A look back at the biggest local music stories of 2003 and a look forward to the first big one of 2004

Friday, January 02, 2004

By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

We may not have had anything on the scale of Detroit's celebrity death match between garage-rock rivals Jack White of the White Stripes and Jason Stollsteimer of the Von Bondies, but the local music scene was not without its share of adventure -- good, bad and ugly.

The year started with no less than 100 bands showcased at Club Cafe and throughout 2003, local musicians continued to make news, from the near-death experience of a Cynic to one band's campaign to smash the state, more or less.

Here are the biggest stories of 2003:

100 BANDS, 31 NIGHTS, 1 CITY

Local musicians who thought they had to have a cello between their knees to actually get help from a foundation got an early surprise in January when the Sprout Fund, a nonprofit organization, agreed to underwrite a month-long celebration of, gasp, rock bands at Club Cafe.

Karl Mullen, a punk pioneer in Pittsburgh going back to the late '70s and then-creative director at the South Side club, had never seen anything like it.

"It used to be this underground phenomenon. I mean, imagine 10 or 15 years ago thinking we'd get a grant from a mainstream arts group. You'd be like 'Get the [expletive] out of here. Those people ain't coming around.' "

But they did, and local radio stations WYEP and The X joined them, by broadcasting from the club. It kicked off with The Johnsons Big Band and over 31 nights there were 100 bands of all stripes from surf to electronica to country and indie rock. Among them: Local Honey, the Legion of Incredibly Strange Superheroes, Boxstep, Daryl Fleming, the Hi-Frequencies, Jenn Wertz, the Deliberate Strangers, BEAM, New Invisible Joy, the Bessemers, Mercury, Hearts and Science, Owen's Ring and OPEK.

It was a great launch for the year in local music and it will be repeated this month.

METROPOL R.I.P.

The obituary originally was planned for December 2002, but the onetime cornerstone of the Strip District's development limped through the better part of a year before finally closing its doors in October.

Though never a great concert venue -- those sightlines were deadly -- Metropol was an institution going back to 1988 when Robin Fernandez opened the club as a state-of-the-art industrial dance complex in an area dominated by the produce industry.

Over the years, the 1,000-plus capacity room played host to rock luminaries like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Radiohead, Blur, Marilyn Manson, the White Stripes and Rancid, to name a fraction. It was also the spot where visiting artists such as Prince, Sheryl Crow and 'N Sync would pop in to hang out the night before or after a gig.

Fernandez said upon the club's demise, "The closing of Metropol, I think, is the end of an era. I'm surely going to miss it; it's been a very big part of my life. But at my age, I think I'd like to spend all of my time in a different atmosphere. It's just time for me to move on."

Metropol has morphed into a dance club called Empire and has left a troubling void in the concert scene, particularly in light of news that Club Laga probably will not make it through the spring.

ANTI-FLAG WAGES ITS ATTACK

In a year when the Bush administration staged a show of "shock and awe" in Iraq, you wouldn't expect to Anti-Flag to come out with a record whining about their girlfriends.

	David Cooper, A-F Records Drummer Pat Thetic added to the frantic energy of Anti-Flag, who stirred up the punk scene nationally with "The Terror State." From left: Chris Head, Thetic, Chris #2, Justin Sane. Click photo for larger image.

And they didn't.

The Pittsburgh punk rockers, one of the most political bands on the planet, dropped its own bomb with "The Terror State," leading off with a song that labels the commander in chief "a turncoat, a killer, a liar and a thief."

You could watch the band spell those words out on the video at MTV.com or see them spread the message on a nationwide tour.

Executive-produced by Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave), "The Terror State" was a punchy, even poppy, record with titles that said it all: "Power to the Peaceful," "You Can Kill the Protester, But You Can't Kill the Protest," "When You Don't Control Your Government, People Want to Kill You" and "Operation Iraqi Liberation (O.I.L.)."

One song, "Post-War Breakout," bore the name of Woody Guthrie, whose archives were opened for Anti-Flag to select a song.

"The Terror State" turned up on the Billboard "Heatseekers" chart (though we know a lot more records are sold at shows where there are no SoundScan counters) and got the band featured in magazines like Rolling Stone and Alternative Press.

Singer Justin Sane told AP, "It makes me so sickened and ill that after 9/11, Bush could use this as an excuse to wage all-out war in the name of imperialism and money. When is enough enough?"

PAIN IN SPAIN FOR CYNIC

The crowds in Spain have long loved The Cynics, but last January they loved them just a little too much.

	The Cynics Michael Kastelic had to recover in a Spanish hospital after a concert accident injury in January. Luckily, Barbara Garcia-Bernardo, Gregg Kostelich's wife, was on the tour as Spanish-speaking translator. Click photo for larger image.

Nearing the end of a sold-out tour in Spain, Michael Kastelic, the charismatic frontman of the legendary Pittsburgh garage-rock band, was pulled off the stage while singing "Love Me Then Go Away," suffering an injury that we hesitate to even repeat.

OK, it was a torn urethra. And Kastelic nearly bled to death right there in Madrid.

As Kastelic described it, once an ambulance finally arrived, "They didn't even know what to do at the hospital. They said they didn't have a urologist there, at least not in the emergency room. So they had to take me from there in an ambulance, with no suspension at all, so I'm bouncing around in this little thing in the back of this rickety ... I remember my dad and uncle used to call them meat wagons. So I'm here in this meat wagon still saying, 'I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die, Pepe [the tour promoter].' And at this point, he's looking at me saying, 'No you're not,' but I can see in his eyes, he's thinking, 'Maybe he is gonna die.' "

Kastelic spent more than a week in a Spanish hospital and ended up making it home in one piece. By April, Kastelic was ready for more. He and the Cynics actually returned to Spain, and by the end of the year they had taken the gospel of the garage as far away as Germany, Switzerland and Norway.

PITTSBURGH CALLING

As far as anyone can tell, it had never been done, not even by The Clash. An ensemble of local musicians, led by former 11th Hour bassist Rod Schwartz, took it upon themselves to perform the whole of "London Calling," 19 tracks from start to finish, in memory of the band's fallen singer, Joe Strummer.

Doing "London Calling" is nothing like trying to harness the first Clash record, as the seminal punk band had evolved at that point into an ensemble capable of grasping more sophisticated rhythms and textures.

"A lot of people think Clash, three-chord punk-rock songs," Schwartz said. "It couldn't be further from that. There's just layer after layer after layer on that record."

While they might not have looked much like the Clash, members of old-school Pittsburgh bands like A.T.S., The Spuds, The Breakup Society, Submachine, The Affordable Floors, The Cheats, The Pundits, The Fontaines and Thickhead Grin were faithful to the music at the October show at the Rex.

Next, let's see them try "Sandinista."

TO THE LIGHT OF DAY

In a simple game of word association the words "Bruce Springsteen tribute" would quickly produce the name "Joe Grushecky."

The two gritty rockers have been thick as thieves since the early '80s, making frequent stage appearances, including a big one at PNC Park last summer, and even collaborating on songwriting, so it was only natural that Grushecky would be pegged for this tribute CD and benefit for Parkinson's disease research.

But Grushecky wasn't the only Pittsburgh representative on the disc, as The Clarks also appeared with a rocked-up cover of "The River."

On a two-disc set that includes the likes of Elvis Costello, Pete Yorn, Graham Parker, Patty Griffin and Jason Ringenberg, Grushecky was one of the show-stealers with a surprisingly down-and-dirty blues take on "Light of Day."

A Knight-Ridder review that circulated in a number of papers noted "Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers hiply transform 'Light of Day' from flat-out rocker to acoustic R&B vamp."

THE WINNERS: SCIENCE FICTION IDOLS

Over the years, Bobby Lamonde watched a lot of his friends win the Graffiti Rock Challenge and all the attention that goes with it.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette The "Science Fiction Idols," clockwise from left: Bobby Lamonde, Harrison Dray, Angelo Amantea and Gary Strutt. Click photo for larger image.

In 2003, it was his turn. Lamonde led his band, the Science Fiction Idols, to victory with a sound and look that harked back to the days of Ziggy Stardust.

"We wear our influences on our sleeve, certainly," Lamonde said of the band that includes drummer Angelo Amantea, from previous winner The Ultimatics. "I'd like to think we put a fresh spin on things, though, and write good songs with good hooks."

It was good enough to squeeze out a tight win over the eclectic Tripshow at Rosebud in March, In fact, only 32 of a possible 700 points separated the Idols from fifth-place finishers the Poverty Neck Hillbillies, a country band that had a big year of its own. The other finalists were Brad Yoder and Luca Brazi.

The Science Fiction Idols managed to get their prize out by the end of the year, with the release of "Spooky Sugar."

As for the band's makeup, Amantea explained, "It's not an original concept. I mean, Little Richard did it. It's just something we all like to do and we just happened to come together and are doing it at the same time. It wasn't a plan of attack."

Catch them at a club or cosmetics counter near you.

DEASY: NASHVILLE CAT

Bill Deasy, a singer-songwriter best known for his work with the Gathering Field, went to No. 7 on the Billboard album chart.

It wasn't for his own 2003 release, "Good Day, No Rain," though. It was for "Martina," the smash hit by country superstar Martina McBride.

Deasy played a part in that success by co-writing "Learning to Fall," a catchy heartbreaker with Arkansas songwriter Odie Blackmon. Previously, Deasy had a song covered by Billy Ray Cyrus, so this was a bit of a step up. He had also had a song, "Good Things are Happening," adopted as the theme for ABC-TV's "Good Morning America."

Deasy explained that his career is on two tracks -- both of which seem to be going well.

"I see my career as a performing artist as something completely different than the country songwriting," he says. "I don't really have aspirations to get a record deal in Nashville. What I'd really like to do is set up a career path like somebody like John Hiatt,cq where I could make my own records my way and have people from different genres cover my songs."

Deasy closed out the year by ringing in 2004 at First Night.

BIG THINGS AT MR. SMALL'S

The TLC that Liz Berlin and Michael Speranzo have put into Mr. Small's showed returns this year, as the studio/theater/skatepark in Millvale became a playground of sorts for national artists.

Mr. Small's opened 2003 with a very special houseguest, Ryan Adams. Pop's boy wonder spent a week in the studio working out his band for his stint with the Rolling Stones, starting at Mellon Arena. It must have been a good week, because Adams and company just about beat Jagger and company at their own game.

Mr. Small's also rolled out the red carpet -- and guarded the doors -- for the year's biggest rap success, 50 Cent. During a radio promotion tour in November, 50 popped into the studio to cut a track. Also using the facilities at Mr. Small's were hitmakers the Black Eyed Peas.

The concert hall was also action-packed, including a late-year stop by minimalist pop band Low that was recorded for broadcast on MTV2.

WHAT ELSE HAPPENED?

2003 also saw the return of Karl Hendricks, who broke out of his recording hiatus with the excellent "The Jerks Win Again" on Merge. ...

The Modey Lemon upped the mayhem on "Thunder + Lightning," which indie-rock's elite magazine, Magnet, saw as a retribution for Pittsburgh's foisting Rusted Root on the world. The daring duo, which became a trio this year, spent the fall touring the U.S., U.K. and Canada. ...

Hendricks and the Modey Lemon represented Pittsburgh at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York in October, along with Anti-Flag, Grand Buffet, Don Caballero and Camera, a promising new band featuring members of lowsunday. ...

Strict Flow represented Pittsburgh hip-hop proudly on its debut record, "Without Further Ado," and celebrated by getting on the 50 Cent show at the Mellon Arena in April. ...

Carnegie Mellon's WRCT unloaded its archives with "Advanced Calculus," a 28-song selection of in-studio recordings documenting the underground scene with the likes of Blunderbuss, Creta Bourzia, Thee Speaking Canaries, Mihaly, Modey Lemon, Life in Bed and Strict Flow. ...

The decline of the music industry? The culture of downloading and CD-burning? Whatever the case, it took its toll on local record stores as Premiere and the Rock Shop both closed their doors. ...

Billy Price cracked the European market with a triumphant performance at the Belgium Rhythm & Blues Festival this summer. One review said, "This man is thoroughly one of the best white soul and R&B singers." The show was captured on the recently released DVD, "Funky ... Funky Soul." ...

The Clash tribute wasn't the only one. Local rockers gathered to salute the Ramones in April and AC/DC in December. They do know their rock. ...

Weekend Magazine editor Scott Mervis can be reached at smervis@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2576.

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