CD: Computer vs. Banjo

Well, 2008 is almost ¾ over, so start getting ready for those year-end lists (you can bet a few of them will be supplied by our own Jeff Lyons, too). This year has been such a blur for me that it’s going to take some thought to get my picks all sorted out in my head. But one thing is for sure, since I’ve been living with the self-titled release from Computer vs. Banjo, the track “Guitars Need A Sinner’s Touch” has vaulted itself right up there with my favorite individual tunes for the year.

When I first heard their name I thought they were either going to be a real tongue-in-cheek act a-la Cake or some smirking folkies who got their hands on some sequencers, had a mind blowing Newport ’65 moment, and well, you know the rest. Not so! Overall this sounds to me like (wait for it) the guys from Toad The Wet Sprocket and SixteenHorsepower got together and put out a recording helmed by the guys from Soulwax (swish!).

Oh, there actually are banjos here – but utilized very sparingly. They’re never the centerpiece of the track (or, rarely – “San Joaquin” and ‘Give Up On Ghosts” are welcome exceptions), and when they do show up they tend to have watery processing applied to them that you don’t often hear – adding a really unique tone to the sonic palette.

OK, so, the aforementioned “Guitars” is just the knock-down killer of the lot – but there are a few others with similarly memorable choruses over expertly crafted downtempo grooves that bubble to the top for me (including “Outerspace” and the gorgeous mandolin-powered “2Heavy2Hold”)  which could have made for an absolutely epic EP if rounded up together.

That’s not to say that this LP is a misstep – it just takes what you’d hear on that EP and plays around with some more stylistic changes and experimentations in between. Check out  the 4-bit digital glory of “Concealed” – I would bet money that one of those samples is from Atari’s “Yar’s Revenge”…um, only EVERYBODY’S favorite fly-based video game. Actually, the whole album is worth your time and attention to let it grow on you – the only track that doesn’t really connect for me is “Magazine Queen”, but that may only be because I have such an aversion to songs about women in magazines…being seventeen…being beauty queens…that’s territory better left for Journey or David Coverdale or some other castrato in purple spandex.

So, did you listen to enough great music made THIS year to have a complete hipster top 10 to post on your Facebook page? If not, this lil’ nugget may just help you round out that list. Go banjo, go!

- Russ Starke

Her tale is a fascinating one complete with surviving a major hurricane and moving to New York, Montreal and Providence in the aftermath of the storm.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Alexandra via email and our girl talk included a chat about guitars and changing the world with more fucking and less fighting among other things.

You have an interesting story to tell. You lived in New Orleans and were evacuated when Katrina hit, you then came to New York then you lived in Canada and now your in Providence RI. How has this experience of influenced your songwriting process?

How hasn’t it, is the real answer. I think everything about my life is different since Katrina, and some of those differences are great improvements, I must say. I write about New Orleans a lot because in every place I’ve lived since then, I’m always homesick for it. Moving all the time – I think I’ve moved fourteen times in the last three years – plus touring means that I haven’t ever really been anyplace long enough to make deep connections, which is not to dismiss the amazing people I’ve met along the way. But nowadays I spend most of my time with my guitar and my dog and books, and the more I practice, the deeper I can fall into songs when I sing them. The more I play, the more I experiment – and the happier I get while playing.

Besides the whole experience with Katrina, what other factors play a part in your songwriting process?

If I’m not around big trees, I don’t write as many songs. For me songs come in stillness. If there’s too much commotion around me, I can’t focus in and hear them. I’m still always amazed that a songs come through me. I go through mega-productive periods and long fallow periods, and during the dry spells, I always panic and think “they’re never coming back, I’m never going to have another song come out of me.” And then, so far, touch wood, they come back, and I’m ecstatic and nothing can ever bother me again because I have just written this glorious song that I love! And so on, and so on.

With your experience with Katrina and being evacuated is songwriting and playing live a cathartic thing for you?

Oh yes yes yes yes yes. It was rough to come to New York two weeks after Katrina, cause New York’s great but it’s not the ideal place to come for healing, but it saved my life to do it, because I started right away playing a lot, all the time, and I could just….go. Let go. Start letting go and keep on doing it, because there’s much much more to let go of; I can feel it. And someday I will let go of it all.

In your own words can you describe your sound?

No. I really can’t. I am ashamed that I can’t, but I can’t. I always try to do this, and fail, and die inside a little. Um. I write about the world as seen by a girl who grew up on three thousand acres, with ponies and cattle and green things everywhere; and who is hopelessly romantic; and who has lived in cities for a long time now but is always dreaming of open space and open sky. And that’s all very pretty but it doesn’t describe the music. I just don’t know. I grew up loving Loretta Lynn and Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris. My music doesn’t sound like them but they’re in it, somewhere. I can’t go on – I am hopeless at this, Amy!

Total gear head question… what type of guitar do you play?

I have two – a blond Guild acoustic that I got just before Katrina. It was the only guitar I evacuated with, and I played it full-time and fell in love with it like I’ve never loved a guitar. I’m only its third owner and the previous two were women also, which is unusual.

I also have a green Gretsch anniversary edition that was picked out for me by a semi-romance that went down in flames but not before he took me to a guitar store in the Village, pointed at the guitar and said “That’s your guitar.” I plugged it in and tried it and I knew he was right, so I owe him forever, really.

Last question, how is Miss Alexandra Scott going to change the world with her music?

By promoting the slogan “More Fucking, Less Fighting.”

And by casting a spell and making the musical equivalent of a Victorian opium den: a place where people can just dream off into their own spaces, together and separately all at once.

Alexandra will be playing the Rockwood Music Hall in New York City on Wednesday September 24th at 7pm. The Rockwood Music Hall is located at 184 Allen Street off of Houston Street in the heart of the good old LES of New York, there is no cover and it’s 21 and over to get in.

To hear Alexandra’s music and to get future tour dates and other news check out her myspace page:

www.myspace.com/hearalex

- Amy Grimm