In writing in January about the first release from Planning the Rebellion, the college-age duo of brothers Robert and Scott Cerny, I said, "The band excels when it embraces its electronic elements fully." (See "Unwasted Youth," River Cities' Reader Issue 614, January 3, 2007.)
I mention this because for their second recording, bafflingly titled Volume 2, the Quad Cities-bred Cernys seem hell-bent on making a fool out of me, or at least calling my judgment into question. The self-recorded CD - roughly 30 minutes of music in nine songs - chucks the electronic processing until the coda that is the final track, and instead tries to skate by on voice, acoustic guitar, and piano.
And we're not talking about built-up layers; the Brothers Cerny stick with simple melodies, and even harmony vocals are rare. The gall!
The
theme of Lois Deloatch's workshop on June 17 at the River Music
Experience is "the singer as an interpreter of music," and the
irony is that her first CD (1998's Sunrise)
was a collection of her own
songs.
One
reviewer has called Sky Blue Sky
the best Eagles record the Eagles didn't make, and it's
impossible to shake the timeless soft-rock vibe in the sound, the
vocals, and the easy pace.
The lyrics that open Low's Drums & Guns are as forceful as singer/guitarist Alan Sparhawk is tentative.
An
unscientific survey of River
Cities' Reader employees
revealed that many people have never heard of Richard Thompson.
When
I put the album from the electronic duo EOTO in a CD player at work,
my office mate Mike Schulz asked - after about five seconds of
music - "You're not watching porn, are you?"
You'd
never know it by listening to him, but every time Chris Botti picks
up his instrument, he's wrestling with it.
Most
everybody knows that Blur song
as "Woo Hoo," even though its proper title is "Song 2."
Neither is particularly meaningful.
