The
realm of DIY music is usually a murky black hole of time and taste,
requiring much more clicking and surfing around the internet, through discographies and track listings, than listening. When something worthwhile is discovered, it becomes this talisman, rabidly protected by obsessive hipsters and pretentious online music critics.
Such is the case for The Uncle Steves, the musical alias for the self-taught, multi-instrumentalist, Chris Picciuolo, of Aurora, Illinois. A prolific artist, he's put out six full-length recordings from 2010 to 2015, with enough music to make the sixth one a "greatest hits" of sorts, adding some new compositions and previously unreleased tracks. It is easy to acknowledge Picciuolo's growth as a musician, as it is clearly heard in his ambition to learn keyboards, guitar, harmonica, bass guitar, and complex production techniques.
It is important to note that these last six years have been a process.
He has not "mastered" these instruments in the traditional sense,
although it is clear that he understands theory, measure, key, scales, and the more complex aspects of creating a piece of modern music. These albums are snapshots in time of his discovery of what these different sounds add to his music.
Picciuolo is primarily a percussionist and poet. He put in his time on the Chicago club circuit drumming in different bands, as well as hiring out his services to local studios. The Uncle Steves first album, Live from Dan's Basement, is a sparse, earnest exploration of rhythm and melody, recorded on various computer multi-track software, jumping from one 30-day trial to another. The final mix was completed on Audacity, a freeware recording studio. Utilizing a bass guitar, drums, some
keyboards, and vocals run through a USB Rock Band video game
microphone, the album is raw and self-aware, sometimes venturing into
self-deprication. With song titles like "Hot Messopotamia", "Bell Biv Devoted to You", and "Drown & Out", Picciuolo has seemed to work very hard to remind the listener that he is not to be taken seriously, that any perceived pretension
is purely tongue-in-cheek. The few music videos he has made, with a
rag-tag crew of friends and borrowed equipment from the local community
college television station where he was also employed, have featured costumed characters: Santa Claus, a gorilla, Picciuolo himself in an enormous afro wig, frolicking amidst cheap video effects, like the opening scene of a cable-access, furry, porn interpretation of Alice Through the Looking Glass. The music, however, makes a liar out of The Uncle Steves. Referencing structures and atmospheres of traditional genres of American music: blues, jazz, garage rock, psychedelia, this is clearly made by a musicophile and musicologist for other like-minded enthusiasts - Serious music for serious people!
Plein de Couleurs is the most mature recording from The Uncle Steves so far. At approximately 40 minutes, the 12 instrumental tracks meander across genre, stitched together by Picciuolo's impeccable sense of rhythm.
The albums first track, "Dance of the Helios Megistos", begins with heavy, rhythmic power chords that almost crescendo, but instead seem to reluctantly give way to a Beatlesque breakdown, heavy on the trippiness. Picciuolo's head for melody, transition, and timing is clear throughout this track. Punctuated by layered keyboard jamming and stand-out drumming, it seems to push the boundaries of 4/4 time.
There is a noticeable lack of bass in "It's Springtime & The Empire Hasn't Fallen Yet", which is odd for an Uncle Steves song. It is an exercise in production, showcasing droning power chords and layered, tentative acoustic approaches at scale. Listening to this in a set of nice Bose headphones, I smiled when, near the end of the song, a breathy, blues harmonica bounced between speakers and eventually rested in the back, right corner of my head.
The title of the third track, "Comet Surfing", sounds like it could be a forgotten Joe Satriani track. It's boogie-woogie blues
that sounds like a restless warm-up session, jumping time signature and
threatening to lurch into a minor key before floating into a layered,
musical yoga pose. The dubbed acoustic blues solo and background "Ah's" are harmonized like they are surprise guests within the rhythm, tentatively bobbing and weaving until they finally settle and ride out the rest of the tune.
"Shout Across the Asteroid Belt" is a fun blues progression. This is where Picciuolo's talent for melody shines, like everything he's ever absorbed from the Beatles has been synthesized and reinterpreted in one song. Another important note in this track is the fact that he finally sounds like a guitarist. His guitar work on previous albums served as another exploration of melody, feeling its way through the key, scale, and rhythm. This track, "It's Springtime and The Empire Hasn't Fallen Yet", and a few others on Plein de Couleurs are confidently driven by Picciuolo and his guitar.
"Sleepwalking Through the Apocalypse" begins with the only vocals on the album: the deep, "Hey, man. You alright? Don't worry. Here. Just take one of these." It then proceeds to deliver in kind. This track could find a home on any number of albums cut by Woodstock-era artists with its safe layering of acoustic pleasantry and filtered finger-tapped floor tom. Those in search of a mellow LSD trip will definitely see the benefits of this tune.
As soon as "Touching The Sky With your Mind" kicks in, I thought, Yassssssssss! There's the bass! Showcasing Picciuolo's love affair with old pianos and juxtaposition of melody disguised as cacophony, this track is very reminiscent of earlier work from The Uncle Steves. It's a plodding, foreboding sonic assault, and it's a welcome surprise amid the simmering chill of the rest of the album.
"Lyra" is the most modern-sounding, "indie" track on the record. The exploration and experimentation with melody and scale hearkens back to Mellow Gold-era Beck or, oddly, even the Beastie Boys on their interesting journey into musicology and instrumental expression, The Mix-Up. "Lyra" is a fun, atmospheric bicycle ride.
The distorted lead guitar layered over the deliberate acoustic rhythm of "Butcher's Blues" is a seemingly undeniable proclamation of Picciuolo's choice to live his life vegan. The basic blues progression is something that
everyone can understand, but the raw, searching notes of the solos
allude to arguments that cannot be resolved in two minutes and
forty-eight seconds.
"Thirst for Change". I. Love. This. Tune! It's a smokey, 2AM, country & western dirge that evokes a last shot of whiskey and dreamless, hotel-room slumber atmosphere. The synthesized strings and subtle electronica transitions give it this current, frenetic feel, while the distorted chord punctuation keeps it rooted in the C&W of Hank Williams and Roger Miller.
The electric & acoustic blues flirtation, "Closed-Eye Hallucination", is an inspired layering that I wish would have been a longer piece. There are quite a few directions Picciulo could have taken it. Another 24 bars and some drums could have made this a more memorable track. They still can, if he decides to go the Kanye route.
The album's final song, "Death Guru", features a public-domain vocal track of some sort of new-age, self-help lecture, with a backing track of canned-sounding drums and Styx-Cornerstone-inspired keyboard noodling. The bassa nova transition at 2:35 seems the perfect, and only, way to play this album out, leaving the listener restless, but satisfied, most likely mouthing, or actually saying, Huh... not as a question, but as a statement.
DELETED TRACK REVIEW: The weakest track on the record is the four-minutes of pre-programmed synthesizer rhythm "Bursting Through The Exosphere". And by weakest, I mean it can be salvaged. Maybe. It needs to be trimmed by at least a minute, as well as another pass through post production to rearrange the track presentation so it doesn't sound so much like he stumbled upon a keyboard setting and just went with it. This recording is passable for the background at a party, but I found my attempt at actively engaging with it infuriating. Even the Styx-inspired keyboard noodling can't save it.
Mistah Kurtz, AKA Doctah Idges, is a wildly famous music critic and author of the books, The Day Burl Ives and I Spent Reading Italian Poetry in the Hot Tub of a NorCal B&B. He has published academic critiques of Tiny Tim's complete discography, as well as Judy Tenuta's unauthorized biography, There is a Possibility of it Occurring. This review was the result of the author and Mr. Picciuolo imbibing LSD-spiked YooHoo and jumping on a trampoline outside of a cabin in Stoddard, WI for intermittent, seven-hour stretches.
The Uncle Steves Facebook page.
The Uncle Steves Soundcloud page.
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