the pathetic caverns - music by artist - Bob Mould

Are Rasputina so gimmicky that they transcend gimmickry? I'm so tired of seeing the standard press-flack summary: Three women who all play the cello and wear Victorian undergarments on stage. (Drummer Norman Block is not similarly constrained.) The question I ask is, "is the gimmick the product of a unique and interesting artistic sensibility, or is the gimmick just a gimmick?" And I think I'll go, guardedly, with the former. Between almost every song, Melora Craeger, who writes all the original material and is the sole vocalist, emitted brief, odd, monotone stream-of-consciousness styled monologues-cum-song-introductions which seemed vaguely deprecatory of the likes of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and No Doubt vocalist Gwen Stefani. I liked these much better than the cello-backed spoken word bits sprinkled throughout the Thanks for the Ether record, which begin to annoy after repeated playing.

It was fun to watch them play, too. Craeger tends to play most of the bass parts, but there's a fair amount of complexity to the arrangements and the musicians frequently trade off playing of the part that carries most of the melody at the moment -- they double parts only rarely, for emphasis, and I don't think they were ever all playing the same thing at the same time. Craeger also sings well -- she has a nice voice and it sounds like she's had some actual vocal training. I spent a couple hours trying to figure out who she reminded me of vocally and finally realized it was Jarboe from the Swans.

As managed before, the songs have considerably harmonic and melodic interest, though they aren't, for the most part, catchy or hummable in conventional ways (that's no slam!) and the lyrics are consistently interesting, as in "Dig Ophelia":

Dig Ophelia, consider it dug
Flowers madness and polar bear rug
Here's the water, just ankle deep high
Lay back relax and look at the sky
Your eyes never close, your mind's not at rest
Lay back, get waterlogged
Give us a kiss

or "Trust All-Stars," an off-kilter number about an extraterrestrial and untrustworthy, significant other:

You're not the boy that you say you are
You come from outerspace, you drive a rental car
Thanks, but no thanks just the same
Time was when this became obvious
Your eyes were never clear, you did not eat enough
Strangely afraid of the rain

as well as showing a welcome sense of humor, as in the phonetic spelling that accompanies "Sister Sleep:"

We lee-ike to smoke pohot.
We lee-ike it a lohot.
Owower smeall eyes are tee-arharering
fower what we have nohot.

This tour finds Bob Mould alone on stage with a guitar. (Electric for the first encore (of two) and acoustic the rest of the time.) He played a thoroughly career-spanning set, reaching back as far as 1984's Zen Arcade for a searing "Chartered Trips" and a pair from follow-up New Day Rising. He played a bunch of Sugar-era material and a trio of songs from his first solo album, Workbook, and a few from his new, self-titled record. Mould is a passionate, intense, singer, and although the solo format gives him little opportunity to show off his skills as a guitar soloist, his rhythmic, percussive attack suits his vocal delivery very well, and made it hard to believe that his strings had survived from a previous show in Pittsburgh, as he said they had. Mould wasn't terribly talkative -- he had a few campaign- related jabs, but mostly he just played. I don't think anyone was complaining though, because there were plenty of moments where the man's voice, music and words combined to create something truly compelling. When he took up the electric guitar I found myself wishing now and then that he had the likes of Malcom Travis or Grant Hart to punctuate the roar, but the rest of the time nothing at all seemed to be missing. (And it must be said, Mould solo has more dynamic range than with his bands, which were so consistently loud that they sometimes bordered on undifferentiated.)