MUSIC :: May 11, 2005

Get In Tune: Local Music News

By WHITNEY SPOTTS

Lansing’s premiere metal band, Summon, dedicated its 2003 album "…And the

Get your music any flavor you want: Both Corporate Gun (above) and Summon (left) will release CDs at local bars this weekend.

Blood Runs Black" to "the fans of extreme, brutal metal," claiming, "We shall conquer." The band’s attitude hasn’t changed on its newest release "Fallen," its sixth overall and second for label Moribund Records. The song title "Fast as Hell, Loud as Fuck" about sums it up.

Summon — featuring the cryptically dubbed Xaphan on lead guitar and vocals, Necromodeus on bass and vocals and plain old Josh Moore ripping up the double-bass drum set — just returned from a five-week European tour with Holland metal-heads God Dethroned. "It was fucking forever," Xaphan says. "The shows were awesome, but everything was so foreign and confusing. It was hell." Should make good fodder for future material, then, since Summon’s wicked black/death metal music specializes in the darker side of the force.

The album was recorded last fall at Hellion Studios in Denver, Colo. (where Cephalic Carnage records). The first 5,000 copies will include a professionally recorded DVD, as well as a version of the album specially mixed for surround sound. You can get a copy at the CD release party Saturday, May 14, at Mac’s Bar, 2700 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing. Sauron and Six Prong Paw will open the 18+ show. $5 for 21+, $7 for 18+.

eee

East Lansing-based Corporate Gun is aiming for the college crowd with the release of its debut CD "Immune Against the Crisis." The band contains three members of former college-rock-slash-jam-band Killer Miller, and the new incarnation has definitely not moved far from its college roots. The music is fine — a well-played, radio-ready mix of alternative and classic rock, with occasional elements of blues, recorded at Glenn Brown’s studio in East Lansing. The problem is there’s nary an ounce of originality in it. Nearly every song smacks of someone else, and while the band claims to be "spirited in the grandiose fashion of Pink Floyd and Radiohead," it seems less of a spirit and more of a bludgeoned corpse hidden in the closet. Sometimes a good cover band can make music sound original; sometimes even a musically capable rip-off original act can make everything sound like a cover. Unfortunately, the latter is the case here.

Appropriately enough, the release party will be held at 9 p.m., Friday, May 13, at Harper’s Brewpub, 131 Albert St. in East Lansing. Cover charge is $5. If you want a preview, mp3s of the entire album are available at the band’s Web site, corporategun.com.

eee

Fans of cover bands might be better off checking out the kick-off party for Tommy Foster’s road-documentary-to-be, "A Galaxie Far Far Away." Foster is the namesake of former band The Foster Kids, most well-known a couple years back on the cover band circuit of East Lansing. Foster’s been performing live for 15 years, and is now gearing up for a tour along Highway 12 with his cohort Guitar Bob (Motycka) and filmmaker John Prusak. Prusak will videotape the entire process, submitting daily video blogs to the Web site (tommyfoster.com) and eventually editing together a documentary of the journey.

The kick-off party will feature Foster and Guitar Bob, backed up by Chairman of the Bored in a wide-ranging set of what Foster calls "medlyized" cover material. "I’d rather leave room for some experimentation and creativity," Foster says. "If we’re going to be doing covers, we’d better make it interesting, and a lot of times spitting out someone else’s work is a different way of being creative."

Three Men and a Tenor will also make an appearance, along with a surprise medley of guests from the local music scene. The party runs from 8 p.m. to midnight at the Exchange, 314 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing. Entry is free, with donations requested to help pay for the road trip.

eee

Music for the more mellow of mind can be found this Saturday, May 14, at Magdalena’s Tea House, when Forrest Maher plays in support of his fifth release, "Lottery of Love." The songs, including tracks like "Spiritual Thing" and "I Will Try," carries strong sentiments of, well, spirituality, with Maher’s voice at times reminiscent of pre-religious-awakening Cat Stevens. The 2004 album was also recorded by Brown, and features Brown on electric guitar and keys, as well as a variety of other local musicians, including some nice fiddle and pedal steel guitar work by Drew Howard, a heck of a man about town, formerly of Lansing twang band the Weepers (who will be playing a pair of reunion shows the weekend of May 20).

Maher will perform with Will Fossum at 8 p.m. at the Tea House, 2006 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing. Cover is $X.

Care to respond? Send letters to letters@lansingcitypulse.com. View our Letters policy.