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ATHENS, GEORGIA—land of pecans and blooming dogwoods.
A land the local chamber of commerce calls the “closest
place to Heaven on Earth.” Fifty miles northeast of
Atlanta and 600 feet above sea level, the little college
town that spawned such legendary acts as the B-52’s,
R.E.M., Pylon, Guadalcanal Diary and The Olivia Tremor
Control has another name to add to its list of famous
artistes: Elf Power.
 While
the name might not have the same rolls-right-off-the-tongue
quality of, say, fellow Athenians, Juicifer, the band
makes up for it by combining strummy acoustic guitars,
plaintive organs and guitarist Andrew Rieger’s gloriously
adenoidal vocals with bubblegum melodies pillaged from
Buddha Records’ glory days.
Formed by Rieger and fellow University of Georgia at
Athens classmate, Laura Carter, in 1993, the pair pressed
12 songs of lo-fi surreality recorded on a cassette
four-track into vinyl and gave away 50 LPs to friends.
The friends flipped over the mystically absurd Vainly
Clutching at Phantom Limbs (Arena Rock) and Rieger and
Carter realized they had a band on their hands. Now,
eight years later, the band that was never meant to
be is set to release its fifth record and go on a big
tour of Europe, Japan and the States, but like many
of the band’s songs, Rieger sounds neither excited nor
surprised. More than likely, it’s just Rieger’s laid-back
southern disposition coming through. However, he did
say Creatures (SpinArt) is the band’s most accomplished
album so far, so it’s not as if he’s completely ambivalent
about its success.
“This album is my favorite,” the Greenwood, S.C. native
said from his home in Athens. “But most of them usually
are when we’re done with them. I’d be disappointed if
it weren’t. It’s a little more direct musically and
lyrically and a little bit catchier, and I like that
about it. I don’t know if it’s a conscious thing, but
once it was done, I definitely noticed that was the
case.”
Perhaps it’s because the band went back to its home
recording roots for this album. Or maybe it’s because
Gland’s bassist Neil Golden joined the group. Or maybe
it’s because after six years the core of the band has
been together long enough to really jell. Whatever the
case, Rieger says he’s happy with the results. “This
one was a lot easier to record than any of the ones
in the past,” admitted Rieger. “With our new bass player,
if I thought I could do something better I’d punch in
and change it. That was a cool way to do it because
our old bass player kind of had his parts and he had
them set, so we couldn’t elaborate on them.”
With a little more freedom to experiment and growing
confidence in the studio, Rieger and Co. were able to
apply the knowledge they gained over the last few years
towards recording a more direct-sounding album. Rather
than burying melodies under layers of icing, Rieger
said he and his bandmates focused on getting each song
across as directly as possible.
“One problem we’ve always had with some of our earlier
recordings is that we tend to throw so much other stuff
on the top that sometimes the drums get lost,” said
Rieger. “I think we consciously tried to be a little
more minimal this time. Like, the last album we recorded
over a nine-month period at home and in the studio,
and we had lots of time to try different things and
experiment. This time we rehearsed all the songs and
then we recorded them basically with the arrangements
we rehearsed. It makes the songs more direct and simple.”
For Creatures, Rieger said he wrote most of the material
at home on his acoustic and recorded the basic tracks
to his Fostex T-88 digital eight-track then transferred
the tracks to tape at the studio to warm up the recording’s
cold digital sound. After spending a couple of weeks
developing vocal melodies and fooling around with the
lyrics, Rieger got the band together to write their
own parts and help arrange the songs. However, it hasn’t
always been done that way, he said.
On the first album, the songs were written as they were
recorded. For the next two releases—the Winterhawk EP
and When the Red King Comes—the band used a mixed approach
where they vacillated between making up the songs as
they went and rehearsing songs religiously before drastically
changing them in the studio.
The band’s third release, A Dream in Sound, employed
producer Dave Fridmann’s expertise (Flaming Lips, Mercury
Rev) in order to get a bigger rock sound. However, because
it was recorded over an extended period of time with
numerous breaks in between, Rieger said the band had
a lot of opportunity to tinker with arrangements, which
ultimately ended up changing many of the songs.
When it was time for the Winter is Coming sessions in
the spring and summer of 2000, the group decided to
go back to straight up home recording, which yielded
yet another crowded-sounding record, albeit a gem. So
for Creatures, Rieger said he wanted to cultivate a
more direct, less layered sound, which led the band
to hook up with friend and engineer, Andy Baker (Japancakes,
Juicifer, Shannon Wright), at his home studio in Athens.
With Baker now at the board and a new appreciation for
restraint, Elf Power have created a disc of blithely
blissed out tunes as sunny and inviting as honeysuckle
on the vine and as dark as a summertime rain cloud.
“The Creature,” with its minor-key melody and hushed
vocal delivery ploughed under by Doug Stanley’s (Glands)
bubbly pedal steel solo at precisely 1:47, is a perfect
example of how both styles can happily coexist.
Unlike some of the band’s friends and collaborators
linked to the Elephant 6 collective (a loose coalition
of psychedelically oriented bands clearly influenced
by the Beatles and the Beach Boys) Elf Power tends to
use the darker elements of the Velvet Underground, T.
Rex and Neil Young’s styles as its muse. Whatever similarities
to fellow E6 alumni the Apples (in Stereo) or The Olivia
Tremor Control they might bear, Rieger said he doesn’t
think his band’s music is really all that psychedelic.
“It depends on what you define as psychedelic,” Rieger
explained. “A lot of people think of the Grateful Dead
or Phish playing some ten-minute blues jam, and that
to me is not psychedelic. To me psychedelic is "Tomorrow
Never Knows" by The Beatles where it sounds like some
sea gull from another dimension or something coming
in and ripping your head off, that’s the kind of psychedelia
that we strive for.”
Psychedelic or not, Elf Power’s lyrics paint vivid mental
pictures through oblique references to made-up mythological
creatures, magic powers and the visions of seers. Though
few of Rieger’s songs rely on a strict linear narrative,
he said the sentiments they contain are generally the
same: peace, love and spiritual understanding. For instance,
on the current album Rieger said the word creatures
is really just a metaphor for the natural spirits he
says all humans used to be in touch with.
“There’s a lot of mention of creatures on this album,
but the creatures aren’t really meant to be thought
of like little animals but more like natural spirits,”
suggested Rieger. “Another way to put it is that mankind
used to be more in touch with its natural side and as
materialism has slowly dominated our cultures over the
last few centuries and put the part of our brain that
deals with spiritual things to sleep, we’ve lost touch
with those creatures. It sounds a little New Age and
hokey, but that’s not where we’re coming from at all.”
Of course, given a shot, Elf Power’s happy, vaguely
euphoric pop sound might win over a few self-described
bodhisattvas. In the meantime, though, the band is preparing
to hit the road in May, when it will be bringing its
show to the west coast, Texas and Chicago, followed
by festival dates in Europe in August, an east coast
tour in the fall and Japanese dates in the winter.
Though nothing is set in stone yet, Rieger said one
thing is for sure. After opening up for so many bigger
bands in the past, Elf Power will definitely be the
headliner on this tour. (Perhaps that will leave more
time at the end of the show to bust out some of its
heartfelt but haggard versions of Brian Eno‘s “Needle
in the Camel’s Eye,” David Bowie’s “Queen Bitch,” the
Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog” or the Velvet Underground’s
“What Goes On”. “You know, the masters,” Rieger said.)
But even if Athens never does build a shrine to its
local pop artists, Elf Power can rest assured thousands
of aficionados of the lo-fi recording aesthetic found
on its first album, not to mention several thousand
record collector types, will go on loving them till
their dying days. Besides, it was all a lark anyway.
“We didn’t know anything in the beginning,” recalled
Rieger. “We weren’t a real band and we didn’t think
anybody would really be interested in putting our music
out. We just did it ourselves for fun."
more info:
www.elfpower.com
Elf
Power - Myspace
Alla Kemler for Crud Magazine© 2002
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| 04/02 1 Giant Leap - My Culture
04/02 Elfpower Interview - Andrew Rieger - Creatures
04/02 Frou Frou Interview - Guy Sigsworth/Imogen Heap
04/02 Gomez Interview - Ian Ball
04/02 Idlewild - Live - London Astoria
04/02 K's Choice Interview
04/02 Leaves - Live - Camden Dingwall
04/02 Longwave Interview - Exit
04/02 Lucy Mongrel Interview
04/02 Oasis - The Hindu Times
04/02 Phantom Planet - Interview
04/02 Unwritten Law - Interview
04/02 VUE - Coordinates Interview
05/02 BRMC - LIve - Kentish Town, London
05/02 Breeders - Title K
05/02 FC Kahuna - Machine Says Yes
05/02 Moco - Live - London Monarch
05/02 Need New Body - Interview
05/02 The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Live - Soundhause, Northampton
05/02 The Bellrays - Meet The Bellrays
06/02 Fleadh Festival - Finsbury Park
06/02 Frou Frou Coordinates Interview
06/02 Incubus - Interview - Mark Einziger
06/02 North Mississippi Allstars - Interview
06/02 Papa Roach - She Loves Me Not
06/02 Proud Mary - Live - Northampton, Soundhaus
06/02 Pulp - Live - Sherwood Pines, Edwinstowe
06/02 Reindeer section - You Are My Joy
06/02 Silverchair - Diorama
|  |
06/02
Something Corporate - Leaving Through The
Window
06/02
Soinc Youth - Interview
06/02
The Burn - The Smiling Face
06/02
The Coral - Live - Roadmender, Northampton
06/02
The LIbertines - Live - The Social, Nottingham
06/02
The Vines, Sheffield Leadmill
06/02
Trik Turner - Interview
06/02
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Live, Soundhaus, Northampton
07/02
12 Stones Interview
07/02
Arolo -Interview
07/02
Buy To Let Doncaster - Anti Social Behaviour
07/02
Cassius - Interview
07/02
Farrah - Interview
07/02
Glassjaw - Interview
07/02
Neil Michael Haggerty - Interview
07/02
Hoobastank - Running Away
07/02
Leaves - Interview
07/02
LL Cool Jay Interview
07/02
Oasis - Live - Finsbury Park, London
07/02
Polyphonic Spree - Live - Camden Monarch
07/02
Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For The
Deaf
07/02
Super Furry Animals - Interview
07/02
The Beatings - Live - Metro Club London
07/02
The Bellrays + The D4 - Virgin Megastore,
Oxford Street London
January 2001
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