Table Of Contents:

CD Reviews of "Satan and Me": North East Performer The Noise Articles From Boston Papers: "Accidental Artist's Debut" "He Knows He's a Maverick in Boston" "Needham Rapper Armed With Potent CD" "Finding the Tracks of Webber's Burning Feet" CD Reviews of "Burned My Feet on Meat Street": The Noise Music Connection Magazine Heard Magazine NorthEast Performer Magazine Metronome Magazine V-Mag

CD Reviews of "The You I Knew" in Ink 19:

The You I Knew is the fifth self-released CD from wild and crazy guy, Rod Webber: a wanna-be Bob Dylan, DIY maverick with a staggeringly ambitious work ethic. In the one-man-band mold of trail blazers like Trent Reznor, Prince and everybody's new favorite golden-haired boy, Beck, Webber is a visionary who handles "all instruments, vocals and loops" on this sublimely eclectic disc, with the occasional guest artist contribution. With his off-beat, acoustic folk style being cohesive over the album's dozen tracks, Rod's songs of relationships and revenge bring the influence of many and varied artists into the mix. Take the lead track, "Blue Hour," a pseudo slacker anthem highly reminiscent of Beck's breakthrough hit, "Loser"; while "Crush My Skull" is "I am the Walrus" with a serious Residents vibe. Elsewhere, College Radio and underground favorites like Ween, They Might Be Giants and even The Fugs rear their messy little heads. The borderline retarded "Love to Kick You" and the super oddball "Cocaine & Hookers" (sample lyric: "I've got Bob Dylan's looks/and Mariah's brains/Where's my happy tomorrow/Where's my cocaine?") are delivered with humorous verve, and Rod's never so much of a smart ass that loses focus. A very entertaining album for those who like their pop slightly off the beaten path.

Gail Worley- Ink 19 Magazine

CD Reviews of "The You I Knew" in The Noise

Any CD by a singer/ songwriter that has our hero marrying himself on the front cover deserves some kind of credit, although I'm not sure what kind. Rod Webber is apparently a one man phenomenon, if only to himself. Remember in Repo Man when the Circle Jerks played "When the Shit Hits the Fan" acoustic, and Emilio Estevez is like "What happened to these guys"? That's exactly what this CD sounds like, like the source of Emilio Estevez's pain, one man's solo journey into various intonations on a Lou Reed vocal style. (Jesse Thomas)

CD Reviews of "Satan And Me" PETER HANLON OF NORTH EAST PERFORMER May, 2001:

Devotion to pop music means the never-ending search for something new; the beat/lyric/chord progression that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up like they did upon hearing James Brown or the beginning of "Honkey Tonk Woman" for the first time. The problem is that the new stuff is never going to come around again. Every three-chord tune has been written and sold, and no amount of energy can change that. However, new interpretations of ideas cannot be exhausted. Twist a few of those established pop forms and you end up with Rod Webber's scary circus-world of sampled soundscapes. Webber's second full-length, Satan and Me, provides a home for familiar rock elements and then throws them into eerie contexts where I don't think they were ever intended to go. And it's pretty damn catchy, too. To get the whole influence thing out of the way; yeah yeah, he sounds kind of like Beck, albeit with a darker outlook thanks to a couple of belts of whiskey. And the slack rhyming over muffled beats is very B-Boy, but Webber is headed somewhere else entirely.

Take "Said the Spider", which starts as pretty standard big beat fare until the horn riffs deconstruct into nearly atonal electronics halfway through, then jump back to the horns. Everything's okay, right Rod? Aha! No way, because Satan's back with a sampler and a doo-wee-doo chorus in "Oh My God". The world is going to pot but you're tapping your foot right along to the whole spectacle. So what's all this sound and fury about? Beats me. Webber spouts off a continuous string of bizarro one-liners throughout the record such as "Bought me a vowel to win back the bowels that I lost down in New Mexico" or perhaps my favorite "I am the man who makes a bowl from a can." Characters that get the Webber analysis are lucky if they get two lines as names fly by even faster than his non-sequitors. The album is impressively mixed on what I'm assuming is a Power Mac and Pro-Tools or something along those lines. In the wrong hands such electronic gizmos are a disaster, but Webber pulls it off by remembering that, avant garde as it may be, he's creating pop music. Take an adventurous hand, loosen up, and see what you can make of it.

JOE COUGLIN OF THE NOISE (May, 2001)

Sometimes, this stupid gig ceases to be funny (let alone vaguely amusing). Sometimes, even the hate mail is boring. Sometimes, the sheer enormity of just how worthless most things out there are is driven home with such brutal disregard, that weeks go by before I can even attempt to comment. This is one of those times. I feel like a feeble old lady who's been mugged and left naked. This is music with zero consideration for innocent bystanders. Even deaf ones. Desperate, anemic hip-hop with bad cartoons and a white font over a white background on the back cover so you can't even read the song titles. Get a whiff o' this: "Bought me a vowel to win back the bowels that I lost down in New Mexico/ Never kid a kidder when his pants are on fire, thats when he'll swipe your mother's panty hose." Here's another one: "Out of maggots, pissing steam, skating on the thin ice, my glutton fried mushball turned out to be lice." Wow. Have some more crack, buddy. Joey Ramone died today, and I gotta listen to THIS shit.

Accidental Artist's Debut By Joan Anderman Boston Globe Dec 30, '99

Rod Webber is one of those utterly unassuming, ridiculously artistic people whose creative life seems to be the result of a series of unhappy accidents. The 20-year-old Needham native has just self-released a remarkable album of industrial-electronic alterna-pop, "Burned My Feet on Meat Street," which he wrote, produced, and mixed. It's a dark, surreal frappé of Beck, the Beasties, Eno, and sci-fi samples. The album is climbing the charts at college radio and getting raves in fringe music 'zines that are routinely scoured by major players like Columbia, Arista, and Universal - all of whom are knocking on Webber's door. But he didn't get really serious about music until he was arrested. Webber grew up drawing on things - a lot of things, and all the time. "They seemed to think I was some sort of visual arts freak," he says. At 17, Webber was shipped off to the Rhode Island School of Design where he studied painting and illustration, and was driven out by "the art nazis." Next came a semester at the Museum School at the MFA, after which Webber concluded, "I didn't really want to go to school." A gypsy streak followed, which took Webber to Iowa; Athens, Ga.; Venice Beach, Calif., where he drew sidewalk art for spare change. Webber took an acoustic guitar along with him, and started writing songs. When he returned home earlier this year, Webber was arrested for wielding (continued on next column)	a capgun in Needham Center - a prop for a cops-and-robbers movie he was making with friends. He was sentenced to a year in prison, which was reduced to two years of mandatory residence in the state of Massachussetts. "To say that I was infuriated would be an understatement," says Webber. "It completely blew my mind. I was paranoid. I stayed in the house." The house, as it happened, was home to a new computer, a software program for recording music that a DJ friend had turned him on to, and a drum machine. "I spent a year and a half making angry, industrial music. After two CDs of really negative stuff, I went through a transition. I knew that I really had to let it go." The new CD isn't exactly a romp in a field of daisies, as Webber points out. But the 10 tracks are definitely upbeat, even catchy, and lyrics like "Sucking on a pop tart/Vomit, and it's pop art" suggest a certain levity in his perspective. For his show on Jan. 6 at O'Brien's in Allston, Webber will debut his five-piece band: John Kiehne on bass; brothers Luke and Aaron Bellamy on drums and guitar, respectively; and Andrea Michael on turntables and keyboards. Webber will stick mainly to vocals, although he's not a big fan of his own singing. "If I could only sing like Beth Gibbons of Portishead ... But I guess I have a few tricks up my sleeve." Rod Webber plays at O'Brien's 3 Harvard Ave., Allston. 617-782-6245.
The Boston TAB: Finding the Tracks of Webber's Burning Feet
By KEN CAPOBIANCO December 27, 1999   Now here's the background story about a musician I guarantee you've never heard before. Local singer-musician-producer Rod Webber, who lives in Needham, was monkeying around with a friend and shooting a movie when they decided to shoot a scene about a robbery. Unfortunately, while they were play acting, the rest of the world, including the Needham police, thought they were indeed gun-toting thieves. "It was a silly thing to get in trouble for," says the 20-year-old Webber, who was arrested. The upshot was that he was given a year of house arrest. Forced to stick around his home, he decided to focus his energies on his music. "Before that happened, (continued on next column)	I didn't have much direction. So I ended up getting out a lot of my frustration by making music, which was kind of industrial stuff. " Webber recently released his first major CD, "Burned My Feet on Meat Street," and it's an extremely diverse venture into funky electronica. Webber dips into his record collection for some savvy samples while adding idiosyncratic atmospheric textures and big beats to go along with his talk/sing lyrical flow. It's heady stuff, and while it's a very indie venture, the disc has a sonic heft. Webber is getting some buzz from the indie press, as he's gotten good reviews which have generated interest in the disc from some labels. Now he's about to take his show into clubs, and it will be less of a do-it-yourself affair. "I've put together a band and we'll see how it goes," Webber says. "No doubt it'll sound different, but we'll still try to be as experimental as possible." Rod Webber plays O'Briens, Allston, on Jan. 6 at 10 p.m. Call (617) 782-6245.
"He Knows He's a Maverick in Boston"
By David Wildman, Globe Correspondent, 1/30/2000 John Kiehne, Aaron Bellamy, Andrea Michael, Rod, Luke Bellamy. Photo by Peter Rubijono Rod Webber never thought he'd get anywhere as an acoustic guitar-toting singer-songwriter. Instead, he put his energy into the recording studio drenching his songs in a busy sonic landscape of television sound samples, synthesizer blips, drum machines, and distorted vocals. ''I figured that I would get it right in the studio first,'' says Webber, 20. ''My best work seems to come out in private moments in the studio.'' Webber has recently been creating a healthy buzz around town with his heavy electronic dance music, playing rock clubs like O'Brien's and The Lizard Lounge with his band that now includes Chapman stick player John Keaney from the group Smokestik. Last year, when he recorded the CD ''Burned My Feat on Meat Street,'' he was in a much more reclusive state of mind. He'd just finished fulfilling 200 hours of community service (he had originally been sentenced to a year in jail). (continued on next column)	This tough-minded, street-savvy, hip-hop rocker had been arrested for playing with a toy gun in public, brandishing it during a scene in a video project in which he had a part. After serving his sentence, Webber moved to upstate New York and lived in a converted church. He spent all his time alone with his recording equipment, venting his anger through music. He developed a hard-edged, heavily processed, and distorted vocal sound (in the manner of John Lennon, who similarly couldn't stand his singing voice). He recorded strange, sometimes grating ambient noises along the lines of ''trip-hop'' groups Tricky and Morcheeba, industrial rockers Skinny Puppy, and rappers Public Enemy. He bought turntables to add hip-hop ''scratch'' effects. He traveled to Brooklyn to perform, and was offered a record deal by a small Chicago-based record label on the strength of a Beastie Boys-styled song he had recorded. He didn't like the New York lifestyle, or the fine print of the record contract, or reaching the conclusion that Boston was his home. ''I know the music that I'm making is a lot different than most of what goes on in Boston,'' he says, ''but I decided I might as well just go and stick out like a sore thumb.'' He got together with his friends Luke and Aaron Bellamy, who had been the rhythm section of a group called the Bellamy Brothers. With his girlfriend Andrea Michael on sampler and Keaney on stick he has been able to reproduce live some of the wild sounds of his self-released studio recording ''Burned My Feat on Meat Street.'' Rod Webber and his band are scheduled to perform Feb. 10 at The Skybar, 518 Somerville Ave., Somerville. Call 623-5223. DAVID WILDMAN This story ran on page 08 of the Boston Globe's City Weekly on 1/30/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
"Needham Rapper Armed With Potent CD"
By Tristam Lozaw -- The Boston Herald Jan 7th, '00   Gangsta rap rhymes voicing a self-destructive fascination with guns are old hat. But Rod Webber, a 21-year-old Needham industrial trip-hop singer, has a different tale to tell. A few years ago, he and a friend were making a little ``cops and robbers'' film. They wanted a shot looking through a keyhole and went to find props at a local hardware store, where Webber started goofing around with a plastic gun. ``When we came out, all these police were there,'' Webber said. ``Some woman saw us from a block away and rang up the Needham police. Needless to say, we never finished the movie.'' (continued on next column)	Webber said his one-year sentence was reduced to a two-year don't-leave-the-state probation, and that he ``was so paranoid to leave the house'' it became a self-inflicted house arrest. To occupy his time, he turned his bedroom into a small recording studio, filling it with keyboards and samplers and documenting his music on a Power Mac. The fruits of Webber's house arrest can be heard on his new CD, ``Burned My Feet on Meat Street.'' The sharply rhythmic, industrial-edged album lands somewhere in the middle of rap, trip-hop and electronic music with looping breakbeats, smart samples, eccentric vocal growls and spaced-out lyrics. Webber says ``Burned'' is his first serious musical effort, although he played in a Pink Floyd-Black Sabbath garage band after high school. ``I spent most of the time talking the guitarist out of panic attacks. We had some really bad songs.'' ``Burned'' shuffles those influences, as well as early Tricky, old school rap, sci-fi, ``Cookie Puss,'' noise and stories of John Pierre into Webber's electronica collage. Webber performs with his five-piece band Wednesday at O'Brien's in Allston, the second of his Boston debut gigs.

CD Reviews of Burned My Feet on Meat Street:

The Noise Dec 99 Review by Simon Cantlon