Upcoming Shows: The Styrenes!!!!!!! + more

[Upcoming Shows Playlist]

Thursday, April 29

Cold Cave @ Le Poisson Rouge * Greenwich Village, Manhattan * $12
Cold Cave effortlessly combine the sweeping dramatics of early 80's New Wave with icy nihilism. Its a distillation of all that's good about synth-based music. [myspace]

Fiasco, Total Slacker @ Death By Audio * Williamsburg, Brooklyn
These are two punky DIY bands who have been slightly outstripped by the hype but are still worth checking out. They're pretty loud. [fiasco myspace] [slacker myspace]


Friday, April 30

The Styrenes @ Death By Audio * Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Some strange things happened deep in the Midwest, deep in the mid 70's and at least in the world of rock music, Cleveland was at the center of the strangeness. There were only about a half dozen bands in the movement, and inbred bands at that, but they changed the course of music, opening the door to post-punk before the rest of the world had caught on to the Ramones and the Sex Pistols.

The Cleveland bands can be divided roughly into to cliques - on one side, you've got Rocket From the Tombs whose core members split to form Pere Ubu and Dead Boys. On the other hand, there was a wildly experimental noisefuck called Electric Eels and the slightly more pop-angled Mirrors, who would later morph into the Styrenes. Paul Marotta played with all three of these and when he and his bandmates decided to reunite, they rounded out the band's most well-known four-piece line-up of yore with the Electric Eels' notorious John Morton and original Mirrors/Styrenes founder Jamie Klimek.

So, six of the most insane, daring and violent minds in punk history will take the stage at New York's best DIY venue, the intimate Death by Audio. According to Cleveland.com, they will play a few Mirrors and Electric Eels songs as well as the Styrenes' material. I think I might die. [myspace]


Saturday, May 1

Styrenes + Tyvek @ Cake Shop * LES, Manhattan * $10
See above. And this time, no DIY, but a great venue nevertheless and with the lovable mad Detroit punks Tyvek warming up the stage. [tyvek myspace]


Sunday, May 2

Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers @ Mercury Lounge * LES, Manhattan * $10
Acclaimed and adored by critics everywhere and with one of the loyalest fan bases around, Shilpa Ray could school all of Brooklyn when it comes to rock. Her soulful, bluesy rock builds around a hand-powered harmonium and her punk rock energy and the fact that she's legitimately totally insane makes for one of the most fun live shows you can find in the New York scene. I mean, seriously, the woman is bonkers. [myspace]


Monday, May 3

Chapterhouse, Ulrich Schnauss, Mahogany @ Bell House
Just to keep you posted, this show has been postponed, apparently due to visa issues rather than the volcano. When it happens, you should be there cause this is shoegaze at its finest.


Tuesday, May 4

Chapterhouse, Ulrich Schnauss, Soundpool @ Bell House
See above.

[Upcoming Shows Playlist]
The long view...

May
6
Yo La Tengo, Jeff Mangum, Kyp Malone, Portastic, the Clean, Claudia Gonson (Magnetic Fields), Sharon van Etten @ LPR ($75 and way SOLD OUT - I'm only listing it to make you cry cause I'm a mean person.)

7
The Clean @ Bell House (Advanced Tix SOLD OUT)

11
Sleigh Bells + secret guests @ Ridgewood Temple

13
The Buzzcocks @ The Fillmore

15
Parts & Labor, Talk Normal @ Knitting Factory

18
Public Image Ltd @ Terminal 5
Woven Bones @ Mercury Lounge

19
Public Image Ltd @ Terminal 5
Diana Ross @ Radio City Music Hall

21
Fuck Buttons @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

22
Fuck Buttons @ Le Poisson Rouge
New York Dolls @ Warsaw
NYC PopFest: Wake, Boat, My Teenage Stride + more @ Bell House

27
Forgetters @ Bell House

28
Holy Fuck @ Le Poisson Rouge

29
Psych Fest: Weird Owl (yay), Hopewell (blech), Golden Triangle (blech), Psychic Ills (yay), Sunburned Hand of the Man (yay) + more @ Glasslands

June
4
Psychedelic Furs @ the Fillmore

6
Brian Jonestown Massacre @ Webster Hall

18
Melvins + Isis @ Webster Hall

24
Wavves @ Knitting Factory

July
24
M.I.A. @ Governors Island

30
Big Takeover: Springhouse @ Bell House

31
Big Takeover: Springhouse, For Against @ Bell House

Dust It Off: Rocket from the Tombs - The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs

OK, OK, I'm still running way behind. Dust It Off is one day late this week. My sincerest apologies...


Album: The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs
Smog Veil, 2002
Recording date: 1975

During the years leading up to the first wave of American punk, Cleveland, Ohio emerged as an unlikely epicenter of the new movement, drawing influence from and in turn influencing scenes Detroit and New York City. The two most notable Cleveland proto-punk bands, Pere Ubu and Dead Boys, were both born of the splintering of their joint prototype, the short-lived and oft-forgotten Rocket from the Tombs.

Feautring future Dead Boys Stiv Bators and Gene O'Connor (aka Cheetah Chrome) alongside Ubu founders Peter Laughner and David Thomas - not to mention Craig Bell of Mirrors/Styrenes - this reverse-supergroup provided the ideal petri dish in which to breed a completely original approach to rock'n'roll. Training so many of punk and post-punk's greatest innovators, RFTT could not have been more important.

However, the inevitable clashing of the group's creative minds tore them apart before any official recordings could be made - RFTT was doomed to obscurity, just a footnote in the history of punk. A handful of live recordings and demos floated around among collectors, but absolutely nothing was available commercially until the release of this compilation in 2002.*

Scraped together from what few recordings remained intact, The Day the Earth features early incarnations of many of the best Ubu and Dead Boys songs: "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," "Life Stinks" and "Final Solution" (Ubu), and "Ain't It Fun," "Down in Flames" and "Sonic Reducer" (Dead Boys).

Most importantly, however, the album includes a fairly extensive overview of Peter Laughner's work. Though Laughner would go on to found Pere Ubu, drug and alcohol problems led to his quick departure from the group and not long after, to his death at age 23. One of the greatest innovators in the Cleveland scene, Laughner's songs are profoundly affecting and remain the album's best tracks. In "Ain't It Fun" (written jointly with O'Connor), Laughner speaks of utter desperation and hopelessness, plunging as deeply into life's darkness as any lyricist to date. Such is the despondent resignation of the song that Laughner's prediction of his own early death sounds more tragic than haunting.

The rough, raw sounds of the album bring to mind garage rock and the likes of the Stooges, but the artistic approach to sound and song sets RFTT far apart from any band of their era. The ear-splitting guitars on "Final Solution" sound more like a metallic demolition you might hear in one of Cleveland's factories than like rock music. Thomas's refusal to conform to any existing notions of song craft, as evidenced by "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," would not be matched by New York's art rockers for years to come.

Many years ahead of its time, The Day the Earth is an essential document in the development of American punk. And education aside, it just fucking rocks.


*One compilation was released in the 90's but the limited pressing (<1,000) was virtually impossible to find.