ARTS
Love Child's 'Witchcraft'
The group, led by Rebecca Odes, has a hypnotically beguilng LP
by Scott Sterling
Don't hate Love Child's Rebecca Odes because she's
beautiful. Better yet, forget what she looks like altogether
and let Love Child's latest lp, "Witchcraft" do its hypnotic
thing. Deliciously lo-fi garage rock that's got a firmroot in
popmelodies,but(thankfully)sidesteps yourgeneric'indie-
rock' stereotype. There's no happy-faced mop-top striped
tee-shirtedBuzzcocks aping going downhere. "Witchcraft"
is a violent yin-yang meeting of pop and noise, shimmering
melodies and discordant shards of cacophonic guitars. This
aural rollercoaster ride whips you through thrashing punk
screamers like "Permission," straight down into slinky,
bliss-eyed mood poems like "AAA/XXX" effortlessly.
Well, maybe not all that effortlessly.
"There'salotof possessiveness and competition,but we
like to think that the tensions are sort of what fuels it," says
Odes, Love Child's vocalist and bass player, who provides
the band's more tuneful edge. "Alan (Licht, guitarist) and I
are both pulling on two opposite sides of the same stick.
There are times when I'll write a song, and Alan feels like
he has to 'de-pop' it a little bit, cover it up with noise. I feel
like sometimes it really works and sometimes it's very
obvious that one of us is trying to fuck the other one up.
Ninety percent of the time it's a huge battle of egos and
wills."
Formed conceptually by Licht and former guitarist/
drummer Will Baum, Odes sort of just fell into her role as
Love Child's frontperson. "It really was just circumstance
that we all ended up in the same band," Odes recalls. "I'd
been playingbass for two weeks, so Iwas themostqualified
bass player that they knew. At that time, I wasn't a creative
force at all. I was this girltrying to play, hoping that thesong
would be over so I wouldn't have ruined it."
Once Odes had stuck her hand into Love Child's
songwriting pie, it was more than apparent that something
had to give.
"There werejust toomany directions the band wasbeing
pulledin. He(Will)ended upleaving. Alan andI were doing
these opposite things and they sounded good together. It was
never like 'hey, I'm into pop and you're into noise, let's
make a pop-noise band."'
Likemany oftheir indie contemporaries, Love Child got
their first taste of acclaim in Europe, where underground
U.S. guitar tribes are revered like gods. But Europe is also
(in)famous for it's fickle and far too influential press. It was
in Brit rock weekly 'Melody Maker" that writer Everett
True attempted to wield this pseudo-power and make Odes
outtobesome sort of Uber-bitch. Which wasn't too difficult
to achieve, when the article opens with Odes saying, "Sev-
enty-five percent of the men I meet fancy me. The other
twenty-fivepercentareassholes. Which category do you fall
into?"
"Those words never passed through my lips," Odes
emphasizes. "The guy has a real problem with women. He
manipulated me, bordering on sexual harassment. The
reality of it is that the English press is rooted in payola and
shit like that."
"The whole indie rock world is really mainstream in it's
view of women," she continues. "I feel it's misogynistic the
way we're only praised for being boys," Odes says, in
reference to the 'legitimate' image of punk-feminist "Riot
Girls" such as Bikini Kill. "In Europe, I'd do these inter-
views, and the articles would say shit like 'She's the kind of
girl you just wanna fuck.' It was totally humiliating."
It's moronic how a Vassar grad with a penchant for
writing great music can be boxed like that. But Odes isn't
defined by her place in Love Child.
"I grew up thinking I'd be an artist. I still feel like it's not
real, being in a band. It's (L.C.) my focus now, but in six
months, who knows?"
LOVE CHILD was going to play THE IAB, but they got
shut down by the man, so it looks like we lose.
The local Chameleon's Dish combines such diverse influences as Jane's Addiction and Lou Reed.
Dish gets past stigma of local bands
by Nima Hodaei
Ann Arbor may be a hot bed for
talented performers but the lack of ven-
ues and promoting supporthas ledplenty
of local bands to drop into a pit of
obscurity. One band who has avoided
the pitfalls of this trap is the rising
Chameleon'sDish- alocal groupbent
on getting past the initial stigma of
being an A2 band.
The group's self-titled debut album
(available in local record stores) cap-
tures a unique sound, blending Jane's
Addiction's vocals with Lou Reed's
lyricism, and has a direct style which
has come together in a mere six months.
To the delightof band members Charlie
Johnson (vocals/guitar), Mike
Tomlinson (guitar), DanFriedman (vio-
lin), David Mudie (bass) and Mark
Osenieks (drums) the initial reaction to
the music has been overwhelming, cul-
minating in the first release of the tape
- selling out in a week and a half.
"That was a big surprise for me,"
said Johnson. "We made the
Wherehouse Local Band of the Month.
I don't know if that's significant or not
... We thought we were far enough
away from the mainstream that it was
going to possibly limit our audience."
The band's non-mainstream ap-
proachis punctuated by theuseofviolin
on the album, as well as tongue-in-
cheek humor that works its way into
several songs like "Sex with the Lights
On" and "Bed." Pressed to describe the
band (whose members all have consid-
erable musical experience) to an unedu-
cated listener, Tomlinson thought aloud.
"About the only thing that we've
ever been able to come up with is harder
edged alternative stuff with aviolin," he
concluded. "It doesn'tcover everything
that we do. But some of the songs are
serious, and some of them definitely
have a sense of humor."
Johnson observed, "I like to make
fun of sexuality. I just think it's a joke.
People are so uptight with it. If you can't
laugh at human sexuality then you have
a problem, because it's the most imper-
fect practice, just dealing with those
feelings when you're young and trying
to be a mature adult."
The Chameleon's Dish is as much a
concept as it is a band. The group puts
together "artnights" in which they gather
to play music and paint. And this con-
cept has expanded over into their live
performances, in which sculptures and
other artwork are common as interac-
tive parts of the show.
"If you have goodmusicthenyou're
an average band," explained Johnson.
"But if you have good music, and you
can entertain a crowd, then you're a
very good band."
Quite possibly, the most impressive
aspect of the band is how quickly they
have broken onto the local music scene.
Rather than sitting back and waiting
years for a first release as most local
performers are inclined to do, the band
formed in October of '92 and had their
first album out a few months later.
Mostofthe compositions at the time
were strictly theworkof Johnson. How-
ever, the members explained that the
collaborating since then is gelling the
band into a definite cohesive unit.
"The band itself is really growing as
far as the stuff that it's doing and the
music that is coming out of it," said
Tomlinson. "It'salot offun, because it's
all original."
Long term future plans are still far
off on the horizon for the Chameleon's
Dish, whose members are all still Uni-
versity students. But comments on the
matter indicate the continuing plight of
being a band trying to break out of Ann
Arbor.
"We're giving ourselves two years
to make it work," said Johnson of the
group's plans. "The reaction we get
from people who listen to our tapes
encourages us, and then the information
we get about how bad the music indus-
try is run, discourages us. EverydayI go
through this cycle of feeling great about
myself, because we get another gig, or
we get information that we're out of
tapes at one store. And then I try to talk
to somebody (in the industry) and get
total discouragement."
THE CHAMELEON'S DISH will
perform April 16th at the Amsterdam
(for info call Charlie at 761-3158)
and April 17th at the Rock for Life
Concert outside Delta Sigma Phi on
the corner of Hill St. and Forest.
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Book & Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner
Music by Frederick Loewe
Directed by
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MusicalDirection by
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.. pChoreographed by
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