Published on Jan 18, 1999
Any time I review something by an independent band, I always try
to turn my sarcasm knob down as low as it will go and attempt to
find at least one redeeming factor in what I listen to. This isn’t
to say that I expect these albums to be bad, it’s just that I try
to be less critical of the fruits of their labors than I would be
of a signed band.
However, in the case of Chicago’s Dead Nuggets Dish, the only
positive thing I can say about their 1997 album
Lotushead is this: It’s short. Even so, this attempt to
merge the funkiness of the Red Hot Chili Peppers with a slightly
progressive/alternative rock beat fails, making this disc a
challenge to get through.
The hardest thing to cut through on this album was the
hiccup-funk vocals by Kite Mosam, a combination that works about as
well as Seagram’s and Dr. Pepper. (Trust me, I tried it once; it
was like drinking motor oil.) Mosam should hopefully realize by now
that his Anthony Kiedis-meets-Elvis schtick just doesn’t work, and
when the music does hold out signs of promise, the vocals really
bring the ship down. For God’s sake, sing straight, not in a
freaking funk hiccup! Even when Kiedis does it too much, it bugs
me.
Even there, the music’s not perfect. At times, guitarist Rob
Caya, bassist Troy Gourley and drummer Dave Baboorian seem to have
an interesting hook crafted (“Drive-Bys Of The Day,” “Degas (Little
Ballerinas)”), but they then go into the reaches of psychedelic
weirdness that even Roky Erickson would have said was too much.
“Proportionally Distorted (Preaches)” is the musical equivalent to
a bad drug trip; once you’ve experienced it, you never want to go
through that nightmare again.
Another problem with
Lotushead is that the lyrics try to err on the side of Jim
Morrison – that is, be artistic without making one lick of sense.
Check out the title track for a sample: “Damn Ulysses, your [sic]
lost again / Don’t think your [sic] gonna hang out here / Mooching
off my friends.” Likewise, “Lottery Town” reads like a bad poem.
However, other tracks like “Who Hired The Clown?” (a tale about
executed mass-murderer John Wayne Gacy) make sense once you read
the lyric sheet. Too bad that Mosam’s vocals make most of the album
a feat like translating the Rosetta Stone.
Dead Nuggets Dish shows some faint sparks of breaking out of the
locals circuit, but as
Lotushead is evidence of, they need to do a lot of work on
their songwriting and diction – and they may do well to lay off the
cosmic influences as well. After all, not all of us have read
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”.