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ROMAN
CANDLE: Plenty of bands that cut their teeth playing beer-slogging
toga parties in college never advance very far beyond the feel-good
party vibe.
Roman Candle is not one of those bands mired in post-adolescent
oblivion. The Chapel Hill quintet—which began at University
of North Carolina and built around the familial partnership
of Skip Matheny, his wife Timshel and younger brother Logan—delivers
crisp, intuitive roots-rock, built on keen observation and solid
pop craftsmanship.
The band has already weathered a significant false start (the
first incarnation of their debut never saw the light of day
at Hollywood Records), but a newly revamped version, renamed
The Wee Hours Revue, has finally appeared after a four-year
wait.
The twelve-song set is a (belated) triumph, with Skip’s
jaunty, pinched, sharp-edged vocals, Logan’s DJ Shadow-influenced
approach to the drum kit and the band’s vintage-tinged
jangly guitars and Rhodes undertones.
This show concludes the band’s biweekly residency with
Thad Cockrell. The Basement —JEWLY HIGHT
THE SPIN: ROMAN CANDLE
Sound Advice June
8, 2006
Last Wednesday at The Basement, Skip Matheny of Roman Candle,
a loud, bright
rock quintet from Chapel Hill, N.C., told an anecdote about
a recent visit with his friend
Thad Cockrell, who had just finished an exquisite set of mournful,
rollicking country.
Cockrell had been checking his email when Matheny decided to
put on Neil Young’s
Comes a Time. Thad turned to him, visibly shaken, and said he
needed at least a
week’s warning before hearing those songs—he had
fallen in love to that record.
The incident inspired Matheny to write a song called “Why
Modern
Radio Is A-OK With Me,” and its refreshingly clever conceit
made us smile:
“Don’t play Neil Young / Don’t play Van Morrison
/ just let some high school emo
band start versing and chorusing / because there’s no
way it’ll break my heart as far
as I can see / and that’s why modern radio is A-OK with
me.”
(A demo of the song is available for download at myspace.com/romancandle.)
It also wasn’t hard to imagine Cockrell being so slammed
by an album: with his intense, unpretentious performance, his
wistful tunes and, most of all, his breathtaking vocal
delivery, it becomes clear that this is a man who believes in
the devastating power of music—and he made us believe
too.
Cockrell and Roman Candle will be playing every two weeks at
The Basement
through mid-July.
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