Progressions

Space rock signed pop, new noise

by Brett Milano

Is it still progressive for a band to play progressive rock? This kind of spacy, keyboard-driven music peaked in the mid '70s; and save for a few isolated blips -- like Banco de Gaia's tenuous connection to Pink Floyd or Smashing Pumpkins' increasing resemblance to Rush -- prog rock doesn't seem to be coming back into fashion. Now that the '90s has thrown up its own kind of spacy, keyboard-driven music -- electronica, which relies more on loops and punk attitude than on free jams and sci-fi -- there's even less inducement for a band to go back to prog.

Unless, of course, they truly love that kind of music, as Architectural Metaphor do. Keyboardist Paul Eggleston and singer/drummer Deb Young have led various incarnations of the western-Massachusetts band since their early-'80s student days (guitarist Greg Kozlowski now completes the group). But they're less a revival band than an original one who've stuck around. With a second CD just out (Creature of the Velvet Void, on Black Widow) and national dates on the way, ArcMet's profile is the highest it's been. But their allegiance to their '70s role models -- notably Hawkwind, Amon Duul II, and Faust (all from the extreme abstract wing of prog rock, rather than the Yes/Genesis pop wing) -- keeps them safely out of the mainstream.

"If we're retro, we're emulating a style that's always looked to the future, so the two counteract each other," Eggleston observes over coffee at Cambridge's 1369 Coffeehouse. "The bands we love were always futuristic in their vision, so there can't be any nostalgia there." And the oft-maligned term "space rock" (not to mention "krautrock," which the '70s German bands took as a compliment) is one he doesn't mind embracing. "I figure that it can be outer space or inner space. Anything that can take you out of the mundanities of the real world is a treasure."

Still, the new CD sports an earthier tone than its predecessor, 1995's Odysseum Galacti. This one shows a more lyrical touch ("Kairos" puts a fluid guitar run over a primitive sequencer pattern, echoing Tangerine Dream's best moments). At times (notably the opening, organ-and-drum-driven "Creature") it even rocks. And Young, whose vocals always took a back seat in the past, is becoming a proper chanteuse -- notably on a cover of the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties," which captures the feel of the original despite the different instrumentation (the other cover, "Golden Void," is a quarter-hour Hawkwind epic). They've still got the thrill of discovery that prog is all about. But by upping the volume, making more of Young's voice, and paying lip service to song structure, ArcMet are willing to meet their audience at least a third of the way.

"We want to take our synthesizers and put 'em in people's faces," is how Eggleston puts it. "We're looking to grip people the way punk rock did in '77, to challenge the way you think of musicians and audience. Let's take those multiple-piercing, multiple-tattoos, bad-attitude kids and shatter their preconceptions."

Does he think electronica's already done that? "I guess I have to speak out of two mouths, being part of that movement [with his side band, Bionaut]. It's interesting, trying to create a new kind of music out of thin air the way hip-hop did. But I wonder whether electronica is something you can sit down and listen to later, or whether it's something you can hear only on a dance floor."

ArcMet are now gearing up to play the massive "Strange Daze" festival this Saturday and Sunday in Sherman, New York (located midway between Rochester and Cleveland, about eight hours from Boston). With a national cast of space-rock bands and "possible UFO flyovers," the festival will represent the next step into the ether after Terrastock -- though without the pop bands who played that Providence event earlier this year. What has proggers drooling is the likelihood that Hawkwind will headline, and that both dueling Hawkwind factions -- the official band led by singer/guitarist Dave Brock, and the renegade one with woodwinds player Nik Turner -- will appear together for the first time ever. In some circles, this is bigger than a Beatles reunion -- especially since the "Strange Daze" people have also contacted Hawkwind's most famous alumnus, Lemmy Kilmister, who was kicked out in 1975 for doing too many drugs (the mind boggles) and formed Motörhead soon after. Rehearsals with Lemmy are tentatively in the works, though he hasn't officially committed yet.

Events like "Strange Daze" should give prog some legitimacy, as Terrastock did for psychedelia. "I think it will at least bring an inkling to people that there is something ready to break through. Record companies are looking to save themselves in the wake of grunge. They've done Hanson and Radish, and how far can they go with bands that don't shave yet?"

If the companies come around, ArcMet will be ready. "We've stuck with this music since the early '80s, even though we weren't musicians yet; we were just sponges soaking it up. Now we're ready to drip."

TALKING TO ANIMALS.

If a band ever deserved to have the last laugh it's Talking to Animals. Last year at about this time, they were geared up to release Manhole, their long-awaited, long-planned, long-delayed Columbia Records debut. Then the label dropped them just weeks before the album's scheduled release, leaving them with a scrapped tour, a fine album tied up in litigation, and the future looking bleak.

This week Talking to Animals signed a new deal with Velvel -- the new label owned by former Columbia honcho Walter Yetnikoff. They join a small but solid label roster that includes Southern rocker Michelle Malone, Smithereens leader Pat DiNizio, and, according to rumors, Kinks frontman Ray Davies. Their first release, tentatively set for November, will be the very same Manhole album that was supposed to be out a year ago.

Not that lead singer Juliana Nash is preparing for any big blowouts when I catch her by phone at her adopted New York home. "We were going to go out to dinner and celebrate, but we decided not to bother," she says in a very unenthused voice. "My feelings are more like `yay.' It's like falling in love; you have to put a screen up. I let myself get excited about Columbia, and that really hurt me. I'll probably feel different when the record's finally on the shelf."

In fact Yetnikoff's label had courted Talking to Animals before the band signed with Columbia, and he was still looking to sign them after the deal fell through. "We played a gig the night we got dropped, and Walter's son came up and said, `Hey, why don't you sign with us now?' But I was too emotional then, so all I could do was start crying. Fortunately, the lawyers at Columbia felt so bad for us that they let us have our record back. So that's the long life of Manhole."

Work on the Velvel signing began soon after; but Nash says that most of the money they're getting will go into tour support rather than the bandmembers' pockets. "It's not a big-money deal; we didn't ask for a lot. I'm still slinging hash in SoHo."

Will they now be sending a fruit basket to Columbia? "God, no. We're just trying to get our feet back on the ground, because it all was harder on us than we expected. I now understand why bands break up."

During the downtime Nash wrote enough material for the next Talking to Animals album, but there aren't any nasty songs about their old label on it. "I refuse to go down that road. If you think too much about the music industry, you just go insane."

DAVIESS COUNTY PANTHERS

Sometimes a good album will slip through your fingers, especially if the band don't go out of their way to promote it. Such was the case with the Daviess County Panthers' Je N'Aime Pas Beaucoup Ma Gamelle, which quietly skibbled out on Sonic Bubblegum three months ago. The Panthers are nominally a new band, even though their two principals, singer Suzette Fontaine and guitarist Mike Hibarger (also the label owner), were both members of the Tulips, a band who pissed off as many people as they attracted -- largely because they sounded so pissed off themselves. Hibarger never met a minor chord he didn't like, and Fontaine's voice was a perpetual snarl, as if she just wished someone would take the damn microphone away.

The only real difference between their new disc and a Tulips album is in the recording. Steve Albini puts extreme close-ups on the bass drum and on Hibarger's pick slicing on the strings. The overall sound isn't far from the earlier, dronier phase of Come. But Thalia Zedek never exuded as much bad temper as Fontaine does here. "1991" tears a punk know-it-all to shreds; "The Weaker Sex" expresses repulsion at the very idea of desire; "Leave the Lights On" is about an assault that could be imagined or real. Like the two Tulips albums, this sounds desperate, cathartic, and, oddly enough, fun.

COMING UP

Tonight (Thursday), rockin' surfers Tidal Wave are at Mama Kin, January and Ass Tractor are at T.T.'s, and the Hornets and Ape Hangers are at the Linwood. Request "Put the Oak Ridge Boys in the Slammer" when the Austin Lounge Lizards play Johnny D's . . . Friday, it's alterna-pop heaven at the Middle East with Yo La Tengo downstairs and Tsunami upstairs; the Dandy Warhols and Polara are at T.T.'s, and Club Bohemia goes country with the Darlings and the Wheelers & Dealers . . . On Saturday it's dark-rock heaven at the Middle East with Come downstairs and the Geraldine Fibbers upstairs. Big Jack Johnson is at the House of Blues, and if you're going to Great Woods for Jimmy Buffett, look for Boston surf aliens the Strangemen on the second stage . . . Exene Cervenkova fronts her new Auntie Christ downstairs at the Middle East on Sunday . . . Tuesday brings Mistle Thrush and the Sterlings to Bill's Bar; meanwhile the Dambuilders play their first gig since their album release at the Middle East . . . And the respectable Insane Clown Posse are at the Paradise Wednesday.