Like a Hurricane

SXSW live shot

BY JIM CALIGIURI

Glass Eye

Copa, Saturday, March 18

The reappearance of Austin's Glass Eye after 16 years was, for those that remember when, an event. The audience was an international mix of old friends, who seemed to have weathered that time by shedding some hair. Vocalist/guitarist Kathy McCarty introduced the showcase with the promise of "a set list of hits," which led vocalist/bassist Brian Beattie to translate that as "which ones we remember and which ones can we learn." This was no nostalgia trip however. It was big smiles all around, especially from keyboard player Stella Weir and the sound of a band playing angular, yet melodic post-punk that seemed remarkably fresh. They included a couple tunes from their new disc, Every Woman's Fantasy (RexyRex); Beattie sang the intensely rockin' "Cicada Buzz;" and Weir took the spotlight for the dissonant "Poison Water." The inclusion of darkly memorable "Christine," the somber drone of "Dempsey Nash," and the gleeful closing medley of "Living With Reptiles" and Paul Simon's "Cecilia" left the band, and the assembled faithful, breathless and feeling noticeably youthful at the close of another SXSW.

Found this Eye-talian review on Piero Scaruffi's "History of Rock Music -
The Eighties" website
http://www.scaruffi.com/vol4/glasseye.html

and then compiled this hilarious translation via Systran.com and
freetranslation.com! (you gotta at least read the first paragraph)

One of the most audacious experiments of the Texan rock of years '80 was
that one of the Glass Eye, group of Austin begun in 1985 with the
autoproduced EP Marlo, a collection of arduous elettro-jazz songs with the
bottom of Brian Beattie in beautiful sight, the crooked rhythms of Scott
Marcus to impose impossible times, and the timbriche "acids" of the
keyboardist Stella Weir to disfigure those little of melodies sung by Kathy
McCarty. Beattie is responsible for the harmonies "fusion" and the difficult
rhythms that graft jazz and avant-guard onto the ancient POP.

The first album, Huge (Wrestler), of 1986 widely maintained to those
promises, while the successive Bent By Nature (Bar/None) of 1988, with Dave
Cameron on drums and Sheri Wools to the keyboards, try one less extreme
synthesis. The idea is however always that of one to make some rock a little
bit askew, with the instrumental parts hiccuping, the irregular times, the
song more jazz than folk, and a worthy composure of a chamber quartet (but
Kicking The Dog stamps funky). Beattie raves with I take from saloon in
Comeback, inserting the royal guitar of the southern school in more "open"
harmonic outlines, from free improvisation, until to lick the first Soft
Machine in Living With Reptiles. Of other songs the ballads of McCarty (like
Whiskey and Oblivion) make one think of Joni Mitchell of average age or of
Grace Slick of the Jefferson Starship (Christine). It is a sound perhaps too
much cerebral, more from new wave than from college-POP.

The experimental quality of their sound comes together in manner more
imaginative and less conceptual on Hello Young Lovers of 1989, since, with
the original formation again together, boasts in fact their better pieces
built, more ear-angering and more dragging. Without to renounce their
harmonic acrobatics, and to an omnipresent base of swing, the Glass Eye
succeed to chisel pieces, dragging to the inside of which coexist,
alternate, and integrate rhythmic lines of blues, country, jazz and funk,
continuously stirred and fragmented. Their variations on the bluegrass
(Hoedown), the honky-tonk (Land Of People), the fanfare funk (Nothing
Please), the southern boogie (Charhead), the bluesrock (White Walls) and the
jazzrock (Penguin) become refined masterpieces of post- modernist
arrangement: water down the codes of those son-in-laws in a tangle of
misleading codes. McCarty of the song it surpasses Joni Mitchell, it
proposes itself a more warm and free-range garment, exchanging the
affectation singing for a more immediate communication simply without
renouncing a seat between still a lot of jazzato (God Take All, Get Lost);
but its noble contralto acquires male vigor in Break The Black Line and
Endless Day, reaching the apex of supporting singing and fineness of
accompaniment in The Crooked Place (and the apex of the Disc).


ORIGINAL TEXT:
Uno degli esperimenti piu` audaci del rock texano degli anni '80 fu quello
dei Glass Eye, gruppo di Austin esordito nel 1985 con l'EP autoprodotto
Marlo, una raccolta di ardue ballate elettro-jazz con il basso di Brian
Beattie in bella vista, i ritmi sghembi di Scott Marcus ad imporre tempi
impossibili e le timbriche "acide" della tastierista Stella Weir a deturpare
quel poco di melodia cantata da Kathy McCarty. Beattie e` responsabile delle
armonie "fusion" e dei ritmi spigolosi che innestano jazz e avanguardia sul
vetusto pop.

Il primo album, Huge (Wrestler), del 1986 mantenne ampiamente quelle
promesse, mentre il successivo Bent By Nature (Bar/None) del 1988, con Dave
Cameron alla batteria e Sheri Lane alle tastiere, tento` una sintesi meno
estrema. L'idea e` comunque sempre quella di fare del rock un po' a
sghimbescio, con le parti strumentali singhiozzanti, i tempi irregolari, il
canto piu` jazz che folk, e una compostezza degna di un quartetto da camera
(ma Kicking The Dog scalpita funky). Beattie delira con piglio da saloon in
Comeback, innestando i chitarrismi rozzi della scuola sudista in schemi
armonici piu` "aperti", da improvvisazione libera, fino a lambire i primi
Soft Machine in Living With Reptiles. D'altro canto le ballate di McCarty
(come Whiskey e Oblivion) fanno pensare alla Joni Mitchell di mezza eta` o
alla Grace Slick della Jefferson Starship (Christine). E` un sound forse
troppo cerebrale, piu` da new wave che da college-pop.

La qualita` sperimentale del loro sound viene amalgamata in maniera piu`
fantasiosa e meno concettuale su Hello Young Lovers del 1989, che, con la
formazione originale di nuovo insieme, vanta infatti i loro brani meglio
costruiti, piu` orecchiabili e piu` trascinanti. Senza rinunciare alle loro
acrobazie armoniche, e a una onnipresente base di swing, i Glass Eye
riescono a cesellare brani trascinanti all'interno dei quali coesistono, si
alternano e integrano linee ritmiche blues, country, jazz e funk,
continuamente rimescolate e frammentate.
Le loro variazioni sul bluegrass (Hoedown), l'honky-tonk (Land Of People),
la fanfara funk (Nothing Please), il boogie sudista (Charhead), il bluesrock
(White Walls) e il jazzrock (Penguin) diventano pertanto dei raffinati
capolavori di arrangiamento post-modernista: annacquano i codici di quei
generi in un groviglio di codici fuorvianti. McCarty dal canto suo supera
Joni Mitchell, proponendosi in una veste piu` calda e ruspante, scambiando
la ricercatezza canora per una comunicativita` piu` immediata pur senza
rinunciare a un fraseggio ancora molto jazzato (God Take All, Get Lost); ma
il suo nobile contralto acquista maschio vigore in Break The Black Line e
Endless Day, toccando l'apice di portamento canoro e di finezze
d'accompagnamento in The Crooked Place (e forse l'apice del disco).

Look, Glass Eye's back! Come see what they've been up to

By Joe Gross

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, April 06, 2006

To hang out with the newly reconstituted Glass Eye is to hang with a bunch of grown-up siblings. The semilegendary Austin quartet formerly lived under the same roof, still communicate through in-jokes and take an us-against-the world stance when goings get rough.

Amber Novak

FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Glass Eye, from left, is made up of Scott Marcus, Kathy McCarty, Brian Beattie and Stella Weir. The band is back with 'Every Woman's Fantasy.

Glass Eye plays Friday at Room 710

Of course, it's tempting to say they're family, but that's a cliché, embarrassing in its triteness.

During the act's primary career from 1983-'93 - a period that encompassed almost perfectly the birth and rise of American independent rock - Glass Eye tried very hard to avoid clichés. The band - guitarist Kathy McCarty, bassist Brian Beattie, drummer Scott Marcus and keyboardist and token native Texan Stella Weir - moved gracefully and deliberately between hook and feedback, between songcraft and noisemaking. The band members triangulated their spot and worked the soil as if it were their birthright.

But some clichés can't be avoided. The endless touring in a windowless van for months on end. The $5 per diems. A final record deal that never actually produced a record and helped to shatter the band.

But as another cliché about rock goes, those were different times. Well past a decade after they called it quits, Glass Eye is back, with a new album called "Every Woman's Fantasy" in tow. Same Glass Eye vibe: deft songwriting, weird flourishes. The band even had a blast playing at this year's South by Southwest, more for out-of-town fans than any sort of careering. Glass Eye's record release show is Friday at Room 710

But why now?

"Brian finally finished the record," McCarty says. It's after rehearsal and the band is breaking down its equipment. The strings on Beattie's headless, fretless and nerdy Steinberger bass are the same as before. Weir's keyboards are so old they're "vintage."

"Yeah, that's really about it," Beattie says, "The thing that led up to it was doing Kathy's record (McCarty's 2005 solo album, "Another Day in the Sun") and getting out the old Glass Eye tapes to learn something about the way we played the songs."

"See, we were one of the last bands of that era to break up," McCarty adds. "Other bands would have these reunion shows two years later that were just milking it and milking it. Brian in particular was very turned off by this sort of behavior. He said, 'Our last show will be our last show and we'll never play again!' "

But there's much at stake 13 years down the road. There's no grind, no idea that maybe the band could be as big as, say, the Chili Peppers in '88, no touring.

"We were out for four to five months a year every year for about five years," McCarty said. "You would be gone for months on end. I really envy bands today. Cell phones and e-mail make life must make life easier."

Then again, Glass Eye's standards for touring are low.

"Kathy's van, bless her heart for buying it, had no air conditioning, no radio and unfinished, bar metal interior. "People would lie down between the amps in the back," Beattie says.

"We were happy to come home with rent money and to pay bills," McCarty says. "If the Internet had been around when Glass Eye was, it would have made a huge difference for a band in our niche." She doesn't say this with bitterness; it's just true. Bands today have both few expectations of financial success and better communication with their fans.

But the Internet is here, and the fans are probably still out there. Would they tour again?

"We would have to be way more cutthroat now," McCarty says. Then she pauses. This is (sorry) family after all. "You know, I take it back," she adds. "I would tour with you guys for hardly any money at all if the conditions were right." A van with seats. Motel rooms, things like that.

But this is not 1991. Nirvana and the Amerindie breakout is history. Nobody in this room has to do anything they don't want to do.

"I had a record out last year," McCarty says. There's a lot of people who care about you and remember you, and that's cool. But you kind of get in this space where you're like, 'I'm not going to convince people who are young now that I'm still cool.' That's just not very dignified on some level to me."

Also, they are open to selling out.

"We need a song in an ad," Beattie says. "How about the new Hummer commercial?"

"If we could sell out and do it with a Hummer, that would be amazing," Weir says.

"But only if we could have a say in the ad," Beattie continues. He points at McCarty. "We would need you standing through the sunroof with an RPG shooting at things."

McCarty thinks for a moment. "Yeah, I'd do that."

jgross@statesman.com; 912-5926

Record review

BY GREG BEETS

The Austin Chronicle

Glass Eye

Every Woman's Fantasy (RexyRex)

When last heard we from Glass Eye in 1993, fallout from a record deal gone wrong sank the quartet after a decade-long run as Austin's foremost avant-pop enterprise. Although a final LP was planned, it took 13 years for Every Woman's Fantasy to emerge. Given the circumstances of the band's demise, the album's comparatively dark and angry tone isn't surprising. If the stylistic thread connecting Glass Eye to more jagged local contemporaries like Scratch Acid wasn't apparent before, Fantasy brings that connection into sharp relief. Bassist Brian Beattie's growl takes center stage on pile-driving opener "Boring Story," a self-effacing commentary on the band's record nondeal. Guitarist Kathy McCarty sings "My Dog Is Dead" as an aching portrait of grief unfettered by aspirations toward grandiosity. "Exodus Song" is Glass Eye's tweaked variation on the heavy metal epic, the funereal theme returning with added languor on "Sad and Lonely," drummer Scott Marcus' stoic missive from the shattered heart of adolescence. McCarty's Linda Thompson-style folk tangent finally flowers on the dour "Quiet Town," while Beattie's "She's Frozen" utilizes accordion and vibes to effect a morbid Continental tone. This isn't the product of a happy ending, but in veering away from the pop aspirations of 1988's Bent by Nature and 1989's Hello Young Lovers, Every Woman's Fantasy succeeds in fleshing out Glass Eye's legacy by leaving the roughest edges intact.