Elf Power Sorts Through the 70s Rock-Star Rubble
Rumor has it Elf Power got its name when leader Andrew Rieger looked down at the sidewalk one day while walking in the band's hometown of Athens and saw the name scrawled in the cement. The next day, the name was gone.
Okay, maybe that was the same week he shared a bottle of Thunderbird down at the crossroads with Robert Johnson and Liberace. Elf Power is a band prone to mixing influences as diverse as Tolkien, Marc Bolan, Neil Young, punk rock, the Beatles and Brian Eno. (Their cover of "Needles in the Camels Eyes" from 1997's When the Red King Comes hits the right balance between tribute and statement of purpose.) "Loverboy's Demise," from 1995's Vainly Clutching at Phantom Limbs (rereleased with 1996's The Winterhawk EP in June on one CD), is a laugh-out-loud eulogy from a Loverboy fan who goes to a concert in 1994 only to realize time has done a number on his 80s heroes ("Opening up for the REO Speedwagon/It just wasn't the same anymore"). The melody is a relentless dirge that would fit on the Velvet Underground's first album.
While the Elephant Six collective, of which Elf Power is a loose member, is no secret to hardcore pop fans, the throbbing teen masses remain blissfully unaware of their talents. This must drive their respective indie labels insane, but those even remotely following the Top 40 understand that any indie band reaching that odious level by some fluke is automatically reduced to nerdy Old Navy clotheshorses churning out the kind of calculated drivel that fits a little too snugly onto the soundtracks of whatever overrated teen flick is storming the theaters. I'd like to say that in an earlier, more quality-conscious time, Elf Power would have been superstars, but it's hard to be superstars with song titles like "Simon (The Bird with the Candy Bar Head)" and "Heroes and Insects."
The whole rock-star head trip has forfeited its strangely touching utopian vision and left the ugly marketing machine it always was remaining. In the aftermath, bands like Elf Power are rooting through the rubble. As with so many pop bands today, one gets the sense Rieger is an unapologetic fan of 70s bombast, but smart enough to know he's not cut out for that stuff, so he records with the band at home and captures the essence of a teenager jamming in front of the mirror. Something magnificently fucked up has happened to American pop bands throughout the 90s, at least the ones who are getting nowhere near the Top 40. They've learned how to take the past and twist it hard enough so that what comes out is original enough to stand on its own; their sounds are constantly shifting and often brilliant collages of disparate influences. This explains how Elf Power can do straight punk like "Temporary Arm" or a genuinely odd song like "Olde Tyme Waves" that lets us ponder what Herman's Hermits might have sounded like had they made a glitter rock album. And sometimes they'll cut through all the experimentation with a haunting midtempo ballad like "Jane" that would be a massive hit in a better world.
Much is made of Rieger's offbeat, occasionally sci-fi-leaning lyrics. When the Red King Comes feels like a disjointed homage to faded 70s Beatles clones Klaatu, whose concept albums more clearly explored spacey themes mixed with pop melodicism. Rieger somehow channels the spirit of an exceptionally bright, alienated kid who sniffed a little too much modeling glue after knocking off The Hobbit and took himself on a strange journey into the darkness beyond the strip mall on the interstate. I don't know what it's all about, much like I had no idea what Jon Anderson was yammering about on Tales from Topographic Oceans. I lived through enough Yes albums to know that whatever trippy unicorn-on-Mars shit they were inserting for lyrics was nowhere near as adventurous as the music.
God forbid, it's true, there is a Yes thing going on here, thematically if not musically. I thought I had buried them when I let a friend use Tormato for shotgun practice in 1979, but they've clearly left an indelible mark, whether it's Elf Power's cheery eclecticism or even Wayne Coyne, the lead singer of one of Rieger's favorite bands, Flaming Lips, sounding eerily similar to Anderson on last year's critically lauded The Soft Bulletin. Gratefully, Elf Power has yet to title their songs in outline format or namedrop the gods on Mt. Olympus before the 10-minute bass solo. Then again, I've yet to hear their new album, The Winter Is Coming?a title that would do the Alan Parsons Project proud.