Thursday, Mar. 26, 2009
Art alexakis at hard rock café
Art Alexakis on stage March 20 at Hard Rock Café – Photo by Bobby Altman for Weekly Surge.
For my money at least, Everclear’s 1997 album “So Much for the Afterglow” is a damn near perfect storm of post-grunge pathos and hook-laden alternapop. A much more focused, more polished effort than 1995's “Sparkle and Fade,” front man Art Alexakis is all over that record - playing this, singing that, arranging horns, orchestrating strings, hell, even designing the album artwork. It was clear to anyone who bothered to read the liner notes that while Everclear was a three man job on stage, Everclear was all Alexakis all the time in the studio. For a kid still not over the death of Kurt Cobain and not yet ready for Pavement or Sonic Youth, he was an easy hero to have.
But then came that wretched double album, “Songs from an American Movie.” A concept record, to boot, about one of Alexakis' many failed marriages, the first volume is catchy, the second a little harder. And then there’s the utterly abysmal “Slow Motion Daydream” followed by the first greatest hits compilation. After 2006’s “Welcome to the Drama Club,” with bassist Craig Montoya and drummer Greg Eklund out of the band, I stopped listening. And when the second greatest hits disc dropped a year later, I stopped caring at all. Thus, I knew not of last year’s ill-advised covers record – Hall & Oates, Paul Revere and The Raiders...the “Speed Racer” theme – until I sat down to write this review.
So, it was the ‘97 version of me that went to see the ‘09 Art Alexakis last Friday (March 20) at Hard Rock Cafe’s March On Stage event at Broadway at the Beach. All drugs wear off eventually, and despite being under the influence of some particularly dank nostalgia myself, not even the ‘97 me was overly impressed. Alexakis started things off with a rather pitiful standup comedy routine that lasted way longer than any Art Alexakis standup routine ever should. For a moment, I thought he was merely killing time with some off-the-cuff banter, waiting for the rest of the band to get off the can or something. When he announced that tonight would be “a true solo engagement” – and that his on-the-spot repartee was actually spelled out pixel-for-pixel on a teleprompter below – I braced myself for the worst.
Ditching the jokes for the guitar, finally, my fears were then confirmed by the opening number “The Drama King,” from the aforementioned crap fest “Welcome To the Drama Club.” Song two offered little relief as I soon realized it was the fifth track, “Learning to Smile,” from the first “Songs from an American Movie” record.
However, he redeemed himself with a trio of well done hits – “I Will Buy You A New Life,” “Heartspark Dollarsign” and “Father Of Mine” – and with the near-capacity crowd hanging on every word, it was the closest present day Alexakis ever got to the older (well, actually younger), far better version.
As if to remind us of just how far he’s fallen in the decade since the Clinton Administration, Art Alexakis – the musician - then put away his acoustic guitar, and Art Alexakis – the guy with a lame-ass slide show - took over. Like his unfortunate foray into comedy earlier in the evening, this bad idea was also completely scripted. A cautionary, but no less routine tale of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, it too went on too long.
Now, his guitar playing was pretty solid throughout, which was a bit of a revelation because when I’ve seen Everclear as a band, they always had a touring guitarist with them. I used to think it was to fill out the sound of a three piece or to mask Alexakis’ playing. He did show however, that he’s a more than capable guitar player.
Even as his songwriting skills waned into the new millennium, Alexakis remained somewhat relevant for his ability to take life’s shittiness and on Capitol Records’ dime, mine his personal catharsis, and write a killer power pop tune. Trading barre chords and sympathy for a laser pointer and a smug sense of self-preservation, it didn’t matter that his version of “Brown Eyed Girl” was incredible or that he had the balls to play rock anthem “Santa Monica” acoustically. A tattooed caricature of himself now, ironically, he’s been reduced to jokes and pictures by his own hand. No wonder then he had trouble getting through the third verse – “But now I'm different/Now I sing a new song” – of his final encore, “Volvo Driving Soccer Mom.”
All things considered, though, the $5 general admission price – proceeds of which benefitted Musicians on Call a non-profit that provides bedside music for sick people in hospitals and healthcare facilities – was a steal.
Billed as “Drama Club, an Evening with Art Alexakis,’’ I think everyone, myself included, would have preferred less drama and wanted him to just play the songs, not even the singles, just play and sing. Maybe a story or two here and there – like an episode of VH-1’s “Storytellers.”