A time for change

Buffalo Tom, Trynin, Hatfield air new wares

by Brett Milano

During two Central Square shows within the past two weeks, a pair of front-line Boston acts worked out new material under very different circumstances. A week ago Saturday, Buffalo Tom were headlining a sold-out show at the Middle East, sneaking a few songs from their long-overdue, as-yet unrecorded sixth album into a greatest-hits set. A few days earlier, next door at T.T. the Bear's Place, Jennifer Trynin and her band played under a fake name (which we'll keep secret, since they plan to use it again). In this case, the "secret gig" strategy worked so well that her band wound up playing their new material to about a dozen people.

Tom's and Trynin's next albums will likely be pivotal in those artists' careers and should be among the highlights of local pop in '97. They're part of an onslaught of forthcoming releases by the top-level Boston acts who weren't heard from in the past year. Juliana Hatfield is now wrapping up her fourth solo album, which was also previewed in a recent Middle East show. Tanya Donelly's solo debut will be out in early spring, as will the Dambuilders' third major-label album, reportedly the most straight-ahead rock set they've recorded. The Gigolo Aunts are set to break a four-year recording silence with an EP on Wicked Disc; an album will follow as soon as they settle on a label. And pop junkies are now salivating over the news that Helium, whose first album, The Dirt of Luck, topped the "Cellars" top 10 for '95, are now recording new material with ace producer Mitch Easter.

There will be a new Buffalo Tom album in 1997 as well, but a handful of details -- relating to line-up, label, and musical direction -- need to be smoothed out first. "We are literally at square one again," singer/guitarist Bill Janovitz told me backstage after the recent Middle East show. "We still owe one more album to Beggars Banquet, and we're figuring what to do about that. Should we just go into the studio and make the record we want, then see how the dust settles? The music industry now is as bad or worse than it's ever been. Radio's been taken over by Top-40 guys, and I don't know where a band like us fit in. We're still one of those bands that does well in certain spots, but we're not consistently big everywhere. Just the other night we played in Portland, Maine, for a couple hundred people. That can keep you humble."

The idea of a new musical direction may seem a little farfetched. Despite the variations between albums -- some are more acoustic than others, and last year's Sleepy Eyed was the roughest and least heavily produced -- onstage Buffalo Tom remain a basic guitar-rock band with obvious Who/Stones roots. That much was demonstrated at the Middle East when they segued "Sunflower Suit," a rarely-played song from their first album, into the brand-new "Scottish Windows." There was more songwriting finesse in the newer tune, but the musical context -- a mix of alt-rock sensitivity with hard-rock roots -- was consistent. The Middle East set was played to a surprisingly frat-heavy audience; but they applauded as loud for the despairing "Sunday Night" as for the good time blooze-rock encore of "Merry Christmas Baby." (Of the half-dozen new songs introduced last week, the other standout was "Rachel," a retelling of the Joan of Arc story by bassist Chris Colbourn).

"There is this comfortable-shoe aspect of the band," Janovitz admitted backstage. "People know what to expect from us, and we'd like to challenge ourselves a little more." It didn't help that Sleepy Eyed was a commercial disappointment, the first Buffalo Tom album not to sell as well as the one before it. They're now experimenting with extra players -- ex-Belly member Tom Gorman joined for a few gigs on guitar (including last month's one at T.T.'s) but has since gone solo -- and they still plan to add a keyboardist and find a new producer (drummer Tom Maginnis is the band's third original member).

"I want it to be someone that people wouldn't expect to be working with us," Janovitz said. "I want to write around keyboards, and one of our new demos has a couple of sample-based things on it. We've been getting a little too old and set in our ways."

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If you've seen Jennifer Trynin lately, you've probably noticed that a stronger melancholy strain has slipped into her songwriting. One reason for that is the high-pressure year she's had after her first album, Cockamamie, got its major-label release. True, a lot of bands would find her circumstances enviable: she was a hot enough prospect to bring Giant Records honcho Irving Azoff (who she turned down in favor of Warners) to T.T.'s one night. And she's had enough freedom to make the second album (with producer/keyboardist Mike Deneen, drummer Chris Foley, and guest bassist Ed Valauskas of the Gravel Pit) on her own terms. But at the moment, her success is no more assured than that of countless local bands with a low national profile following up a cult-level debut.

If the songs I've heard live are any indication, Trynin's next album -- with deeper melodic shadings and more adventurous arrangements, though still showing the pop savvy of her debut -- could be pretty special, big success or no. "Either I'm going to turn in this record and they'll say, `This sucks, you're dropped,' or they're really giving me the freedom they promised," she said last week. "It doesn't sound like the last one; maybe I OD'd a little on the alt-rock sound. One of my favorite songs, called `Writing Notes,' doesn't even have any guitar on it. There are some where we turned up a huge-sounding Marshall amp, but I played as soft as I possibly could. I guess I intended to make a rock record and do it real quick, but as the time approached, I got bored with that. Now it probably represents who I am more accurately."

Is the new album a make-or-break prospect? "Realistically, they all are; no matter what your contract says. Once you put out a record, you're out of control. My whole being kind of short-circuited last time because it was too much newness for me. I felt that everybody's insecurities and hopes were being blown against me. I went from being left alone and living my own little life that I'd worked for years to set up. Touring is a lot of it, and I did not enjoy it last time. I've gotten drunk for six months in a row before, I've flirted with different people every night. I've done all those things; now I want to just be creative."

The irony is that when Trynin performed at T.T.'s recently, for an audience that was likely as tiny as any she's had in her career, she was enjoying herself as much as I've ever seen her -- certainly more so than when the same club was packed to capacity upon Cockamamie's release.

"That's right, and it's the same sort of thing I did before I got signed; I'd play, drink my beer and go home. I never did the whole being-popular thing, and ultimately, none of that shit matters. I just try to stay focused on the music now. Even if everyone doesn't appreciate the new record, I love it and it's important to me."

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Juliana Hatfield's recent Middle East set -- her first local show in more than a year -- was only partly a surprise. Though she's wrapping up the new album and breaking in a reshuffled band (with bassist Mike Welsh, recently exited from Jocobono, as well as returning drummer Todd Phillips), she mixed only about a half-dozen new songs in between familiar material from the last two albums. But it was one of the new songs, "What Have I Done to You," that seemed to blow everyone away -- a melodic slow-burner that reached the unforced emotional resonance Hatfield's always aimed for. Frankly, much of the new material was so good that the older tunes such as "I Got No Idols" and "Spin the Bottle" seemed pretty slight by comparison. But there were compensations for that, too. "My Sister" got a radical rearrangement that stuck a proudly excessive heavy-metal bass riff into every chorus. (This made it a tad less surprising to find Welsh, a confirmed hard-rocker with little taste for pop, in this band.) Alterna-rock nowadays is more than ever about quick-shot success, but the case of Hatfield (whose next album is her seventh, counting the ones with Blake Babies) says a lot in favor of letting artists develop over the long haul.

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COMING UP

The Darlings, who were profiled here last week, do their last gig for a while at Johnny D's tonight (Thursday), and the hardworking Hank hit T.T. the Bear's Place; Verago-Go and Eight Ball Shifter are at Bill's Bar. . . . Introducing their new mellow direction -- only kidding -- the eternal Fleshtones hit T.T.'s tomorrow (Friday), the Syphilloids and Kenne Highland trash it up at Mama Kin, and rockabilly ace Sleepy LaBeef is at Johnny D's. And the Strangemen have a disc-release party, with Mick Mondo and other fun types, at the Middle East. And the legendary LaVern Baker, a big hit at the Newport R&B festival last year, begins two nights at Scullers. . . . A pair of terrific singer/guitarist/writers, Kevin Salem and Ramona Silver, play T.T.'s on Saturday. Meanwhile, Scatterfield headline the Middle East, Happy Bunny are at Mama Kin, and Beez Wax are at the Rat. . . . Not to be missed is the Jen Trynin/Merrie Amsterburg double bill at Charlie's Tap on Monday. Or else check out Todd Thibaud's Monday-night January residency at Bill's, beginning this week with ex-Raindog Mark Cutler. . . . The rockers formerly known as Ape Hangers, 3XL, play Axis with the Shods on Wednesday.