Columnist Geoff Carter: Sounds of the Internet shaking music establishment

Geoff Carter

Friday, May 28, 1999 | 10:11 a.m.

Good news, children of the resistance: The oppressive structure of the music industry will soon be but a smoldering ruin. We will dance on their one-song CD promos; we will walk, silently, through the vacant shells of their once-mighty corporate edifices; we will play dodgeball with the skulls of their glib, self-satisfied CEOs.

Sounds like big fun, doesn't it? And the tools that are going to do the job are in our hands right now. To wit: Not long ago, you needed major labels to record your music, press it to disc and market it. But that was before the Internet, and the advent of MP3, the CD-quality music-compression format that can send a local band's music all over the world -- even to places without record stores. That thump you just heard was Universal Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. hitting the boards in a faint.

It may be just the thing to even the odds for Las Vegas musicians, who have too long suffered the industry misconception that what they do must somehow be part of their neon-drenched surroundings. The fact of the matter is, I first heard the new music of Inside Scarlet (insidescarlet.com), God Among Men (godamongmen.com) and the Reunion (flatblack.net/lamusique.html) through MP3 and Real Audio teasers on their websites. As Van Morrison might have put it -- no guru, no method, no teacher, no wasteful package of paper and cardboard wrapped around a CD with one song on it. The mind boggles.

I procured and listened to all three local CDs after listening through their pure-digital advance teams, and not one disappointed. The Reunion's "The Reunion II" matched the lucent glow of its predecessor, and even turned up the lights a bit. The all-acoustic duo -- comprised of rock-schooled Todd Janko and Central American expatriate Thomas Cacho -- weave thick forests of melody and rhythm with 12-string acoustics and castanets; the resulting album could stand up to the best of Strunz and Farah. The only misstep is a bonus "remix" version of album-opener "Belfast": It blunts the impact of the original. That aside, it's a sweet affair all the way, particularly the resonant "When the Sun Goes Down."

While Cacho and Janko seek to lull you into submission, God Among Men favors the blunt approach. "Trained by this pulse ... trained by this pulse," intones sexy vocalist Liz Adkins over and over, raising the volume by degrees until the band takes over with some of the toughest, sexiest alt-metal I've heard round these parts. "Fourth Degree Tear" is a crowd-pleasing marvel -- provided, of course, that those in the crowd in question are sated by beer and given to knocking each other down. Adkins' vocals, breathy and snarling in turn, set God Among Men apart from their crunch-chord contemporaries, and those vocals are given free reign on "Fourth Degree Tear." It doesn't matter what she's singing -- usually familiar homilies like "I've been waiting for so long" -- she owns you.

She can't own me, though, because I've already signed my paper over to Sharay Larsen and Heather Tampa, the tough-yet-sensitive femmes who front Inside Scarlet. The territory covered by their debut, "Red," is familiar, to be sure -- in the way of the Breeders, Heart and Fleetwood Mac, we go merrily -- but the interplay of the two vocalists makes the journey an exhilarating one, and guitarist Mike Cromer and drummer Brian Festone stick to each other like glue. "Promise" and "Innocence" rock like champs; in another world, one where popular radio wasn't so dumbed-down, they might have been sizable hits. As it stands, the band has to use other means to find an audience for its formidable talents, hence the Internet site.

Just five years ago, Inside Scarlet might have gotten lost in their pursuit of a major label deal. Today, it can pursue and achieve success on its own terms, and a label deal might be almost an afterthought. Ain't fate grand? Sharpen the cutlasses, boys and girls -- we're going to war.

Stereo Dynamics

Ben Folds Five, "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner," 550 Music

"Try to put it all behind me/but my redneck past is nipping at my heels," Ben Folds laments in "Army," the closest "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner" comes to an uptempo number. It's hard to believe that the creators of this easy listening project also penned some of the most wickedly deviant piano pop of the past 10 years, but that's what a hit single does to you: After "Brick" found its way into every supermarket in America, where could the North Carolina trio go but to the candy aisle?

At first blush, it's a lovely record -- "Narcolepsy" and "Don't Change Your Plans" sound so much like Burt Bacharach that they're almost timeless. But on repeated listening the seams show rather quickly, and the same sweet touches that make the record glow outwardly reveal the weaknesses within. This record isn't finished yet. "Regrets" stretches the coda of "Army" out to untenable length, while "Your Redneck Past" tries to recapture the swagger of their early material but ends up sounding like so much filler (the record barely clocks in at 40 minutes).

At least they put their best foot forward. "Army" is a smart little ditty, full of the twists and turns that separated Folds' piano pop from, say, Elton John's late-period gibberish ("I thought about the army/Dad said, 'Son, you're (expletive) high' "). But it's not enough to redeem an album that's -- in the band's own write -- "selfless, cold and composed." The boys need to let their redneck past catch up with them, maybe even roll them around in the mud for a spell.

Get Out, Act Up

The Last American Band You'll Ever Hear on the Radio comes to the Last New American City. Seminal Los Angeles punk band X plays the House of Blues tonight, with original members Exene, Billy Zoom, DJ Bonebrake and John Doe. They just don't come any greater. Call 632-7600 for details.

He's been an angry young punk, a Paul McCartney collaborator and a Burt Bacharach crooner, but all Elvis Costello ever wanted was everything. The singer/songwriter lays bare his brilliant blue soul tonight at the Hard Rock Joint, backed by Attractions keyboardist Steve Nieve. Don't miss this certain-to-be-unforgettable night. Call 226-4650.

The fight against Muscular Dystrophy continues, and now it's gotten some teeth. A truckload of local rockers -- Floor Thirteen, Mark Huff, King Cartel, Big Bad Zero, Left Standing and many more -- bring the fight against the debilitating illness to street level at 5 today at the Las Vegas Academy Performing Arts Theatre. A $10 donation is politely requested. Check lvlocalmusicscene.com for more information.