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| Tiger Saw will play its first local show in seven years March 24 at the Firehouse. Photo courtesy Jon Donnell. |
Showing posts with label Tiger Saw. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tiger Saw. Show all posts
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Look, it's Tiger Saw. Wow, it's been a while.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Tiger Saw dances in the dark
Tiger Saw's latest, the aptly named "Nightingales," has been billed as a flight back to the nest, of sorts, a return to the Newburyport-born, Portland-based band's slowcore roots, and it's difficult to argue with that assessment, especially after the stylistic detour that was "Tigers on Fire," the controversial 2007 album that reinvented Saw as a kind-of white-kid basement soul dance band, horn section and all. So, yeah, there's a little back to the future feel to it. But, despite some obvious similarities in form and, to a certain extent, content, “Nightingales” finds Tiger Saw in a completely different place — lyrically, musically, emotionally — from, say, the sweetness and innocence of, "Blessed Art the Trials We Will Find," the band's Kimchee debut, or the joyous, celebratory, everybody-all-together “Sing," from the midpoint of the band's decade-long run. Yeah, the songs, for the most part, are still sweet, sad and, at times, heartachingly beautiful, and have an ineffable yet smoldering sadness — and a terrible, well-remembered longing. And, perhaps most significantly, the new material puts the spotlight back on the interplay of male and female voices to an extent not seen since cellist and vocalist Juliet Nelson left the band three years ago. But Emily Forsythe, probably best known for her work with the Boston-based St. Claire, steps into the duet role with founder Dylan Metrano as earth to Nelson's cosmos, body to her spirit, fire to her cool, ethereal breeze. And, this time out, there's a lot more miles on the vehicle. The shadows are longer, almost stark, and the lines on the faces of the characters, the people whose lives are described more pronounced. And Tiger Saw, a constantly shifting musical collective, is doing it, mostly, with a rootsy, waltzy string quartet as accompaniment. No, it’s never easy with this band.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Diary of a band ... and community
After a decade on the road, you should have learned all the tricks, so there's no worries about Tiger Saw being shoved aside by the non-human acts on the bill, a fate that famously befell Spinal Tap in 1982 when its troubled Smell the Glove tour pulled into Themeland Amusement Park and its hapless interim manager discovered that a puppet show took top billing for the gig. Nope, when Dylan Metrano, the Newburyport-born but for the past couple of years Portland-based musician pulls into Jabberwocky this weekend to promote “All My Friends Are Right Here with Me: A Decade in the Indie Rock Underground” (a book, of all things for a musician to be peddling!) the puppets will be incorporated into the gig — er, reading.
Published by Burst & Bloom in Portsmouth, “All My Friends” follows Tiger Saw’s zig-zag musical history, from the pretty, melodic minimalism of its early years to the community-building choruses and singalongs of the middle years and, ulitmately, the controversial about-face of its basement soul — a decade-long run of some 800 shows in a dozen countries. In clubs, galleries, even in the branches of an oceanside fir tree, the anecdote that the book opens with — or, as author, and Tiger Saw founder Dylan Metrano says, “any place people will gather to listen to music,” it is the story of a restless, constantly evolving band, and like-minded colleagues and road dogs who have since become friends — and a look at the scene, a way of life with rewards that do not translate into bottom line. The book comes with a 13-track CD featuring new takes on old TS tracks performed by the musicians who have been part the story, from Jason Anderson and Moons of Jupiter to Picastro and Quiet Bears.
And the hand puppets? Form follows function. The book, part tour diary and part oral history, which would make for a confusing reading if you did it straight and an awkward and, not to put too fine a point on it, silly reading if you attempted to do voices. Odd as it may sound, a puppet show seemed “a more natural way” of presenting such material, says Metrano, during a recent telephone interview. He’s in Annapolis, between shows on a two-week tour with Tiny Fires, a new band featuring Metrano, Guy Capecelatro III, Jeremy Robinson and Jerusha Robinson, which has been tramping through the Midwest and up the East Coast, playing every night, without travel dates, to support their self-titled debut album. Metrano’s Nov. 13 reading at Jabberwocky represents the last date on the current tour and the start of a brief break before the next, in which Tiger Saw will add two notches to its country total as it stomps across Australia and New Zealand with Castanets and Alps. It's a crazy schedule, but "if you're not playing, you're paying,” Metrano says. “You do what you can, try to get in as much as you can. Lots of places to be, lots of people to see. It's good to keep moving, I guess. It feels right.” They’ve done the puppet-thing at a couple of the quieter venues on the tour. “People have been receptive,” Metrano says. “but it’s definitely a work in progress.”
Diary of a band
Working with handwritten tour diaries he's kept since putting together Tiger Saw at the turn of the century, Metrano took his first shot at getting together some kind of history about Tiger Saw’s first decade about a year and a half ago, but, first impression, it just didn’t sing. “It was tedious and boring stuff ... that no one in his right mind would be interested in if he wasn't in the band.” On the other hand, as he pushed forward, the road stories started to look “like something.” A book? He wasn’t sure. He passed on what he had to Greg Moss, his old bandmate from the Port proto-punk band Hamlet Idiot in the late 1980s and now a professional playwright. He agreed: There was something there. He suggested that Metrano flesh out the story with first-person accounts, something along the lines of “Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk” by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. The project started jelling after that.
It's a small, in some ways unremarkable, story, without the kind of big-splash sex-and-drugs-and-rehab-n-roll in “All My Friends” that dresses up Behind the Music bios. There's none, actually. And no groupies or hotel rampages. What makes it work is the fact that, despite its lack of excess, the story is so rock and roll — though definitely not the rock fantasy that usually springs to mind. It could be the story of any band coming up, trying to make it — and doing it on its own terms, without corporate bankrolls. It’s about hard work and hustle and DIY necessities, being jammed into a vehicle with all your gear and your bandmates and crashing on someone's couch and staggering weary-eyed to the next gig. It's about community.
“Few oppornuties are just handed to you. You make it on hard work and with the help of your friends," Metrano writes. "I think I’ve learned something about myself doing it. We play what we want — and that feels good.” It is an honest, unblinking account, not only of the work it takes, but also of the conflicts within the band, which led, first, to the departure of original member Juliet Nelson, the cellist and vocalist who was, in large measure, responsible for the Tiger Saw sound — and even Kimchee Records executive Bob Dubrow's stinging dismissal ("I don't like R&B dance kockoffs done by white boys and girls that sounds like it's being done by white boys and girls.") of late Tiger Saw's party vibe. "It would be silly to exclude it," he says. "There will always be conflict within a group" — especially, he says, when you have to deal with someone like him, who is "very particular about what I'm trying to create."
Metrano, who hasn't performed in Newburyport since the 2007 show with Scary Mansion at the Firehouse. (“I don’t know know if there's much of an audience there anymore, or if there’s even a scene,” he says. “I’m not as connected as I used to be.”) says the book, of course, is also his story. “I was in my early 20s when I started the band," he says. "Now I'm in my early 30s. I grew up with this band. I don't know if I wanted it to be this, I don't know what I wanted it to be. I was interested in playing music, but also in writing and acting. Music ended up taking over. I don’t know where I'll be in another 10 years. I could have a different life, but it's not important to figure it out. I know what I want to do now.”
JUST THE FACTS, MAN: Dylan Metrano will read from “All My Friends Are Right Here With Me, A Decade in the Indie Rock Underground,” at 7 p.m. Nov. 13 at Jabberwocky, located at the Tannery, 50 Water St., Newburyport. The event is free. For more information about the reading, call 978-465-9359. For more information about the band, look here.
Published by Burst & Bloom in Portsmouth, “All My Friends” follows Tiger Saw’s zig-zag musical history, from the pretty, melodic minimalism of its early years to the community-building choruses and singalongs of the middle years and, ulitmately, the controversial about-face of its basement soul — a decade-long run of some 800 shows in a dozen countries. In clubs, galleries, even in the branches of an oceanside fir tree, the anecdote that the book opens with — or, as author, and Tiger Saw founder Dylan Metrano says, “any place people will gather to listen to music,” it is the story of a restless, constantly evolving band, and like-minded colleagues and road dogs who have since become friends — and a look at the scene, a way of life with rewards that do not translate into bottom line. The book comes with a 13-track CD featuring new takes on old TS tracks performed by the musicians who have been part the story, from Jason Anderson and Moons of Jupiter to Picastro and Quiet Bears.
And the hand puppets? Form follows function. The book, part tour diary and part oral history, which would make for a confusing reading if you did it straight and an awkward and, not to put too fine a point on it, silly reading if you attempted to do voices. Odd as it may sound, a puppet show seemed “a more natural way” of presenting such material, says Metrano, during a recent telephone interview. He’s in Annapolis, between shows on a two-week tour with Tiny Fires, a new band featuring Metrano, Guy Capecelatro III, Jeremy Robinson and Jerusha Robinson, which has been tramping through the Midwest and up the East Coast, playing every night, without travel dates, to support their self-titled debut album. Metrano’s Nov. 13 reading at Jabberwocky represents the last date on the current tour and the start of a brief break before the next, in which Tiger Saw will add two notches to its country total as it stomps across Australia and New Zealand with Castanets and Alps. It's a crazy schedule, but "if you're not playing, you're paying,” Metrano says. “You do what you can, try to get in as much as you can. Lots of places to be, lots of people to see. It's good to keep moving, I guess. It feels right.” They’ve done the puppet-thing at a couple of the quieter venues on the tour. “People have been receptive,” Metrano says. “but it’s definitely a work in progress.”
Diary of a band
Working with handwritten tour diaries he's kept since putting together Tiger Saw at the turn of the century, Metrano took his first shot at getting together some kind of history about Tiger Saw’s first decade about a year and a half ago, but, first impression, it just didn’t sing. “It was tedious and boring stuff ... that no one in his right mind would be interested in if he wasn't in the band.” On the other hand, as he pushed forward, the road stories started to look “like something.” A book? He wasn’t sure. He passed on what he had to Greg Moss, his old bandmate from the Port proto-punk band Hamlet Idiot in the late 1980s and now a professional playwright. He agreed: There was something there. He suggested that Metrano flesh out the story with first-person accounts, something along the lines of “Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk” by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. The project started jelling after that.
It's a small, in some ways unremarkable, story, without the kind of big-splash sex-and-drugs-and-rehab-n-roll in “All My Friends” that dresses up Behind the Music bios. There's none, actually. And no groupies or hotel rampages. What makes it work is the fact that, despite its lack of excess, the story is so rock and roll — though definitely not the rock fantasy that usually springs to mind. It could be the story of any band coming up, trying to make it — and doing it on its own terms, without corporate bankrolls. It’s about hard work and hustle and DIY necessities, being jammed into a vehicle with all your gear and your bandmates and crashing on someone's couch and staggering weary-eyed to the next gig. It's about community.
“Few oppornuties are just handed to you. You make it on hard work and with the help of your friends," Metrano writes. "I think I’ve learned something about myself doing it. We play what we want — and that feels good.” It is an honest, unblinking account, not only of the work it takes, but also of the conflicts within the band, which led, first, to the departure of original member Juliet Nelson, the cellist and vocalist who was, in large measure, responsible for the Tiger Saw sound — and even Kimchee Records executive Bob Dubrow's stinging dismissal ("I don't like R&B dance kockoffs done by white boys and girls that sounds like it's being done by white boys and girls.") of late Tiger Saw's party vibe. "It would be silly to exclude it," he says. "There will always be conflict within a group" — especially, he says, when you have to deal with someone like him, who is "very particular about what I'm trying to create."
Metrano, who hasn't performed in Newburyport since the 2007 show with Scary Mansion at the Firehouse. (“I don’t know know if there's much of an audience there anymore, or if there’s even a scene,” he says. “I’m not as connected as I used to be.”) says the book, of course, is also his story. “I was in my early 20s when I started the band," he says. "Now I'm in my early 30s. I grew up with this band. I don't know if I wanted it to be this, I don't know what I wanted it to be. I was interested in playing music, but also in writing and acting. Music ended up taking over. I don’t know where I'll be in another 10 years. I could have a different life, but it's not important to figure it out. I know what I want to do now.”
JUST THE FACTS, MAN: Dylan Metrano will read from “All My Friends Are Right Here With Me, A Decade in the Indie Rock Underground,” at 7 p.m. Nov. 13 at Jabberwocky, located at the Tannery, 50 Water St., Newburyport. The event is free. For more information about the reading, call 978-465-9359. For more information about the band, look here.
Monday, September 7, 2009
BFF: A decade on the road with Tiger Saw
To be perfectly honest, something a reporter should never do, I thought Tiger Saw was just a phase, a patch that Dylan Metrano would eventually work through, probably quickly ... Yeah, yeah, I know, but it made sense at the time. He’d just come off of several years working with Hamlet Idiot, an intense, raucous and proto-punk band that he dismisses now as a paeon to youthful excess and enthusiasm, but was pretty bitching, if not exactly popular or polished, back in the day. The band released a dozen cassettes and a couple of CDs, never really finding its audience, but making a lot of righteous noise. Then Metrano packed his bags for the left coast, the spiritual home for fresh starts. When he came back about a year later, he unveiled Tiger Saw, a project that could not have been more different, leaving behind the furious, confrontational style of Hamlet Idiot for soft, yielding slowcore, for songs that were sweet and melodic, sad and beautiful, almost like lullabies.It's hard to believe that was ten years ago, a decade in which the Newburyport-based and psychologically centered Tiger Saw has not only persevered, but thrived, releasing seven albums and becoming a road-hardened touring band that, despite its roots, is almost never home. And a decade in which the band evolved, undergoing extensive changes that completely changed its musical direction, from the hushed conversation, boy-girl/call-responses of "How To Be Timeless Tonight," to the joyous, celebratory, everybody-all-together “Sing,” to the abrupt, musical left turn of "Tigers on Fire," which saw the band sporting a horn section and playing dance music — basement soul, if you will. And the personnel? Forget about it. Once you get past the late-middle period, you need a scorecard to keep the players straight — especially when you include the live configurations.
And that's exactly what Metrano has done in "All My Friends Are Right Here With Me: A Decade in the Indie Rock Underground." The book, just published by Burst & Bloom Press, is a blow-by-blow account of the ascent — and transformation — of the band. Part travelogue, studio diary and oral history, "All My Friends," which takes its name from a song from "Sing," is based on a decade of tour diaries and dozens of interviews, with first-person accounts of tours with Kimya Dawson, Castanets, Jason Anderson, Viking Moses and The Hotel Alexi and detailed remembrances by members of Dirty Projectors, White Hinterland, Little Wings, Songs: Ohia and Tarentel, and many others. It also also comes with a CD of Tiger Saw covers by friends and collaborators like Jason Anderson, Cake on Cake, Guy Capecelatro, Moons of Jupiter, Annie Palmer, Picastro, Gregg Porter and Quiet Bears.
Tiger Saw will be touring with South China and The Wailing Wall to support the book. Select shows will feature dramatic readings performed by a collection of home-made puppets. There are no Newburyport dates on the schedule. The closest shows are in Cambridge and Portsmouth. The tour schedule is at http://tigersaw.wordpress.com. The book can be purchased at http://burstandbloom.wordpress.com/order/
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