Home, Alone
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“I’d always rather record myself, and if that means spending a ton to get studio equipment and learning how to use it, then I’d rather do that,” says Smith, sitting beneath a big Beatles poster and in front of a fortress of computers and mixing boards while his mom fixes lunch in the kitchen. “I can’t write a song and then record it, I always do it all as I go along. Doing it yourself is so much easier than telling some incompetent bass player what to do anyway.”
Ponyoak’s 25 fully formed pop gems infect the sounds of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Guided by Voices with an impatient teenage angst: Smith was still only 18 when he recorded the album in his freshman dorm room at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he’s majoring in English. As a singer, he doesn’t have much of a range, and sometimes his voice protests the places he’s trying to take it with pubescent squeaks. His recording job includes plenty of in-the-red rough patches, and there are still traces of the juvenile humor of his earlier releases–mostly song titles like “Ark of Godiva” (a pun on Steve Winwood’s Arc of a Diver) and “Graham Smith Is the Strongest Man Alive” (a thematic follow-up to his second album, Graham Smith Is the Coolest Person Alive). But he’s got a natural gift for pop songwriting, and his tunes quickly get stuck in your head–there isn’t a throwaway in the bunch.
Last month producer and Chicago house music pioneer Ralphi Rosario released his first album, 45 Miles of Nerves (Afterhours), an expansive mix of diva-stoked four-on-the-floor thumpers peppered with ethereal drum ‘n’ bass, discoized opera, salsa, and some stray jazz fusion. Fresh off an English tour, he’ll spin at Karma on Saturday night.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Marty Perez.
