Around Hear
On June 2, highly influential math-rock pioneers Giant’s Chair performed a startlingly steady set at Spit Fest. Giant’s Chair’s return to the throne was unannounced but hardly a secret — news of the reunion provoked salivating posts on local music Web sites — and enabled fans to see Scott “Rex” Hobart carving jagged rock riffs instead of crooning country tunes. Next weekend, the Misery Boy roams even further from his home on the range, reassembling his artfully redundant drone team Many Series for three final shows. Seeing Hobart revisit his adventurous musical past in a This Is Your Life-style collage, pessimists might fret that the multitalented vocalist and guitarist is knotting loose ends before leaving the city.
Alas, the pessimists are right. On July 15, Hobart departs for Buffalo, New York, where brutal winters might push his sob stories into depressing depths. Although his impending move played a role in his decision to resurrect his dormant projects, it wasn’t the sole factor. Spit Fest organizer Billy Smith catalyzed the Giant’s Chair reunion, and the Many Series concerts were planned before Hobart’s decision to move was finalized. Still, Hobart admits, “it feels nice to be touching on these things before I leave.”
Area indie outfits still revere Giant’s Chair (Shiner even named a song after the group), but Many Series is a lesser-known endeavor. Playing a smattering of gigs in a three-year span, Many Series decorated its aggressively repetitive instrumentals with performance-art elements, including mimes, slide shows and costumes. At one memorable concert, the quartet battered a plodding riff into submission with a sloth-paced crescendo. Then, as the crowd prepared for a cathartic eruption, the song fizzled. At precisely the moment when listeners learned this mammoth firework had a soggy fuse, Many Series illuminated a question mark made of pink Christmas lights, which was hidden behind a nappy blanket at the back of the stage. It was a brilliant parody of rock’s clichéd pay-off choruses and a definitive depiction of Many Series’ keep-’em-guessing approach.
Hobart says Many Series aims to “achieve timelessness as soon as possible,” which doesn’t mean crafting classic pop songs that could fit into any radio age. Rather, it seeks literal timelessness, a sci-fi state in which senses are dulled, clocks are forgotten and drooling is common. To achieve this effect, the group pushes rhythmic patterns past the point of absurdity, hypnotizing listeners into forgetting when the song started and perhaps even leaving mentally pliable listeners to question where they are and how they got there. Many Series’ 2000 disc Aeralist allows fans to conduct their own experiments; leave it repeating on your CD player when you go out of town for a weekend, and you might discover apartment neighbors exploring highly altered states upon your return.
But music has always just been part of the Many Series puzzle. In fact, for the past two years the group removed actual songs from the equation, existing as a band only for the sake of ideas. When Many Series first disbanded, hosting a career retrospective at the Dirt Gallery and a press conference at Recycled Sounds, it promised to release research papers that would describe the music it would be making, were it making music. To date, none have been issued. “We haven’t actually published anything, but we’ve been researching our manifesto,” explains drummer Matt Bramlette. “We’re basically a conceptual band that plays music as an excuse to create situations.”
For its upcoming shows, at The Ranch in Columbia on Friday, June 14, The Brick on Saturday, June 15, and the Replay Lounge on Sunday, June 16, Many Series focuses on material from Aerialist. Grand Ulena, another challenging instrumental ensemble, shares all bills. Everything else about the performances remains a mystery. Each will have a distinct theme, Hobart says, and additional artists might be involved — though, due perhaps to the increased stigma of the profession, good mimes seem hard to find. Many Series plans to let anticipation build — “for the past two years, we’ve really been about rumors,” Hobart says — without divulging the nature of its farewell statements. “It’ll be spectacular somehow,” Hobart promises.
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Many Series has produced several spectacles during its erratic existence, the details of which elude even Hobart. “It can be pretty much a mindwipe, playing these kind of songs,” he says. “You lose track of reality for a minute or five. Maybe I’d have more memories otherwise.” But even after Many Series’ self-cancellation and Rex and the Misery Boys’ mid-July send-offs, local fans will have more than memories to help them get a semiregular Hobart fix. “Our new record will be out in late September, and we’ll be touring for that into winter,” Hobart reveals. “After that, I plan to come back once a month for Midwest shows. It might be ambitious, but we’re going to give it a try.”
Meanwhile, Bramlette’s record label, Lemsound, on which Aeralist was released, will issue two new albums later this summer: a live-on-KJHK free-jazz improv set from the experimental group Stop Champfer and a dissonant discography from Bramlette’s former group Germbox. As for another Many Series stint, Hobart refuses to rule out anything. But for anyone who can’t bear to think that this could be the end of the band, Aeralist provides a potent anaesthetic, transporting listeners to a dream world in which Many Series exists forever.
Last but Not least
Overshadowed by last week’s christening of the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater was the renaming of The Brick, at 1727 McGee, previously one of many area clubs called The Pub. Boasting one of the most impressive opening-night lineups in area history (Season to Risk, Shiner and the Gadjits), The Brick built a solid foundation on June 1. All in all, the Brick offers another outstanding lineup this weekend: the Stella Link, the Casket Lottery and Trusty Defiant on Friday, June 14; Many Series and Grand Ulene the following night; and hypereclectic avant classicists Barbez, whose members combine theremins and violins with modern instruments such as a modified Palm Pilot, on Sunday, June 16.
One of The Brick’s rejected names was Shari’s, an attempt by an appreciative patron to pay homage to club owner Shari Parr. Davey Markowitz, the man who founded Davey’s Uptown and gave the onetime speakeasy its name, would have turned 93 on Wednesday, June 12, and the venue marks the occasion with a free concert starring greasy cow-punks the Crosstops, along with the Cripplers and the earth-shaking Load Levelers.
Also in a festive mood is the American Jazz Museum, which celebrates Father’s Day by opening a new exhibit, Frederick J. Brown: Portraits of the Music I Love, on Sunday, June 16. Brown leads a tour of his work at 4 p.m., after which live jazz follows. The next night, esteemed trumpeter Darren Barrett visits the 18th and Vine district, mixing spirited modern compositions with sweet-toned mood-setters at The Blue Room.
Barrett’s romantic work proves ballads need not be wimpy, but emo singers haven’t gotten the tip. As Butt-head once snapped, reprimanding a feather-headed power-balladeer, “I want a woman, too, but I’m not out singing some sucky song about it.” By contrast, Poison the Well replaces whining with convincing angst, dainty ditties with brainy metal-informed compositions and band-member-and-girlfriends photo essays with intricately designed album art. At The Bottleneck Tuesday, June 18, it partners with Strung Out, a veteran pop-punk crew whose personal and political narratives outshine its routine quick-and-catchy backdrops.
