Geffen Loves Lucy
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During a galvanizing performance opening for Elastica at the Vic a week or two back, Loud Lucy’s Christian Lane tried but finally despaired of keeping his guitar in tune. Most rockers in his position would simply change guitars, but Lane didn’t have an extra–this due to both the band’s relative penury and its frequent habit of wrecking its instruments at the end of shows. Lane finally shrugged his shoulders and delivered more than slightly out-of-tune covers by Guided by Voices and Ween. But this young and emotional trio–which just a few years after a move from downstate Quincy to Chicago is seeing its recording debut being released by Geffen–managed to pull the show off. After a few months on the road, first with superstar of the moment Alanis Morissette and now with Elastica, the band has an authoritative punch that gives Lane room to move. As bassist Tommy Furar and drummer Mark Doyle thump, the flamboyant 23-year-old can step out to do the odd over-the-head guitar solo or knee drop. “It’s been a very emotional tour, and the guitars have been taking a walloping,” Lane says. “I was really trying not to, but I had a little breakdown in Vancouver and stuck a guitar through a speaker cabinet. I really feel that despite how much torture we’ve been through we’ve been able to keep our heads cool otherwise.”
The band shot the album’s first video, “Ticking,” around town a couple of weeks ago. “It has us in different locations, basically killing time and being confused, or us rocking out while people walking by ignore us,” Lane says. Postproduction is supposed to bring in some Woodstock-style stereophonic split screens. The band tours with Elastica for the rest of the month, and then rejoins its new pal Morissette for a few larger dates. Lane won’t talk about his rumored involvement with the woman who put the sin back in cinema-going, though at the Vic last week he did dedicate a ferocious version of “Down, Baby” to “a special friend who couldn’t be here tonight.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Andrew Campbell.
