cd I Like to Keep Myself in Pain By Kelly Hogan - Anti-
Kelly Hogan is what one might call an active wallflower. Hogan is best known as a superb back-up vocalist for an impressive and long list of musical icons and indie heroes - including Mavis Staples, Alejandro Escovedo, Jon Langford and most importantly, her close friend, Neko Case. After an auto accident tragically killed two members of her ‘90s band The Jody Grind, Hogan left center-stage, while moving laterally on the stage floor. Scattering three solo records from 1996, Hogan has released her first solo effort in over a decade for the esteemed Anti- label. It’s high time, and fortunately for Hogan, her timing is perfect. When Anti- president Andy Kaulkin proposed working on a record with her in 2009, Hogan recalled in a recent Chicago Tribune interview, “I thought I was being punked.” But she was mistaken. On the suggestion of Kaulkin, Hogan amassed songs with musicians/artists whom she had collaborated with for the past two decades. She ended up writing 40 fan letters for song requests. Kaulkin brought in legendary Stax keyboardist Booker T. Jones, veteran LA session drummer James Gadson and bassist Gabriel Roth, founder of Brooklyn’s Daptone label (and one of Sharon Jones’ Dap-Kings. Hogan asked NRBQ guitarist Scott Lignon, who assisted her with basic arrangements, to complete her backing band. The result, I Like to Keep Myself in Pain, is a masterful union of pop sensibilities with country-soul, recalling a prevalent sound amongst Southern-based musicians and songwriters in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Taking certain cues from the classic Dusty in Memphis, Hogan finds herself with an inside track. Her voice reveals her deep Georgia-based roots; she simultaneously draws inspiration from pioneers who forged a merging of genres into the mainstream namely Bill Withers and Charlie Rich. Both artists, reared in the South, artfully inserted soul, gospel, R&B and blues influences into their respective pop-folk and country styles. The songs are brilliantly executed to serve Hogan’s distinct interpretation, sound and groove from the Bacharach-influenced orchestration of the bittersweet “We Can’t Have Nice Things” (written by Jack Pendarvis and Andrew Bird) to the laidback, Bobby Charles-like swing of the album’s title track, penned by Robyn Hitchcock. Her sole composition, “Golden,” written for and about Case, is a sincere, tip-your-beer gesture wrapped in a glowing, celebratory arrangement; the rhythm section is locked down allowing subtle, perfected color added by Lignon and Jones. And that’s the consistent beauty of Hogan’s new release. It’s filled with the convergence of fortune, and Hogan is the first to recognize it, confidently taking center stage and the production helm. By wishing her friend the “golden” touch of success, Hogan may have found it for herself. — Mark Shikuma
30 North Coast Journal • Thursday, July 26, 2012 • northcoastjournal.com
Tom Hardy as Bane and Christian Bale as Batman in The Dark Knight Rises.
Dark Indeed
Nolan completes his Batman trilogy in brilliantly bleak style By John J. Bennett filmland@northcoastjournal.com
Reviews
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. Writer/ director/self-avowed comic book supergeek James Gunn (Slither, Super) recently spoke with great fervor about the themes and undercurrents of the Batman mythology. In particular he referenced Batman’s “unquenchable thirst [for] vengeance because somebody killed his parents, and he’s got this bottomless pit inside himself [because] he can never do that.” Gunn uses this idea to leverage his hatred of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989). I have and will continue to enjoy that version, but I get Gunn’s point. Burton undermined the gravity of Batman’s “unquenchable thirst” by making his parents’ long-ago killer a modern-day super-villain (Jack Nicholson’s Joker), thus closing the thematic loop. Basically, Burton got it fundamentally wrong, and it’s one of the many aspects that Christopher Nolan has
managed to get resoundingly right in his trilogy. Even more than the previous two Nolan Batman movies, The Dark Knight Rises contains moments of palpable, aching sadness and is permeated with an air of genuine tragedy. It is a Hollywood blockbuster, so the ending can’t be a complete downer, but Nolan doesn’t let us — or his characters — off easy. The movie opens eight years after the events of The Dark Knight (2008), on the anniversary of District Attorney Harvey Dent’s death. To create a hero for Gotham to rally behind, Batman took the fall for Dent’s murder, concealed the DA’s nefarious deeds and made him a martyr. These years on, the plan seems to have worked. Batman has disappeared and Gotham enjoys an unprecedented peace. Police Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) knows the truth about Dent but stays quiet in the interest of keeping the peace.