Tonight!! Thursday, April 28
Lightning Bolt, Pterodactyl @ Le Poisson Rouge * Greenwich Village, Manhattan * $12 adv / $14 dos
Both of these bands are named after cool things from the sky. There are two people in Lightning Bolt and they are both named Brian. One Brian plays a heavily distorted bass guitar very very very very fast and very very very very loud. The other Brian plays the drums very very very very very very very fast and yells into a mic that he has in his mouth. Pterodactyl are not as heavy, but have just as much energy as Lightning Bolt - their manic noise rock is chaotic but tight. They are one of Brooklyn's best and most unrated bands. [lightning myspace] [ptero myspace]
Other shows
Woods (otherworldly psych-folk) @ 285 Kent ($10)
Grooms (Sonic Youth-y post punk, not headlining) @ Santos Party House ($12)
Tomorrow!! Friday, April 29
Shellshag, Songs for Moms, Landlord @ Silent Barn * Ridgewood, Queens
Shellshag are basically mom and dad to the young Brooklyn pop-punk scene. They have fun and you will too. More importantly, Songs for Moms are playing - they are from California and not exactly frequent tourers, so this is not to be missed. Their album I Used to Believe in the West was #12 on my best of 2009 list. They are three ladies who play country-tinged punk, but in such a good way, you can't even believe it. [shellshag myspace] [moms myspace]
Other shows
...and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead @ Bowery Ballroom ($20)
Saturday, April 30
Titus Andronicus, Dinowalrus @ Music Hall of Williamsburg * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * SOLD OUT
Titus Andronicus are a band from New Jersey who play music that evolved from hardcore punk, but tends to be epic, emotive rants about history and moral struggle. But they rock so hard and mean it so truly that their music never gets weighed down by the size of the emotions and issues their songs tackle. Dinowalrus are psychedelic as fuck, and very good. [titus myspace] [dino myspace]
Other shows
Japanther @ Brooklyn Fireproof East ($10)
Wednesday, May 4
Gang Gang Dance @ Music Hall of Williamsburg * Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Gang Gang Dance are too cool for words. They are an experimental dub group from Brooklyn whose music is steeped in hip hop, dub and a thousand rhythmic styles from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. But they aren't some cheesy world-fusion bullshit, their music is dark, primal and truly their own. Their frontwoman, who goes by "The LZA" (how cool is that?), is totally wack. [myspace]
Other shows
Fiery Furnaces (Bluesy pop by WACK bro and sis duo) @ Rockwood Music Hall ($20)
Pterodactyl (see above) @ Silent Barn ($8)
The long view...
May
5
Thermals, Twin Shadow, Tyvek (poppy, gritty punk) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($10)
C Spencer Yeh, White Suns, Dainolith (mem. AIDS Wolf) (avant garde/noise) @ Death By Audio($7)
Fiery Furnaces (see above) @ Rockwood Muisc Hall ($20)
6
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (saccharine indie pop with subtly dark lyrics) @ Webster Hall
K-Holes (lady noise!) @ Cake Shop ($8)
Total Slacker (sick sick sick) @ Death By Audio ($7)
NYU Strawberry Festival feat. Secret Guest, Ducktails, Pterodactyl, So So Glos
10
Yo La Tengo (inventors of noise pop) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
11
Yo La Tengo (see above) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
CSS (ultra hip crazy dance pop with punk attitude from Brazilian ladies), Sleigh Bells (ultra hip duo with danceable heavy hip-hop beats + girly vocals + metal/hardcore/industrial sheets of guitar noise + some screaming) @ Webster Hall (Sold Out)
Vaz (noise) @ Cake Shop
12
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (Sold Out)
15
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom (Sold Out)
Hunters, Yvette @ Death By Audio ($7)
19
The Antlers (sad noisy music) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
20
The Antlers (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), I Feel Tractor @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
27
Pterodactyl, Screens, Zulus @ Death By Audio ($7)
June
2
Stiff Little Fingers (late 70's UK punk)
12
T.S.O.L. (original SOCAL hardcore) @ Santos Party House ($12)
23
Dinosaur Jr (late 80's/early 90's loud proto-alt rock, performing their classic album Bug), Fucked Up (wall of sound meets hardcore/thrash meets best thing ever) @ Terminal 5
26
Archers Loaf @ Webster Hall
July
12
Animal Collective @ Prospect Park
August
12
Sonic Youth @ Williamsburg Waterfront
The Streets @ Terminal 5
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Sad News: Poly Styrene Dies at 53
Poly Styrene (a.k.a. Marianne Joan Elliott-Said) died of breast cancer yesterday. One of the first, most important and coolest women on the U.K. punk scene, Poly Styrene formed the X-Ray Spex in 1976. Styrene and her contemporaries the Slits were the undisputed queens of UK punk, with a live resume that includes early gigs at the Roxy, the landmark Rock Against Racism concert of April 1978 and renowned shows with the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Buzzcocks and Wire, among many others. On vinyl, the band is most famous for the single "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" and the classic album Germ Free Adolescents, a touchstone of U.K. punk and one of the most influential punk albums of all time.
Poly Styrene
At age 18, in addition to forming X-Ray Spex, Styrene also opened a fashion boutique on Kings Road, a street that was also home of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's famous shop (where the key characters in U.K. punk first crossed paths and began exchanging ideas of fashion, music and art that would give rise to the most potent counterculture in modern British history). Styrene was not just a vocalist, she was one of the punk movement's true visionaries, helping shape the scene's cultural landscape.
But even looking only at Styrene as the frontwoman of the Spex, it would be hard to overstate her importance. As a band, the Spex were more fun than their contemporaries. However, despite not taking themselves as seriously as most of their contemporaries, the band was highly political, radically feminist and pivotal in changing preconceived ideas about who could play music. In addition to being female, Styrene was also of mixed race. In the late 70's, skinheads, fascists and neo-nazis were gaining traction in the wake of a floundering economy and the conclusion of most of Britain's colonial activities. Against this backdrop, Styrene cut a controversial and fascinating figure, and on a personal level, Styrene was a hurricane, even managing to freak out king of the freaks John Lydon with her unpredictable antics.
In addition to her battle with cancer, Styrene faced a life-long battle with mental illness. After leaving the X-Ray Spex in 1979, she mostly retreated from the public eye, eventually becoming a Hare Krishna. Aside from a small handful of public appearances and solo releases, her music career took a backseat to her spiritual quests. Before her death, she recorded one last solo album. Today is the official U.S. street date for Generation Indigo.
Styrene is survived by her daughter and by an enduring legacy that will continue to shape rock music for generations.
Poly Styrene
At age 18, in addition to forming X-Ray Spex, Styrene also opened a fashion boutique on Kings Road, a street that was also home of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's famous shop (where the key characters in U.K. punk first crossed paths and began exchanging ideas of fashion, music and art that would give rise to the most potent counterculture in modern British history). Styrene was not just a vocalist, she was one of the punk movement's true visionaries, helping shape the scene's cultural landscape.
But even looking only at Styrene as the frontwoman of the Spex, it would be hard to overstate her importance. As a band, the Spex were more fun than their contemporaries. However, despite not taking themselves as seriously as most of their contemporaries, the band was highly political, radically feminist and pivotal in changing preconceived ideas about who could play music. In addition to being female, Styrene was also of mixed race. In the late 70's, skinheads, fascists and neo-nazis were gaining traction in the wake of a floundering economy and the conclusion of most of Britain's colonial activities. Against this backdrop, Styrene cut a controversial and fascinating figure, and on a personal level, Styrene was a hurricane, even managing to freak out king of the freaks John Lydon with her unpredictable antics.
In addition to her battle with cancer, Styrene faced a life-long battle with mental illness. After leaving the X-Ray Spex in 1979, she mostly retreated from the public eye, eventually becoming a Hare Krishna. Aside from a small handful of public appearances and solo releases, her music career took a backseat to her spiritual quests. Before her death, she recorded one last solo album. Today is the official U.S. street date for Generation Indigo.
Styrene is survived by her daughter and by an enduring legacy that will continue to shape rock music for generations.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Album: Girls Names - Dead to Me
Album: Dead to Me
Slumberland
Release Date: April 26, 2011
Rating: ******** (8/10)
At this point, it's becoming increasingly difficult to review bands that sound like C86, because I'm starting to feel like I've heard every one of these records before, dozens of times; someone just changed the titles of the tracks.
If you aren't familiar with C86, it's a compilation cassette that was released by NME and Rough Trade Records in 1986. A similar compilation had been released five years prior (C81), but while C81 actually documented the British indie scene in 1981, C86 was less representative and more of an attempt to steer the British indie scene. For better or worse (mostly worse), it succeeded - the scattered jangly guitar bands with their wimpy pop tunes, inspired by forerunners like Orange Juice in Scotland and Young Marble Giants in Wales, coalesced into the twee/anorak/shambling/C86 indie pop movement of the late 80's and early 90's.
The movement, led by Sarah Records and bands like the Field Mice and Heavenly, fizzled out by the mid-90's. The movement did a lot for indie rock - namely, freeing it of the machismo and chauvinism that dominated first hard rock and then punk and then hardcore - and produced some truly great records. The impact of the indie pop movement can still be felt across the indie world: most indie rockers are now ultrawimps and that's been the case since the mid-90's - twee faded out organically when its mission was accomplished and it was no longer relevant.
But suddenly, round about 2008, a whole new generation seemed to discover C86 and Sarah Records. And there's something still relevant about that music, perhaps just the clear message it conveys that anyone can have a band. Plus, there were a lot of forgotten gems that the new wave of indie bands dusted off and brought back to light: Black Tambourine, the Vaselines, etc. But it's three years later, three years of albums with wimpy vocal melodies, shimmery, jangly guitars, low production values and so so so so so so much reverb. Three years of bands with children's haircuts waxing lyrical about the glory days of Sarah and Slumberland, or if they're a little more sophisticated, Rough Trade and Postcard.
So, where does that leave Girls Names full-length debut? The truth is Dead To Me is one of the best C86-styled records of the new generation. It's hard for me to get past the fact that I have to sit through yet another record that sounds exactly like C86, but at least this one begins to do its influences justice.
The record starts out with a very promising stew of melancholy guitar so heavily processed its sounds more like a synthesizer. A swelling cloud of dark noise looms over the guitar, but then suddenly, the cloud breaks giving way to a truly great, clean-guitar riff. In fact, the first 60 seconds or so of the record don't sound like C86 at all.
But it's downhill from there, and fast. For the rest of the first track, muted drums clatter and the vocal melody floats around lazily. It's not bad, it's just been done. A lot. However, there are some noteworthy facets to the song and the two that follow, "I Could Die" and "When You Cry." First, the band is not afraid of being good at guitar, even soloing briefly. Second, the band is not as afraid of noise as many of their counterparts. They don't use much distortion, but their guitars come in and out with overdriven edges that give the music some muscle. Third, their songs are skillfully arranged with contours that propel them forward, instruments carefully entering and exiting, carving out a song that's more than just chords+beat+melody.
A number of the following songs fail to hold attention not because they are poorly constructed songs but because they are so "samey" with each other and with a zillion other bands. "I Lose" is the next track to really grab attention. The track starts with the classic dreamy drum beat of "Just Like Honey" and bright, tremolo'ed (vibrato'ed) chords which do just what an introduction should do, introduce the song, which kicks in after half a minute with sparkling guitar arpeggios and a driving drum beat. The quick guitar and drums are balanced with measured vocals, and periodically trip back to half-temo as Cathal Cully repeats in brilliantly unconvincing terms "I don't miss my old life."
The subsequent songs slip back in the forgettable swamp of samey-ness. To be fair, they are all very well written songs, but they fail to capture the listener's attention. The slower "Kiss Goodbye" stands out for its slight swing. And the closer, "Seance on a Wet Afternoon," from its dark flickering intro, the way it seems to flit between major and minor keys and the depth of noise that grows throughout the track's three minutes, is a worthy finale. In the last seconds of the album, the digital-era effects of the opening 30 seconds make a reappearance, hinting frustratingly at what the album could have been with modern production.
If the band had skipped the low production values and the reverb, this album could have really shined. But the band is condemning themselves, sealing their own fate, by placing themselves decidedly behind a curve, even if they are better than the bands ahead of them. Props to the band for knowing exactly what they're doing though: on their myspace page, they describe their music as "disposable noise pop songs." They also wear their influences on their sleeve: the Pastels, Beat Happening, Josef K, Black Tambourine. But these influences are on the dark and heavy side of indie pop and Dead to Me is the better for it. The album runs deeper than the band's own description would imply. It's just a few years too late to stand out from the crowd the way it deserves to. [MySpace].
Friday, April 22, 2011
Live: AIDS Wolf, Captain Ahab, White Suns
When: 4/16
Where: Death By Audio
Pepe says Controlled Bleeding were badass, but I missed it.
The first band I saw was White Suns, who I've seen before, also set up on the floor of Death By Audio. White Suns are a hardcore-informed noise group who use electronics and effects but still achieve very satisfying (deafening) lo-fi white noise. There are ways in which the noise genre is played out and I can't say White Suns add much that's new. But they do it well, with deafening roars and screaming but also with some more haunting, hushed moments. Each song is carefully structured and even if they sound chaotic most of the time, sharp dynamic transitions reveal them to be a pretty tight act. [myspace]
Captain Ahab played next. They were a sort of gay club outfit complete with a fellah in underwear dancing. It was definitely way more dark and way more raw than your average gay club music, and very arty, complete with projections. But ultimately it was more fun than it was interesting. And since I hate fun, I was kind of bored. But for people who don't hate fun, I suppose it was a good show. [myspace]
Of course, the highlight of the night was AIDS Wolf, a band who prove that there still are new directions for noise. AIDS Wolf's asymmetrical, harsh rhythmic pulse propels a screeching swarm of noise forward, while the hot but somewhat terrifying "Special Delux" (a.k.a. Chloe Lum) screams and performs fellatio on the microphone. I don't have anything new to say about this show, since I've reviewed the band before. Recorded, the band is an alluring, psychotic, skull-splintering assault, but their live performance still surpasses their records - confrontational, fascinating and grotesque, AIDS Wolf are one of the few contemporary bands giving hope for new directions in a world of recycled, nostalgic indie rock. [myspace]
#
Where: Death By Audio
Pepe says Controlled Bleeding were badass, but I missed it.
The first band I saw was White Suns, who I've seen before, also set up on the floor of Death By Audio. White Suns are a hardcore-informed noise group who use electronics and effects but still achieve very satisfying (deafening) lo-fi white noise. There are ways in which the noise genre is played out and I can't say White Suns add much that's new. But they do it well, with deafening roars and screaming but also with some more haunting, hushed moments. Each song is carefully structured and even if they sound chaotic most of the time, sharp dynamic transitions reveal them to be a pretty tight act. [myspace]
Captain Ahab played next. They were a sort of gay club outfit complete with a fellah in underwear dancing. It was definitely way more dark and way more raw than your average gay club music, and very arty, complete with projections. But ultimately it was more fun than it was interesting. And since I hate fun, I was kind of bored. But for people who don't hate fun, I suppose it was a good show. [myspace]
Of course, the highlight of the night was AIDS Wolf, a band who prove that there still are new directions for noise. AIDS Wolf's asymmetrical, harsh rhythmic pulse propels a screeching swarm of noise forward, while the hot but somewhat terrifying "Special Delux" (a.k.a. Chloe Lum) screams and performs fellatio on the microphone. I don't have anything new to say about this show, since I've reviewed the band before. Recorded, the band is an alluring, psychotic, skull-splintering assault, but their live performance still surpasses their records - confrontational, fascinating and grotesque, AIDS Wolf are one of the few contemporary bands giving hope for new directions in a world of recycled, nostalgic indie rock. [myspace]
#
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Upcoming Shows: Grass Widow, K-Holes, Talk Normal + more!
Tonight, Thursday, April 21
Nothing worth seeing.
Tomorrow!! Friday, April 22
So So Glos, Xray Eyeballs, Web Dating, Bass Drum of Death @ Glasslands * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $10
I can't say as I'm too thrilled about any of the shows going on around town tomorrow. The So So Glos are always classic though - provincial, proletarian Brooklyn punk. [myspace]
Saturday, April 23
Grass Widow, K-Holes @ Glasslands * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $10
I'm so psyched to hear Grass Widow. They're a punk outfit from San Francisco that everyone has been really excited by for the last year or so and they opened for Sonic Youth and stuff so apparently that "everyone" includes some pretty cool folks. I have yet to hear the band, but I have high hopes (that might well be dashed if they turn out to be some sort of lame surf-pop). I have heard K-Holes, and they are pretty fucking good, weird experimental stuff that's noisy and aggressive and post punky. They have or had a member from Black Lips but the rest of them are ladies (!!) (as are Grass Widow) and they're a pretty mean bunch. [widow myspace] [k-hole myspace]
Other shows
Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth) @ The Stone ($10, early show)
Talk Normal (lady noise!) @ The Stone ($10, late show)
PC Worship (free jazz informed lo-fi folk/rock) @ Death By Audio ($7)
Crocodiles, Fresh & Onlys, Young Prisms, Bass Drum of Death (agressive-ish post punk) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg ($12-14)
Mahogany (Swiss watch means shoegaze) @ Rock Shop ($10, not headlining)
Sunday, April 24
Grass Widow, Talk Normal, Broken Water @ Death By Audio * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $7
Grass Widow, wheeee! (see above.) Talk Normal are two ladies who make music that isn't normal. It's weird noise and rhythm but there are songs and both band members can sure sing (and have been increasingly making use of this skill, based on the last few shows of theirs I've seen). Jasper claims he and I saw Broken Water before and they were good, but I don't remember it. Still, it's a good name and a good bill in general, so get there early and check them out. [widow myspace] [talk myspace] [broken myspace]
Monday, April 25
White Suns @ Death By Audio ($7)
Noize. [myspace]
Other shows
Miniboone (chaotic, writ-large pop) @ Pianos (Free!)
Tuesday, April 26
Nada.
Wednesday, April 27
Lightning Bolt @ 285 Kent * Williamsburg, Brookly * $12
There are two people in this band and they are both named Brian. One Brian plays a heavily distorted bass guitar very very very very fast and very very very very loud. The other Brian plays the drums very very very very very very very fast and yells into a mic that he has in his mouth. [myspace]
Low @ Bowery Ballroom * LES, Manhattan * $18 / $20
This is the opposite of Lightning Bolt in that they play very very very very slow and very very very very quiet. But they do so in a very bad-ass way: Low started in reaction to the dopey hardcore/grunge wave of bands in their hometown of Duluth, MN. An exercise in restraint, Low keep from being boring (even to me, and I have the attention span of a 5-year-old) by the magnificent tension they generate via the art of omission. They also let loose sometimes and scream about Santa Claus. They are one of the best live acts in American indie music. I promise. [myspace]
Other shows
Battles (experimental/math/post rock) @ Le Poisson Rouge
Lemuria (pop punk, emo, but good) @ Webster Studio
The long view...
April
28
Lightning Bolt (post-thrash noise), Pterodactyl (crazy noise) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($12/$14)
30
Titus Andronicus (epic hardcore punk songs about history - but so much better than that sounds) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
May
4
Gang Gang Dance (experimental dub) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Foals (mathy dancy post punky indie rock) @ Terminal 5
6
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (saccharine indie pop with subtly dark lyrics) @ Webster Hall
10
Yo La Tengo (inventors of noise pop) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
11
Yo La Tengo (see above) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
CSS (ultra hip crazy dance pop with punk attitude from Brazilian ladies), Sleigh Bells (ultra hip duo with danceable heavy hip-hop beats + girly vocals + metal/hardcore/industrial sheets of guitar noise + some screaming) @ Webster Hall (Sold Out)
12
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (Sold Out)
15
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom (Sold Out)
19
The Antlers (sad noisy music) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
20
The Antlers (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), I Feel Tractor @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
June
2
Stiff Little Fingers (late 70's UK punk)
23
Dinosaur Jr (late 80's/early 90's loud proto-alt rock, performing their classic album Bug), Fucked Up (wall of sound meets hardcore/thrash meets best thing ever) @ Terminal 5
Nothing worth seeing.
Tomorrow!! Friday, April 22
So So Glos, Xray Eyeballs, Web Dating, Bass Drum of Death @ Glasslands * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $10
I can't say as I'm too thrilled about any of the shows going on around town tomorrow. The So So Glos are always classic though - provincial, proletarian Brooklyn punk. [myspace]
Saturday, April 23
Grass Widow, K-Holes @ Glasslands * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $10
I'm so psyched to hear Grass Widow. They're a punk outfit from San Francisco that everyone has been really excited by for the last year or so and they opened for Sonic Youth and stuff so apparently that "everyone" includes some pretty cool folks. I have yet to hear the band, but I have high hopes (that might well be dashed if they turn out to be some sort of lame surf-pop). I have heard K-Holes, and they are pretty fucking good, weird experimental stuff that's noisy and aggressive and post punky. They have or had a member from Black Lips but the rest of them are ladies (!!) (as are Grass Widow) and they're a pretty mean bunch. [widow myspace] [k-hole myspace]
Other shows
Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth) @ The Stone ($10, early show)
Talk Normal (lady noise!) @ The Stone ($10, late show)
PC Worship (free jazz informed lo-fi folk/rock) @ Death By Audio ($7)
Crocodiles, Fresh & Onlys, Young Prisms, Bass Drum of Death (agressive-ish post punk) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg ($12-14)
Mahogany (Swiss watch means shoegaze) @ Rock Shop ($10, not headlining)
Sunday, April 24
Grass Widow, Talk Normal, Broken Water @ Death By Audio * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $7
Grass Widow, wheeee! (see above.) Talk Normal are two ladies who make music that isn't normal. It's weird noise and rhythm but there are songs and both band members can sure sing (and have been increasingly making use of this skill, based on the last few shows of theirs I've seen). Jasper claims he and I saw Broken Water before and they were good, but I don't remember it. Still, it's a good name and a good bill in general, so get there early and check them out. [widow myspace] [talk myspace] [broken myspace]
Monday, April 25
White Suns @ Death By Audio ($7)
Noize. [myspace]
Other shows
Miniboone (chaotic, writ-large pop) @ Pianos (Free!)
Tuesday, April 26
Nada.
Wednesday, April 27
Lightning Bolt @ 285 Kent * Williamsburg, Brookly * $12
There are two people in this band and they are both named Brian. One Brian plays a heavily distorted bass guitar very very very very fast and very very very very loud. The other Brian plays the drums very very very very very very very fast and yells into a mic that he has in his mouth. [myspace]
Low @ Bowery Ballroom * LES, Manhattan * $18 / $20
This is the opposite of Lightning Bolt in that they play very very very very slow and very very very very quiet. But they do so in a very bad-ass way: Low started in reaction to the dopey hardcore/grunge wave of bands in their hometown of Duluth, MN. An exercise in restraint, Low keep from being boring (even to me, and I have the attention span of a 5-year-old) by the magnificent tension they generate via the art of omission. They also let loose sometimes and scream about Santa Claus. They are one of the best live acts in American indie music. I promise. [myspace]
Other shows
Battles (experimental/math/post rock) @ Le Poisson Rouge
Lemuria (pop punk, emo, but good) @ Webster Studio
The long view...
April
28
Lightning Bolt (post-thrash noise), Pterodactyl (crazy noise) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($12/$14)
30
Titus Andronicus (epic hardcore punk songs about history - but so much better than that sounds) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
May
4
Gang Gang Dance (experimental dub) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Foals (mathy dancy post punky indie rock) @ Terminal 5
6
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (saccharine indie pop with subtly dark lyrics) @ Webster Hall
10
Yo La Tengo (inventors of noise pop) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
11
Yo La Tengo (see above) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
CSS (ultra hip crazy dance pop with punk attitude from Brazilian ladies), Sleigh Bells (ultra hip duo with danceable heavy hip-hop beats + girly vocals + metal/hardcore/industrial sheets of guitar noise + some screaming) @ Webster Hall (Sold Out)
12
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (Sold Out)
15
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom (Sold Out)
19
The Antlers (sad noisy music) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
20
The Antlers (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), I Feel Tractor @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
June
2
Stiff Little Fingers (late 70's UK punk)
23
Dinosaur Jr (late 80's/early 90's loud proto-alt rock, performing their classic album Bug), Fucked Up (wall of sound meets hardcore/thrash meets best thing ever) @ Terminal 5
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Album: Xray Eyeballs - Not Nothing
Album: Not Nothing
Kanine, 2011
Rating: ****** (6/10)
It may not seem fair, but timing is key in the world of pop music. A few years ago, Not Nothing would have been an interesting release but in 2011, the message is loud and clear: "Hi, we're Xray Eyeballs and we're a few years late to the party!" From the first reverbed notes on, Not Nothing identifies itself of a carbon copy of just about every band from the Woodsist-Siltbreeze-In the Red-Captured Tracks-HoZac catalog in the last three or four years, all jangly, lo-fi post punk with, gosh, a lot of reverb. A laundry list of bands to do just this could fill pages, but to name a few: Eat Skull, Vivian Girls, Beach Fossils, Thee Oh Sees, Babies, Dum Dum Girls, Real Estate, Fresh & Onlys, Nodzzz, Woven Bones, Crystal Stilts, Blank Dogs, Woods, Little Girls.....getting the picture?
Xray Eyeballs fall towards the darker end of this spectrum, evoking the discordant noise of Eat Skull (but with slightly less nasty lo-fi-ity) and the haunted post-gothic textures of Blank Dogs (but with no synths). It's that darkness that makes me think I might have enjoyed this if I'd heard it in 2008. But even at its freshest, the reverby lo-fi post-punk was a little stale by its very nature, and after the basic sound has been recycled dozens and dozens of time, there's simply no life left to suck out of it. Yes, Xray Eyeballs inhabit their own little slice of the genre, but it's a narrow slice with a lot of neighbors. The most distinctive aspect of Xray Eyeballs is their sneering, drunken vocal approach, but that alone isn't really enough to hold anyone's attention.
The opening track, "Crystal" starts with the same deep droning rhythm as a particular Bauhaus song (I forget which one [edit: it's "Double Dare"]) but the pace quickly establishes the song as more 1961 pop than 1980 dirge. "Nightwalkers" also takes a cue from the 80's with a riff that's more than a little reminiscent of a particular uptempo Cure song (I forget which one [edit: still can't figure it out, maybe it's not the Cure, but it's definitely something. Someone wanna help me out?]) but again bears more in common with the 60's than the 80's (or at least the 60's via post punkers like the Jesus and Mary Chain, who upped Brian Wilson's Beach Boys reverb to the point where it sounded like everything had been recorded in a cave). The third track, "Egyptian Magician" is a catchy ditty with sparkly guitar and anthemic vocals that are best enjoyed if you can ignore the unbelievably bad lyrics ("Let's take a ride to the sky / let's all get high"). Any momentum gained is sacrificed by the slow, western-inflected and extremely lamentably titled "Po' Jam." Name aside, "Po' Jam" is a valiant effort at a ballad which comes closer than most at pulling back the pace without stagnating. But for all the effort, the results are just so-so.
"Drums Not Dead," apparently named in reference to Liars' 2006 concept album of the same name (plus apostrophe), is one of the album's more interesting tracks. However, it's far more suggestive of lo-fi synthsters Blank Dogs than of Liars (who, unlike Xray Eyeballs, actually produce original and interesting music). In "Drums," the band swaps live drums for a drum machine and drive their plaintive guitar drone even deeper into chorus and reverb. That, in combination with the darkly chanted, lo-fi vocal tracks, makes the song legitimately haunting and would do Mike Sniper proud.
The subsequent tracks, "Broken Beds," "Xray Eyeballs Theme," "Kam Sing Knights," are all catchy, dark pop. The songs are well-structures and the melodies have hooks aplenty. But with a samey sheen and the world's most obvious two and three chord progressions, there's little to differentiate these songs from the similar output of the dozens upon dozens of bands that have been doing this same thing in recent years. Xray Eyeballs have mastered the form, but at this point, it's really hard to care. "Fake Wedding" is a bit of a standout, a bit bolder of a statement, but not by much. The closing track, "Escape from that Girl," is all Velvets and quickly bulldozes any interest you might have had left.
The adjective that best describes Not Nothing is "forgettable." And that has almost everything to do with timing - Xray Eyeballs are latecomers to a very overcrowded party, one that's been simply recycling its own output for several years. Sure, Xray Eyeballs have their own unique balance of these tired flavors, but despite their skill, the ingredients they are using went stale long ago.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Live: Dinowalrus, Mr. Dream, Flotilla
When: April 9
Where: Shea Stadium
So Shea Stadium had some big festivally sort of thing a week ago and thoughtfully listed the bands on the flyer in a completely random order that had nothing to do with the order in which the bands played. Honestly, that's a pretty rude move - whether it was just laziness and disorganization or whether it was some hippy-dippy idea about people being exposed to new bands, let's just be realistic here, no one is going to sit through twelve hours of music. (Granted, set times were apparently listed on Facebook just before the show, but that was too little too late.)
However, missing the bands I'd made the trek to see does give me some fresh blood to suck the life out of. So cheers!
The first band playing when I got to the venue was actually the one I had gone to see, Dinowalrus. Frontman Pete Feigenbaum was singularly unenthused when I told him a few weeks ago that I was probably going to start blogging again, so of course, I had to make his project a top priority. (Being obnoxious is a hobby of mine.) However, I hadn't seen the band in ages and it's changed dramatically in the year or so of my absence.
First, the only remaining member of the band I last saw was Feigenbaum himself. I had heard through the rumor mill that they had a new drummer a while, but at the show at Shea, they had a new new drummer making his live debut with the band. There is no way the band could replace their former drummer Josh Da Costa (do I have that right?), a rare talent and one of the best drummers I've ever heard, but the new drummer didn't seek to imitate Da Costa - which could have only ended badly - but rather put his own stamp on the band's music. I used to periodically use the word "mathy" to describe Dinowalrus, but when Feigenbaum called me out on it and asked to point to anything that was not a steady 4/4 in pretty much their entire set, I had to admit I was wrong in my terminology. But the absence of Da Costa has finally helped me figure out why I used the adjective "mathy" in the first place - while Dinowalrus is not mathy, Da Costa's syncopated, polyrhythmic style gave the music a feel of shifting rhythm, especially in comparison to most of Brooklyn's current rhythm-challenged indie bands. Mystery solved!
In contrast, the newest drummer's beats fall within a much more straightforward four-by-four structure. While he's far less interesting than Da Costa, those are impossible shoes to fill and he is nevertheless a superb drummer. His commanding style meshed well with the more straightforward approach of new bassist/synthist Liam Andrew. Andrew's predecessor, Kyle Warren (who was in the audience), played the roll of mad scientist, his performance always coming across as an experiment, the stage a laboratory. Andrew's playing, while not texturally vastly different from the spacey concoctions of Warren, felt more concrete and surehanded.
While I can't say the net change for Dinowalrus is positive - Da Costa's shapeshifting polyrhythms and Warren's quirky sonic chemistry are sorely missed - the damage is not as bad as one would expect from a 67% personnel change. The band's trippy, spacey textures and pop sensibilities have been recombined and what's lost in subtlety is made up for in pop appeal. Dinowalrus was always dancey (in a heavily drugged-out post-rave trip-hop psych-punk way) but their experimentalism did soften the impact of their songs. Now, with more heavy-handed backing, Fiegenbaum's songs finally live up to their crowd-pleasing potential, leading numerous people in the audience in earshot of me remark something along the lines of "wow, these guys are tight!"
The next band to play was Mr. Dream, a band that confused me greatly in as much as I could not immediately sort out my ambivalent reaction to the music. There were some good aspects, some great aspects even - the band was tight, noisy enough, aggressive, skilled at their instruments and sufficiently catchy. But yet something was deeply off-putting: the sense that everything in the band had been too carefully calculated. There was something excessively deliberate about Mr. Dream; they not only wore their influences (Pixies, Velvets) on their sleeve, they seemed studied. Rather than simply looking to their sources as a model for attitude or an unconscious source for sloppy rip-offs, Mr. Dream sounded like they had distilled a formula of chord progressions, bridges, choruses, solos and the like. Although it's hard to say exactly what blew their cover, something about the band's compositions seemed stale, mechanical and overly academic (even if the academic study was how to make non-academic sounding pop).
The band's live performance didn't help matters. While it's hard not to commend the band for their effort - and they certainly were lively - there was still the stink of something disingenuous. That's not to say the band was overly aloof or were not really having fun. Yet there was a lack of spontaneity. Even the band's seemingly in-the-moment gestures seemed calculated, planned, studied and manufactured. Although the band was not a carbon copy of anyone in particular (bass lines and guitar tones evoked the Pixies, while the vocals were distinctly 90's alt), they seemed somehow phenomenally unoriginal and vapid.
Closing out the lineup was Flotilla, a band that certainly lived up to its name's promise of wussiness. However, the band did surprise me - I was expecting bland but instead got painful. I really do salute singer Veronica Charnley for having the balls to take the mic with absolutely sincerity and uncouched in aloofness, irony or studied flawfulness, but I fled the room after only seconds. Her shrill voice fell right in that window where the singer has too much technique for the genre and yet not enough technique to hide her technique - she's either had too many or too few voice lessons (or does a good impression of someone who has). Replete with a grating vibrato, Charnley's vocalizations were admirable for their courage but ultimately intolerable, at least in the context of the band's music, which was more subtly but ultimately even more offensive. Ultra-wimpy without being cute, the band falls squarely in line with the horrible post-2000 wave of baroque pop movement led by such shameful antirockists as St Vincent and Grizzly Bear.
This entire approach to music nauseates me to such a point that I can't even begin to explore whether Flotilla succeeded in their attempts - although I'd venture a guess at "no" based on Charnley's awkward vocal tone. But to be honest, I can't assess the band's merit within their own terms because their own terms make my stomach turn. With all the softened, variegated textures and stale-sour odors of vomit, rococo pop like this is an acid eroding every edge from pop and indie music. There is no merit to be found in this sort of polished wimpiness - not in today's musical/social/political climate - except, I suppose, a dire warning of the dangerously watered-down state of contemporary music.
But even setting politics aside, Flotilla is at once painful and bland. I'm sure they're lovely people and a damn sight less offensive than bands like Dirty Projectors or Freelance Whales, but still worth standing outside in the rain to miss. (Sorry.)
Where: Shea Stadium
So Shea Stadium had some big festivally sort of thing a week ago and thoughtfully listed the bands on the flyer in a completely random order that had nothing to do with the order in which the bands played. Honestly, that's a pretty rude move - whether it was just laziness and disorganization or whether it was some hippy-dippy idea about people being exposed to new bands, let's just be realistic here, no one is going to sit through twelve hours of music. (Granted, set times were apparently listed on Facebook just before the show, but that was too little too late.)
However, missing the bands I'd made the trek to see does give me some fresh blood to suck the life out of. So cheers!
The first band playing when I got to the venue was actually the one I had gone to see, Dinowalrus. Frontman Pete Feigenbaum was singularly unenthused when I told him a few weeks ago that I was probably going to start blogging again, so of course, I had to make his project a top priority. (Being obnoxious is a hobby of mine.) However, I hadn't seen the band in ages and it's changed dramatically in the year or so of my absence.
First, the only remaining member of the band I last saw was Feigenbaum himself. I had heard through the rumor mill that they had a new drummer a while, but at the show at Shea, they had a new new drummer making his live debut with the band. There is no way the band could replace their former drummer Josh Da Costa (do I have that right?), a rare talent and one of the best drummers I've ever heard, but the new drummer didn't seek to imitate Da Costa - which could have only ended badly - but rather put his own stamp on the band's music. I used to periodically use the word "mathy" to describe Dinowalrus, but when Feigenbaum called me out on it and asked to point to anything that was not a steady 4/4 in pretty much their entire set, I had to admit I was wrong in my terminology. But the absence of Da Costa has finally helped me figure out why I used the adjective "mathy" in the first place - while Dinowalrus is not mathy, Da Costa's syncopated, polyrhythmic style gave the music a feel of shifting rhythm, especially in comparison to most of Brooklyn's current rhythm-challenged indie bands. Mystery solved!
In contrast, the newest drummer's beats fall within a much more straightforward four-by-four structure. While he's far less interesting than Da Costa, those are impossible shoes to fill and he is nevertheless a superb drummer. His commanding style meshed well with the more straightforward approach of new bassist/synthist Liam Andrew. Andrew's predecessor, Kyle Warren (who was in the audience), played the roll of mad scientist, his performance always coming across as an experiment, the stage a laboratory. Andrew's playing, while not texturally vastly different from the spacey concoctions of Warren, felt more concrete and surehanded.
While I can't say the net change for Dinowalrus is positive - Da Costa's shapeshifting polyrhythms and Warren's quirky sonic chemistry are sorely missed - the damage is not as bad as one would expect from a 67% personnel change. The band's trippy, spacey textures and pop sensibilities have been recombined and what's lost in subtlety is made up for in pop appeal. Dinowalrus was always dancey (in a heavily drugged-out post-rave trip-hop psych-punk way) but their experimentalism did soften the impact of their songs. Now, with more heavy-handed backing, Fiegenbaum's songs finally live up to their crowd-pleasing potential, leading numerous people in the audience in earshot of me remark something along the lines of "wow, these guys are tight!"
The next band to play was Mr. Dream, a band that confused me greatly in as much as I could not immediately sort out my ambivalent reaction to the music. There were some good aspects, some great aspects even - the band was tight, noisy enough, aggressive, skilled at their instruments and sufficiently catchy. But yet something was deeply off-putting: the sense that everything in the band had been too carefully calculated. There was something excessively deliberate about Mr. Dream; they not only wore their influences (Pixies, Velvets) on their sleeve, they seemed studied. Rather than simply looking to their sources as a model for attitude or an unconscious source for sloppy rip-offs, Mr. Dream sounded like they had distilled a formula of chord progressions, bridges, choruses, solos and the like. Although it's hard to say exactly what blew their cover, something about the band's compositions seemed stale, mechanical and overly academic (even if the academic study was how to make non-academic sounding pop).
The band's live performance didn't help matters. While it's hard not to commend the band for their effort - and they certainly were lively - there was still the stink of something disingenuous. That's not to say the band was overly aloof or were not really having fun. Yet there was a lack of spontaneity. Even the band's seemingly in-the-moment gestures seemed calculated, planned, studied and manufactured. Although the band was not a carbon copy of anyone in particular (bass lines and guitar tones evoked the Pixies, while the vocals were distinctly 90's alt), they seemed somehow phenomenally unoriginal and vapid.
Closing out the lineup was Flotilla, a band that certainly lived up to its name's promise of wussiness. However, the band did surprise me - I was expecting bland but instead got painful. I really do salute singer Veronica Charnley for having the balls to take the mic with absolutely sincerity and uncouched in aloofness, irony or studied flawfulness, but I fled the room after only seconds. Her shrill voice fell right in that window where the singer has too much technique for the genre and yet not enough technique to hide her technique - she's either had too many or too few voice lessons (or does a good impression of someone who has). Replete with a grating vibrato, Charnley's vocalizations were admirable for their courage but ultimately intolerable, at least in the context of the band's music, which was more subtly but ultimately even more offensive. Ultra-wimpy without being cute, the band falls squarely in line with the horrible post-2000 wave of baroque pop movement led by such shameful antirockists as St Vincent and Grizzly Bear.
This entire approach to music nauseates me to such a point that I can't even begin to explore whether Flotilla succeeded in their attempts - although I'd venture a guess at "no" based on Charnley's awkward vocal tone. But to be honest, I can't assess the band's merit within their own terms because their own terms make my stomach turn. With all the softened, variegated textures and stale-sour odors of vomit, rococo pop like this is an acid eroding every edge from pop and indie music. There is no merit to be found in this sort of polished wimpiness - not in today's musical/social/political climate - except, I suppose, a dire warning of the dangerously watered-down state of contemporary music.
But even setting politics aside, Flotilla is at once painful and bland. I'm sure they're lovely people and a damn sight less offensive than bands like Dirty Projectors or Freelance Whales, but still worth standing outside in the rain to miss. (Sorry.)
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Upcoming Shows: Z'EV, Bush Tetras + more!
Tonight!!! Thursday, April 14
R. Stevie Moore @ Cameo * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $8/$10
R. Stevie Moore has been making crazy underground pop for many decades. He looks like Santa Claus but is even more bad ass than Santa, absolutely refusing to give a fuck. A highly underrated legend and cult act worth checking out. [myspace]
Other shows
Wye Oak (noise-folk) @ Bowery Ballroom (Sold Out)
Sky Drops (shoegaze) @ Bruar Falls ($8)
Lichens (experimental electro) @ Death By Audio ($7)
Tomorrow! Friday, April 15
Z'EV, Bush Tetras @ The Kitchen * Chelsea, Manhattan * $10-12 (Sold Out?)
If you know these bands, all I need say is: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But if you don't, you should learn them, regardless of whether you plan to attend this show. These are some old mo'fos, especially Z'EV, who first gained recognition as a poet and percussionist in the late 60's. However, Z'EV have never been among the many washed up hippies who clung to the late 60's decades after the moment died; his music continued to move forward, one step ahead of the curve, putting him at the forefront of the nascent industrial movement in San Francisco in the late 70's and early 80's. Taking his training in African and Indonesian percussion, he applied his rhythmic sense to the new harsh tonality of early industrial, creating rhythmic soundscapes of primal energy and metallic timbre. The Bush Tetras were equally innovative, arising in the fray of Post-No Wave New York to inspire such trivial musicians as Sonic Youth (!!!). Formed by Pat Place of the Contortions, the Bush Tetras, along with Liquid Liquid, ESG and Place's ex bandmate James Chance, pioneered the use of minimal funk and dance rhythms in New York's arty downtown music scene. Although none of the bands from this scene achieved commercial success, their influence can be felt in everything from house music to early hip hop to noise and avant garde music to New Wave. [zev myspace] [tetras myspace]
Other shows
Passive Aggressor (hard-edged, noisy pop punk) @ Death By Audio ($7)
Young Boys (ultra-raw nasty noise pop) @ Coco 66 ($7, not headlining)
Saturday, April 16
AIDS Wolf, White Suns @ Death By Audio * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $7
AIDS Wolf are as awesome as their name (very). Basically, three guys make crazy noise on some instruments while a girl deep throats a microphone and screams for 45 minutes straight. While the band departs from nearly every convention of music (melody, key signature), they do have a complex rhythmic underpinning that holds it all together, if barely. Definitely a must-see. [myspace]
Come @ Bell House * Gowanus, Brooklyn * $20
Twenty bucks is a bit steep for a band I'm pretty sure no one has ever heard of. That said, Come are fairly important for a band no one has ever heard of. Their moody alt rock was a hallmark of 90's indie, never breaking the surface but receiving acclaim from critics and musicians. I wouldn't spend $20 on it, but it's worth a mention. [myspace]
Other shows
Grouper (ambient noise) @ Glasslands ($10)
Spectrum (ex-Spacemen 3), Crystal Stilts (post punk, Joy Division and Velvet Underground rip-off) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($15)
Pop 1280 (noise, post hardcore) @ 285 Kent ($7, not headlining)
Sunday, April 17
Nothing to write home about.
Grouper (see above) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($13/$15)
Spectrum (see above), Crystal Stilts (see above) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Monday, April 18
Really, nothing whatsoever worth seeing.
Tuesday, April 19
PJ Harvey @ Terminal 5 * Midtown West, Manhattan * Sold Out
Pros: PJ Harvey. Cons: terrible venue, expensive. I say skip it. But on the other hand: PJ Harvey! [myspace]
Wednesday, April 20
PJ Harvey @ Terminal 5 * Midtown West, Manhattan * Sold Out
See above.
The long view...
April
23
Grass Widow, K-Holes (lady noise!) @ Glasslands
24
Talk Normal, Grass Widow (lady noise!) @ Death By Audio
27
Low (ultra-restrained slowcore and occasional bloodcurdling screaming about Santa Claus) @ Bowery Ballroom
Battles (experimental electro) @ Le Poisson Rouge (Sold Out)
Lemuria (pop punk, emo, but good) @ Webster Studio
Lightning Bolt (post-thrash noise) @ 285 Kent ($12)
28
Lightning Bolt (post-thrash noise), Pterodactyl (crazy noise) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($12/$14)
30
Titus Andronicus (epic hardcore punk songs about history - but so much better than that sounds) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
May
4
Gang Gang Dance (experimental dub) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Foals (mathy dancy post punky indie rock) @ Terminal 5
6
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (saccharine indie pop with subtly dark lyrics) @ Webster Hall
10
Yo La Tengo (inventors of noise pop) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
11
Yo La Tengo (see above) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
CSS (ultra hip crazy dance pop with punk attitude from Brazilian ladies), Sleigh Bells (ultra hip duo with danceable heavy hip-hop beats + girly vocals + metal/hardcore/industrial sheets of guitar noise + some screaming) @ Webster Hall (Sold Out)
12
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (Sold Out)
15
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom (Sold Out)
19
The Antlers (sad noisy music) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
20
The Antlers (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), I Feel Tractor @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
June
2
Stiff Little Fingers (late 70's UK punk)
23
Dinosaur Jr (late 80's/early 90's loud proto-alt rock, performing their classic album Bug), Fucked Up (wall of sound meets hardcore/thrash meets best thing ever) @ Terminal 5
R. Stevie Moore @ Cameo * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $8/$10
R. Stevie Moore has been making crazy underground pop for many decades. He looks like Santa Claus but is even more bad ass than Santa, absolutely refusing to give a fuck. A highly underrated legend and cult act worth checking out. [myspace]
Other shows
Wye Oak (noise-folk) @ Bowery Ballroom (Sold Out)
Sky Drops (shoegaze) @ Bruar Falls ($8)
Lichens (experimental electro) @ Death By Audio ($7)
Tomorrow! Friday, April 15
Z'EV, Bush Tetras @ The Kitchen * Chelsea, Manhattan * $10-12 (Sold Out?)
If you know these bands, all I need say is: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But if you don't, you should learn them, regardless of whether you plan to attend this show. These are some old mo'fos, especially Z'EV, who first gained recognition as a poet and percussionist in the late 60's. However, Z'EV have never been among the many washed up hippies who clung to the late 60's decades after the moment died; his music continued to move forward, one step ahead of the curve, putting him at the forefront of the nascent industrial movement in San Francisco in the late 70's and early 80's. Taking his training in African and Indonesian percussion, he applied his rhythmic sense to the new harsh tonality of early industrial, creating rhythmic soundscapes of primal energy and metallic timbre. The Bush Tetras were equally innovative, arising in the fray of Post-No Wave New York to inspire such trivial musicians as Sonic Youth (!!!). Formed by Pat Place of the Contortions, the Bush Tetras, along with Liquid Liquid, ESG and Place's ex bandmate James Chance, pioneered the use of minimal funk and dance rhythms in New York's arty downtown music scene. Although none of the bands from this scene achieved commercial success, their influence can be felt in everything from house music to early hip hop to noise and avant garde music to New Wave. [zev myspace] [tetras myspace]
Other shows
Passive Aggressor (hard-edged, noisy pop punk) @ Death By Audio ($7)
Young Boys (ultra-raw nasty noise pop) @ Coco 66 ($7, not headlining)
Saturday, April 16
AIDS Wolf, White Suns @ Death By Audio * Williamsburg, Brooklyn * $7
AIDS Wolf are as awesome as their name (very). Basically, three guys make crazy noise on some instruments while a girl deep throats a microphone and screams for 45 minutes straight. While the band departs from nearly every convention of music (melody, key signature), they do have a complex rhythmic underpinning that holds it all together, if barely. Definitely a must-see. [myspace]
Come @ Bell House * Gowanus, Brooklyn * $20
Twenty bucks is a bit steep for a band I'm pretty sure no one has ever heard of. That said, Come are fairly important for a band no one has ever heard of. Their moody alt rock was a hallmark of 90's indie, never breaking the surface but receiving acclaim from critics and musicians. I wouldn't spend $20 on it, but it's worth a mention. [myspace]
Other shows
Grouper (ambient noise) @ Glasslands ($10)
Spectrum (ex-Spacemen 3), Crystal Stilts (post punk, Joy Division and Velvet Underground rip-off) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($15)
Pop 1280 (noise, post hardcore) @ 285 Kent ($7, not headlining)
Sunday, April 17
Nothing to write home about.
Grouper (see above) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($13/$15)
Spectrum (see above), Crystal Stilts (see above) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Monday, April 18
Really, nothing whatsoever worth seeing.
Tuesday, April 19
PJ Harvey @ Terminal 5 * Midtown West, Manhattan * Sold Out
Pros: PJ Harvey. Cons: terrible venue, expensive. I say skip it. But on the other hand: PJ Harvey! [myspace]
Wednesday, April 20
PJ Harvey @ Terminal 5 * Midtown West, Manhattan * Sold Out
See above.
The long view...
April
23
Grass Widow, K-Holes (lady noise!) @ Glasslands
24
Talk Normal, Grass Widow (lady noise!) @ Death By Audio
27
Low (ultra-restrained slowcore and occasional bloodcurdling screaming about Santa Claus) @ Bowery Ballroom
Battles (experimental electro) @ Le Poisson Rouge (Sold Out)
Lemuria (pop punk, emo, but good) @ Webster Studio
Lightning Bolt (post-thrash noise) @ 285 Kent ($12)
28
Lightning Bolt (post-thrash noise), Pterodactyl (crazy noise) @ Le Poisson Rouge ($12/$14)
30
Titus Andronicus (epic hardcore punk songs about history - but so much better than that sounds) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
May
4
Gang Gang Dance (experimental dub) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
Foals (mathy dancy post punky indie rock) @ Terminal 5
6
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (saccharine indie pop with subtly dark lyrics) @ Webster Hall
10
Yo La Tengo (inventors of noise pop) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
11
Yo La Tengo (see above) @ Bell House (Sold Out)
CSS (ultra hip crazy dance pop with punk attitude from Brazilian ladies), Sleigh Bells (ultra hip duo with danceable heavy hip-hop beats + girly vocals + metal/hardcore/industrial sheets of guitar noise + some screaming) @ Webster Hall (Sold Out)
12
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (Sold Out)
15
CSS, Sleigh Bells (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom (Sold Out)
19
The Antlers (sad noisy music) @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
20
The Antlers (see above) @ Bowery Ballroom
Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), I Feel Tractor @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
June
2
Stiff Little Fingers (late 70's UK punk)
23
Dinosaur Jr (late 80's/early 90's loud proto-alt rock, performing their classic album Bug), Fucked Up (wall of sound meets hardcore/thrash meets best thing ever) @ Terminal 5
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Live: Parts and Labor, Zulus, Hunters
When: April 8
Where: Cake Shop
Although many of my favorite NYC bands have gone belly up or at least M.I.A. in the last year, one of the groups still giving me hope is Hunters, an experimental quartet who look like a cool band if you run into them on the street (as I recently did). They've got "the look" in that slightly scary post-punk mad-scientist-meets-futuristic-slick way, minus all the post-glam trappings of the 1980's British scene. There's nothing put on about the way Hunters look - they don't seem like one of those bands that sits down to discuss their "image." They just look cool because they are cool.
Of course, looking edgy, or even looking cohesive, does not make or break a band. Or at least it shouldn't. But it can help set the stage for an edgy sound, and that's what Hunters have. Their music is contradictory: turbid and murky, but somehow not at all muddy; at once stagnant and anarchic. There is a sort of gothic bleakness about the band, but the music itself is a breakneck jumble of noise. Live, the band seems a bit standoffish but also driven with an intensity that inevitably sets co-fronters Isabel Ibsen and Derek Watson rolling on the floor in a pseudo-sexual, violent mass of body and guitar.
But at Cake Shop, what caught my attention most was not the band's frenzy (which I've come to expect) but their pop appeal. The last song of the set was a hooky sing-along, albeit enmeshed in No Wave-inflected chaos and noise. The genuineness with which the band merges these two conflicting impulses - the catchy, spirited pop and the arty noise freakout - shows a band on the edge of something original and important. I don't think they're there yet; there's still something unfocused and unarticulated in Hunters' post-post-post-post-post-punk set. But if they keep moving, they just might end up making music that really matters. [myspace]
Zulus played next. The band's overall sound was very appealing - massively loud guitars, heavy but with tempos fast enough to keep them from feeling bogged down. However, with no open space for their songs to breathe, the constant guitar and samey tempos made it hard to disinguish one song from the next after a little while. Moreover, the band's vocals all sounded like an afterthought, tacked on at the last minute out of deference to convention. If the band learns to shift their vocals more towards the core of their songwriting and branches out in terms of tempo, they could very easily become an exciting band. But as of now, they are just "okay." [myspace]
I missed the next band, Puffy Areolas and I kind of regret that, because I am curious about them. However, the so-so-picky Pepe, who stayed for their set, gave them a non-verbal review of "Eh" and a shrug. Take that as you will.
While these opening bands don't seem the most obvious picks to open for headliners Parts and Labor, the unifying theme of the night seemed to be sheer volume, and that actually worked to give the line-up so coherence (especially in Cake Shop, which boasts a P.A. powerful enough to cram the basement bar with as much sound as it could possibly hold).
Unlike the previous bands, Parts and Labor are all about cheesy mid-tempo pop songs, with soaring, emotion-laden melodies. But Parts and Labor doesn't just sound like cheesy love songs, they sound like cheesy love songs with a GIANT ROBOT destroying a major city in the background. You can hear skyscrapers' steel girders twisting and buildings shattering over concrete. This post-human aesthetic comes primarily from the electronic wizardry of Dan Friel, a tall bloke with sunny ginger curls and a perpetual smile, who is also responsible for half the band's lead vocals. New guitarist Tom Martin, a pretty-boy if ever there was one, held his own in his first show with the group, lacing the band's sound with an appropriately processed sheen.
But against this electronic, mechanical atmosphere, drummer Joe Wong (who looks deceptively like a fifth grader with his comb-down haircut and thin-rimmed glasses) adds a far more organic quality to the music. While the other instruments conjure the man-made structures of urban modernity, the drums evoke an expansive mountain range, with peaks of fills and erupting cymbals over an earthy mantle of deep bass drum and toms. While unassuming, Wong is one of the best drummers in New York City right now, providing a muscular base for the band's massive sound. But muscular doesn't mean overly weighty - despite the sheer power of his playing, Wong's fills are lightning quick and his rhythms are in dynamic conversation with the rest of the band, responding to every shift in sound.
The gap between the sci-fi electronics and earthy drums is bridged by B. J. Warshaw, whose bass lines dive as low as music can go - although I cannot figure out if this is accomplished with an octave pedal or if the richness of the tone alone makes the bass sound so deep. Emerging behind a frizzy beard and thick glasses, Warshaw's vocals are of that strained timbre that's so in vogue in post-2000 indie music. But in vogue doesn't mean bad, quite the contrary in this case - Warshaw pulls off the slightly high, slightly thin sounding style just as it should be pulled off, creating a sense of vulnerability without resorting to untunefulness.
Parts & Labor's weak spot is always their melodies, and last weekend's show proved no different. While the band embraces the dramatic open melodies of midtempo pop, their attempts are hit and miss. When they're on, as with their crowning pop achievement "Nowheres Nigh," which closed the Cake Shop set, they're very, very on. The melody's simplicity is compelling, but many of the bands' other songs sound adrift and fail to hook the ear. Of course, if the band always hit the mark, they might become too sappy to bear, but many of their weaker melodies sound more accidentally limp than purposefully slack.
Despite that gaping hole (or at least inconsistency) in their songwriting, Parts & Labor continues to impress. Part of that undoubtedly comes from the band's own conviction - there is nothing aloof about their delivery. Each line and each chord sounds deeply felt and that alone draws in the audience in the moment. Meanwhile, the band's unique sonic landscape, a sort of warm-blooded machine that always seems to be the music's textural protagonist, sets them apart from other heartfelt indie rockers, pushing them from just being moving to being lasting. [myspace]
Where: Cake Shop
Although many of my favorite NYC bands have gone belly up or at least M.I.A. in the last year, one of the groups still giving me hope is Hunters, an experimental quartet who look like a cool band if you run into them on the street (as I recently did). They've got "the look" in that slightly scary post-punk mad-scientist-meets-futuristic-slick way, minus all the post-glam trappings of the 1980's British scene. There's nothing put on about the way Hunters look - they don't seem like one of those bands that sits down to discuss their "image." They just look cool because they are cool.
Of course, looking edgy, or even looking cohesive, does not make or break a band. Or at least it shouldn't. But it can help set the stage for an edgy sound, and that's what Hunters have. Their music is contradictory: turbid and murky, but somehow not at all muddy; at once stagnant and anarchic. There is a sort of gothic bleakness about the band, but the music itself is a breakneck jumble of noise. Live, the band seems a bit standoffish but also driven with an intensity that inevitably sets co-fronters Isabel Ibsen and Derek Watson rolling on the floor in a pseudo-sexual, violent mass of body and guitar.
But at Cake Shop, what caught my attention most was not the band's frenzy (which I've come to expect) but their pop appeal. The last song of the set was a hooky sing-along, albeit enmeshed in No Wave-inflected chaos and noise. The genuineness with which the band merges these two conflicting impulses - the catchy, spirited pop and the arty noise freakout - shows a band on the edge of something original and important. I don't think they're there yet; there's still something unfocused and unarticulated in Hunters' post-post-post-post-post-punk set. But if they keep moving, they just might end up making music that really matters. [myspace]
Zulus played next. The band's overall sound was very appealing - massively loud guitars, heavy but with tempos fast enough to keep them from feeling bogged down. However, with no open space for their songs to breathe, the constant guitar and samey tempos made it hard to disinguish one song from the next after a little while. Moreover, the band's vocals all sounded like an afterthought, tacked on at the last minute out of deference to convention. If the band learns to shift their vocals more towards the core of their songwriting and branches out in terms of tempo, they could very easily become an exciting band. But as of now, they are just "okay." [myspace]
I missed the next band, Puffy Areolas and I kind of regret that, because I am curious about them. However, the so-so-picky Pepe, who stayed for their set, gave them a non-verbal review of "Eh" and a shrug. Take that as you will.
While these opening bands don't seem the most obvious picks to open for headliners Parts and Labor, the unifying theme of the night seemed to be sheer volume, and that actually worked to give the line-up so coherence (especially in Cake Shop, which boasts a P.A. powerful enough to cram the basement bar with as much sound as it could possibly hold).
Unlike the previous bands, Parts and Labor are all about cheesy mid-tempo pop songs, with soaring, emotion-laden melodies. But Parts and Labor doesn't just sound like cheesy love songs, they sound like cheesy love songs with a GIANT ROBOT destroying a major city in the background. You can hear skyscrapers' steel girders twisting and buildings shattering over concrete. This post-human aesthetic comes primarily from the electronic wizardry of Dan Friel, a tall bloke with sunny ginger curls and a perpetual smile, who is also responsible for half the band's lead vocals. New guitarist Tom Martin, a pretty-boy if ever there was one, held his own in his first show with the group, lacing the band's sound with an appropriately processed sheen.
But against this electronic, mechanical atmosphere, drummer Joe Wong (who looks deceptively like a fifth grader with his comb-down haircut and thin-rimmed glasses) adds a far more organic quality to the music. While the other instruments conjure the man-made structures of urban modernity, the drums evoke an expansive mountain range, with peaks of fills and erupting cymbals over an earthy mantle of deep bass drum and toms. While unassuming, Wong is one of the best drummers in New York City right now, providing a muscular base for the band's massive sound. But muscular doesn't mean overly weighty - despite the sheer power of his playing, Wong's fills are lightning quick and his rhythms are in dynamic conversation with the rest of the band, responding to every shift in sound.
The gap between the sci-fi electronics and earthy drums is bridged by B. J. Warshaw, whose bass lines dive as low as music can go - although I cannot figure out if this is accomplished with an octave pedal or if the richness of the tone alone makes the bass sound so deep. Emerging behind a frizzy beard and thick glasses, Warshaw's vocals are of that strained timbre that's so in vogue in post-2000 indie music. But in vogue doesn't mean bad, quite the contrary in this case - Warshaw pulls off the slightly high, slightly thin sounding style just as it should be pulled off, creating a sense of vulnerability without resorting to untunefulness.
Parts & Labor's weak spot is always their melodies, and last weekend's show proved no different. While the band embraces the dramatic open melodies of midtempo pop, their attempts are hit and miss. When they're on, as with their crowning pop achievement "Nowheres Nigh," which closed the Cake Shop set, they're very, very on. The melody's simplicity is compelling, but many of the bands' other songs sound adrift and fail to hook the ear. Of course, if the band always hit the mark, they might become too sappy to bear, but many of their weaker melodies sound more accidentally limp than purposefully slack.
Despite that gaping hole (or at least inconsistency) in their songwriting, Parts & Labor continues to impress. Part of that undoubtedly comes from the band's own conviction - there is nothing aloof about their delivery. Each line and each chord sounds deeply felt and that alone draws in the audience in the moment. Meanwhile, the band's unique sonic landscape, a sort of warm-blooded machine that always seems to be the music's textural protagonist, sets them apart from other heartfelt indie rockers, pushing them from just being moving to being lasting. [myspace]
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Album: Ponytail - Do Whatever You Want All the Time
Album: Do Whatever You Want All the Time
We Are Free, 2011
Rating: ******** (8/10)
Honestly, until this week, I never thought Ponytail could get any more awesome. The young experimental foursome from Baltimore has already released two genre-defying masterpieces of manic guitar work capped with strange yelping vocals. Despite being arty to the point where "avant garde" seems only appropriate, the band has won not only critical acclaim but loyal fans who love the band's affirming, youthful rush.
But this time, Ponytail have truly outdone themselves. First of all, their new album is called Do Whatever You Want All the Time, which is one of the greatest album titles of all time. It captures the essence of Ponytail's kaleidoscope-pop universe, one where social conventions (such as don't yelp like a strange little dog into a microphone in front of hundreds of people) and musical conventions (such as choruses, verses, melodies and chords) are banished and not just the band, but everyone, can be free. Honestly, this album would be a rare accomplishment for its name alone - but we don't need to debate that point, because as it so happens, the music lives up.
Do Whatever is certainly the band's most measured release - while 2008's Ice Cream Spiritual had listeners hanging on for their lives, Do Whatever drifts through clouds of sound. Out of this technicolor haze shoot glimpses of the untamed, unbridled guitar and drums of previous Ponytail albums. Opening track "Easy Peasy" builds gently, shimmering guitar finally giving way to an anthemic near-melody.
This song in turns gives away to "Flabbermouse," a light-handed baroque jaunt - and I mean baroque literally, with the high, winding guitar lines actually recalling the golden age of the harpsichord (mid 1700's, yeah?). Frontwoman Molly Siegel's vocals at times trace the outlines of the guitar line, which is the closest we've ever heard her get to singing. But like any Ponytail song, "Flabbermouse" doesn't stay still for long, veering sharply into what sounds like a very abstracted pop refrain, before falling away into a starry cascade of guitar.
"Honey Touches" has Siegel tenaciously declaring unintelligible syllables with such conviction that her meaning is perfectly conveyed without language. (It is possible that she's actually saying something that's easily understood, but I can't figure it out and I don't need to to get the message). Under Siegel's more solid intonations, the rest of the band also hews a firmer foundation. But still, they never hold still, shifting between wide open chords and their more characteristic burbling fountain of guitar.
The whimsically titled "Beyondersville/Flight of Fancy" sets out with an equally whimsical soundscape of chirping electronics that despite their electronicness, recall nature more than anything else; the instruments flutter and beep in faithful imitation of birds and crickets deep in some imagined rainforest. As the song progresses through its six minute lifespan, the fauna in its soundscape gradually find their sonic footing, locking in with one another, alongside increasingly bold drums. But the song never reaches a climax, instead relaxing in its own peaceful haze.
The trance, however, is broken by the bombastic, prismatic "AwayWay," which sounds more like Ice Cream Spiritual than any other song on the album (with the possible exception of parts of "Easy Peasy.") The song's arrangement drops the volume after a minute though (Ponytail never stand still), building it back from the ground with embracing, heart-on-the-line harmonies and dual less atonal and more supertonal or even pretonal vocals from Seigel and (I think) mad guitarist Dustin Wong. "Tush" follows on similar terms, a vibrant celebration of barely-contained glee - though I suppose that description fits all the band's songs. Midway, a faint melody recalls African pop - not the co-opted Afrobeaet of certain Bands that Shall Not Be Named, but more like legit Juju music with its almost banjo-clean high pentatonic guitars. Of course, it just as quickly slides away from this and into a twinkling pool of sound.
The album's closer, the aptly-named "Music Tunes," starts with Siegel's primordial calls, sliced through by a razorsharp guitar. The song's tension slacks into a strange electro-bass-slung hammock, with Seigel's cries this time seeming to gradually embolden instruments as they pick up both tempo and volume. The song and album close with something reminiscent of (are you sitting down?) a melodic (!!) riff (!!), once again with the spirited repetition of a refrain. The drums continue to build until they reach a breaking point and explode into frenzy. And then, abruptly, the album ends.
It's hard to say whether this album is better than the band's previous efforts. For those who loved the exhilaration of the sheer speed of Dustin Wong's guitar might find reason to be disappointed. On the other hand, those seeking on a more general level a liberated, liberating, color-drenched art-pop, Do Whatever cannot fail to dazzle. While many experiments in music have been defined in terms of "post" - postpunk, postrock - Ponytail's music is best described in terms of "pre." The band seems to exist in that childhood state before the discovery of inhibition and the fall into the entrapments of habit. Elements of Ponytail's music evoke a childlike state not only on an individual plane, but also in the sweep of human experience - the joyfully thudding drums, the prelingual whoops, the twittering guitar. In both its title and its music, Do Whatever invites us to go back to a time before the first time we felt embarrassed, or on a cosmological scale, to a time before Adam and Eve chowed down on that apple. It's an exercise in the liberation of joy and the joy of liberation and a document of the human spirit and the spirit of youth.
Granted, it's a document made by four young musicians in Maryland - it's flawed and well, it won't satisfy your soul on every existential level for all time - as the last paragraph might have implied. But it will make you smile. And that's a heck of a start.
The album is out today!
Monday, April 11, 2011
Album: The Crystal Stilts - In Love with Oblivion
Album: In Love with Oblivion
Slumberland, 2011
Rating: ***** (5/10)
When I first heard the Crystal Stilts' "Converging in the Quiet" in 2008, I immediately proclaimed them to be the greatest thing, like, ever - both here and to anyone who would listen to me in real life. However, over the following year, I painfully fell out of love with band, due in large part to their arrogant and lazy stage presence and their formulaic song after formulaic song. (The Stilts formula, which bears a striking resemblance to the formula of many other bands with whom the Stilts have shared labels or stages, basically involves a bass line that falls somewhere in the Peter Hook (Joy Division) to C-86 continuum, ultra-jangly guitars and let's-see-how-much-reverb-we-can-possibly-put-on-these low tenor vocals, in case you missed the memo.)
In Love With Oblivion does little to appease my ambivalence towards the band. The album is eleven songs long, but the first two tracks are recycled from previous releases. "Sycamore Tree," okay, that wasn't a proper release, but "Through the Floor"? Really? A demo version of that track appeared on the band's 2008 Woodsist debut. Yes, they've spruced it up a bit since then, but I wouldn't say they've improved it and they certainly haven't dramatically revamped it. This isn't the first time the Stilts have resorted to recycling, though - they also released a watered down version of "Converging in the Quiet" from the same Woodsist release under the name "Departure" on their later Slumberland debut. It's as though the band thinks no one has heard their Woodsist EP and doesn't want any of their songs to go unheard by the casual listener (or like they couldn't write enough new songs for a new album). But save it for your Singles and B-Sides comp, guys.
To their credit, the songs on In Love With Oblivion do expand on the Stilts' old tricks by adding some production tricks and synthesizers (or something). The band also throws around some Spanish-ish modal experiments with mostly positive results. In Love also sees them continuing their trend towards the faster, sadly often without also continuing their parallel trend toward the catchier. A cynic might say the band has moved from imitating Joy Division to imitating another touchstone of underground rock: the Velvet Underground. However, that would be oversimplifying the story.
Despite more creative arrangements, the first few songs on the album feel dull and ultimately forgettable. "Sycamore Tree" has a surfy flavor, while "Through the Floor" is all Jesus and Mary Chain (but with awkward and thankfully low-mixed piano). "Silver Suns" is a gentle, warm song that's certainly well crafted, but it too becomes tarnished when you realize the main guitar riff is just the first half of the riff from "Lady Godiva's Operation" (the Velvets, again) with the rhythm subtly inverted.
"Half A Moon" finally introduces a Stilts that don't sound completely derivative. The song is still vintage in sensibility, but the melodic riff that tears through and the double-speed bass give the Stilts a sound, their sound. The subsequent drama of "Flying into the Sun" and "Shake the Shackles" is a mixed blessing, but the added instrumentation and the striking clarity of that added instrumentation against the Stilts' murk (granted, it would not have striking clarity against any other backdrop) ultimately shows the band pushing in new directions. While they haven't yet arrived, at least they're moving forward. The following track "Precarious Stair," however, while being a well-constructed midtempo pop song at its core, is frankly a mess. While I laud the band's most extreme attempt at branching out to date, timpani and autoharp (?!) are not really the way to go. Continuing the damage, "Invisible City" is based around an untamed organ that comes off as cheesy, almost self-mocking, but without actually being funny or making a statement.
"Blood Barons" picks things up a bit, with a very late-Velvets guitar and a bass-line lifted straight from Suicide's "Ghost Rider" (albeit slightly rhythmically askew from the original). Ripping off two bands at once doesn't generally produce very original sounding results, and it definitely doesn't here. That said, "Blood Barons" is at least catchy.
Closing the album, the piano-based "Prometheus at Large" shows the band again overreaching. Their foray into honky-tonk piano probably comes via songs like the Velvets "I'm Waiting for the Man," especially judging from the again very Velvets-inflected guitar (this time, recalling the Velvets' earlier scratchy, spastic freakouts). However, while Lou Reed and company could actually pull off some boogie woogie behind the keys, the Stilts lack the black culture roots or sincerity to pull it off. As always, the band sounds three times removed in a cloud of aloof irony, obscure (or not so obscure) reference points and oh so much reverb - only with the piano backing, they actually sound kind of racist doing it.
The one bright spot on the album (although "bright" is actually the very wrong word to describe it) is the seven minute plus "Alien Rivers." Here, the band's postpunk model finally reaches its potential. Although I'm not usually a fan of long songs, "Alien Rivers" is a misty and foreboding bass-driven masterpiece that shows the band's growth far more organically than the albums' later tracks do - here, the experimental elements roll out with subtlety and control throughout the song as though the band is actually drifting downriver into some dark and alien forest. At fourth, the song comes a little early in the album to be called its "centerpiece" but "Rivers" definitely fills that role. Gloomy bass a la Joy Division, PIL or even Bauhaus melds seamlessly with a sinister tango-ing organ and Old West guitar. The drama of these three instruments, while recalling three distinctly different styles, fits together neatly in that enigmatic combination of tongue-in-cheek gloom-and-doom and sincere misery originally perfected in postpunk England. Four and a half of this album's five stars come from this track, but with its length and subtly, it is very much an album track that only truly makes sense in the context of the sub-par remainder of the album.
With blatant rip-offs around every corner, In Love with Oblivion is somewhat challenging for anyone versed in classic underground pop. Nevertheless, it's an enjoyable listen at most points and even manages to be remarkable at a few. Don't break the bank for this one, but don't give up on the Stilts quite yet.
Live: Jeff the Brotherhood, Heavy Cream, Hell Beach + more
When: April 2, 2011
Where: Death By Audio
When I went to Death By Audio last weekend, I will admit I was not really in the mood for the music of the night - namely slightly southern-fried, post-ironic-hipster-idol-y, 60's-inflected indie rock. But that doesn't change the fact that nearly the entire show was a disappointment.
When I arrived, Colleen Green was on stage. The band is made up of two affected, Ray-Ban sporting women playing guitar and bass over a cheesy drum machine. That's a setup that could go either way, but in this case, it went in a bad way. The music was terrible, but that wasn't really the problem - in fact, that provided the only point on which you could argue the band had some merit. My friend Pepe (thanks, random name generator) thought that the band members were courageous to take the stage even though they were so astoundingly bad. However, I had the distinct feeling that this wasn't a brave presentation of incompetence in the populist tradition that runs from punk and No Wave through Beat Happening up to contemporary vanguard of bands that at least (sometimes) fake inability to play their instruments (e.g. Stupid Party, Total Slacker).
But Colleen Green is of a different tribe. To me, their performance reeked of cowardice. Their incompetence seemed distinctly calculated to allow them to take the stage without threatening insecure men. This is one of the most disturbing faces of the nostalgia that has overwhelmed indie music and alternative youth culture in recent years - the relegation of women to a sort of Trix Rabbit role (silly girls, guitars are for men). It's been difficult for me to put my finger on what separates the anti-feminist backlash of bands like Best Coast and Colleen Green from distinctly empowering female figures like Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells (who, after all, does not write the band's music or play an instrument, but whose ditsy bimbo character who thought she forgot her sunglasses is delivered with ambiguous derision and balanced with massive, nasty sound and one uncurbed scream). Not every female in music has to be a bra-burning Riot Grrrl, but if you are female and playing rock or pop music, you are making a statement on feminism, whether you like it or not. This isn't about what's fair, it's about reality, and in reality, Colleen Green says loud and clear that "girl bands" are a novelty. We ladies of the music scene are good for a laugh, but let's leave the real music to the men.
Colleen Green were followed by X-Ray Eyeballs, an ultimately forgettable act of two and three chord songs. I'd give them another chance, but their performance at DBA was not exactly something to write home about.
I wish Hell Beach was as forgettable as X-Ray Eyeballs, but unfortunately, the opening of their set, a song charmingly entitled "Dead Friends" is still seared in my memory. The lyrics, which you can read for yourself here, are a tasteless, artless attempt to be edgy. Or maybe it's an attempt to parody edgy rock lyrics. Whatever they were attempting, they failed. Actually, I should say vocalist Susan Tinsley failed. The other two members of the band were pretty alright, with drummer Jolene Boyce having exactly the edge that Colleen Green was lacking. Brad Holland managed to wrangle some nasty snarls out of his guitar - cliched snarls, but in a way that's more art-smart referential than uncreative.
The band is clearly going for some sort of goth punk or goth grunge. Don't get me wrong, goth is all about having a sense of humor (a dimension of the genre missed by an entire generation of Hot Topic customers and sickly-looking gloomsters). Goth's seminal single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," is one of the of the funniest songs in pop history. But that song was both lyrically clever and sonically creative. "Dead Friends," on the other hand, is so obvious that you can actually feel yourself getting stupider as you listen - and not in a fun way. I mean, c'mon Tinsley, how old are you?
The only band of the night that really did meet my expectations was Heavy Cream. Part of the reason the band met my expectations is that those expectations had been lowered when I saw Heavy Cream at Union Pool (if I remember correctly) and found them to be nothing more than good Nashville-inflected garage rock. I had hyped them up in my own mind to be the greatest thing since half-and-half (sorry) but this time, I approached the group with more reasonable expectations.
Nashville-inflected garage rock definitely still summarizes the band's sound. However, there was something far more punk rock about their performance at DBA. Part of it wasn't musical at all. When guitarist Mimi Galbierz broke a string soon after the band took the stage, the set was stalled while the band tried to find a guitar to borrow. (Jake's guitar, "Jamin," was suggested until the band remembered that guitar would only have three strings to their current five.) While the band awkwardly pleaded with the audience to supply them a guitar, singer Jessica McFarland began berating the audience for their lack of creative contributions in the downtime. Whether tongue-in-cheek or serious, McFarland's obvious contempt for the audience brought the show to a new level. The band's frustration at being plagued with technical difficulties (the guitar being just one of several mishaps) was channeled into their music, giving it a harder edge. McFarland can be compared to that other blond singer of the young Nashville scene, Jemina Pearl, in as much as both possess the stage with delightful arrogance and a sort of icy sexuality. But McFarland's presentation is far more mature than Pearl's petulant (if captivating) behavior.
After the venomous performance by Heavy Cream, headliners Jeff the Brotherhood failed to impress. I mean, they failed to impress me. The audience seemed to dig it, moshing violently from Jake's first note on. But the crowd at Jeff shows seems increasingly dominated by the kind of people who use the mosh pit as an outlet for macho aggression. The pit is all about violence, which is obviously kinda the point. But every scene where slam dancing dominates eventually seems to draw out a more bullying element, the meatheads who have ruined countless hardcore shows from the early 80's onward. To be clear, these sort of meatheads didn't dominate the Jeff show - but I can feel a slide in that direction in the increasing roughness and decreasing fun of the audience. People are starting to come not for the music but because they like to shove other people around.
But that's not the Orrall brothers' fault and it wasn't what made the show such a disappointment. What ultimately ruined the set was simply the band's straightforward delivery. The reason Jeff the Brotherhood shows have always excited me is Jake's ridiculous rockstar posturing, his command of the stage and piercing comprehension of rock'n'roll showmanship. But last weekend, the band just played their songs. They played well and with enthusiasm, but a spark was missing. Whether the band is burning out, growing lazy or was just having a weary night remains to be seen, but whatever the reason, the band was simply not compelling or commanding. Of course, in saying this, I am only comparing the band to themselves, their past performances. Compared with the vast majority of acts out there, they are still one of the meanest live shows of 2011. But for longtime fans, their current presentation seems distinctly uninspired.
Let's hope it was just an off night and not the start of the decline of indie's rockingest band.
Where: Death By Audio
When I went to Death By Audio last weekend, I will admit I was not really in the mood for the music of the night - namely slightly southern-fried, post-ironic-hipster-idol-y, 60's-inflected indie rock. But that doesn't change the fact that nearly the entire show was a disappointment.
When I arrived, Colleen Green was on stage. The band is made up of two affected, Ray-Ban sporting women playing guitar and bass over a cheesy drum machine. That's a setup that could go either way, but in this case, it went in a bad way. The music was terrible, but that wasn't really the problem - in fact, that provided the only point on which you could argue the band had some merit. My friend Pepe (thanks, random name generator) thought that the band members were courageous to take the stage even though they were so astoundingly bad. However, I had the distinct feeling that this wasn't a brave presentation of incompetence in the populist tradition that runs from punk and No Wave through Beat Happening up to contemporary vanguard of bands that at least (sometimes) fake inability to play their instruments (e.g. Stupid Party, Total Slacker).
But Colleen Green is of a different tribe. To me, their performance reeked of cowardice. Their incompetence seemed distinctly calculated to allow them to take the stage without threatening insecure men. This is one of the most disturbing faces of the nostalgia that has overwhelmed indie music and alternative youth culture in recent years - the relegation of women to a sort of Trix Rabbit role (silly girls, guitars are for men). It's been difficult for me to put my finger on what separates the anti-feminist backlash of bands like Best Coast and Colleen Green from distinctly empowering female figures like Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells (who, after all, does not write the band's music or play an instrument, but whose ditsy bimbo character who thought she forgot her sunglasses is delivered with ambiguous derision and balanced with massive, nasty sound and one uncurbed scream). Not every female in music has to be a bra-burning Riot Grrrl, but if you are female and playing rock or pop music, you are making a statement on feminism, whether you like it or not. This isn't about what's fair, it's about reality, and in reality, Colleen Green says loud and clear that "girl bands" are a novelty. We ladies of the music scene are good for a laugh, but let's leave the real music to the men.
Colleen Green were followed by X-Ray Eyeballs, an ultimately forgettable act of two and three chord songs. I'd give them another chance, but their performance at DBA was not exactly something to write home about.
I wish Hell Beach was as forgettable as X-Ray Eyeballs, but unfortunately, the opening of their set, a song charmingly entitled "Dead Friends" is still seared in my memory. The lyrics, which you can read for yourself here, are a tasteless, artless attempt to be edgy. Or maybe it's an attempt to parody edgy rock lyrics. Whatever they were attempting, they failed. Actually, I should say vocalist Susan Tinsley failed. The other two members of the band were pretty alright, with drummer Jolene Boyce having exactly the edge that Colleen Green was lacking. Brad Holland managed to wrangle some nasty snarls out of his guitar - cliched snarls, but in a way that's more art-smart referential than uncreative.
The band is clearly going for some sort of goth punk or goth grunge. Don't get me wrong, goth is all about having a sense of humor (a dimension of the genre missed by an entire generation of Hot Topic customers and sickly-looking gloomsters). Goth's seminal single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," is one of the of the funniest songs in pop history. But that song was both lyrically clever and sonically creative. "Dead Friends," on the other hand, is so obvious that you can actually feel yourself getting stupider as you listen - and not in a fun way. I mean, c'mon Tinsley, how old are you?
The only band of the night that really did meet my expectations was Heavy Cream. Part of the reason the band met my expectations is that those expectations had been lowered when I saw Heavy Cream at Union Pool (if I remember correctly) and found them to be nothing more than good Nashville-inflected garage rock. I had hyped them up in my own mind to be the greatest thing since half-and-half (sorry) but this time, I approached the group with more reasonable expectations.
Nashville-inflected garage rock definitely still summarizes the band's sound. However, there was something far more punk rock about their performance at DBA. Part of it wasn't musical at all. When guitarist Mimi Galbierz broke a string soon after the band took the stage, the set was stalled while the band tried to find a guitar to borrow. (Jake's guitar, "Jamin," was suggested until the band remembered that guitar would only have three strings to their current five.) While the band awkwardly pleaded with the audience to supply them a guitar, singer Jessica McFarland began berating the audience for their lack of creative contributions in the downtime. Whether tongue-in-cheek or serious, McFarland's obvious contempt for the audience brought the show to a new level. The band's frustration at being plagued with technical difficulties (the guitar being just one of several mishaps) was channeled into their music, giving it a harder edge. McFarland can be compared to that other blond singer of the young Nashville scene, Jemina Pearl, in as much as both possess the stage with delightful arrogance and a sort of icy sexuality. But McFarland's presentation is far more mature than Pearl's petulant (if captivating) behavior.
After the venomous performance by Heavy Cream, headliners Jeff the Brotherhood failed to impress. I mean, they failed to impress me. The audience seemed to dig it, moshing violently from Jake's first note on. But the crowd at Jeff shows seems increasingly dominated by the kind of people who use the mosh pit as an outlet for macho aggression. The pit is all about violence, which is obviously kinda the point. But every scene where slam dancing dominates eventually seems to draw out a more bullying element, the meatheads who have ruined countless hardcore shows from the early 80's onward. To be clear, these sort of meatheads didn't dominate the Jeff show - but I can feel a slide in that direction in the increasing roughness and decreasing fun of the audience. People are starting to come not for the music but because they like to shove other people around.
But that's not the Orrall brothers' fault and it wasn't what made the show such a disappointment. What ultimately ruined the set was simply the band's straightforward delivery. The reason Jeff the Brotherhood shows have always excited me is Jake's ridiculous rockstar posturing, his command of the stage and piercing comprehension of rock'n'roll showmanship. But last weekend, the band just played their songs. They played well and with enthusiasm, but a spark was missing. Whether the band is burning out, growing lazy or was just having a weary night remains to be seen, but whatever the reason, the band was simply not compelling or commanding. Of course, in saying this, I am only comparing the band to themselves, their past performances. Compared with the vast majority of acts out there, they are still one of the meanest live shows of 2011. But for longtime fans, their current presentation seems distinctly uninspired.
Let's hope it was just an off night and not the start of the decline of indie's rockingest band.
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