Sound Check — Geoff Carter: Expansion Union’s sound transcends genres

Friday, July 16, 1999 | 9:56 a.m.

Geoff Carter's music column appears Fridays. Reach him at carter@vegas.com.

"Americans don't get dance music," lamented a recent issue of Mixmag. "They invented it, but they don't understand it."

James Bernard agrees wholeheartedly. As the programming and composing half of electrofunk duo Expansion Union -- playing Club Utopia tonight as part of the Wax Trax label's Mixmasters Tour -- the 28-year-old New Yorker has looked at Electronica from both sides now.

"You hear dance music on American radio, but it's of the bubblegum variety," he says. "There's a ton of good (electronic) music coming out of the states, but you'll never hear it. There are guys over here that are unknown in their own hometown, but have number one singles in Belgium. Americans just want their rock guitars, I guess."

But no sooner have the words left him than he hops the fence: "But it's really musical wallpaper if you're not at a club. It's hard to take."

That, thankfully, Expansion Union is not. Drawing its sound from a phalanx of influences ranging from Bartok to Human League to Dokken (the latter is DJ Displacer's weakness -- "He'll play Dokken at every gig if I don't stop him," Bernard chuckles), Expansion Union has a sound that transcends genre. Like local boys Crystal Method, Expansion Union's verse-chorus song structure can be memorized, hummed even.

The street beats of "Step to It" are pushed along by metal-guitar riffing; the irresistible "World Wide Funk" out-dafts Daft Punk. You put this stuff on the wall and not only will it peel off, but pull your house down with it.

It's exactly the kind of sound you would expect out of a pair of guys whose nom de guerre is drawn from runes (the symbols for "Expansion" and "Union" looked "really cool together," Bernard says) and whose album depicts tuna-and-circuit-board sushi.

"I'd been drinking many sakes with Displacer (when I got the idea)," Bernard laughs. "We're sushi fanatics; I'll take an entire lump of Wasabi and eat it just for the (expletive) of it."

Amazingly enough, considering the excesses of the club scene -- Ecstasy, long nights, dangerously imbalanced girls in halter tops and butterfly wings -- the Japanese spice is about as far off the deep end as Bernard prefers to go.

"I've done gigs where I've looked around and thought, 'I'm 28 -- these people out there dancing could be my children.' If they only knew that I'm just an old (expletive) who would rather stay home."

But some things are just too compelling.

"I've always loved music," he says. "I had other loves growing up -- skateboarding and just generally being a punk-ass at 15, 16 -- but music has been there my whole life. My father (runs) schools in audio engineering; I was surrounded by the production end of things -- the gadgets. Eight years old, sitting at the mixing console, wanting to push all the pretty buttons."

At Utopia, "all the pretty buttons" will be kept to a traveling-band minimum. "I just have my laptop, which is basically the centerpiece," Bernard says, "plus a Theremin, a Vocoder, bass guitar, some effects-processing gear, a DJ mixer for me to cut in and outta things and a mini synthesizer."

Don't be fooled. Between Bernard's laptop and Displacer's decks, you can count on a sound big enough for Britons to hear just by sticking their heads out the window.

"I gotta flush it all out, man," Bernard says. "I got a million things going on in my head that I gotta clear out. More than anything, music is my way of dealing with life. It's my way of meditating, and when I can't do it, it physically hurts."

Almost as much as it hurts hearing American radio clogged with the dance-pop bubblegum of Ricky Martin and 'N Sync, and a popular culture whose new target audience, according to a recent New York Times story, is young teenage girls.

"My ugly ass isn't gonna make any money there," Bernard laughs.

Stereo Dynamics

Luscious Jackson, "Electric Honey," Capitol

Of Luscious Jackson, late Blind Melon vocalist Shannon Hoon once said: "They're sexy ... they sound like they're singing with their hands over their mouths. Makes me feel giddy inside." Certainly the hand-to-mouth analogy was true of "In Search of Manny," the only released material the femme quartets had at that time. A dirty-faced, low-fi punky-funky EP with the heart of a lioness, "Manny" only hinted at the great things that lay ahead -- the promise that is fulfilled with the release of "Electric Honey." It's a bittersweet irony indeed that Hoon had to overdose long before he could hear these women, hands outstretched and far away from their mouths, declaring victory.

As sweet and jolting as its name, "Electric Honey" is a true knockout. Whether you drop in through the slightly woozy "Alien Lover," the poolside hip-shake of "Summer Daze" or the radio-ready "Ladyfingers," you feel as if you've stumbled, grinning and completely unaware, into something much bigger than you. It is, in fact -- the interplay of these three women (keyboardist Vivian Trimble left the group recently) is evocative of mad scientists at work. Jill Cunniff's cooing vocal has never been as confident as it here; Kate Schellenbach has become a solid drummer; Gabby Glaser has internalized seductive guitar licks to the point that they seem like her chief mode of communication. Deborah Harry pops into the lab to add her vocal expertise to "Fantastic Fabulous," but by then the monster is gone, straight through the wall, and there's no stopping it.

Get Out, Act Up

You probably know Powerman 5000 frontman Spider only as hard-rockin' ghoul Rob Zombie's brother, but at 8 tonight the goggled and jumpsuited funk-thrash musician is going to change all that. Tonight witness a mind-blowing new metal episode at House of Blues, with Machinehead and local heroes God Among Men opening. Cover: $12.75 -- cheap! Call 632-7600 for more information.

Normally when we hear the Nena chestnut "99 Luftballoons" we go into an apoplexy, but somehow Angry Salad makes it cool again. The alternative pop group opens for The Samples Saturday night at House of Blues. Call 632-7600.

The Goo Goo Dolls play the first rock show of Mandalay Bay's Events Center's certain-to-be storied history Sunday night, supported by Sugar Ray and Fastball. The carnage begins at 7. Call 632-7580.

OK, she hasn't put a really good album in some time and that Juice Newton cover was beyond anyone's concept of evil, but does it matter? She's still Chrissie Hynde, ain't she? Hynde's latest version of The Pretenders plays the Hard Rock Joint Monday night at 8 (see story on page 15E). Call 226-4650.