ARTiST : kelley stoltz
ALBUM : the sun comes through
LABEL : Sub Pop Records
GENRE : Indie
ENCODER : Lame 3.90 / APS
QUALiTY : VBRkbps / 44.1kHz / Joint-Stereo
RELEASE : Sep-26-2005
STREET : Oct-11-2005
SOURCE : CDDA
TYPE : Album
PLAYTIME : 17:38 min
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+ TRACK LiSTiNG +
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[#] [Track Name] [Time]
01. The Sun Comes Through 04:37
02. You're Out of This World 04:28
03. Away With the Swans 02:30
04. Lets Go Out Tonight 03:22
05. Where You're Going 02:41
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+ RELEASE iNFORMATiON +
=======================
http://www.electriccity.org/
http://www.subpop.com/
On a hot night in September, Kelley Stoltz winds his
girlfriend's minivan to the top of Twin Peaks. As Captain
Beefheart's "Observatory Crest" comes on the tape deck, the
local singer/songwriter explains his lifelong love for Echo &
the Bunnymen. "They were weird -- they had cool songs, they
had a whole attitude and a whole style. It was like rock 'n'
roll but kind of strange."
The same can be said of Stoltz's own music. For each winsome
melody, there's a bizarre instrumental passage; for every
catchy rock riff, there's a peculiar lyrical phrase. A song
like "Jewel of the Evening" (off Stoltz's second album,
Antique Glow) may start out sounding like a pretty Nick Drake
track, but then you catch the odd line about "places and
people using shortwave for church steeple." Or consider
"Listen Darkly," with its sweet organ that contrasts its
junkie protagonist's raw need to "go down to Atlantis." The
song sounds like Beck channeling Jules Verne via Lou Reed.
"He's got a gift for the abstract expressionist way of making
records," says local guitarist and tastemaker Chuck Prophet
about Stoltz. "What I mean by that is that it's really rare
that an artist can make something that sounds fucked up and
bent and, at the same time, composed and beautiful."
Stoltz's material wasn't always so well crafted. His first
album, 1999's The Past Was Faster, was little more than a
lo-fi collection of impersonations, an overt love letter to
rock's elder statesmen. "That first album is funny to listen
to," the singer says, "because I hadn't really learned how to
absorb something and turn it into me yet." Now, with the CD
release of Antique Glow, Stoltz shows his true colors -- those
of an urban philosopher able to turn the oddities in his head
into charming post-punk folk.
Onstage, Kelley Stoltz has the look of a foxy English
professor -- the one all the girls hoped would seduce them
during office hours. But sitting in the minivan looking out
over the lit-up city, talking about the music he loves, it's
easy to imagine the singer as a suburban Detroit teen caught
in the thrall of Echo & the Bunnymen, skipping school to buy
import singles and perfect his British accent. "I had a lot of
time to my own [as a kid]," Stoltz says, "so I would stand in
front of the mirror and practice air guitar to [the
Bunnymen's] records and smoke cigarettes like they did
onstage."
By the time Stoltz left Michigan for New York in 1993, at the
age of 22, he'd been in one band, which did rudimentary covers
of the Bunnymen and Minor Threat. "At that point I could play
guitar a little bit but I was too scared to be my own
musician," Stoltz recalls. "I thought, 'I'm never going to be
good enough to be a musician, so I can at least work in the
music business.'"
In Manhattan, he scored a job as an intern for Jeff Buckley,
who was just becoming a star, but the bloom soon fell off the
rose. "It was just like selling furniture -- no different than
working some other office job."
By late 1994, Stoltz had grown sick of Gotham City and, after
a short stop in his home state, he headed out to San
Francisco. Having been turned on to mopey songwriters like
Leonard Cohen, Syd Barrett, and Neil Young, Stoltz
transitioned from electric to acoustic guitar and began
recording original numbers on a four-track in his basement
studio. These songs would comprise The Past Was Faster,
released on CD by New York's Telegraph label in 1999.
"I'd always loved doing voice impersonations, and, in that
time with music, it was kinda the same thing," Stoltz says
about Faster. "You can try to talk like Vin Scully of the
Dodgers [he breaks into a good version of the baseball
announcer's voice], or you can try to sing like Captain
Beefheart."
Stoltz succeeded in aping his idols, howling like Beefheart on
"The Fog Has Lifted," capturing the Bunnymen's chug-and-fuzz
vibe on "Emerald Stew," and nailing Drake in "Permafrost." But
while there were some pretty moments, the disc felt a bit too
much like hero worship and too little like genuine
inspiration.
When Telegraph agreed to release a second CD, Stoltz told the
label he wanted to upgrade his recording equipment. "I said,
'I've got bigger ideas, I want to try cooler stuff,' so they
got me an eight-track as an advance."
He found a cheap organ -- what he calls a "granny organ,"
because it's the kind of bulky, out-of-tune machine that
grandmothers own -- at the Salvation Army and began writing
songs with it. Quitting his teaching job, he lived for the
next two years on income gained from reselling old LPs from
thrift stores, all the while working on his tunes.
In late 2001, he completed his new opus. Unfortunately,
Telegraph had moved from releasing records to distributing
them. With no other label offers, Stoltz decided to put out
the album himself -- on vinyl. He called it Antique Glow,
because he felt he was making something new out of the old.
Further extending the metaphor, Stoltz created each of the 200
covers by hand, taking ratty old record jackets and painting
over them, recontextualizing the images in the process. (He
got the idea from artist Judith Lindbloom, who'd crafted
one-of-a-kind album covers for her then-boyfriend, saxophonist
Steve Lacy.) Hence, Frank Sinatra became a blue and orange
bunny, and Peggy Lee re-emerged as "egg"; lovers gained giant
balls for heads, floating bodies dreamt of smiling suns, and
craniums melded with machinery.
When Stoltz gave a copy of the LP to Chuck Prophet after a
show, the longtime local artist flipped. "In a world of MP3s
and jewel cases and McDonald's apple pies that aren't even
fried and other generally disposable stuff, that record was
something I knew I would hold onto forever," Prophet says.
When it came to the music itself, he was even more impressed.
"Sonically and compositionally, the way Kelley can funnel this
personal shit through his own sonic Cuisinart is amazing."
(Prophet would eventually help get the disc released on CD for
the first time, via an Australian label called Corduroy.)
Antique Glow truly is a huge step forward for Stoltz. Whereas
on The Past Was Faster, he might slip into Syd Barrett's skin,
here he merely rubs elbows. Bits and pieces -- a snatch of the
Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" at the beginning of "Perpetual
Night," a throbbing Velvet Underground beat underneath "Mt.
Fuji" -- sound familiar, but the parts serve as signposts
rather than the road itself. Rockers like "Underwater's Where
the Action Is" and "Are You Electric" add woozy noises and
heavenly harmonies to their careening riffs, taking post-punk
in freakier directions. And then there's "Please Visit Soon,"
which Stoltz says was an attempt to make "psychedelic Muzak,"
but which comes out sounding like carnival jazz.
The main reason the album works so well is Stoltz's delivery.
On ballads like "My Silver Lining" and "Jewel of the Evening,"
he sings in a gravelly purr, imbuing lines like "Yeah I think
I know why/ Everyone must die/ On the way to love" with sad
wonder. For the upbeat "Underwater's Where the Action Is," he
sings in a sexy yelp, making such lines as "Flippers and
manatee, they will be everyday vocabulary/ If you'd come on
down a league or two with me" sound both seductive and kooky.
If you're going to sing about mermaids and hot air balloons
and crystal balls, you'd better be able to sell the sizzle,
which Stoltz certainly can.
While he was content with Antique Glow, Stoltz was miserable
by the end of 2001. "I was finished and proud of it, but all I
had to show for it was 89 records [after selling or giving
some away]," he says. "Now I've got to make phone calls and
try to make it work, and I don't want to do any of it, so I
would go down to the studio and try to record new stuff
instead." Alas, the material sounded crappy. Hoping to break
out of his rut, Stoltz attempted recording "Going Up," the
first song off Echo & the Bunnymen's 1980 LP Crocodiles. He
had so much fun that he tried the second and then the third
tracks from the record. That's when the light bulb went on
over his head. Inspired by his pal Mike Fornatale, who had
composed his own version of Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane
albums for friends, Stoltz decided to record all of
Crocodiles.
One of the resultant copies (called Crockodials) made it into
the hands of Nick Tangborn, owner of the Jackpine Social Club
label (which has released albums by locals Sonny Smith,
Oranger, and Jesse DeNatale). At the 2002 South by Southwest
music festival, Tangborn passed a disc to former Pavement
member Scott Kannenberg, who is also a huge Echo & the
Bunnymen fan. Kannenberg was so excited that he offered to fly
down from his Seattle home to re-create the album live.
In May and June of this year, the duo -- augmented by bassist
Shayde Sartin, keyboardist Shana Kingsley, and drummer Jon
Weiss -- performed Crocodiles to sellout crowds at the Hemlock
Tavern and the Make-Out Room. "Performed," of course, doesn't
quite do the extravaganza justice. There was a smoke machine
working overtime, specialized lighting beaming down, and
cigarettes that dangled at just the right angle. Stoltz
brought out his old British accent and between-song banter
culled from 40-odd live bootlegs. And the music, well, let's
just say there were more goose bumps than at a petting zoo.
"I wanted to make sure it was just right," says Stoltz, "so
that the three people out there who were just as nuts as me,
and maybe had the same bootlegs, would say, 'What?!'"
The shows seemed to have the desired effect. This year's CMJ
Music Marathon in New York has requested that the band repeat
its performance, even going so far as to move its scheduling
around so the real members of Echo & the Bunnymen (who are
also performing that night) can attend the show if they like.
So Stoltz has come full circle. The Detroit teen aping his
hero in his mirror now gets to play him for large crowds --
which just might include the hero himself. But, even more
important, Stoltz can also perform his own originals at the
festival, thanks to the official release of Antique Glow on
Jackpine Social Club last month. Now, perhaps some star-struck
kid will go home and begin striking Kelley Stoltz poses.