Larry
Yes with Hungry Mob,
Fernando, Corina Repp, Stephen Spyrit, Matthew Hattie Hein,
Tom Pancake, J. Hell
Berbati's Pan 231 SW Ankeny St., 248-4579
9 pm Saturday, April 10
$6
Ten years ago, Portland native Larry Yes had a pop-star future.
At the vulnerable age of 14, Yes sent a demo tape with his
potential hit "I Hate School" to a studio in Atlanta, Ga.
Yes went to Atlanta to record five of his originals--commercial-oriented
pop music that Yes now describes as "as least as bad as Hanson"--with
members of Sade's and Stevie Wonder's bands. Under the care
of Brendan O'Brien, who produced Pearl Jam a few years later,
Yes potentially had the opportunity to join Tiffany, Debbie
Gibson and the New Kids on the Block on the pages of Tiger
Beat and on MTV's Top 40 Countdown. Instead, upon returning
to Portland, Yes had a change of musical allegiance. Uncomfortable
with the commercialism of the Atlanta deal, he threw away
his chance to be a teen star and became a singer for the silly
three-chord punk band Stomp Chicken. "All at once I was introduced
to a new kind of music, and I knew that this was really me,"
Yes says.
Considering the struggles the young teen idols of the late
1980s have faced since their glory days on MTV, Larry Yes
made a good, albeit quieter choice. "I was really lucky,"
he admits. "That could have been very damaging to a person's
career." Now, with an impressive resume of bands behind
him, including Hungry Mob, Hitting Birth and Miss Red Flowers,
Yes is releasing his first full-length solo CD, All Numbers
Are Mystical. Featuring his dreamy, tortured love songs,
All Numbers Are Mystical possesses a polished professional
feel, unprecedented for Larry Yes. His prior recordings,
the edgy, experimental 1996 album Full on Toast and
last year's Acoustica (the title says it all), are
simpler, basement-style releases. Yes recorded All Numbers
Are Mystical in one week at Studio Apocalypse in Eugene.
Playing all of the instruments himself, including drums,
guitar, keyboards, organ and various noisemakers (glass,
bicycle bells), Yes added dimensions to his songs that he
was unable to capture live or on Acoustica, which
contains many of the same songs. "Acoustica was the
idea of the songs, and now they have become what they really
are in the studio," he says. "I felt like my body was a
conduit. The songs made themselves."
Yes considers himself a solo performer first and foremost.
At 19 he began playing one-man shows around Portland even
though he was still in other bands (at one point he belonged
to nine groups). Yes says he enjoys the camaraderie of working
with a band, but he prefers the control of solo work. "Others
can't hear what you want unless you have a magical connection,"
Yes says. "It's hard to find a band--it's like finding five
lovers and connecting with them all personally." Working
as a solo artist is different. "It's all your vision, and
if you fuck up, it's all your fuck up," he explains.
Yes's sound continues to have a pop sensibility, but he's
no Backstreet Boy. His musical education and experiences
have led to a maturity, synthesizing his punk-rock days
in Stomp Chicken with his later avant-garde and psychedelic
experimentation that culminated to create the freaky, dreamy
feel of All Numbers Are Mystical. The album is brimming
with love songs, from the complete abandonment of "Left
Me at the Altar" to his haunting rendition of the standard
"All of Me."
Yes' musical education in avant garde has paid off. He
has evolved and created a format all his own, a lyrical
genre of love and awe, synthesizing psychedelia with boyish
wonder. In Yes' own words, "The style is Larry Yes." But
every passion has a dark side, an area that Yes is not afraid
of exploring. "Music is like therapy for me," he says. "[All
Numbers Are Mystical] is a release for pain, so it is
a depressing album. There are happy elements, but it is
alone, confused and frustrated." The album does have upbeat
moments, such as the happiness of a young boy embarking
on adventure in "Blue Bike": "Beautiful, you're in a world
I'd like to see...Won't you ride your blue bike across the
Broadway Bridge at midnight/Won't you meet me in the middle
at midnight?"
Yes has a tendency to write about animals; he even sings
"meow" as lyrical filler, the way the Beatles used "yeah."
"Dogs and cats are spiritual. They have great positive energies,"
he says. Yes is awe-struck by his connection to animals
and by the mystical knowledge he claims they possess. "Maybe
we come from the same spaceship," he purrs in "Madison,"
an ode to his cat. That may sound hokey, but "Anna," about
communicating with a dog, and "Madison" are two of the more
emotional numbers on the album.
On the inside cover of All Numbers Are Mystical,
there's a picture of Yes as a toddler, all dressed up like
a tough. He holds a fake gun and wears a leather jacket
and sunglasses. It's cute but unnatural, bringing to mind
the poses of him that would have appeared in teen magazines
had he grabbed that gold ring--and it makes you glad he
didn't.
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 7,
1999
. |
