Vintage Article: Nashville's Next Big Thing with Be Your Own Pet, De Novo Dahl & Umbrella Tree (2008)

Be Your Own Pet

It’s taken thirty years, but Nashville’s rock underground, well…it ain’t exactly “subterranean” anymore, innit? No, the cat’s out of the bag now, and the dirt has been removed from the long dormant hopes-and-dreams™ of Nashville’s non-country music scene. Bands like the Kings of Leon, the Pink Spiders, and Paramore have attracted international attention while, shall we say, “artier” bands like Venus Hum have turned out well-respected records for major league labels.

‘twas not always so, my little babies – not so long ago, Nashville was a truly scary place to be in a rock band, or even write about people who were in rock bands. It was just back at the dawn of the ‘90s that the editor of a national music magazine asked the Reverend, in all seriousness, if we wore “shoes down there?” True, this was the pre-millennial dark ages, but even then I distinctly recall Dave Willie sporting a really nice pair of shoes on his feet. Think of what it was like for Jason & the Nashville Scorchers or Webb Wilder the first time they ventured into the big city to play…oh, the stories they could tell you.

Be Your Own Pet’s Get Awkward

But I digress…those days are safely behind us, and urban sophisticates have recently realized that not only do we mostly all wear “shoes for industry” these days, but that a Nashville band doesn’t have to wear Nudie suits and throw down with a fiddle to make good music (unless they want to, of course). Three distinctive Nashville bands – Be Your Own Pet, De Novo Dahl, and Umbrella Tree – recently released their sophomore efforts to no little praise and varying degrees of commercial success, helping firm up the Music City’s place on the proverbial map.

Be Your Own Pet has particularly been receiving a lot of love from out-of-towners these days for Get Awkward, and the Reverend has seen the band mentioned favorably in publications from the British motherland to the mysterious Orient; even Tierra del Fuego seems to have joined in the chorus of praise for Nashville’s next big thing. Producer Steven McDonald (of psychedelic-punk pranksters Redd Kross) – perhaps the best possible human to capture the band’s shiny, guitar-heavy, noise-pop sound – returns to his seat behind the board for Get Awkward.  

Get Awkward jumps straight into the fire with the turbo-charged “Super Soaked,” an electric shake-and-bake sizzler that’s straight outta the Detroit rawk songbook. Jemina Pearl’s vocals are strident to a fault (as in earthquake) while Jonas Stein’s rambling guitar delivers aftershocks in waves alongside the song’s explosive rhythms. BYOP had to look deep in the racks at Phonoluxe for the vintage sound of “The Kelly Affair,” a band-on-the-run tale of fun and hijinx in Hollywood that evokes fuzz-drenched ‘60s-era garage-rock with its manic riffing, clever lyrics, and John Eatherley’s muscular drumming.   

Although the band has matured in the year-and-a-half since its young, loud and snotty debut, Get Awkward has plenty of moments where every emotion is overwhelming, every perceived snub an uppercut. “Heart Throb” benefits from whipsmart lyrics, syncopated rhythms led by Nathan Vasquez’s bold bass lines, washes of razor-sharp guitar, and Pearl’s manic, lovesick teen vocal gymnastics. The other side of the coin is “Bitches Leave,” a cold, cold piss-off song with a nifty signature riff and snarling, spiteful vocals. The tribal Bow Wow Wow rhythms of “Zombie Graveyard Party!” are matched by Stein’s sonic guitar-squawk and Pearl’s effusive vocals.

Get Awkward lives up to all the hype, perfectly capturing BYOP’s mix of youthful energy, cluttered instrumentation, and flailing vocals. Be Your Own Pet has been compared once too often to New York’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs, mainly because of the vocal similarities between that band’s Karen O and Pearl’s out-of-control yelp. Sorry, but YYY is soooo yesterday, treading water while looking for a lifesaver. BYOP is the sound of tomorrow, and if they make the same creative strides between Get Awkward and whatever their third album ends up being as they did between their debut and this one, you’ll be seeing a lot more effusive comments in print and on the web about this band in the future.

De Novo Dahl’s Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound

De Novo Dahl

Compared to Be Your Own Pet, De Novo Dahl has proved a bit more problematic for so-called “music journalists” outside of the critical zone (i.e. within 100 miles of Nashville, including Bowling Green and, of course, Murfreesboro). On one hand, the band delivers a lush, well-crafted brand of pop-influenced rock that is long on melody and short on the sort of attitude that bloggers and benchwarmers in the blue states eat up (and which the aforementioned BYOP delivers in spades).

On the other hand, however, the band dresses like refugees from ‘Olde Nashville,’ clad in fancy vines like the Countrypolitan song-pimps that one used to see traipsing from Music Row to Lower Broadway to hang out in Tootsies. The hipper-than-thou literati just can’t get a handle on De Novo Dahl, ‘though they’ve spilled a lot of ink-and-electrons in the attempt. Further complicating this critical confusion is the fact that the band’s Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound was released by Roadrunner Records – a label better known for Nickelback and the sort of extreme metal that would make the hair on your toes curl. Thus, De Novo Dahl’s commercial prospects seem questionable from the very beginning.

Regardless, Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound is a simply delightful album, a wonderfully-constructed collection of throwback pop that would sound as equally at home in the early ‘70s as it does in the new millennium. There’s nothing that’s overtly retro here, or even remotely derivative, just a reckless appropriation of influences ranging from the Beatles and the Kinks to Bowie, the Move, even ELO…in short, all the right stuff at the right time.

The band has the chops to pull off such a hat trick, and De Novo Dahl covers a lot of stylistic ground with Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound. The whimsical “Shout” is a lofty shooting star featuring Joel Dahl’s slightly-accented Brit-punk vocals, delicious harmonies, and upbeat life-lesson lyrics. “Means to an End” mixes shoegazer sensibilities with a bit o’ feedback, lush backing vocals, and an odd melody that reminds of Revolver-era Beatles. De Novo Dahl gets funky with “Shakedown,” revisiting ‘70s soul with Dahl’s best high falsetto, call-and-response harmonies, and a fat soundtrack of warbling synths, subtle drumwork and wa-wa guitar.

“The Sky Is Falling” revs things up with 100mph drumbeats, fast-paced vocals, roller-coaster keyboards, and an undeniable ‘80s new wave vibe. The somber “Not to Escape” is a melancholy dirge of many hues, Dahl’s sinewy leads bursting out of the clouds of chiming keys, crashing cymbals, and shuffling drumbeats. “Be Your Man” is a whirling dervish of a song, the band taking a fair-to-middlin’ White Stripes/Jet garage-rock concept and cranking up the intensity a notch or six. Dahl’s vocals careen off the sides like a spastic pinball while a steady barrage of sound assaults your senses.

De Novo Dahl does a fine job of melding the band’s disparate personalities into a single, creative whole. The band’s chemistry is such that they emphasis a song’s lyrics with combined efforts. Dahl’s vocals are up front on most songs, but only by default … Serai Zaffiro’s feminine wiles aren’t far behind in the mix, offering a fine counterpoint, followed by the rest of the guys. Matt Hungate’s keyboards provide color while bassist Keith Lowan and drummer Joey Andrews build a solid framework for each song.

Dahl’s six-string work is understated but often elegant, and somewhat underutilized as a punctuation mark within the songs. In those moments when Zaffiro cuts loose with her omnichord, the instrument adds an alien, antediluvian, and entirely unique sound to the band’s material. Add it all up, and Move Every Muscle, Make Every Sound is the sort of album that, while maybe not lighting up the charts right this moment, will nevertheless be “rediscovered” over and over by rock ‘n’ roll archeologists for decades to come.

Umbrella Tree’s The Church & The Hospital

Umbrella Tree

Coming fast down the stretch in their attempt to be Nashville’s next big thing, Umbrella Tree is part of the same complex pop landscape as BYOP and De Novo Dahl, but it’s there that the resemblance ends. Umbrella Tree’s sophomore album, The Church & The Hospital, was released on their own independent Cephalopod Records label. If this charming, sometimes difficult, and totally entertaining album doesn’t net the band a deal, then the Reverend will eat his large-ish, size-14 Reeboks.

The Church & The Hospital is a deceptively engaging album, the songs creeping into your consciousness like some sort of purple plague. Umbrella Tree – the trio of Jillian Leigh, Zachary Gresham, and Derek Pearson – mine the same sort of art-pop vein that the old 4AD label bands once ruled with, but with a distinctly American twist. Whereas many 4AD bands brought a certain level of proper Britannic noblesse to their sound, Umbrella Tree imbues their work with an anarchistic spirit and inherent weirdness that can only come from a people that once started a war with the symbolic act of throwing a few crates of tea in the Boston harbor.

Not that Umbrella Tree isn’t capable of creating songs of immense, shimmering beauty; The Church & The Hospital offers many such moments across its sprawling soundtrack. Leigh and Gresham intertwine their voices beneath the instrumentation, which itself is fueled by Leigh’s delicate keyboards and Gresham’s ethereal fretwork. Drummer Pearson is an integral part of the Umbrella Tree sound, adding blasts of bass drum or clashing cymbals when needed to poke a hole in the thick wall of sound.

There’s a concept at work here, interlocking lyrical themes paired with scraps of recurring sound, sometimes operatic and other times slightly cabaret in nature. There’s no single song on The Church & The Hospital that necessarily stands out as a radio track or quick fix for stardom. Instead the band has crafted an album as a unified entity. Taken out of context, songs like “Make Me A Priest” – an enchanting tale with lofty vocals and changing currents – or the confused, clever “Schizophrenia” would hit your ears like a hopeless hodge-podge of sound and chaos. In the company of their neighboring songs on The Church & The Hospital, they fit like pieces in a somewhat surrealistic puzzle, showcasing a band of no little talent and musical ambition.

None of these bands may break-out and become Nashville’s “next big thing,” or even the city’s “first really big thing.” With Be Your Own Pet, De Novo Dahl and Umbrella Tree representing the city, however, I do believe that we’re in good hands...

Article originally posted by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine, 2008

Vintage Article: Life, The Universe & The Metro (1987)

This was written, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, for the second anniversary issue of The Metro in August 1987. If I only knew then what I know now...who’d have thought that The Metro would make it two years, much less enjoy its fifth anniversary in 1990, to finally peter-out somewhere between year six and seven? Gus sold the remnants of the rag to Radio Lightning in 1992, a deal brokered by Ned Horton, who became the publisher, bringing on Daryl Sanders as editor and eventually changing the name to Bone Music Magazine.

For all the criticism leveled at Palas, however, one fact remains true – nobody else has published a magazine focusing on Nashville’s non-country music scene longer that Gus and The Metro, and many have tried in the years since. Even today, with the Nashville rock scene thriving as never before, with a highly-regarded national reputation, there is no publication like The Metro to champion the scene...and ‘tis more the shame. Left unsaid in this article was how it took mountains of cocaine and gallons of beer and booze to cobble together a new issue every two weeks. Still, we accomplished quite a bit on a shoestring budget and little or no institutional support in the early years...    

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… (Naw, that won’t work…it’s been used before).

Once upon a time, in a magic kingdom lived a... (Though none the worse for the wear, it’s somehow inappropriate).

Let’s try this one more time...

Gus Palas had a dream…not just your garden-variety, earthshaking, wet-the-bed kinda dream, but a vision of great magnitude and magnificence. He was going to start publishing a music magazine…and not just any kind of music mag. GVPIII was going to create a rag that featured Nashville’s fledgling rock ‘n’ roll performers in its pages, the local scene mixed, editorially, with coverage of the growing indie/college radio performers and the ever-changing world of big-league pop music. Throw in a dash of soul, a soupcon of jazz, and a healthy dose of “new-kid-on-the-block” brashness, mix well and serve: The Metro.

When I first met Gus back in the summer of ‘85, he told me of his dream. I, for one, thought that he’d spun this fantasy after a late-night snack of spicy anchovy burritos…and you know what kind of dreams that will produce! But whereas I dream of Sybil Danning in a Jacuzzi filled with butterscotch pudding, Gus whipped up some ridiculous ideas about founding a publishing empire.

Go figure...

Shrugging away my misgivings, I got involved with The Metro in those long and hot early days before the first issue. After all, I’d been involved with speculative publishing projects before, from Thom King’s groundbreaking Take One magazine, Nashville’s first alternative rag, to The Nashville Gazette, to a host of other magazines, tabloids, and one-sheeters. It’s not often that one gets a chance to participate in another’s dream, and even if Gus was an odds-challenging loony-toon, well, I possess more than my own share of genetically-mutated mental illness myself.

The first issue of The Metro hit the stands on or around August 16th, 1985 and featured yet-to-become superstar Jon Bon Jovi and local talents In Pursuit on the cover. That first issue was mild, if not calculated. We tossed in the Music City’s longest-lived rockers, the White Animals, along with a handful of record reviews and some local news. Sixteen pages chock full o’ fun, and it only took us a couple of months of protracted labor after several months of pregnancy to give birth to the monster. On the seventh day, we looked at it, and it was good.

Then we all went out and got obscenely drunk...

That next morning, Gus was rattling our cages and rudely shook us from our collective stupors. “Time to work on Number Two!,” he screamed, or something to that effect (memories are foggy after much time and abuse). “Well, isn’t this a fine kettle of fish,” we, the staff, thought. “We slave and sweat to put out the first issue and now this clownhole Palas actually wants us to begin work on a second one?” Surely, though, with the experience garnered from the mistakes of the previous endeavor, we’d be able to whip together a second Metro in little or no time at all…

Right enough, that second issue was a breeze. Sort of like trying to change a tire while utilizing a pair of toothpicks in place of the jack. Not unlike squeezing toothpaste back into the tube.

Not any easier...

After the proper two-week gestation period, the second issue of The Metro hit the streets, and what a King Hell mutant baby it was! The honeymoon was over, kiddies, we were here to kick your rears and open your ears. We began writing rock ‘n’ roll history in those pages, as we not only became the first publication in the known universe to slap the beautiful Screamin’ Sirens on our cover in an exclusive pre-tour interview (they played Nashville a couple of days after the issue appeared, creating a legion of ‘Music City Sirens Love Slaves’ with their charm and talent). The Metro was also the first rag to review John Cougar Mellencamp’s breakthrough album, Scarecrow. We threw in features on Nashville faves Jason and the Scorchers and Bill Lloyd’s phenomenal Sgt. Arms band and went home feeling good about the job we’d done.

With the third issue, we changed from the digest format that we’d used on the first two in favor of a larger, tabloid style that allowed us to offer you, the reader, more features, more reviews, and more news than any other rock rag in the Southeast. We set yet another pair of dual milestones with that one as we introduced you to both Webb Wilder and the Georgia Satellites in features by Bill Spicer and myself. Webb has become somewhat of a local legend, and is soon to be an international smash (could it be any other way?); and although we were the first magazine in the U.S.A. to discover the Satellites (after their historical reunion show at the sadly defunct Cantrell’s), the rest of the world now knows them after a Number Two single and a Top Ten, Gold-selling debut album. The Satellites’ success led to tours with Bob Seger and Tom Petty…and placed another feather in our caps.

From that time on, The Metro became a staple in Nashville. Sure, the issues were still hard to produce and, as some weeks proved to be longer than others, I was often accosted in public with cries of “Hey, Gordon ya scumbag, when’s the next Metro gonna be out, huh??” After taming these anxious readers with a large and pointy stick, I assured them that the next issue would be in their hot little hands soon enough. And it always was, give or take a week or two…

That first year of The Metro saw an evolution in rock and pop music as college radio grew from a cultish, big-school plaything to a major force in presenting new talent. During those weeks and months, the pages of The Metro remained on the cutting edge of creativity, not content to follow the trends and cover the established and old-hat, but rather create the trends and discover tomorrow’s superstars, yesterday. The Metro boldly trod where no publication had feared tread before, offering interviews and features on the likes of Motley Crue, Omar & the Howlers, Love Tractor, Amy Grant, Heart, Robyn Hitchcock, Rosanne Cash, the dB’s, Green On Red, NRBQ, and countless others, long before you read about them elsewhere.

And, oh those record reviews…where else but in The Metro could one find the diversity of style and taste that would include coverage of such mainstream acts as Jon Butcher, Stevie Wonder, Rush, ZZ Top, and Elton John with such off-the-beaten path talent as Billy Bragg, Julian Cope, Mofungo, Kate Bush, Lou Miami, Mojo Nixon, Eugene Chadbourne, the Smithereens, etc, etc. We unearthed the Meatmen! We found Adolph Hitler living in Argentina! WE DISCOVERED THE BEATLES!! (Oops, sorry…I got a little carried away. I’m much better now.)

From that very first issue, The Metro has attempted to accurately reflect and support Nashville’s talented and every-growing local music scene. From those early days when a mere handful of bands were playing an equal number of clubs, we’ve seen the local scene evolve from an embryonic idea to a minor aggravation to those who would keep Nashville pure, country, and mediocre to a fully-bloomed, nationally-recognized hotbed of creative radicalism.

For every local talent scarfed up by the major labels, from Jason and the Scorchers to the Sluggers, as well as immigrants like John Hiatt, the Georgia Satellites, and Billy Chinnock, there are a dozen and one as-of-yet unsigned talents like Threk Michaels, the Questionnaires, and Raging Fire. We’ve tried to cover them all, from In Pursuit to Afrikan Dreamland, from Bill Lloyd to Webb Wilder, from the Royal Court of China to Walk The West and beyond. Above all, we’ve tried to be Nashville’s music magazine, and if that means turning you on to the talents of Dessau, Will Rambeaux, or John Jackson, so be it.

The Metro has never been afraid to take a bold editorial stand, however popular or unpopular it may prove to be. We’ve taken great pains to foster originality and creativity, not just publish press releases and ad copy opinion. When the Missus of Tennessee’s erstwhile Presidential candidate, Tipper (and her cohorts), attempted to castrate rock lyrics, we spoke loudly in opposition to any form of censorship. The Metro came out, in print, against the evil apartheid regime of the white-minority ruled South Africa, and stated its disdain, in no uncertain terms, towards racism in any way, shape or form, both within the music industry and beyond. We supported Bernie Walters in his attempts to have the rock ‘n’ roll museum located in Nashville…and provided valuable coverage to the Nashville Entertainment Association’s Music Extravaganzas and the annual Summer Lights festival.

The second year of The Metro proved to be as ground-breaking and seminal in influence as the first. Among other gems, the magazine published pieces on the Psychedelic Furs, George Carlin, Otis Blackwell, the local jazz scene as represented by Café Unique and JC’s, profiles of Mickey Basil, Stan Lassiter, a historical remembrance of the Byrds’ Gram Parsons, and exclusive coverage of Bubba Skynyrd’s takeover of KDF.

As The Metro enters its third year, the magazine continues to grow in vision and importance. We’ve switched from bi-monthly, increased circulation and distribution, and are no longer the unproven kid in diapers. The Metro has passed the audition and has become one of the longest-lived and influential publications of its kind, with copies finding their way into hands across the United States and the world, receiving a fair amount of international acclaim and accolades from such far-strewn locals as Germany, Poland, and France. The Metro celebrates its second anniversary with this issue, even thought the odds are still against its survival…

…and your humble writer is still along for the ride. ‘Cause it’s not every day that you get to participate in someone else’s dream…and even if two years at the helm of a gang of assorted loonies, artistic thugs, and creative malcontents may have warped his sense of reality only slightly, I’m still betting that Gus can pull it off. And even if he doesn’t, it’ll be a hell of a ride!

Won’t you join us?

Keith A. Gordon
Somewhere on Lower Broad
August 1st, 1987

Vintage Article: The Demise of Bone (1997)

Nashville’s media community lost an important voice with the demise of Bone Music Magazine. Published monthly by Tuned In Broadcasting, owner of radio stations WRLT-FM and WRLG-FM, the October issue of Bone announced that it would be its last after 11 years of providing readers with in-depth coverage of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s unknown at this time whether the publication’s owners plan on resurrecting Bone anytime in the future.

Bone began life as The Metro, founded by original owner Gus Palas in 1985 as a biweekly publication. Palas later changed the frequency to monthly, increased its circulation and began distributing each issue regionally. The Metro rapidly became the Southeast’s premiere music magazine, providing coverage to a growing regional music scene. Advertising revenue was always a problem for the young publication, however, and after putting out 100 issues on a shoestring budget, Palas sold The Metro to Tuned In Broadcasting in 1992.

Under the guidance of publisher Ned Horton, The Metro began to thrive. Affiliated with Tuned In’s WRLT-FM, the magazine underwent a graphic facelift and editorially became much more national in scope. The name was changed to Bone Music Magazine with the 8th anniversary issue in 1993. A subsequent distribution deal with the Nashville-based Cat’s Records chain allowed the publication to reach new territories. Horton further expanded the publication’s reach by creating affiliations between Bone and other alternative radio stations nationwide.

At its peak, Bone was publishing nine varying editions with over 200,000 copies distributed monthly in dozens of markets, including Atlanta and Seattle. For nine months, the staff of Bone also produced a weekly supplement to Nashville’s Tennessean newspaper. Called T-Bone, it offered a format similar to the regular magazine, and was inserted in each Friday’s entertainment section. A pilot for a Bone television show was also produced and broadcast on a local station last summer. The magazine began to suffer during the last year, however, as advertising sales remained stagnant and many of its radio affiliates began to question their involvement with the publication. “The Internet became our largest competitor,” says former publisher Horton. “Stations began to move towards the web.” Current and potential affiliates preferred to concentrate on making their presence felt in the new medium and, says Horton, “we didn’t have an electronic answer to offer them.” When Horton left Tuned In Broadcasting a few months ago, the publication lost its only champion.

I must admit a certain personal sadness in the passing of Bone. I was involved with the publication from the very beginning, enlisted by Gus Palas as The Metro’s first writer. Bone, like The Metro before it, enjoyed a better reputation outside of Nashville than locally, but its 11-year run made it the Southeast’s longest running music magazine. Feature articles introduced readers to talents like Jason & the Scorchers, Steve Earle, R.E.M., John Hiatt, Blues Traveler, and many others. Folks like Horton and Palas, Lisa Hays, Rebecca Luxford, Jody Lentz, Daryl Sanders, Andy Anderson, and the other editors and writers who were involved with The Metro/Bone through the years made a valuable contribution not only to Nashville’s music scene, but to the industry at large. Its presence will be missed.

Originally published by R Squared zine, 1997