Recordings

Chris Arduser
Hostage

Drummers have
a mostly deserved reputation for being knuckleheads. On the other hand, folks
come along every now and then who step out from behind the kit to display broad
musical gifts made all the more wonderful by the perspective of a
percussionist. Levon Helm, Phil Collins, and even Karen Carpenter come to mind.

            Hostage,
the remarkably fine disc by Bears drummer Chris Arduser, recalls those artists
and more. Arduser was just starting to write when the Bears toured the world in
the ’80s. His only Bears composition from that era, “Little Blue River,”
however, was the best cut on the band’s second album. Since then, he’s gone on
to be the singer-mandolin player (shades of Helm) for Cincinnati’s
Graveblankets. Still, the recently released Hostage is a departure. Arduser played, sang, and wrote everything.

            The shock is the assurance in the
material and the performances. In “Sugar on My Mind” Arduser sings: “I can’t
stop listening to / a Todd Rundgren record from 1972 / he sounds so fragile but
somehow strong / and I picture you with almost every song.” Arduser does not sound fragile, singing a good bit
like Graham Parker at his best; spitting out his words and planting final
consonants in powerful, definite melodies. There are no amazing licks, but he
plays guitar, bass, and keys with the kind of rhythm only a great drummer could
muster.

            He loves counterpoint, wearing his
Beatles/Brian Wilson influences on his sleeve. Some of the best moments come
when he lets the Wilson tendencies go, as in the layered climax of “The Girl
Who Cried Wolf.” I once asked Arduser after a Bears gig if he could see a
comparison with Matthew Sweet, and he said he likes him, but isn’t influenced
by him. Perhaps not, but Sweet and Arduser, roughly the same age, clearly grew
up loving the same things and often arrive in similar places. “Inside Out &
Backwards,” for example, wouldn’t be out of place on Sweet’s latest.

            But Hostage is better than the sum of its influences. Arduser has his
own something, part his dark perspective, part the raw power of his musicality.
It all comes together on “Demonize Me,” where he takes a simple rocker about
the price of honesty and turns it into a literary romp by bringing in Dickens:
“I want to be Oliver Twist / Forever on the cusp of adolescence / I just want
to be Oliver Twist / With a full-blown libido and grown up fists.”

            Visit
www.graveblankets.com for information.

— Adam Wilcox

This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2002.