random tune, improvising lyrics on the spot, and delivering them with little concern for things like, oh, staying on pitch. Even back in the Pavement days he came within spitting distance of "radio-friendly" with only a handful of tracks: the chaotic yet melodic "Cut Your Hair" would be one, and the more laid-back, country-tinged "Range Life" would be, well, the other.

     Nevertheless, something clearly clicked when Malkmus, keyboardist Mike Clark, bassist Joanna Bolme, and former Sleater-Kinney/Quasi drummer Janet Weiss (who’s since been replaced by Jake Morris) entered the studio with Beck to record the new "Mirror Traffic."

Maybe it was Beck’s presence: of late he’s distinguished himself as a remarkably tasteful producer on albums by Marianne Faithfull and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Or perhaps the prospect of the Pavement reunion, which took place after "Mirror Traffic" was completed, simply put Malkmus in a more focused frame of mind. Either way, even Malkmus, in a recent press release, concedes with characteristic understatement, "this record is relatively approachable."

     Despite the rather formidable amount of ink that’s been spilled puzzling over Malkmus’ lyrics, he’s always been as much a guitar wonk as a wordsmith, a tendency that only became more pronounced when he started producing his recordings with the Jicks.

You can hear echoes of that on the new "Brain Gallop," a bluesy number rife with string-bending leads. But it’s one of only three of the 15 tracks here that surpasses the five-minute mark. And that’s a positive development.

     Beck’s never struck me as a particularly strong taskmaster, but it sure sounds as if someone inspired Malkmus to rein in his more avant inclinations and, instead, tap into his knack for marrying an inviting melody to intriguing/amusing free-form lyrics. "I caught you streaking in your Birkenstocks/A scary thought in the 2Ks," he sings on "Tigers," the disc’s hooky opening track, "Got enveloped in your sticker shock/I gotta tell you it’s a barrage/it’s a barrage/It’s a mirage." It sets the tone for what might be the first Malkmus album that won’t have casual fans skipping occasional bursts of noisy discord.

     Okay, "Mirror Traffic" does go out on an experimental limb on the ambient instrumental "Jumblegloss." But the track is a merciful minute and 13 seconds long. More typical are fully realized songs like the intimate, acoustic rumination "No One Is (As I Are Be)," where Malkmus hums along with a nice little trumpet solo, and the harder-rocking "Senator." The latter, with its references to American-made toxins, a cattle-prodded working class, and the illicit behavior of an unnamed elected official, is the most overtly political sing-along in the Malkmus canon.

     So, no, it wouldn’t be quite right to conclude that Malkmus has lost his edge, just as it would be a mistake to think that he’ll ever be an irony-free straight shooter. This isn’t so much a case of an old dog learning new tricks as him opting, at least for now, not to play quite so many cat-and-mouse games with his fans.