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Surrealism-ism
by Cripsy Duck
5-31-00

(printed in C-VILLE Vol.12, No.23)

Parker Paul - Draw the Kitten - Waking Hours
Draw the Kitten et. al.'s The Senate Subcommittee on Hard Rock and Disco (Volume 1)

"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."
Oscar Wilde
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Friday, May 26, 2000 A.D.

Incident at the door.
"My name is Xan, I write for C-VILLE."
"--are you Cripsy Duck?"
"Why, am I in trouble?"
"I'm mad at you for something you wrote. Three dollars."
"I've got five bucks to my name."
"Got any change? Give me your change."
"Sure," -- out comes 38¢.
"You compared somebody to the Replacements."
.... loading file... Duck processors assimilating....
"Must've been Guided By Voices."
"Yeah that's it..."
"I think I said they shared some of that '80's garage sound."
"-- and that's just your opinion."
"-- and my opinion is essentially worthless..."
The conversation ends abruptly as the Duck cruelly slithers away...

power of paul
Jetsonian Romeo
Parker Paul opens on solo piano with sporadic impromptu drum accompaniments. A movie projector bathes the stage in faded scenes. After a few of Paul's ingeniously quirky vignettes he is joined by Draw the Kitten and some delicious lo-fi popedelia breaks out.

Grip-master Don Harrison primes the canvas with tweaked-out galactic acoustic guitar while Mark Leta mixes paints on guitar and accordian. Keyboardist Paul and sarangi style lap fiddler Cathy Monnes spin surreal freakouts against a lunar backdrop of phase-shifting acoustic guitars, retro drum machines, bells and percussion. Between tunes D.J. Boy slips in interim voice-overs and underhanded funky sountracks.

crayola kittens
The set blossoms into epiphanies mid-way with the smooth lunar ambient garage pop of "Getting Out is Good" -- gorgeous, I wipe a tear between applauses -- and then slowly degenerates, finally crapping out with a cornball "(Walk Me Out in the) Morning Dew" intro to an awful homespun blues ala "Wooly Bully" with words like: "Went out to get a shoeshine, went out to buy some moonshine." In the second verse "moss" and "albatross" are given similar treatment. Laborious ludicrousness.

To recap: first good - then bloody brilliant - then kinda fun but really just dumb.

Richmond's Waking Hours inadvertently wax a little pretentious-- like they know they should be packing Tokyo Rose but Charlottesville's clueless (that is, absent) crowds have forced them into an awkward humility. To open their set, singer Tom Richards fakes Carly Simon's Bond theme "Nobody Does It Better" - for one verse too long - and then launches into their own "Work It Out."

Shazam! They are shockingly tight and fresh, especially after Draw the Kitten's gurgly subgenius retrophonic lope. Stocked to overflow with Liverpuddlian punch and early Who maneuvers (garnished with a nice Clash snarl), the Waking Hours may well be the best of the new Beatlbellion, even successfully covering a Carpenters (?!?) tune with hearts and harmonies all the way into it-- the full Beatle lobotomy.

fully awake
Beatles fascination is all over modern rock these days, like some sort of benevolent backlash from '70s disco and guitar gods, '80s keyboard pop and '90s grungy hair bands. After thirty years of hippie disdain and Lennon/McCartney denial, the kids are finally making offerings to the fab altar by ripping-off melody fragments and harmony structures.

For some reason, it works. In the Waking Hours' case: like a charm. They are a punked-up, harmonizing Beatles distillation and completely brilliant at it-- the kind of band that gets so into it that they hurt themselves doing windmills. I stand to applaud them.

Draw the Kitten et al. -- The Senate Subcommittee on Hard Rock and Disco (Volume 1)

So, somebody managed to successfully mine my website (ahem... that's freespeech.org/duck) for my P.O. address as evidenced by the arrival of a CD bearing a picture of a happy tacky 1960's family and the title "The Senate Subcommittee on Hard Rock and Disco (Volume I)."

"Huh?" I queried, setting my sensors to full ruminate. Poking at it briefly revealed a familiar name: committee filibuster Don Harrison, head churner at Grip Monthly, and I believe, the last person to review concerts for this paper.

"Bingo."

Harrison released "Senate Subcommittee" under the name Draw the Kitten, but upon inspection the record appears to be a collage of his collective recording and performing incarnations and collaborations. I slapped the disc in the stereo and settled in to the slack surf sampler.

Can anyone say "Pet Sounds?" The Kittens sure can. Even tunes that don't bear blazing Brian Wilson emblems reveal subtle Beach Boys embellishments upon scrutiny. It's a kooky low fidelity smorgasborg with soaring back-up vocals and the occasional sugary surf tune (hail that powerful Virginia surf), although the record might be more appropriately (but less hilariously) titled "Wilson brothers uber alles."

But in all fairness this record is already destined to be classic under-underground fare (the alternative to alternative). I'm happily hooked on the cheesy 4 track vibes, Camper Van Butthole narrations, and Harrison's undeniably Wilsonian melodiousness. Get you some.
-Cripsy Duck
cripsyduck@mindspring.com

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