It’s a dangerous proposition for someone who’s made their name outside heavy music circles to come out and say “I’m going to do a metal thing now,” especially with the sudden rise in hipster attention on metal of late and the backlash that engenders. But Iowa City’s renowned spazzy singer-songwriter Samuel Locke-Ward is the type of artist who would do something like Cop Bar not out of naivete or dilletantism but out of a mix of restless creative energy and fearlessness. Besides, metal kinda suits Sam in a way: his songs have always walked in dark places even when they’ve been presented in gentle folky arrangements. Furthermore, in his more intense moments as a performer, his voice has been known to lapse into a kind of strangled growl that in retrospect does have a bit of grindcore in it. He’s a longtime fan of the heavy stuff, besides.

Cop Bar is not quite the typical grindcore or hardcore band, though. It wouldn’t be like Sam to do anything the normal or typical way. I’m pretty sure there’s no other band this metallic sounding that would open an album with a guest appearance via voice-mail by R. Stevie Moore. Alongside the averaging-one-minute songs, chugging crust riffs, and blastbeats, No Justice Just Law bears the unmistakeable Samuel Locke-Ward stamp in its lyrical themes, multiple-personality-disorder vocal role-playing, screwball sense of humor, and basement 4-track production, all combining to make this a take on brutality that you most likely haven’t heard before. Sam’s brother-in-law Andy is along on drums, a fellow named Brando is on guitar, and there is no bass, and they take to hammering home these tunes with an appealing bluntness.

If I had any quibble it would be with the closing track “Jesus Saves” as it’s chorus is basically a direct rephrasing of that of “Save The Daughter” from Sam’s solo debut, the self-released CD-R EP Harness The Power Of Lightening, and recycles a lyrical trope that he’s pretty much beaten to death by ths point; indeed, Sam’s jabs at Christianity are starting to get a bit hackneyed and predictable to someone who’s followed his career since the beginning. But this is probably not going to be a problem for most, especially if this is your introduction to Sam’s unique brand of madness. So order up this cassette for $3 right now at Sam’s web site and bang your fucking head.

The second episode of Metal Up Your Tap: Des Moines Chapter was this past Friday. It’s a pretty cool event, but it does get me thinking about what defines “metal” these days. The term seems to have gotten looser than it once was. For instance, recently the organizers seemed to be trying to get Fetal Pig to open next month’s episode being headlined by Nachtmystium. I guess Dan wasn’t into the idea. I’d have been up for it, but I’m up for a lot of crazy shit if it has to do with music. Also, by the way, kudos for snagging Nachtmystium.

Anyway there’s no disputing Druids’s doom/sludge metal cred once you hear them. I like that they switch it up with a few fast songs, which makes them more varied than the typical stonery outfit. They had a bassist this time, that was new. But welcome, since it opened things up for Luke to do more guitar solos. Some really good new songs in the set.

On second was The Mighty Acceleratör, from Ottumwa, and this is the second part of my point about the fluidity of the term “metal” these days. Acceleratör play a kind of 70s throwback riff-rock, intentionally exercising little or no Sabbath influence, with songs about drinking beer, ogling women, and driving trucks. I observed that the crowd thinned out slightly for their set, but only slightly, and the people in the place were not just respectful but actually pretty enthusiastic. Accelerator’s brand of hard rock is all fun and no bullshit, but is it metal? Well if metal fans are into it, why not? Certain metalheads will also staunchly proclaim their love of Aerosmith’s Rocks, or Rainbow, after all. Plus, Andy’s guitar tone does sound almost exactly like that on Napalm Death’s From Enslavement To Obliteration — or did, as since the show he’s purchased another amp. He also used to run one of the most extreme grindcore/noisecore labels around and brought along what’s left of his distro to the show. And, The Mighty Acceleratör’s ranks include the drummer of Grand Old Lady and A Well Dressed Man.

Heaving Mass, from Chicago, gave us a solid set of heavy head-nodding midtempo power-trio doom riffage reminiscent of Crowbar and a little bit of Sleep but also with a bit of that southern feel. This was definitely shaping up to be MUYT’s “doom edition.” They also have the flyest looking t-shirts I’ve ever seen offered at a $10 price point, a gorgeous multi-color design, and if you bought one you got their CD free.

Finally, Skin Of Earth was the big surprise to me. I’m told they’re local but had never heard of them before, but heard people tell me things like “last time I saw these guys it was eight years ago.” They brought their own lighting in the form of one low-wattage floor lamp, providing an ambience that transformed the Mews into a basement show. They played epic, crushing instrumentals with lots of apocalyptic atmosphere. I’m kind of a sucker for this type of thing. That whole supposed post-rock/metal hybrid that gets called “post-metal”, I guess, but I got the feeling these guys didn’t set out to start a “post-metal band” so much as they got together and started playing/writing and this is just what came out. Anyway I don’t know what kind of scene these guys play in but I want in on it.

I’m also long overdue to write a little something about the Joe Jack Talcum show. Zach was looking a little worse for the wear many days into a tour plagued with automotive breakdowns and injuries. He did a more rock-focused one-man Coolzey set with a lot of guitar including a couple nice blues-inflected numbers, and brought up a couple of his tourmates for his classic “Old Machine.” Dan B claimed he was tired too but you definitely couldn’t tell it from The Bassturd’s set. The Samuel Locke-Ward Lo-Fi Spectacular featured Jeff Mannix on guitar, Zach on bass (which I have to say, he can really play the hell out of!) and a drum machine.

Christopher The Conquered took the unorthodox route of performing in the Mews’s foyer on an upright piano, accompanied only by Kate Kennedy on saxophone. It was an unusually low-key and intimate performance for a CtC show but went over well with those who were around for it, having a very piano-bar vibe. I was worried however as it seemed like the crowd had thinned out a lot and I really wanted Joe Jack to have a good crowd to play for.

Fortunately, such a crowd appeared. I don’t know if they started filtering in from the DJ set just ending at the Mews’s outdoor “PBR Bar” or what, but suddenly there were a lot of people around rocking out to Joe Jack Talcum And The Powders. The Powders, made up of Sam Locke-Ward on keys, Grace Locke-Ward on drums, and Rachel Feldman on bass, make a darn fine backup band for both Joe Jack’s post-Dead Milkmen tunes and the Dead Milkmen covers sprinkled into the set, some requested by the audience. In response to one showgoer’s shouts for “Nutrition,” the band gave it an off-the-cuff shot having never played it before. If they messed it up any, none of the people shouting along seemed to mind.

After the main JJT/Powders set, Joe Jack stuck around onstage for two solo acoustic encores of requests of Dead Milkmen songs, and seemed to be having a good time. It was overall one of the more fun shows I’ve been to in a while.

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.

Around this time last year when I saw Druids selling their excellent Pray For Water EP on cassette at the Gross Domestic Product festival, I still thought the touted “comeback” of the cassette format was just kind of a gimmick. And it is, I suppose. But there being no dominant physical format these days, it does seem like there is certain music that cassette just seems right for. And not only have I found myself digging up some obscure gems from my vast cassette collection lately, I’ve also found that I’m acquiring a startling amount of new music on cassette as well. Here are a few:

The aforementioned Druids- Pray For Water (Ea, Lord Of The Tapes). I think this can also be found on download and CD-R and I think I heard some whisperings about a vinyl version being in the works once. This Iowa doom metal duo sounds epic even on the short fast songs (three of the seven tracks are under two minutes, although one of them is the first of a two-part suite). The longest, “Noise Forest: Ablaze” turns out to be an instrumental built around a Rhodes keyboard or maybe a Wurlitzer, that alternates between post-rock sounding sections and louder heavy parts. I probably can’t do justice in words to how heavy and awesome these guys are and this tape leaves me wanting more every time. They’re playing at Vaudeville Mews the early show this Saturday with In The Face Of War and some other hardcore stuff; Omens, another band with Druids guitarist/vocalist Luke Rauch in it, plays there in the early show March 25 with The Great Sabatini as the headliner and Fetal Pig (which I play bass in, for any of you that are new here) opening. Both are all-ages and get rolling about 5pm.

Pony Time – Pony Time Can Drink 100 Wine Coolers (Dont Stop Believin’ Records). Here’s another two-piece band, but this one from Seattle and doing a kind of sunny-yet-skewed indie pop. My old friend and former Exit Drills / Page 5 Girl bandmate Stacy Peck plays the drums and another guy named Luke (Beetham) plays a chunky-twangy overdriven bass guitar and sings. The vocals have a high-pitched chorusing on them that adds to the weird factor and makes the lyrics hard to make out at times, but the tunes are infectious. Two Billy Childish covers close out the album, and I wouldn’t even have known they weren’t originals if I hadn’t checked the liner notes, because they fit right in to their style. Download code included with tape.

You Are Home – Glacier Grains and Cage (Workerbee Records). Released both at the same time, and I ordered them both at the same time, entries 01 and 03 in Matthew Dake’s noisy, experimental, instrumental solo project’s so-named “Electronic EP Series” (I guess 02 isn’t out yet?). It seems odd to release music this synthesizer-driven on cassette. With both you get intriguing assemblages of loopy mechanized bleepy-bloopy sounds. Reminds me a bit of the early Cabaret Voltaire stuff like what’s on 1974-76.

One of my favorite things in the format is lo-fi cassette compilations. Several have found their way to me lately and I’ve heard some wonderful stuff on them. I’m beginning to think the lo-fi cassette compilation is really an indie/experimental analogue to the hip-hop mixtape.

One was included by Workerbee in the package when my order of the You Are Home tapes arrived, and seems to be an intriguing concept, the “split compilation” — one side from Workerbee and the other from Series Two Records. Series Two’s side is packed with lo-fi pop, folky and shoegazing sounds, while Workerbee’s covers those areas plus some experimental noises and some really great 60s-inspired trashy garage rock. Especially memorable tracks for me come from And Oh So Slowly He Turned, Electric Needle Room (the biographical “James Madison,” almost a lost Schoolhouse Rock song), Flannel, Mike Downey, Shannon and the Clams (awesome spooky-chick 60s rock!), Setting Sun, BAMBRA, Murzik, and The Skeptics.

Rot Box (Unread Records) was of interest for me because it has Samuel Locke-Ward, Ed Gray, and Simon Joyner on it — three midwest songwriters I like a lot and think people ought to know about. Each of them have especially excellent songs on here, and have released cassette albums on this same label as well (including Sam’s legendary Boombox By Bedside) — in fact, pretty much everybody on this comp has. I’d say Sam, Simon, and Ed have probably the best stuff on here, but I could be biased. Woods is on here too, I just don’t remember much about their song right now. Just from those names you probably know to expect lo-fi folk with some experimental twists. I also particularly remember and enjoy Caleb Fraid and Franklin Bruno’s songs. Unread has a pretty extensive catalog worth reading through, you’ll probably find some stuff you want.

I Think I Might Be Autistic (Chthonic Records) also features Sam and Ed (working with Coyote Blood both here and on Rot Box). Sam’s track here has really distorted vocals and while still pretty cool, melodically a slower cousin of “For One Cigarette,” it doesn’t shine quite as brightly for me as his Rot Box track “He’s An Evil Preacher” (possibly one of his best songs ever!). The mix of styles is broader on this than on Rot Box and maybe prevents the compilation from hanging together as a mix, but it has some killer moments. Erik Sahd’s “You Gotta Keep Tryin’” is a big favorite for me on this, a delightful electro-pop tune that gets me laughing and reminds me of Devo, Gary Numan, a little bit of Wire, and The Bassturd. Joe Brook’s “Righteous Man” is a gorgeous folk/country song that I think Why Make Clocks (which I also play bass in) should cover sometime. Gladhands’s “Refrigerator Mother” has “I think I might be autistic” as a line in the lyrics, it’s a feedback-drenched casio-rock number that sounds like it has the guy from Bush on lead vocals, I like it pretty well. Ben Trickey’s “Tangle” is another really nice folk/country tune, and there are some interesting noise pieces too. This label also just put out Sam’s split 7″ EP with Toby Goodshank (The Moldy Peaches) so you know they’re cool.

Different Paths (Greentape 57). No contact info in this one, but a Google search unearthed this. I just got this the other night when I was in Decorah to play at the Elks Lodge with Igloo Martian, Talking Computron, The Ring Toss Twins (aka Moldavite aka circuit-benders Pelzwik and Dinger — check out getlofi.com) and Seeded Plain. The only artist on this I’ve ever heard of before is Office Park, and their track is a droney one rather than a songy one so you don’t get to hear any of Ember’s beautiful voice, but it’s still pretty nifty. The rest is mostly boombox folk, some with banjo, and a couple loopy noise pieces thrown in.

Oh, by the way, that Decorah show was pretty cool. I felt weird being the act that was just playing a guitar and singing songs, and I think I played my stuff much cleaner in practice, but everyone else’s sets were really enjoyable. I did have the distinction of being the set that had people dancing. The same people started doing yoga positions or something during The Ring Toss Twins. I think their set was my favorite, kind of spooky rhythmic ambient electronic circuit-bending and casio sounds that would go over big on My Castle Of Quiet. It really got me thinking about getting my ghetto noise-rig from the early Passage Of Deformed Man Supermarket days back into play (call it a Flight Attendants comeback?). Plus they sell contact mics at their merch, which is brilliant. Talking Computron made chilly electronic sounds, Igloo Martian did a joyful performance art piece, and Seeded Plain opened with their amazing invented-instrument ambient improv (check Public Eyesore Records in the links section of the sidebar). I got one of Nick/Pelzwik’s contact mics and already used it once earlier today to sample a wooden chair and a cymbal stand with a cracked china crash on it into my SK-5. Good times. Here are some pictures:

Talking Computron

Ring Toss Twins' gear

Seeded Plain

And just because it was on my phone, here’s a bonus photo of Pink Villa at the art opening at Ritual Cafe that Why Make Clocks played at last weekend:

The songwriting team-up of Samuel Locke-Ward and Jason Hennesy at the center of the band Miracles Of God is just one of those few things in the universe that makes total sense. It’s a bit of a pity that they don’t play more shows than they do, but it’s also perfectly understandable given the members’ abundant other projects. The other day Sam announced on his blog that Miracles Of God has booked some shows! They’re in March! None of them are in Des Moines! But it sounds like they’re looking to book more… Anyone want to help me come up with a sweet Des Moines gig for these cats?

Via Facebook this morning:

Ongoing project: putting all SLW albums up for free streaming and pay what you want mp3 downloads on bandcamp. More soon…

http://samuellockeward.bandcamp.com/

Awesome! Now I can get Where The Sick Go To Die in a higher bitrate than I have now. (Though I still intend to get a cassette copy from Unread because I’m such a superfan.) Today Is The Tomorrow You Were Worried About Yesterday is still short about half its tracks, but give the man time.

http://samuellockeward.bandcamp.com

It’s getting that time of the year when music-writing types come up with their annual top-n lists. But lately I think annual top-n lists kinda suck. Marc Hogan kinda gets what I’m talking about. I decided instead to just grab a few of the many albums that came out in 2010 that got my attention and try writing a little something about them. I promise they won’t all be this long.

I first met Samuel Locke-Ward, then just Sam Locke, when he was still in high school. I was in this band in Cedar Falls called No Consensus, and somehow we got a show in Ottumwa, Sam’s hometown, at this all-ages venue-slash-video arcade called GameZone. A band called Yellow 5 opened; Sam, the guitarist, strutted and flailed like a psychedelic conjurer during a lengthy, noisy solo on a three-chord epic called “Into The Dawn” that No Consensus later parodied as “Upward And West.”

Then Sam was in The Eggnogs. The Eggnogs had Jason Bolinger on drums — he’s in She Swings She Sways these days along with Yellow 5 bassist Troy Morgan — and Jason’s brother Josh on bass. Sonically, The Eggnogs were an odd mix of The Melvins and The Pixies, but Sam’s total-nutjob frontman style, and the way it worked with his lyrics, were what really made them interesting. The Eggnogs worked hard, rocked hard, played lots of shows, made lots of DIY recordings, and wrote several really classic yet singularly weird songs. It was apparent already that Sam had a way with a poppy chord progression and a catchy melody and even more of a way with taking that poppy chord progression or melody and subverting it with a noisy guitar, a psychologically disturbing lyric, and his distinctive performing persona.

After the end of The Eggnogs, Sam hooked up with a like-minded songwriter Jason Hennesy, his equal in catchy melodies and fucked-up lyrics, and the two of them put together the band Miracles Of God. Sam also did a whole lot of other projects — solo stuff and bands like The Kickass Tarantulas and Trophy Beau. It would make for good promo or maybe good reality TV to say that Sam’s solo career, and the prolific output it’s partly known for, got rolling when Sam was hit by a drunk driver in Columbia, Missouri, while pushing the broken-down Miracles Of God van off the road. The accident mangled his legs up pretty good, requiring extensive reconstructive surgery and a lengthy hospital stay, and one could invent a good story in which the experience impressed upon Sam the preciousness of our time on this Earth, such that he has spent every waking moment since working like mad on his music. But though the ordeal has provided inspiration for a few of his songs, the truth is that Sam has always been as intensely creative and driven as he is now; it’s said that he woke up in the hospital after the accident already trying to plan how they would be able finish the tour. (Another thing about Sam: he absolutely hates to cancel shows.) This not being possible, he kept himself occupied by recording a solo album literally in his hospital bed, the fragile folk piece Boombox By Bedside, which you can get on cassette from Unread Records.

Today, Boombox sounds like an uncharacteristically intimate piece for Sam: something in most of his work has involved a certain amount of distance, mystery, and intentional off-puttingness accomplished via blasts of noise, the affectation of lugubrious or sarcastic vocal tones (an element dating back at least as far as The Eggnogs), the occasional atonal saxophone blare from frequent collaborator Pete Balistrieri, a former member of The Horns Of Dilemma (otherwise known as the horn section of The Violent Femmes). It nonetheless makes the music, and your mental picture of the man behind it, all the more compelling.

I myself played in some of Sam’s live shows in 2008, including having the great honor of playing bass and trumpet, sometimes simultaneously, in the July 2008 “Samuel Locke-Ward and the Solid Gold Dancers” tour with The Teddy Boys, and have even posed as him once, at his request, in January 2009, shortly after I moved to Des Moines, in order to fulfill an engagement at Vaudeville Mews that conflicted with an event requiring his presence at The Mill (the Iowa City restaurant and venue where he books and runs a bit of sound).

All this makes for a rather long prelude to an article that purports to be about Sam’s latest nominally solo work, Barely Regal Beagles, but it helps me in my role as scenester to impress you with how well and for how long I am acquainted with such a talented and interesting person. Or perhaps it serves by way of disclaimer that I’m already inclined to speak well of just about anything Sam puts together. Or maybe it serves as a recap that feels necessitated by how much Barely Regal Beagles feels like it’s part of the opening of a new chapter.

For one thing, this is the first release under the Samuel Locke-Ward name that comes on actual pressed CDs — and in a glossy full-color sleeve, no less — as opposed to computer-burned CD-Rs with “SLW” sharpie’d on them, lovingly inserted into slimline cases picked up at OfficeMax, with photocopied paper inserts. Not that there’s anything wrong with that: the DIY ethic has always been an important part of Sam’s modus operandi and appeal. As there’s no label name to be found on the packaging, I’m guessing Sam has had these CDs manufactured and printed at his own expense. Perhaps Grotto Records‘s offer to release From the Privilege of the Grave, his collaborative industrial-noise-folk album with Darren Brown (Texxar, Boy Dirt Car), on vinyl LP, nudged Sam in the direction of a more traditionally “professional” presentation; he’s since also done a split 7″ with his new band The Boo-Hoos, with Mumfords on the other side.

Barely Regal Beagles is certainly deserving of the semi-pro treatment: it’s quite good. And moreover, it’s possibly Sam’s most cohesive solo album yet; where previous releases might be seen as containing abundant good ideas that were yet a bit disjointed from each other, on Barely Regal Beagles all the different stylistic threads are still there — the assault-folk sound perfected with 2008′s Sacrilege, Treason, Treachery, and Thyme; the industrial-noise queasiness of Privilege and the Manhorse III The Meatbag collaboration We All Love Candy; the guitar power-pop sounds of the Boo-Hoos stuff; and lots of elements touching on the weirder regions of lo-fi indie rock and freak-folk — but now they’re also starting to really make sense together.

“Funeral For Coach” gets the album off to a strong start; the song might skirt controversy if you suspect that it references Ed Thomas. Although in the first verse Sam seem to be making fun of the titular coach who “slaps your ass,” after enough dramatic tempo changes for a Broadway musical number it ends with a soaring choir chorus that suggests a celebration of the departed’s memory being “buried in our lives,” even as a black-metal demon screams along in the background. A few other songs early in the album use such dramatic elements — there’s the shift in tape speed that effects a beautiful key/tempo change on the slightly Guided By Voices-ish “Will Be Heaven,” making the second chorus positively chilling; “You Are The Turd” packs in several changes in instrumentation and dynamics that show off Sam’s multi-instrumental prowess on keyboards, guitars, lap-steel and accordion while also giving the song heart-swelling emotional weight appropriate for lyrics that reassure the song’s subject, someone going though hard times and a trashing of their reputation, “don’t think twice, it’s all right, we’re friends.”

The punk-folk vibe Sam first started employing on Golden Favorites: Where Sobriety Is King makes an initial appearance, just barely, on the frenetic blast “Let’s Give Them Hairless Hacks”. Balistrieri’s sax wails, and there’s this weird downward-bending note from some kind of Casio keyboard that pops in during the chorus that’s almost a word of lyrics in itself. “Five Nightmares” is a bash-waltz that’s about as close to Tom Waits as Sam gets, with its deathly imagery and more of Balistrieri’s wailing sax. Just past the midpoint of the album “The River” gives us more of the shouty folk thing. The solo-acoustic “Little Moon Face” shows another, gentler facet of Sam’s folk side, and is just one of the spots on the album where Sam’s usual pessimistic facade seems to be softening a bit. Sam’s technical shortcomings as a vocalist are much in the foreground on this number, but he positively owns his flaws in a way that only a certain kind of performer can really get away with.

“Find Me A Man” shows us a bit of the pop-punk style that The Boo-Hoos have been representing, as does “Taking Away The Pop,” a portrait of an exasperated parent driving some hyperactive kids somewhere. More of this feel comes through on “The Golden Kids Are Brats” (which features a weird distorted sort of 60s beach-rock backup vocal) and “Fleas Must Go,” but not before “Hey, Well Dressed Brothers” closes the album’s first half. The song confuses me a bit: there’s a martial rhythm to the verses, and Sam switches voices in different sections suggesting a change of character roles, but I’m having a hard time connecting the lyrics of the different parts of the songs together into the narrative it suggests. The chorus seems like it might be going for a prequel to Sacrilege‘s opener, “Now We Have Won”: “We’ll fight the ones with evil ways in their hearts, we’ll come at night take no prisoners at all, we’ll make you wish you were never born.” “Church Of The Bloated Man” revisits these themes or righteous communal violence and revenge later: “Take an axe to your family’s home/We need the wood for the gallows,” he commands in a sinister whisper, and lots of things get set on fire to the sound of a Casio.

Had the album ended after “Well Dressed Brothers,” it would already be a satisfying, though short, collection. But the second half has its share of moments too. “This Pooch Shall Fly” sticks out for its unusual length — seven minutes, from a guy whose songs frequently don’t stretch to two. It comes off like a lo-fi attempt at a Melvins version of “Eye Of The Tiger.” It drones a bit, but I reckon it could be a real fist-pumper in the live show.

“Clown’s Choice” is another side-two standout for its uncomfortable possible self-referential implications; Sam is a master of the uncomfortable. Self-deprecation is one thing, but Sam brings it to a level all his own. When an artist known for a touch of the outrageous delivers a line like “you can have my dignity for money, you can have my honor for cash” with this kind of pathos, it ought to give us a bit of a shiver. It fits with the back-cover photo of Sam in a captain’s hat, holding a banjo, looking thoroughly disgusted. It’s an example of the kind of art that holds one of those makeup-counter mirrors to the human condition, magnifying all the things we usually get through the day better ignoring. Yet only a couple tracks later, the rushing chorus of “Pleasant Are The Leisure Days,” co-written with Grace, directly contradicts its premise in a defiant declaration of dignity: “I wouldn’t be caught dead/looking like a clown/for all the kids to laugh/and kick me in my ass.”

“Let’s Leave Today” caps the album off on possibly the sunniest note yet heard on a Samuel Locke Ward album, as Sam invites the listener to walk beside him on what sounds like a voyage into a happy future. It’s a strange song from him, but it works and is welcome, and coming at the end of the album it almost feels like a pointer to things to come.

There are a certain key elements that Sam has been developing the past few years that accomplish the job of pulling all these things together and giving Barely Regal Beagles a real sense of identity. Sam’s characteristic homebrew production has skill behind it won from experience — even factoring out Kent Williams‘s post-production assistance, this is some of the clearest-sounding stuff I’ve ever heard done on cassette 4-track, even with clearly more than four tracks’ worth of colorful instrumentation audible at many points. (Usually when I ping-pong tracks on a 4-track it sounds like shit, but Sam seems to have mastered it.) Then there’s that whole mad-genius thing, a touch of Eugene Chadbourne perhaps, that has grown into such a defining element of Samuel Locke Ward as a musical personality. And most importantly, there is real songwriting going on here, from someone who has learned how to find just the right sound for what he means to say. All of these things have been present in Sam’s work for some time, Barely Regal Beagles puts them all into a package that even newcomers can make sense of.

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.

Hyper-prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and all around awesome guy Samuel Locke Ward is branching out online beyond MySpace: he’s got a bloggy-blog over here where you will be able to keep up on his doings.

He also has this really great new album out called “Barely Regal Beagles” which I’ve been working on an article about, and he posted about said album on said new website here. It includes this video of the song “Will Be Heaven,” which I really like:

I’ve been remiss in not posting this sooner, but a little over a week ago Iowa City songwriter Samuel Locke-Ward (is it supposed to be spelled with the dash or not? I never know for sure) did a live solo performance on the Little Village Live radio show on KRUI. In it, he tore rapid-fire through something like two dozen songs off his last something like eight albums. Download the audio, watch the video, read a bit about Sam at Little Village’s site. Or watch the videos below: