I've seen the future, and it ain't pretty: In Fall 2003, the staff of an undisclosed, juvenile-yet-encyclopedic modern music ezine will be summoned to appear before a Total Information Awareness tribunal headed by Attourniquette General John Ashcroft's anointed eyebags and Homeland Securitrix Tom Ridge's roid-raging gerbils. Our feigned grasp of subcultural machinations will finally bite us in our collective posterior, and the staff will be divided. Certain blowhards will refuse to fess up the whereabouts of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and like-minded dissidents, while others of us will cooperate and be given star-spangled clip-on ties and badges that say Justice Consultant, or Liberty Advisor.
I plan to provide the feds with insight into the degenerate minds of every undergrounder except the former bandleader of Nation of Ulysses, Cupid Car Club, The Make-Up, and Weird War. He now refers to himself only as "Svenonius," perhaps to drive home his exalted, totemic status. I will run interference on my gub'mint minders by playing his new band Scene Creamers' album I Suck on That Emotion. See? Eye bags. See? Gerbils. This ain't political; it's get-it-on-core. You know, original booty-call soundtrack material, the stuff you pump in the background while you tell that low-priority crush that you're "kind of drunk" and "can't sleep" and "don't [sigh] really know what you're doing tonight."
Some of the suits will even tap their sensibly-loafered toes to the Creamers' spiraling, spare anglo-funk: Guitarist Alex Minoff (Golden, Six Finger Satellite) constantly riffs via a floorful of pedals that wah-flange-phase his every almost-indulgent flourish. Longtime Svenonius sidekick Michelle Mae navigates her bass with understated panache, and Blake Brunner's stop/start retro-military drums perfectly replace Make-Up-artist Steve Gamboa's more skillful, but also fill-happy, work. (The file on Brunner is thin but incriminating: he interviewed former Royal Trux and Weird War wandering guitarist Neil Hagerty in 2000, which raises some paranoid eyebrows, since Minoff was in Golden with Truxer Jon Theodore.)
I'll almost get away with my united front, because a superficial listen to the Creamers begs the question of why Svenonius' dapper ass spent the Clinton-giddy 90s shrouding his gospel-punk party-jams in neo-Marxist rhetoric, only to "go horn-dog" when his D.C. neighbors' geostrategery got all ballistic. I'll admit that some of the change-your-bedsheet material is rich, particularly "Session Man" (a randy take on musician-for-hire whoredom), "Housework for Three" (possibly a menage-ode to the classic pine-scented porn fantasy), and "Wet Paint" (about an art student, with the slurred yeah-times-three refrain, "looks the same, but it ain't"). These songs prove that Svenonius could find a double entendre in a falafel wrap.
And whatever, partying can be subversive, reckon. There's definitely a libertine element to a post-midnight doowhatyalike vibe, despite the oddly codified hedonism of a zillion Best Spring Break Evers. But elsewhere on I Suck on That Emotion, Svenonius drops the funny and sings of naïve political pawns ("Candidate", "Bag Inc.")
Drag City dry humor meets John Fogerty, creating Neil Jamburger! New guitar tones emerge, breaking up the Zapatista Zeppelin boogie! Acoustic songs! Surf songs! The rest is pure Robitussin-slag; imagine a pistol-whipped Frankie Valli teamed with Ween and The Cramps, and forced to perform deadpan send-ups of cock-rock histrionics! Get your Lockheed Martin on! Never mind the references to Roman Empire or Luxembourg or miserly millionaires! This red-white-and-blue-balled release embraces the butt-hott contradictatorial goofiness of enduring freedom. Pay no mind to the end of "Here Comes the Judge Part Two", when Svenonius says "the accused is you." Nilla, please! We built this city on shock and awe!
