Wheat beat

Plus Frank Black, and the Grits

by Brett Milano

The members of Wheat would be the last to suggest that they write better songs than Sonic Youth. But the English weekly New Music Express, always a good trendiness barometer, suggested as much last week when it picked Wheat's single "Death Car" -- a limited-edition seven-inch drawn from their debut album, Medeiros (Sugar Free) -- as its single of the week, over Sonic Youth's "Sunday" and a new Cure single. Seldom known for understatement, NME even suggested that Wheat are an argument against the death of rock. It's an honor the band, who are scheduled to open for Scrawl next Saturday (July 18) at the Middle East, take in stride, if not with a little embarrassment.

"You know what I think happened?" lead-guitarist Ricky Brennan suggests. "Somebody must have stumbled across it, and because nobody knows us from a hole in the ground, they were surprised that it was any good at all. To be honest, everybody has their big dreams in the back of their head. But we've never tried to throw our names all over the place -- we don't even have a mailing list. In fact, we've annoyed people by being so slack about it. We'd rather have two people stumble across whatever we create instead of throwing ourselves in people's faces. Everybody has some band that they feel is all their own, and we want to be that for someone."

In this era of huge promotional budgets, it's always good to see a modest band create a buzz on their own merits. And though Wheat haven't made it big yet (Brennan says the album's sales are hovering around 1000 copies), they have created a cult groundswell. First released last October, Medeiros isn't an album of big, loud gestures -- its charms are subtle. At its heart is a melodic innocence that recalls early Sebadoh or small factory (whose Dave Auchenbach produced the disc). And there's a shyness about their approach: singer Scott Levesque (who previously played guitar in Janet LaValley's solo band) sounds a bit like a party guest hiding in a corner -- you have to poke through the noise to hear what he's saying. The guitars are likewise obscured behind atmospheric keyboard and feedback overdubs. It's a warm sound without a lot of sharp edges. On "Death Car," for example, an attractive pop melody is layered over with Eno-esque loops, and Levesque emotes his way through a typically cryptic set of lyrics.

"We wanted the album to feel like sitting in the living room with a stranger -- like there's a distance, but they're still there next to you," Brennan explains over coffee at Panini in Cambridge. "The atmospheric part was planned out. A couple guys in the band went to art school, so they've got that sense of aesthetics. But it's partly because we didn't really know what we were doing -- a lot of the feedback parts are actual mistakes. I think it has a certain awkwardness that's nice and natural-sounding. It's like when you're painting and you get a little smudge that you didn't mean to put in there but it fits. We like the sounds to create a feeling, but with enough emphasis on the songs that we don't get carried away."

In fact, a handful of tracks on the album started as straightforward demos, then changed shape in the studio. " 'Death Car' was like that," Brennan points out. "It was a pretty basic guitar-rock song right up until we mixed it. It used to sound like Guided by Voices. But then the keyboard thing happened at the last minute and everything changed."

During the grunge era, many bands cultivated a low profile by identifying their personnel with first names only, but Wheat go a step further by not putting their names on their album at all (the other bandmembers are bassist Ken Medaras and drummer Brendan Harney). Instead, the packaging matches the music's abstraction, with liner notes that are numbers rather than words. And, no, it isn't a secret code there to be deciphered.

"That goes back to the awkwardness thing," Brennan explains. "It's not that we were trying to be cool and obscure. We felt more like 'Hey, this may be the only chance we ever get to put out a record, so let's put our personality into it.' "

Despite the NME review, Wheat's ambitions remain modest. "We'd love to have that song that someone can feel is their personal summer song or break-up song," Brennan admits, "something they can attach some emotion to. I don't think any of us can tell you what all the lyrics mean, because sometimes you want to set limits before you reveal too much of yourself. So it's all open to interpretation, but I think the feeling's there."

Still, you have to wonder how the album's quietest track came by the title "Leslie West." You wouldn't expect the huge guy who played guitar for Mountain in the '70s to be any kind of influence on alternative pop, especially on a break-up ballad like this (unless it's actually about breaking up with Leslie West, which is too weird to contemplate). "Sometimes an in-joke goes on for so long that nobody can remember the origin," Brennan reveals. "But the guitar sound toward the end of that song is our little homage. We were going through our '70s-rock phase, and the sloppiness of bands in that era was something we could relate to."

One doubts that Leslie West will ever hear the song, but one also suspects he'd approve. After all, it's the first good album he's had his name on since Nantucket Sleighride.

BLACK TO SpinART

Score one for the indie world: after a long stretch with the major labels, former Pixies leader Frank Black has signed to SpinART, the one-time Providence label now based in New York. Unless you count Rick Rubin's recently tanked label American Recordings (which released Black's last album, The Cult of Ray), this is the first time he's been on an independent label since the Pixies' original hook-up with 4AD. And he's the biggest name so far to sign to SpinART, which had recent success with the Apples in Stereo.

"That's true, but if he'd done a really bad record we still wouldn't put it out," says Brendan Gilmartoin of SpinART. The album in question, Frank Black & the Catholics, has been out for the past few weeks as an import. "I would say it's the most Pixies-like solo album he's done," promises Gilmartoin. "It was all done live, and it's full of distortion. The screaming Frank Black is definitely on it."

SpinART actually hooked up with Black through one of its other bands, Lotion. "Lotion were just on tour with Black and there were conversations that he had a record in the can. So we stepped up to the plate. It made sense to him, and it made a lot of sense to us."

Frank Black & the Catholics is scheduled for release on SpinART around the same time as a new collection of Pixies BBC sessions on Elektra. And though the new disc was made before he joined, Black's band now includes local guitar hero Rich Gilbert.

THE GRITS

When a musician tells me he wants to sound like a mix of Son Volt and Soul Coughing, my first reaction is "Why?" But Dan "Pluto" Cohn, who fronts the countryish local band the Grits, is a man of eclectic tastes, and he'll be airing those during the band's residency at Toad this month. Playing every Tuesday, the band will feature diverse guests including groove/harmony band Hummer this week, former Pooka Stew popster Mike Barry on the 21st, and acoustic-rocker Patty Giurleo on the 28th. The Grits themselves sport a mix of pop songwriting, country instrumentation (Tim Kelly plays a mean dobro), and boho vocals -- and if you're not too keen on either Son Volt or Soul Coughing, "John Hiatt meets Morphine" would also do the group's sound justice.

"I like this No Depression wave, but I don't want to get lost in it because I love too much other music," Cohn says of the current alternative-country trend. "For instance, we do cover a George Jones song, but we also do 'Feels like the First Time,' by Foreigner."

On the Grits' five-song EP Take One (on Cohn's own Pluto label), the bare-bones arrangements draw attention to his songwriting, which is often built on offbeat stories. "Off Amsterdam," for instance, is about a guy who's a passenger in his girlfriend's car when she freaks out while driving past her ex-boyfriend's house. Is it autobiographical?

"Well, no," he admits. "I really wrote it because I'm desperately infatuated with the woman who sings for Groovasaurus. She has a song called 'Accident,' and I had to write something to match."

COMING UP

Tonight (Thursday) it's reggae eccentric Eek-a-Mouse at the House of Blues, the Devil Gods at T.T. the Bear's Place with Parlor James, the Bogmen at Mama Kin, and the Mudhens at Harpers Ferry . . . Tomorrow (Friday), old-school rappers the Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Melle Mel are downstairs at the Middle East while upstairs it's Fuzzy, Vic Firecracker, and a solo Mary Timony. Also on Friday, the Racketeers and Raging Teens share a rockabilly bill at T.T.'s, Texas zydeco dude Li'l Malcolm brings his Houserockers to Johnny D's, and Caged Heat and Verago-go are at the Linwood . . . Saturday brings Chelsea on Fire to the upstairs room at the Middle East, and Versus to the downstairs while Kramer and Ms. Pigeon are at T.T.'s, Kevin Salem plays Bill's Bar, Charlie Chesterman hits the Lizard Lounge, and Scissorfight and Quintaine Americana play what may be the loudest Boston Harbor cruise in history . . . A second-generation double bill with Sean Lennon and Rufus Wainwright comes to the Paradise Sunday . . . The Wicked Farleys are at the Middle East on Tuesday . . . And on Wednesday it's ska veteran Laurel Aitken at the Middle East and Cheri Knight at Johnny D's.