You-Phoria: a music blog from youphoric and roachcraft

  • R.I.P., CWM

    Posted 2/16/2013 by cal
    I’m glad I’m not going to be at Cactus Club tonight.  When a band I love announces four days in advance that its next show will be its last, and it’ll be an opening set for that Alan Sparhawk side project band [NOTHING AGAINST RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR], I (apparently) feel somewhat relieved that I already have tickets to a different show.  It’s not even a band I like nearly as much as Celebrated Workingman, but it’s a good band that’s not about to end itself.  What, with a fill-in bassist [NOTHING AGAINST SCOTT SCHOENBECK] and who knows what kind of intra-band drama at the root of the breakup, is the likelihood that tonight will be the best show Celebrated Workingman ever plays?  Even if it is, I can’t live in that moment; it would only make the (let’s face it: not-so-)sudden demise of the band that much harder to take.  It’s hard enough from a distance. Read more... Comments (0)

  • Dire week for metal

    Posted 5/19/2010 by cal
    Devil horns up: you owe that iconic rock and roll gesture to Ronnie James Dio, who passed away this week after a prolonged battle with stomach cancer.  Metal purists lament the ubiquity of the hedonistic sign language, but it's only a thumb away from love anyway.  You can thank/blame Dio for much of what has happened in metal since the mid-70s.  With Rainbow, he sowed the seeds of hair metal.  He rescued Black Sabbath from an early grave following Ozzy's collapse.  With Dio, he established himself as a brand name, and endured for the rest of his life as both a legend and a punchline, embracing the entirety of his legacy with humor and class.

    I am not a Dio fan; the style of music he gravitated to just ain't my bag for the most part (exception being the excellent Heaven And Hell album).  But the guy had an incredible voice, the most influential of all time in metal, from Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford to Dave Mustaine and Geoff Tate to Cedric Bixler-Zavala and legions of followers to come.  And there's no denying that he tirelessly injected the spirit of heavy metal back into pop culture over and over again throughout his life.  He cared about it as much as anybody ever has, if not more, and for that he has my undying respect and gratitude.

    More sad news today: Isis is calling it quits.  This is the band that forcibly evolved metal with the untouchable Oceanic album in 2002.  I've already gone on and on about the swarm of imitators that flooded the market with post-metal in its wake.  I haven't been impressed with the band's last couple of albums, although I have to admit that last year's Wavering Radiant isn't as bad as I initially thought.  I was just beginning to hope that Isis was on the upswing.  Maybe the kiss-off EP that's in the works will be the crowning achievement.  Either way, it's a bittersweet ending, a legend carved in stone: far and away the most influential metal band of this young century.

    So, thanks for changing the course of music forever, guys.  That was awesome.  Please add a Chicago or Milwaukee date to your tour in between L.A. and Bonnaroo!  You will be missed.


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  • Michael

    Posted 6/28/2009 by cal
    One of the most common names in the history of the world, yet there was one man who possessed it so completely that he may as well have done away with his surname. So completely that now, it will be difficult to hear that name and think of anyone else. How can it be that we’ve suddenly been thrust into the era that comes after Michael?
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  • Lux Interior: 1946-2009

    Posted 2/5/2009 by cal
    Few artists have had as deep an impact on the trajectory of my musical journey as The Cramps, a group which came to a definitive end yesterday with the death of founding singer Lux Interior. Like Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa, I was drawn to Lux in my youth for his humor and shock value, but there was also just a visceral thrill in the echoey, punkish guitars and Lux's primal howling that grabbed me in a way I couldn't compare to anything else at the time. Over time I fell in love with his abiding passion for resurrecting the demons of true rock and roll and making it something my parents could hate and fear again. His gift for writing demented, clever rockabilly songs was matched only by his need to dust off forgotten classics from the 50's and bring them to a new audience, making them his own in the process. As a singer he was a cross between Elvis and a b-movie psychotic wolfman, reverb-drenched and over the top. He brought rockabilly back from the dead in the late 70's, and his influence has kept it alive ever since. I didn't even discover the Cramps until the mid-90's, but they instantly made everything else in my collection seem timid and boring. I listened to little else for months. At the time it was as much the intoxication, horror-film imagery and sexual perversion as the punk attitude, but now I listen to The Cramps for the pure soul and raw energy that still emanates from (almost) everything they recorded. And, Lux's crazed imagination can still make me laugh. "Spiders in my eyelids and ghosts in the cheese." 'Nuff said.
    Just last year, I finally located one of my holy grails: an original vinyl copy of The Cramps' first E.P., Gravest Hits. I brought it home, stuck it on the turntable, dusted it off and put the needle on. The glorious clang of "Human Fly" rang through the house. I got halfway through "The Way I Walk" before my downstairs neighbor called. "Cal, what the hell are you doing, man?" I hope he wasn't exaggerating with his claim that his pictures were falling off the walls. I didn't have it up that loud, after all, but the destructive yelp of Lux Interior is a powerful thing. He didn't write these next couple of lines, but he sang them the way I'll always remember them, his preemptive epitaph:
    "The rock 'n roll daddy has done passed on
    but my bones will keep a' rockin' long after I'm gone" Read more... Comments (0)

  • ATOMIC RECORDS...R.I.P.??!?!!

    Posted 12/5/2008 by cal
    First, the Milwaukee Shakespeare Company goes belly up. Now this? What's next, Fuel Café? The Cactus Club? WMSE??? Read more... Comments (0)

  • Levi Stubbs, R.I.P.

    Posted 10/19/2008 by cal
    One of my all-time favorite singers passed away in his sleep on Friday. Levi Stubbs was the dominant voice of the Four Tops, the quintessential Motown group of the 60's. His passionate yelp lifted great tunes like "Bernadette," "I Can't Help Myself," "Reach Out I'll Be There" and "Standing In The Shadows Of Love" to classic status. Stubbs is also remembered fondly as the voice of Audrey II, the man-eating plant from the musical film Little Shop Of Horrors. Stubbs continued to perform with the Four Tops until the late 90's, when he began battling cancer and then suffered a stroke. His influence on R&B singers throughout the history of the genre is incalculable. Read more... Comments (0)

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