'Menconi Offers a Deeper Understanding How Ryan Adams
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NOVEMBER 2012 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM REVIEWS BOOK HOLE DNobody’sAVID MENCONI Daughter [Universal] Ryan Adams: Losering, A Story of Whiskeytown [University of Texas Press] The first album released under the Hole moniker since 1998’s Celebrity Skin is really frontwoman Courtney Love’sRyan Adams is one of the more complex characters in music. He’s a gifted second solo album—co-founder,and restless songwriter at home in a variety of styles, from wrenching country songwriter and lead guitaristballads to bombastic heavy metal. Cocky one minute, startlingly insecure Eric Erlandson isn’t involved, nor is any other previousthe Hole next, he’s a fascinating, polarizing figure who has at times become a member. So it’s Love androck three ’n’ roll caricature. Music critic David Menconi strives to render Adams in ringers on 11 new songs—10three dimensions, digging into the singer’s origins on the Raleigh, N.C., scene of which Love wrote with that Menconi has spent the past two decades covering for the News & Observer. collaborators like Billy Corgan, Linda Perry and new guitarist Micko Larkin. (PerryMenconi gets full credit was on a onefirsthand tune, witness to the rise and fall of Whiskeytown, the “Letter to God.”) band that launched Adams’ career and has loomed as a constant—and Much of the riveting intensity of the group’s 1990s not entirely fair—benchmarkDaniel Jackson ever since. Drawing on his own conversations heyday appears to have left along with her former bandmates, but there arewith fl ashes Adams here of (before the snarling the singerToo cut often, ties though, following the slower a lukewarmsongs trip her review up. While of once fury Love deployed to suchAdams’ devastating 2001 effect solo back breakthrough, in the day. they were Gold showcases) and interviews for harrowing displayswith the of naked people emotion, She spits out her vocals whowith vengeful knew disdain and playedon “Skinny with Little him,Love Menconisounds more examines dispassionate Adams’ these days. ambitions, The production Bitch,” overdriven guitars roiling atop an elastic bassline that doesn’t help—the songs have an airless, sanded-down feel that speeds up as the song abilitiesraces toward and a climaticself-sabotaging pile-up at the sidedoesn’t as fi Whiskeytownt with her visceral persona. grew Courtneyfrom scrappy Love’s tumultuous alt- end. She shifts tempos andcountry attitude upstarts on the more to contemplative a group onhistory the vergesuggests of that mainstream she has a compelling success, story before to tell, and “Pacifi c Coast Highway,”it taking all fell stock apart. as layers Although of acoustic the and author’sperhaps shefondness does. It’s justfor not his the subject—or one she’s telling at on least Nobody’s electric guitars chug along behind her. Daughter. –Eric R. Danton the music—is unmistakable, he sorts attentively through the contradictions and self-inventions, exploring Adams’ development COURT YARD HOUNDS A side project of new offering suggested that its creator was a few strides closer to with balance, Dixienuance Chicks’ and Martie a dash crafting of wrysomething wit. trulyWhether monumental you in bothcome musical away and social from terms. Court Yard Hounds Maguire and Emily This cold and private set isn’t it, although that’s probably due more to [Columbia] Losering with Robison,a different Court opinion Yard personal of Adams circumstances probably than anythingdepends related on to where talent. Wainwright you start, but MenconiHounds offers delivers a deeper wrote understanding All Days Are Nights of while how his he mother, evolved Kate McGarrigle, into the was much-anticipated dying of cancer, and there is a quiet, complex sadness even in its insight—both musical andartist personal—into he’s become. the sisters –Eric who haveR. Danton less autobiographical material. There’s nothing here except piano for so long ceded center stage to Chicks singer Natalie Maines. and vocal, and Wainwright doesn’t project his words in the way Though steeped in familiar instrumentation, the album offers little we’ve come to expect from him. Instead of serenading the person of the barn-burning brashness that made the Chicks famous (save in the farthest corner of a packed theater, he’s singing to himself in perhaps the gutsy “Ain’t No Son”). Instead, its delicate folk-pop an otherwise empty room. –David Styburski prettiness perfectly suits Robison’s more-than-capable voice and the jumble of emotions, sunny and melancholy, that emerge in a song Ozomatli’s music has been called a collision cycle inspired by her 2008 divorce. Maguire’s weeping fi ddle and OZOMATLI of styles, a cultural mash-up, and a 20-car seamless harmonies are welcome as always, and her one turn on pileup of genres. It’s also some of the most lead vocals (“Gracefully”) is so warmly affecting that listeners may joyfully energetic music you’ll ever hear. On wish she stepped to the mic more often. Court Yard Hounds ably its fi fth album, the L.A.-based band stirs its demonstrates‘Menconi that, whether with their offers fellow Dixie Chick a or without,deeper blend of salsa, ska, samba, funk, and hip-hop these ladies’ talent runs deep. –Katie Dodd in ways few groups could conceive. Imagine Fire Away tossing the English Beat, Herb Alpert and the understanding howFor a dozen Ryan years, the Adams[Mercer Street/Downtown] Tijuana Brass, Caetano Veloso, and Sly and RUFUS arrangements on Rufus the Family Stone into a magical blender and Wainwright’s albums got you get some sense of Ozomatli’s eclectic approach. High points evolvedWAINWRIGHT into the artistbusier and his sometimeshe’s onbecome.’ their latest, Fire Away, include “Are You Ready?,” a horn-and- All Days Are Nights: Songs naughty, occasionally percussion-driven blast of salsa-fl avored ska; “Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah,” for Lulu angry declarations of gay an exultant Latin pop anthem fi tted with shrieking sax; and “Gay Vatos [Decca] pride got louder. Each in Love,” a rockabilly-tinged tune with a soaring chorus. Even when 70 MAY 2010 NOVEMBER 2012 M MUSIC & MUSICIANS MAGAZINE M3_v10.indd 70 5/14/10 3:37 AM.