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August 18 - 25, 2000

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*** *** Everclear

SONGS FROM AN AMERICAN MOVIE, VOL. ONE: LEARNING HOW TO SMILE

(Capitol)

Everclear Volume One of Art Alexakis's Songs from an American Movie was originally going to be a solo album -- an opportunity for Everclear's singing/songwriting/guitar-playing boss to branch out, revisit the country roots of his San Francisco daze, and get away from the band's guitar/bass/drums trio format. Volume Two, A Good Time for a Bad Attitude, which is due in November, was to be the harder-rocking proper Everclear release. And together they'd form a sort of conceptually sound autobiographical rock opera.

But somewhere along the way, Alexakis realized that he is Everclear and vice versa. Maybe it was when he noticed that even with drummer Greg Eklund and bassist Craig Montoya on the sidelines and a full symphony orchestra playing Mort Lindsey charts behind him, "Anabella's Song" still sounds like Everclear. So he brought his boys back on board, and for all its extra-band embellishments (strings, horns, accordion, looped rhythm tracks, and even a couple of samples, including Chuck D intoning "Here we go again" from PE's "Bring the Noise" on "Here We Go Again"), the finished product doesn't sound that far removed from Sparkle and Fade or '97's So Much for the Afterglow -- albums that unwittingly bridged the gap between the early-'90s grunge of Nirvana and the blander late-'90s modern rock of bands like Matchbox Twenty and Third Eye Blind.

Alexakis's songs have often drawn on personal experience, but there's a confessional quality to "Now That It's Over" and "Thrift Store Chair" -- two pointed reflections on a relationship in ruins -- that cuts a bit deeper than, say, the wasted-years reminiscences in Sparkle and Fade's "Santa Monica," especially when you take into account his recent divorce. And though Art has never gone to great lengths to disguise his age (he is pushing 40), on Learning How To Smile he unabashedly dates himself in "AM Radio," a nostalgic anthem that looks back lovingly on the days before "The VCR and the DVD," days of wearing "Big bell-bottoms and groovy long hair" and seeing Led Zeppelin in '77. Apparently, back then it wasn't all that unusual for a rock band to record a double album or aspire to something as ambitious as a pair of concept albums.

-- Matt Ashare
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