The Universal Chrome >> I'm in full control

The Universal Chrome - "Helium"

(self-released, 2000)

This is from the band's debut and only release, the CD EP Meet The Universal Chrome.  In my opinion, and I've said this since buying it in 2002, it's the finest disc ever released by a New Orleans rock band, and nothing else comes even remotely close.  I say this because it avoids all the clichés of "New Orleans music" in favor of the musical palette used by '80s / '90s Brit bands and their U.S. counterparts.  There's nary a trace of funk, zydeco, blues, etc. on this disc, which sounds like a dumb or naïve thing to even point out, but you'd be surprised at how heavy the peer pressure is in NOLA for rock bands to include at least some native signifiers.  After two crushingly dense opening seconds, "Helium" cruises along at sort of a moderate, dream-pop-y pace, sounding like nothing too special for its first two minutes.  But at the 1:55 mark, the weather suddenly changes and it becomes a white-knuckle ride into paranoia ("Suspect the one who knows everything") and fight-or-flight aggression.  With wah pedals alfutter in dramatic fashion, singer Zac Wilson announces very bluntly: "I'm in full control, so if you're fucking with me... Don't."  It's simply one of the most amazing vocal performances ever laid to tape, in my opinion.  I often like to say that certain songs "singlehandedly make the wah pedal cool again," and this is clearly one of them.

The CD and the inside of the booklet; took me 10 years to notice the naked lady.  The CD is actually totally grayish silver, in fitting in with the "chrome" theme, but the lighting gave it a pinkish cast that I couldn't fix:

The band was originally known as Flux, and my introduction to them was hearing a live interview on corporate alt-rock station 106.7 The End on a cold, dreary night in latte December 1996 while driving around uptown New Orleans.  I made a mental note to check them out, and I wish I had a recording of that interview.  I'm sure the band does somewhere.  A year or so later, they had to change their name due to a dispute by the group Flux, which was led by James Plotkin, who would later front the hilariously lame metal act Khanate.  I still don't know what the band's name means, but I've seen it used as the finish color for certain auto parts.  I had originally thought it was an homage to Catherine Wheel's classic heavy shoegaze album Chrome.  The album cover is an image of a car engine's drive belt, so the band's name is probably indeed a car reference.  Anyway, they opened for national touring bands like At The Drive-In, the Jesus Lizard, the Starlight Mints, etc., as well as big local bands like Burnversion, Rigid, and Weedater.  And of course they opened the killer Hum / Swervedriver show I went to in '98.  It has a hidden track, "The Last Resolve," which slays just about any song, hidden or non-hidden, in the history of music, and yes, I will be posting it someday.

I was overjoyed to find this flyer a few years ago at TUC's MySpace page, since I had never seen it back in the day:

Anyone who went to that concert (see ticket here) knows how the Chromies tore shit up and just about stole the show.  I mean, jeez, they sure ate their fucking Wheaties that morning, as I like to say.  They knew this would be one of the biggest moments of their lives, and they played like their lives depended on it.  The singer was a manic ball of energy with his eyes almost bugging out of his head, like Frank Black on speed.  And Melissa played her strong, Pixies-style basslines clad in her trademark red and white candy-striped leggings.  I even bumped into my Loyola ichthyology teacher, Frank Jordan, there.  (There was later an indie rock band named Frank Jordan, but I don't know if there was any connection.)  Dr. Jordan saw Sonic Youth in Florida in the mid-'80s, so you know he knew what was up.  I even lent him my Screaming Fields Of Sonic Love VHS around this time and never got it back.  About a year later, he admitted to me that he had never gotten around to watching it.

Back on topic... The Universal Chrome were one of the best-loved local bands of the late '90s, but I only saw them that one time.  Still kicking myself.  They moved to NYC in 1999 to make it big or somewhat big, and in a less douchey world they would have.  The most tantalizing fact: They recorded an unreleased full-length album, titled Closer To Shine, around the time of this EP.  Their Facebook page said they planned on releasing it digitally in August 2010, but I guess that never happened.  God damn.  I can only take so much suspense.  Luckily Meet has been released on iTunes.  In the '00s, drummer Keith Hajjar was a member of Rock City Morgue, along with former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult and singer Rik Slave of Rik Slave & The Phantoms.  RCM had some success and garnered international interest; they even toured Europe in 2005.  Their sound was on the glammy, proto-punky '70s NYC side (NY Dolls, Dead Boys, etc.), very different from The Universal Chrome.  In other words, RCM was dedicated to recreating a bygone era, while TUC tried to forge something new, edgy, and dangerous.  So it's no surprise that I never saw RCM live or paid much attention to them.  Like anyone who was a teenage male in the '90s, I had a crush on Sean, and I have to say that White Zombie was one of the most fun and entertaining live bands I ever saw.  (Opening for Pantera at Lakefront Arena in '96.)

Tue. Oct. 16: Went to GW Fins, it was loud as hell, got some non-seafood, tried to block out the noise, great bread, great waiter, it got noisier, I got peeved.  Seemed overpriced, and the portions were on the small side.

Thur. Oct. 18: Went to Pelican Club for my sister's birthday.  Finally met her fiancée's mom, Mary, who immediately praised my palm paintings that she had seen.  Aunt Ann flew in from Savannah and Vanessa came too, along with mom and dad.  Afterwards we went to the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone briefly; was my first time doing so.  Definitely swank city.  Missed the second Obama-Romney debate due to all this, but Obama dispatched the creepy dude easily, based on highlights I saw and according to the general consensus of political pundits.

Fri. Oct. 19: Ann, mom and I went to the NOMA Sculpture Garden, had lunch in NOMA's café, then went to the Botanical Garden.  These things are all literally yards apart from each other, making for one of the most interesting couple of blocks on the planet in which to feed your brain and pass some time.

Sat. Oct. 20: Went to Kathleen & Jay's Halloween party for the first time.  This is a big-ass deal, and they even have cops close off the block to traffic.  They were screening The Avengers on the side of the house via a video projector outside.  I went as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in a shirt I had found at a thrift store the previous day.  Good clean fun, as Cat Power would say.  Stuck a bony hand decal / sticker thing on Ashley's face.  On WTUL's concert listings I heard that my favorite local jazz band (since Christian Scott no longer lives here), Tarik Hassan Group, was playing at AllWays Lounge, so I headed over there.  It was Hassan's birthday.  They were great, as always, and I was amazed to see the jazz singer I had met recently (Meghan Stewart) come into the club wearing a rather provocative red outfit.  I was hoping she'd sing with them, but it turned out she was there as a bellydancer(!).  So yeah, she danced / twirled / jiggled in rather stunning fashion to a few songs and really got the crowd going.

Sun. Oct. 21: I finally joined last.fm.  My username is a Magic Dirt song that I should've already posted on here by now.  Some other possible usernames that made the final round: HighwireDays (song by the P-Furs), FiresInMotion (lyric from Simple Minds' "Speed Your Love To Me), InvisibleKnife (lyric from Sand Rubies' "Drugged"), TheNewSunrise (song by The Joy Circuit), ExitBodyExitmind (lyric from New Fast Automatic Daffodils' "Music").

You may remember a few posts ago I pointed out the fallacy of the attempts by the Tea Party / Birther faction of Republicans to convince their peers that Obama would snatch up everyone's guns upon taking office.  And how paranoia has driven gun & ammo sales to record highs in the U.S.  Well, I had assumed everyone had come to their senses on this topic, but just the other day, I saw this ad in Baton Rouge's The Advocate newspaper:

Translation: "If the black guy gets elected again, you'll need something a little more powerful than that paltry shotgun or revolver that you have."  It's kind of chilling how the phrase "We lost a game, we didn't do enough" is right above this ad in the football recap.  And to answer the question asked in this ad, my answer is: Yes, as a matter of fact I am worried what you fucking rednecks will "bring" over the next 4 years.  (A bill is about to hit the Louisiana legislature that proposes automatically granting a concealed weapon permit to anyone who buys a gun.  Think about that for a second.)  Gun sales are already up around 70% between 2008 and 2012.

Mon. Oct. 22: Obama simply eviscerated Romney in their third debate.  He did so even though the debate focused on foreign policy, which means the challenger can simply lay into the incumbent on any little thing the incumbent has done overseas in the last 4 years.  In other words, the red carpet is laid out to the challenger, and the incumbent has to be on his heels the whole time.  I've honestly never seen anything like it, and I think it will be studied by future generations.  I mean.. wow.  This was just an all-out humiliation for Romney, in which he walked right into trap after trap that he set for himself, such as the topic of the outsourcing of jobs to China (a practice which Republicans all but patented) and the size of the U.S. military.  For an average person, I would worry that he or she would have major psychological issues for the remainder of his or her life after having such a thing done to him or herself on live television, but for someone as smirky and used-car-salesman-esque as Romney, I think he'll be able to shake it off on the strength of his utter inability to have any spine or sense of self.

Sorry for all this personal diary type stuff, but it's been an eventful month, and the next few will definitely not be.  Concert-wise, this may go down as one of my best ever, along with March '98 and March '04.

R.I.P. David S. Ware.  Even if you're not an Aquarius like I am, spark up his serenely hypnotic "Aquarian Sound", one of my favorite jazz tracks ever.

Diet soda is doing these 7 awful things to your body - "Downing just two or more cans a day increased waistlines by 500%."

Planets with similar climates: Catherine Wheel - "Waydown" (1995), Pixies - "Gouge Away" (1988), Quicksand - "Dine Alone" (1992), ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - "Prince With A Thousand Enemies" (1997), Unwound - "Stuck In The Middle Of Nowhere Again" (1992), Bailter Space - "Control" (1994).