Storm&The Balls

Best Of Portland 2004
Byron Beck
for Willamette Week

Best gen-x jazz babies
Any band with the word "balls" in its name should be, well, ballsy, and one-of-a-kind torch singer Storm Large and her three-man backing band the Balls don't disappoint. The commanding, 6-foot blond vixen cleverly twists rock and heavy-metal hits, American classics and everything in between into absurd and poignant renditions best described as loungecore. In Storm's world, Abba and Iron Butterfly coexist harmoniously in "Abba-Gadda-Davida," and it's perfectly normal to revisit Metallica, the Cramps and "The Star-Spangled Banner" in one raucous evening. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Storm's Balls consist of skilled ex-members of Everclear and Motherlode. But she's got the biggest you-know-whats. Check 'em on Wednesday nights at Dante's (1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630) or at Wilf's (800 NW 6th Ave., 223-0070). It's in the old-school spaces where this Sinatra-channeling chick really shines.

- Willamette Week

Storm and the Balls at Sweetwater Saloon and DNA Lounge
Mill Valley and San Francisco, CA
by Jeremy Bates of the San Francisco Observer

SAN FRANCISCO -- Can a cover band be truly original? Perhaps an inspired rearrangement, such as Clapton's take on Jimi's "Little Wing," can stand on its own as a creative achievement. But common sense dictates that an entire repertoire of remakes does not a unique band make.

And yet we've not seen anything like ex-San Franciscan Storm Large and her Portland-based Balls. They slice and dice popular songs as if they'd invented the kitchen gadget infomercial. Remixing rock live and instantly shifting between heavy metal and showtunes like a DJ jerking the cross-fader, Storm and the Balls create warped medleys such as "Abba Godda Davida," which sets Abba's "Take a Chance on Me," and "Dancing Queen," to the tune by Iron Butterfly, and "Sweet Homey Motherfuc*er," blending Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" with "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. The Balls are Saturday Night Live's old Sweeney sisters on acid, and they seriously rock, carving up classics in their singular style of "loungecore."

"It started as a joke," Storm confesses over Chinese food before her gig at Mill Valley's Sweetwater Saloon. Two years ago, tired of talent scouts sharing heartwarming opinions like "lose fifteen pounds," "ditch your band," and "you sing too well," Storm burned out on the California music scene and retreated to Portland to lay low and bartend.

After enjoying a break in less-competitive surroundings, she reapproached music from a less serious, more playful angle and began toying with lounge-metal concoctions. A weekly Wednesday night gig opened up at her bar, and through its booking agent she soon found herself teamed-up with one-time Everclear tour musicians Davey Nipples (bass guitar) and James Beaton (keyboard). Together with drummer Brian Parnell they formed The Balls, which swelled in popularity as they revamped crowd favorites on a weekly, and then every-other-daily basis.

Storm's vocals are as beautiful as she is, as full-bodied as her six-foot figure, shimmering like her blonde hair, and with a shivering vibrato to match her hips and undulations.

Onstage she flaunts both her frame and voice with equal abandon, pole-dancing on the mic stand while deftly morphing a full-tilt banshee metal screech to a dainty head-voice jazz solo, every snap movement and dead-on-key utterance turbocharged with such sexuality that the very in-and-out of everyday breathing must fuel her libido to its breaking point, timed to climax with her performances. Her flooringly undaunted presence is nothing short of true rock star caliber.

But when prompted for influences and comparisons, she doesn't mention Courtney Love or the other usual suspects.

"I'm like a gen-X Bette Midler. Ella Fitzgerald, Bernadette Peters, Streisand, Sinatra: they reinterpreted the classics of their time. It's not satire because I'm not making fun of the music. Everything I sing holds up and is really good. This is just a new way to look at old music and give it more excitement." No reaction from the original artists on this philosophy...yet.

The night after the Sweetwater gig, The Balls open for Nina Hagen at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. Storm is decked out in a long red skirt, which she hikes throughout the night, an expletive-labeled red T-shirt shredded to barely conceal her left nipple, and elbow-high glossy black gloves that seem to make her capable of committing at a moment's notice acts too lewd for even San Francisco.

Cool skipping high-hats introduce a loungy number, which quickly swings towards cabaret as Storm pops her jazz hands and lets slip from her lips a lazy lullaby by Metallica. Soon "Enter Sandman" and "One" are fused with scat vocals and upbeat synths, and even the several Janet Jacksons pulled by her top can‚t distract the captivated crowd from the absurd brilliance of the act. Ironic? Incredibly original? Whatever. Storm isn't interested in that debate.

- San Francisco Observer

Hanging with the Balls, the sultry, swanky, and, ultimately, clever debut release by Portland's Storm & the Balls, owes more to the spirited impulse of mash-ups than it does to the traditional jazz medley. The album opens with "Star Strangled Pusherman," a flawless and, for the first time in my opinion, inspiring rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" that morphs into Curtis Mayfield's "Pusher Man," with some lyrical allusion to the Kinks' "Destroyer" thrown in. The song, performed entirely in the style of a top-tier uptown cocktail band, might be something of a surprise to old fans of the former San Francisco hard rock singer Storm Large, but it's a great display of her abilities -- from her awe-inspiring breath control and vocal range to her sophisticated phrasing and original interpretations of the familiar. It is also a fine introduction to her new band -- Everclear alum Davey Nipples on bass and James Beaton on piano with Motherlode's Brian Parnell on drums -- which grew out of a giggle two years ago and into one of the most popular acts in Portland. - House Of Tudor

Best Of Portland 2004
Byron Beck
for Willamette Week

Best gen-x jazz babies
Any band with the word "balls" in its name should be, well, ballsy, and one-of-a-kind torch singer Storm Large and her three-man backing band the Balls don't disappoint. The commanding, 6-foot blond vixen cleverly twists rock and heavy-metal hits, American classics and everything in between into absurd and poignant renditions best described as loungecore. In Storm's world, Abba and Iron Butterfly coexist harmoniously in "Abba-Gadda-Davida," and it's perfectly normal to revisit Metallica, the Cramps and "The Star-Spangled Banner" in one raucous evening. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Storm's Balls consist of skilled ex-members of Everclear and Motherlode. But she's got the biggest you-know-whats. Check 'em on Wednesday nights at Dante's (1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630) or at Wilf's (800 NW 6th Ave., 223-0070). It's in the old-school spaces where this Sinatra-channeling chick really shines.

- Willamette Week