ROB ZOMBIE KOOP NEW MUSIC REPORT ESSENTIAL December 10, 2001 www.cmj.com LANGLEY SCHOOLS NATHANIEL MUSIC PROJECT MERRIWEATHER Retail Valley Media goes under Miles Copeland speaks out Polyvinyl grows the News Team Clermont founder passes D12, Gorillaz address terrorism Kindercore inks distro deal One band you can't afford to sleep on THE CHARTS: APHEX TWIN #1 ON RADIO 200 • PUMPKINS "HITS" MOST ADDED Discover the Best New Music and Emerging Artists — plus great songs by established artists — www.cmj.com/discovery Start with a favorite artist, song or album and you’ll find great music like it! Artists: Add your music to the Music Discovery Network - FREE! Go to www.cmj.com/discovery/enroll for enrollment forms and instructions, or call CMJ at 917.606.1908 x240. Find out more about Savage Beast Technologies at www.savagebeast.com. 12/10/2001 Issue 742 • Vol 69 • No. 11 FEATURES 8 The Art Of Rocking “Touring has been probably 95 percent of our success,” says AFI’s Adam Carson. “And it’s absolutely the most important thing and the most instantly rewarding part of the band. Albums are hard projects that take a long time to come to fruition. The energy we get from, and give to, our fans is a real powerful thing.” DEPARTMENTS 4 Essential 35 New World Rob Zombie, Langley Schools Music Project, A chat with world-punk act Kultur Shock and Koop and Nathaniel Merriweather. reviews of Wolf Krakowski and Caribbean Pulse. 6 The Week 22 Jazz Team Clermont co-founder Jimmy McLean is In rotation this week: Tricolor, Triage, remembered; Joey Ramone gets his own street 6 Portastatic, Mushroom, Bobby Short and the right next to the club he helped put on the Marc Copland Trio. map, CBGB. 23 Triple A 10 Reviews New releases from Brady Brock, Evelyn 24 Core Radio 75 Forever, Flickerstick, Joy Electric, Mogwai, Le Tigre at No. 1. Morel, Jim O’Rourke, Silver Jews, Ocean’s Eleven soundtrack, and Hank Williams Jr. 25 Top 200 Adds & Going 14 Loud Rock For Adds Review of the newest Rob Zombie, Dope, Smashing Pumpkins at No. 1 with 213 adds. Dark Funeral, Benediction and Burning Inside records at radio now. Plus: Cephalic 26 CMJ Radio 200 Carnage starts a label, Bambino leaves Aphex Twin at No. 1. 14 Sanctuary, Spitfire moves to the Big Apple, where to submit your year-end top 10 lists, 30 Upcoming and a chat with 1000 Knives Booking honcho Rich Hall. 32 Retail In CMJ Retail’s second week of existence we 18 Hip-Hop examine the demise of one-stop giant Valley D12 and Gorillaz collaborate on a new single, Media, Ark21 chairman Miles Copeland dis- “911,” plus news on the X-Ecutioners and cusses unity in diversity, rising indie Polyvinyl new label Coup D’Etat Entertainment. is spotlighted in Under The Radar, and Vermont retailer Buch Spieler is profiled. 19 RPM Mute reissues Laurent Garnier’s debut; reviews 38 Airplay of the latest from DJ Colette and Dub Taylor. 61 Get A Job 20 Ñ Alternative 18 Cuban Hip-Hop Allstars come to New York, 62 Mic Check Miguel Ríos reels out a star-studded record, Nathan Dewey, MD of Fort Collins, CO’s plus a review of Ñiño Planeta’s Voz Futura. KCSU. CMJ New Music Report (ISSN 0890 0795) is published weekly except the week of September 9, the week of Thanksgiving, and the last two weeks of December. Published by The CMJ Network, Inc. with offices at 151 W. 25th St., 12th Fl.; New York, NY 10001. Subscription rates are $345.00 per year; 2 years, $575.00. Subscription offices: 151 W. 25th St., 12th Fl.; New York, NY 10001. Tel 917.606.1908. Outside U.S. and Canada 917.606.1908. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offices. CMJ New Music Report is copyright ©2001 by The CMJ Network, Inc. all rights reserved; nothing may be reproduced without written consent of publisher. Unless indicated otherwise, all letters sent to CMJ are eligible for pub- lication and copyright purposes, and are subject to CMJ’s right to edit and comment editorially. Unsolicited manuscripts, pho- 32 tos and artwork are welcome; please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope to facilitate return. Postmaster: send address changes to CMJ New Music Report, 151 W. 25th St., 12th Fl.; New York, NY 10001 3 CMJ DECEMBER 26, 2001 ESSENTIAL ROB ZOMBIE The Sinister Urge (Geffen–Interscope) In “Feel So Numb,” the first video off The Sinister Urge, Rob Zombie sports a Ramones shirt, a glaring symbol of the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” aesthetic that allows innovators like the Ramones, AC/DC, Motörhead and Zombie to release album after album of the tried-and-true formulas they pioneered. But for Rob, what a formula! That static “Immigrant Song”-meets-Ministry pum- mel, those post-industrial scribbles and that caustic demi-rap growl have kept legions of Robbie-come-latelies clawing for his spooktacular charm for years. These elements are in full splatter on Urge, but more of that familiar Zombie chug doesn’t mean there isn’t room for tantalizing twists. The B-movie-obsessed Zombie gets closer to his cinematic leanings with full-blown string arrange- ments and skews his spooky samples with tastefully atmospheric scratching by Mix Master Mike and DJ Lethal. In “Never Gonna Stop (The Red, Red R.I.Y.L.: Powerman 5000, Static-X, Ministry Kroovy),” Rob even dabbles with acoustic-tinged funk-hop, strutting around Contact: Lenny LaSalandra Phone: 310.865.4524 like Beck possessed by Beelzebub until the chorus explodes like a zombie noggin Email: [email protected] in Dawn Of The Dead. But for all his minute sonic diversions, Rob’s mostly just Release Date: Nov. 13; at radio Tour Dates: Louisville, KY (12/10); Grand Rapids, MI up to his old tricks — diggin’ through those ditches and burnin’ through those (12/11); Hartford, CT (12/13); Worchester, MA (12/15); witches. Ow! — Christopher R. Weingarten Buffalo (12/16); Albany, NY (12/18); Manchester, NH (12/20) LANGLEY SCHOOLS MUSIC PROJECT Innocence and Despair (Bar/None) A recording of 60 pre-pubescent voices belting out a Bay City Rollers cover is certainly a rare find, and the Langley Schools Music Project is filled with such uncommon cuts. From the bleacher-stomping crescendo of “Saturday Night” to the Beatles, Beach Boys and Barry Manilow ballads, the Langley kids offer an array of grown-up cover tunes. Organized during the mid-1970s by a liberal music teacher in rural western Canada, this youthful music troop didn’t come with big smiles or dulcet voices. Their amateur oeuvres, complete with wavering melodies and strained high notes, were recorded on a two-track tape deck in their school gymnasium. The result is lo-fi and folksy, but a bit haunting, too. Sure, “Help Me, Rhonda” is cute and innocent enough, with its ill-timed cym- bals and off-key harmonies, but the same charming flaws make their other- worldly and gymnasium reverb-enhanced rendition of David Bowie’s “Space R.I.Y.L.: Beach Boys, Paul McCartney, David Bowie Oddity” sound downright eerie. And the effect of a nine-year-old girl singing Contact: Fanatic Promotion Phone: 888.349.4842 “Desperado,” with a heartstring-tugging sadness that the Eagles never quite Email: [email protected] evoked, adds a painful sincerity. These little Canadians may not have had much Release Date: Oct. 9; at radio rhythm, but they were feeling the emotion, for sure. One listen, and you’ll never see a third-grader in the same light. — Kara Zuaro R.I.Y.L. = Recommended If You Like 4 CMJ DECEMBER 10, 2001 THENEW WEEK’S BEST MUSIC NEW MUSIC KOOP Waltz For Koop (Jazzanova–Compost) Waltz For Koop, the work of Swedish composers/producers Oscar Simonsson and Magnus Zingmark, is an ingenious bit of time-warp trickery: with a subtle hand on the sampler and a small but tasteful selection of guest vocalists, the duo has put together a lush re-telling of a funky lounge-jazz classic that never was. The fact that Waltz For Koop, with its swinging Latin rhythms, serpentine hard-bop soloing and sweetly scatted vocals, sounds like it could have been written 30 years ago is beside the point. There’s a thoroughly modern sensibility to the way these tracks play out, using supple, walking bass lines and carefully layered dynamics to exaggerate rhythms in all the right places. Newcomers Cecilia Stalin and Yukimi Nagano add their softly upbeat and quavery voices to two songs apiece (the bossanova big-band stunner “Summer Sun” being a high- R.I.Y.L.: Bebel Gilberto, Thievery Corporation, Amon Tobin light), while soul/jazz vets Terry Callier and Earl Zinger offer their own voices Contact: Backspin and lyrics to one track each (Callier’s electro-tinged twilight-ballad “In A Phone: 718.399.1632 Email: [email protected] Heartbeat” wins our vote). Sometimes it’s difficult to tell where the samples end Release Date: out now and the live congas, flutes and saxes begin, but that seems to be precisely the point; in Koop’s universe, traditionalism is merely a palette tone, employed to suggest a mood or salute an inspiration. Thankfully, these Swedes know their Bird as well as they do their Rolands. — Colin Helms NATHANIEL MERRIWEATHER Lovage — Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By (75 Ark) Dan the Automator and Mike Patton are both the odd men out in their genres. The hip-hop world doesn’t know what to make of Dan’s high-concept brand of beats, and Patton’s extreme noise experimentation can alienate even the most hardcore of his old Faith No More fans.