The Wheel's Still In Spin

Interview - Two Gallants - March 18th, 2006

The content of this review was originally posted on the online music and popular culture magazine I See Sound in March of 2006. Earlier that month, I had the opportunity to sit down with Tyson Vogel and Adam Stephens of Two Gallants in Austin, TX, at SXSW.

The Wheel's Still In Spin: One of the things we present on I See Sound is Blind Taste Tests. We take individual songs and send them to our writers with no tags or information about the songs to get unbiased reviews of songs. We did that with one of your songs and people guessed your influences to include Credence. Especially after seeing your show, you guys obviously have diverse influences. There's blues guitar with folk lyrics with punk singing. And your drumming has got to be somewhere in between Buddy Rich and Dave Groehl. What are the influences you each brought to Two Gallants?

Tyson Vogel: We should speak individually I guess. Well, it's kind of cool that you bring up the Buddy Rich and Dave Groehl thing because I think musically I've always taken a lot of reference or inspiration from music that has sensitivity to it. Both those drummer are very diverse drummers essentially, but heavy at the same time.

TWSIS: Pretty intense.

TV: Yeah. So is Elvin Jones, who's one of my favorites, and Max Roach. Intensely focused, and emotional, but still have a good basis. And similarly, we both listen to a lot of old country and country blues and that's pretty similar. Like John Fahey is quite a big influence on me, if you can believe it on the drums as well.

TWSIS: It seems like you had your kit set up with a jazz style. Playing a jazz type style, but with a lot more intensity and harder than any jazz drummer I've ever seen (laughter). And there's obviously many influences. In one song you can hear about 5 different influences. It's that diverse. There's the country blues. The lyrics are very narrative and poignant, but smack you in the face. There are great stories, but told in a way that puts me on the edge of my seat. Adam, what are your bringing into Two Gallants?

Adam Stephens: I suppose in the guitar playing there's John Fahey as well. Also, Skip James is a big influence on the way I play. I suppose lyrically, Arthur Rimbaud, William Faulkner, and I could say Bob Dylan but that's kind of obvious.

Rocky Votolato - Makers

The content of this review was originally posted on the online music and popular culture magazine I See Sound on 16 Feb 2006.

Release Date: 24 Jan 2006 (Barsuk Records)

Download “Portland Is Leaving” (mp3)
Download “Tinfoil Hats” (mp3)

Alex, Kevin, and Josh were best friends in high school. Now, 14 years later, Alex was getting married. Kevin and Josh were back home together for the first time in years, and, in the interim, they’d both been through a lot of changes. While Alex stayed in touch with both of them, Kevin and Josh hadn’t talked to each other in quite a while.

When they were in high school, the three of them would often walk along the train tracks that cut across their small, midwestern town. Now, the night before Alex tied the knot, Kevin and Josh found themselves with a loss for things to do or to talk about. They’d been hanging out together for the past few days. There was Alex’s bachelor party. They’d been out almost every night they’d been back to their childhood hometown. However, when you’re back home in rural Indiana, you can only go out to the same few bars so many times before you get bored. So they started walking along those tracks again.

They’d forgotten a lot about the town in which they grew up. Kevin, on the other hand, had been living in Phoenix for about 2 years. He avoided settling down. He moved every couple of years. He regretted how most of his relationships floundered to an end. Josh was living in Boston because he had joint custody of his son with his ex-wife. He couldn’t move from that Massachusetts harbor town without giving up something he held as the most cherished part of his life. Walking on the gravel beside the railroad ties, they started talking about how the town had grown and changed.

“Did you ever think there’d be a Wal-Mart here?” and “Did you think that Hanson’s Hardware store would-a closed and a Lowe’s would’ve opened?” were types of questions that got the conversation started. Then the dialogue shifted to their memories of younger days.

Reliving some of the mishaps and adventures of being teenagers, Kevin, who’d been doing most of the talking, said, “This reminds me of a line from a song called ‘White Daisy Passion.’”

“That’s on Makers the new Rocky Votolato disc,” asked Josh, a little surprised.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Elefant, and The Morning After Girls - Bogart's, Cincinnati, OH - February 9th, 2006

The content of this live review was originally posted on the online music and popular culture magazine I See Sound on 11 Feb 2006.

Back in September, [I See Sound writer] Jeff Snyder had a chance to review his first Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show for I See Sound. Now it was my turn. Owning BRMC’s last two albums, I was excited to see how the band would alternate from their earlier to more recent material.

The 500 or so people in attendance slowly trickled in throughout the first two bands’ performances.

It all started with The Morning After Girls, from Australia. The PA began by playing a phased out intro. Sacha Lucashenko walked out, picked up his acoustic guitar and began playing under the recorded intro. Soon it was just the acoustic guitar. Then Aime’e Nash walked out. She sang a beautiful song. Their bass player, Scott Von Ryper, played a synth part. Then the other members walked out. The show was starting out mellow, but showed signs of complexity and diversity.

As soon as the first song was completed, someone yelled out, “Your guys album kicks ass,” and requested the song “Hi-Skies,” which they didn’t play.

Morningwood - Morningwood

The content of this review was originally posted on the online music and popular culture magazine I See Sound on 22 Jan 2006.

Release Date: 10 January 2006 (Capitol Records)

John walked into Used Discs with one CD in his hand. Once you get over 600 CDs, as John did about 3 years ago, you need to occasionally go through the collection and trade back a few. There are some albums you never listen to again. So John usually carries a small stack, 5 to 10 discs, into Used Discs because he’s purged his collection.

In his hand he had Morningwood’s self-titled disc.

Tom, the owner of Used Discs, welcomed John to the store. He was a little excited. If John was carrying only one disc that usually meant that he had discovered something new that Tom needed to hear. That would not be case today.

“What album is that?” Tom asked.

“A piece of crap,” replied John. “I don’t care if you won’t give me a cent for this album. I need to get rid of it. I was going to throw it away, but I figured you might give me something for it. I hate it, but I could see how someone might like it if they don’t care about good lyrics, like overly repetitive music, and enjoy bands that seem like they were packaged to make people think they’re more about getting laid than playing good music.”

“Wow. It’s that bad, huh?” Tom took the disc in his hand and was shocked by the shot of the band in sexed up prep school outfits.

The Elected - Sun, Sun, Sun

The content of this review was originally posted on the online music and popular culture magazine I See Sound on 16 Jan 2006.

Release Date: 24 January 2006 (Sub Pop)

Download “Not Going Home” (mp3)

He drew another drag from his Lucky Strike. Waldo the Clown was on a break and using this time to get as much nicotine from his filterless cigarettes as he could. It was going to be a long day. Waldo was performing at a 10-year-old’s birthday party. He’d arrived at 11 am and started by shaping balloon animals, throwing confetti, honking his clown horn, and general acting silly. Right now it was 1 in the afternoon and the birthday boy was opening presents. Waldo figured he had enough time to inhale at least 5 Lucky Strikes and today he needed each one of them. Then it would be another 2 or 3 hours of giggly antics before he could get back into The Clownmobile and drive home. It paid the bills and usually he liked the joy clowndome brought to other’s lives. Usually.

Last night he fell asleep listening to The Elected’s new CD, Sun, Sun, Sun. The Elected features Blake Stennett (Rilo Kiley guitarist and co-writer) on vocals, guitar and keyboards. Waldo started listening to the album, and once his thoughts wandering to his former girlfriend, he put the album on repeat and let the layered lushness put him to sleep. When things were good between Waldo and Julia, things couldn’t get any better. But when things took a turn for the worst, they hit bottom.

He woke up, put on his coats of clown makeup, painted a big red smile on his glum and reflective face, and slipped into his baggy, colorful outfit and oversized shoes. Then he started The Clownmobile (actually a station wagon painted in primary colors with “Waldo The Clown” on each side in bubble letters) and drove to little Stevie McManus’s 10th birthday party. When he was “on” he forgot about his life outside of clowning. Now that he was chain-smoking Lucky Strikes, he had some time to contemplate Julia and The Elected album.

Just like Waldo’s mood, Sun, Sun, Sun was full of emotional ups and downs. It had moments of overconfidence (“I can’t lose” repeating itself on “The Biggest Star”) mixed with desperation (“Would you come home, baby, if I take it all back” on “Fireflies in a Steel Mill”). This record has great country style rockers (“The Bank And Trust”), soul influenced tunes (“Old Times” and the long jam of “Biggest Star”), stripped down acoustic based songs (“Sun, Sun, Sun” and “Desiree”), and impressive love songs (“Beautiful Rainbow”).

Two Gallants - What The Toll Tells

The content of this review was originally posted on the online music and popular culture magazine I See Sound on 12 Jan 2006.

Release Date: 21 February 2006 (Saddle Creek Records)

Download “Las Cruces Jail” (mp3)
Download “Waves Of Grain” (mp3)

Rod heard about the Two Gallants’ What The Toll Tells while skiing at Arapahoe Basin. He always listens to his iPod the whole time down the hill. On the lifts, he would take a hit or two from his bowl, unless he was riding the chairlift with someone who might take offense to his drug use. Then he would just sit and listen to his iPod. On this ride to the top of the mountain for his final run of his day, he was sharing his pot with another ski bum. They started talking about the music to which Rod was listening and the conversation soon led to discussing different musical genres.

“We’ve been calling it Pulk.” Rod referred to the music he and Tad, his roommate, were recording in their living room back in Idaho Springs. They had a couple microphones always on stands next to the couch and a computer with a Digi002 ProTools setup. “It’s punk folk.”

“Like, what do you mean?” asked the ski bum.

“We’re trying to have the energy and rage of punk, but we want to stick to the intimacy of folk music and just use two acoustic guitars.”

“Cool, man. You should check out Two Gallants.”

The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday

The content of this review was originally posted on the online music and popular culture magazine I See Sound on 6 Jan 2006.

Release Date: 3 May 2005 (French Kiss Records)

I dated an intransigent Catholic girl once. She loved the religion for all its rituals and traditions. Both her parents were deacons and she planned on following in their footsteps. I didn’t have the same passion for Catholicism, or any form of Christianity. I’d go to church with her every Sunday, though. I would support her and her beliefs, even if they weren’t the same as mine. Ultimately, our spiritual differences were the reason we broke up. Last I heard, she had devoted her life to her religion, spending a year evangelizing around the country and eventually going back to school for it. I choose a different life.

The Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday is an allegorical drug story. It tells the tale of Holly’s resurrection to the Minneapolis scene. She was entwined with the same ceremonies and customs as my ex-girlfriend, but in a very different way. Holly, or Hallelujah as her parents named her, would skip CCD class to buy drugs. She drank, she inhaled, and she disappeared. She was born again and had multiple visions, sometimes of saints and sometimes just seeing double visions of her fucked up friends.

There is a complete cast of characters throughout this album, but they all are pieces in Holly’s story of reemergence. Some of them go on vision quests, some of them die, some of them gossip, but they usually have their stash in their socks and a party on their mind. They tell each other, “Hold your breath and I’ll dunk your head. When you wake up again. You’ll be high as hell and born again.”