Seeing the Wolf

Plus Moving Targets & a Peer Group event

by Brett Milano

A few years back, I ran into We Saw the Wolf leader Andy Nagy at two shows within the same week. Nothing unusual there, except that the two shows were Steeleye Span and Wire -- and there weren't a lot of people in town who'd be equally excited to see an English folk-rock outfit and a band of postpunk legends.

That pretty much explains where Nagy's coming from. First formed nearly a decade ago, We Saw the Wolf (whose name is an English idiom meaning "We lost our virginity") were part of a wave of bands inspired equally by punk and traditional music -- the list would include the Drovers in Minneapolis, the Walkabouts in Seattle, more recently Cordelia's Dad in Northampton. What they all shared was a certain bloodthirsty approach to folk music: they wanted to keep the traditional songs from sounding too precious, and if that meant juicing up the guitars, sticking cuss words into the lyrics, and killing off half the characters, so much the better.

"There's nothing like a good murder ballad," Nagy explains over coffee at Cambridge's 1369. Sprawled asleep over a bench next to him is the band's youngest occasional member, his six-year-old son, Jamie, who makes a couple vocal appearances on the band's CD On the Shore (on their own Undying Fire label). "Folk music has more angst and energy than people give it credit for," Nagy continues. "If you tell people you're a Celtic band, they expect that mystic new-age thing. But you look at the traditional songs that have been around for centuries, there's a lot of blood and guts in them, and those are the songs that jump out if you look through books of traditional ballads. We like the stories and the universal emotion, and that's what it has in common with punk -- that energy and immediacy."

Nagy knows his folk, having hosted WBRS's Black Jack Davy Show for a whopping 23 years and counting (he started in high school); he may also be the only man alive who had John Cunningham, the great Irish fiddler who was in Boston's Raindogs for a time, play "Hava Nagila" at his wedding (you won't hear that on the CD, though Cunningham does appear). He maintains a day job in a hospital psychiatric unit, and that setting has found its way into a few songs: "Maddy," from the CD, is a rewrite of the Fairport Convention tune "Matty Groves," with a new lyric about a woman he's worked with, who responded to parental abuse by developing multiple personalities. Although not quite as grisly as the Fairport lyric (in which two people get killed), the new words put the spookiness of those old ballads into a more modern context.

Compiling eight years' worth of sessions and cassette releases by a half-dozen different line-ups, On the Shore was meant as a farewell gesture; but since Nagy's recently relaunched the band, it marks a comeback effort as well. The approach varies a lot from one line-up to another. Sometimes We Saw the Wolf sound like psychotic folkies ("Looking for You," a love song to a severed head played at hardcore speed, features the year's most unlikely flute solo); at others they come close to alternative pop (singer/bassist Karen Harris, who led them in this direction, now fronts the pop group Edith). "So Beautiful" sounds oddly like the Violent Femmes, obsessive love theme and all; and "Chills" is based on a dream Nagy had about the Australian band of that name. Working against the usual folk-rock pattern, he gives himself some of the gentler lyrics to sing and turns the snarling stuff over to the two female singers, Harris and Renee Duncan.

There's an element of '70s folk rock: "The Laily Worm" and "The Farmer of Chester's Daughter" both rock up traditional tunes the way Fairport or Steeleye might. But their eccentricity was there from the start: the 1989 track "The Sun" has lyrics recalling sun-worshipping hymns but sticks the surf oldie "Pipeline" into the guitar solo. It's a musical in-joke that works, especially since the beach is as good a place to "see the wolf" as any.

MOVING TARGETS

Whenever a band make it through a few incarnations, diehard fans always seem to claim that the first line-up was the best -- witness the recent hoopla over the original X's reunion. A local equivalent might be Moving Targets, who emerged from Boston's early-'80s hardcore circuit with an urgent mix of punk and pop. Like X, Moving Targets had a perfectly good line-up that survived into the '90s; but fans were evidently holding out for a reunion of the original: singer/guitarist Ken Chambers, bassist Pat Leonard, and long-departed drummer Pat Brady. That's the trio who will perform at the Linwood tomorrow (Friday) for their first show in 12 years, and possibly their last ever.

"It's not a big dramatic thing; for me it just feels like fun," Chambers says. The reunion was devised in honor of the local fanzine Suburban Voice, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this month (the anniversary issue includes a flexidisc of an unreleased live Targets track). "I thought it might be a good time to try this, because none of us is getting any younger. We just did the first practice to see if it would be ridiculous or not, and it wasn't ridiculous."

Of all the influential Boston punk bands, the original Moving Targets were probably the shortest-lived. Often seen as the local equivalent of Hüsker Dü, they took their real inspiration from intense but tuneful bands like Mission of Burma and Bad Brains (Chambers says they covered the entirety of the latter's ROIR cassette at rehearsals). They were originally together only between the summer of 1992 and the end of '93; their one album (Burning in Water, on Taang!) was made during a short-lived reunion the following year. Although different line-ups would carry the banner on three more albums, the later Targets were more a vehicle for Chambers's songwriting -- not a bad thing to be, especially on 1994's overlooked Take This Ride. But Chambers admits that the chemistry was strongest in the original trio. "I wouldn't want to do this [reunion] in any other situation except the three of us. I think Pat Brady is the key, he's such a phenomenal drummer. And of course Pat Leonard is a superstar on stage."

This weekend they'll play most of Burning in Water, plus a handful of later Targets and Chambers solo tracks. But Chambers says it's not likely to happen again. "Pat Leonard is probably more involved emotionally than I am -- he'd like to at least do a single, but I want to just take it as it goes." Any thoughts on the band's retrospective status? "No idea -- I get people telling me Moving Targets was their favorite band, but I always thought we fooled around so much breaking up and re-forming that we dashed our chances. I don't want to sound like Evan Dando turning my back on Boston, but I thought we'd done so many incarnations that people wouldn't be interested anymore. So far they seem psyched, though."

Meanwhile Chambers retains his title as one of the most underrated rockers in Boston. Since the last Targets break-up he's released two solo albums -- one (No Reaction) of jagged, melodic rock in the Targets vein, the other (Sin Cigarros) an inventive all-instrumental set -- but both slipped out unnoticed, in part because Taang! released them during the label's move to California. But he's recently put together another band -- American Pulverizer, whose line-up also includes Pat Leonard -- and should be back in the clubs later this year.

PEER GROUP EVENT

It happened, but odds are you weren't there to see it: Peer Group leader Peter Prescott got to open for one of his all-time favorite bands, Pere Ubu, at the Middle East last weekend, and he put together an expanded Peer Group line-up for the occasion. They had two famous guest drummers in Ron Ward (Blood Oranges/Speedball Baby) and Kurt Davis (the former Bullet LaVolta frontman, who played in Prescott's last band, Kustomized). But the real shocker was the bass player: Clint Conley, the former Mission of Burma member (and author of "That's When I Reach for My Revolver"), who's now retired from music and hasn't performed with Prescott since Burma dissolved. Unfortunately, Pere Ubu wanted to go on stage early, so this one-time set -- a good one, according to those we asked -- was over by 9:30. Prescott plans to keep the band's line-up fluid to match their changeable mix of punk, psychedelic, and lounge influences, so the next Peer Group show will include at least some of the same people.

COMING UP

Ex-Story member Jennifer Kimball's solo album has been delayed till August, but you can get a preview at Johnny D's tonight (Thursday). Meanwhile the mighty Mekons are at the Middle East, Wheat are at T.T. the Bear's Place, Roger Miller plays Club d'Elf at the Lizard Lounge, Dave Alvin is at the House of Blues, progressive popster Francis Dunnery is at the Paradise, and UK folk diva Maddy Prior is at the Somerville Theatre . . . Steller line-up for a Sweet Relief benefit at T.T.'s tomorrow (Friday) with Ramona Silver, Mary Lou Lord, acoustic Come, Tom Leach, the Willard Grant Conspiracy, and the Buffalo Tom/Fuzzy country spinoff the Bathing Beauties. Gas Huffer is at the Middle East, Dimitri from Paris hits Axis, and Mama Kin has a lounge extravaganza with Astroslut, Seks Bomba, and others.

Boston Rock Opera does its "Night at the Opera" celebration of prog chestnuts at the Middle East Saturday; Double Dong are upstairs. The eternal Outlets are at Bill's Bar, Kid Bangham and Amyl Justin are at Harpers Ferry, and Beat Soup play T.T.'s. . . . The King Crimson spinoff Projekct Two, including Adrian Belew (on drums!) and head Crimsonite Robert Fripp, play the Somerville Theatre Sunday; meanwhile Cat Power are at the Middle East . . . And the Darlings and Fuzzy's Chris Toppin are at the Green Street Grill Monday.