A-Dog Benefit: Vol.1

Unfortunately this info came along a little too late to write it up in the paper, but tonight Red Square is hosting a benefit for DJ A-Dog. For those who haven't been following along, A-Dog's apartment and virtually all of his worldly possessions were destroyed in a fire earlier this month. Community reaction has been swift and there are a number of benefit shows lined up to support both DJ A-Dog and Tick Tick DJ Mike Device, who also lived in the building. But tonight is the first and it promises to be a good one.

The evening will mark a return of sorts to Tha VT Union's roots as they perform with noted funk maestro Dave Grippo. Back in the day, Grippo, Fattie B, DJ A-Dog and several members of what would eventually become Tha VT Union held down a residency at the Square every Monday night. It was possibly the hottest night of the week, both for the bar and, arguably, Burlington in general. For those who remember it, tonight will likely be a nostalgic stroll down memory lane. Hope to see you there.

Lost Politics: Full Transcription

Tomorrow's edition of Seven Days features an interview with Thee Silver Mt. Zion co-founder Efrim Menuck. As so often happens, the confines of the print edition require that conversations such as this one be trimmed down to fit the physical limitations of the space. Thanks to the unceasing wonders of the Internet, no such constraints exist in the blogosphere. So you, loyal Solid State readers, get to check out the interview in its entirety. Enjoy.

PS- If you haven't bought tickets to this show yet, you really should. Like now.

Lost Politics

A Conversation with Thee Silver Mt. Zion’s Efrim Menuck

Tick Tick Presents: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band with Oak and Greg Davis & Friends this Friday at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Burlington, 8 p.m. $12/13/15. AA.

STORY: DAN BOLLES

The members of Montreal’s Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band have passionate social and political beliefs, reflected by an equally passionate fan base — even though their music itself is rarely explicitly political. Seven Days recently spoke with SMZ co-founder Efrim Menuck about politics, misconceptions and a certain ad for the TV show “Lost,” in advance of their upcoming Burlington performance.

SD: TSMZ is often tabbed as a “political” band. But that seems to be a designation you bristle at.
EFRIM MENUCK: For the most part we get broadly cast as a political band or anarchists or openly idealistic. There are all sorts of generalizations made about us, and I think that’s what I bristle at. We don’t conceive of ourselves as activists or political. We just think of ourselves as formed, grown-up human beings who choose to write songs that sort of address the mess that the world is in. There aren’t any statements we’ve made that are contentious or anything. They all seem to be plainly held truths by most people. You know what I mean? I don’t know why people feel the need to characterize us as “political anarchists” or anything. But it’s really far from the truth.
    It’s frustrating too. There was a time — I mean, it seems like forever ago now — where, like a lot of people, we were sort of on the margins of the anti-globalization movement and going to protests and stuff like that. There’s a level of politicization that happens in that context that we were definitely a part of. There were references made in songs, specifically about those types of movements.
    It’s frustrating at points too because there are a lot of people [for whom] that whole milieu is alien to them. You’re trying to write songs that are kind of nuanced, but it’s kind of specific. It can be frustrating feeling like you have to give someone a sort of like “International Protest Movement for Beginners” spiel or something.

SD: Does that have anything to do with 13 Blues being the first album for which you’ve included lyrics with the liner notes?
EM: There are a lot of people who like our band for whom English is not their first language. So we mostly wanted to put the lyrics somewhere so people who didn’t speak English that well necessarily, would have a bit of a chance at understanding what was going on. So I posted a bunch of the lyrics just on the Internet for that purpose. And when this album cam out I just told [Constellation Records] “This time, there’s gonna be a lyric sheet.”

SD: You’re often pointed to as the “leader” of the band, but that’s not entirely true. It’s more of a collective process isn’t it?
EM: It is absolutely a collective process. We’ll start with a handful of riffs . . . there’s very few songs where I’ll come in with chords or lyrics ready, you know? There’s maybe three songs like that in the history of the band. But for the most part we’ll start with a handful of riffs until some sort of rough structure is there. Then we’ll start adding counter lines and melodies and things. Then, really late in the process, I’ll start writing words and sort of roughing them into the song. It takes us about a month of serious work to get a song together, because we’re all stubborn and have this strange writing process.

SD: And they’re all pretty epic songs. Like, ten-plus minutes.
EM: We’ve tried to write shorter songs. I guess it’s maybe not a strong point for us. We sort of need that much runway. We’re self-conscious about it, so we try to make it as concise as we can.

SD: Not to get political again, but have you been following the US presidential election?
EM: Yeah. yes I have. Mostly though because it’s ridiculous theater at this point. It’s like evidence of everything that’s wrong, not just with your political system, but with political systems of all the wealthy industrialized nations. It’s like watching a train wreck.
    There’s no truth there. The way it’s spoken about. The way arguments are contextualized and framed, it’s clear that it’s the cable news networks that are running the show. They have a vested interest in continuing specific narratives and they’ll just spin things however they want to.
    It’s frustrating, and I can imagine it’s even more frustrating for an American. Somewhere there’s some sort of policy discussion going on. But you’d be hard-pressed to find it.
    It’s sad too because it socializes politicians to this sort of dull grey fog. Obama got a free pass for a while because it was such a novelty that there was a charismatic dude running for office who spoke off the cuff a bit. It’s sort of like what happened with Dean too, although he wasn’t too charismatic. But [Obama] is like a totally different dude now. So I don’t know.
    At the same time, whoever gets elected President is going to be at the reins of a train wreck. I don’t envy that person.

SD: I promised a friend that I’d ask you about how “Tho You Are Gone I Still Often walk With You” came to be used on the ABC show “Lost.”
EM: Every year we get offers to license music for movies, television shows and advertisements and we say “no, no, no, no, no.”  We turn down like tens of thousands of dollars every year because it’s either a piece of a song that we really have an attachment to or that we know other people have an attachment to. Or what they want to license it for is something that we just find heinous or boring. And so this “Lost” thing came in and there’s some people in the band that watch that show. And also it’s a little ten-second chunk of a song that none of us feel any attachment to.
    We talk to people after shows; we’re an open band that way. And in all of the touring we’ve done, no one, no one, has ever brought up that song as something they’ve liked or was important to them. So it was really like a perfect storm of “OK, like, what the hell?”
    It’s been interesting because our engagement with the music industry has always been incredibly pragmatic. You know what I mean? We try not to fuck people over and we take every decision that we make very seriously and we don’t grab at the easy quick money ever. What it comes down to is that it was a perfect storm of mitigating factors. It was ultimately a pretty easy decision to make and a pretty easy decision to justify.
    The other thing is the ad screened for a total of one week. That was the deal. We got some e-mails at the beginning, before the ad even screened,  from outside fans who were obviously “Lost” fans because they were on ABC’s  website going through trailers. They were like “What are you doing?” And it’s like well, dude, you’re obviously way more into the show than any of us are. Those were sort of the only questioning e-mails we got about it. And then Pitchfork picked it up . . .
    So much of what gets written about us is that we’re hardcore anarchists and that we’re lecturesome. So you start with that and then we sell ten seconds of a song to a “Lost” ad and it’s like “Ha ha! Fucking sellouts.” And it’s this boring narrative.
    At the same time, we know that there are lots of people who are fans of what we do who expect us to maintain this hard line, sort of absolute negation of anything corporate. So for those people, we’ve had conversations after shows about this stuff. I mean . . . again, we’ve been pragmatic in our approach with the entertainment industry. And we’re also, first and foremost, working musicians and prideful of that.
If you actually want to get into what our political stance is, that’s the sloppy little plank in our platform. We’re prideful and take playing music seriously as a trade, like any other trade. We expect and we demand that musicians get treated with respect and don’t get exploited.
    It was a fairly easy decision to make and I don’t think it’ll happen again in the career of this band. If it weren’t for the fact that it was like a piece of music that we didn’t feel any attachment to and no fans seem to feel an attachment to, it never would have happened. And if it hadn’t been a program that some people in the band actually watch on televisions that don’t even have cable. So yeah, that’s the long story.

Do You Kids Like The Rockroll Music?

Well, do you? I know I do. And tonight there's a particularly potent evening of rockin' on tap in a space typically reserved for mellower and indier fare, Radio Bean.

Now don't get me wrong. I dig the singery-songwritery stuff too. And I loves me some pretentious indie shit from time to time as well. But sometimes you just gotta feed the need for pure, unadorned ass-whoopin' rawk. Enter Empire State Troopers.

I was actually introduced to EST by Josh Schwartz from False 45th, who, coincidentally, is quoted on the band's MySpace page. Here's what he has to say on the matter: "One of the most obvious elements to EST is the powerful chick singing of Kelly Murphy. A force to be reckoned with, Murphy seems to be on a tear in every song. If the band is a '71 Challenger, she's the bottle of Super 104 Octane Boost." Well played, sir.

Murphy, to borrow a line from Wayne's World, wails.

The timing of the show is a tad unfortunate since there's a whole lotta rockin' going on tonight with Amadis, Made In Iron and Arkain playing at Higher Ground's Showcase Lounge and the debut of Jesus Vanacho at Nectar's. But the show starts at 11 p.m. — with opening support from the deliciously named Che Guevara T-Shirt — so as Josh suggested in a recent e-mail, perhaps you could consider the show as a Metal Night Afterparty. Works for me.

Have a great weekend!

New Band Alert!

I'm afraid the rumors are true. Denim-fueled speed-western truckstop rockers Chuch are no more. I, for one, am pretty bummed about it. The band was something of a Burlington oddity in that they virtually sidestepped the dues-paying phase most local bands are required to endure before they hit the road and seek their fortunes outside of the bubble that is the VT music scene.

From the outset, Chuch decided they weren't content to languish in Burlington vying for Tuesday night slots at Nectar's, and spent the majority of their time touring, ultimately building a solid fanbase across the country. You could argue that they were more popular outside the state than they were in their hometown.

Though I'm certainly going to miss Chuch, I'm happy to report that a new band has emerged, rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of cigarettes and stale beer that often littered the band's van. Ahhhh, memories.

Calling themselves Jesus Vanacho, the band is comprised of ex-Chuch rhythm section Justin and Noah Crowther — on drums and bass, respectively — Lightning Ridge axeman Ethan Rhea and Turkey Bouillon Mafia's Adam King on keys. The quartet debuts this Friday at Nectar's and I certainly plan to be in attendance. In the meantime, check out this track, entitled "Jetway" from their recently recorded demo.

Deli Sandwich

Greetings, Solid State!

There's a new deli in Burlington and I ain't talkin' about Sadie Katz — which, if you haven't been, totally rocks. One word: latkes. One more: mmmm . . . man, I'm hungry.

The deli I'm referring to is of the online variety and aims to serve up healthy servings of local music coverage. Originally based in NYC, The Deli Magazine has branches in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Nashville and now, curiously, the 802. If the decision by a publication that historically focuses on major music markets to set up shop in a Lilliputian city such as Burlington seems odd to you, you're not alone. I'm not quite sure I get it either. But The Deli is here, perhaps to stay. I, for one, say "welcome to Burlington."

As the Music Editor for a competing publication, the knee-jerk reaction — and perhaps the reaction you folks might expect from me — would be to slam the website and dismiss it. But I prefer to take an alternate view of the new e-rag.

One of the enduring lessons I took from working for Magic Hat is that competition is not only healthy, but vital to the success and survival of almost any endeavor. MH founder Alan Newman is often asked if he views the high volume of competing VT and regional microbreweries as a threat. His answer is always the same: no. Newman's philosophy is that having more options creates more overall interest in craft brewing and, ultimately, more interest in Magic Hat. Given the fact that MH just bought Seattle's Pyramid Brewing Co. to become the third largest craft brewery in the country, he might have been on to something.

The Vermont music scene is larger and more diverse than it's ever been and coverage is essentially limited to three outlets: Seven Days, State Of Mind and The Burlington Free Press — I certainly don't mean to overlook the notable contributions of our state's various music blogs. But for the purposes of this conversation, I'm sticking with the professional media.

With so much music being created and so few outlets to report it, inevitably and regrettably, some stuff falls though the cracks. To be honest, there is probably room for another music publication in Vermont. And if The Deli does its job well, it can help kindle more interest in Vermont music, which in turn kindles more interest in Vermont music coverage.

The late Nineties Burlington alt-rock scene is regarded by many to be the "heyday" of Vermont music. In many respects, it probably was — though I firmly believe we're on the brink of another. A big reason that era was so incredible and is remembered so fondly — aside from the unbelievable wealth of great bands — is that there were more outlets writing about Vermont music. To name a few, Seven Days, the BFP's "Scene & Heard" and the late, great Good Citizen Zine provided excellent coverage of the VT scene and were a key factor in sparking widespread interest. 

As for The Deli itself, it's not bad. Perhaps a little jam-centric for my tastes — and the fact that Deli editor Adena Harford's boyfriend's band Silent Mind is prominently featured and hyperbolically reviewed seems a little suspect. But today is merely their soft launch and there's at least a skeleton for expanded coverage. I'll be curious to see how they do.

In the end, the focus for any local music publication should be just that, local music. Competition is great if it drives us to step up our game. Variety is even better. The more voices we have espousing the virtues of our homegrown music, the more ears the message will reach. Hopefully, that translates to more eyes perusing the pages of publications like Seven Days and, ultimately, more bodies in nightclubs to see local bands. A guy can hope, right?

Hold me closer, Tony Danza!

So I'm sure you've all heard that Sir Elton John is coming up to Essex this summer.

Bizarre? Yes. Awesome? Also yes.

Tickets have been on sale since 10 AM this morning, and I don't know about all of your places of work, but Seven Days has had a few staff members tied to their computers for the better part of the morning. My friend Lani over at the Flynn photographed some of the Queen City's more dedicated fans lining up as early as 5:30 PM LAST NIGHT.

You can check out all the action on the Flynn Center's blog right here.

And did you know that with this concert, Sir Elton will have officially appeared in all 50 states? Yep. No longer sharing rank with George W. is sure to make the performer happy.

Pay Yer Pal

DJ A-Dog's web designer, Scott Campbell, has just set up a PayPal account on A-Dog's website to accept donations to help get him back on his feet. Click here to lend a hand.

Rocket, Man

This just in from the folks at the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds: Of the 10,000 available seats for the July 21 Elton John concert, more than half were gobbled up as of late this afternoon. This unprecedented flood of sales shattered the previous record for a single day, presumably set by last year's Bob Dylan show — or maybe ZZ Top and Whitesnake? Anyway . . . wow. Just wow.

Here's the crazy part: Those numbers are not inflated by ticket agencies buying up huge blocks of tix as the Flynn recently launched an anti-scalping security doohicky to prevent such shenanigans. I didn't even know scalping was a problem for the Flynn.

Here's the even crazier part: Elton Fucking John is playing at the fair.

A-Dog Update

This just in from Higher Ground:

ANDY WILLIAMS aka- DJ A-DOG'S apartment burnt down this morning..

So around 8:00am this morning (05/01/2008) A-Dog's apartment caught fire and from the looks of it he lost EVERYTHING! His two cats and all of his personal possessions; Clothing, records, dj gear and basically EVERYTHING in his apartment.  It looks like the fire started down stars in one of his neighbors lower apartments. The good news is that everyone made it out unharmed.... They are going to let him do a walk threw around 3:30pm today to see if he can salvage anything but from the looks of the place most of his possessions are destroyed in one way shape or form?

So it is time for him to rebuild and granted he is still in shock but none the less I want to get the ball rolling.

He will need new clothes, records, dj gear and a place to stay. So if anyone know of a nice and affordable place for him to move into could you please let him know. He has plenty of places to stay in the mean time but he will eventually need a new apartment ASAP.

Could everyone pass this along to A-Dogs friends and family so he can get a hand rebuilding his life. If anyone wants to break him off some clothing, dj gear, vinyl, New "Rane Serato" or just anything that you feel will help then send it to:

Attn: A-Dog
Nibus Clothing
187 South Winooski Ave
Burlington VT 05401

His sizes are:

Sneakers: 9-9 1/2
jeans: 34
jackets, t-shirts, hoddies and ect: XL

BUT PLEASE CHECK WITH HIM BEFORE YOU SEND STUFF..

If you want to reach him then you can e-mail him at:     ( I am not going to put his cell # in this e-mail but if you are close and want to call him then please do so)

adog321@aol.com

Along with all that we are going to threw a MASSIVE benefit in the next few weeks hopefully so if anyone has any ideas then please feel free to let me know. This is all still fresh and new but it has to be done and it will ASAP!

Thanks

Andy

Breaking News

It pains me to report that DJ A-Dog's house burned down early this morning. I just got off the phone with Nastee — A-Dog's VT Union collaborator and a fellow DJ — who told me that everyone was able to get out of the house unharmed, though there has been no sign of A-Dog's cats.

The BFD won't let A-Dog back into the house to see if anything is salvageable, as of this posting. But most of the DJ's records and equipment were in the house when it burned and it's likely safe to assume the loss is significant.

Nastee informed me that benefit shows are already in the works. I have no doubt that the Burlington music community will rally behind and support A-Dog to help soften the blow. I'll be sure to keep you folks updated as details emerge.

I can't say that I know Andy well, but he and VT Union were among the first local musicians to reach out to me when I assumed the role of Seven Days Music Editor. In particular, A-Dog put together a series of mix tapes to help educate me in the history of hip-hop and turntablism. He is one of the most genuine people I've encountered in my time covering VT music. And one of the most talented.

Thoughts and prayers . . .