October 23-29, 2003

music

Jane's Addiction

Anchor management: (l-r) Anthony, Schmidt, Lafty and Faye have all been drummers.

Kara Lafty is the best medicine.

by M.J. Fine

A great song can blow your mind and wrest control of your body. Most bands would be lucky to write one in their career. The Jane Anchor have two on their four-song Just Wait EP, out this week. "Got It Made" and "Empty Bottle" grab you, pick you up and don’t put you down until long after they’re done.

Singer/guitarist Kara Lafty knows the feeling.

"I’ve always, always connected with loud guitars and hooks and great melodies," she says over drinks and loud music at Tattooed Mom’s. "I remember when I was younger, whenever I would hear a great chorus, I’d get butterflies, and that’s what I love about pop music."

Good thing she got sidetracked.

She’d done the indie-pop thing. Everyone who’d heard her previous bands, Moped and Sonny Sixkiller, loved them. Lafty was ready for a change.

"[I] just wanted to do something new and I was actually never really a fan of the name Sonny Sixkiller," she says.She was feeling folkie."I really wanted to kind of go in a different direction than just pop music, even though that’s pretty much what we are now.""It’s come full circle," guitarist John Faye interrupts."It has," Lafty agrees. "It really has. I can’t get away from it."

The first incarnation of The Jane Anchor looked and sounded pretty different. For one thing, it was more of a songwriting outlet for Lafty. The original lineup, which started in August 2001, didn’t play many shows. And, as their Sinner Sessions EP attests, something was missing.

"We have a lot of vocal harmonies in the band now," Faye says. "Which, in her previous bands, live, you never really saw or heard. And I love singing with her."

Ike’s frontman came as a package deal with bassist Joann Schmidt in August 2002.

Lafty and Schmidt first played together as half of The Dirty Triplets. Lafty had already started The Jane Anchor by the time she joined Joan Solley, Nancy Falkow and Schmidt’s short-lived girl gang, but she learned a crucial lesson from the power-pop group.

"Not to put words in your mouth," Faye says, "but being in the Triplets kind of gave you a different concept of what it would feel like to be in a band that you really liked."

Schmidt concurs.

"There was a certain chemistry in the Triplets," she says. "We all kind of had the realization that after playing in the Triplets, it was like,

‘Wow, this could be an absolute blast!’"

After The Dirty Triplets dissolved, the group’s two self-described tomboys decided to explore their musical kinship.

Since drummer Dave Anthony replaced Ronnie DiSilvestro in July, Lafty is the only member of The Jane Anchor not in Ike.

"The thing is, the three of us have known each other and have played in a band together for close to four years now," Faye says. "Although what’s interesting to me is that it’s not simply taking three people from one and transplanting that dynamic into another band."

His function in The Jane Anchor is a new one for him.

"It’s great for me to play more of a support role in a band," says Faye, who first made his mark in The Caulfields. "I’ve never done that in my life, actually, so it’s a completely new and really refreshing experience for me."

The synergy between the two bands has its advantages. It helped in making Just Wait, which was produced by Ike guitarist Cliff Hillis. Going into the studio with someone they were comfortable with was important to The Jane Anchor, and they plan to record a full-length album with Hillis in a few months.

"I think he has, obviously, a great sense of what John’s doing, and John’s guitars and my bass, since we’ve been playing," Schmidt adds.

But the overlap also produces the bands’ biggest conflict: juggling their schedules.

"We’ve played a gig in Baltimore as Ike in the afternoon and come back to play The Khyber as The Jane Anchor that night," Schmidt says. "When I tell you it’s absolute insanity, I mean it. It’s insanity. It’s to the point where the easiest thing you do that night is play the show. Because you’re in the moment."

When The Jane Anchor is in the moment, their best songs have a life of their own. Take "Got It Made." Propulsive. Kinetic. Tight. It speaks to the band members’ common bond: All four have been drummers.

"Got It Made" came together in 15 minutes, Lafty says. She was playing guitar, with the TV on in the background. On the news, a woman was describing how she thwarted an attempted date rape.

"The more I was listening to the story, the harder I was playing the song," Lafty says.

"Everyone in this band comes from a very rhythmic standpoint, which I think is the underlying ...pulse of the music," Schmidt says. "Even though it’s very melodic and the guitars are very edgy, I just think that underneath it all, it’s a very rhythmic band. And that’s one thing you can notice when you look out … and watch the crowd, we get people with just the beat alone."

That said, Anthony marches to a different beat.

"I don’t really come from the same school that these guys come from, with all the indie-rock stuff," he says. "I just started recently discovering it."

Anthony grew up listening to metal and hard rock, while his bandmates cut their teeth on bands like Throwing Muses, The Posies, Sugar and The Spinanes. And wherever Lafty goes, comparisons to the Blake Babies and Velocity Girl are sure to follow. All good influences. But Faye says Lafty’s getting more sophisticated.

"I personally think that Kara’s songwriting has progressed to a point where she’s basically outgrown being an indie-rock princess," he says.

Lafty’s not so sure, but the chiming "Empty Bottle" is a strong argument for her growing confidence.

"Now that I feel pretty comfortable playing guitar, I’ve been bringing more pedals" she says. "And I think ‘Empty Bottle’ is a start of me really experimenting with vibrato and different sounds, whereas ‘Got It Made’ is just, you plug in and you play and that’s pretty much it."
Her lyrics have a similar immediacy.

"I don’t write in a diary," Lafty says. "I write music. Love, hate, everything in between."

"I think she has a fighter instinct," Schmidt says. "She always has that, ‘Yeah, this sucks now, but you just wait, I’ll be back.’"

"I don’t think I could finish a song without there being a little bit of hope in it," says Lafty, who’s busy writing for the next disc.

"I think our best songs have yet to be recorded, actually," Faye says, citing live favorites "Give Me a Reason" and "Say Something."

Working without a label is stressful, Lafty says, but she’s committed.

"I’m never going to ever give up, even if the most records I would sell is, I don’t know, 500 or whatever. I’ll still always write songs and try to get my music out there," she says.

Spoken like a fighter. Can’t wait for the full-length.

The Jane Anchor plays Wed., Oct. 29, 9 p.m., $8, with The Teeth, The Knobs and Army of Me, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888.