John Vanderslice
Cellar Door (Barsuk) No one will ever accuse John Vanderslice of being up with people. The prolific San Franciscan goes on a Nick Cave kick with his fourth solo full-length, Cellar Door. While these aren’t tales of junkie waste and spiritual decay, they’re just as dark. The rogues’ gallery of miscreants and misanthropes dart among simple instrumentation (synth, guitar, drums) as Vanderslice channels their tales. “Up Above the Sea” is a disturbing narrative of murdering a bluebird. “I bought a rifle with a Bushnell scope,” says the narrator before the showdown. “His body exploded and feathers fell all over my lawn,” sings Vanderslice nonchalantly while the music clangs brassy, disturbing. It doesn’t get any cheerier from there. “They Won’t Let Me Run” is the tale of a man who can’t escape his family’s oppressive rule, while “My Family Tree” flirts with a bit of postmodern identity anxiety with the first-person account of a father’s accident, a sister’s violent husband, and a mother’s “gunshot eyes.” “My family tree is me,” he laments. Who can’t relate? It’s only on “Lunar Landscapes” that the central conflict of Cellar Door is revealed. Vanderslice longs to rescue a beaten horse and imagines taking flight above the sky, dreaming of freedom from a life that feels like a too-small stable. There’s the needle and the damage done: Emotional devastation on an epic level simply told. Haunting. (Friday, March 19, 11pm @ the Parish)
This article appears in March 19 • 2004.