Culture the other press version of a story that’s become folklore to many music fans, and it’s a story made all the more important by the fact that Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” is an absolute masterpiece. This is exper- imental music where all the experiments actually work. When a faint organ hum emerges out of the static on “Radio Cure,” it’s all the more stunning. Listen to how effortlessly Wilco shifts between REM styled jangle pop and synthy Krautrock on “War on War,” with lyrics that shift from senti- ments like “you have to lose/you have to learn how to die/if you wanna wanna be alive” from fragile frontman Jeff Tweedy to the poetic “you are not my typewriter/but you could be my demon/mov- ing forwards through flaming doors.” The atmos- http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca pheric, effects-laden “Ashes of American Flags” is finally consumed by chaos, which leads into “Heavy Metal Drummer,” bouncy radio-pop bet- ter than anything on the radio. With every song being tied so tightly to the songs that precede and follow it, it’s hard to pick a highlight, but “Poor Places,” which features fantastic piano and Tweedy singing “It’s hot in the poor places tonight/I’m not going outside,” climaxes in wailing feedback with a female voice from a numbers broadcast repeating “Yankee...Hotel... Foxtrot...” Taking avant-garde experimentalism and making it irresistibly catchy, this album proves that musical decisions should be kept as far away from visionless, tasteless, number- crunching suits as possible. www. THINKCGA.org Regional Vice President Starbucks Coffee Company fi ee ee eae © Certified General Accountants Association of British Columbia GA. February 19, 2003 Crooked Fingers Crooked Fingers Piccadilly Pub February 13 fimanda Aikman fissistant Culture Editor Eric Bachmann may not look the part of the quintessential rock star, but when he takes the stage he brings the goods. Along with the lat- est incarnation of his band, Crooked Fingers, Bachmann wooed a capacity crowd at the Piccadilly Pub in Vancouver on February 13. The tall, unshaven, bespectacled North Carolinian (and now Seattle resident) had the women swooning and the men busting out in spon- taneous spasms of air-guitaring. Bachmann’s commanding stage pres- ence should come as no surprise; after all he spent the better part of the 90s on the road with the Archers of Loaf. But a Crooked Fingers’ show is not an Archers of Loaf show and their days of jangly, vocal chord shredding, indie-rock anthems are firmly behind them. Despite the inevitable drunken pleas of hopeful fans (or “thugs” as they are affectionately referred to in Archers’ circles), Bachmann and compa- ny would not be swayed into playing the old material. As it turned out, they didn’t need to. When the band launched into a stellar ren- dition of “Crowned in Chrome” from their 2000 self-titled debut, the audience forgot all about the old days and the mood in the Pic was elevated to something resembling a hootenanny/religious revival. The lively “New Drink for the Old Drunk,” also from their first album, was another crowd pleaser but it was the material from their latest release, Red Devil Dawn that filled out most of the set list. From the quietly beautiful “Angelina” to the rousing “You Threw a Spark,” the fevered crowd gratefully lapped up these latest additions to the Crooked Fingers family. After an extremely well-received set and very brief departure from the stage, the Fingers returned to play one of their trademark cover- song-laden encores. A favourite element of Crooked Fingers’ live shows, these encores led to the band’s release of the Reservoir Songs EP in 2002. Among the five great tracks on that all-covers EP were ver- sions of Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning. Coming Down,” and Prince’s “When U Were Mine.” This time around the crowd was treated to such delights as Echo & the Bunnymen’s “Bring on the Dancing Horses” and Springsteen’s “The Promised Land,” and if the reception at the Pic was any indication, a second volume of Reservoir Songs won't be far behind At the beginning of the evening Bachmann had announced that the band “might need a place to stay tonight,” adding after considerable laughter from the crowd, “I’m not kidding.” Whether he was kidding or not, Bachmann certainly deserves credit for slugging it out in the trenches as long as he has. While bands like Pavement, with whom the Archers were often associated in the ’90s, went on to enjoy a high- er degree of commercial success, Bachmann continued experimenting with his craft, out of the limelight’s glare. This may have done won- ders for his so-called “indie cred” but it has also meant fighting to fill venues and having to personally hawk T-shirts after exhausting evenings on stage. Combined with his talent for creating truly inno- vative music, it is this tenacity that inspires such loyalty and admira- tion in his fans. Looking at the transfixed faces of audience members boisterously singing along to the evening's final song “A Little Bleeding,” it was obvious that kidding or not, in this crowd Bachmann and the boys would have little difficulty securing friendly couches to crash on. page 11 ©