Rock Torch

Tucker Rountree of Total Slacker carries a torch for Mark Mothersbaugh

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Tucker Rountree of Total Slacker and Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo

Tucker Rountree and Mark Mothersbaugh

Tucker Rountree’s recommendation: “I’ve always been into Mark Mothersbaugh. My unlce Norman (who is an avid guitar/americana collector) has seen Devo many, many times back in the 80’s when they ruled. He has an actual Devo hat, the red one that looks like a flower pot.

What moves me about Mothersbaugh and his music is the intrepid connection he displays between performance art/esthetic/and great song writing…somehow he was able to connect all 3 aspects of a presentation for a totally unique and interesting sound/band.

I also really like the element of mystery involved in his writing and general attitude. He’s not very concerned with critics and just does what he wants sonically.”

New to Mark Mothersbaugh and Devo? Tucker Rountree recommends you start here: “Everybody I know and my family will say Freedom Of Choice …and I love those songs…but my favorite Devo album is the lesser known 1984 release Shout.”

Check a great clip about Mothersbaugh’s music factory at markmothersbaugh.com.

Tucker RountreeAbout the guest author, Tucker Rountree: Tucker handles the lead vocals and guitar work for what very well may be the next big thing out of Brooklyn, Total Slacker. The band specializes in lo-fi, dreamy pop that leans heavily on accentuated bass and backup vocals. It’s Pixie-ish with amped up humor. Interesting side-note: according to Artrocker.com, Tucker was mentored by Grammy award winning guitarist Eric Johnson and bassist Emily Oppenheimer is classically trained in guitar and piano. Check the Total Slacker MySpace page for release and live show info.

MP3: Video Store Rental Guy from Total Slacker’s demo


Andrew Rieger of Elf Power carries a torch for Tonetta

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Andrew Rieger of Elf Power and Tonetta

Andrew Rieger and Tonetta

Andrew Rieger’s recommendation: “Tonetta is a mysterious character, only recently emerging from the shadows after home recording some truly bizarre music since 1983. All that is known of the man is that he is in his fifties and lives in Toronto, and has never played a live show. His music is a blown out lo fi mix of extremely funky basslines and distorted drum machines, accompanied by sometimes sinister, sometimes explicitly sexual vocal delivery and lyrics. In 2008, he began posting videos of himself dancing wonderfully strange dances, sometimes in women’s clothing, or very little clothing at all, while lip syncing to these brilliant songs. There’s hundreds of these videos on Youtube. He was banned by YouTube briefly for explicit lyrics, but now he’s returned.

The thing is, the guy’s a great songwriter, sometimes singing quite beautifully, other time utilizing a husky, deep and very creepy sounding voice. And it’s not a gimmicky delivery, he’s a genuinely strange freak who has labored in obscurity for many years, with no commercial aspirations or any interest of presenting his music to the world at large until very recently.

New to Tonetta? Andrew Rieger recommends you start here: His first album, “777” recently was released on Black Tent Press Records, and it is a masterwork of sleazy genius, and truly unlike any record i’ve ever heard. The recordings span from 1983-2009,yet the album stands as a cohesive whole. I think the U.K. paper the Guardian summed Tonetta up well when they wrote recently, ‘Punk lives, and it’s wearing a thong on YouTube’.”

Andrew RiegerAbout the guest author, Andrew Rieger: Andrew is the leader of Georgia based pop band, Elf Power. You may have been lucky enough to see these guys open for the likes of R.E.M or Wilco in the early 2000s. More recently, they collaborated with the late Vic Chestnut (see video below). Their new self titled album comes out on September 14th (pre-order here) and was initially tracked by Andy LeMaster (REM, Bright Eyes, Drive By Truckers). The songs were then tweaked in a home studio where the band could take the proper care without having to worry about expenses. Tour dates are on the horizon so be sure to check their MySpace page for dates.

Melora Creager of Rasputina carries a torch for Brian Eno

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Melora Creagaer of Rasputina and Brian Eno

Melora Creagaer and Brian Eno

Melora Creager’s recommendation: “Brian Eno’s second solo record, Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy has been my main model for album making since I started. It was made in 1974, but will never get old. It’s so weird, yet very conventional. I guess they are pop songs. The things just sounds right, like perfect. The song structures and arrangements are tip-top. It’s very dense.

Eno’s first record, Here Come the Warm Jets is just as important, and I often get the two confused. I never know song titles either – I just know this record as a whole, a whole listening experience.

The lyrics are hard to make sense of, but there’s narrative. It’s something about women and Asian spies. I can hear his affection for words- he’s fooling around with them, playing a game. I like to do that too.

His chord progressions and harmonies really get me.The instrumentation is so cool. Are those crickets or guitars? I don’t know! It’s all logic from another dimension and that’s what I’m all about.”

Melora CreagerAbout the guest author, Melora Creager: Creager may be recognized for playing cello for Nirvana on the European leg of the In Utero world tour (including their final live show in Munich), but she also fronts the chamber-rock trio, Rasputina. We’re not going to try to sound all smart and explain what chamber-rock is, but we did supply a track (below) from Rasputina’s seventh album, Sister Kinderhook, a collection of songs about giants, feral children, and, well, a bunch of other stuff that isn’t covered in most of the mp3s in your iTunes library. Make sure to check the Rasputina web site for tour dates.

MP3: Holocaust of Giants from the Sister Kinderhook album

Craig Minowa of Cloud Cult carries a torch for great movie soundtrack composers

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Craig Minowa and composer Jurgen Knieper

Craig Minowa and composer Jurgen Knieper

Craig Minowa’s recommendation: “I don’t really listen to bands’ albums much anymore. There are some really great bands out there, but then there are also piles and piles of the same old stuff. It’s starting to feel so formulaic and fashion-based that I wonder what happened to the true art of songwriting. More often, I get really inspired by some of the movie composers out there that don’t get all the fame and glory. I find film scores to be some of the most inspiring and innovative music going on out there. I’m not talking about the movies that fill their scores with the trendiest new pop songs, but rather those that are originally scored and composed. I think a lot of people don’t notice the music going on in the background of these storylines, because the visual plot is so much more commanding. But close your eyes sometime and just listen to the music, and you’ll be surprised at some of these Oz’s behind the curtain are coming up with. Maybe it’s because I started scoring music for National Geographic documentaries recently, and it’s really humbling to feel so sophomoric compared to some of these amazing composers. I’m now woken up to the whole world of composers out there that I’d never heard of before but that blow myself and just about every other musician I know of out of the water.”

Craig Minowa’s picks for those new to movie soundtrack composers: “Some examples would be Jurgen Knieper’s work in Wings Of Desire (1987 Film), John Barry’s Dances with Wolves
 and even Peter Gabriel’s Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ.”

About the guest author, Craig Minowa: Craig Minowa is the frontman for the experimental/environment friendly band, Cloud Cult. The band was formed in 1995 and despite offers from major labels, they have remained an indie group on Earthology Records, a not-for-profit environmental record label established by Minowa in 1998. The group has a new full length album in August, but for now you can download their latest EP, Running With the Wolves here. You can also get to know the band in the film about Cloud Cult, No One Said It Would Be Easy:

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