His Name is Magic Cyclops

Originally published in The Rocky Mountain Collegian, November 13, 2008

The man isn't interested in talking.

"You don't see me," he mumbles, scurrying past the Collegian reporter, a duffel bag under arm. "Not here."

He, a lanky pale figure who could pass as the Unabomber's protégé in his black hoodie and baseball cap, makes his way to the tiny stage in the corner of the room. Out of the duffel bag comes a mic stand, a vocal effects processor with built-in pedal and a MacBook with a "Regular Joes for McCain-Palin" sticker slapped on the monitor's back.

The sticker is somewhat ironic in a dive bar like Surfside 7, the only joint in town that proudly blasts the likes of Slayer and Turbonegro over its speakers and where piercings hang from bartenders' every appendage.

He turns on the microphone: "Test, test, hello, hello."

He toys with the processor, suddenly sounding like Alvin the Chipmunk: "W-w-whoa dude. I'm high on drugs."The bored female bartenders laugh. A small tweak in the controls and his voice drops into the hulking tone of a "60 Minutes" anonymous source: "I sound like a sexual predator."

Eyeing the bartenders, he adds a flirty purr to his monstrous baritone: "Hey there little boy. You like candy?" Pleased with this pitch and the responding laughter, he disappears into the kitchen behind the pizza counter.

Fifteen minutes later, a strange character swaggers out, bearing a black muscle shirt. His eyes are tucked away behind dark tea shades, while his long black hair is held to the sides of his face by a neon purple and blue bandana baring a single word: "MAGIC." He introduces himself: "It's legally Magic Cyclops. Legally."

One eye, one dream
Consider Cyclops to be many things.

"Magic Cyclops is the ultimate performance artist," says Nate Clark, sound engineer and production manager at the Aggie Theatre, who claims to have been a Cyclops fan since his earliest performances. "He's a musician, a character, an actor, a hero and a villain."

In less esoteric terms, Cyclops is the "Weird Al" Yankovic of Fort Collins, minus the direct parodies and PG rating -- he once told a heckler, "If I wanted any lip from you, I'd unzip my pants." He alternates between musician, with a berth of original songs, and professional disc jockey, never straying from an 80s sound.

"I've just always kind of been into music. Ya know, your Def Leppards, your Journeys," Cyclops says. "New music is crap. I enjoy what most people would call bad music nowadays."Then there were the heroes of the decade -- Hulk Hogan and other professional wrestlers -- who had a considerable impact on his life as well. Cyclops had sported a "HOGAN" headband up until this year, realizing that his idol "was the biggest douchebag on the planet."

But when pressed for details on his newfound hate, Cyclops ponders, retracts.

"I have been watching his celebrity wrestling lately, which is making him seem a little less douchey. I still think he wants to date his daughter and I kind of find that a little 'insane in the membrane,'" Cyclops says, drawing the classic "coo-coo crazy" signal with his finger. "Although if I had a hot daughter, I'd probably want to date her. Can I really condemn that? I dunno."

Sipping incessantly from a mixed drink, Cyclops says his hometown of Davenport, Iowa had a bad habit of inbreeding. He admits the possibility that his own mother and father might have been a little too close on the family tree.Cyclops often uses the words "unfortunate" and "sadly" in describing his early years.His impoverished upbringing, for example, left a permanent mark. BBC programming on PBS was the only entertainment he had access to as a child, manifesting in the British accent that he has never shed. The peer torment that followed never entirely faded either.

But escape was found in the music and icons of the times, the very subjects Cyclops clings to today. He recalls various babysitters taking him to concerts around Iowa and lesser-known acts like Mr. Mister and Centro-matic inspiring his decision to pursue a music-making career.

His arrival in Fort Collins was, at first, nothing more than another stop in Cyclops' 2000 nationwide tour. But when his car broke down, he says he decided to make Fort Collins his new home. There wasn't much back in Davenport, except some serious gambling debts.

Hot hits
Tonight at Surfside, Cyclops is doing the DJ thing.He greets the pooling crowd: "Time to get wicked. But first, I'm gonna play my theme song."

He turns to his MacBook and unleashes it, a startling 20-second blast of high-pitched wailing on the crowd. Just another Cyclops "hot hit."

"You know, a lot of people are just astounded and amazed, so much so that it causes them to get very angry," Cyclops says of his music's reception. "I could only imagine it's what, you know, your Stones, your Beatles, your Michael Jacksons had to go through in the early days."

Ben Prytherch, bassist with local band Motorhome, recalls an early Cyclops performance at Surfside that sparked such anger in one patron that he wrote a letter to the bar declaring he'd never come back.

"It used to be Magic Cyclops versus the audience," Prytherch says. "It was really fun watching a lot of people getting really angry."

Most Cyclops fans are of the "love-to-hate" variety, taking delight in the camp and comedic edge of his music, regardless of the artist's original intention. But it's hard to believe he meant anything else, considering song titles such as "Rainbow of Pain" and "Wrath of (Chaka) Kahn." There's also his most popular release, "Teen Pregnancy Don't Do It," a Casio keyboard ballad that's part song, part public service announcement. When asked about the inspiration behind the song, Cyclops refers to "growing up in Iowa, hoping that I didn't get the ladies pregnant."

"I saw most of my high school class had sons and daughters that are almost as old as I am now," Cyclops says.

There are very few specifics when it comes to the song-writing process for Cyclops.

"Like every musician, I just write about stuff," he says. "Stuff inspires me. Some days I'm over there at the Wal-Mart, and I'll see something like a muffin top. That inspires me. And then I'm like, going to get milk or something, and then a minute later, I'm like 'Oh, that'd be a hot hit, Muffin Top.'"

Most would argue Cyclops' talents are more concentrated in his stagemanship, particularly his air guitar antics. Earlier this year, Cyclops won the Denver Regional Air Guitar Championship, earning a trip to San Francisco to compete in the U.S. Air Guitar Championship in August.

"I picked the death sentence spot of going first," Cyclops says. "No one's ever advanced to the second round going first."

There's always next year. Cyclops says his steady performance schedule has kept him conditioned, and he eagerly anticipates the chance to redeem this year's mistake.

"I'm not like your average DJ; I lip-synch, I air-guitar, air-drum, it keeps me in the realm. It's like practice," he says. "And sometimes, late at night in my room, I'll kick on some Colt, put on my BVD's and rock it on out."

Expect a sizable showing of talent on Nov. 22, when Cyclops opens for 12 Cents for Marvin at the Aggie Theatre.

The man behind the Magic
Cyclops declined to give or confirm his supposed "real" identity for this article. While Cyclops will insist he is who he is, there is another personality behind the one-man show.

"He's not like Magic Cyclops at all," Clark says. "He's just a guy, a guy that loves punk rock, indie rock and music in general... nothing like Cyclops. Cyclops is an asshole, a prima donna."

"I see him around town," says Dayton Hicks, bassist with local band Arliss Nancy. "He's a nice guy -- kind of an introvert, I guess. He does his own thing."

"A lot of people, I think, mistake him for a complete goof-off," says Darren Radach, instrumentalist with Motorhome and Glove Trucker. "But he's one of those guys who, if he continues to take it as seriously as he does, could end up being on Comedy Central, Saturday Night Live. He's got that kind of talent and that kind of conviction in his comedy."

CD Review: Project Moonbeam

Originally published in Scene Magazine, November 2008

Immersive at best and boring at worst, progressive rock is often considered decades past its time, particularly when based in the synthesizer style that gave nerd bands like Rush an unexpected place in pop culture. As cutting-edge as it was then, listening to Project Moonbeam’s self-titled debut makes it pretty obvious that some sounds are best left on classic rock radio.

The man behind the Moonbeam is Loveland musician Chris Fournier. Project Moonbeam, as he writes in the liner notes, was a three-year learning activity to get his high-end music studio, Earth Shaper Audio, “understood and operational.” Fournier self-produced the final product, and considering the elegant layering and flawless effect placement, it’s apparent that he has learned much. However, the music itself doesn’t quite hold up in comparison.

It’s not that the pedal-heavy guitars or poky rhythms feel a few decades late, it’s just that there’s little fun to be found in listening to the same tawdry track over and over. Project Moonbeam’s album has a tendency towards that: an intergalactic assortment of rising Satriani solos melded together with crunchy riffs (“Air,” “Quarkz”) and soft-shelled keyboard melodies (“Depths Unknown,” “Man I Was”).

Also to be stressed is that in this day and age, drum machines are only permissible when they’re buried deep in the audio layering and don’t resemble a drum machine whatsoever, a rule that Fournier has regrettably chosen to break in “Reality Is.” The opening electro-percussion kick in that track caused me Baltimora flashbacks. For that, I say shame on you Project Moonbeam.

My band is no ripoff

I had a good laugh when it happened to Avril Lavigne.
I can't remember a more exaggerated smirk pooling on my face then the time it happened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Probably the best musical ripoff to ever take place? Well, that'd be when Nickelback ripped off themselves. Nothing will ever fucking top that.

But for one of my favorite bands of all time to get hit with that painful accusation of plagerism? Say it ain't so!

I'll let you read the article for the details, but basically this guy is charging that the riff off of The Hives' "Tick Tick Boom" is lifted off of a track he put together in the late 90's. This story ends with a sigh of relief though; take a quick listen to the opening sections of both tracks and it's easy to tell that, while the riff is indeed somewhat similar, it's clear these are two completely different songs. Chalk up another for the Swedes.

Live Review: Santogold, Mates of State, Trouble Andrew

Note: I didn't happen to take the video, that honor belongs to YouTube user adventurefit. I'm sure he/she won't mind a few more views, right?

I traveled down to Denver’s almost-intimate Gothic Theatre for a three-act show earlier this October: pseudo-rock group Trouble Andrew, indie rock duo Mates of State and then headliner Santogold.

While its structure and acoustics might not be much different from several other Denver venues (it has an odd similarly to The Ogden Theatre in that the standing room sections is divided into thirds while special VIP high rises line the walls), the Gothic generally showcases college radio acts and as such, typically draws a young and eccentric crowd. The sound carries well in the Gothic’s high hall, but to really watch the show is to stand in the front section. There, one’s ears can surf on the finest timbre while dancing with the crowd.

Opening act Trouble Andrew was undoubtedly the weakest act of the night, barely rousing the crowd members out of their stand still positions with their quirky downbeat skateboarder jams. Lead singer Trouble played up a strong stage presence, talking with the crowd and promoting the acts that were to follow. But it couldn’t excuse the fact that Trouble’s pitch couldn’t keep in tune with the backing guitar or bass melodies, and he constantly struggled with his intervals. I was particularly disappointed to listen to the offbeat live version of “Chase Money”, a song where Trouble’s uptempo delivery flows perfectly with the mellowed out melody. At the Gothic, however, he could barely keep up.

Following Trouble Andrew was Mates of State, a band I had only experienced a couple of times prior to the show, never really forming much of an impression. They did a decent live show, the two never moving from behind their microphones and Casio keyboards. Harmony is an essential in the music of Mates of State, who put forth forward energy throughout their set, their songs often lapsing into one another. Their set, which kept a fluffy up-tempo dissonance, was a stark contrast to the previous moodiness, throttling me into a bubblier attitude. By the end of this set, I was dancing along with the erratic nigh-nonmetric fills.

In the moments before Santogold took the stage, two schoolgirl uniformed dancers wearing oversized sunglasses high-kneed their way on, exciting the crowd with a minute-long synchronized stiff dance. They’d flank Santogold for the rest of the night, purveyors of minimalism in a setting that flickered between drone dub and jungle dance beats.

Santogold’s standout performance was “LES Artistes”, a fan-favorite track that builds off a mixed meter electro-percussion beat, eventually blooming into an orchestral synth chorus. Santogold nailed her vocal accentuations, allowing me a newer pleasant access to the hope-under-stress emotions I was filled with during my first listen earlier this year.

The only disappointment of the show was a decision to perform a bare-bones version of “Lights Out”; Santogold turned a song that has pretty pop chorus and succinct guitar riff into an acoustic solo vocal performance of the opening verse, and then promptly transitioning into the next song’s melody. When an artist performs a stripped-down version of their song, he/she owes it to their fans to make sure it sounds good without a backing beat and the other six-sevenths of the song.

She closed out the set (excluding her unspectacular encore) with jungle blaster “Creator”, inviting up some colorful characters from the very front up on stage to dance along with her. Santogold navigated through the crowded stage fairly easily, dropping each verse with a smile on her face and an occasional laugh at one goofy guy she stared down during delivering the final zipping verse.

Reject Responsibility!

Artist: Tom Waits

Song: "I Don't Want To Grow Up"

Rating: B

Ok, I fucking hate videos that get some guy and dress him up and have him run around like a moron, like the devil in the first minute of this video. It'd be the death knell for this unusual video for a song that feels a little run-of-the-mill. But damn, I laughed when Tom Waits emerged from the curtains onto that tiny stage. He's a kind of weirdness all artists going for avant-garde should study before they even put their pencils to the stanzas.

Xiren undergoes strange journey in 08

Originally published in Colorado Music Buzz Magazine, October 2008

Considering the scams, bus crashes and wedding vows, 2008 has been a monster year for singer-songwriter Xiren, real name Daryl Xiren Kenny. And it’s not over yet; he believes his new album, Trip-R, could be the breakout recording he’s been seeking since his move from Detroit to Denver 12 years ago.

“When we look back at all the great records that were ever made, the people making them knew that they had something special at the time, and it’s a little bit of that feeling,” Xiren says. “We’ll see if there’s any legitimacy in that.”

His fifth original recording, Trip-R swings like a designated hitter, wielding supersonic sensibility and aggressive theatrics and a theme of “rock n’ roll revenge.” It’s a style similar to that of U2, a group Xiren “holds up on the pedestal.

Besides the music, there’s the Irish heritage he can identify with; Xiren’s father is an Irish migrant who gave him the Gaelic middle name he goes by now. Perhaps above all, however, Ciren admires the international supergroup’s humanitarian efforts. It’s why he works charity into each of his concerts: the Trip-R release party last month donated a portion of the tickets sold to The Chanda Plan Foundation, a group dedicated to making Eastern physical therapy available to those with physical disabilities.

“There’s so much self-promotion in music,” he says. “Your name and photos are on flyers and marquees, and my god; it has got to be about something else.”

Being kind to the world doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be nice in return. In May, Xiren journeyed into India to participate in an organized tour with ten other artists from around the world. What he’d find there, however, was “a relatively well-executed scam of some level.” It was discovered that the promoter running the show had created his own record label, taking on several identities with various cell phone numbers and email addresses, and had barely booked the artists; Xiren says his two shows were booked at a flea market and a tiny bar. He says the company that had set him up with the tour via contest, Sonicbids, had assured him that he’d was partaking in a legit operation.

“They obviously didn’t vet the client at all,” Xiren says. “There’s no selection process, no background check, no credibility check. Pretty much anybody can sign up. They start taking independent artists’ money and literally offer nothing. I think it’s possibly the biggest fraud perpetuated on the independent music community today.”

Things looked to be on the up upon his return with a nationwide tour with his backing band. Three weeks in, a devastating bus crash scrapped those hopes and left ruined equipment scattered across a Midwest highway.

It also shook up several band mates to the point of resignation, and Xiren is currently seeking replacements. He says those interested should check out his Jack-o-Launch show at Pumpkinfest in Aurora on October 12 and catch the band after the show.

Life’s been much better to the man lately; besides dropping Trip-R, he married his long-time girlfriend in August. But looking back on the year, he says the hardships had their place: “It’s like Jane’s Addiction said: ‘Sometimes to realize you are well, someone must come along and hurt you.’”

Asianahone

Artist: Passion Pit

Song: "Sleepyhead"

Rating: B+

Look at me ma, I'm cruising like a madman on the blogosphere, playing up bands like I know what I'm doing.

I admit, I don't really know what I'm doing. I put on this facade, but any sharp-eyed internet reader will know I pulled this creative flip book-box vid from Stereogum. At least I've got the gall to admit it. I am a responsible, respectable blogger who delivers nothing but the truth and full disclosure to all three of his readers.

But I'm going to give a go at generating blog-buzz too, just because I read about it all the time so I'd like to at least fancy myself as someone who's taste and writings actually influence the market.

So, yeah. Passion Pit. Based out of Boston. They're like a tangy MGMT with an extra layer of sugar added on top. Besides making fun songs, it looks like they'll be stacking together a strong collection of music videos, considering the crowd they worked with for this video.

This video is cool-looking, synchs well with the music without trying hard or even being 100% on time. You know you've got a good video on your hands when you can get away without perfect synchroization. I also like the flip book effect in this video; might not be entirely original, but again, it's doing so WITH CUBES! Who else has done that? Maybe many, but none come to mind. I challenge you, dear reader, to prove me dumb.