LONE VEIN
"New York Blues” Review
New York, it seems, is dying. Not economically, certainly; nor in terms of what may be called “high culture”, but for those of us who fondly remember the late eighties of downtown NYC and the artistic daring which proliferated, both in terms of performance art, theatre and music, it does seem that many of those things which made New York unique are disappearing. $80-a-person restaurants have sprung up as far east as Avenue C, and are spreading; Loisada, south of Houston Street, has become unrecognizable, with clubs where performance-art/music spaces once were; and I, for one, even preferred sleazy old Hell’s Kitchen to the gaudy monstrosities of the new Times Square. Even the reassuring twin towers are no longer visible to let us know where the hell we are.
In this period of uncertainty we can only welcome the arrival of Lone Vein’s “New York Blues”, which serves both as a paean to that which is lost, a celebration of that which remains, and is most of all the thrilling introduction of a great new band.
The band’s songwriters and primary members are 'Evil Eddy' – guitarist and main instrumentalist – and ‘Plain Jane’ – lyricist/vocalist. Her lyrics combine a southern Gothic with a dark urban sensibility, and her vocal styles display an extreme versatility and range. And Brooklyn-born 'Evil Eddy' seems to be able to do almost anything with his guitar: providing the rhythm which drives a song, embellishing atmospheric touches which create mood – and is still able to tear into a searing, thundering solo when required.
Though the theme of the opening song, “Stage My Own Death”, is overtly morbid, it has a bouncy beat which manages somehow to appear both jolly and sarcastic – a duality reminiscent of the Violent Femmes, both in the gothic humor of “Hallowed Ground” and in the self-pity of their first, eponymous album. With a voice deliberately girlish at times, Plain Jane has her narrator cheerfully imagine her own funeral: since her ‘stack of bills is so high’ and her ‘love is just a lie’; she playfully asks her lover ‘will you think of me often / will you kiss me in the coffin? / … I’ll wear a cape, and my ex- will read some Yeats. /’ However, just when you’re convinced that the girl’s despair really is a pose, the ferocity of the song’s climax, as Plain Jane, in increasing triumph and ecstasy, repeats ‘I’m dead…and loving it!’, leaves you with a lingering sense of unease.
The album’s title track is the one most directly concerned with New York City itself, using the city as both subject and setting, in a tone that is both elegiac and profoundly celebratory. The verses have a jazzy, poetic tone, with lyrics closer to spoken than sung, in powerful contrast with the rock-like chorus, powered by Eddy's surging guitar. Perhaps the central image is of New York as Oz - a Mecca for the displaced, the needy, or the simply adventurous: ‘and we all came / from rooftop to parking lot / skipping through poppies / From Park Avenue to Loisada / …you’re home / No longer alone “. And considering the delicacy with which any reference to 9/11 still must be handled, I believe, by any NY artist, the song’s third verse manages it well: ‘Who did you call / who did you see / when the ash was flying, sticking to the trees? / It’s still your home”. The song’s final message is one of faith, struggle and survival: referencing ‘Oz’ again, Plain Jane ends with, “You’re out of the woods, you’re out of the dark…”. The third track – “Withering Frights”, in a nod to Bronte’s doomed, defiant lovers – continues and deepens this theme, with its portrait of New Yorkers as damaged survivors: ‘It’s not enough to have loved / You must have…LOST / And all the windows of NY / Are full of broken hearts ‘. Musically this is one of the album’s most interesting – and difficult to categorize – of songs: the lush detail of the production, especially evident in the choruses, is worth particular mention. The layered, interwoven vocals and guitar effects are reminiscent of the mid-period Patti Smith of “Easter” and “Wave”, of whom one is also reminded of when Plain Jane declares, ‘I’m not just another / angry bitch / I’m an endangered white witch.’
“Syd’s Song “ is the album’s most straight-out rock song, complete with a blistering guitar solo from Eddy. The song refers – and is dedicated – to Pink Floyd’s legendary original front man Syd Barrett, who was dropped by the group during sessions for their second album, perhaps stretches of time. “We didn’t even tell him he was out,” Dave Gilmour later admitted, “we just didn’t bother to pick him up one morning.” Lone Vein turns this rather pathetic detail into the song’s striking and disturbing opening image: ‘Today the van didn’t pick up the man / Today the van never came’ Plain Jane sings, voice draped in menace. This van, passing in silence by the wounded, stricken artist, becomes the song’s central image of indifferent malice: ‘It was a truckload of evil’. Barrett (who went on to record a solo album, “The Madcap Laughs”, which has developed a considerable cult audience) is elegized here in a heroic light, an archetype outsider: ‘He’s my pinup boy!’ Plain Jane intones in defiance; and later, perhaps in a warning to those not yet left behind to take nothing for granted: ‘If you see a hearse go by / You may be the next to die.’
“Asthmatic Romance”, a sardonic love song that manages somehow to be both tongue-in-cheek and utterly sincere, may be my favorite track. Love songs never seem to acknowledge the sometimes laborious - or at the very least, inconvenient – contingencies of corporeality, as if passion could actually bring about that transcendence of the body it always seems to promise; and this song’s depiction of lovers whose tenderness towards each other takes into account that neither may be completely healthy, is both funny and touching. ‘Baby I hear you wheezing / I got my hand right here on your heart ‘ the narrator sings, ‘…and it’s time for your inhaler’. Meanwhile, the music, with its bumps and stops, its changes of rhythm which only seem to fuel the piece’s relentless forward motion, subliminally give the lie to all impediments to love, and serve as a celebration of the human ability to overcome – indeed, to exult. This is never better expressed than in a joyous scat which Plain Jane delivers to the accompaniment of Evil Eddy's seemingly effortless rhythms and the virtuosity of Robert Aaron’s guest appearance on saxophone.
Morgan Lattis - Beat of the Street (Aug 18, 2005)
LONE VEIN
"Artist Spotlight"
You may have never heard of vocalist Plain Jane or guitarist Evil Eddy, better known as Lone Vein, but like a handful of other New York musicians, they are longtime players in the ever-changing NYC live music scene.
The duo specializes in their own brand of “tombstone blues” and “gloom pop” with a haunting repertoire of epic story telling and cityscape tales set to an edgy grooving rock n roll soundtrack that mixes roots music with hard rock attitude and garage abandon.
Influenced by the events that proceeded 9/11 Lone Vein’s debut CD “New York Blues” is loaded with hard-hitting emotion and intensity that reflects a great city in distress. Selling consistently on CD Baby without a multi-million dollar ad campaign, I'm told their cover of Elton John’s Rocket Man has been downloaded all over the world. Forged by the years and many musical experiences shared by the two, the music is inventive and full of urgency almost bursting at the seams.
Speaking to them, they seem to have come around full circle in understanding and accepting why they entered the unruly waters of music-making in the first place. Eddy uses an analogy from the song “Walkin the Boogie” by John Lee Hooker, in which the narrator exclaims “let that boy boogie-woogie, it’s in him … and it sure got to come out.”
They are one of the many stories in the naked city having managed to stay on course through heartaches and tough breaks. They continue to keep their vision in tact amidst an ever-growing artist-unfriendly, trend-of-the-moment-driven club environment.
Like “White-Lightning” bootleggers churning away in the hills of Jane’s native North Carolina, they continue to peddle the “hard stuff” to satisfy a demand; a demand that will always be there whether hidden under the radar or splattered across tomorrow’s trend setting rags. It doesn’t really matter to them because they have managed to stay in business with a product that is both unique and quenching. They simply do what they have to do to keep it coming.
So, if you want to experience a musical delight slow-cooked and aged to perfection in concrete barrels, cured in dank lower east side cellars and at the precise moment served up in every downtown dive that has come and gone in the past 10+ years…get turned on…to Lone Vein.
Gene Dunne - FOIL (May 26, 2004)