In the midst of the rock ‘n’ roll showground, Superdrag have skidded up and down the music industry mudslide, wafting from label to label, including a stint with major recording group Elektra, which propelled them to MTV status with their buzz video hit, “Sucked Out” in 1996. The song gave them early exposure to a vast fanbase that they might not have reached would they have stayed on indie labels their whole career. Besides, from their first EP in 1995 The Fabulous 8-Track Sound of Superdrag to their current release on Arena Rock Recording Company, Last Call for Vitriol, the band has coalesced euphonic melodies with punkish grittiness to create a distinct sound of pure, uncooked rock ‘n’ roll, whether they stayed on major labels or did their own thing. The new album is a motley brew of sound with songs that could have been picked out from each of their earlier works-lenient ballads, raw post-punk blasts and even alternative country tunes.

The group opens tonight for Guided By Voices in Fort Lauderdale at the Factory, so we caught up with frontman and multi-instrumentalist John Davis from his home in Knoxville, Tennessee, to give the Life & Art readers a more personal report on Superdrag.

Q: So you just put out a new album. What were you trying to do with this record in comparison to older ones?
SD: Well, this was the first album without any outside producers. We pretty much did everything ourselves. Our drummer Don did the majority of hands-on work, spending a lot of time in our smaller studio. We’ve made records in great expensive studios (like at Sound City where Nirvana’s Nevermind was recorded) with 30-feet-high ceilings, where the drums sound huge and Don wanted to get as close as possible to that kind of fidelity. We just didn’t want to be under the gun constantly and deal with the prerequisites of a big record company like Elektra. We wanted to take our time and make the album sound as good as records that we listen to in the van and that we think kick ass, like Dinosaur Jr. for example.

Q: How do you feel about the separation with Elektra? What was the problem?
SD: It can be complicated on a lot of levels. The biggest problem was that we were constantly writing songs, submitting 30-40 tracks just for one record, and then we’d sit around and wait indefinitely for a response. We couldn’t just not tour and not have a new album to support us. The indie level elevated our band to a new plateau of expectations. It was non-productive for us to stay with Elektra.

Q: Most journalists have described your group to have a Beatle-esque sound. What do you think about that?
SD: To a certain extent, we brought that onto ourselves. It’s kinda flattering actually. Don does play drums like Ringo but hits harder and Sam’s a real melodic bass player, but any time you got a rock band with two guitars and three guys singing, it’s gonna be Beatles influenced. On Vitriol, “Her Melancholy Tune” is lifted straight off of Revolver. There was a time when I was obsessed with the Beatles and knew all their records by heart.

Q: And so you seem to incorporate elements from older rock records and tangle them into your own sound. Besides the Beatles, where do you find inspiration for your music and why this retro feel?
SD: Well, there’s the untouchable pantheon of music from the 60s and I’m into bands like Big Star, My Bloody Valentine and The Replacements, a lot of mid-80’s post punk. We identify with records that were made 15-30 years ago, but we’re not really a retro band. There’s this good quote I once heard that goes, “You try to emulate your heroes’ bands, but you fuck it up enough to make it sound like your own.”

Q: What prompted you to add bassist Sam Powers to the band?
SD: We were in the middle of a pissing match with Elektra in ’99 and our old bassist Tom got fed up and just left. Don was responsible in finding a new guy and when Sam came along, he already knew all the songs, it was perfect. Plus we were fans of his old band Who Hit John.

Q: How was the recording process for the new album? Did it all go smoothly?
SD: Well, there was a shitload of drinking up to mid-way through the record. We were working 17-hour days, just boozing, not eating or sleeping, but eventually I had to stop and sober up.

Q: Why’s the record named Last Call for Vitriol?
SD: I guess it has a nice ring to it and has a drinking connotation, but there’s also a certain finality to it. It has something to do with what was going on with me personally at the time and with the fact that I sobered up. It was the last hurrah for me. (laughs)

Q: What do you think about the new rock hype with bands like the Strokes and the Hives, who wear matching mod suits on stage?
SD: There’s always a backlash whenever a buzz happens. Bands like that have to live up to that hype. The Hives walk on stage and say, “We’re your new favorite band,” but I’d like to see where they’ll be five years from now. About the dress thing, I don’t know how much latitude they’ll have to spread and do something different. The whole thing is very showbiz, very calculated. But the way the hype machine works is that next week, there’ll already be a new band. For us, it’s not like that. It’s more about longevity.

Omar Sommereyns can be reached at SOASIS@aol.com

Black Dice
Beaches & Canyons
****

We recently had an article about modernism in Life & Art. Before that, we covered last month’s GenArt exhibit – where an “artist” had chosen to tack napkins onto a display wall and call it “art.” Relax – it was art. However, there was no feeling inside – ambiguous, clever conclusions were fashionably absent. It left you with a blank stare and a creepy inner dissonance, because you simply shouldn’t comment on its non-artiness: down the free Heinekens a little faster as your brain loathes you. Unattentive listeners may site a similar observation about Black Dice, but I disagree. To me, this is what “modernism” sounds like.

Play “break the ice.” On the surface there are druggy caterpillars that represent pretentiousness. We can see them scattering about, so they exist (sans your current philosophy bent). You break the ice, they fall in, squirming inside the cold ocean, floating around – forming sad facial expressions. It seems genuine. Then you realize they are performing an everyday routine and yearn for you to enjoy it. Not just to enjoy it, but to “drown” right along with them. You finish your beer and jump in. It’s freezing, but you secretly prefer it that way. Addiction sets in, and you sink to the mysterious bottom, inertly wishing that you could stay there. On the sharp, rocky floor you come upon Black Dice.

Black Dice’s Beaches & Canyons is not an album you can love like London Calling. Play this in an automobile during heavy traffic and you’ll feel bizarre – out-of-place like a monkey. Listen to it while you’re pre-occupied – studying is (oddly) ideal. Each of the five epic tracks on Beaches & Canyons is laced with fringed vocals and/or chanting. Song two, “The Dream is Going Down”, comes on like a stone-washed heaven, then a baby’s whimpering interrupts the faux serenity and boils tension until it sounds like the definitive level of Max Payne (violent videogame). “Endless Happiness” spies on a middle school kid in his bedroom practicing the recorder, as UFOs hover down and shake the chimes on his family’s porch (like Signs overdosing on reality, minus box office buzz).

This is not music made solely for burnouts, nerds and glazed-eyed partiers (well…). Brooklyn’s Black Dice have composed an intelligent disc of infinite cinema-like modernism for the dome. It is a largely focused walkabout at dawn filled with guitar, percussion, water sounds, bass, screams, and peyote visions. You’re the dog – the music is the hoop. By the end of the umpteenth minute of track five, you’ll be doing hula-hoops. A must have for your music collection – downloading single tracks from Beaches and Canyons is pointless.

For more info visit www.dfarecords.com.

– HS

Yesterday’s New Quintet
Stevie
****

Most producers will only work with equipment in a “smoke free” studio – not this time. Yesterday’s New Quintet AKA rapper/producer Madlib (just to straighten things out, this is only one man) has been putting out albums from his “smoked out” studio, the Bomb Shelter, for well over a decade. With more than 70 (not a typo) under his belt, Madlib has decided that this effort should explore the “wonder” that is Stevie. These fourteen tracks are not just instrumental covers of Stevie Wonder’s recordings; instead, he does something with each song that is all his own (example: Wes Montgomery’s “A Day in the Life”).

Each of Madlib’s mental cohorts is given a chance for their own virtuosos throughout the disc: Joe McDuphrey, Monk Hughes, Malik Flavors, Ahmad Miller and Otis Jackson Jr. each get their “Place in the Sun.” If their names aren’t enough to spark some interest, maybe the epiphany that each song “they” play is originally composed by a mad, musical genius is. Seek this one out, whatever the expense.

For more info visit www.stonesthrow.com.

– SB

Doug Martsch
Now You Know
***1/2

This is the country blues album that will block those gargantuan asteroid bombs coming our way. At first, it was Beck’s Sea Change, but Doug Martsch of Built to Spill delivers the goods like a somber, honest milkman. It recognizes (indirectly) all of the strife happening in today’s world, but stays roosted in a personable location, playing the slide guitar with additional inspiration and meaning. To hell with expensive ties wrapped around necks of heads filled full of lies, let’s watch Lonesome Dove, think while the sun falls, and leave masculine boasting to the crickets.

“Now you should know by now, that it’s a small sound that holds you down,” sings Martsch on the first track, “Offer”. It is quaint advice, but carries significant weight in our time of acne-free glitter pop and artists/publicists who seem to have wolves’ eyes directed at the bleeding heart of music. Martsch references an old blues man named Mississippi Fred McDowell as his main influence for this album. Based on research, McDowell was a helluva slide guitar player, a diehard believer in the blues, and an equally diehard disbeliever in rock ‘n’ roll. Martsch’s respect for him as an artist is evident – he’s not sneaking a note into his guitar case and carrying it into the studio. This window to the past is clearly heartfelt and adds a desperate, wailing vibe. It stretches across his work here like a ghost – one who is not easily pleased, but tapping his foot just enough.

Martsch covers McDowell only once, on “Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind on Jesus), and the result sounds like Nirvana unplugged, if Kurt was running off of an extra large Powerbar and moderate optimism. It’s not a mark for the blackboard, but the lyrical push onto religious grounds is unnecessary, since it’s the sole time Martsch gives a literal sermon on humbleness.

Moments when he sings a line like, “Isn’t it amazing how everyone’s crazy about violence they can’t conceive…what’s in my heart is good enough for me…it was good enough for me,” are the true cake. It’s not being said by a wuss teenager in a garage, it’s being said by someone who feels lost in a world lusting for a scary mushroom clouded victory – whoever’s “side” it may be on.

For more info visit www.dougmartsch.com.

– HS

The Catheters
Static Delusions and Stone-Still Days
***

When you “forget” to leave your dorm room during one of the 62,113 fire drills throughout a given semester, sometimes you get a warning in your mailbox typed on extremely reddish orange paper, cheerfully resembling a flame. It tells you that fires and their cousins (said using Smokey Bear’s country accent) – fire drills – are nothing to giggle at. Refusal to leave the building may result in severe penalties, and/or having to utilize the “stop, drop and roll” technique with rare Ninja Gaiden-like precision.

This is nothing to be sarcastic about. It’s life and death, not life and 40 extra minutes of zzzz. But, let’s just say a slightly more-ignorant-than-usual batch of FSU Seminoles, trendy terrorists, or perhaps, half-ibis, half-man creatures took over campus and actually set it ablaze. What would you do, and more importantly, what band’s anthems would you want blasting out of UM’s PA speakers as you ran for your life?

Why, the Catheters silly. Residents of Seattle, Washington (rain), the Catheters bring the kind of thickly sooted rush that is achieved only when running at top flight and tripping carelessly, but purposely (for slow-mo guilty pleasure) on your untied shoe laces inside a scorching inferno. As you dash through scary hallways decorated with burning loose-leaf notebook paper and pom-poms, just let an oversized ibis mutant stop you with the Catheters as your fatalistic soundtrack. You’d drop kick him/it though a brick wall, run outside and French kiss those dewy eyed cheerleaders like the inner-jock you aren’t.

Static Delusions and Stone-Still Days cleans the sludge off of Unsane’s sound and slimes it all over Stone Temple Pilots (or, your “more legitimate” grunge [grunge?] band of yesteryears). Vocalist Brian Standeford is young but accomplished at churning his howls into dwindling screams. For a better gist, download “The Door Shuts Quickly” and “I Fall Easy.” By the way – avoid the last track, it’s cashed.

For more info visit www.thecatheters.com and www.subpop.com.

– HS

Q-tip
Kamaal: The Abstract (promo copy)
***

The fact that this album was scheduled for release over a year ago, only to receive the same fate as J-Live’s first album, should “q” you in that it’s far from mainstream. Using 1999’s Amplified as the sole reference point (Tribe’s days in the limelight are long gone, admit it), you might expect a very flaky album, but not so. Kamaal: The Abstract is as rich as Twinkie filling, without having to chew through a spongy coating to get into it. From the first note (a slightly distorted guitar lick) there is no way to predict what’s coming next; by its last, it’s impossible not to know what Q-tip expected from the audience.

The laid back feel of this album does what songs (if you can even call them that) like “Vivrant Thing” and “End of Time” (feat. Korn) failed to do on Amplified – they let us relate. This album is a lot more about people than images. However much a listener likes to hear about other peoples’ dreams, nothing can ever compare to hearing about other people.

The enchanting loops on Kamaal, coupled with nice sax, trumpet and guitar solos, compliment Q-Tip’s voice. His lyrics are an asset to the song, instead of the weighty foundation. Rather than break this album down track-by-track, listen to the whole thing. After forty-some minutes, you’ll know a lot more about Q-tip (a man who sounds a lot like a friend that you’d want to have).

= SB

The large-scale paintings of Luis Cruz Azaceta’s latest exhibit, Joy Ride, fit well into the vibe of the big white walls and towering ceilings of the Fredric Snitzer Gallery. The space is roomy and clean and does absolutely nothing to detract from Azateca’s work, which is bright and striking and presented here without the benefit of titles or explanations.

Born in Havana, Cuba in 1942, Azaceta graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1969. He has been exhibiting his work in the United States, Latin America and Europe since 1971 and his work is in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art and The Met in New York as well as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

As explained by the artist, Joy Ride is “about the joy and pleasure of painting. To apply paint and manipulate the medium without fear; to let go. To go with the ride…” His gaudy, innerving strokes rush onto each other in colorful swiveling lines and circles, giving an overall impression that this exhibit may be very well inspired by the flamboyant and festive spirit of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras. These paintings are monumental celebrations of color and abstraction. The artist superimposes twirling lines to give a disorienting sense of puzzlement since it becomes difficult to distinguish between the backdrop and the foreground.

Azaceta works in layers on large sheets of canvas or on rough pieces of wood overlayed on top of each other so that areas of the painting push themselves towards you. Many of the pieces are also organic in shape, reminiscent of images of cells or atoms in vivid colors. “Beads (New Orleans)” is a collection of chromogenic prints on wood, clearly depicting the exuberance of the Mardi Gras celebration-the beads, the cups, the noisemakers, the extravagance. One might say that this is a well-chosen exhibit for the gallery to show in October, a month when Miami rejoices Caribbean and Latin American cultures in carnivalesque festivals, as well as human debauchery with Fantasy Fest in Key West.

Joy Ride runs through Oct. 28 at Fredric Snitzer off of Bird Road on 38th Court. For more info, call 305-448-8976.

Patrice Grell Yursik can be reached at rastalove@hotmail.com

So maybe actress Winona Ryder’s not a crackhead after all. Her drug charges were recently dropped (perhaps she agreed to stop popping those pills), but her shoplifting charge still stands. Check out Reuters news network for more info if you want to find out whether the once-thought-to-be innocent Ryder is or is not that angelic cutie pie you saw in Little Women.

Wu-Tang seems to have been hiding out in the subterranean caves of 36 Chambers, concocting their raw hip hop special brew on the low without anyone interfering. RZA, the group’s producer, won’t discuss matters concerning a new release for the Clan. However, he announced that he’s working on an international album, W.A.R.: The World According to RZA, which will feature European artists such as IAM, Saian Supa Crew, Dido, Petter and Xavier Naidoo. “I traveled throughout Europe,” he said, “and there, many countries have grass hip hop because they’re living the same struggle we’re living in one form or another. So I got some of the most prominent artists, gave them some fat beats, and they kicked some banging joints on it. For the first time you could hear hip hop in many languages, like Turkey-who thought that somebody would ever rap in Turkish and be on beat?” There isn’t an official release date for the album yet.

The Columbine tragedy was the basis of inspiration for a documentary called Bowling for Columbine, which examines violence and gun culture in America. The film was shown Saturday at the Starz Denver International Film Festival, and received mixed reactions from the public-some praised the movie for probing deeper into what happened at the high school massacres and pushing the fight for gun control, while others found that it capitalized on the tragic events without any redeeming quality.

Where’s your stand on the debate over war with Iraq? Actor Sean Penn paid for a $56,000 advertisement in the Washington Post last Friday accusing President Bush of propagating war in the minds of Americans and of menacing civil liberties. The ad takes up almost a whole page in the main section of the paper and Penn wrote that “bombing is answered by bombing, mutilation by mutilation, killing by killing.” Referring to Bush, he claimed: “your administration’s deconstruction of civil liberties all contradict the very core of the patriotism you claim.” So, who’s the real patriot: Bush or Penn?

Few shows telecasted in the vast wasteland of the boob tube have had the impact and success of Jackass. Exhausted laments from politicians and television critics, which abhor it as a counterpoint to human evolution, have been drowned out by a youth sick of expensive, unfunny sitcoms, relentless corporate marketing and the medium’s general phoniness.

Jackass’ clan of skateboarding and partying misfits do whatever it takes to entertain the viewer – even when it surpasses network standards and health codes. Make-up, gloss and superstar egos are scarce, while sanity, guts and limits are elasticized and tied into a humorous half-hour knot of stunts and pranks.

The R-rated nationwide release of Jackass: The Movie on Oct. 25, is expected to, at the very least, make back its budget, allowing Johnny Knoxville and posse to up their ante and bank accounts and build perpetually healing, global careers. UM non-alum and nefarious Jackass staple, Steve-O, is well on his way, with the briskly selling DVD, Don’t Try This at Home, and an infamous nightclub circuit act/tour. However, the latter has landed him charges of obscenity and principal to second-degree battery arising from a much publicized tour date in Louisiana on July 11. If convicted, he faces a combined maximum sentence of eight years in prison.

Steve-O, whose birth name is Stephen Gilchrist Glover, is uncharacteristically hesitant about discussing the specifics of his case, now set for December, over the telephone with Life & Art.

“As far as the movie, how in the hell am I supposed to be happy, when it could all be down hill from here, you know? I can’t even jerk off. It is what it is. I just want to make the world a sillier place, and that’s simply not illegal,” he says.

Fortunately for readers, Glover, now 28, is more than “down” to fess up about his UM exploits spanning two brief academic stints on campus (in 1993 and 1999) and his seemingly numerous informal visits. If you’re not a fan of his television/video antics, (skating on thin ice, swallowing and throwing up live goldfish) chances are that you’re not going to digest the quotes/advice/criticism in this article without severe gas and heartburn. You have been forewarned.

“I’d say I did a lot of tripping on acid when I was at UM. Acid smacid, drinking underage at the Rat was always pretty cool. Happy Hour at the Rat was always the best. From those days at the University of Miami, nothing’s different. It’s all about promiscuous, unprotected sex, dude,” he explains. “I swear to god, the football players are criminals and UM is based on football, and I love that dude. Walking through the locker room is like walking through f***ing South Central, L.A. I’m not badmouthing UM, I have a chip on my shoulder because I’m not into the school thing, and I think there’s way too many rich kids than kids with a plan. But the respectability of the school has risen so much, they don’t even call it ‘Suntan U’ anymore.”

Glover implies that he had a consistently poor attendance record at UM. When he wasn’t sleeping on couches and in an Apartment Area storage room, he divvied up the majority of his time practicing stunts with “heavy tight” friends on the university’s diving team, throwing illegal roof parties at Hecht Residential College, selling drugs, and chasing girls to no avail.

“I f***ing smashed out the window on the 13th floor of Hecht and jumped through it, so I was letting people onto the roof f***ing throwing parties and climbing up to the radio tower. The cops came, and I got thrown the f*** out. Then I got kicked out of Eaton within two weeks of classes starting my first year.”

“The girls I got at the University of Miami were uglier than the girls I nailed in high school. I was a football player running into the wrong in-zone. I was literally just trying to get laid and I didn’t care how fat and ugly they were. I cum really fast, so the fatter and uglier they are, the better lover I am. I was just trying to download viruses on the trampoline in the backyard every chance I got,” he says laughing.

UM’s campus is also where Steve-O suffered his worst and scariest injury resulting from a stunt -admittedly harsher than the time he “burned off his face” (as seen in the DVD). Attempting to do a “fall” from the second story balcony of the Apartment Area (something he did almost habitually), he landed wrong and smashed his face on the concrete below, breaking his cheekbone, wrist, seven teeth and splitting his chin ten stitches wide. During the healing process, he drank lots of beer and tried a “gnarly” shake blended from tuna and mayonnaise.

In adjunction with the knowledge he inhaled from UM and “skateboarding and heavy metal,” Glover graduated with pride from the surprisingly competitive Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and got a job as you guessed it.

“I can absolutely provide first-hand testimony of flagrant animal abuse in the circus. The dogs and the cats, I was down with them, but the elephants and the tigers, dude please, if I’m reincarnated don’t let me be them. The people who work there are more afraid of the animals than the crowds who watch them. And all that shit is going down at the Swap Shop in Fort Lauderdale,” he says, holding back a sinister amount of laughter.

Steve-O’s exposure (literally and figuratively) went up a notch when he made appearances showcasing his stunts in the deviant skateboarding publication known as Big Brother Magazine. These led to a part in the magazine’s video Boob, and then to the phenomena that is Jackass. Whether the future holds a thriving spotlight or oncoming headlights is unforeseen.

“I don’t want to die, I just expect to soon. Since I was a little kid, I’ve always predicted death to be sooner than later. But if you can tell me some secret info about me living for a long time, then my art is out the window,” he acknowledges.

Like any true partying elder, Steve-O wanted to leave the guys and girls at UM with a little slice of advice/admiration.

UM Guys: “If you can avoid the temptations of Coconut Grove, South Beach and the sun, and still get good grades, then goddamn it dude, that says more than your GPA. If you can get out of there without bumps on your wiener, then you’re set.”

UM Girls: “Make up your minds UM girls. You’re either there to find a successful future husband, and if that’s the case, stop being such sluts. If that’s not the case, then stop cheating by buying your exams off the Internet and from the teachers’ assistants.”

For more info visit www.steveovideo.com and www.jackassthemovie.com.

Hunter Stephenson can be reached at HurricaneAccent@hotmail.com.