50 Foot Wave - 50 Foot Wave

On March 23, 50 Foot Wave will release 50 Foot Wave, their eponymously titled debut. The independently released six-song collection will be the first of a series of "mini-albums." With a planned release of a new mini-album every nine months; this is considerably more frequent than the standard music business cycle of a full-length album every two years. The band believes this format is more affordable, more digestible and more desirable to music listeners today. 50 Foot Wave is comprised of Throwing Muses front woman Kristin Hersh, joined by bassist Bernard Georges (Throwing Muses) and drummer Rob Ahlers. This is Hersh’s first new band since she founded the influential Throwing Muses and promises to be a harder, faster, more direct experience. 50 Foot Wave will tour extensively, projecting over 100 shows a year in the U.S. alone. The band has already developed a reputation as an overwhelming live experience. This strong emphasis on performance builds on Kristin’s always-innovative methods of involving fans in the music. To satisfy curiosity about the new project early in the life of 50 Foot Wave, the band held open rehearsals in Los Angeles for 150 fans from their web community, throwingmusic.com, some traveling thousands of miles to attend. 50 Foot Wave hopes to bring the independent spirit of ThrowingMusic to their label imprint, which will be releasing their output. Relying on one-to-one relationships rather than marketing dollars to drive their music business, 50 Foot Wave continues to strengthen the bond between band and fan. Album Description

It Rocks.

Not since Sugar's "Beaster" EP have I heard such a tight and hard driving set. It's not going to change your life, but for fan's of Hersh's simultaneous disaffection and absorption, this is the ticket. What else do you want? December 16, 2004

The name fits

It does. A crashing wall of music that'll knock you over if you're not careful. The new band is like some of the more energetic TM work; listening to it makes me want to listen again to The Curse, a really great live recording of some of Throwing Muses' best. 50 Foot Wave isn't exactly another TM incarnation, but it is high quality Kristin Hersh music. I'd really like to see them live, I bet it's an amazing experience. October 29, 2004

reality check

Wow. I've long known that Kristin has some of the most loyal fans in the business, but how they can all call this sow's ear a silk purse boggles the mind.

I myself have been a TM fan for what seems like forever (a friend turned me on to the band long before they were picked up by a US label), but I can't find anything at all to like in this new endeavor, which screams "mid-life crisis" to me. And "screams" is the operative word: 50 Foot Wave is harsh, tuneless caterwauling that bears no resemblence--NO RESEMBLENCE WHATSOEVER--to Throwing Muses in their heyday. KH is substituting volume for subtlety, power chords for melody, atavism for artistic growth. Even at risk of offending an artist whose works have meant a tremendous amount to me over the years, someone has to say it: this is total garbage.

Caveat emptor. August 1, 2004

Fast

Everyone needs a new band. A side project. It's like having a whole other family in a different town that no one knows about. This is their first 6-song EP of many to come. They have decided to come out with one every nine months. Then they can cherry pick and get some great material for an album. I have heard of this idea before. Didn't Wire have a "Read & Burn" series? The song "Clara Bow" actually sounds like a Wire song. This band is Kristen Hersh from Throwing Muses. I never listened to them back in the day. I knew they were always in town. It's my fault. I have problems. This record is very hard a fast. It is really good. I am not too sure what Throwing Muses sounded like, but 50 Foot Wave sound very to the point. Everything is laid bare. June 15, 2004

Brilliant (can anything less be said about Kristin's muse)!

An awesome collection of Throwing Muses-styled punk... unlike her prior band (TM) but still has a certain emotional edge than only Kristin Hersh can bring to a song. This is truly a smashing rock album, one that can easily stand alongside the best of the post-punk era. Hard driving guitar, pounding drums and a steady bass really do make the band sound like a fifty-foot wave crashing right over your head.

I got to see the new band live at the Silverlake Lounge (one of Los Angeles's trendy little enclaves where gentrifcation hasn't yet taken hold... check it out and wander 'round the area... it's still a hipster's scene) a cool and dirty little place that's both bar and bandstand for the various acts that come along, play awhile and head on out. The beer is cheap, and the room is mostly dark save for the bright lights over the stage that spell out S-A-L-V-A-T-I-O-N. The place looks like you've stepped right into David Lynch's "Wild at Heart." The stage is juuuuuust big enough for a three-piece band, and the night 50'Wave played they took that damned stage over! They flat out rocked, and only covered 50'Wave songs (sorry TM and Hersh solo fans), there was one TM cover and it quickly became aurally thrashed by way of the 50' sound... it was an amazing experience. I felt like I was there at the beginning of something... like seeing Patti Smith at CBGB or Max's Kansas City. True to form, Kristin, no matter what the incarnation, played and sang like her life depended on it... she rarely makes eye-contact with the audience during her songs, staring at some faraway place just over your head, as if in a trance, a dream, a nightmare, an alternate reality that she's inviting you into. This is not to say she puts on a stodgy, but hard rockin' act... no no no. In between songs, she's very personable toward the audience, letting them know how the songs came about but never what they really mean... that's for you to find out. She is very, very funny in these between song monologues (that sometimes, depending on the audience, become dialogues).

Needless to say, the album represents the music well (the CD is great, but Kristin seriously is becoming a music industry of one... the real music industry is to consumed with American Idol diva wannabees to take a serious musician seriously) and the tunes are just a smattering of what you can expect as this band evolves and finds its groove (though, to be fair, it sounds like they've done that already... she's worked with Bernard Georges, the bass player before in TM, and Rob is a new find... and Kristin has declared him one of the best drummers she's ever worked with).

It's great that she has a band again to showcase her songcraft. Throwing Muses will always be very special and a great and influential band (on par with the Pixies), and her solo work is sublime, nearly perfect (and very, very emotionally wrought... if you listen to her solo work, you're basically being invited to tour her psyche, the good, the bad and the ugly), but 50'Wave cannot be dismissed as just another band... it is a true find for the real fan of song writting, musicianship (staggeringly brilliant as usual) and verve... the band just flat out rocks the house... and now, for a small charge, it can rock your house too!

Catch her and the band live if you can, you won't regret it! May 28, 2004

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