His back pages

Dambuilder Dave Derby is Brilliantine; Bim Skala Bim are Universal

by Brett Milano

On the surface, Brilliantine's Vainglory (on Chapel Hill's Hep-Cat label) is the latest in a seemingly endless string of good pop albums in the lo-fi, four-track, short-song vein. The catch is that Brilliantine isn't really a band; it's just one guy playing all the instruments. And the one guy is Dambuilders singer/bassist Dave Derby, who's released his solo debut with a surprising lack of fanfare.

If you gave the album a casual listen, you might not even realize a Dambuilder is behind it. With the Dambuilders' guitar/violin sound getting bigger all the time, Brilliantine's album takes a purer pop approach -- Derby pours on the hooks, plays down the solos, and pulls the timeless trick of matching good-feeling melodies with a downcast emotional tone (sure enough, he was breaking up a relationship when most of the songs were written). If you like the way Sebadoh and Guided by Voices screw with song/album structure, you'll find Derby doing something similar -- the songs move on after one verse and chorus, and he fits 17 of them into less than a half-hour. As usual when this is done well, it makes the album more of a piece: you can hear Vainglory as a bunch of short songs or as one long one.

"I was a fan of those bands [Sebadoh and GbV] before they started doing short songs," Derby explains from his current home in New York City. "I've always been attracted to brevity in songs -- I was always a huge fan of Wire and the Minutemen as well. A lot of the Brilliantine songs were little sketches, and I'm pretty bad at going back and finishing things. When I went back and listened, I realized they were already done." Like most solo projects, Brilliantine came about when Derby had a backlog of songs that were a little quieter and more personal than what the Dambuilders were doing. So why not release it as a solo album? "Partly for contractual reasons, partly because I thought Brilliantine was a great name for a band and I wanted to use it. And I didn't want to give people the wrong idea and make them think I wasn't doing the Dambuilders anymore."

Read between the lines and you can probably tell that Derby's life was in disarray when he wrote the Brilliantine songs. He moved from Boston to New York last year, but by a roundabout route whereby he first went to Taiwan to be with his girlfriend. He ultimately broke up with the girlfriend, after one of those soul-searching periods that inevitably lends itself to pop songwriting. "A lot of the lyrics were improvised, then I'd hear them later and think, `Hmmm, what am I saying?' There's something people always say about home recording, but it's basically true: when you're home and relaxed with the process of doing something, it's going to come out sounding more informal and more personal. It's a different feeling from being in the studio, putting lyrics in a notebook."

So what's with the Dambuilders? The band have been unusually quiet lately, and guitarist Eric Masunaga is the only member still living in Boston. Drummer Kevin March has joined Shudder To Think (he'll be on their next album and tour); violinist Joan Wasser is pursuing various side projects, including the Shudder To Think spinoff Mind Science of the Mind. Meanwhile the Dambuilders' third album for Elektra is long overdue; it's now scheduled for a July release. In contrast to the last album, Ruby Red, which was made in two weeks with expensive producer Don Gehman, the new album was produced by the band and recorded over eight months; U2 associate Robbie Adams is doing the final mixes.

Ruby Red went for a straight-out rock sound that worked musically but backfired commercially (at least in America -- it sold well in Australia). So Derby makes it no secret that the new, as-yet-untitled album is a make-or-break proposition for the band. "Ruby Red was a pretty hard experience, but the fact that it sold in Australia convinced us that we weren't insane. To me the new one's successful already because it's good -- I love it, actually, I think there are some beautiful orchestral moments in it. We were conscious of writing singles, but I think it works as an album. It's totally us, solid pop rock, and there are some definite disco moments as well." Disco moments? "Yeah, we've always been into disco. There's some serious butt-shaking going on."

Brilliantine's already played one local show, at the Middle East last Valentine's Day -- a show that Derby apologizes for, since his drum machine was going berserk. He'll be back to play the same venue on April 25 (opening for Archers of Loaf), when his back-up will include members of Fuzzy plus some of the folks who've sat in for Brilliantine gigs in New York -- among them Magnetic Fields/Lazy Susan drummer Claudia Gonson and, if he can make the gig, guest star Lloyd Cole on keyboards.

BIM SKALA BIM

My usual complaint about Bim Skala Bim's studio albums is that they sound too clean and don't shake booty the way the band do on stage. With the new Universal (their sixth studio album, on their own BiB label), that problem's finally been remedied. The sound here is a little rougher and sweatier and more guitar-driven. Although this doesn't replace 1994's Live at the Paradise as Bim Skala Bim's best album, it's the closest they've come to matching that one in the studio. And they've pushed their punk-ska side a little more upfront, which can't be a bad move nowadays.

"We've been doing punk ska since the first album," singer Dan Vitale points out. "Our influences have been set since the beginning; but we do listen to everything, and we really like a lot of the new bands. People like Rancid and the Bosstones are breaking new ground, and so are we. I was definitely shooting for a raw sound, though, trying not to be as picky as we've been in the past. It's the first time I recorded with a hand-held mike, so I could jump around the way I do on stage. And we didn't have a percussionist this time, so the world-beat influence wasn't there as much."

The album's better songs give a tweak to Bim's hippie/Rasta image. "Talk, Talk and Talk" is about overdrinking, but not necessarily against it ("We've been on the road 12 years, so it's something we've gone in and out of," Vitale says). The album-opening "Pete Needs a Friend" appears to be a sympathetic song about a misfit, but they have something less innocent in mind. "The original title was `Dick Needs a Friend,' Vitale points out, "and it's about the little mind inside your penis. Just pointing out that it has its own personality and you could get into trouble if you always let it do what it wants." The band have their disc-release party this Saturday, the 29th, at the Middle East.

AEROSMITH PARTY

What's the world coming to when Aerosmith can't throw a great album-release party at their own club? In a surprising move, they chose to celebrate the release of Nine Lives -- their first new album since Mama Kin opened, in 1994 -- with a New York bash instead. The NYC event appeared to be a major splurge -- they had strippers, sword swallowers, and fire eaters (Perry Farrell, call your office). But there were some grumblings that Aerosmith made hometown fans a lower priority this time. If you won tickets to Mama Kin by being one of the first 500 people to buy the album at Tower last week, all you got was admission to watch the New York event on video simulcast (like, after signing a reported $50 million deal with Sony, they couldn't at least spring for pizza?).

The atmosphere was fairly sedate inside Mama Kin, where the band's New York performance went on 90 minutes later than scheduled -- by then, some of the winners had realized that if they wanted to see Aerosmith on TV, they could wait three days for Saturday Night Live. Before that, the broadcast was MCed by a relentless VJ type who kept plugging the album (everyone in the club had already bought it, remember?) and assuring us what a great time everyone in New York was having. After one of the circus performers did his thing, the host noted, "They had a guy here swallowing screwdrivers!" We headed to the bar in hopes of doing the same.

RED TELEPHONE SIGNED

Here's a major-label signing that nobody's supposed to know about yet. Artful popsters the Red Telephone have signed to Warner Brothers and will be recording a debut album this year. Their only release so far has been an indie single, which shows the textured sound and abstract lyrics one might expect from a band named after an Arthur Lee song.

COMING UP

Ace songwriter Steve Wynn has a new album in the can; he'll perform it tonight (Thursday) at T.T. the Bear's Place on a strong bill with Long River Train, Eric Martin's Illyrians, and Mark Cutler. Todd Thibaud hits the House of Blues; One of Us and Opium Den play the Paradise and Splashdown are at Bill's Bar . . . Vinyl are at Mama Kin tomorrow (Friday), Roadsaw play the Rat, Groovasaurus begin two nights at Harpers Ferry, latter-day Temptations singer Ollie Woodson begins two nights at Scullers, and Beatlejuice are at Johnny D's . . . The Strangemen and Seks Bomba play the Middle East upstairs Saturday while Bim are downstairs; Kim Deal brings her new Breeders to the Paradise (show up early for underrated popster Brendan Benson), Matt Guitar Murphy is at the House of Blues, Waiting Kates are at the Attic, and Dub Station are at Mama Kin . . . The Softies hit the Middle East Sunday . . . The mighty Kenne Highland celebrates his birthday at Club Bohemia on Wednesday; expect a gathering of the troops with John Felice, the Lyres, and others.