The first single from R.E.M.'s
Accelerate album - which is set for release on April 1st from Warener Bros - is "Supernatural Superserious," and it is available for listening at the band's
official websiteAccelerate was recorded with producer Jacknife Lee (Bloc Party, U2), and according to R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe, the album represents "a big change" in relation to their previous efforts, which for the most part have been rather lackluster.
If the band's five-night residency at the Olympia Theater in Dublin last summer is any indication, the new material featured on
Accelerate is more stripped-down and guitar driven. Former Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin, who joined R.E.M. on tour for the
Around the Sun album, also plays on
Accelerate. To support the album, the band will tour this summer, with support acts
The National and
Modest Mouse.
The Well - Sarah Perrottaby Daniel Alleva
Sarah PerrottaThe latest release from dreamy, New York-chanteuse
Sarah Perrotta is entitled
The Well. Fans of Tori Amos’ early work will instantly find a kindred spirit in Perrotta, who is also a pianist, and is deft as a songbird when it comes to crafting elegant melodies.
The Well is a ghostly affair filled with elegant female persuasion and sultry grace. Style unlimited, Perrotta’s rich wail floats over the R&B swing of “Rooftops” and the retro-vogue pop of “Fishes.” Dynamically speaking, Perrotta’s songwriting abilities are top notch, as
The Well showcases 11 tracks that are as broad in direction as they are in emotion.
Joining Perotta on
The Well is The Band-alumnus Garth Hudson on accordion and legendary session man Tony Levin on bass. The album is available now, and can be purchased
here.
The Mars Volta: Happy Pastorsby Daniel Alleva
Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar RodrÃguez-López Terminal 5 is really more like a hangar than it is a terminal. Inside, it’s as cold and gray as the January evening outside. The dark and chilly ambiance is only offset by the countless attendees, all packed in on top of each other throughout the three, stacking levels of the recently-opened venue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Cedric Bixler-Zavala, singer and lyricist for
The Mars Volta, climbs back onto the stage after diving into the crowd, and proceeds to hump the amplifiers that are lined behind his partner-in-crime and best-friend-forever, guitarist and composer Omar RodrÃguez-López. “This one is for all the people out there who don’t want to hear us make the same record over and over again,” he says after facing the crowd again, as the band launches into “Drunkship of Lanterns,” a track from their first record,
De-loused in the Comatorium. The performance is a pummeling affair; Cedric flails about the stage like a free-form expressionist, while Omar – the captain on this eight man rotation – blasts from the frets like Carlos Santana being funneled through Greg Ginn.
The repetition comment isn’t so much a dig at this particular crowd as it is a dedication of thanks to the city. The Mars Volta’s early conquests in New York were by no means easy tasks, and their expansive musical scenery has graced practically every stage in the area - starting off no less with Madison Square Garden, while on tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers prior to the release of
De-Loused. It was during these formative years that Flea would watch the band’s sets from the side of the stage, and even Dave Grohl remarked that The Mars Volta reminded him of being a teenager, listening to Led Zeppelin’s
Presence amidst a black-light’s heady glow. But The Mars Volta is clearly not your dad’s Led Zeppelin, and no offense to Grohl (who was clearly impressed), but the comparison is kind of a cop-out, considering Cedric’s high-pitched wails that kind of (but not really) bear some resemblance to Robert Plant.
So when I catch up with Cedric a few days prior to the Terminal 5 show – being dangerously at risk of fruitlessly speculating - I decide to ask him point-blank about any of the comparisons or contrasts he can draw between how he feels about the music of The Mars Volta, and how he feels it is perceived by the listeners. “I think a lot of times people really misunderstand our music,” says Cedric, whose speaking voice is soothing, but is ripped with energy and passion. His answer to my question is an honest one, even if it only scratches the surface. But nothing can prepare me for his remarks as he continues. “I think we started attracting a lot of dumber people because of songs like ‘The Widow,’ people who wanted their hands held through everything, and wanted to be told what the motivation is.”
“The Widow,” of course, was the break-through single from their second record,
Frances the Mute. The album would sell 123,000 copies in its first week of release, and it would make almost every “best of” list at the end of 2005. But in the ever-forward, ever-progressing world of The Mars Volta, accolades such as these just don’t cut it. “When people cite our first two albums as our ‘peak,’ I really shudder to think what their record collection must be like,” says Cedric, “because if they thought those albums were fantastic and great, then they must still have Sublime records, or Smash Mouth and shit like that.” Cedric even files a grievance with Rick Rubin, who produced
De-loused, by saying “Rick really over-simplified some of the parts that we thought were unique, and just made them very digestible. He’s got this thing about representing the common man’s ears - I’d rather jab the common man’s ears. If we don’t, we’ll never get to a place where future music exists.” Future music exists, I repeat to myself inside my head, and it’s at this very moment that I realize that The Mars Volta might be the only band on the planet that would risk even death for the virtue of remaining creative.
If Cedric’s comments sound bitter or resentful, try to keep in perspective how insulting it is, after all, to say that a band went to shit after their second record – which is essentially what you’re implying when identifying a “peak.” Or as Cedric puts it, “It makes you feel like the people you thought got you, never got you in the first place. We’re out there because we’re trying to push it as much as we can, and if that means we piss people off, than good. That’s why I love (Radiohead’s)
Kid A, because it’s not fucking
O.K. Computer all over again.” All thistle and hum aside, it must be noted that The Mars Volta have always had a very clear position in terms of how albums should sound. “Our music demands your attention,” he continues. “It demands at least an hour out of you life, and with complete silence and with complete devotion. But it’s like a movie. You shouldn’t really be talking during a movie because the moment you say anything, you’ll miss a really great subtle moment that expresses what a character’s feeling.”
The subtle moments that have lead us to the here now are culminated in
The Bedlam in Goliath, the band’s fourth studio release, and – like their first two records – it is also a conceptual piece. A hauntingly rich adventure, the album is the result of an on-the-whim trip taken to Jerusalem by Omar, and the mysterious talking board that he gave Cedric as a gift. “Omar stumbled upon this flee market one day (in Jerusalem), and was singled out by this guy who took him to this shop which was away from the flee market. It had a lot of occult items, a lot of taxidermy – a lot of stuff that I would love as a gift. He just found this talking board - really old and dilapidated - and it looked like an antique. So, he bought it for me because he knew I would like it.” What would start out as being a means to cure boredom on tour would become an item of fixation for Cedric and the band. “The more I played it, the more I tried to recreate that feeling of a first high. It just got to the point where Omar had to have an intervention because I was really, really into it.” Attached to the talking board was a poem that the band had translated, which revealed the story of an adulterous love triangle. “It kind of told the story of this honor killing that happens in Muslim society. I took a lot of common myths about Ouija boards, and essentially tried to tap into what it would be like to be deprived of human contact, and being under the foot of male oppression that goes on in that religion.”
But
The Bedlam in Goliath is more than just the story of love that went wrong at the hands of an antiquated swain. Harrowing elements surrounded The Mars Volta all throughout the sessions for the album. Omar’s home studio in Brooklyn would experience the “random disappearances” of recorded tracks, and was even the subject of a flood. But as if the supernatural elements surrounding the record weren’t enough to contend with, drummer Jon Theodore more and more disliked being part of an 8-piece band - and he hated the sound and the direction the band was going in. “It’s like a bad marriage that went wrong,” says Cedric. “You live with people for so long you get to know what they’re really like. I realized he wasn’t in the band for the right reasons, and he wasn’t as in love with it as we were.” Theodore’s departure from the band is the evidence that creativity and forward-thinking comes at a high price, but if any band can rise to the occasion, it’s The Mars Volta. After all, Cedric and Omar had been through tension like this before in their previous outfit, At the Drive-In. When At the Drive-In’s third album
Relationship of Command was released in 2000, they were poised to become the next darlings of a burgeoning (and terrible) post-hardcore/emo scene. Feeling restricted by the sound, Cedric and Omar opted to pull the plug on At the Drive-In, leaving a bitter rift between them and the rest of the band.
Still, there would be no such fireworks in The Mars Volta once Theodore expressed his disdain. “I think he’s a great drummer, but I just feel he’s been given this gift and he doesn’t take advantage of it. There are so many more things that he cares about that are extra-curricular. I also think that a lot of people have the misconception that Jon Theodore wrote material, and that he wrote time signatures for the songs, but anyone who knows Omar knows that his songwriting is so specific that you could never stray from it, and anytime Jon was invited to contribute material, he never did. There was just tension growing because of that.” Deantoni Parks was brought in to replace Theodore, but he left to fulfill obligations he had to another band. Then 24-year-old Thomas Pridgen was recruited to fill the empty space behind the kit, and listening to Cedric explain his impact, it appears there has been nothing but glory ever since his arrival. “Now that we have Thomas in the band, it’s a different attitude completely. It’s like this fountain of youth. It’s a lot of confidence. Now we have a happy pastor, and the sermons are fucking hilarious. And fun. We smile on stage, and we laugh and we make jokes…I feel as though I’m 23 years old!”
Separation and loss within the line-up of The Mars Volta aside, there will always be an aspect within the band that will strive to find a cause for celebration in even the darkest of places. “What is dominant in Latin cultures is the celebration of death…(our music is) sort of a New Orleans Jazz funeral procession version of that.” Cedric, who lost many friends along the way while growing up in El Paso, makes a personal obligation to give tribute to the fallen. “I always felt it was my job to tell the world about these kinds of smaller spirits that didn’t get the chance that I got. I want to tell people because I am the way I am because of these people having touched my life.” He continues by saying, “Ya know, half of my family celebrates
El DÃa de los Muertos – “The Day of the Dead.” It’s a celebration; (Death is) not something to fear. That’s a constant in our material – to embrace Part Two of the experience; it’s a celebration of the unknown, and it’s exhilarating.”
The happy pastors, they are indeed.
