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Mr. Airplane Man: Giving Rock Brand-New Wings
By: David Segal - washingtonpost.com
September 18th 2002 2:22am
Rock-and-roll, we're told, is back. Where has it been? Nobody knows, but it looks tan and rested so maybe it was in Bali, soaking up the sun and drinking screwdrivers, or maybe it was just lying low somewhere in Arizona and catching up on its sleep. Either way, rock earned a hero's homecoming recently on the covers of both Rolling Stone and Spin, which in music is the equivalent of a ticker-tape parade. Of course, rock never went anywhere. It just toiled in obscurity in recent years as fans gallivanted with halter-top pop from the likes of Britney Spears, or sorted through their familial rage with the grunting aid of metal-rap hybrids like Korn and Papa Roach. Those acts aren't actually going anywhere -- hold those goodbye parties, people -- but they're now scrunched together enough to make room on the charts for something raw and flamboyantly retro. With luck, all this rock-is-back talk will boost the profile not just of bands now making surprise Billboard cameos -- like the White Stripes, the Vines and a quintet of uniformed Swedes called the Hives -- but lesser-known groups, too. Like Mr. Airplane Man, a Boston duo that just released its second album, a bruising 12-song kick in the pants called "Moanin'." MAM invites comparisons to the White Stripes, and not just because both bands consist of a female drummer and a singer-guitarist who treats the blues of yore as pop's great primary texts. Both, too, were released on an obscure California label called Sympathy for the Record Industry, which has put out something close to 700 albums since its founding 13 years ago. That sum seems even more impressive when you realize that the entire operation is owned and run by one guy, a somewhat cranky 50-year-old former Teamster known only as Long Gone John. Mr. John has a peculiar approach to customer service; the label's number is unlisted and the home page of its Web site, at www.sympathyrecords.com, contains little more than a drawing of a naked, kneeling angel and what sounds suspiciously like a personal credo: "I detest the ungodly rabble and keep them at a distance." But the guy has terrific musical taste and radar that regularly finds and signs the best unvarnished, bottom-of-the-bill acts across the country. "Moanin' " is a classic Sympathy production -- loose, fervent and gloriously devoid of refinement. Engineer Jim Diamond, who worked on several White Stripes albums, makes MAM sound like it's trying to pound its way out of a locked basement in a cul-de-sac. It's the audio opposite of the enamel coat now applied to most rock, and it gives listeners the sense that they're overhearing an actual performance, rather than a digitally blow-dried makeover of a performance. Lead singer and guitarist Margaret Garrett and drummer Tara McManus honor their elders with two Howlin' Wolf covers: the title track and "Commit a Crime," a classic about fleeing a homicidal lover. "Crime" contains one of the few moments when Garrett really cuts loose vocally ("You mixed my drink / with a can of Red Devil lye!") and it makes you wish she'd cut loose more often. For much of the album, Garrett lets her instrument do the screaming, while she murmurs and affects a haunted drawl on a version of "Jesus on the Mainline," or sounds wistful and confused on originals like "Not Living at All." Some of the narrators here -- the lusty, willing gal-toy of "Uptight" and the suspicious lover on "Very Bad Feeling" -- are stock characters, unfortunately, and one weakness of "Moanin' " is that it too often pays tributes to old templates rather than updates them with modern lyrical details, something the White Stripes do really well. But when Mr. Airplane Man gets wailing, and the band wails often on this album, you're pleased to make rock's acquaintance again. Even if rock has been here all along.
Copyright 2002 The Washington Post Company
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