Auteur! Auteur!

Jesse Peretz's trip from indie rock to indie film

Cellars by Starlight by Brett Milano

If you saw the original Lemonheads back in the '80s, when they were a drunk, hedonistic bunch of punk-pop lowlifes, you'd find it hard to believe that the bass player of this lot would ever turn into a serious film director. That would seem about as likely as, say, the lead singer ever going on to be a pop star.

But even when Jesse Peretz (son of New Republic editor Martin Peretz) was a Lemonhead, film was still his first love and his goal was to cut it as a director. His first stop was music video, where his work was quirkier than most: beginning with an ultra-cheap Lemonheads video, he went on to direct the Foo Fighters' "Big Me," Juliana Hatfield's "Everybody Loves Me But You," and the comedic Jimmy the Cabdriver spots on MTV. Now he's making his feature-film debut with First Love, Last Rites, which opens this Friday at the Janus and the Coolidge Corner.

Based on a 10-page short story by Ian McEwan, First Love, Last Rites has the kind of plot that would lend itself to a Lemonheads song: a young couple, Joey and Sissel, enjoy an intense romantic affair before things get strange, communication breaks down, and they're left wondering what the hell to do next. What distinguishes the film from the usual youth-culture fare is that the couple wind up neither triumphant nor beautifully tragic; we're not sure whether they've purged the doubt in their relationship or just put a bandage on it. "That's what I liked about the story," Peretz explains from his home in New York. "I first read it a long time ago, around '93 or so. What got me was the way he described the first teenage affair, when you're having your first teenage experience with sex -- he describes so accurately how full-on that is, and how people mistake that for communicating in some accurate way. The way you think, 'We're totally in love,' and then the sex starts to dry up, and you have no idea what that fuckin' person is saying and what they want to do. He represented it in a darker way than I'd seen."

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Also: Gerald Peary's review of First Love, Last Rites in "Film Culture."

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The brevity of McEwan's story made some extrapolation necessary on Peretz's part. His scriptwriter was another former Lemonhead, David Ryan -- who drummed in the mid-'90s version of the band, doubling as a member of Fuzzy. Ryan was also making his film debut, though he's written short stories and a novel in the past. Together they expanded the story, moving it to the Louisiana bayou and fleshing out some characters (Donal Logue, who played the MTV cabdriver, does a creepy Dennis Hopper-like turn as Sissel's father) -- but they left in McEwan's ambiguity. "I love movies that strike that weird, unclear note," Peretz says. "For instance, I loved [Gary Oldman's] Nil by Mouth, with the scene at the end that completely fucked up the ending you were expecting. For me that's where it went from a good movie to a great one."

Given his background, Peretz is aware that First Love, Last Rites will probably be received as an MTV-related film, especially since he added a musical element that wasn't in the original story. "That was part of the conflict for me, because I didn't want to do the obvious things. You can finance a movie and get a hip alterna-rock soundtrack together, and that's what I didn't want to do -- not another film that inappropriately uses the Gin Blossoms. I wanted the music to be all original so people wouldn't bring, say, the emotions they attach to 'Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay.' A lot of music-video directors go on to make slicker Hollywood movies, because you learn a certain way of storytelling that's about creating eye candy. I wanted to shoot the film in a way that would support dramatically the nuances of these two characters, and to put the focus on acting. That's not what you focus on in music videos -- there it's more like 'Take four steps, look to the camera, and can you look more sad and longingly'?"

Still, Peretz didn't manage to keep an MTV sensibility entirely out of the film. As played by Natasha Gregson Wagner and Giovanni Ribisi, the couple are untouchably beautiful as MTV models tend to be; and you've got to admire how they can make love in a shack without fans or air conditioning, in Louisiana, in the summer, without breaking a sweat. Because eels and rats figure into the plot, we're treated to a few too many slo-mo dream sequences involving those critters. And there are a number of visually striking but plot-slowing montages over the film's soundtrack. The songs are supposed to be scratchy old 45s coming out of the couple's cheap plastic Victrola, but we hear them in full stereo.

And the film really does have a hip alterna-rock soundtrack, one that will probably be one of its major selling points. Composing duties went to Shudder To Think members Nathan Larson and Craig Wedren, who recorded the backing tracks and assembled a brilliant set of guest singers -- among them Billy Corgan, John Doe, Liz Phair, Cheap Trick's Robin Zander, and Jeff Buckley (the film is dedicated to Buckley). Although the songs are intended to be various odds and ends from the couple's record collection, a lot of them come out sounding like Shudder To Think -- not a bad thing by any means. The soundtrack will be released this month under the band's name and could well be their breakthrough disc. At a New York party for the film last week, Shudder to Think were joined by some of the guest singers, including Corgan, who was in town for a Smashing Pumpkins date.

As Peretz points out, the songs are more a story mechanism than they might seem. "I like the idea that it's the girl who controls the music, as a way to change the mood or the subject, or to get him to shut up -- that goes against the cliché of the boy who uses the stereo because he doesn't want to talk. It shows this passive-aggressive side of her that I really love. I talked a lot with Nathan and Craig about the kind of songs I wanted for each scene. We wanted a salable record, but not an alterna-rock album per se. For instance, it was hard to name a song that people would throw down as a single. But I'll admit I'm a loser when it comes to music -- I'm still living in 1993. To me, Kurt's just died and the world is still picking up the pieces."

Peretz actually laid down his bass a couple years before that happened. His last Lemonheads album was 1990's Lovey, the album before the big breakthrough with It's a Shame About Ray -- in terms of career moves, he picked an inopportune time to leave the band. "Yeah, and that's probably why I stopped; I gave my bass away three weeks later. I think I had a chip on my shoulder -- I mean, I had fun and I'm glad I had those experiences, but it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life. When I was in a band, nobody fuckin' did it to make money. And at a certain level I'm like that again -- a kid in a fresh industry at the bottom of the heap."

LEMONHEADS COMP

Peretz's former bandmate Evan Dando is currently refusing to do a damn thing to promote The Best of the Lemonheads (Atlantic), and you can't really blame him: clocking in at a scant 37 minutes, it's the kind of quick-shot compilation that tends to come out after people leave their labels. Since Dando's currently lying low, without a regular band, the time would be right for a proper career retrospective, but this isn't it. Nearly half the 12 tracks come from 1992's It's a Shame About Ray (though "Alison's Starting To Happen," to these ears the best song on Ray, isn't among them), and not all the Atlantic albums are represented -- nothing from Lovey is included, and the underrated Car Button Cloth is slighted with only two songs. The mid-tempo "Confetti" makes a strange opener, especially since it's a new remix (by later Lemonheads producer Bryce Goggin) that throws a ton of reverb on the drums. The set also emphasizes Dando's more conventional love ballads, ignoring the quirks that were part of his charm -- though at least "My Drug Buddy" is here, with its proper title restored (it was shortened to "Buddy" during Dando's teen-idol phase). The compilers also blew the chance to include rare tracks like the last UK single, "Balancing Act"/"Galveston" (respective covers of Volcano Suns and Glen Campbell), which was never released here. In fact they could have created a more worthwhile album, and probably a more salable one, simply by compiling all the B-sides.

TALKING TO ANIMALS AT LILITH

One outfit that'll have great memories of this year's Lilith Fair tour is Talking to Animals, who just wrapped up four Lilith dates in Texas. Not only did lead singer Juliana Nash get to sing a solo during the show's all-star finale, but headliner Sarah McLachlan joined the band on one of their new songs.

Talking to Animals were originally booked to play the third stage but got bumped up to the second in Houston. There McLachlan caught their set and invited Nash to join the headliners for Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," the tour's usual finale. "I was surprised at how relaxed I was," Nash says from her New York home. "I was standing up there between Bonnie Raitt and Natalie Merchant. At first I was nervous because I didn't know where to come in, but Sarah looked at me, looked at the mike, and said 'There, go.' "

When a friend spotted McLachlan singing along with one of the new Talking to Animals songs, Nash got up the nerve to ask her to join them on stage. "She's a beautiful person inside and out -- no attitude at all. We had a demo of the song, so I put it in a Walkman and left it in her dressing room, then she came on stage and sang it like a fuckin' bird. I wasn't going to ask her to do it again, but the next day she came up to me and said, 'So, are we going to sing again'?" The Texas dates arguably had a stronger line-up than the one Boston's getting -- Liz Phair and Lucinda Williams were both aboard -- and TTA's sets were well received. "The last night I was on stage for the encore, and there's Bonnie Raitt hugging me -- and she's probably the reason I ever started playing guitar."

The song McLachlan sang with them -- "Twist of Fate," described by Nash as "a slow one with an Al Green-type feel" -- is slated for the next TTA album, and it'll likely be in their set when they play T.T. the Bear's Place this Friday (the 14th). With the long-delayed Manhole album (on Velvel) still running its course, the band are stockpiling songs and choosing producers for a follow-up next year.

COMING UP

New Orleans funkateers Galactic are at the House of Blues tonight (Thursday), Front 242 are at the Middle East, and little-known but terrific popster Richard X. Heyman is at Johnny D's . . . Tomorrow (Friday), the Lizard Lounge sees the debut of the Cornet Premiers, a new prog-inspired band including guitarist Rich Gilbert, Slide keyboardist Suzi Lee, and the Zulus' old rhythm section. 6L6 and Honeyglazed (Tim Catz's new pop band) are at Bill's Bar, and New Orleans bluesman Walter Wolfman Washington is at Johnny D's. And another ex-Lemonhead, Nic Dalton, introduces his new band Sneeze at the Middle East, with Trona (featuring Mary Ellen Leahy for the last time) and the Sterlings . . . John Flansburgh's side band Mono Puff are at T.T. the Bear's Place Saturday, 8-Ball Shifter, Roadsaw, and Half Cocked are at the Middle East, and Seks Bomba are at the Lizard Lounge . . . The mighty Supersuckers are at the Middle East Tuesday, and Mr. Airplane Man continue a weekly residence at Toad . . . And acclaimed songwriter Patty Griffin is at Mama Kin Wednesday.