The early punks and pre-punks openly pursued starry-eyed deals with major record labels. The majors, however, felt burned by commercial failure and unprofessionalism (New York Dolls: “They’re junkies!” The Sex Pistols: “Loudmouth yobs!”) and wanted little to do with bands that followed. Smelling further disaster, the majors backed off until “safe” acts tagged as new wave appeared.
Dawn McCarthy is an adventurer. When the musician behind Faun Fables answers the phone for this interview, the rushing wind and frequent connection breaks make it clear she’s on the road, in some rural area without good reception. A baby’s constant fussing and car noises increase the ambient fuzz, but through it all, McCarthy’s voice is calm and focused. The Bay Area-based musician has done plenty of touring—solo, as a duo, with a band and now with a new kind of group. “We have our kids with us. We have a really young one—4 months old—and we have a 2-year-old,” she says. “So it’s kind of an experiment.” Since McCarthy and the other half of Faun Fables, husband Nils Frykdahl, have already been on tour for a month and a half, it appears the experiment is working.
One thing Gdańsk-based black metal master Behemoth has never suffered from is a lack of vision. Evangelion, the latest in a masterful BM triumvirate that began in 2004 with Demigod and continued with 2007’s The Apostasy, underscores the difference between real conviction and the poorly hewn philosophical drivel that plagues too many of the genre’s releases from a lyrical standpoint. On the contrary, Adam “Nergal” Darski and co. don’t dish out anything they haven’t thoroughly chewed. Rather than trade in dime-store Satanism and eye-rolling ritual, Behemoth takes gnosticism and hammers it into a cohesive lyrical fabric that glistens like fine tinwork. It all sits atop angular riffage rivaling just about everything available in a genre that continues to expand exponentially.
From The Rolling Stones to Rocky Horror, lip imagery is a constant in music art. Seen here, four hip-hop acts—ECID, Jordan Miché (Minneapolis), Noah 23 (Ontario) and K-the-i? (L.A.)—employ lip art for a trip around the West titled the “Attack of the Vampire Mermaid Tour.” Along with locals Omen 20012 and Sapience Christ, the performers appear at The Spot (504 Yale SE) at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 17. Admission is $5. (Jessica Cassyle Carr)
Derek Caterwaul is a promoter of local DIY music and arts events, as well as a DJ—most notably he’s a long-time host on KUNM’s “Music to Soothe the Savage Beast” on Tuesday nights. Appropriately, his contribution of random tracks may be the most obscure this column has seen since its inception a year ago.
