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Singer, band to perform at Musica to support new album
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
POSTED: 08:46 a.m. EDT, Oct 30, 2008
A few weeks ago, several of Akron's most successful rock exports returned for a big shindig/Akron music celebration that was pretty awesome overall.
This Friday, another successful pop/rock Akronite makes a triumphant return to his hometown to play Musica with his band the Lonely Astronauts. The last time Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts came through town it was to play a packed show at the former Lime Spider in 2006. Arthur and the band were still a relatively new entity finding their collective footing and promoting their debut, Let's Just Be, a purposefully loose and ramshackle affair with a distinct 1970s Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers on Main Street vibe.
This time out they'll be promoting their latest album, Temporary People, a more musically diverse album that finds the band — which includes guitarist/keyboardist Kraig Jarret Johnson (Golden Smog, the Jayhawks), bassist Sibyl Buck, guitarist Jennifer Turner (Natalie Merchant, Furslide) and drummer Greg Wieczorek — more focused on songwriting than simply evoking a classic rock sound or era.
''The first record I feel was a celebration of us coming together, a honeymoon in a way,'' Arthur said by phone from somewhere near Columbus. ''We were just finding ourselves and our sound and exploring all kinds of possibilities. . . . This record we wanted to make something that had more of a unified identity.
''Usually I make a record to react to the last one to some degree and usually a reaction against the last one on some level just to try a new approach, something different,'' he continued. ''We knew we wanted to make something more concise and more focused.'' The early '70s Stones vibe is still a part of the band's sound in songs such as the easy-rolling Faith and the fuzzed-up, bluesy Winter Blades, but there are also tunes that fall more in line with Arthur's solo discography, such as Sunrise Doll and Heart's a Soldier.
While recording the album in the Catskills, Arthur said a theme began to form that spoke to both him and the band members.
''It was kind of unintentional, but as we were making it I realized how the songs were working together on a lyrical level.''
The theme that formed was ''survival in the face of adversity through reaching into your spirit and finding strength there in and amongst the transitory and fickle nature of the world and life. . . . Finding something eternal within yourself and the realm of the spirit,'' he said.
That spirituality manifests itself on tunes such as Look Into the Sky, where the chorus finds Arthur pleading ''Look into the sky and ask for him.'' For Arthur, the ''him'' isn't simply the Christian concept ''Him.''
''To me it's one in the same. That [song] would be the most sort of Christiany one, but my interpretation of that is, it says 'look into the sky' but look into your own heart, too.''
But the album isn't just filled with uplifting odes to finding your inner strength. On Dead Savior Arthur adopts a Dylanesque whine and a Subterranean Homesick Blues-style delivery to rattle some fairly cynical lines such as ''We are born alone and weak, back to black, old and meek, our time here is so short, right to life or abort.''
''I think any true spirituality has to be tested and has to be laced with doubt,'' he said. ''I don't think it's particularly real for it to be all about belief and faith all the time or make faith be about overcoming doubt as well.''
Fitting with his hard-working Midwestern roots, the New York-based Arthur is a small music and art industry unto himself. Temporary People is his fifth release of 2008, which also includes four EPs of solo stuff all released on his independent label, Lonely Astronaut Records.
Additionally, Arthur, a painter and photographer (and poet, too), opened an art gallery in Brooklyn called the Museum of Modern Arthur or MOMAR (get it?) while also having shows of his work around the country and a recent show in Canada.
Arthur has yet to have an art show in his hometown, but says he'd welcome the opportunity if there was a place for him to show his work (big hint to the local art gallery community) and added that he has even contemplated coming back to Akron to open a gallery.
Coincidentally, the show at the Lime Spider also took place around Halloween and though the band didn't wear costumes, Arthur, 37, did don a homemade, artsy-fartsy coat emblazoned with the Forest Green and Yellow Gold of his alma mater Firestone High School.
This year, he says there has been talk in the van of the entire band dressing up as characters from The Wizard of Oz with the lanky and angular Arthur as the scarecrow.
After the Lonely Astronauts' U.S. tour, Arthur will be doing the solo thing again, opening up for singer/songwriter and fellow Ohioan Tracy Chapman's European tour, which has already sold out several dates. He also will have to figure out if MOMAR will remain open (he says they were suddenly evicted earlier this summer and then just as suddenly ''unevicted'') and begin work on the next Lonely Astronauts album, which is being written by the band on the road.
And, as always, Arthur is excited to come home to Akron, even if it's just for one night.
''I love Akron, it's a magical place for me because I grew up there, but I think it's kind of a magical place even if you didn't grow up there,'' he said. ''It's just a really unique place.
''I've been all over the world and it has a unique atmosphere,'' he continued. ''The park system is pretty amazing and Ohio is beautiful. It's just strikes me as interesting and hard for me to put into words, but again, it's funneled through nostalgic eyes so I could be reading magic into it.''
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
A few weeks ago, several of Akron's most successful rock exports returned for a big shindig/Akron music celebration that was pretty awesome overall.
This Friday, another successful pop/rock Akronite makes a triumphant return to his hometown to play Musica with his band the Lonely Astronauts. The last time Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts came through town it was to play a packed show at the former Lime Spider in 2006. Arthur and the band were still a relatively new entity finding their collective footing and promoting their debut, Let's Just Be, a purposefully loose and ramshackle affair with a distinct 1970s Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers on Main Street vibe.
This time out they'll be promoting their latest album, Temporary People, a more musically diverse album that finds the band — which includes guitarist/keyboardist Kraig Jarret Johnson (Golden Smog, the Jayhawks), bassist Sibyl Buck, guitarist Jennifer Turner (Natalie Merchant, Furslide) and drummer Greg Wieczorek — more focused on songwriting than simply evoking a classic rock sound or era.
''The first record I feel was a celebration of us coming together, a honeymoon in a way,'' Arthur said by phone from somewhere near Columbus. ''We were just finding ourselves and our sound and exploring all kinds of possibilities. . . . This record we wanted to make something that had more of a unified identity.
''Usually I make a record to react to the last one to some degree and usually a reaction against the last one on some level just to try a new approach, something different,'' he continued. ''We knew we wanted to make something more concise and more focused.'' The early '70s Stones vibe is still a part of the band's sound in songs such as the easy-rolling Faith and the fuzzed-up, bluesy Winter Blades, but there are also tunes that fall more in line with Arthur's solo discography, such as Sunrise Doll and Heart's a Soldier.
While recording the album in the Catskills, Arthur said a theme began to form that spoke to both him and the band members.
''It was kind of unintentional, but as we were making it I realized how the songs were working together on a lyrical level.''
The theme that formed was ''survival in the face of adversity through reaching into your spirit and finding strength there in and amongst the transitory and fickle nature of the world and life. . . . Finding something eternal within yourself and the realm of the spirit,'' he said.
That spirituality manifests itself on tunes such as Look Into the Sky, where the chorus finds Arthur pleading ''Look into the sky and ask for him.'' For Arthur, the ''him'' isn't simply the Christian concept ''Him.''
''To me it's one in the same. That [song] would be the most sort of Christiany one, but my interpretation of that is, it says 'look into the sky' but look into your own heart, too.''
But the album isn't just filled with uplifting odes to finding your inner strength. On Dead Savior Arthur adopts a Dylanesque whine and a Subterranean Homesick Blues-style delivery to rattle some fairly cynical lines such as ''We are born alone and weak, back to black, old and meek, our time here is so short, right to life or abort.''
''I think any true spirituality has to be tested and has to be laced with doubt,'' he said. ''I don't think it's particularly real for it to be all about belief and faith all the time or make faith be about overcoming doubt as well.''
Fitting with his hard-working Midwestern roots, the New York-based Arthur is a small music and art industry unto himself. Temporary People is his fifth release of 2008, which also includes four EPs of solo stuff all released on his independent label, Lonely Astronaut Records.
Additionally, Arthur, a painter and photographer (and poet, too), opened an art gallery in Brooklyn called the Museum of Modern Arthur or MOMAR (get it?) while also having shows of his work around the country and a recent show in Canada.
Arthur has yet to have an art show in his hometown, but says he'd welcome the opportunity if there was a place for him to show his work (big hint to the local art gallery community) and added that he has even contemplated coming back to Akron to open a gallery.
Coincidentally, the show at the Lime Spider also took place around Halloween and though the band didn't wear costumes, Arthur, 37, did don a homemade, artsy-fartsy coat emblazoned with the Forest Green and Yellow Gold of his alma mater Firestone High School.
This year, he says there has been talk in the van of the entire band dressing up as characters from The Wizard of Oz with the lanky and angular Arthur as the scarecrow.
After the Lonely Astronauts' U.S. tour, Arthur will be doing the solo thing again, opening up for singer/songwriter and fellow Ohioan Tracy Chapman's European tour, which has already sold out several dates. He also will have to figure out if MOMAR will remain open (he says they were suddenly evicted earlier this summer and then just as suddenly ''unevicted'') and begin work on the next Lonely Astronauts album, which is being written by the band on the road.
And, as always, Arthur is excited to come home to Akron, even if it's just for one night.
''I love Akron, it's a magical place for me because I grew up there, but I think it's kind of a magical place even if you didn't grow up there,'' he said. ''It's just a really unique place.
''I've been all over the world and it has a unique atmosphere,'' he continued. ''The park system is pretty amazing and Ohio is beautiful. It's just strikes me as interesting and hard for me to put into words, but again, it's funneled through nostalgic eyes so I could be reading magic into it.''
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
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