BigTime Operator Sack Lunch The Cables

Big Time Operator is San Diego's swing band! They put our mellow, laid back, Navy town twist on the revival of the Big Band sound. In contrast to the quick tempo, sweaty dancing bands with quirky, hip musicians like those in the motion picture, Swingers, BTO is smooth and stylish, with cool vocal stylings which show clearly vocalist Warren Lovell's love for Sinatra.
To the walking bass and the swingy horn section, the words are sung in traditional swing style, as in "Are You Hep to the Jive?" Groovy, jangly guitar hides in the background and then emerges, just as it should. And the six-piece horn section glues together -- in matching suits, of course -- to complete the portrait of the swing/Big Band musical outfit.
BTO sucks us back to a time when baseball was truly America's pastime and when a girl's skirt higher than the ankle was a turn-on. You can almost see the ballpark in "Hep Cat's Love Song." Listen to the instrumentals on High Altitude Swing -- the car-chase, dancey "Boogie Stop Shuffle" -- and this group's smoothness will most definitely rub off. The final tracks on the album are wonderful, true-to form renditions of swing favorites such as "It Don't Mean a Thing" and "Sing, Sing, Sing."

-- Jeffrey M. Barker

Sack Lunch
Stranger
(Red Eye)
**1/2

Dear Rob Machado: It was surprising enough in high school that your 98 pound frame could bat .380, kick twenty goals a year, at the same time that you were establishing yourself as one of the top amateur surfers in the country. But that wasn't enough for you, was it? Now you're one of the top-ranked pro surfers in the world. You've let go of the Louisville Slugger just in time to pick up an electric guitar and play rhythm for your band, Sack Lunch. Some of us wonder if you are also an accomplished astrophysicist, water-color painter, and race cars at Indy under an assumed name!
All that aside, Sack Lunch's second album, Stranger, is an aggressive record, not quite punk, packed with distorted guitars and quick chord progressions. On most tracks, the band turns the vocals up and slashes power chords all around any break in the lyrics. It's as if you all just hustled back from some decent set-waves at Swami's, mowed through a couple pizzas, and grabbed your instruments. One can almost smell the salt water coming off the disc.
On the songs that work, like "Let's Go Steady" and "Years," we can hear what a good time the band is having. It's an across-the-street-from-the-beach garage jam session. Yet other songs fall short: lyrics are trite, vocals drawn out and irritating, some tracks start out steady but wipe out by mid-chorus. Rob, if you weren't always in some other country winning surf contests, maybe Sack Lunch would have an easier time working out the kinks...

-- Matt de la Pe–a

The Cables
Five O'Clock Shadow
(Filter)
***1/2

Who broke Mike Flinn's heart? Pinched it between the door and the frame until its severed pieces dripped down onto the Cables' Five O'Clock Shadow? Lyrically, the chambers of vocalist/guitarist Flinn's heart are all over this album, framed with sometimes-brilliant guitar hooks and thoughtful instrumentation. It's symptom after symptom of good, old-fashioned heartache, sewn together with thick cymbal-happy drumming and ultra-catchy, reeling guitar.
From the shifty sparseness of "Corner Store," to the full-force forward drumming of "I Didn't Like You Anyway," Flinn plays the bitter physician staring at the cadaver of his relationships, while drummer Jason Pratt and guitarist Billy Cable hand him just the right tools at just the right times. The diagnosis is rich and meaty: Not radio clean and industry sterile, but stretched-open and exposed; filled with bloody potential. Flinn's voice is bruised, convincingly pained like an early Bob Mould. But it's less his vocal quality and more his writing that supports the album's lovelorn themes. Sample the sarcastically sad "Reno, Nevada" and you'll find a singer who's disenchanted enough to rise above his current state, filling the void with mocking humor.
While Flinn suffers, Cable churns along with, at times, boppy guitar, lending an optimistic, toe-tapping element to the procedure. Capped off by Pratt's nimble and well-rounded drumming, Five O'Clock is a worthwhile operation which, if not exactly life-saving, is certainly life-sustaining. While we never find out who broke Mike Flinn's heart, we're somehow just glad they did.

-- Jennifer Stone