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Show Stormy s Armed and Dead Ready to Make you See Stars by Dan Thomas strategic plan for world domination. Mike Sheranian was called in to add vocal support, followed by John Lyman on bass and guitar and Sean McCarthy (a.k.a. McChain) on keyboards. "The real foundation cf this band was set when Sheranian decided to join," Sartain says. "Getting John and Sean was obvious. They're both so next album is to have more hits," says Starmy colonel Mike Sartain."Like Britney Spears' ass." Somehow, I don't think that is possible. Starmy's debut album, Dead Ready, is packed chalk full of hits. Whether you like pop perfection, punk anger or psychedelic mayhem, this record has it all. It's honestly scary that Dead Ready is only the band's debut. As much as it is a personal declaration of an intent to kick ass, it sends this message to all other local bands: "You are toast, we will eat you for breakfast and all then watch 'Voltron' The U good." had to wait for Will to graduate high school in Colorado," Lindsay adds. "Then he moved out to Salt Lake and the band was set. Sean actually came in quite late and added texture with the keyboards. McCarthy is the 5th point of the star." "No one in this band is a virtuoso," Sartain continues. "But each musician has the ability to move the song when he needs to." Herein lies Starmy's charm. While its craft is honed, it still sounds like it came straight out of the garage. Well, close. The band recorded the album themselves at Sean and Will's house, with McCarthy heading up the sound engineering. "To me, there are three things that make music it has Sartain "First, says. great," to be simple. The lyrics must be simple and tight. Secondly, there must be emotion backing up the delivery. And finally, it has to be relevant to your environment." I couldn't have said it better "We s day long." Starmy is the brainchild of Mike and Will Sartain. While young William provides the beats, Mike switches between guitar and bass, all the while crooning out catchy vocal melodies. "The whole idea for this band has been in the works for about 12 years," Sartain says. "Ever since Will and I began playing music, we've known we would start a band together." As Sartain the elder stretched his musical skills playing drums in other fine local bands like the Red Bennies and Optimus Prime, the Starmy army slowly recruited troops and masterminded a rock-and-ro- ll by Luciano Marzulli Vargas & Aaron Leitko myself, Mike. Starmy is simple and infective, happy and deranged. As you listen to Dead Ready, the album unfolds as natteen urally as an angst-riddehis that growing up, discovering and were Iggy Pop wrong parents was right (whatever the hell that means for your own personal paradigm, you'll just have to figure out). Dead Ready begins with the appropriate title track. The song is well representative of the band, beginning with a nood-leguitar and taking off as the power pop beat charges ahead. The battle begins here and quickly grows disturbed with the second track, "Violent Things." "Love is a violent thing," Sartain and Sheranian harmonize. This is followed by "Hate is a sexual thing" and "Sex is a beautiful thing." Lyrics like these border on being too blunt, but as always, it's all in the delivery. Both singers have sweet voices, but Sartain's rebel yell makes me want to follow him into battle anywhere, even the mean streets and tough Venl Vidi Vicious The Hives Burning Heart Epitaph n all-to- o y clubs of Salt Lake City. "As far as the arrangement of the album," says Sartain, "we wanted it to start happy, then get demented, then sad...and then even more demented, I guess." In "Fall From the Sky," Sartain see starmy, page R12 00 To you haven't heard about The Df yet, you probably will soon, with the record suc cess of the movie "Spider-Man,- " which features the band's song "Hate Say I Told You So" on its soundtrack. If you're into that kind of stuff, that is. Starting from the small town of Fagersta in Sweden, The Hives band has been making waves around the world with a winning combination of good ol' '50s rock and roll, punk and the raw sound of a garage band. Not one track on the new album Veni Vidi Vicious lasts more than three-and- one-haminutes. In fact, some barely make it to two. The album plays just shy of 28 minutes, but comes enhanced with three music videos from the album. I'd be surprised if the band members don't make pop stardom, but I'm sure they'll enjoy the comfortable niche they currently occupy in the music world. To chose one word to describe The Hives, I'd have to say: energy. You can hear the intense energy The Hives play with and even catch a glimpse of it in the music videos. with the exception The songs on Veni Vidi Vicious are all of "Find another Girl " a cover of a song by the late, great Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler. Despite the mellow nature of the tune, if 9 covered in a way that only The Hives could pull off, mixing the original sound of trie tune with the modem vibrato that sounds like a , lf fast-pace- d, . t synthesizer. d With simple chord progressions, drumming, sonic and at times psychedelic background sounds and raspy vocals, The Hives band members make rock and roll fun again. phased-ou- fast-pace- SI iWP ike mi torn Tin " '! S . r 0000 I'- ::. I: lVT d album?" Just in case you need a memory jog, The Breeders band was famous for the debut album Last Splash, which featured the famous song "Carmonball," back in 1993. Well you're in luck. The Breeders' new album, Title TK, is out, after practically ten years in the making. The story behind the music is a true fairy tale, full of tragedy, struggle and finally triumph over adversity. The running joke throughout the industry was the very question of when another Breeders album would be complete, it seemed impossible. The original Breeders band was lead by Kim Deal, her twin sister Kelley Deal, as well as Josephine Wiggs and Jim MacPhersoa After selling millions of copies of last Splash and touring extensively, Kelley Deal picked up some bad habits on the road, like drug addiction. So as part of the band's break, Kelley had to go to drug rehab, and how she got there is still a source of tension between the sisters. Wiggs moved to doing ether recording projects while settling down in New York, and MacKierson fathered some children and settled down to becorne a family man. Kim wanted desperately to put out another album, but had no band to do so with. Kelley was able to overcome her addiction, and Kim found what she was tooling for in the Motor City Bar in New York. There, she ran into some memb ers cf the East Los Angeles punk band Fear and proposed a jam session. Fear members Richard Presley (guitar) and Mando Lcpez (b ass) joined Kim and later recruited their friend Josa Medeles rock-and-ro- a - Z3 or the past say 10 years some .13 of vou may have been asking U the question "When will The Breeders come out with a new Ii fx , 7 I The Breeders Elektra Entertainment Group : ' ., T7fe77C , ll 10-ye- ar t f .";: 1 ? i si sh- M - vtm wa r7" - . sr ! & - "hi is I w ii 'll a ii toplsydrurr.s. Title TK maintains the indie rock garage sound that put the Ereeders on the charts 10 years ago. Taking a minimalist approach to the music, th chord progressions are simple, the bass is mostly complementary v.lth scire moments in the spotlight, and the sound cf the Deal sisters' harmonized voices dominates the vocal tracks. On the whcb.the album Is very mellow. "Off Yon comes across 33 an indie ballad, somber and sincere. The She" is really laid back with some spacey sounds that will phase out your ears, and "Son of Three"' features the sonic sound of rteadily moving distorted guitars that drive the track. There you have it possibly the most watered-dowversion of The Breeders' history over the last 10 years. Enjoy the new album, it was n worththewait Starmy consists of Will and Mike Sartain, Mike Sheranian, John Lyman, Sean McCarthy and a shopping cart. R4 f june 5 2002 j RED Magazine ' |