The songs of the Chicago rock band Eleventh Dream Day don't, as a rule, deal with such Top 40 fare as starry-eyed romance and teen anguish.
No, says vocalist Rick Rizzo, "Ours are more about adult anguish."In the wake of an Eleventh Dream Day number, listeners might feel like inadvertent voyeurs. The bruising dual guitars of Baird Figi and Rizzo grind and roar, abetted by the drums and incidental vocals of Janet Beveridge Bean, the bass of Douglas McCombs and not a little feedback. Melody is secondary to the mood; Rizzo's lead vocals are more spoken than sung.
And in this raw musical setting are the intriguing lyrics - each song on the band's new Atlantic album, "Beet," is an impressionistic slice of life. It's like we've stepped into the middle of a conversation or chanced upon a brief encounter.
Take "Teenage Pin Queen," for example. First, the Kerouac-flavored stage is set:
We're in a truck-stop town on a Thursday night. The Teenage Pin Queen of the title, nibbling on fries, has been arguing with her boyfriend. . . .
She does her best to ignore him
She's poised in her satin jacket
Joe the plumber makes a strike
He asks for a kiss on the cheek
She's all too happy to oblige him.
"Our van broke down in a little town, and we saw this little scene happen," Rizzo said in a telephone interview.
In "Michael Dunne" we're introduced to a poetry-spouting boozer. "Bagdad's Last Ride," like Paul Simon's "America," puts us on a cross-country bus, but Hank, the object of our attention, is a grittier daydreamer and a less-than-pleasant conversationalist.
The song "Testify" is another creature entirely. The speaker is either a third person commenting on an iffy relationship between a man and a woman, or the man in question has taken a step back and is doing a bit of analytical self-justification. "Axle" takes a metaphorical tack. Like a car out of control, someone's on a "collision course guaranteed remorse."
These are reality-rooted songs. "I've observed a lot of relationships, I see friends of mine having problems or witness strangers and how they deal with each other," Rizzo agreed.
"Beet," he said, is the fourth album, but the first on a big label, by Eleventh Dream Day. The band's name, by the way, is a play on a Bob Dylan "dream" song. The album's one-word title just appealed; the songs, written by Rizzo, Figi and Bean, are published by their own Mangelwurzel Music, named for a yellow seed beet.
"You can't go wrong with a vegetable," Rizzo said.
Eleventh Dream Day got its start seven years ago. "Jan and I met in 1983, down in Louisville, Ky., and she moved up to Chicago. We started the band with another woman on bass, and eventually we wanted to kind of liven things up and get another guitar player." The woman bass player departed, and Figi and McCombs signed on.
The band took off in Chicago's clubs and then in the Midwest. The earlier albums were also released on an independent French label, helping Eleventh Dream Day gain an audience on the continent. The group toured England, France, Holland, Germany and Italy.
"These people really like authentic American music," Rizzo explained.
As does Rizzo himself. Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison _ the singer-songwriters _ are among his influences, as were Patti Smith and some of the post-punk rockers.
"I've always been a really big music fan," he said. "I still buy a lot of records."