| Mere arithmetic didn't concern the Magnificent Seven, who included 10 musicians at the Mercury Lounge on Monday night. The group is a package tour, performing a continuous 165-minute set in three guises: as Mark Eitzel's band, as Scott McCaughey's Minus Five (not necessarily a quintet) and as the instrumental band Tuatara, led by Barrett Martin and Justin Harwood. It was a chance for the musicians to step out of their roles in better-known bands. While the music business markets categories and niches, neither musicians nor listeners are likely to stay put. Mr. Martin usually plays drums in the grunge band Screaming Trees; Mr. Harwood, on bass, is in Luna; Steve Berlin, on saxophone, flute and keyboards, is in Los Lobos; Mike McCready, sitting in on lead guitar, is in Pearl Jam. The creative fulcrum of the collective is Peter Buck, R.E.M.'s guitarist, who collaborated on writing songs on new albums by Tuatara, the Minus Five and Mr. Eitzel. Mr. Buck, self-effacing onstage, appears to be a contented craftsman, dedicated to putting the right riff in the right place. He's equally at home with the morose afterthoughts of Mr. Eitzel, the sarcasm of Mr. McCaughey and the rock-ethnic-jazz hybrids of Tuatara. Subtly but adeptly, he shifted songs toward the timing and textures of 1960's rock. With Mr. Eitzel, whose songs tend to be sprawling ballads, he came up with choruses in major keys and ringing folk-rock guitar lines; the results can sound like Elvis Costello emulating Bob Dylan, though songs also alluded to Van Morrison's pop-jazz and Quicksilver Messenger Service's psychedelia. With Mr. McCaughey, whose own songs for the Young Fresh Fellows are frisky power pop, Mr. Buck evoked the Beatles, the Searchers and Buffalo Springfield. And with Tuatara, he brought the low twang of surf guitar. Mr. Eitzel, one of alternative rock's most dependable depressives, smiled and joked during his two mini-sets. ''This is an incredibly sentimental and pitifully sad song about a friend of mine, but then again, they all are,'' he said as he introduced ''The Thorn in My Side Is Gone.'' But the songs stayed serious. With his raw, husky baritone, he sounds gawky and sincere, maundering over loneliness and mortality, willing to embarrass himself with honesty. Like the pensive drunk he plays in many of his songs, he blurted out his misery just artfully enough to keep someone listening. Mr. McCaughey's poppy, nasal voice and wry patter disguised songs that were less facetious than he used to be with the Young Fresh Fellows. ''Cross Every Line,'' with a strenuous, ascending guitar solo by Mr. McCready, caught the Jefferson Airplane's amalgam of catchiness and mystery. Tuatara's pieces take a rocker's approach to instrumental music, with clear-cut sections and terse riffs and melodies. With Mr. Martin playing marimba (while Mike Stone played drums) with Skerik (from Critters Buggin) and Mr. Berlin on saxophones, Tuatara's pieces wandered from moody, jazz-tinged tunes to funk, with enough mild exotica to suit 1960's spy-show themes. The lineup also included a guest vocal by John Wesley Harding. The Magnificent Seven is to play tonight at Tramps, 51 West 21st Street, in Chelsea. Review by John Pareles for The New York Times May 23rd 1997 Return to homepage here |
| Mark Eitzel & The Magnificent Seven Mercury Lounge,NYC May 19th 1997 |