After yet another incredible night of music and fun at the SF Eagle Tavern I’m convinced that the long-suffering san Francisco underground music scene has indeed bounced back from an uncertain future at the hands of greedy developers and high rents and musicians making a mass exodus for more affordable cities to create in. It really feels good there on Thursday nights, like there is an actual community of supporters there, musicians from other bands, fans and friends, thankful for a place to convene and enjoy some really first rate up and coming local acts as well as a lot of touring bands from other cities, like the appearance a couple weeks ago of a Portland band called The Epoxies. Their debut CD has been figuring prominently in my DJ shifts, with its pointedly new wave style keyboard and melody-driven songs and edgy guitar creating an almost familiar or nostalgic sound that’s very danceable, laden with pop hooks and crowned by a truly fantastic female vocalist, Roxie Epoxy. Her voice is pure and clear, delivering some very clever ambitious and skillfully written songs of apocalyptic love, modern alienation, making out in bathroom stalls, more undying sentimental love and a couple anthemic wake up calls for complacent youth. She’s a strong vocalist with an impressive range and you can hear what she’s saying. The other band members add some back-up vocals that really propel the songs into a realm of completeness in form, as does some tasty and aggressive guitar work. The Epoxies perform a picture perfect cover of “Beat My Guest” by Adam and The Ants, complete with the yodeling vocals and double the frenetic energy of the original and oddly enough this remake gives you a definite sense that this is an accomplished outfit with strengths and abilities they’re only beginning to flex for us. Watch out for this band, I think their going to be popular.
Seeing this band and talking with them after the show made me realize something that I don’t think everyone actually knows or thinks much about when they go out and see a live band. When a group sets out on a tour they do so on a shoestring budget, often leaving their day jobs, a stack of unpaid bills, any sense of security or even a home to return to and throw their lives into a vehicle and cash into the gas tank and just follow the elusive dream of success as a rock band. It’s a crap shoot of uncertainty, you sleep in the van while driving to the next city, you depend on the kindness of new acquaintances and other bands for floors to sleep on or a chance to bathe, you hope the merchandise sells so you can afford gas and food and guitar strings and eyeliner and you play shows for surprisingly little pay, especially when split 4 ways. It’s no easy task but you are following an urge to create and perform, a drive that some artists can’t just tuck away and forget while making low fat decaf latte’s for yuppies, they have to do it, a desire burns within them to attempt to make a living creating rock music. It’s a big gamble but choices are made with a love and a longing from deep within ones soul to take that chance and commit to making it happen. That’s why I stand in awe and admiration of rock and roll musicians, and the next time you see a band touring through town, recognize the choices they’ve made and respect that, and buy some merchandise too.
This applies to local bands too, and Doug Hilsinger, the person responsible for booking Thursday night live at the Eagle not only has a vast knowledge of the local music scene and has presented numerous fantastic bands like my new favorites, The Quails and Lost Goat and Dirty Power but he’s been in numerous bands himself most notably Bomb, Hedonist, Gift horse, and his current project, Waycross, who just had a record release party at the Eagle for their sophomore CD, Aren’t We The Lucky Ones. Waycross have always been an unusual and enigmatic band, creating a soft slow lilting and mournful sound with definite stylistic leanings towards country/western but not quite as simple as that. About the only comparison I could make to other contemporary artists would be the now defunct Geraldine Fibbers, but where that band edges toward a harder sort of C/W revisionist area, Waycross feels more sublime and actually traditional while escaping the vapid AOR dreariness of The Cowboy Junkies. But again there’s more to Waycross than the word traditional implies, and Aren’t We The Lucky Ones? is a haunting and beautiful and dark testament of a band that is far from simple or easy to categorize and with each listen I’m finding myself more and more drawn into the mesmerizing richly layered sound this combo creates.
A few of the songs on this disc show a much more rocking and crunchier facet to their generally spooky country-ish atmospherics, like the song “B-Sides” with it’s thick thudding bass line and ricocheting guitar tones and the vocals lending additional rhythmic sense to it all. Often their songs start out quietly and mournful and slowly build to a crescendo of textures, crashing through flourishes of psychedelia, some beautiful guitar work that sounds mysteriously like pedal steel guitar as well as some thick post-punk guitar wizardry ala Sonic Youth. As I listen I continue discovering even more distance traveled knowingly by these excellent musicians.
Vocalist/guitarist Caroleen Beatty is the definite figurehead of the group and writes all the song lyrics. Onstage she seems so small and unassuming and it’s kind of shocking to hear such a big kind of low voice coming from her so effortlessly and natural. Her voice is astonishing actually, emotive and revealed. On this basis alone Waycross is worthy of far more attention. As I follow the lyrics more closely things get even more intriguing for they are brilliant, incredible images linked by underlying self-reverential statements that get pretty dark and angry and morbid at times. She uses great references to animals, their skins, the tools used to train and work them, the warmth they seek being taken away, flocks,etc. I also notice a literal history of mans various basic tools, fire, arrows, plows, sails, hooks, ladders and many references to the sea and working the earth or burying things. These lyrics are rich and poetic and downright literary—and like all great poetry, open to interpretation. Her writing is powerful and dark and at times chills me to the bone. It’s evocative of certain old Irish folk songs borne of famine and despair and the bleak southern gothic short stories of Flannery O’Connor. There’s a lot going on here and it of course adds to the first strength I noted in Waycross’ work, their ability to create an atmosphere or mood, which they have in spades.
Towards the end of Aren’t We The Lucky Ones? The band has included a cover song, something they always tend to do in their live set and a nice touch to show that they do have a sense of humor. The song is Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and it is performed in a very unusual, clunky, tongue-in-cheek way that I find charming and attitudinal. The night of the record release party they chose a picture perfect cover of The Pixies “Here Comes Your Man,” which was also very funny. I think it’s high time people take a closer look at some of our local bands and the records they make and sell. I’m finding in many cases there’s a whole lot more going on there than meets the eye.