‘Put on your boogie shoes’ An interview with Tim DeLaughter of the Polyphonic Spree

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There is nothing conventional about the Polyphonic Spree. Sonically they throw down with as many as 22 members simultaneously jamming, dancing and prancing about while creating layered grooves that are part gospel choir, part indie rock show and part cultish love-fest.

What appears initially to be completely chaotic is actually a well-organized machine that brings together a diverse blend of musical elements, including a choir and dense instrumentation. Since their inception, the Spree has carved a niche for themselves by bringing their musical carousel of mayhem and insanity to smaller and intimate venues.

Tim DeLaughter, who formed the band in 2000 from the ashes of his previous band Tripping Daisy embraces the chaos. Besides being a working and touring musician, DeLaughter runs his own and record store, Good Records, in Dallas.

Although they are in the midst of a spring tour, the Polyphonic Spree is not promoting a new album in the traditional sense. Instead they are again eschewing convention by releasing new songs as a series of singles first before going the traditional route of releasing a proper full album. This current tour, their first in four years, incorporates this new material into their set list.

In addition to making three albums they also have judicially placed their songs in various televisions shows and movies to maximize exposure. They have just released a new single called “What Would You Do?” and a new album is promised down the road.

I caught up with DeLaughter by email, and he shared his thoughts on the band, its live shows, a possible new record and creative process.

Rob Levy: How did the band come about?

Tim DeLaughter: I called some friends and family over. I had been writing on the piano because I was bored with guitar. We were storing the piano for a friend. I wanted a symphonic approach, and after a few improv sessions in my living room we played a 30 minute set.

How has this tour been going?

Really great. This is phase three. Tours have progressed naturally, getting better and better each show.

How do the songs on your records transfer over to a live show?

There is definitely a certain excitement and tone when playing live that can be difficult to capture in the studio. We build in many segues and space within our live set when possible. [They are] two different animals.

You are doing a Halloween show in the UK with all the songs from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” How did that come about?

We have been wanting to change it up a bit and do different things. Our agent in the UK came up with the idea. So we said yes.

What is the music scene like in Dallas right now?

There is always plenty going on. Something new, something different, eclectic.

It has been four years since the last tour. How has the band changed in that time?

We actually toured Australia a couple of years ago and have played several one off shows so it’s been a gradual evolution which is different than just being off for four years. If anything I believe we are more precise and have reached a place of full satisfaction delivery with our music live and with more purpose. Recording wise we are really exploring.

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Posted by | May 8, 2012 | Interviews | Comment 

Concert review: The Cave Singers (with Bo and the Locomotive) preach a folk-rock revolution at the Gramophone, Wednesday, April 18

Kate McDaniel

Bo and the Locomotive started the night off at the Gramophone with a swinging, mostly instrumental tune. From song one, I realized that the tall, guitar-wielding Bo Bulawsky and his band aren’t into rushing a melody.

The band stylistically tiptoes around the edge of early 2000s indie rock and earnest Midwestern folk. Recently named number one in Paste magazine’s “Top 10 Missouri Bands You Should Know,” the St. Louis locals had a lot to live up to. True to their reputation, Bo and the Locomotive did not disappoint my first chance to catch their live set.

The power of Bo and the Locomotive comes through in the voice and songwriting of Bulawsky. His broken-heart crooning and spacious song structuring serves to bring a listener close, before breaking out of the gloom with energetically rocking outros. Atmospheric and lyrically painful, “I’m Not Your House” found Bulawsky drawling through his declaration whilst his band held him up with well-placed swells. “Darling” showed the band’s inclination towards rainy reverb pop. Stand out sing-a-long “On My Way” purveyed the band’s vocal layering, strengthened by many voices offstage joining in. The simple progression of the song served to further accentuate the ability of the band to juice every ounce of power from each chord.

After taking a shot of whiskey with the band to kick off the set closer, Bulawsky proclaimed in a new song that “if the grass is greener, I don’t see in color.” This battle for attaining hopefulness runs through Bulawksy’s lyrics and noticeably affects the mood of his songs. That doesn’t mean the music is in the least bit of a downer — it’s the opposite. Bulawksy’s attempt to free himself from past issues onstage produces an extra layer of connection with the audience. Whether that’s shown through the band’s penchant for catchy lines or hiding the pain with energetic stage personas, it works.

“We’re on a mission from God,” the Cave Singers front man Pete Quirk announced halfway through their rollicking electric folk set. Throughout the night, the Cave Singers gave off a ’60s spiritualist vibe. With Eastern instrumental sampling and the presence of plenty of alternative percussion (bongos, tambourines, and even a washboard made an appearance), their set felt more like a communal celebration than a concert.

Within that, the three Seattle music scene veterans radiated showmanship. Guitarist Derek Fudesco (formerly of Pretty Girls Make Graves and Murder City Devils) fingerpicks riffs that sound like they appeared in a vision during an all-night front-porch jam. A little bit of the blues found its way into the veins of Fudesco for “No Prosecution If We Bail.” Drummer Marty Lund provided rhythms meant for stomping along to, which is exactly what the audience did on the conveniently wooden floors of the Gramophone.

Most of the set consisted of songs off their most recent album “No Witch,” like “All Land Crabs and Divinity Ghosts” and “Clever Creatures.” A smiling Quirk danced about while preaching his lyrics: “Send me away in this evening sun/on a boat of my branches in the world’s dark hum.” “Swim Club,” in contrast, sounded like it was coming through an old radio, gracefully complimented by Quirk’s guitar work. “Seeds of Night” off 2007′s “Invitation Songs” gently rolled off of Fudesco’s hollow body guitar.

After performing a 12-song set, the Cave Singers reclaimed the stage for two more, closing with “Dancing on Our Graves.” The crowd approved, whooping, clapping and stomping to the marching beat of the closer. With the enthusiasm of those offstage and the mythical quality of the Cave Singers on stage, the performance could have easily taken place in a barn 50 years ago.

Just as Quirk had announced, the night had a spiritual quality set to music. Bo and the Locomotive’s bitter musings through fairly open folk rock contrasted the Cave Singer’s cheerful rootsy rock in the best way. While Bulawsky exorcised his demons out on stage, Quirk ran from his with a wink and a rebel yell.

Posted by | April 19, 2012 | Concerts | Comment 

Book review: Alina Simone discovers that ‘You Must Go and Win’

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Alina Simone
“You Must Go and Win”
Faber & Faber

By her own admission in the essay collection “You Must Go and Win,” Alina Simone has a very small fan base, and that fan base is comprised mostly of depressed Jews. Not a terrible fan base to have in my opinion, as it could potentially include Larry David, Woody Allen or pre-dental veneers Ben Stiller.

It’s true that she has mostly toiled in obscurity, conceding to losing more money on touring than she’s made, being verbally dressed down by music publicists and basking greedily in her sole success, “Everyone Is Crying Out to Me, Beware,” a collection of covers originally recorded by Siberian punk singer Yanka Dyagileva and released 17 years after Yanka’s death by suicide. The album is in Russian, which may be too much for a casual listener but makes sense for Simone, whose family fled Ukraine when she was a child after her parents were blacklisted by the KGB.

While life has not been exactly sunny for Simone, she does write about it with a plucky, “well, what can you do” sort of attitude that has carried her from her birthplace of Kharkov, Ukraine to the Boston suburbs to — in an order that is not entirely clear — Austin, North Carolina and Brooklyn.

This attitude and Simone’s dark sense of humor were inherited from her parents. Her father is the thoughtful, quietly funny physicist Alexander Vilenkin. Her mother, on the other hand, is hilariously abrasive and dismisses any idea that Ukraine is a sentimental motherland by saying, “Now maybe you will know what a godforsaken hole we rescued you from” when Simone tells her that she plans on traveling to Kharkov. Like many Russian immigrants of their day, Simone’s parents are ruthlessly hard workers, intellectual over achievers, and kind of befuddled over their daughter’s insistence on being a musician.

Simone shares this befuddlement sometimes, such as when she finds herself subletting a flea-infested futon in a bizarrely-sectioned loft apartment, having a humiliating meeting with a producer she found on Craigslist, and road tripping with her childhood friend Amanda Palmer, who Simone recognizes has the sort of ambition, guile, and talent to be exactly as famous as she wants to be.

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Posted by | April 3, 2012 | Culture, Local | Comment 

Concert review: Sharon Van Etten and the War on Drugs get up close and personal at the Luminary, Saturday, March 31

Sharon Van Etten at the Luminary in St. Louis, March 31, 2012

Kate McDaniel

I’ll be the first to admit that I was definitely 100% more interested in seeing the War on Drugs Saturday night at the Luminary Center for the Arts than headliner, Sharon Van Etten.

After all was heard and done though, my memories of last night’s show will be dominated by Van Etten’s voice, both smoky and clear, always confident and honest. In the middle of a tour promoting her third album, “Tramp,” she brought some friends along — Mr. Doug Keith played bass, Ms. Heather Woods Broderick lent her voice and a deft hand on the guitar and drummer, and Mr. Zeke Hutchins gave us thunder.

Dreamy. This is my initial gut reaction to the sound of the War on Drugs, who began the show over an hour later than originally announced. This is not to say that dreamy means light. Definitely not. There were moments when it sounded like the guitar was at one end of the tunnel and it was sending heavy notes bouncing and careening toward the other end. There were also marathon interludes where each instrument would stand its ground then graciously back off for its neighbor to come to the forefront. Their set was comprised of little mini epics; a cover of the Water Boys was very well received by the crowd. 

Andrew Granduciel’s voice has been described as Springsteenesque but Dylan’s cadence came through more to me. But maybe the harmonica had something to do with that. The band’s closer was a long, winding, tug of warm featuring a lone trumpet which was both melancholy and hopeful, a perfect segue to co-headliner Sharon Van Etten. 

Van Etten is like that cool friend who moves away after high school and does some really awesome shit, shit that she always said she’d do, then comes back for a long weekend visit and is exactly the same cool friend you remember, only with better stories. She bantered with the crowd between songs, easily engaging in whatever random conversation happened to materialize. One guy in the audience persisted in asking both War on Drugs and Sharon Van Etten what type of cheese they were. War on Drug’s lead singer, Adam Granduciel, played along announcing that he’d be gouda, but pronouncing it ‘how-da’ for extra, dramatic effect. Sharon’s response? Anything funky. Or dill havarti.

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Posted by | April 2, 2012 | Concerts | Comment 

Concert review: A tour-tested Delta Spirit (with Waters) comes up rock ‘n’ roll aces at the Old Rock House, Tuesday, March 20

Delta Spirit at the Old Rock House in St. Louis, March 20, 2012

Kate McDaniel

When the buzz surrounding a band is in the air the electricity is palpable. Last night at the Old Rock House, high excitement ensued as Delta Spirit had the St. Louis audience thoroughly humming in unison.

Last summer Delta Spirit opened for My Morning Jacket at the Pageant giving them entry to a whole new group of fans. As their third self-titled album hit the street within the last week, the 25-35 year old St. Louis fan base knew what was up and came out to support the band on this headlining date. Evidenced by the audience crowding on to the floor as the band was about to take the stage, leaving the middle and rear sections of the venue sparser. The smokers, lounging outside on the patio furniture, crowded around side doors to the patio just off the floor to get a good view and enjoy the evening.

As the San Diego-based group began their set around 9:20 p.m., they started with “Empty House,” the lead track of their new album. Fresh off their trip to Austin for SXSW and playing only their second show of the tour, the band was bathed in incandescent light from their brand new light rig. The display contains four large black triangles in the form of a larger overall triangle with large round lights mounted down each leg of the triangles. The band’s back lit setup gave warmth to the stage and stood in stark contrast to venue’s own house set up of LED lights.

Early in the set Vasquez, appreciative of the crowd’s early energy, said, “It’s great to be back in St. Louis.” He continued by pointing out a 6 or 7-year-old girl in attendance calling her the “cutest girl in the audience — she is so cute. Every song is for you tonight.” The girl, sitting on the shoulders of her dad near the sound board, beamed as she clapped along to the songs.

Vasquez’s warm, singular-sounding voice meshes well with the music the band creates. Luckily, the electric piano of Kelly Winrich was high in the mix to counter the guitar tones of Vasquez and William McLaren. Drummer Brandon Young plays with a wild, loose abandon of a lead instrument that only works as Jon Jameson’s bass holds things together.

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Posted by | March 21, 2012 | Concerts | Comment 

Concert review: 1,2,3 (with the Mhurs) deliver grand and dignified set at a near empty Gramophone, Monday, March 12

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The Gramophone stood oddly vacant when I strode into opener Andy Garces’ Nintendo-DS focused set. The one-man-band dropped Mario Kart-esque electronica with a swipe of the stylus and crooned nerd ballads into the microphone as he stood with DS in hand.
 
I kept asking myself, “Did I wake up in the future? Did I stumble into the wrong club?” The doorman assured me 1,2,3 would be on eventually as I sipped on my dishrag-tasting, Bloody Mary. “All Spark” was the highlight of Garces’ set and dealt with the Transformers’ more emotional difficulties with the Deceptacons. Garces had to shut down his self-supplied smoke machine when its fogged blasts triggered the Gramophone’s smoke alarm.
 
The Mhurs rocked face. Even though the club was deader than a fly-addled horse corpse in the New Mexican sun, Jon Maguire and company did not slack or phone in one bit. Carter Mckee’s guitar playing strode up and down octaves as Maguire sang over its studied meandering. Drummer, Ryan Jefferies piled into fills and sang into a microphone positioned next to his drum set. Belleville’s the Mhurs are not to be missed. Catch them for a booze-sodden, diligent approach to indie power with the smallest tinge of Kings of Leon.
 
1,2,3 finished up a pizza they had ordered from the bar and started setting up their equipment. Wires threaded into pedals and then in turn into preamps and guitars, basses, boards and synths. I felt bad about how much effort 1,2,3 put forth, especially for such a low turnout, but ’tis the life of a musician, I suppose.
 
1,2,3 opened with “Work,” the second single off 2011′s “New Heaven.” The song gained energy like an Animal Collective tune high on exuberant drum crashes and diligent electric guitar picking. Snyder’s vocals broke the instrumental spell with falsetto and a satisfying nasal timbre.
 
“Going Away Party” opened like a disco fire in the seventies. Chad Monticue supported the super-charged guitar lick by shaking sleigh bells during the drop-time section. “Scared, But Not That Sacred” unwound like a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah tune. Snyder’s vocals cracked beautifully as guitarist Mike Yamamoto offered up back-up vocals.
 
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Posted by | March 13, 2012 | Concerts | Comment 

Concert review: Pomegranates (with Men Working in Trees, Library Voices and the Lighthouse and the Whaler) return fully ripe to the Firebird, Sunday, March 11

Pomegranates at the Firebird in St. Louis, March 11, 2012

Pomegranates at the Firebird. Photo by Jamie DeVillez.

On the way to SXSW, a slew of bands stopped by the Firebird to sow some new spring seeds and leave some tasty arils. Pomegranates headlined an artsy-rock heavy lineup of bands local, national and Canadian.

Possibly tuning up longer than they had time to play, I watched Men Working in Trees working on instruments that used to be trees. When finally tuned, they pumped out bright indie pop with rude-boy walking bass lines, which would held portent for the night. About midway through the set the lead singer regretted not having any “things” at the merch booth. Having “things” is very important to the economic part of being a band. Not only does it get you additional money, but it also gets you renown. It’s what makes the record turn.

However, “things” contrast with consumerism moderne where you pare down a CD collection, vinyl, photographs, notebooks and relationships into a single device. Anytime you can follow your brain on a path like that, there’s some good music underscoring it. So, in that sense, they were almost a religious experience.

After the locals the seven-piece ensemble that is Library Voices took the over the stage. On their way to SXSW from Canada, St. Louis was the furthest south they had ever ventured. Despite not playing any ska at all they somehow got the crowd skanking. Yes, that reads skanking and should
be interpreted as skanking hard. Even the guy with the five-toed Vibram shoes kept going after getting goose-stepped on.

The Lighthouse and the Whaler were next in line to inherit the stage and running-man crowd. It has to be difficult to create resplendently-soaring music on top of a driving beat when you have two violins. The Ohioans somehow did so. Next to the drummer sat an additional floor tom, snare and tambourine. These were steadily wielded with the speed of propellers. Stable melodies took residence like Venice over a mercurial foundation of rhythm.

It was hard to tell if the crowd had gotten smaller or if everyone was just standing closer together by the time Pomegranates took the stage. Cute may not be the right word to describe Pomegranates, but it’s the first word that comes to mind when you see their adorable boyish faces
and pink guitar. Their looks did not betray their sound, but they did belie the amount of power Pomegranates can breed. Though the crowd was small, the energy was plentiful. By encore time, the venue stunk of a 20-year-old locker room.

Heavy on reverb and retro, Pomegranates brought cassettes as one of their “things” that were available for only a limited time. But then again, isn’t everything only available for a limited time?

See more photos from the show.

Posted by | March 12, 2012 | Concerts | Comment 

Concert review and set list: Laura Gibson, radiant and unfurled, at the Gramophone, Saturday, March 10

Laura Gibson at the Gramophone in St. Louis, March 10, 2012

Meghan McGlynn

I’m sorry to all of you who missed the massive performance of Laura Gibson at the Gramophone last night. And by “all of you,” I mean quite literally all of you (minus the 30-or-so of us that had the phenomenal fortune to hear her play).

And by “massive,” I mean that quite literally as well — do not be fooled by the fact that her too-quiet performance at 2008′s SXSW inspired NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concerts” (apparently after being drowned out by “the din of a yappy crowd,” the two NPR music reporters present requested she give a private do-over at their office in D.C. three weeks later, just so they could hear her).

I may have a personal aversion to all-things, as I call them, “tippy-toed” (for example, the sugary cuteness of monikers like “friendlies,” “autumn song-singers,” “accidental stumble-uponers,” and, the too too cute “snowbunnies,” as she addresses her blog-readers), but do not be fooled by her elven preciousness: Laura Gibson and her accompanying musicians radiate a sound and an energy with an orchestral power that is truly worthy of a concert hall. Yes, massive.

I will not bore you by listing my musical pedigree, as I don’t have one, having abandoned my own musical training years ago (perhaps it was the trauma from the sudden and unexpected death of the nun who endeavored to teach my third-grade self how to play the piano, just minutes before my lesson, or perhaps I was just, well, unequipped); but in my pedestrian characterization, I would describe Laura Gibson’s voice as deep, unique and edgy; metallic, but not tinny; range-capable and fully rounded out with a touch of the bluesy — something I think all good lady singers need.

Even if her voice was more common or less hauntingly lovely (which is not the case), her band mates would surely make up for any dearth of richness. Her pianist / horn player John Whaley has the ability to grow tiny blips into ascending towers of sound (complete with the most beautiful trumpet notes weaving insistently in and out of the songs, rising over and winding through the many layers of instrumentation and vocals).

And her drummer is unique as well, exploiting his bass drum and swelling the crash cymbal to the outer limits of the venue. And rather than continue with the perhaps ill-informed accolades, I will merely assure you the same is true for the rest of the group. I cannot imagine a solo Laura Gibson’s nuanced vocalizing getting lost anywhere, even amid the din of a yappy SXSW crowd, but with these musicians surrounding her, there was no missing the ample talent last night… well, unless you weren’t there! (Then again, with the expansive sounds of Laura and her mates, there might not have been room for you!) But I am sorry if you missed it.

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Posted by | March 11, 2012 | Concerts | Comment 

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