Music Writing by Carson Arnold

 


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ELECTRIC SUGAR- The Mitchells' Hear Where You Are

 

Indie music drives me completely nuts. Bimbo lyrics for a PG-13 crowd of nerdy short-hair misfits wearing white sneakers carrying a Star Trek lunch-pail full of Elf fetishes. No thanks. The day I sit around strumming a guitar looking for inspiration from watching Taxi reruns, don't hesitate, the music is way over, turn off the lights. To say the least, rock music, and I mean ROCK music, without the goop of Sex, personality, or bold identity is, without any doubt, too boring to even, yawn, let alone cry or whisper why. And face it, the only reason why it's worked all these years is because generally, most people are fascinated by the strange days of dullness 'cuz personally, no rivalry and or exposure needs to be confronted. Don't invite me, but thanks.

 

If you climb any high mountain you can see with one eye the entire small river valley of Western Massachusetts which consists of a lot of scurrying noise that calls itself music and a lot of music that tries to make a lot of noise. Right, do whatcha' gotta do. Anyway, besides that twisted batch of fine people, there are still a few souls left who haven't yet been committed to the overdosed loser meltdown of "tired of living is easy to do/ love's a bitch" attitude. They are great superstars of their own local league, and with that valley and event, apprentices waiting to be crowned. So git' up Jeke, there's work to do, thank god there's still some folks that can play their instruments, too.

 

In their own rite, The Mitchells are a great band. I believe it so. In fact, I'd slam my bottom dollar down to see these boys perform on the Late Show on some later gig. However, when they do indeed arrive there, I might slap 'em, too, for it would immediately spoil and defeat everything their latest title releases, references and magnifies throughout their patriot spark of local Indie devotion in Hear Where You Are.

 

Please don't make it big, Mitchells, please don't make it big. Stay home, stay here, sensible, sensitive, heroes of the down-and-out raga with hands pointing towards the sky. Of course, let it be known, there're a thousand four-piece bands in this country alone that sound and play similar to The Mitchells and perhaps a million abroad that are shooting for the same relative angle of the sun, yet each one is shaded with the out-spoken rays of a far brighter coda of waking freedom that the hubbas chained to the great American bandstand cannot neither repent or possess.

 

Though, don't worry, according to Caleb Wetmore, lead singer and guitarist of the group. He seems rest-assured and relieved that The Mitchells don't, as so many do, wanna become famous, sip the martini down and pass the wet olive 'round to the next charade of frowning fools headlining under the same road-kill. Reportedly, they've been clocking a nine-year run of pack-and-go music and don't plan to rest for a hiatus, break for a curfew, nor pause for success. "Though, I can't speak for the other members", he went on to say.

 

La/La/Bam!/La/La/Bam!. There's an obvious amount of potential 'hits' in the tan of Hear Where You Are. It's like a spiked bowl of restaurant mints or a scent of strawberry perfume left inside some dark confession booth- hold that thought- thoroughly enjoyable no matter where you are and who you are. The record has a reservoir pitch of under a sweet forty minutes, relished with honestly, one of the best album covers to hurdle out of this clogged-up area, and enclosed with ten juicy sometimes on/sometimes off geek-pop tracks with hopefully enough three minute fire-power to have pleasured Wetmore's Indie desires, which coming from him, are the radiance of "blending guitars".

 

The meat of the album has been clearly carved out of all the Indie tang before them; six-string-sugar rolling right into the growling rip of all vacuum choruses and the ba-boom beat of the verse. Giddy-up. Though between Wetmore's outro-La Tengo sterile blandness within the overdubbed vocal (which are very, very shaky and poor at times), combined with the band's blood-wit refusal to be down-right boring, the music fountains, splashes and cools with a delightful significance of its own kind; however, still lacking; that premiere sense of individual influence that usually is granted from inspiration itself. Time will tell...

 

The ingredients of a Mitchell? Pour the following: Neo-everything Pavement ever dreamed, touched, spoke and said, meets Kim Deal swimming for the first Splash of The Breeders, meets suddenly finding The Pixies playing Flamin' Groovie covers in some old empty aquarium, meets the aquarium owned by none other than the Jesus & Mary Chain. You might say somewhat of an Ethan Hawke bag o' tea. Sip and wee.

 

The Mitchells will probably piss off most Fugazi hustlers and please little of the Sonic Youth amp-hawks. They belong more to a newer juvenile deliverance of righteous boys and girls who are too afraid to let their hair hang down long but are willing to sweep the rest of ours up when the wasted cabaret is over, the lights busted to the floor and the music finished and done with long ago. And for that, we thank them.

 

"I would never think of us as Experimental", Wetmore commented  over the phone. He added, after briefing the album's three-year-in-the-making tale, post-finding a new engineer for a well deserved, edgier quality, that, "we'd love to be compared to the New Radiant Storm Kings".

 

What? I refuse to do this in protest. Hear Where You Are, friend, Hear Where You Are. Remember? The Mitchells need not go anywhere rather than farther into their blazing lollipop of fire in the setting sunshine. Go now! Wait for no leaders, Mitchells. My sweet lord, friends, for such a dumb-dumb name, these guys can sure rock. Whoops, did I say I hated Indie music? Maybe I do, but maybe you don't.

 

-The Mitchells, Hear Where You Are (Pigeon Records, Small Batch Records, 2003) Visit: http://www.themitchellsrock.com

 

Hot Tracks: "Pet Theory" (beautiful hammer-whammer love. Excellent, the best thing on here), "Cheap Date" (The Mitchells loose their virginity to all of Indie in four minutes), "Our TV Theme" (first track, scissor-hand chords, slap-happy fun), "Prefab" (The Mitchells will sacrifice anything for a hot, closing chorus for their restless crowd). They love you.

--Carson Arnold- April 7, 2003

copyright 2003 Carson Arnold


 

H(ear) is an online music column consisting of interviews, articles, and investigations written by Carson Arnold. As a freelance writer for various magazines and liner notes, living in the woods of Vermont with his family, Carson widely encourages one to submit their art, writing or any interesting piece of material that you would like to share. H(ear) is accepting both promos and demos for review or any other valuable music-related subjects. If you wish to make a comment or would like to receive H(ear) weekly by email please contact Carson at [email protected]

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