Visqueen Celebrates America's Favorite Game!

As a New Yorker, I am not pleased with the way the Yankees are playing right now, but Opening Day of Baseball is the real first day of Spring for most Americans.

So to help celebrate, here's Rachel Flotard and Co., i.e. Visqueen, doing what they did so much better than most groups. The Seattle Mariners should feel lucky.



Though Visqueen is no more, hopefully we will be hearing more from the talented Ms. Flotard soon!

Valentine's Nine---Visqueen---Seattle's Finest Never Holds Back

So sad to hear Visqueen played their last shows in 2011. One of my favorite bands--saw them in Brooklyn in 2010 and came away even more impressed, if it were possible. Well, one more plug for the road.

Visqueen Packing It In? My Recession has turned to Depression---

Just heard the news that Visqueen will be playing their final show in Seattle on November 26th.

Sad news. Their last album, Message to Garcia is fantastic; while their first two records are also pretty great, the new one branches out in so many new musical directions. The band is very talented, and if you live in Seattle you should count yourself lucky to have had the chance to see them live on many occasions.

I am very glad that I saw them last year at The BigTakeover's 30th Anniversary Party at the Bell House in Brooklyn. They methodically came out on stage for a short set, kicked our asses, and left the building. Rachel Flotard was a complete dynamo on stage, and she had some funny patter between songs. The whole band was fired up for the show, they could not have been more exciting--and I've felt that they deserved a lot more attention than they've gotten. If you don't believe me, listen to the music. It must be frustrating for a band this good not to get to a bigger level.



Anyway, I don't have any tangible information about why they are packing it in. I certainly hope they continue to make music in some way shape or form. As I've said before, sometimes when you spend years listening to bands it starts sounding the same. This band from the outset blew me away completely--if you are a young woman interested in being in a rock band, Visqueen would be a pretty great role model artistically. Hell, I even bought the T-Shirt and wore it proudly. Visqueen is a special band. If you haven't heard them, well, what are you waiting for? If you live near Seattle, see them while you can!

40,000 Tons of Devotion---Message To Garcia--Visqueen and the Unsinkable Rachel Flotard

Picking Up The Pieces Without Taking Them

I wrote a little bit about Seattle's Visqueen in an earlier post, Rachel Flotard's terrific band. I saw them perform at the Bell House in Brooklyn earlier this year at the 30th Anniversary blowout for The Big Takeover Magazine. Visqueen is one of my favorite newer bands and their presence on the showcase was a big incentive for me to take the trek South. I have to say that I fully expected a good performance. I'm happy to say that they exceeded all my expectations. I had wondered how the new band lineup would be live, and I learned first hand that they were smoking hot! Though I had never seen them before, I thought they really brought their A-game that night. Rachel was a complete firestorm, hopping up and down, bashing out one power chord after another in her mighty flip-flops. The whole band was equally energetic. Cristina Bautista, the new bass player did a great job, as did Cellist Barb Hunter. Long time drummer Ben Hooker was his superb self as you would expect. Tom Cummings, Visqueen's other guitarist was not there that night. My lone regret was that the set could have been longer, but realistically, there were many worthy bands coming to bat that night.

But what bugs me is that these guys remain relatively unheralded. Rachel is an undercover rock star that more of the world needs to know about. There is so much crap being trumpeted as art these days that great bands fly under the radar. Commercial radio is so bad, such a far cry from what it should be. These days it seems that it is basically the final product of contractual negotiations between monopoly corporations. The same stuff gets foisted on consumers ad nauseum--you might think radio executives recruit directly from Abu Gharaib. Pandering vs Art. There is almost a two or three tiered music business today and they don't seem to have much in common. Getting a contract with Anti, Merge, or Subpop has become a more valid career move than signing to a major label for many bands. It probably would insure a much longer recording career.

Message To Visqueen is simply wonderful, moving, passionate art, an album with great lyrical depth and musical diversity. I would highly recommend her other albums King Me and Sunset On Dateland. Those albums are full of punked out harmoniously memorable songs. All the Buzzcocks, Cheap Trick, Fastbacks comparisons are valid. But I feel like Col. Tom Parker when I try to describe this. She rocks out hard, but she does not sound like she is trying to simply follow in footsteps of The Who or some other macho band. She brings it with visceral energy, but as a woman, without being girly. Though certainly there are other worthy groups, I think that this puts Visqueen in rare company. But Message To Garcia builds on the strengths of their first two albums and expands outward, with more subtlety and new musical directions. And of course there is a tremendous outpouring of emotion here--the album is raw and confessional, packing a punch that goes beyond any volume adjustment. Non-generic music for the non-generic music fan.

Quite to my surprise, my favorite here is the country tinged ballad So Long. Cello and Piano instrumentation here, plus a pedal steel cameo by Jon Rauhouse. Though there are mostly uptempo songs on this album I think that this is really the cd where really she demonstrates her vocal chops. I consider Message To Garcia to be her crooners album, similar to Jeff Tweedy on Sky Blue Sky. So Long is certainly a good example of this. She succeeds in a completely new direction. It shows what the band and Rachel are capable of, and I hope they continue trying new things.

Here's Visqueen at Rabid in the Kennel...



All the songs are good on this album. So I'll make note of a few here. Summer Snow is a great uptempo number with great cello guitar interplay with a surprising Burt Bacharach flugelhorn interlude. Barb Hunter's cello is an integral part of this albums sound. Fight for Love is an irrepressible tune replete with a full on classic greasy guitar solo. When I hear Rachel sing on this song, I think in essence it epitomizes her indomitable spirit, her determination to keep battling. And since she has been through so much in the last few years, you can't help but root for her success. The recent loss of her father who she took care through a long illness (the album is dedicated to him), vision problems, dealing with the crappy music business, a rotating cast of bass players, and she perseveres. And she gives so much of herself on this record.

The Capitol is another great track a song that fiercely offers up relationship advice. On this song she channels her inner Janis Joplin. My second favorite song has to be the poppy joyous song Ward with the burbling synth ostinatos. Equally great is Tall Grass and the wistful ballad Forgive Me. "Run into you, once in a while."

Polishing What Was Inside

As I've said before, and don't mind repeating, if one of my nieces told me that they wanted to form a band, I would give them a Visqueen album without hesitation to help guide them with a strong musical role model. Consider this: Kim Warnick left her band of 20 years, The Fastbacks, to be part of Visqueen. And Neko Case sings backup vocals on 5 songs on Message To Garcia. Christmas is coming soon, and Visqueen would be a nice gift for any audiophile, or a musical grinch in need of a sonic intervention.

30th Anniversary continued...Shock & Awe from Dynamo in Flip-flops

All Killa.....Filla, fair to negligible.

One of the big reasons I made my way south from the bucolic Hudson Valley to Brooklyn was see Seattle's finest. No, not Sir-Mix-A-Lot. (Don't misconstrue--I love that peer-he just was someplace else that night-check out youtube for his charming banter with Queen Elizabeth during his knighting ceremony). I'm talking about the Mighty Mighty Visqueen.

Not long ago I had no idea who they were, but there was a rave revue in the BT for Sunset on Dateland, the 2nd album. Based on said advice I purchased said album & was completely blown away by everything, the kinetic drive of the songs, the passion, catchy riffs, strong vocals. I got everthing I could, the equally great 1st album King Me, the Young Fresh Fellows tribute album which they have one track, & some children's record where they do a nice version of John Fogerty's Center Field. I bought the damn t-shirt! and would occasionally use myself as a human billboard in downtown White Plains. It had been a long time since I had an album make such an impression on me. The band is just great, & Rachel Flotard, the guitarist/singer/songwriter, is just so disgustingly talented. I can't understand how this music hasn't garnered more attention. Maybe its just sort of the history of the music business--market failure, where money that in theory should be utilized for the greatest return either qualitatively or renumeratively is getting flushed down the toilet so cookie cutter teenage soap opera stars can storm the charts & the distinction between songwriters & performers is underlined & bland is the new Grunge. I mean Rachel is originally a Jerseyite, and Jersey is the new flavor for the terminally bored. I'm still waiting for SNL to do a parody, Real Vampires of New Jersey. Maybe in Seattle maintaining a tan is just economically unfeasible. Or she doesn't call herself "the preposition". The reality is, she probably is Jersey's best export since Bill Bradley.

The new album Message to Garcia is terrific, very diverse tunes with thoughtful lyrics. I've been reading up on the internet on her and she has been through some tough times recently, nothing scandalous, but a subject I don't really want to broach here. It's out there already.What I will say is that she has come back with a vengeance, and the new incarnation of the band is really great, as I can attest from the Bell House. Ben Hooker is an excellent drummer and Cristina Bautista was an energetic performer on bass. Rachel was completely riveting on stage totally dynamic and in fine voice. (also a good sense of humor on stage, a rarer thing than one would think.) A great performance leaving me no more stupified than if she started the set rising up on stage playing guitar standing in a clam shell a la boticelli. Sorry about my overactive imagination.

Here is an idiosyncratic opinion of mine. Some people might think its a little sexist but I feel its a high compliment. Sometimes I wonder about women in rock and there are great ones, but imagine sometimes that at least up until recently that young women who want to pick up a guitar and start a band, maybe their role models might be Pete Townsend, the Stones, The Clash, music to emulate all well and good. I know there are amazingly talented women out there, Sleater-Kinney, Joan Jett, Bjork, Penelope Houston, Blondie, Chrissie Hynde,Siouxsie, Exene, Kim Gorndon, Joni Mitchell, Sleeper, Lush,etc. But I think that if my godchildren or niece were starting a band, I would send them a Visqueen cd, and I would say this is a good place to start. You can hear the Buzzcocks, Cheap Trick, Nirvana etc, but she really has her own thing going, she writes her own lyrics, plays ferocious guitar,sings with passion, and clearly when you hear the new album she has set her own course. Also records on her own label! Just like a painter, you ground yourself in the field before you before you find your unique way, like a process. And I think she is at least as good as the female artists I mentioned, (well maybe not Joni).



If you are fortunate enough to have this band playing near you, by all means get out and see them. You will not be disappointed. After the Avengers walked off the stage, I rushed out since I had a bit of a drive. And there was Ms Flotard out in the street chatting with somebody next to a Pt Cruiserish vehicle. I thought  about saying great show,  or you rock!!, or maybe even Girl Power!!, but..awkward, you know 1:30 a.m., Brooklyn, quiet street, itchy drunk guy with hair starting to resemble Oglethorpe from Slapshot, I Rabidded out as in post one. I did the same thing with Robyn Hitchcock at Maxwell's, so there is a pattern of behavior developing here. I guess then in the words of the great Robert Pollard, I wasn't "that drunk". But all three of those sentiments were at least conveyed on a psychic level. Hey, in a parallel universe that band is filling arenas, entourages, hordes of dancers on stage. Of course they are so good that they don't need those last two distractions. That's the other music biz.

ps Flipflops: Hey I'm not a foot fetishist, but I accidently looked down during the set to see flipflops. For some inexplicable reason that seemed really cool and down to earth. And not it that old Huey Lewis "hip to be square" or George Bush someone I could have a beer with thing. Its not something I generally think about--a random observation. But it reminded me of an anecdote--a favorite album of mine Odyssey by James"blood" Ulmer came out in the 80's, (I actually found out about this in music review in Newsweek magazine) and maybe 15 years later they had a reunion concert at the Knitting Factory. Unique power trio, harmelodic guitar, drums & fiddle. Ulmer was there in harmelodic snakeskin cowboy glory, and I really enjoyed the live renditions of that excellent bluesy laid back spacy swagger of an album, which makes me think about life growing up in a rural southern town for some reason, which is pretty far from where I was raised. But something was nagging at my consciousness--it was the fiddler, Charles Burnham, there was something about that guy. I think he has some jaunty little hat on, okay, not a big deal. Is it the goatee? Plenty of people wear goats, though his was a little longer & seemed to come to a point. So what if he had a little vest on? But I suddenly looked down to the stage, and lo and behold! The man was wearing a pair of Ali Baba pointy slippers!!! He was actually dressed up like one of Santa's elves & I broke into uncontrollable laughter. And it took me about an hour to figure it out. But it was still all very cool. If Cecil Taylor can play piano in Jane Fonda leg warmers, why not this?? You just can't make this stuff up.

Anyway go support this band so we can all go see them again in New York. Soon. More bands to blab about soon.