NOISE

A nodule on your vocal cords forced you to reschedule this Vegas show from February to June, and then from June into August when you had surgery to remove it. How does it feel after six weeks back on the road?

It's a lot better than it was. It never hurt, but it was an impairment which kept it from working properly. After I had surgery, I had to spend a couple of weeks not talking at all, no sound whatsoever, which was really gnarly. I'm hoping that I won't ever have to go through that again. The biggest thing was that, in a certain way, I had to relearn how to sing certain things because I had gotten so used to getting through it with the nodule on my cords. When it was gone, all of a sudden I sort of had a little bit more freedom, and it was almost like it was getting away from me at times. I had to figure out how to get it focused and sing without the ailment.

The tour postponements derailed the band as you were promoting January release Lights and Sounds, sales of which, by Yellowcard standards, have been sluggish. How much did the off time hurt?

We're a group of guys that feel so capable, we can't help but ask, "What if?" What if we hadn't had to cancel all those dates? Who knows where it would be at. It's unfortunate because so much of our success was built on doing 300-plus shows a year for so many years in a row. We would do 10 shows a week, seven at night and then two or three high schools or acoustic shows during the day wherever we could. That was Yellowcard. We were the hardest-working band in the world, and at the time it helped us out a lot. But I think it had a lot to do with holding me down at a really unfortunate time when we wanted this album to really take off. We had to keep starting and stopping, and I think it's not only hindered the success of the album but also not allowed us to work as hard as we want to work. It's been great since we've been back out, but it's unfortunate that we're out here killing it after we lost our momentum midstride. But it's not like we're sitting around moping about having a gold record. [RIAA gold certification measures units shipped, not actual copies sold.]

Lights and Sounds has been widely termed a more mature album than predecessor Ocean Avenue, which sold more than 2.5 million copies. Do you think growing up has meant losing the younger demographic?

I think it's definitely possible that we jumped over the heads of some of the younger fans. But we made a record much more for ourselves this time around, and we needed that. Post-success of Ocean Avenue for five kids that grew up together in Jacksonville, Florida, is a strange time of reflection. It's no secret that I went through a pretty dark period. I wouldn't say that I became an egomaniac, but I didn't know how to deal with everything coming at me all the time, so I kind of just shut down and people assumed I thought I was too cool to talk to anyone. I definitely fell into a bit of a black hole, and coming out of that for me meant writing Lights and Sounds. Maybe some people don't get that, but I had to get it out. And I'm not in that place anymore. The shows have been incredible since the surgery, everybody's happy to be here, and I feel like maybe the next album will recapture the optimistic feeling that we had when we left home five or six years ago.

"I was crossing the street in Baltimore, and I had on these shades and a hat and real big, baggy clothes, thinking nobody will know me. I'm crossing the street and I hear, ‘Hey Al, come on with the damn music, man! We've been waitin', man!' I go up to meet the guy and I take off my shades and my little getup, my incognito, and he says, ‘Man, everybody grew up on your music. Excuse me for saying, but I've had the chance to bone many a girl to your music. I take girls out and I put your music on, and I'm already a winner.'"

Lynyrd Skynyrd took a shot at Neil Young in "Sweet Home Alabama," but that's hardly the only time one act mentioned another in song:

1. Local H: "Eddie Vedder"

"If I was Eddie Vedder/Would you like me any better?"

2. LCD Soundsystem: "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House"

"Daft Punk is playing at my house ... all the furniture is in the garage"

3. Pavement : "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence" (R.E.M.)

"‘South Central Rain,' ‘Don't Go Back to Rockville,' ‘Harborcoat,' ‘Pretty Persuasion,' ‘You're born to be a camera'/'Time After Time' was my least favorite song"

4. The Bloodhound Gang: "Fire Water Burn" (Frank Black)

"I'm not black like Barry White, no, I am white like Frank Black is/So if man is five and the devil is six then that must make me seven/This honky's gone to heaven"

5. Adam Green: "Jessica" (Jessica Simpson)

"Jessica, Jessica Simpson/You've got it all wrong/Your fraudulent smile/The way that you faked it the day that you died"

6. Jay-Z: "Takeover" (Nas) [representing all hip-hop beef cuts]

"Smarten up, Nas ... Two of them shits was doo, one was nahhh, the other was Illmatic/That's a one-hot-album-every-10-year average"

7. Nerf Herder: "Van Halen"

"Can't you hear Jamie cryin'?/She's runnin' with the devil/Is this what you wanted, Sammy Hagar?"

8. Weezer: "El Scorcho" (Green Day)

"I asked you to go to the Green Day concert/You said you never heard of them/How cool is that?"

9. The Dead Milkmen: "Punk Rock Girl" (Mojo Nixon)

"Security guards trailed us to a record shop/We asked for Mojo Nixon, they said he don't work here/We said if you don't got Mojo Nixon then your store could use some fixin'"

TAPES 'N TAPES


THE LOON (4 stars)

Bloggers and critics have pelted this Minneapolis indie foursome with praise, and it's easy to hear why over 11 enterprising tracks that wiggle into your brain after just one spin. Dogged Pavement and Pixies comparisons aren't unfounded, but mostly The Loon brims with intrepid adventure, as if its creators careened about in a dark room while the recorder was running.

MERLE JAGGER


RANCHO LOS ANGELES (3.5 stars)

This LA trio is more Merle than Jagger, twangin' through 12 instrumental tracks with the playful flair of Los Straitjackets and the throwback country chops of The Derailers. Toss in a little jam-band-style noodling for the hippie crowd and just enough balls-out rock, and you've got 53 minutes of fun for the whole family.