| Juno's Sound 'Massive and Enveloping'
Friday,July 13, 2001 Hard-to-Categorize Seattle Band Plays Clunk Music Hall Sunday By Amy Graves The Morning News/NWAonline.net | |||
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FAYETTEVILLE -- Juno is one of those bands that make a writer both love and hate this job. While the band is amazing, it is impossible to distill the sound into a pithy interest-provoking opening paragraph. So let's start with the facts: Seattle-based Juno will perform live in concert at 9 p.m. Sunday at Clunk Music Hall in Fayetteville.
This lack of an easy description is one of Juno's hallmarks, but lead singer Arlie Carstens was willing to try his hand at describing Juno's sound. Carstens, reached by telephone at his home in Seattle, replied simply, "massive and enveloping." That's an understatement. Juno is a band with three guitar players. And a bassist. And a drummer. Gabe Carter, Jason Guyer and the aforementioned Carstens share guitar duties; Nate Mendel and Nick Harmer share bass duties (Harmer will be playing bass for the Clunk show); and Greg Ferguson plays drums. All those guitars (plus the rhythm section) ensure the massiveness Carstens describes. Not only are the melodies massive and enveloping, so are the lyrics. This whole package is due to Juno being a collaborative effort of all the musicians involved. The idea, according to Carstens, is to create an experience during which a person could sit down and listen and really immerse himself. Nowhere is this more evident than on Juno's newest CD, its second full-length release, "A Future Lived In Past Tense" (DeSoto, 2001). The CD is 70 minutes long, something that is almost unheard of these days. Explained Carstens, "You couldn't make 'Apocalypse Now' in 40 minutes." Furthermore, according to Carstens, while 70 minutes may seem massive and ridiculous, each song complements the others. "Yeah, the length of it, that's the point. That's the beauty of it," Carstens said. "A Future Lived in Past Tense" sounds like a sad CD, and to some extent that's true, but Carstens was quick to point out that the songs are not sad just for the sheer sake of it. "The songs are informed by really real events," Carstens said. It is not all gloom and doom. Juno has a sense of humor that shines through "A Future Lived in Past Tense." For example, the song "Covered in Hair" starts with some crowd noise that Carstens recorded at the end of a Nina Simone song. Carstens then blended the crowd noise with a piano loop and ran the whole thing through an echoplex. Then he unplugged the echoplex which makes the whole thing come to a grinding halt. All this before the song even starts. Carstens compared the song to Juno itself. "As soon as this band gains some momentum, someone breaks his neck or dies," Carstens said, tongue planted firmly in cheek. While Juno has a sense of humor, the band's live shows are serious business. Carstens explained, "Our live show is not funny. Our live show sometimes involves bleeding or falling down or breaking things." Consider yourself warned. Carstens went on to explain that the band recently toured Europe, and not all of the European audiences were overly appreciative of Juno's stage presence. One concertgoer in Geneva, Switzerland, came up to Carstens after the show and said, "Maybe I do not appreciate your rock 'n' roll antics on stage." But Carstens is not one to be dissuaded. He said he unself-consciously does what he wants to do. Sometimes Juno's lack of an easy label works to its disadvantage. Carstens explained that although Juno combines some elements of punk rock, ambient, post rock, slow core, etc., it's never enough to make everyone happy. "We're not punk enough for the punk rockers, we're not slow or hardcore enough for the slowcore kids," Carstens said. But for those who consider themselves fans of progressive music, Juno has a lot to offer. Juno has never played Arkansas before (although Carstens said the band has driven through the state). This is significant; this is a band that has toured the United states 12 times in the past five years. Luckily, Juno is finally making it to our neck of the woods. Take advantage. Indie favorite Rainer Maria is the headliner for this show. Local fave Figure Five is opening the performance, and the cover is $6. The show starts at 9:30 p.m. For more information on Juno, check out the band's Web site at www.bosski.com/juno/. For more information on this show, call Clunk at 442-7213. Source: The Morning News/NWAonline.net, July 13, 2001 |
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