This article wraps up a trilogy highlighting recent releases by four artists who are touring together at this very moment: Joe Jack Talcum, Samuel Locke-Ward, Coolzey, and The Bassturd. This show hits The Blue Moose in Iowa City this Friday night and The Vaudeville Mews here in Des Moines on Saturday night.

Joe Jack Talcum’s main claim to fame is having been a member of The Dead Milkmen. Not just any member: on certain songs he was the lead singer. One of those certain songs just happened to be their biggest hit, “Punk Rock Girl.” One of those songs that a huge chunk of my generation remembers with fond smiles and can probably sing to you verbatim on request. That’s a big bullet point to have on your résumé. But it’s also the kind of thing that for an artist can become a big item of baggage you end up trying to struggle out from under to get people to pay attention to what you’re doing now. Maybe with The Dead Milkmen reformed with a new album out, it’s not a problem. But even before that, Joe Jack Talcum had already started asserting a new concept for himself, and a string of recent collaborations and tours with no less a road-warrior than Iowa City’s troubador of the troubling Samuel Locke Ward seems to have a bit to do with it, Sam lending Joe Jack the rhythm section of his crack backing band The Boo-Hoos with himself joining in on keys, under the name The Powders.

To judge by this record, Joe Jack Talcum’s recent material is really good. Part of what makes it work so well might be hearing the same voice that delivered “Punk Rock Girl” (largely unchanged, but perhaps a bit more consistently on-key) taking on a richer emotional palette and more grown-up subject matter that we can relate to in the present. Joe Jack spends these songs searching for answers, happiness, and understanding, coping with loneliness and confusion over the phase of life he finds himself reaching and the world he finds himself reaching it in. There’s an almost Johnathan Richman kind of innocence, even when the skies get grey as on “Head To Toe” and the poignant “Smoke & Mirrors,” but most especially on side-closer “Come Ride My Funny Car,” wherein he attempts to lure a woman away from hanging out at the bar to come with him instead, through the charm of a 60′s beach-rock groove and lyrics like “to the top of the yeah yeah go go star” — silly, yet seriously committed to fun. Throughout the six songs, the Powders do much more than merely follow him through the changes, navigating the swells and dynamics of the songs with extraordinary sensitivity and working in some very nice instrumental passages.

One of the neat things about a split LP is that it’s kind of like getting two EPs. Especially since the format lends itself to playing whichever side you’re in the mood for. The moods of these two sides are very different indeed, making it a record you could pull out often. All the more surprising if you take into account that much of the band lineup is identical on both sides, modulo a couple guitarists. The versatile engineering of Luke Tweedy at Flat Black Studios, where both sides were recorded last October (reportedly in one very quick, very live session), certainly doesn’t hurt.

If Joe Jack’s side of the record is a pick-me-up for rainy days, Sam’s side is another kind of mood enhancer, one you’d use to prepare for either a night of fucking shit up or a day when you have shit to do and may need to push some fuckers out of your way to do it. Though the songwriter and lead vocalist, with The Boo-Hoos, Sam seems to be operating chiefly as instigator to a project of rocking out as hard as possible, with his vocals sometimes pushed almost to the background, and as usual for him taking on various taunting falsettos and bellows. As interesting and welcome as it is to see Sam working in a loud rock format again, it was a bit harder to really get on the split 7″ with Mumfords, but the project seems to have really come into its own here. The seven quick songs showcase the band with a big guitar sound and sweaty rock and roll energy, reminiscent of The Pixies’ swan-song album Trompe Le Monde but with more satirical lyrics. Sam presents a Luddite alternate history in “This Edison Nightmare,” presents warfare as a dance craze in “Do The Pinewood Box,” and looks back fondly on some sort of riot on the infectious “Fine Was The Night.” Joe Jack Talcum guests on keyboards, harmonica, or additional vocals on a few of the songs.

I’m struggling for a good wrap-up paragraph that doesn’t just boil down to “this thing sounds really great” so I’ll just reiterate my suggestion that you go see these guys on this tour.

Orthodox – “Matse Avatar”
This one has definitely held up for me. Being a bit new to the band but loving these two songs so much, I’ve gone and checked out some of their previous material and they do a really intriguing mix of doom and jazz with some medieval folk overtones, and on some of their stuff they go all-out acoustic with string bass and trumpet. Their name has a delightful irony to it as they seem to piss off a lot of purists. How could I possibly not love a band like that?

Samuel Locke-Ward & The Boo-Hoos/Mumfords split 7″
The relatively straightforward loud rock tunes of the Boo-Hoos side has needed a little time to grow on me, but I’m starting to catch myself humming “When It’s Gone It’s Gone” at idle moments. Sam has definitely assembled a crack band, too. Check out Rachel Feldman’s bass lines! And I still love this Mumford’s song.

Poison Control Center – Sad Sour Future
One of this year’s most important albums for Iowa music fans. I think the last real “breakout” Iowa band was probably Modern Life Is War (at least if you follow the hardcore scene — I didn’t realize how big they had gotten until I started noticing them name-dropped in unexpected corners of the Web) but now in 2010 we have Davenport’s Mondo Drag and these guys both releasing a strong album, playing some big shows, and working the road hard. Of the two, PCC definitely get more press in central Iowa (Mondo Drag got as much as a slightly puzzled mention on the We Hate Music podcast last week), and they have a long history here and mountains of well-deserved love and respect. What criticism Sad Sour Future draws seems to be for its length, but there isn’t a bum song on it. 17 songs in 71 minutes just reflects the firehose of creativity that these guys are. The curse-side of this blessing is that it’s hard to name a standout song or three in the midst of such a big slab of consistently fine material. Also I wonder whether the music scene is yet ready for an updating of Pavementesque slacker guitars and mid-period Flaming Lips whimsy — a lot of the core audience for that kind of thing is grown-up, settled-down, and has a hard time making it out to the rock clubs for anything less than ’90s heroes reunited. Will today’s indie kids hear this as something new or something old? Hopefully they hear is for what it is, something awesome.

Olde Growth s/t
I missed out on the limited edition of 100 CDs this two-man psychedelic doom band self-released this year but did grab a download while they were still giving them out and am looking forward to Meteor City putting it out next year. Will probably write a little more about it then.

It’s True! s/t
One of my top albums of the year by a Midwest band, maybe by any band, this CD out of Omaha deserves as much accolades on artistry alone as does Sad Sour Future. Heard it playing between sets at the Mews recently and wanted to shout to the crowd to quiet down for a couple minutes to listen. I didn’t mention it in my earlier article, but at times Adam Hawkins’s voice reminds me George Michael in his prime, and it works awesomely (see “What Have I Done?”). Last I heard, Hawkins moved to Ames, so I’m guessing this lineup is over. Hopefully he hooks up with a new crew and makes another record this good.

Cathedral – The Guessing Game
Another album of possibly excessive length, this was actually my introduction to these doom-metal stalwarts, and it may not be the best album for that, given how much has been made of the incorporation of early 70s prog-rock influences as a new element to the sound. The progressive melodies and mellotrons work beautifully on the instrumental title track, “Death of an Anarchist,” “Cats, Incense, Candles & Wine,” and a few other tracks, but the transitions between metal chug and odd-meter marimbas on “Funeral of Dreams” still feel clunky. Said track, coming early in the album, also suffers from another of the album’s downfalls, which is the occasional presence of some rather corny lyrics, especially when Lee Dorian goes for the simplistic attacks on the sociopolitical establishment and Christianity. But then again, these work toward the same everyman appeal that doom metal so often builds on, that got my attention the first time I heard a St. Vitus album. Still, I often find myself moving on before this track is up, forgetting how I’d be rewarded if I stuck it out. The band displays very accomplished musicianship and writing, both on the proggy bits and when they are in their wheelhouse of ominous crunchy riffage. Predominantly clean vocals and a lot of very catchy riffs and melodies give the album some pop appeal; in a better world, the ode to Edwige Fenech (I had to Google for the reference, to be honest) “Edwige’s Eyes” would be a radio hit. But there’s a good measure of heaviness and appealingly “difficult” moments like “The Running Man,” which revisits the pounding of King Crimson’s classic “21st Century Schizoid Man” then builds into a noise rave-up. Generally though, Cathedral have gone beyond mere riffing and dark atmosphere to write songs, which is something I really enjoy hearing in a heavy album.

Hope you had a fine Thanksgiving feast, if you do those. I retreated to my parents’ place in Bloomington, WI (in the obscure southwesterly Grant county) for about three and a half days, which is always a lovely time. I’m not kidding. I have the best family ever.

The great Samuel Locke Ward has seen fit to hit us with a feast of news and music: his latest blog post links to a free download live album of the Boo-Hoos set in Brooklyn, NYC from their recent tour with Joe Jack Talcum in which they also served as his backing band The Powders. There are at least two songs on it I’ve never heard before, “Do The Pinewood Box” and “This Edison Nightmare,” which I imagine will be on his next album which he mentions having 10 songs down on tape for. He also laundry-lists somewhere in the neighborhood of a half-dozen other projects he has underway, including a collaboration album with both Darren Brown (with whom he collaborated on From The Privilege Of The Grave) and Manhorse (likewise, We All Love Candy, which I still only have an mp3 rip of that I made at Aaron Hefel’s house when Why Make Clocks played in Dubuque, it’s a tough one to come by). The post also has a video of Joe Jack Talcum and The Powders performing my all-time favorite Dead Milkmen song “Life Is Shit.” Go check all that shit out.

Fetal Pig are soon to head out to Flat Black Studios in Iowa City to record songs both old and new. If all goes well, we will end up with a totally insane record with no definite plans on how it’s to be released

Why Make Clocks will once again be on the bill with Mark Mallman at Vaudeville Mews, Wednesday, November 10 at 7:30 pm. So is Black Ambient Manifesto.

Unable to put the time together to rehearse with a live drummer, and not wanting to do a guitar-songwriter-folkie set, I spent money on a software drum machine to run on my laptop, meaning Distant Trains is back! I’ll be opening Rhonda Is A Dead Bitch’s‘s release party for the Laos 12″ EP, also at Vaudeville Mews, 9:30 pm Saturday November 20. You should seriously consider picking up this RIADB record they’ll be flogging, not only because it’s got good music on it (look around elsewhere on this site for videos of a couple of its tracks), but also, it has gone through hell to get to you — first the pressing plant had plates come out bad and get broken, then the first batch of the records got mistakenly delivered to Jason Warden’s now-vacant former residence, left on the front porch, where they were absconded with by persons unknown — who apparently, upon opening the boxes and apprehending the contents, graciously returned them to where they had found them the following day. A really nifty band called Golden Veins will be in the middle slot, you should definitely check them out too, they’ve got folks from Beati Paoli involved.

Speaking of release parties, there’s one coming up for the hotly anticipated Samuel Locke Ward and the Boo-Hoos/Mumfords split 7″ at the Blue Moose Taphouse in Iowa City, 10pm on Friday, November 12, and probably not long before they get the record up for mail-order.

Canyons, the new band put together by Des Moines songwriter Gabe Cordova, made its debut last night at Vaudeville Mews, and sounded good despite Gabe’s voice being a tad bit under the weather. Dan remarked to me that they sounded rather like Palace Brothers. Crystal City‘s winsome folk sounds got the night started, and following Canyons we were treated to really nice atmospheric electro-pop sounds from Beach House territory by Portland duo Hosannas. One guy in the place was breakdancing to them. I left too early to catch Seedlings.

The Seed Of Something, one of Des Moines’ youngest active bands and most promising in their age bracket, have become even younger on average with their recent switch in drummers — reportedly, the new member isn’t even in high school and already a solid player. The new lineup makes its debut at the Mews on Friday opening the all-ages Bad Cop show, doors at 5pm.

Samuel Locke Ward reports being robbed in Detroit last weekend. According to a Facebook posting, “Smash and grab happened during the show. Joe Jack [Talcum] and Chris [Ford] got their laptops stolen. Ipod, GPS, phone chargers, groceries, medicine… Everyone is fine. We still have our gear and the van. Got the window fixed and we are back on track and on the road still. We are doing good even.” Still, I feel for these cats. Losing one’s electronics sucks, as does losing one’s meds.

Seattle-area post-doomsters Roareth are to be short-lived. I found these guys interesting because you don’t usually hear of a band making their recorded debut with a single 45-minute track. It’s damn good too — the CD copies are sold out but you can still grab a download. Reportedly, a member of the group is moving to Los Angeles to take a job at Southern Lord Records, and the bassist, his wife, is of course going with him. Details at The Obelisk.

If you know of Nate Logson, it’s probably either as the trumpet player from Christopher The Conquered’s band whose stage antics rival those of Christopher himself, or from the Ames Progressive. Recently he put together his own band, Mumford’s, and their live shows and YouTube videos thereof have brought them some appreciation. Well, pretty soon you’ll know him for his songwriting, if “The Way That I Live,” Mumfords’ half of the split 7″ with Samuel Locke Ward & the Boo-Hoos (and I think possibly the first recorded things they’ve released?) is any indication of what he’s capable of coming up with. I couldn’t get it out of my head the other day. It’s this laid-back acoustic number with light horn flavoring that turns out to be a kind of first-person account of the experiences of a serial killer. The lyrics are hilarious, too. For their part, Sam and company turn in three quick infectious punk rock gems, of the kind of way that only Sam can write punk rock. Bonus fun factoid, the Boo-Hoos include Petit Mal guitarist Chris Ford, namesake of the Conquered one.

The records arrived at Sam’s just the other day and will be available by mail-order after his current tour with Joe Jack Talcum. If you can’t wait that long to hear it, stream and/or download the tunes here.

As linked to by Mr. Locke-Ward himself on Facebook earlier today, the soon forthcoming split 7″ EP by Samuel Locke Ward & the Boo-Hoos (Sam backed up by members of Petit Mal and Lipstick Homicide) and Mumfords (the awesome new thing headed up by Pennyhawk/Christopher The Conquered trumpet man Nate Logson) can be streamed & downloaded at bandcamp… or at this nifty little widget below, one of bandcamp’s amenities.