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Travel's first live CD has raw energy
Friday, February 22, 2008
Travel has always been more of an experiment than an actual band. Over the course of 10 years and five albums, the studio project has carved out a unique niche.
The quartet, composed of Cincinnatians Matt Hart (vocals, guitar) and Eric Appleby (bass), Chicago-based Dayton native Darren Callahan (guitar) and Daytonian Kelly Morelock (drums), normally creates noise-drenched art-rock with a literary bent using improvisation and an organic, cut-and-paste method. So, when Eric Cassidy of Shrug invited Travel to play its first live show in December 2006, it was a challenge to figure out how to reproduce the songs live. However, it was a challenge the group was up for, even if the musicians had no idea how it would turn out.
Extras
"Because Travel tends to be all improv than messed with, it really is a miracle any of these songs sound at all like the records," Callahan said. "God bless rock."
The set at Canal Street Tavern, still the group's only live show, is now available on CD as "Travel Comes @live" (Starfish Records), a surprisingly cohesive set of noise-rock. According to Callahan, however, releasing the performance as a live album was an afterthought.
"Bryan Lakatos of Shrug recorded the whole set," Callahan said. "To my surprise, when I got them home to my own studio, they were actually kinda magic. And by 'magic,' I don't me, per se, good. There's nothing technically 'good' about the show. We had way too little rehearsal and way too much of a noise ethic to consider this to be a polished performance.
"What it does have though, in spades, is some sort of raw battle mode," he continued. "It's like every song is trying to punch a hole through a wall. It is complete and true rock and roll which, as Pete Townshend famously declared, is not actually supposed to be any damn good."
Callahan's pronouncements aside, "Travel Comes @live" is a good live album, filled with a primal energy only hinted at in studio albums such as "A Sleep + A Wake" and "This Is Our ~Music." Fuzz-driven numbers such as "Only a Transmitter" and "Reddest Lips" draw from the same sonic well as early Pavement, but Travel manages to put its own unique spin on the genre.
ROCK INSIDER, by contributing writer Don Thrasher, appears weekly and gives a behind-the-scenes view of the Dayton music scene. Contact Thrasher by e-mail at donaldthrasher8@aol.com.
