Them Apples

originally published October 3, 2001

Slurp deep of the gruel of solitary confinement. "The Hole," as they call it. It's cold, like you prefer. Nice to be all alone for a change, yes? It's quiet. You could sleep 23 hours a day, with approximately one hour off for popping leftover insomnia pills thrice a day at eight-hour intervals and using the can. Were you able, that is. But hell ain't other people, primo. Hell exists in the corrosive septic tank of your own belly. In the take-out food that, hours after din-din, still angers you like an unwanted embrace in the gutters running from your corrupted head, pouring sludge into your bloodstream. We're on a budget. We can't afford to keep the implements of torture as sharp as we did back when. Now the protracted mutilation is up to you. But don't worry. You've learned from the best in the field. Now pick a corner, curl up and go insane. Or escape into the arms of a good record. Like most of your friends, records won't listen to you. They'll just wait for their turn to talk. But they're an acceptable substitute for human company when things get slow around here.
VOTE ROBOT

In Meorm NA
Scratch

With the right attitude - the sort of attitude you redefine with every metaphor you construct and every slow-as-molasses wink you dispatch- disorientation can be relaxing, don't cha know. Like the feeling you get when you walk past the Big Ben in the cold, which might chill someone else but comforts you. Or the feeling you get when you're assailed in a glass-bottom boat in an ocean-sized bowl of numeral soup, and you notice (after an hour or two of realizing that something's a tad off about this ocean-sized bowl of numeral soup) that all the numbers are zeroes and ones. A more flaccid soul might give up and concentrate on shuffleboard, waiting for the cruise to end, but you'd be more likely to summon the world's largest soup spoon, stir the numeral soup vigorously and pour it into a computer program that translates zeroes and ones into tones.

You'd probably end up with a record not unlike Vote Robot's In Meorm NA, a record which certainly sounds about as arbitrary and disorienting as any threadbare electronic record you could mention. But, as you yourself can be rather arbitrary about certain things, you obviously have no business complaining about Vote Robot's arbitrary streak. And, given time, you'll begin to enjoy the disorientation. Because, like being alone in a crowd, it can be muy soothing, in an indescribable way. (726 Richards St., Vancouver, BC V6B 3A4 Canada)
THE GREENHORNES

The Greenhornes
Telstar

The garage-rock throwback circuit harbors a rare number of cynical bullshit artists who exploit the cleansing thump of their music to sell you on their fatuous attitude. Some of these revivalists, however, simply love '60s garage rock and delight in keeping those same old chords banging around in our heads. The Greenhornes take a feather duster to the early Stones catalogue, and they can shake those feathers somethin' insane.

They don't punch up the London Years sound or embellish it. While they're conscious of the Stones' obvious debt to the blues and comprehend it themselves beyond mere proxy, they don't force that comprehension on anyone. Craig Fox approximates that Jaggerian swagger without even attempting the sarcasm or menace. (To his credit, he also rolls past many opportunities to fall into a shticky, self-humiliating Elvis impression, the preferred course for Jagger wannabes with no sense of sarcasm or menace.)

Jared McKinney's warm, soulful organ effectively anchors the band and recalls the Original Sins. The Hornes avoid the Sins' psychedelic humor and breezy self-awareness, preferring to play their garage-rock revivalist roles straight. And as obviously anachronistic as they are, The Greenhornes don't indulge in the foggy, Velveteen production of, say, Outrageous Cherry to wave the incense smoke through the air. They don't even light the incense. They just play the music they obviously enjoy.

While they don't have the, uh, personality of the band's obvious contemporaries in The White Stripes (or even The Shadows Of Night), The Greenhornes are a fun, refreshingly sincere listen. One still hopes they carve out a distinctive niche; so long as we'll doubtlessly always have The Woggles, perhaps these guys could try, say, an all-ballads platter? "Stay Away Girl" is proof they can pull off a bluesy, paranoid weeper worthy of Flowers comparisons. (P.O. Box 1123, Hoboken, NJ 07030)