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Mother Hips
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Red Tandy [EP]
Camera Records
Release: 11/01/2005
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Rated:
Review by:
Alana Yorn
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Several years ago I lost my favorite music-loving cohort. We
loved discovering good music in small venues before the
band blew up nationally or gained cult status. At only 5' 2"
and 85 pounds, Christina could drink me under the table.
She always avoided getting 'groupie' drunk and
embarrassing herself. Even the time she threw her arms
around the neck of Wallflowers' keyboard player Rami Jaffee
and swung like a trapeze artist, somehow wasn't so bad. He
unhooked her arms and set her down proclaiming 'I'm
spoken for,' so diplomatically that he put White House
officials to shame. In fact, the real embarrassing moment of
the night went to the woman who fell up the stairs in a bright
red dress and too-high heels, prompting me to say, 'that's so
80s!' (A phrase that only works if you roll your eyes while
saying it.)
Christina's the one who introduced me to Mother Hips. We
used to go to see them play The Holy Cow and The Zephyr
in Salt Lake City. I did some of my best people watching at
their shows, perfecting my imitation of that lame-ass hippie
dance everyone has always done at hippie shows since
before the original Woodstock! With nostalgia and some of
my best Mother Hips memories still in tact, I jumped at the
chance to write about their new EP, Red
Tandy.
If you're not familiar with Mother Hips, they are
singer/guitarist Tim Bluhn, guitarist Greg Loiacono, bassist
Isaac Parsons and drummer Mike Wolfchuck . Starting out as
a bar band in the 90s, this Chico, California quartet
eventually gained cult status the old-fashioned way: hard
touring and hard living. After the critically acclaimed 2001
release Green Hills Of Earth, Greg told the guys
he needed a break. Following a four-year hiatus, the band
evolved into 'musicians of leisure.' They have other ways to
make money, so now they gig for the love of the music, not
making money.
Red Tandy only features three songs, the
fourth a remix of the title track. Whatever these guys did
during their hiatus, they need to keep doing it because this
EP has amazing energy. "Colonized" is my favorite song. It
sounds a bit like Tom Petty's "Refugee." The tune stands out
not only for the music but also for its message. It's about
corporate greed causing artists to become disenfranchised.
Bluhm expresses this well; "Anything that's cool or appealing
is instantly 'colonized' by advertisers until we become almost
afraid to express an original idea for fear that it will be used
to sell fucking coffee or surf trunks."
Listening to Red Tandy made me cry for
Christina for the first time since her death. This time they
weren't tears of mourning, but of joy. The friendship we had
only comes along once. It reminds me of how Tim describes
his relationship with Greg; "Greg is my favorite person to
play music with and one of my favorite songwriters. You only
have one of those guys per life. Sometimes I feel like I can't
sing unless he's singing with me." I got up and sang and
danced. I really felt Christina there with me laughing and
doing her played out hippie dance I just loved to hate. |
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