DARK MEAT with QUIET HOOVES at Lees Palace (529 Bloor West), Monday (May 26). $10.50. 416-?532-?1598. Rating: NNNNN
Based on the descriptions of Dark Meat that Id heard on the way to South By Southwest alternately a biker gang that used free jazz as an outlet for their aggression and an angry bunch of communal-?living hippie punks with saxophones they at least sounded different enough from every other band coming out of Athens, Georgia, to be worth checking out.
From the riotous skronk blasting out of Spiros on Red River and the swarthy horde of horn-?honking hombres who looked like they lived on a brush-?painted school bus who I found inside, it was pretty obvious this was Dark Meat in full-?on attack mode.
What a relief to discover that the 17-?piece ensembles vague connections to the Elephant 6 clique have little bearing on their explosively pounding sound. If anything, what Dark Meat ferociously flail out on their Universal Indians (Vice) debut disc is the complete antithesis of the prissy pop symphonies of Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel.
A lot of stuff youve probably heard or read about Dark Meat is pure marketing bullshit, advises co-?founding guitarist Jim McHugh from a stop in San Francisco. Sure, we spend a lot of time travelling to shows stuffed into our big green bus, but we dont all live together at the Orange Twin Conservation Community. Laura Carter [Elf Power], who runs Orange Twin, originally released our record, and I work on the farm there, but thats about it. Were actually spread out between four houses, and thats just because we have no money.
I suppose Vices pushing us as some kinda savage redneck cavemen might be great for the media, but I get the feeling that people are disappointed when they find out were not actually acid-?gobbling, women-?sacrificing freaks who go crazy onstage and tear shit up. Its good that more people are aware of us, but what theyre getting is an exaggerated version of our trip. Were basically just a punk rock band with a free jazz horn section.
Whats intriguing about seeing the 17 sweaty souls of Dark Meat in action is that their sound is definitely confrontational but not chaotic. As aggressively noisy as they get, their songs remain well structured even while the band members are bouncing off each other and falling off the stage.
A tune like In The Woods sounds more like something by Crazy Horse than anything youve heard from Albert Ayler or Archie Shepp, so its not shocking to discover that the group began when McHugh decided to form a Neil Young cover band with his UNC buddy Ben Clack and their co-?workers at the Five Star Day Cafe in Athens.
We had the idea of getting together to play some Neil Young songs. We managed to learn five before I came up with In The Woods, which is probably why it sounds like a Crazy Horse tune. After that we started casually jamming on songs from my old bands, and the improv thing kinda just happened because we didnt want to sit around writing pop songs. It was much more fun making noise and doing half-?assed versions of Archie Shepp numbers.
Albert Aylers credo that its not the notes, its the sound that matters was really appealing to me. We cant really play that free jazz stuff Im no Sonny Sharrock, as much as Id like to be but I think we share an appreciation of the importance for getting at the raw, primal emotion behind the notes.
Jim McHugh explains that the conceptual origins for Dark Meat can be traced back to a rehearsal/performance space called the Onion Cellar he ran in Greensboro, North Carolina:
Evidently, the uptight nature of the Athens, Georgia music scene proved to be inspiring for McHugh:
timp@nowtoronto.com
