By Adam McKibbin
And so the singer/songwriter of Rolling Stone’s "Hot Band of 1998" is in North Dakota again. Williston, to be exact, playing for a couple hundred kids who have to work hard just to get a rock show in their town. It’s a long road from Chicago to Los Angeles, but Elizabeth Elmore is happy to be back. After all, there probably won’t be a more appreciative or energetic audience on the tour. Williston houses some fond memories and old friends, too; Elmore’s old band Sarge used to play here. Now here new incarnation, The Reputation, is back in town for night number three of their West Coast tour (which hits our very own Spaceland on March 18).
When Sarge dissolved a couple years ago, a distraught Elmore focused her attention on law school. "I wanted to be a lawyer way longer than I wanted to be a musician," she says. The gap between the two professions isn’t as wide as one may assume. "Both things are thinking that you want to tell your side of the story, that you want a chance to make people see it the way you see it."
Indeed her stories are one of the highlights of The Reputation’s self-titled debut (in stores on April 2). Just don’t expect any happy endings. "Misery By Design" and "The Uselessness of Friends" are indicative song titles. Fear of abandonment is a recurring theme. But these aren’t songs of the woe-by-numbers variety, and don’t make the mistake of thinking Elmore is always singing in the first person.
"The songs are biographical, but they’re not all quite autobiographical. ‘She Turned Your Head’ is true, but I’m not the narrator," she says, referencing the embittered song in which she sings "I caught the tail end of her ass slipping up your stairs/And when your light flicked on/I knew you had that bitch in your bed."
"I’m the bitch!" Elmore says cheerfully. "I was trying to understand this woman’s point of view."
The Reputation operates in that murky gray area between radio-friendly and radio-wary. Elmore’s sharp songwriting is backed by an immediately accessible blend of crunchy pop, bursts of punk and some downright pretty orchestration. There are plenty of meaty hooks, plenty of conscious invading choruses, and yet there is a certain rawness that suggests this album is better suited for the aisles of Amoeba than the airwaves of MTV.
And if Rolling Stone and their brethren aren’t biting this time around, Elmore isn’t going to be too upset. "I always wanted peer respect way more," she says. "The critical thing is just weird."
The Reputation hits the stage at Spaceland at 9pm on March 18. Get your spoiled gig-going ass over there and be sure to have an apple martini for all the kids back in North Dakota.