By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor

If you wanted to create an indie rock darling in a cynical laboratory, your Frankenstein creation would have cool beards, lots of reverb, gimmicky instrumentation, and mediocre songs. It’d probably have the word “bear” “rabbit” or “fox” in the band name. Heck, just call it Frankenstein Bear.

Zac Taylor is the antidote to indie-rock’s substantive bankruptcy. A clean-cut Georgia boy, his debut LP, Salesman is straightforward guitar-driven pop/rock. No cut corners. Just expertly written songs with simple, effective production courtesy of Ben Gebert (one half of NINI+BEN). This is a record for people craving meat-and-potatoes rock: great melodies, witty lyrics, chord progressions that take unexpected but logical turns.

Taylor’s music is steeped in great music from the past but not as a gimmicky stylistic pastiche. The pop music vernacular in which he writes just so happens to be mainstream and accessible, as pioneered and perfected by idols like The Beatles, Nirvana, and Ryan Adams.

Throughout, Taylor remains his own man. “Cold Light of Day” demonstrates a unique melodic sensibility during the verses as well as a passionate vocal performance from Taylor, who has increasingly come into his own as a vocalist.

Taylor’s lyrics boldly explore his own rock star ambitions. On opener, “Know My Name” acknowledges the blue collar humdrum of struggling to make it in the ‘biz. “I guess this means that I won’t get a severance check/I’ll have to go/Take out some loans and drill my bones for marrow just to pay my rent.” The chorus then gives way to optimism, “When I leave this place/Everyone here will know my name.”

In the vividly imagined and somewhat theatrical world of Salesman, rents are expensive, blue jeans are tight, and casual sex has replaced real romance. “If she can hear my catcall/Through a foot of drywall/I might not end up sleeping on the floor,” he croons on charming ditty, “Spend the Night with Hannah.” Taylor lets his theatrical imagination run wild in “The Getaway” – a Bonnie and Clyde tale about bank robbery with a Hall & Oates groove.

At times, Salesman a bit oversells Taylor’s sense of his own iconography as a rock musician. On “NYC ASAP,” he whispers “Fast love/Fast life/Fast money” over 80’s-sounding sexy guitar swells as if he were the protagonist of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. On tracks like “Sleeping in the Car” Taylor’s self-deprecating humor deflates the pseudo-glamor of his subject matter.

The standout track, “Go If You Must” is a boppy tune that sounds a bit like Elliott Smith on Prozac.  It’s also one of the few songs that showcase Taylor’s emotional vulnerability. He’s singing from the heart, and that’s something worth selling and buying.

The CD Release Show is this Thursday night at Cafe 939. Kris Roche and Nini+Ben open. Everyone in attendance will get a free copy of Salesman.

An urgent documentary about women’s rights will be screened Friday, February 26. Presented by  the Stan Getz Library, MASsiVe, the Office for Cultural Diversity and the Counseling and Advising Center, VDAY: Until the Violence Stops follows how Eve Ensler’s wildly popular play, The Vagina Monologues helped spawn an international women’s rights movement, called V-DAY. Until the Violence Stops shows women from Harlem to Ukiah, CA, from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to the Philippines and Kenya revealing their intimate and deeply painful experiences with abuse ranging from rape to female circumcision. A discussion will follow the film, with refreshments provided.

150 Mass Building, Stan Getz Library, 4-6 

By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor

Air Traffic Controller has been packing clubs around Boston with their post-Beatles, pre-Radiohead brand of good ol’ fashion pop/rock. The brainchild of lead singer/songwriter Dave Munro (who was an actual air traffic controller in the U.S. Navy), the group garnered some significant buzz when MTV nominated them for the 2009 Best Breakout Boston Artist Award. Their late-2009 debut LP The One is loaded with the characteristics that make their live shows so engaging: charmingly direct melodies, rousing shout choruses, earnest lyrics, and the vocals of Munro, whose likable yet cynical timbre and well-controlled intonation may qualify him as one of the best male vocalists in Boston. 

Dave Munro of Air Traffic Controller. Photo by Sergei Pyuro

Produced by power-pop purveyor and Berklee alumnus Bleu (who has worked with Jellyfish and Boys Like Girls), The One is graced with a radio-ready sheen, and Bleu brings in heavy background vocals that amplify the Traveling Wilburys influence already apparent in ATC’s repertoire. “Can’t Let Go” boasts enormous amounts of antiphonal background vocals stacked upon themselves with a propulsive snare drum backbeat, much like the Wilburys’ “The End of the Line.”  The album’s catchy stand-out track “You Think You Know” features whirring U2-like lead guitar and more intensely layered, shout-vocals which build the arrangement in unpredictable ways. “Bad Axe, MI” whose chorus shouts “One more song! One more song!” (you can guess where the band places this one in their set-list) features at least 30 vocalists. Dave’s brother Rich drums with muscular simplicity, giving the songs space for production embellishments.

Munro’s lyrics are nostalgic for one’s youth but accepting of adulthood, lightly focusing on love lost and rarely veering into dark territory. The title track is emblematic of the lyrical content at large: “The one I loved, the one I hated/I guess I should have appreciated/Can you feel me reaching toward ya?/In this song, I wrote it for ya.” With self-deprecating asides, “I may be sounding like an ass/But I’m just behaving like a man” (“Don’t You Tell Me What To Do”) and self-reflexive wit, “It’s plain good rock ‘n’ roll/With Beatles influence” (“Bad Axe, MI”), the emotional tone of the record is unpretentious and good-natured. 

The One nods towards classic rock without reaching. Bleu’s production keeps the arrangements fresh and unpredictable without drawing too much attention to itself. Most importantly, Dave Munro’s crystal-clear vocals sing melodies worthy of his influences: Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, and The Wilburys. Though Munro sighs with resignation, “Maybe this Boston music scene is just a myth,” on one tune, Air Traffic Controller is bringing much-needed national attention, talent, and sincerity to local music. The One will likely bring the band fresh licensing opportunities and more national exposure.

Press Release Courtesy of Tommy Bohlen

The following artists will appear on Heavy Rotation Records’ Dorm Sessions: Volume 7. They will also perform at the BPC on February 10, 2010.

Ann Driscoll
Julia Easterlin
Liz Longely
KR
Black Kettle
Lip Tease
Tin Soldier
Jordan Tarrant
Tais Alvarenga

By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor

The breadth of Michael Gottlieb’s musical interests and influences is vast. A singer-songwriter who crafts dark, orchestral piano pop, Gottlieb, ’09, is also an accomplished vocalist, composer, and arranger.

Years of study and dedication to his craft have engendered the 27-year old musician heard today. Prior to coming to Berklee in the fall of 2007, Gottlieb studied music at Tel Aviv’s Hed College of Music, where the star student was asked to join the faculty. Soon thereafter, he received a scholarship to study at Berklee.

Drawing upon his experience scoring films that were distributed throughout Europe, Gottlieb initially majored in film scoring, but instead made the switch to professional music. The college recognized his talent: they selected his original, “You’re in the Sun,” as a winner of the 2008 Songwriting Competition, and the vocal department picked him to sing background vocals for Singer’s Night in fall 2007.

Gottlieb’s vocals can be heard on the recording projects of his sister, the New York-based jazz singer, Ayelet Rose Gottlieb. Her album, Mayim Rabim/Great Waters featuring Gottlieb’s lead vocals, was released on Tzadik, a label started and operated by experimental saxophonist and frequent Lou Reed collaborator, John Zorn.

With his wide array of talents, Gottlieb could seemingly pursue a career in a variety of directions—as a vocalist, a film composer, an arranger—but his primary pursuit is writing, performing, and recording original pop songs.

“I learned [at Berklee] that a musician really needs to focus on what he or she wants to do. Berklee offers a lot of information, but it took me a while to really figure out what’s the most important thing for me, and right now it’s songwriting.”

Having just completed his debut album at Somerville’s Q Division studios, Gottlieb will graduate in December and move back to Israel. “I will put a lot of energy in marketing [the record] once I go back.”

A diehard fan and student of mainstream and avant garde pop alike, Gottlieb’s compositions, which have Hebrew lyrics, are influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson (“I still know every bass line or “c’mon” in every Micheal Jackson song, since I was 12”) to Laurie Anderson. The bouncy, whimsical number, “Karati la maya” (I Named Her Maya) has the melodic hooks of Madonna’s best work with the irony, wit, and energy of early Elvis Costello and the Attractions. The autobiographical song is about how the openly gay Gottlieb had to conceal his sexuality while doing compulsory military service in the Israel Defense Forces by pretending to have a girlfriend named Maya—a turbulent emotional experience transmuted into deceptively catchy, wryly funny pop.

Gottlieb’s strengths at arranging bring a vital dimension to the material, which frequently features violin, cello, viola, and tenor sax. “I try to think of the song or piece and it’s character and I decide what instruments I want to use. Once I’ve decided that, the lines will come eventually when I sit at the piano and play the song a bunch of times.” In their rich, fully realized trappings, his songs, both live and recorded, resemble the work of other orchestral, theatrical pop titans, Rufus Wainwright and Antony and the Johnsons, with subtle whiffs of Middle Eastern harmony and melodic motifs.

In Boston, Gottlieb found that his unique marriage of language and genre has made it difficult to book gigs. According to Gottlieb, there is an audience in the United States for performers of Jewish folk music, but not pop/rock in Hebrew. In other words, you can get gigs playing folk songs in Hebrew for old Jewish people in Brookline, but it’s harder to book Hebrew pop/rock at clubs like TT the Bear’s.

Gottlieb says it’s the opposite in Israel, where having English lyrics is a disadvantage. “[Having Hebrew lyrics] definitely helps…Even though there’s a lot of English-based music in Israel, most of it is still very unknown to the general public. Even though some of it is really good, the major labels tend to ignore it.”

By happenstance, Gottlieb recorded his debut album with an Israeli-American engineer, Rafi Sofer at Q Division, who speaks Hebrew and was able to understand the lyrics, and therefore, the music. His experience with Sofer and at the studio in general was positive. “It’s a great studio. It was also pretty cool to find out that in that very same studio the Pixies recorded Surfer Rosa and Aimee Mann recorded the songs for one of my favorite films, Magnolia.”

The album consists of songs Gottlieb wrote during the past two years at Berklee. “I feel like it’s the first time I’m 100 percent satisfied with something I’ve created. The band sounds great, and I really think I got the most out of these songs. I feel like the album is very organic, very focused.”

When Gottlieb charts his one-way plane ride for Israel, he will leave behind, and perhaps later reunite with a tight-knit community of Israeli Berklee students. “Most Israelis I know here are very connected. Personally, most of my best friends here are Israelis. Musically, most of them are Jazz Performance majors, though I knew a few who do more pop/rock stuff. Socially, we can be pretty loud but I think we’re nice and friendly people usually.”

Gottlieb will live in Jerusalem with his boyfriend until he finishes medical school, and then relocate to the more cosmopolitan Tel Aviv, because “that’s where it all happens!”

Courtesy of the Songwriting Department.

Ben Camp, one of the winners

The ten winners of the 2009 Performer/Songwriter Showcase will perform their songs on Tuesday, December 15 at 1:00PM at Cafe 939.

Hanna Barakat Wanting To Go Home

Ben Camp Rapped In A Rap

Brian Dunne Often Times

Emily Hulslander Slowly Sinking

Liz Longley Gun and the Gold

Brittany Mahrer I’m Gonna Be On That Train

Dylan Patrello Unconditionally

Natalie Smith Never Gonna Be

Erica Stenquist (link fixed!) Needing A Change

Maddy Zani Running Like Water, Tasting Like Wine

Honorable Mentions:

Kaitlin Berreckman Reservoir

Hannah Christianson Goodbye, My Love

Jared Salvatore Stir It Up

Zac Taylor Go If You Must

Zarni de Wet To The One That Got Away

All entrants to the Performer/Songwriter Showcase will receive their entries back in their student mailboxes by Dec 1. Winners of the Songwriters’ Competition 2009-2010 will be notified by email over the Winter Break, probably early January 2010.

By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor

MySpace.com/MeaganHickman.

Meagan Hickman ’10 approaches her musical career with the business savvy you’d expect from the president of the music business club. This past summer, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Chicago recorded an EP, designed and launched her website, registered her songs with the U.S. copyright office, signed up with ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), and launched her own company: M.A.H. Music Group, LLC. Booking her own shows and handling all of her promotion and marketing, Hickman proves that if you’re smart and hardworking, you don’t need a manager –at least not in the early stages of your career. Read the full story

By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor

Ashley Root and Evelyn Brown are best friends, musical soul mates, and self-described “sisters.” It’s not hard to hear why these two young musicians and Berklee alums (both ’09 grads) have clicked so well. Both play acoustic guitar, have an angelic twang-inflected timbre to their voices, and are influenced by a wide range of musical genres yet naturally write country songs.

Read the full story