The Lawrence Arms

Oh! Calcutta!

[4]Some experienced punk bands regularly try for dramatic changes between albums, as if they’re still fishing for a comfortable niche after all those years and releases. However, others, like the Lawrence Arms, have refined their style to a fairly fine science. That doesn’t mean this Chicago trio haven’t bothered sharpening their intentionally ragged-yet-melodic edge over the years. To the contrary, Oh! Calcutta! is the band’s best-produced album to date, with gutsy, guitar-charged tracks brought to the forefront courtesy of producer Matt Allison. The familiar coarse, dual-singer vocals are an obvious key characteristic, still good-naturedly hollerin’ at you from all angles, but they’re layered in unison far more often than on previous efforts. And the melodies are more memorable, creative and just plain better. One of Oh! Calcutta!’s finest cuts, buried toward the end of the dozen-song collection, is titled “Old Dogs Never Die”; and you can apply that to these veteran dogs included, as they’ve clearly learned a handful of new, rather excellent tricks.
(FAT WRECK CHORDS)

IN-STORE SESSION With the Lawrence Arms bassist/vocalist Brendan Kelly

So how does a title like Oh! Calcutta! fit this album?

It’s a really multi-pronged response. Oh! Calcutta! is actually the name of a mostly gay, all-male nude musical from the ’70s, and it was always concerned with the juxtaposition between the serious and the absurd, if you will-not to sound like a college boy or anything. Our last record spent a lot of time dealing with [pop-culture] things like Perfect Strangers and Ghostbusters, and we also spent a lot of time dealing with things like contemporary Bolshevik literature and stuff like that. This time, wanted to make it a bit more bare-knuckled, and we had a title that sounded kind of tough and exciting-but at the same time, if you look into it a little more, it’s really about a bunch of naked dudes doing the splits. Also, it’s a pretty Chicago-themed record. When we first started writing, it was really prevalent in all our writing that we were a Chicago band, and on this record, we’re getting back to identifying specifically with our town and stuff like that. There was an interview with Mother Teresa in which she said that the worst squalor she had ever seen in her life-although she spent so much time in Calcutta-was on the south side of Chicago.



With the variety of topics you’ve explored in the past, what’s the general theme of this album?

Chris [McCaughan, guitar/vocals] and I were sitting around and talking about how we wanted to make a record that blew our minds when we were kids; that was really rooted in a place and in a feeling. But at the same time, we wanted to make a record that spoke to what we were feeling now. The theme of this record is getting back to the roots of what we love in this type of music, and also it’s very specifically about leaving the past behind you–people that tell you it was better in the old days, they don’t know anything–and also, the things you’ve done in the past. Fuck all that stuff. Go have a beer, and let’s party.



Has there ever been an album that spoke to you in that way–that maybe gave you the inspiration for this disc?

Not sonically, but the album Buzz from Fifteen was so hugely influential in that kind of way. That really nailed me; [it] was really important to me. Sonically, it’s not that important to me, although I hope we’d tried to capture some of that same chaotic energy of that [album].



Is there a song on Oh! Calcutta! that you hope will provide that same sort of rallying cry for someone else?

I’m really hoping there is a general rallying cry to this album. That was really what we were going for. Was it the same sort of cry as Fifteen? No-we’re not really calling for a better world; we’re calling for a better individual peace of mind. I wouldn’t say it’s an apolitical album, but the overall politics are personal politics, although there is at least one overtly political song on the album. It’s called “Recovering The Opposable Thumb.”



What are you specifically addressing with that song?

Sort of the weird, backward slide we’re taking in this country in terms of civil liberties, and it’s mostly manifested in this whole intelligent-design debate. I kind of thought we had figured this all out, like, 80 years ago, but it’s still a big issue somehow! It wasn’t a big issue for those 70 years in-between, but somebody fans the embers on all the idiots’ tongues, and now everybody’s talking! If this is the sort of direction our country’s heading in, to me, that’s like the [song] title: Remember, we are actually smarter than the animals, and you can look at your hands and see that we are different and evolved from animals. –Waleed Rashidi