ERHMAN HALL
The State of Iowa

On Erhman Hall’s second CD, The State of Iowa, the former CSU Monterey Bay student and Marina resident proves that he is more than just a charismatic frontman for local rock band The Nancy Boys. Recorded on a digital eight-track recorder in a Marina garage over the course of five months, The State of Iowa also provides ample evidence that Hall is an extremely talented arranger and songwriter.

Over the course of the album’s 47 minutes, Hall sings and plays guitar, bass, organ and ukulele over drumbeats culled from a 1973 Hammond Organ. The album opens with the acoustic “Song About Nothing,” a tune that reveals Hall’s love of Frank Black’s early solo work. The rest of the album varies considerably in everything but quality. Though songs like “Being a Male, I’m So Sick Of” and “Underoos”—which is a minute long Ween-worthy blast of weirdness—are impressively unconventional, other acoustic numbers like “God’s Conformist” and “Foreskin” show that Hall is equally at home writing catchy, straightforward tunes. One track, “Raining in Frisco,” even plunders classic rock with a hearty riff and super earnest lyrics like “life is waiting for some big explosion of love.”

Basically, The State of Iowa shows that this Nancy Boy is going somewhere.

The State of Iowa can be purchased at Vinyl Revolution and Hall’s Wednesday night shows at the Lava Lounge. (ST)

IGGY POP
Live in San Fran, 1981 | Target Video

Promoting a so-so disc (Party) with a so-so band (Bowie and Blondie alums), the saving grace of this DVD is the Igster himself. In fine voice and with clean production behind him, he’s as animated as one can be belting out tunes from the nadir of his recording career.

Folks do seem to forget that the Pop-meister first appeared during the heady days of hippiedom and lasted into New Wave, unlike nearly every ‘60s refugee. This makes this gig in SF, the city that gave hippie its notoriety, hilarious—visible in the crowd of leathers and fishnets are long hairs from the Stooges first days.

This is a cool document without much camera jiggle and other such eyesores. The musical highpoint is the droning “Pumping For Jill,” which hasn’t been in an Iggy set in eons. This is for collectors that didn’t get this back in the day. Everyone else, stick to his first six discs. (JA)

THE BOOKS
Lost and Safe | Tomlab

No longer just a garage band, duo Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong (The Books) have moved up to the comforts of a heated Victorian. Mixing acoustic stringed instruments (cello, guitar, mandolin, banjo) with various lost-and-found noisemaking items (a filing cabinet, specially-tuned plastic drain pipe, a salvaged clavinet), The Books manage to create a faux-electronic palate making good use of recorded loops and sonic collages.  

The overall result is a soothing patchwork of humming noise. As with any experimental sound, there are distracting moments of incredibly harsh dins; unsurprisingly, for example, when the filing cabinet comes into play on “An Animated Description of Mr. Maps” (which sounds exactly like your annoying neighbor making a racket). And yet at other moments of the noise spectrum, the zen-like atmosphere trickles nearly into oblivion (“Twelve Fold Chain”), making you wonder if you’re actually listening to anything.

Certainly, there are brilliant examples of composition throughout the entire album (the lovely guitar line of “Smells Like Content,” the overlapping banjo melodies in “It Never Changes to Stop”), and in the age of DIY aesthetics, The Books are proof that you can make music out of anything. (BS)