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The sound phile: travis on the isle Travis Maybe Like many bands today, Travis went from doing small gigs at Horseshoe Bar in Glasgow, Scotland—the place where lead vocalist Fran Healy and drummer Neil Primrose met in 1991—to just recently opening for the snobbish Oasis on their current U.S. tour. Maybe Travis consists of Fran Healy, Dougie Payne, Andy Dunlop and Neil Primrose. Their second album, “The Man Who”, was released in the U.S. last month when it had already gone five times platinum in The U.K. At the Brit awards Travis wiped out contenders such as Beck, Oasis and Gomez in the categories of “Best album of the year” and “Best single of the year.” Maybe Their freshman album, “Good Feeling”, did not receive much recognition in part because it was recorded in seven days. Nonetheless, the first album is filled with upbeat rockabilly and ballads for the emotionally ill. Maybe The sophomore album, “The Man Who”, has 10 tracks and three hidden tracks, is the embodiment of a musical masterpiece. The lyrics manifest concern for peace and change in the world, while the instruments buoy up Fran Healy’s screaming and soothing voice. Maybe The song “Turn” is an example of how eloquent Healy’s voice crescendos with passion, from whisper to cry and back to whisper, when he sings, “I want to feel forever young/ I want to sing/ To sing my song/ I want to live in a world where I belong/ I want to live/ I will survive/ And I believe that it won’t be very long/ If we turn, turn, turn, turn/ Then we might learn.” Maybe Other songs like “Writing to reach you,” “As you are,” and “Luv” are the larger-than-life ballads that elucidate why people break up and have such a hard time accepting it. “Luv” says: “And distance tells you that/ Distance must come between love/ Where have you been, Luv?/ When the mistake we made was in never having planned to fall in love, luv.” Maybe Going unmentioned is the song which won best single, “Why does it always rain on me.” The lyrics to this single are catchy and depressing in tandem. “Why...” is in my opinion not the best of the 13 tracks. The B-sides, three hidden tracks, account for much of the band’s talent to rock. Maybe Travis’ Opening up for Oasis was short and sweet--the purpose being solely promotional. I did not know what to expect. My quixotic expectations of how they would perform live had given me butterflies. St. Andrew’s Hall, the place of the crime, was an old red-stone brick gymnasium turned into a concert hall that was so small that it was close to perfect. Maybe The unnerving opening group Waxwings took longer that expected. Everybody was waiting for the prophetic Fran, Neil, Andy and Dougie. And once they took stage, history at St. Andrew’s Hall was made. The first song “All I want to do is rock” set the tone. People started to dance on the bar and chairs, at the sold out, general-admission show. Beer took flight from pint glasses and voices around me relentlessly tried to match Healy’s. Maybe In the middle of the concert, Fran spoke of four ideas that have helped the band to succeed: art, love, expression and humanity. Whatever the formula may be, this band’s success is clear, and I prescribe that everybody seek refuge from emotional illness in this second album’s work of art. — Ervin William Martinez ENON Maybe After the untimely death of Brainiac’s lead singer, organist guitar player Timmy Taylor, the indie rock scene wasleft wondering who would lead the future of rock. The answer came from Timmy’s bandmate John Schmersal and his new band Enon. Maybe Enon’s debut album is an unbelievable success. Schmersal, Rick Lee and Steve Calhoon of Skeleton Key , with the most recent addition of bassist Toko Yasuda the band has put the band has put together what may be the next generation of sound-to push us through the first decade of the new millennium. Maybe Under the D. Clifford record label, Enon packs a sampled, spliced and utterly incredible explosion of pop hooks and beautiful melodies. Enon’s Brainiac influence is ever-present, underscored by a more “radio friendly” vocal style and songwriting ability. Maybe This album sounds like an “Alice in Wonderland” free-for-all cartoon escapade spliced in with “The Matrix.” It may sound like a joke, but believe me, it is very serious and original. As off-the-wall as Enon can sound to some they never lose track of keeping the music the main objective. Enon is simply testing the boundaries of what new music can be. — Mark McCutcheon Sonic Youth Maybe It has taken me a while to review this disc because Sonic Youth requires a series of special listening sessions. For example, nothing can compare to throwing a copy of “Bad Moon Rising” in the tape deck and driving down fog-infested country roads. Maybe With this said it will probably be another year before I have truly formed a solid opinion of the Youth’s new record. Maybe Opening with the track “free city rhymes,” the Youth project a spacey and disoriented sound. Thurston Moore steps forward with lines that are straight out of a beat poetry collection. Allen Ginsberg would be proud to hear Moore singing, “Make a free line, to the northern sky, holy rain falls, ghosts burn to shine, elevator, reach for the lights, intuition, free city rhymes.” Maybe The track, like most of their songs, is a slow build to a furious noise jam that includes some work from Chicago’s experimental man, Jim O’Rourke, on bass. Maybe “NYC Ghosts” is the triumphant return of Sonic Youth on DGC records. After last year’s theft of almost all their equipment and the unconventional release of “Goodbye 20th Century,” it is nice to have the power of Youth back in the pseudo-mainstream. This new album is a merging of the styles that are heard on their SYR Records releases and the classically sonic albums like “Sister” and “Bad Moon Rising.” Maybe Sonic Youth has let go of the pop ties of 1998’s “A Thousand Leaves of Grass” and has retreated to the thing that they do best, experimenting with sound and structure. Maybe I am sure that they are catching a lot of flack from DGC on this venture, but they have made their fans very happy. Thank you Sonic Youth. — Colin DeKuiper Various Artists Maybe VH1, like E! Entertainment Television has become one of our generation’s guilty pleasures. You know how it goes—you’re switching around, maybe pausing a while on MTV, and then, being aggravated at seeing Jerry Sringer (complete with pasty white legs in Bermuda shorts) ogling at foolish college students on spring break instead of any true musical content, it happens. It’s so close, it could have been the slip of a finger over the channel button, but you know better. VH1, though its videos still inspire, well, nothing, has programming that scratches that useless information itch that everyone has. This time, it’s especially for music mavens. Maybe With the exception of the occasional miss, like the celebrity-staffed “The List,” VH1 has learned the right way to make music fans sit entranced for at least an hour watching documentaries that range from ridiculous to spectacular. “Behind the Music,” “Before They Were Rock Stars” and “Where Are They Now?” could probably all be combined into one large special, but VH1’s “Storytellers” is the viewer’s window into the heads, not just the lives, of their favorite artists, new and old. Maybe Giving each musician a relatively intimate setting, a polite audience and probably a few cues, this show features artists playing favorite tracks from their catalogs and inviting them (telling them, rather) to share stories behind each song. We all have questions about the content of the music we love-the inspiration, the catalyst, the subject. Maybe “VH1 Storytellers,” probably the first in a series of compilations from the show, is the perfect way to take the guilty out of “guilty pleasure,” but only if what you’re in the market for is the music in its more mellow, “raw” format-what do you expect when the audience can be heard (and seen on TV) reservedly clapping and meekly cheering in the blank spaces. Maybe With 15 different artists’ songs, complete with quotes and pictures from the show on the insert, the CD has a good chance of pleasing on some level. The artists range from David Bowie and John Popper (Blues Traveler) to the Pretenders and Elvis Costello. Maybe it’s time to bite the bullet and actually face the possibly smirking punk rock cashier at the music store and pick this little “old faves live” mix CD up. If all else (your nerves) fails, say it’s a gift for your dad. —Fauzia Arain |