Too Familiar

Strange Familiar.  Chasing Shadows.
Krian Music Group, 2012.  Strange Familiar: http://thestrangefamiliar.com/

Strange Familiar is a pop band from Cuyahoga Falls and formed in 2006. They’ve become a bit of a television darling; their songs have been featured on popular shows like CW’s Vampire Diaries, ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and mtvU. Their sound is a soft piano and guitar pop fusion with layered vocals.

But unlike their previous work, Chasing Shadows falls short. It was a difficult album to engage in, something that I attribute to it comprising eleven agonizing slow songs with little lyrical creativity. Not a single song stood out as the feature. All of the work blended together and blended too well into the genre for it to be noticeable.

Songs like “Run Away Heart” and “Shelter” have a 1998 Sarah McLachlan quality but the vocals are so layered and ethereal that they become distracting and dull. That alone may be the downfall of the album. There was no upswing or jam to it; a total lack of catchiness so nothing sticks after it has been consumed. This album would have a difficult time finding an adult audience because it has so little range. Some of the piano work helped break up the monotony but many of these tracks just lack innovation. Songs like “Being Me” and “Where I Belong” could be teenage angst anthems if they hadn’t been so flat. Every song topic has already been covered and made this album feel superfluous. “Being Me” tried to employ a bit of a R&B backbeat but it wasn’t enough to break the rigid mold.

The trouble lies in the ornamentation of the vocals. All of the players in Strange Familiar are good independently but when they come together it fails to wow. Kira Leyden has a great voice but the Enya/Sarah McLachlan notes that are supposed to be “ethereal” and “haunting” are overused and strip Leyden’s voice of its originality or power.

Lyrically the album is a mess. Songs like “Redemption” and “Alibi” explore no new territory, push no boundaries, dig no depths, and left me wondering who the target audience was. I’m a pop enthusiast, especially piano-pop, and yet Strange Familiar had me walk away from their album with nothing. The intimacy of the songs felt forced and lacked polish.

Chasing Shadows will fall short for Strange Familiar’s fans. It’s creatively disappointing and takes no risks.

Track List:  Run Away Heart, Falling Back to You, Being Me, Shelter, Unwanted, Echoes, Brace for Impact, It’s Easier to Walk Away, Redemption, Where I Belong, Alibi.
Personnel:  Kira Leyden (vocals, piano), Jeff Andrea (guitar), Frank Freeman (bass), Nicholas Sainato (drums).

Lauren Parker

A Little Wild Blood

Lovedrug.  Wildblood.
Street Talk Media, 2012.  Website:  http://www.lovedrugmusic.com/

When I brought this album up in my ITunes player Lovedrug was classified as a “punk” band in the far column. As a fan of punk music this was exciting but after consuming Wild Blood from start to finish I don’t know that the all-knowing ITunes has this classification quite correct. Wild Blood is less of a punk album and more of a melodic throwback to early 2000s alternative. It shares more with Our Lady Peace than The Dead Kennedys. Wild Blood possesses the rarity of young sound with pure comfort. Lovedrug has been together since the early 2000s and is very comfortable with their sound. 

The title track is an anthemic tune that shares some commonalities with the later work of Hanson. The song has a positive team spirit vibe reassuring the listener that wild blood will set us all free. By the conclusion of the song I found myself a believer in this new revolution that called for the end of “hipster hell.” Unfortunately for Lovedrug they might find that a large percentage of their fanbase may be drinking the hipster Kool-Aid. The refrain is simple but that doesn’t take away from the solid structure of the song. The guitar work is classic and simple and the vocal tone blends with the surrounding instruments in a way that creates almost a choral quality.

This vocal blending is found throughout the album and is both good and defeatist. In certain instances it might have been a better choice to turn up Michael Shepard’s microphone. On the track “Dinosaur,” which is probably the weakest song of the lot, the vocals bleed into the drums and a lot of the meaning is lost. The intention might to create a distance from the audience like a dinosaur would be but it might be a bit too literal for the delicate nature of the lyrical content. It was harder to decipher a meaning from the delivery than any of the other tracks.

Most of the tracks contained simple guitar openings which are strong but a tad repetitive song after song. But some tracks stand out and on their own with luminescence. “Premonition” is a good love song, the sort of song that would find itself onto a mix for those who have newly fallen in teen love, and should probably be used for a heavy make out sequence in a film. It’s a versatile song that’s catchy without being sickly sweet brain candy--a pleasure to have stuck in your head like a new lover you keep running into on the street.

“Pink Champagne,” besides being the name of a stripper, is a little limited lyrically but a solid jam tune. “Girl” is the first slow song on the album and felt the most out of place in the lineup. It’s the first slow song on the record, which showed restraint since most bands make their second song a dreary, strung out, solemn affair, but this one almost felt like filler. The guitar has a lovely lullaby quality and the harmonies are excellent but there’s a generic spa background loop that feels a bit like putting whale calls over “Angie.” The bridge is a nice break in the work but the ending line of chorus “you’re my girl” left this girl wanting more from her love song.

Not to rag too hard but “Ladders” is a great division in the album and everything after it is more experimental and a little louder and messier. It’s a nice evolution and “Ladders” stands out with its freer guitarwork and possesses flavors of U2 and Coldplay without going overboard and becoming irritating. It’s a great song almost to the point that it would have made a better title track and focal point.

“Your Country” employs political message and power. Considering it’s an election year it would make a good tune for entrance music. Someone call Sherrod Brown. The lyrics are uncomplicated but effective and a good grounding song in the overall work.

The album concludes on an airy love song which is a nice place to end. This is a strong and well placed album with some stylistic choices I would have made differently. But every choice made seems conscious and in fitting with the sound. I would suggest that on Lovedrug’s next album they let themselves get a little messier and-well- a little more punk. I would be fascinated to see what their more experimental works would produce. I

Performers: Michael Shepard (vocals, guitar, piano), Jeremy Gifford (guitar, synthesizer, piano, BGV), Thomas Bragg (bass), James Freshwater (drums)
Tracks:  Wild Blood, Dinosaur, Premonition,Pink Champagne, Girl, Ladders, Great Divide, Your Country, We Were Owls, Revival.

Lauren Parker

Other Northeast Ohio Music Sites

We are still just getting started, but there are some other folks out there who have been at the business of collecting and compiling news and reviews of Northeast Ohio music.  Everybody has a different focus, and there's plenty of room for everybody.  We wanted to tell you about them.

Cleveland Classical.com  http://clevelandclassical.com/
This site has been around for several years, and keeps up on just about everything of note in the area (well, not much about Hiram, we noticed).  They do some CD reviews, but the majority of their postings are previews and reviews of concerts, and interviews with artists.  A page of links is very complete.

Buzzbin Magazine  http://www.buzzbinmagazine.com/home/
Based in Canton, these folks keep you posted about all things related to the rock scene in that city, as well as Akron, Cleveland, and most other nearby burgs.  There are lots of ads to give you the scoop.

Valley24.com  http://valley24.com/
Coming out of Youngstown, they give you the straight stuff on music and other events in the Mahoning Valley.  Check out what's going on east of Hiram.

Cleveland Scene  http://www.clevescene.com/
The Scene is the long-running free weekly magazine, and their website provides access to much of the content for those of us in the hinterlands.  Music is just one of their things, so check out their investigative journalism, dining section, and other stuff.

Folknet  http://www.folknet.org/
This is run by the The Northeast Ohio Folk & Traditional Music & Dance Society, a venerable organization.  They publish a calendar of folk music concerts that you won't see listed anywhere else.

Folk Alley  http://www.folkalley.com/
Run by WKSU, this site covers local events, but its true focus is national, with news and reviews for folk and Americana music from everywhere.

If you know of more great sites, please send the info to me, and I'll be glad to post the links.  I'll be covering radio stations, record stores, recording studios, and artist's pages in future postings.

Jeff Wanser
wanserjc@hiram.edu

New Womack

Bobby Womack. The Bravest Man in the Universe.
XL Recordings, 2012. Bobby Womack: http://www.facebook.com/OfficialBobbyWomack  or http://bobbywomack.com/

Debuting in June of this year, Bobby Womack’s The Bravest Man in the Universe is not only his newest album, but his first album of original work since 1996’s “Resurrection” and the cover art lets you know that this is no ordinary album. A hand with a twisted, broken-looking thumb resting on the top (yes, top, I said it looked broken) of the hand, and the fingernails are painted black and white. That visual is a great metaphor for the songs contained within- crossing boundaries, defying categorization, and beautiful in its strength after adversity. If you don’t know Womack, he was born in Cleveland in 1944 to African American Baptist parents, middle child in a sea of sons. Coming from that to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is just the beginning of his bravery. Womack’s dealt with the death of two children, a career over-shadowed by his wife’s dead husband, and drug addiction, and brings that experience to his tunes.

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The album is often grouped in “R&B,” but it definitely resides on the edgier side of that genre, with a feeling that harkens to Maxi Jazz and Faithless. Womack’s torn voice lays over crisp, clean beats for a striking juxtaposition that belies his personal strength. Womack has consistently been listed as an R&B artist, but he’s worked with musicians from Janis Joplin to Sam Cooke, Sly and the Family Stone to Aretha Franklin. This album shows that diversity well, while still staying mostly cohesive.

While this is no doubt a solo album given Womack’s unifying voice through the multitude of sounds in this album, the guest appearances add variety and flavor, and the producers truly play the role of artist. It starts off with a gorgeously brief opening of Womack’s gravelly voice over The Demon Strings, stating the full title of the album, “The bravest man in the universe is the one who has forgiven first.” The Demon Strings performs in “The Bravest Man in the Universe,“ “If There Wasn’t Something There," and "Dayglo Reflection;" indiepop singer/songwriter Lana Del Rey performs on "Dayglo Reflection;" a number of other artists listed in under Personnel lend their voices to this piece of work that, like a piece of fine chocolate, takes time to appreciate, and only offers you the full experience if you wait and enjoy it a few times in different situations. From experience I can tell you that this is a great album to listen to with friends, a bottle of wine, and some quality food of your choice.
Many of the tracks are R&B feeling, with some hip-hop overtones, especially in the use of samples in many of the songs, but the ending definitely has an upbeat feel the would make a smash dance track if sped up slightly. As it is, "Jubilee" is bouncy and fun with some “Max’s wild rumpus” sounds, but slightly too slow to do much heavy moving to. The practice of sampling in "Dayglo Reflection" is very interesting in that the sample is from Sam Cooke’s “Soul.” Knowing the history of Sam Cooke and Bobby Womack, and that history’s impact on Womack’s career, this sample is not just acoustically well-done, but meaningful in the concept of the album- strength, bravery, and forgiveness. Gil Scott-Heron’s introduction to "Stupid Introlude" is poignant and moving, and "Stupid" is an ironic piece of social commentary condemning the church, considering Womack’s status as a preacher’s son. Some have called this track one of the weaker tracks, and while that may be the case, it simply makes Stupid a diamond in the rough, instead of a perfect princess cut, while it is still stylistically solid. The gestalt of this album is a wonderfully telling representation of true bravery- being able to lead, have the “vision,” and execute it while still acknowledging the tremendous contributions of others.

Personnel: Bobby Womack (Vocals and guitar), Richard Russell (Drum programming and effects), Steve Honest (Drum programming on If There Wasn’t Something There), Chris Storr (Trumpet on Love in Gonna Lift You Up), Jessie Ware (Backing vocals on Love is Gonna Lift You Up), Emma Muchando (Vocals on If There Wasn’t Something There), Lana Del Rey (Guest vocals), Gil Scott-Heron (Guest vocals), Fatoumata Diawara (Guest vocals), Richard Russell (Producer), and Damon Albarn (Producer). The Demon Strings Personnel- Izzi Dunn (Cello), Stella Page (Viola), Rory McFarlane (Double bass), Alice Pratley (Violin), Oli Langford (Violin), Nina Foster (Violin), and Antonia Pagulatos (Violin).
Tracks: The Bravest Man in the Universe, Please Forgive My Heart, Deep River, Dayglo Reflection, Whatever Happened to the Times, Stupid Introlude, Stupid, If There Wasn't Something There, Love is Gonna Lift You up, Nothin' Can Save Ya (featuring Fatoumata Diawara), Jubilee (Don't Let Nobody turn You Around)

Lisa Regula Meyer

Who is Northeast Ohio?

The question of which artists “belong” to Northeast Ohio is not as simple as it sounds.  Depending on the yardstick we use, we can extend the possible number to extremes or narrow it to the point of triviality.  At one end of the spectrum, for example, place-based musical organizations are prime targets:  The Cleveland Orchestra, the Akron Symphony, and the Ohio Light Opera should be unquestionably included.  At the other end, many artists come to the region to record for Telarc, Azica, or some other record label who have no other connection to the region.  It seems appropriate to exclude them entirely.  Others fall in between, and reasonable people can disagree about where to draw these lines.  For example, is it appropriate to include an artist such as Marilyn Manson, who left the area after tenth grade (although members of his family still live in the region)?  We needed a classification scheme to guide us. Forgive me, I am a librarian, and I love to classify.

1. Place-based entities:  Those that by definition are associated with the region.  Examples include the above-mentioned organizations as well as the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, the Mahoning Valley Button Box Club, and Burning River Brass.

2.  Artists associated with Hiram College or the village of Hiram and nearby vicinity.  These include faculty members who record (Randall Fusco, piano), as well as alumni such as Michael Stanley, and very local artists such as Crypts of Paris (rock) and Foster Brown (folk/children’s music).

3.  Artists who were born in the region, attained regional popularity, and have stayed largely within the region (except to tour).  Examples include Ernie Krivda (jazz), Alex Bevan (folk), and many bands such as Hillbilly Idol (rock), Yiddische Cup (klezmer), Brigid’s Cross (Irish), and the Hank Haller Ensemble (polka).

4.  Artists who were born in the region and attained fame elsewhere, but live locally, maintain roots in the region or who regularly return to play locally.  Examples include Joe Lovano (jazz), Sean Jones (jazz), and Chrissie Hynde (the Pretenders).  These are included in the collection, and are likely to be reviewed.

5.  Artists who were born or achieved some fame in the region, but left for greener pastures.  Their continued connection to the region is unknown.  Examples include Anne E. DeChant (left for Nashville), and Mystery of Two (left for Brooklyn).  These have been included in the collection, but future releases may not be included, depending upon circumstances.

6.  Artists who were born in the region, left before they achieved fame, but whose continued connection to the region is tenuous or unknown.  These are often artists who are touted as “from Cleveland” or “from Canton,” but who seldom perform in the area.  This category includes a wide variety of artists, including Nine Inch Nails, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, and Tracy Chapman.  These are included on a case-by-case basis.  In the words of one student, “If you leave out all the famous musicians, all you have left are the ones nobody cares about.”  While we disagree with the facts, we also sympathize with the “favorite son/favorite daughter” thinking implied in the statement.  

7.  Artists who were born elsewhere, but who live and are employed in the region.  These include members of area orchestras, faculty members of universities and colleges in the region, and occasional other individuals.  Examples include Richard King, Principal Horn for the Cleveland Orchestra (born in New York), and Robert Lockwood, Jr. blues artist (born in Arkansas).  

8. Deceased artists who people may no longer associate with the region, such as Henry Mancini or Vaughan Monroe.
Some other artists are simply difficult to categorize.  Joe Walsh is a excellent example.  Born in Wichita, Kansas, he began playing in bands while attending Kent State University.  His initial fame came with the James Gang, then Barnstorm, both Northeast Ohio bands.  He joined the Eagles in 1975 to considerable success.  Both Kansas and Ohio could claim him, as well as California to some extent.  We include his James Gang and Barnstorm output, as well as solo albums, but would not include his Eagles-related material as germane.

We'll keep working on it.

Jeff Wanser

A Great One from Last Year

Rainy Day Saints.  All These Strange Ghosts.
Get Hip Records, 2011.   Rainy Day Saints:  http://www.facebook.com/rainy.d.saints

This came out back in October, but we’re playing catch-up with the new blog.  Besides, we want everybody to know about the good stuff.  I could call this band a lot of different things including garage rock, psychedelic rock, and indie rock, and all these designations would be right.  But what they really are is a damned fine Cleveland band that put out a truly fine, tight, listenable, grooving album.  I don’t say such things lightly.  I’m of boomer age, I’ve listened to rock music for 50 years, and it takes a lot for me to be impressed by a contemporary band.  I’m impressed.

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They take a bit of a kitchen sink approach to rock.  They borrow (or steal, as Dylan would say) ideas from other bands, but what they do with their influences doesn’t sound the least bit derivative.  Sure, I hear the Who, Cheap Trick, a bit of Sweet, (maybe even the Seeds) and lots of other sources, but that hardly matters.  Somebody else will hear other bands, real or not, but what really matters is what they did with all of this sound they produce.  And what they did was marvelous.

Dave Swanson seems to be the busiest of the group, having written the songs and played a whole batch of instruments, but it’s clear that everyone is upfront and contributing at some point or other.  Keith Pickering provides some great lead guitar on a few tracks, and Marianne Friend gives us some sweet saxophone interludes at just the right time.  Vocals are appropriately rough, but filled with harmonies that work just right for the gritty but psychedelic sound they’re going for.  Bombastic keyboards take us into a congealed garage/art rock place that the Brits sometimes try to pull off, but don’t.  There isn’t anything I would call a ballad until the last track.

Most songs are mid-to-uptempo and strong in melody and lyrics, with a good deal of musical complexity, mostly in the form of layering of studio tracks to produce a thicker sound.
The title track takes a basic Bo Diddley beat and ads surf/psychedelic swirls and a great guitar solo, all while sounding like music from the old Munsters TV show.  “This is Not the Way Back Home” is a strong rocker with lots of forward motion and drive.  My favorite track is “All Gone Wrong,” a garage rock styling that suggests a lost song by the Seeds. I could go on, because there are no clinkers here.  My one complaint is the lack of a lyric sheet, since the singing is not always crystal clear. Good variety, excellent musicianship, and a fine feel for what’s important in rock make this one my vote for best Northeast Ohio rock album of the past couple of years.

Personnel:  Dave Swanson (guitars, drums, vocals, keyboards, bass, percussion), Brian P. McCafferty (bass, mandolin, harmonies, accommodations), Marianne Friend (saxophones, harmonies, glamor, medicine), Keith Pickering (guitar), with assisting musicians.
Tracks:  Where Are You?, Underneath the Dreamer’s Moon, She’s Long Gone, Memories, Lose My Mind, All Gone Wrong, All these Strange Ghosts, Sylvester Greene, Reward, This is Not the Way Back Home, Gone, Everybody Shows the Way, Where I Stand.

The Grand Wazoo

Macy Gray's Latest

Macy Gray.  Covered.
429 Records, 2012.   Macy Gray:  http://www.macygray.com/

I find Macy Gray fascinating.  She is quirky, eclectic in taste and genre, ranging from R&B to rock, and one never knows which way she’s going to move next.  I have heard her compared to Billie Holiday in vocal style, and it’s easy to hear that in both timbre and delivery.  Growing up in Canton as Natalie McIntyre and attending Western Reserve Academy (and later the University of Southern California), she had a family before having a music career, and her maturity and sophistication are on display in full force with her sixth studio album.

Covered is mostly, well, covers.  She pulls songs from the Eurythmics, My Chemical Romance, Arcade Fire, Kanye West, and other artists, mixing styles with abandon, and changing the originals to suit herself.  She largely succeeds in this project, and brings some remarkably strong vocals on “Sail,” “Here Comes the Rain Again,” and “Wake Up.”  My favorites may not be someone else’s, and I prefer the rock to the rap, but there’s plenty to choose from.  She even gets her kids involved on a couple of tracks, with her son, Mel Hinds, taking the lead vocals on “Mel Rap.”  In fact, she gets all kinds of help, not only from her regular band, the Sex Fiends, but from a whole batch of background vocalists and percussionists.  They lend power and breadth to the tracks, but never get in the way.
For me, the least successful parts of the album are the short comedy bits, interspersed among the songs, which may please some people and annoy others to no end.  The first time through, they are pretty funny, with people giving her advice about her performance or introducing her, but after that, they just get in the way of the music.  Fortunately, one can skip them or program them out.  The songs are the strength here, and Gray’s voice is the key.

Personnel:  Macy Gray (vocals); the Sex Fiends: Martin Estrada (guitars); Ronald “RJ” Kelly (drums); Mike Torres (bass); Zoux (keys and synths, organ, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, programming); and lots of assisting musicians and background vocalists.
Tracks:  Here Comes the Rain Again, Creep, You Want Them Nervous, Smoke Two Joints, La La La (Teaching the Kids), Teenagers, The Power of Love, Nothing Else Matters, Sail, I Try is Cool and All, but..., Maps, Lovelockdown/Buck, Mel Rapp, Bubbly, Wake Up, Really?

Wansdog

So, What Are We Doing Here?

I've been at Hiram College for a lot of years, and I've always been fascinated by the complaints students have that we are in the middle of nowhere.  Come on, folks, we're in the middle of everywhere!  You can be in Cleveland, Akron, or Youngstown in less than an hour.  Kent is less than a half hour.  There's stuff going on all around us (and stuff on campus too).  What we need to do is change our perceptions of what constitutes nowhere.  That's what this blog is partly about, to expose the musical network of Northeast Ohio all around us, and be a part of that larger conversation.
Since 2006, the Hiram College Library has been developing a collection of Northeast Ohio music.  We're closing in on 600 CDs (still a drop in the bucket) in all genres:  rock, pop, rap, metal, jazz, classical, folk, country, polka, gospel, world, and who knows what else.  We're looking for new music to review, while building our back collection.  It's all about making connections with the surrounding landscape, and making our campus community a part of it.  More on this later.  In the meantime, take a look at what we've got at
http://hiraml.hiram.edu/search~S2/X?northeast+ohio&searchscope=2&SORT=DXZ
Jeff Wanser