Swingin' at the seashore with the Rachel Nevadas, and still wondering what that name is all about

"Why do you always look for something more? Can’t you just listen to pop music for the sheer pleasure of it?  I mean, the whole world doesn’t hide some sort of deeper meaning. Sometimes people just want to have fun. You make it extremely difficult to do that, you know?"

She picked up her purse and walked out the door.

"Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out," I shot back, regretting the "ass" reference immediately. She had, by far, the nicest ass I’d ever been privileged to know. "Fuck her," I mumbled to myself. I reached to turn on the stereo, like I always do in these situations – hell, like I do in every situation. God, I am so pathetic. The Rachel Nevadas noodle through an intro bit and then, like a good hit kickin’ in, they soothe everything…

Whoa! Well, now, now, now, what do we have here in this little advanced burned copy cd package? Tenor sax? Trombone!?! Holy cow. Who are these fellows? Horns! Not on the record to just pretty things up - but there as listed, fully credited, authentic and full-blown members of the band. Too much…and about fucking time. I swear to god, I cannot tell you how giddy this thing makes me. Summer is here! The Rachel Nevadas Viva Problems holds the keys. This record is a wild and cantankerous little mix of kickin’ ‘ol fashioned rockroll, snappy lyrics, and singer Prabir Mehta making like half a Springsteen, half a Graham Parker, and one-third a snot-nose punk (spitting out all over the place about UFO’s from hell and other sordid tales – really they’re all just love songs underneath though). The math is sloppy, but shit, there’s no other way to add this thing up.

Here we have a band, you know the old guitar, bass, and drums arrangement, and then we have a BAND – the kind where saxaphones and trombones rule the roost also. And no, this ain’t your typical watered-down half-assed Ska slop trying to fool the people into some sort of post-Caribbean dance jive, make no mistake this is a rock and roll band. The horns bop-boppity at all the right times, in all the right places, in the exact right ways. It’s a refreshing approach that completely pays off on Viva Problems (dig the hard-ass stomp of "For You" complete with a crooner’s close!).

My best guess is that Mehta and the boys finally figured out why half of the rock and rolling population still digs the sounds – which, above all else, is obviously because, when done right, it’s still FUN. Does anyone else remember that little word? You know - the one that has no baggage but carries a cold beer from the bar to the dance floor? The one that knows that your Friday or Saturday night is too goddamn precious to be sitting at home glomming over another horrifyingly dull and stupefyingly pretentious new Radiohead record. The one that slaps you on the ass, gets your feet moving, and even though you don’t dance, you can’t dance, you go on out there and dance your drunken ass into escapist oblivion. Viva Problems knows the grind (hell, the title itself nods to the misery of daily, real life) so well. It’s filled with wholly intriguing laments about dangerous gals listening to Axl Rose ("Vulture" rings perfectly "trapped inside a silent room with Axl Rose bleeding through the radio at the time / thought she was a girl to me / but now I can clearly see / she’s much more than meets the eye / cuz she’s a Vulture!"), voyeuristic life ("Watching Me"), apathy ("Lazy"), and even a spanish-western love ballad ("If I Gave You the World" – Ennio Morricone eat your heart out!).

 All the while the Nevadas fondly recall a time when I’d first moved away from the straight and narrow guitar, guitar, guitar sound and finally heard rockroll through an altogether different set of ears. The band fondles the sounds of Southside Johnny, bits of Springsteen, and mostly serve as a healthy reminder of what an oft overlooked and undervalued entity the Iron City Houserockers, probably their nearest musical kin, once were. These cats are the new house band for the folks who want their rock and roll grit as sweaty as it gets. So when the band jumps on stage and toils headlong into a cut like "Factory" ("time is not on your side / and time will not heal your wounds / and time won’t ever let you go this time") you’ll let loose because these guys live your pretty obvious life too. Everyone wants to just have a good time and then get out alive. Or at least to just have a little good music that’ll help the booze wash their life away for awhile, because a bitchin’ hangover is one thing, but waking up stone cold sober to your life again on Monday morning is, inevitably, quite another. Viva Problems starts Friday at 5 p.m., and ends sometime Sunday evening. They did their job, now go do yours. See you next weekend.

back