Stop for them

Bourbon Princess and Chainsuck

Cellars by Starlight by Brett Milano

The story goes that Huey Lewis once ran into the Del Fuegos at a diner and said, "Hey, you guys look like a rock-and-roll band." This is just a guess, but I'd assume that people run into Bourbon Princess leader Monique Ortiz and say, "Hey, you look like the leader of an edgy, rhythm-driven rock band that does a lot of songs about sex and death." With a pierced cheek and a piercing stare, Ortiz is as stageworthy as anyone in town -- even when she worked the coatroom at the Middle East a couple of years ago, she looked as if she'd be more at home at the other end of the room. And in a year when the term "drum 'n' bass" commonly refers to a form of electronic pop that includes neither drums nor basses, Bourbon Princess are literally a drum-and-bass band -- cellist Jonah Sacks is the only other instrumentalist, and he sits out a number of tunes. The ace up their sleeve is that Ortiz and drummer Dave Millar (also of Kaspar Hauser) make up one of the few genuinely funky rhythm sections on the underground circuit: on a good night they echo the Meters or the MG's more than any of the usual alterna-rock touchstones.

Inevitably, they also make you think of Morphine, the last Boston band to do so much with so little. It's a story she'd be happier telling under other circumstances, but a fannish encounter with Mark Sandman influenced Ortiz's decision to move to Boston. Before that she'd been living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (home of the Ocean Blue, the Innocence Mission, and the good Amish people), and trying to pull a proper band together. "I probably fancied myself a little goth kid at the time," she recalls when we talk at the Middle East. "I had a band called Out the Sun, and we thought we were doing something really innovative. But in retrospect . . . uh, we weren't."

Having grown up around Latin music and classic rock, Ortiz had her first musical epiphany over Duran Duran; she still plays a bass she bought after seeing John Taylor play the same model. But her musical destiny became clear when she saw Morphine in 1996. "I actually woke up that morning with a strange feeling -- I'm not a groupie or anything, but I knew I had to meet the band. At the show we got up close and draped our leather jackets against the stage; mine had the Morphine logo painted on the back. Mark saw that and gave me that big Sandman nod of approval." Later, she and a friend walked past the tour bus during a rainstorm and the band let them come in and hang out. "We sat around smoking cigarettes and talking, and I made a point of mentioning all my band experiences. Mark finally said, 'It sounds like you guys really need to relocate.' He started telling us about Cambridge and said, 'We're playing this big show in Central Square -- that's my Square, that's my home. And you should go to this place called the Middle East and introduce yourself.' "

The band formed in an equally spontaneous way: she and Millar jammed at a party and noticed it sounded better before the guitar players sat in. "Butting heads with guitarists was the biggest source of frustration with my other bands," she notes. "I like indie music as much as the next person, but there is an overwhelming number of Yo La Tengo wanna-bes out there."

The Middle East also figures into a tune that stood out when I caught the band at the Lizard Lounge last month: "Stop Line," about walking into a club and running into all the enemies and ex-lovers you never wanted to see again. In terms of sweet romance in Bourbon Princess songs, that one's about par for the course; also on a recent demo tape (and slated for a debut CD they're now wrapping up) is "Lovesick," a Roxy Music-type groove that includes the sweet chorus "Do anything you want, just don't love me anymore." Others of Ortiz's songs are even world-wearier: she's written a couple about her late brother, who was recovering from cocaine addiction when he was murdered by a no-account dealer. And "Jerkoff" isn't about sex -- rather, it describes a certain recognizable type of person -- file it next to Golden Smog's "He's a Dick."

"It's always easier to tell your gory stories to strangers than it is to friends," Ortiz explains. "I'm still trying to write the perfect happy song, but I haven't gotten it yet. Not that I'm into the idea of using the band as therapy; I just write these songs because I can. Otherwise I'm like everybody else -- I work a blue-collar job, I have relationships, I know people who've died. In all honesty, I'm not that interesting."

CHAINSUCK

When singer/guitarist Marydee Reynolds started Chainsuck five years ago, they were something of an oddity: an electronic outfit that was neither abrasive nor ambient nor danceable, that instead used the loops and samples to support a more traditional, songwriting-based approach. It was essentially pop music with a wider sonic range. Nowadays there are a few popular locals who would fall into that realm. But Reynolds hasn't stuck around to see the trend take root: she's moved to Chicago, where she's released the second Chainsuck album, Kindly Stop for Me (Wax Trax/TVT).

Anyone who recognizes the title (from the Emily Dickinson poem that begins ("Because I could not stop for death . . . ") will likely feel at home with Reynolds's sensibility. Her takes on romantic/sexual matters are full of blood/death imagery. Creepy beauty and dark mystery are what she's after. And she gets it, as long as she remembers to keep the electronics and the live-band elements in proper balance. There are times when the drum loops have a softening effect -- a couple of tracks here would probably sound edgier if a live rhythm section were pushing them along. But she gets the payoff when she tweaks the format -- whether distorting her voice Reznor-style on "Pornstar," laying a sinister blues groove on "Murder of a Heart," or bringing in Ministry/Pigface member Chris Connelly for the anti-romantic duet "Box." (Former Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin helps out on the album as well.) Reynolds also has a tendency to drop her voice into whispers and gasps -- an old trick, but one that works.

"I'm not sure where I get the blood imagery from, but it does come up a lot," she explains over the phone. "I've always written poetry, and I used to get kept after school because the nuns didn't like my writing. I used to be the 15-year-old girl reading Anaïs Nin, Colette, and Emily Dickinson." Another writer who's influenced her lately is Lucinda Williams, whose Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (Mercury) was her favorite record last year -- not an influence that one often finds in electronic music. "When I started on this album, there was all the talk about electronica being the next big thing, and there was some expectation that it would all be hyperfast speeds with vocals thrown on. I got the impression TVT would have preferred that. But I wanted to make a lush and pretty record."

So why use electronics at all?

"Just because I'm fascinated by them. There's something about drum loops that I find very comforting."

Reynolds moved to Chicago for logistical reasons -- her Cambridge apartment lost its rent-control status and she needed a base to tour from. Aside from Chicago's weather being even crappier, she's discovered another contrast: "Boston has so many girl songwriters and there's none out here. You go to a club and they're not there playing. It makes you realize how girls rule in Boston."

KNOTS & CROSSES REUNITE

Knots & Crosses were a great band in a less-than-great genre: during the early '90s they were Boston's contribution to the adult-contemporary format. Thanks to WBOS, they were also one of the most-airplayed local bands, often slotted just between Natalie Merchant and Don Henley. But K&C had better taste in role models: during one of their final shows at the Middle East they did a version of Richard Thompson's "Walking on a Wire" that made my heart stop. Usually sounding more Appalachian than English, their take on folk rock was austere enough to attract an audience that didn't like things too soft and finely crafted enough for the 'BOS fans. Their studio version of the Thompson tune, which just may surpass Richard & Linda's original for intensity, appears with a batch of originals on There Was a Time (Signature Sounds), a new compilation CD drawn mainly from their two out-of-print albums. But there are also two new songs on the disc, both recorded last April and engineered by David Minehan, who slants the sound toward their rock side -- even on Carol Noonan's ballad "Waiting for You," the first happy love song in their repertoire. (Their second album was made during a marital break-up within the band and sounded that way -- as keyboardist Alan Williams writes in the notes, "The Fleetwood Mac comparisons were obvious and annoying.")

K&C will also be playing out again in the fall: they've booked the Iron Horse in Northampton on November 10 and the Somerville Theatre on the 11th. Because the three core members are busy nowadays -- Noonan with her solo band, Williams doing production, and guitarist Rick Harris playing with Todd Thibaud -- it's not clear whether there'll be more after that. "It's not as if we were resuming where we left off," Harris explains, "but we want to keep the door open."

COMING UP

Tom Leach is at the Plough & Stars tonight (Thursday); R&B legend Ruth Brown begins three nights at the Regattabar, Asa Brebner and the Magdalenes are at the Lizard Lounge, and Luna make their return to the Middle East. And a Kosovo benefit at the Linwood includes Baby Ray, Caged Heat, B-Side, and Señor Happy . . . Barrence Whitfield gets savage at Johnny D's tomorrow (Friday), Moby is at Avalon, the Frogs and Peer Group are at the Middle East, and the Electric Logs are at the Lizard . . . Morphine were supposed to headline Saturday's Cape Cod Music Festival in Falmouth. The show is now dedicated to Mark Sandman, whose memorial foundation will get all the proceeds, and it still has a strong line-up with Moveable Bubble (featuring Morphine's Billy Conway and Dana Colley as well as Presidents of the United States of America's Chris Ballew), Buckwheat Zydeco, Medeski Martin & Wood, Marcia Ball, the Violent Femmes, and Maceo Parker. That night PermaFrost play their last show at T.T. the Bear's Place, Nashville Pussy sex up the Paradise, Superhoney are at Johnny D's, and voice-mail kings the Lyres are at the Middle East . . . The Hothouse Flowers play the House of Blues on Sunday while Boston Rock Opera does a night of art-rock classics at the Middle East . . . Reggae hero Yellowman is at the Middle East Tuesday . . . And eternal punkers the Dickies are there on Wednesday while the American Analog Set and Vic Firecracker turn up at T.T.'s.