(TV) U-2 (Buy or No?) / Joshua the Place (Parsons)

["Casey, Leo J" <Leo.J.Casey@Volpe.dot.gov>]

I'm old but not doddering (yet!); I was going to pick up a copy later today 
based on the review below (he compares to 'The Joshua Tree' of which I'm a
fan), 
but didn't know whether to trust this particular Globe reviewer.  

Anyone else besides Robin listened/critiqued it yet?

	Leo (old but not doddering [yet!] )   

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/cd_reviews/articles/2004/11/23/u2_returns_to_
soulful_form_on_atomic_bomb?mode=PF

Below is from **pay fee** archives, so couldn't post a useable link.
MUSICIANS SEEK MYSTIQUE OF JOSHUA TREE

Author: By Joan Anderman, GLOBE STAFF Date: 11/06/2004 Page: C1 Section:
Living 

ROOM 8, JOSHUA TREE MOTEL, Calif. Every year hundreds of music fans from
around the 
world make pilgrimages to this modest motel room with cinder-block walls and
faded 
lace curtains. They don't come for the decor. They're here to jam guitar
picks into 
framed posters of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Bros., scrawl worshipful
messages 
in the guestbook on the night table, and lovingly tend one another's ad hoc
altars 
to the country-rock visionary Gram Parsons, who died here of a morphine and
tequila 
overdose 31 years ago.

Joshua Tree is a squeak of a town adjacent to the west entrance of Joshua
Tree National 
Park a desolate, breathtaking landscape covered in the giant, spiky yucca
trees that give 
the place its name. It was Parsons's favorite spot on earth, and the
mythology inspired by 
his affinity during his brief 26 years has only grown since his death the
bizarre aftermath 
of which is memorialized in the film "Grand Theft Parsons," which was
recently released on DVD.

Joshua Tree is a magnet not just for the Parsons faithful, but for a
burgeoning community 
of artists drawn to a stark, and many claim mystical, setting whose lure is
as elusive as 
it is powerful. The purity of the elements here heightens the senses, and a
deep feeling 
of solitude saturates the terrain forming a potent backdrop for an eclectic
music scene 
that's flourishing in and around this tiny outpost 145 miles east of Los
Angeles in 
California's high Mojave Desert.

"It's a magical place," says Steve Earle, a onetime resident.

"It feels like the center of the universe," explains indie-rocker Kristin
Hersh, who made 
the albums "Sky Motel" and "Strange Angels" in Joshua Tree. "After a few
months, your focus 
shifts from the news and the popular culture to the moon and the coyotes and
the air. I can 
hear the air, the space, in the songs I've written there."

Giant Sand frontman Howe Gelb, who left Joshua Tree for Tucson when his
daughter reached school 
age, calls it Camelot. "The wind blows constantly," he says. "When the sun
goes down on the 
mountains, the shadows get impossibly long. My brain is so cluttered. Out in
the desert, 
you're in a place that's uncluttered. I dream of the day I'll end up there."

The roster of locals now includes Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde,
Josh Homme of Queens 
of the Stone Age, Brant Bjork of Fu Manchu, Americana power couple Victoria
Williams and 
(former Jayhawk) Mark Olson, heavy-rock guru Chris Goss (Masters of Reality,
Kyuss), surf-guitar 
king Dick Dale, jazz vocalist Nancy Wilson, Romeo Void singer Deborah Iyall,
Eric Burdon of 
the Animals, and a host of young artists among them the neo-psychedelic buzz
band Gram Rabbit. 
Joni Mitchell is looking for a place.

Several recording studios have opened here in recent years, and the area is
home to a handful 
of thriving clubs. Among the regulars at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown
Palace, which features 
live music four nights a week, are members of Cracker and Camper Van
Beethoven, Michelle Shocked, 
Shelby Lynne, and Lucinda Willams, who's currently house hunting in Joshua
Tree. The Beatnik Cafe 
is a haven for local talent, who form the core of annual events such as
Gramfest and the Cosmic 
American Music Festival, tributes to Parsons, and Chuckwalla, Joshua Tree's
grass-roots answer 
to the mega-watt Coachella festival down the hill in the low valley.

Rancho de la Luna, a recording studio founded in 1993, embodies both the
laid-back vibe and the 
high-tech needs of the desert music community. It's a converted ranch
stuffed with compressors 
and processors, a cozy homestead where bedrooms double as tracking booths
and flea-market art 
ornaments the state-of-the-art mixing board. Dogs and neighbors wander in
and out at all hours. 
Clients as diverse as the producer Daniel Lanois, singer PJ Harvey, and the
Japanese band Outrage 
have recently worked at the Rancho.

"People who experience music more as ritual than as spectacle converge
here," says Dean Chamberlin, 
a founding member of the Motels and one of several partners who run Rancho
de la Luna. "It's got 
its own character, a strong flavor, which is completely what you don't want
if you go to a $500-a-day 
studio in town that's as anonymous as possible to accommodate as many
different clients as possible. 
We're a community with very different tastes but common values around
music."

The recent migrants to Joshua Tree reflect the independent spirit that marks
a long line of 
artists drawn to the desert patron saint Parsons was preceded by the
innovator Captain Beefheart, 
who spent the `60s concocting an unholy alliance of jazz, blues, classical
music, and rock in the 
high desert with his Magic Band. Ever since, it's been a popular destination
for musicians eager 
to elude the literal and figurative noise of the city. Gram Rabbit
frontwoman Jesika Von Rabbit, 
who moved to Joshua Tree in 2000, echoes the ethos of her desert forebears
when she talks about 
being transformed in Joshua Tree.

"The spirit of the Old West lives on out here," says Von Rabbit, whose band
fuses space-rock, 
electro-pop, lounge, twang, and psychedelia on its just-released debut,
"Music to Start a Cult By."

"The energy is special and pure, and it inspires music that we think is
unique and magical. 
This is where we belong."

Of course there's a flip side to the growth of this austere and idyllic
artist's enclave: 
specifically, the growth. The folks who migrated here because it was an
escape from the action, 
the attitude, the hipster accoutrements of metropolitan life are ambivalent
about the opening 
of two upscale cafes and the frequent appearance of film crews. KCRW, LA's
coolest radio station, 
is sponsoring shows at Pappy and Harriet's. Real estate prices are rising.
Designer homes are 
beginning to dot the landscape.

"It's coming," says Chris Goss, a rock music producer who moved to Joshua
Tree four years ago. 
"There's lots of land, it's cheap, it's beautiful, the weather's great, and
it's Southern 
California. You can't expect to keep that a secret. But if we do it right,
there's no reason 
Joshua Tree can't be the Taos of the Mojave Desert."
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