February 2003 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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February 2003 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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Louisville’s Second Story Man offer debut album 10 February 2003
Intertwining the delicate prettiness of The Softies, the dark & tricky architectures of Rainer Maria, the angst of Built To Spill, and the lush mystery of Pale Saints, Louisville, Kentucky’s Second Story Man have been evolving their heavily vocal, multi-layered sound since coming together as a trio back in 1998. They were born from the ashes of duPont Manual high-school band Itch House, which disintegrated that year. Evan Bailey (drums & vocals), Jeremy Irvin (guitar & vocals; also in Gung Ho Nut Sack and head of Landmark Recordings), and Carrie Neumayer (guitar & vocals) are all singers and songwriters, and all veterans of the Louisville music underground. Together as Second Story Man—their name taken from a 1909 play by Upton Sinclair—they put out a split single back in 1999 and a four song EP in 2000. The EP featured new member, singer/ songwriter/ bass player Kelly Scullin, who’d previously played with Neumayer and Bailey in Itch House. The next year the two women in the band applied for and won a $3,000 artistic grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to record an album... which they did last summer at Nonlinear Studios in Louisville. The twelve songs on Pins And Needles (plus unlisted bonus, the title track) meander and swerve languidly across shifting time signatures. It’s pure indie pop, but the four musicians interact more like jazz players than rockers, trading colors, images, and rhythms as they paint their songscapes. Like Fiver or Woodbine, there’s a distinct soporific undercurrent running through these tracks, and yet SSM continually surprise both tonally and melodically. Standout track Talk As Though, written by Scullin, originally appeared as an Internet-only MP3 release by her (see our link, below). The Pins And Needles version begins with a heavy, minor-chord, Neil Young lilt, followed by lovely harmonies and a wonderfully fragile and increasingly dynamic arrangement that frames this love-gone-wrong picture with an innocent poignancy. Had we auditioned Pins And Needles in time for our top 20 of 2002, it would have been a strong contender. As it is, (it came out late enough last year) it’s on our list for 2003. Second Story Man play with Ethan Buckler’s Louisville/Chicago band King Kong on 21 February at the Main Street Lounge in Louisville. You may still be able to get non-album SSM track Babies Come From Birds on the limited edition (500 copies) compilation Louisville Is For Lovers 2002, available from Double Malt Music. You can get Pins And Needles directly from the band’s Website. | Second Story Man | | SSM MP3s from IUMA | | Kelly Scullin solo MP3s from IUMA | | Itch House | | Kentucky Foundation for Women | | Second-Story Man (the play) | | top of page | |
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