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now resides, she looks to the forests,
nature itself for affirmation. “Anything
that’s bigger than me. And to me, the trees
are a lot more special than a lot of people
that I know. But there are some humans
that I love, too.” And it was in such pastoral
surroundings that feral piledrivers
that would become The Bobby Lees’ Beauty
Pageant debut sprang forth, almost unbidden.
“It happened really fast,” Quartin
says. Simultaneously, she bumped into a
local producer who had access to a studio,
who picked up on the spark in her material
(“They were rough ideas, really — just
basic guitar parts and melodies and
lyrics,” she says) and pointed her in the
direction of a nearby School of Rock, where
first met Wind and Bowman. Fleshing out
the tunes with them proved so enjoyable
that they decided to call it a band. Casa
joined shortly thereafter.
Once The Bobby Lees were chugging,
nothing was guaranteed, however, and
Quartin could have easily slipped off track.
photo by Lindi Gordon
When a musician contacted her out of the
blue from New York, asking her if she
could open his upcoming gig in
Woodstock, she said No, Wind was graduating
from high school that particular day,
thanks for the offer, though. Then she
caught herself having second thoughts.
Who was this Jon Spencer guy anyway?
She had never heard of him. One Google
click later, and she was gasping for spittake
air. “And I said, ‘Holy shit! We HAVE
to play this show!’,” she says. “And it was
exciting. But afterward, Jon and I were
both selling our merch at the end of the
show, and he asked me for a copy of
Beauty Pageant. And I didn’t want to give
it to him because I was embarrassed of the
way it sounded, but I said, ‘Here you go.
But I’m not proud of the production.’ And
he said, ‘Well, I could give it a try — we
could work together and maybe make
something that you’re a little happier
with.’” Next stop: Skin Suit.
And that’s only half of Quartin’s
Horatio Alger tale. She had always wanted
to trod the thespian boards, and she quickly
found out that the classic old cattle call
casting system from cinema’s past had
streamlined and sped up. “When I first
started acting, right before I formed the
band, anyone could go on backstage.com,
make an actor profile, upload your photo
and start submitting for jobs,” she recollects.
“And I submitted for one in Boston
called Amy in a Cage, and most of my parts
got cut from that, but I played a mad surgeon
operating on this teenage girl’s
brain.” Another attending physician in the
brain scene was eccentric character actor
Crispin Glover, who was duly impressed
by Quartin’s style. “After we did the scene,
he said, ‘You really need to pursue this.’
He was really kind, and he looked out for
me — he’s been like a mentor, and he recommended
me for one of my next jobs
(Albert Sandoval’s) By the Rivers of Babylon,
where I was the caretaker for Connie
Stevens.” Said flick was originally titled
Caretaker, but it got changed along the postproduction
path and still has yet to see
release. Which is the one downside of pursuing
a career in independent films, she
says. You may get to, say, shoot scenes with
Melissa Leo, Michael Pitt, Ron Perlman, or
even Marilyn Manson — as she has on
recent assignments. “I’ve learned that with
indie films, you really have no idea what’s
ultimately going on,” she observes. “So it’s
just about the experiences that you get to
have working with these people. Because
some of the time, [the films] don’t come
out, or they come out and nobody gives a
shit — they don’t have the legs to survive—
or else they’re just not very good.”
She sighs again. “I know I’ve made some
pretty bad ones.”
Of course, it helps if you wind up
falling in love with, then marrying your
director. Quartin first met picked-to-click
filmmaker John Swab on a Tulsa shoot in
2015, and they took to each other immediately.
But there were a few snags. “He was
dating a really crazy girl, and I was dating
a crazy person, so we became friends and
got to watch each other suffer through really
shitty relationships,” she says. She was
sober, and he had a substance-abuse problem
at the time, so she kept her distance.
“And he went in and out of rehab, and
then I saw something finally change — I
saw something in his eyes, and I could tell
— it was done, it was over, he wasn’t going
to use anymore. After that, we got together,
got married, and now we live together
in Woodstock. And the first film that we
worked on as a couple was Run With the
Hunted, and we did one called Body Brokers
last summer, based on his actual experiences
in the rehab system.” Currently,
Swab is on location without his
starlet/muse, filming a shoot-‘em-up
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and Wesley Stace (aka John Wesley
Harding) in 2017. With XOXO, Louris
gathers all of this collaborative spirit and
brings it to the home team. The album features
songwriting and lead vocal contributions
from all four veteran band members
– Louris, bassist Marc Perlman, keyboardist
Karen Grotberg and drummer
Tim O’Reagan. Given that the Americana
mainstays originally made their reputation
on the interaction between Gary
Louris and the departed Mark Olson, it’s a
natural move. Louris’ own songs may
carry the nuances most familiar to the
audience the Jayhawks has built since
1997’s Sound of Lies, but the highlights of
XOXO are split among the members’ contributions.
Louris’ jaunty “Living in a
Bubble” is a 21st century update to Don
Henley’s 1982 single “Dirty Laundry.”
Henley complained about the news cycle
when it was limited to slots at 6PM and
10PM. Louris channels Harry Nilsson’s
carefree and cartwheeling melodic style
while giving a poor review to the 24-hour,
ratings-driven news cycles of Fox,
MSNBC, CNN, etc., and the collective
obsession with accessing it through any
available device. “Just another day at the
zoo,” he sings. Grotberg plays a sparkling
saloon-piano solo reminiscent of The
Band’s Richard Manuel. The spectral folk
of Perlman’s “Down to the Farm” is a
mournful reminder of the obsolescence
and abandonment awaiting those lucky or
unlucky enough to live long enough to see
it. “It’s too cold to be living so long in a
world rule by the young,” sings Perlman.
“Ruby” is a ghost story of a different kind.
Grotberg sings the tale of a woman who
lost her true love, perhaps to war. The storytelling
and elegant piano cast the song
somewhere between Carole King and
Randy Newman (with all of the empathy
and none of the snark). The song’s bittersweet
ending finds Ruby as one of “two
shadows floating on the last day of summer.”
“Dogtown Days” is a bracing rock
stomper. O’Reagan makes his confession
with dangerous candor and the vocal snarl
of the Kinks’ Dave Davies. “I confess I didn’t
love you quite as much as I ignored you
and tore you down,” sings O’Reagan. The
musicians play their hearts out, no matter
who wrote the song. The cozy roots-pop of
“This Forgotten Town” carries the
Jayhawks’ trademark arrangement twists,
unexpected-but-transcendent harmonies,
and further evidence of Louris as an
underappreciated guitar hero. The band
coalesces gorgeously during the deceptively
blissful-sounding “Homecoming.”
Perlman and O’Reagan propel an intoxicating
and Beatlesque rhythm while
Louris and Grotberg create shimmering
harmonies for a beatific farewell to the
world, lamenting a future stolen from the
children. Perlman’s “Illuminate” is a lush
and captivating critique of a political false
prophet. O’Reagan’s “Looking Up Your
Number” is spare and lonely, and he doesn’t
even touch his drum set during the
evocative song. It’s fair enough for XOXO
to show different personalities rather than
sounding entirely cohesive, given the
range of writers. A similar dynamic works
in Sloan’s favor in the indie-rock world,
and may grow to be a recognized strength
as the Jayhawks continue to evolve in the
world of Americana.
- Jeff Elbel
7
GREGORY ALLEN LISHER
Songs from the\
Imperial Garden
(GregLisher.com)
Camper Van Beethoven always did
their part to uphold their hometown’s
motto to “keep Santa Cruz weird.” CVB’s
lead guitarist Greg Lisher extends that
courtesy and more to instrumental guitar
music with his latest solo effort. There’s
something delightfully askew about tracks
including the multi-segmented entries for
“Spider Season” and the pensive tumble of
“Memories of a Childhood Actor.”
Lisher’s considerable craft as an arranger
and sensitivity as a fingerstyle player are
also on display during songs like the
melancholy and cinematic ambiance of
“The Tourist.” “From the Canyon to the
Sea” is winsome and calming, like a muchneeded
weekend drive to the oceanside.
With its guttural bass and jagged rhythm,
the off-kilter “Chinese Form” approaches
a fusion of Camper with Zappa and middle-era
King Crimson. “Dance of the
Shrews” branches into Celtic music as
Lisher’s acoustic guitar joins bodhran,
pennywhistle, and uillean pipes. CVB
bandmate and Counting Crows veteran
David Immerglück joins Lisher on many
songs, including the understated but
unsettled “The Exterminating Angel” and
the Middle Eastern flair of “Passage
Through Baghdad.” “Swamp Water
Stomp” is infused with celebratory twang
and a sprightly solo from violinist Michael
Starr. Immerglück’s fretless bass swoops
and glides through Lisher’s twilight textures
during “The Science of Sleep.” Lisher
approaches the baroque folk of
“Yesterday’s Flowers” alone, with an ele-
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