Eugene Weekly : Music : 09.07.06

Melvins Magical Mystery Tour

Buzz dishes about new members, new CD and his parents

BY VANESSA SALVIA

THE MELVINS W/ BIG BUSINESS. 9 pm Mon., Sept. 8. WOW Hall. $13.50 adv., $15 dos.

Melvins CDs take up a lot of space on my music shelf, so it was with pleasure that I recently interviewed Buzz Osborne from his home in L.A. as he was preparing for a U.S. tour. He's a smart, witty guy with a lot to say about new music, hippies, his parents and the new CD (A) Senile Animal, available Oct. 10.

I've read past interviews with you where you discuss how much you despise nu-metal, black metal and electronica. What do you like?

It's not that I hate all that music, but there's never really been a time when I didn't not hate lots of stuff that was going on. There was no golden era, like, "Everything from 1902 was great."

What's new that you do like?

I like Big Business, obviously. I got that new Flaming Lips record. I like The Locust and Kill Me Tomorrow.

You must know Eugene's reputation as a hippie haven.

It's one of the corners of the Hippie Bermuda Triangle. Eugene, San Francisco, Boulder, and the hippies get lost somewhere in there. I hate hippies to some degree but I've never hated the John Waters-style hippies, or the Charles Manson-style hippies. … Alice Cooper had a great quote that I always loved him for, which was, "We're ramming a stake through the heart of the peace and love generation." What I really despise about it now is all of the actual hippies who are my parents' age have given up on that idealism.

Because you mentioned your parents, I have a question about them. I have the impression they disapprove of your music.

My parents are happy that I'm not in jail. They weren't really into it. I was futureless. They didn't have high hopes for anything other than something horrible happening.

Why did you look to Big Business for your new band members?

When our last bass player disappeared we were thinking of doing something new. About a year ago I hit upon the idea of doing something weirder and we had played with Big Business before and it seemed like a good thing. Two drummers was something we had never done before and I wasn't ready to just hop back on the same pony we'd been riding for a long time.

What was behind Kevin [Rutmanis, their former bass player] leaving the band?

Without going into any graphic detail, let's just say it was personal issues and we hope Kevin is doing a lot better than he was. We don't wish any bad things upon him.

Was it an unexpected blow to the band?

Aside from the fact that we didn't know what was going to happen with him, it put a boulder in front of our band for about a year and a half. We stalled.

What were your thoughts when you added the double drums?

We knew it was going to be hard to deal with but we thought it could work and so far, so good. In time, hopefully we'll think of new things. I think [(A) Senile Animal] is one of our best ones. Completely different dynamic, but we're not afraid of that.

Does it take effort to find 11 new ways to be abrasive each time you make a new CD, or is that a gift?

It's always hard. You just try to think of things that interest you in one form or another. And if you're not really worried about pissing anybody off, then anything goes.

The Quincy Factor

Rising songwriter keeps it sweet and simple.

BY ADRIENNE VAN DER VALK

Quincy Coleman gained early recognition for her gutsy woman-and-guitar stage presence, stand-alone vocals and songs that evoked comparisons to American country legends like Dwight Yoakam. Even Dolly Parton endorsed her as having "all the goods, a beautiful voice, such sweet emotion and tenderness." But despite the country-themed buzz about this rising star from L.A., her sophomore album Come Closer feels more smoky jazz bar than Nashville saloon.

QUINCY COLEMAN, SHANE BARTELL, HADLEY. 9 pm Thu., Sept. 14. Sam Bond's Garage • 21+ • $5

Perhaps because so much of the best songwriting done today skirts the edge of alternative country (Slaid Cleaves, Kathleen Edwards, Lucinda Williams), it's natural to want to similarly classify a writer such as Coleman who delves so deeply into the universal theme of unhappy love. But Coleman seems committed to also creating instrumentally memorable music, incorporating a variety of horns and keys into arrangements of her undeniably contagious melodies.

Coleman's songs aren't particularly epic; in fact they are rarely more than two verses and a chorus. But the appeal of her songwriting isn't so much in the complexity of her lyrics but rather the opposite. In "Sleep Late," she describes lying in bed with a lover:

Morning is calling us

Window shades keep the sun away

The room is cool and calm I get the feeling

I must be dreaming

Coleman the recording artist then reaches beyond songwriting as a tool to illustrate the time or place or life-pause she has chosen to share. Among her many talents is the ability to capture a moment with stark simplicity, then fill in the emotional canvas around it with a recklessly brazen trumpet solo (the fabulous Stewart Cole on the first track, "Calling Your Name") or accordion riff and the urgent swell of her own jewel-toned vocals.

Come Closer is slickly produced and stylishly dressed — somewhat surprising for a currently unsigned artist, but not necessarily for Coleman, who has famous roots in L.A. (actor parents) and a considerable performance history under her belt. Perhaps it is the dramatic influences in her past that give the album a soundtrack or musical score quality. Coleman's music has already supported drama on the big screen in the Oscar-winning film Crash (the soundtrack was also nominated). Come Closer is an album of such depth and variety that it is not only memorable but likely to be the source of a number of audio-linked memories, associations with "that song that was playing that time when that happened."

The Queers

Pop punks anger art fags and rednecks.

BY JOHN DOOLEY

It's been a year since bubblegum punk legends The Queers last plowed the WOW. The Queers return Thursday with Australia's #1 musical menace The Hard Ons and Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers in tow. I'd hate to be the poor sucker trying to squeegee the sweat off the walls at closing time.

THE QUEERS, THE HARD ONS, TH' LEGENDARY SHACK*SHAKERS 8 pm Thu., Sept. 14 WOW Hall $10 adv./$12 dos.

"We've played the WOW Hall four or five times maybe through the years," Queers front man Joe King says. "It's always been a fun time." King, a dead ringer for Brian Wilson high on leather, says after 25 years he's used to people calling him Joe Queer. "I don't really think about it," he says, laughing.

Note to reader: If you're an amped-up homophobe wanting to gay bash, The Queers aren't actually gay. Go check out one of those homoerotic cage fights instead. And don't come crying to me when they kick your ignorant ass.

An inflamer at heart, King has said he originally coined the name The Queers in the 1980s to piss off the "high and mighty art fag community."

His home town of Portsmouth, N.H., is still, he spouts, "full of snobs, art fags, posers, metal heads, punk rockers, and perhaps the worst of the bunch, rednecks. We hated them all."

If interracial breeding is the best way to achieve peace through assimilation, King uses the same logic musically. For instance, I was raised to hate the Beach Boys. Why would a perfectly good punk band like The Queers play off the Beach Boys? King's contention is that it's more fun to mix it up.

"Bands like The Clash branched out into reggae and stuff and showed everyone that you didn't have to stick to just one genre of music," he says. "I don't understand why you can't like Black Flag and The Dead Kennedys and The Beach Boys, too. I love poppy early '60s stuff. I used to go see The Ramones to forget all the bullshit in the world. When they sang their songs it gave me hope that bubblegum music could save the world. I still believe that today."

So why, after producing 16 albums during three decades, are The Queers still underdogs?

"I never tried to 'make it in the biz' like so many other bands," King says. "It wasn't a career move for me, it was something I had to do. I'm proud of [that] fact. That to me is success. If it ended tomorrow I would still be happy as hell."