Though they hail from New Orleans, the Morning 40 Federation defies easy pigeonholing. The band's Web site bills its sound as “Jon Spencer Blues Explosion meets Tom Waits,” but one listen to its latest CD, “Ticonderoga,” will quickly demonstrate the limits of that description.

Chock full of skewed lyrics about drinking and other unseemly topics, the CD draws from all sorts of influences: rock, blues, electronica, and much more.

ADVERTISEMENT

Morning 40 is known for its raucous live shows, which we'll be able to see Saturday night at the Chapter House when the band shares a bill with Johnny Dowd (Johnny will open the 10 p.m.).

“We're very conscious that we don' want to fit in a certain genre,” says Cohen. “We also don't want to repeat ourselves—come up with a unique sound and repeat it ad nauseum. I think we take chances, for examples, with the falsetto singing, which may not appeal to everybody. We're definitely not the primo voice people. We do things wrong. We actually have a t-shirt that say ‘Wrong' on the front, and our band logo on the back.”

Indeed, the band embraces its wrongness. “Wrong is an interesting word,” says Cohen. “When it comes to music or art, wrong is what makes the music or art go into a different realm it's never been in. Without wrong there'd be no such thing as change. Wrong is unacceptable or undesirable according to social conventions. If you stay within conventions there's no evolution of art. Wrong also means not functioning or out of order. We kind of get drunk usually before our shows so we're kind of not functioning or are out of order in a way. Because the name of our band has to do with a 40 ounce bottle of malt liquor in the morning, which is wrong according to social conventions.”

The band hails from New Orleans Ninth Ward, which was greatly affected by Hurricane Katrina. Two months after the hurricane, the band played an emotional show on Halloween.

“A lot of people New Orleans diehards didn't want to miss Halloween, so it was really big event,” Cohen says. “People were excited to come back. We had this renewed sense of purpose of being New Orleanians, proud of being stubborn enough not to leave, and we felt representative of the city. Luckily, we put on a really good show. It ended feeling like we had a purpose to help people relieve stress and stop thinking about their situations for a few hours.”

The band is looking to sharing the show with Johnny Dowd. “We represent kind of a subculture of derelicts,” Cohen says. “Our subject matter is raw and wrong. That's what love about Johnny Dowd so much. He'll do a song about killing your girlfriend and trying to shoot yourself in the head, but missing and ending up a paraplegic in a hospital living with the guilt. He's such an honest musician. You have to be kind of deranged to love Johnny Dowd, so I think it's a really good match, and I'm excited to be sharing the stage with him.”

As for what to look forward at the show. “Expect some raucous drinking fun,” Cohen says. “If you love to dance, you'll have an opportunity. We're like a horn-driven rock band for the most part. Some of it's abrasive, like Iggy Pop and the Stooges with fuzz guitar, and some of its more melodic and jazzy. Expect a mixed bag, a variety of songs, no covers, and all originals. Visit www.Morning40.com for more information.

Balkan Beat Box comes to Castaways

The band's self-titled debut CD blends electronic and hiphop beats with melodies from the Middle East, North Africa and and the Balkans. But that's just a starting point for the band's stage show, according to percussionist Tamir Muskat.

“This is what we do, except it gets much wilder on stage,” he says. “We're playing this music, plus much more—since the album was written, we've managed to complete almost another album. Just take that music and put an acid pill on it, and you've got the live show.”

Founded by Muskat and Ori Kaplan, Israelis born to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Balkan Beat Box brings draws from a variety of influences, both old and new.

“We have to bring it some kind of twist to the baggage we've managed to collect over the 12 or 15 years we've lived in New York,” Muskat says. “The only way to do it was to revisit this music which we grew up on, and twist it to something new and fresh in our eyes.

“As far as instrumentation, we definitely use anything we feel like. We're not limited in a way that maybe a typical band would be with bass, guitar and drums; we basically use anything we want, and when it's time to bring it onstage. We use a lot of electronics on stage, as well, such as samples. We love the combination.”

The band writes its songs in the studio. “We write them almost like hiphop artists would write songs,” says Muskat. “We jump into the studio, start a beat that's interesting and has some kind of a movement, and the melodies will follow. Sometimes we'll stay in the studio and all our beats will start creating a harmony movement, and we build it piece by piece. In other cases, we'll get an interesting accapella track, like the Bulgarian Chicks; we got two vocal tracks from them, and built everything around it.

“Every song has its own story. It just really working with nothing that's a traditional way of recording in any way—it can really go upside down, from the vocal or the beat. Everything in the studio on the spot. We go for an interesting creative environment, and hopefully good stuff is coming out of it.”

The band is just back from performing in Israel. “Ori and I are based in New York City, but the rest of band is from Israel,” says Muskat. “We tour Europe more than we tour the U.S., and we visit the Middle East at least three times a year. We just played there, which was kind of a tough time. Everyone who was supposed to come to Israel in the last three months basically cancelled, like Depeche Mode and Blonde Redhead, because of insurance issues and fear of the current political situation. But we had just finished a European tour and decided to go play shows there. We played four shows, two of them was when the war was at its peak, and two when the cease fire took place.”

Muskat says Balkan Beat Box sees itself as a political band. “Not in the sense of taking any specific on the matter, but we definitely don't support Israel in its actions in this case, as we make it very clear,” he says. “We definitely don't support the government in this country acting like a vicious empire,and we make that very clear. Our main mission is to just use the power we have, which is music.”

“It's pretty obvious that we're doing much better than any ambassador from Europe. We're just going directly to the people, straight to their feelings and hearts and I think it usually leaves the biggest impact this way.”

Visit www.balkanbeatbox.com to learn more about the band.

Opening the Sunday show is Golem, another Eastern European-inspired band.

Advance tickets for the 9 p.m. show are $12 and available at Volume Records, Castaways and Ithaca Guitar Works. At the door, admission is $15. Visit www.castwaysithaca.com or call 272-1370 for more information.

More shows

Finally, don't forget about the annual Newfield Fiddle Festival as part of the Newfield Old Home Days celebration, held at The Newfield school grounds on Saturday. Performing (in order) starting at noon to 7:30 p.m. are: Kitchen Chair with Pamela Goddard; Max Buckholtz and Dara Anissi; Max and the String Snappers; Chad Crumm; Laurie Hart; Eric Aceto with Harry Aceto; Laura and Mark Orshaw; Anonyme (Laurie Hart, fiddle, Gordon Bonnet flutes, Julia Lapp, guitar, playing music from Britanny); Lydia Garrison and Steve Selin. For information, visit www.newfieldfiddlefestival.org.

Contact: jimcat@aol.com

Originally published September 14, 2006

Post a Comment This article does not have any comments associated with it

Print this article     Email this to a friend     Subscribe Now