If there is one consistent complaint about Madison's music scene it is the fact that there are few powerful and original local acts displayed on stages around the university and the surrounding area. Whether it is the failure of Madison's music venues to showcase hometown bands or the failure of successful and innovative local bands to stick around long enough to gain a following is debatable. However, if there is one local band that can break this stigma, it may very well be Helen Stellar, whose name is a play on Helen Keller, adding Stellar for a \space rock twist.""
The three-piece band recently moved its act to Madison from Chicago, where it played several shows including a headlining stint at the Double Door. ""We played a lot more shows in Chicago than we have here simply because there are a lot more venues in [Chicago],"" said Jim Evens, Helen Stellar guitarist and vocalist.
After moving to Wisconsin in January, Helen Stellar recorded two EPs at Butch Vig's Smart Studios. The band has played at the Annex, Electric Earth and will play at the Rathskeller Saturday.
Helen Stellar is a self-described psychidelic-pop band that borders on space-rock. ""It's not really heavy as much as it is dreamy. We like to use a lot of effects and delays to create atmosphere,"" Evens said.
With its self-described dreamy, psychodelic rock comes a bit of confusion when playing live shows. Helen Stellar may be in a league of its own with its innovative sound, which makes it hard for venues to pair Helen with similar sounding bands.
""Sometimes when we're headlining we get to choose our opener, and other times we just get put with people they [the venues] say are in our genre. But we haven't encountered anybody even relatively near our genre yet. They're trying to match us up with similar sounding bands and it ends up not being that way at all,"" said Evens.
There is no doubt that Helen Stellar is innovative and original with its sound, making it hard to categorize or compare to other bands'hence the difficulty in billing it with similar acts. Although Helen Stellar stands on its own, one may wonder if the members were influenced by any Illinois bands while living there in the past.
""I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm definitely influenced by the Poster Children from Champaign-Urbana, but nobody else from Illinois really. I was never a big Hum fan or anything like that,"" said Evens.
Local rock is what Madison needs and local rock is what Helen Stellar is giving. Hopefully the band will stick around long enough to inspire some more acts to join their hard to define genre.
If you want to hear Helen Stellar for yourself, check it out at the Memorial Union Rathskeller on Saturday Nov. 10 and Monday, Nov. 12 at the Annex. If you don't want to leave home, tune in to WORT 89.9 FM Friday, Nov. 9, where Helen Stellar will be playing live.
