Chinese democracy is upon us.
I'm not going to deal with rumors about Walmart only sales, or what Axl has been doing since the Use Your Illusion tandem.
The first released track sucks.
Here's a link to the imeem page where the music is displayed. I'm not putting it on this page. You really shouldn't even listen to it, but if you really need to know...
If you were left broken hearted by the dual breakup of Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes in 2005, don't kill yourself yet. Speedo's rounded up a (somewhat) new group of dudes to carry on. Hot Snake, Gar Wood is in the fold and ex Delta 72 dude, Jason Kourkounis will handle the drum duties. On April 22 Vagrant Records (yuck) will release the debut lp from The Night Marchers called See You in Magic. The band name apparently comes from Hawaiian mythology, pertaining to ghost warriors exiting their burial sites and returning to the field of battle. What's it sound like? You probably shouldn't have to ask. As my friend Charles would say, "do you like raging awesomeness?" Yes? Well there you go. You can check out three of their songs on the myspace and see if they're coming to your hometown on tour. No Akron dates yet.
If you just can't wait, RFTC has finally released the CD/DVD of their final ever performance. It's called R.I.P. The DVD features the final Halloween night 2005 marathon concert in it's entirety. I watched it with a couple friends and one of them (I ain't naming names) openly wept toward the end of the DVD. We all made fun of him, and then excused ourselves to quietly weep ourselves. This thing is on Vagrant records as well. They can realease Speedo related products every week for eternity and I'll never forgive them for unleashing this on the world.
New Scissors, Cat Swallow, and Handcuff Killa.
Those are the titles of tracks one through three on the Royal Bangs soon to be released (May 2008) debut from Audio Eagle. It's poppy, it's forthright and from the get go, We Breed Champions is not fucking around. Well, that's sort of a lie. Let me put it like this: We Breed Champions is an infectious, electric, eclectic, loud, laugh-y, sing-a-long-y, gassy good time at the party because, man, you already had three Monster brand energy drinks earlier that day- before you started drinking expensive whiskies and cheap beers. So, it's not not fucking around in the way that it's taking itself too seriously; it's not fucking around like it's cutting through the bullshit and getting to the point, except that it seems like the point might just be the bullshit.
Now, I'm not just stuck on the first three tracks. As a matter of fact I've listened the shit out of this album over the past week or so. I'm into the entire album, though I'd be lying if I said the entire album was perfect. I consistently skip the last minute and a half or so of track four, Japanese Car. The singing falls into a painful wail for about thirty stinging seconds. Perhaps that's unfairly subjective, but this unfortunate portion stands out from the rest of the album and not in a good way. I'm not trying to hurt feelings here, but I really can't stand that part. ...I mean, overall, the CD is fucking great. And, as an optimist, I like to think these guys are only going to get better. So, I can't hold those thirty seconds against Royal Bangs when the rest of the album is so right on.
We Breed Champions will be available just in time to get everyone in your car, put the top down and cruise in the moonlight, radio blasting and you're all singing along and looking at the people driving the cars next to you on the highway and proving, with just the twinkles in your collective eyes, that you're having a better time than those other drivers ever will.
Check out Royal Bangs on your MySpace here.
Check out the Royal Bangs "website" here.
Sign your paycheck over to Audio Eagle here or here.
For real. The first three tracks are so fucking good and they're on Royal Bangs' MySpace page to hear for free! So, just go there and judge for yourself, already.
Barack Obama-detail, 2008 Wood, Paint, Steel & Light
Portrait of the presidential candidate rendered with the shadows cast by 6,400 2" nails.
I wrote the following text to Michael Murphy in reaction to seeing his newest work, a detail of which appears above. The email was written in late December of 2007, though it appears Barack Obama was not shown until the following year.
Barack Obama
I was just thinking in my head about those drawings you make before I got this email. I was walking across campus, trying to visualize them. I really like those. Do you even call those drawings?
It occurred to me just how peculiar it is that you've pulled the light source out of the picture. Light source is so important to portraiture and academic painting- all of depiction, really. And there you went and pulled the damn thing right out of the picture and put it in the room with the viewer. And so there's the viewer doing the same thing the light source is doing- glaring.
(We need to clear up whether or not this is a drawing. Is it a sculpture? Does it display too many qualities of both categories to be sufficiently narrowed? Perhaps it is naive to want for such a label. Perhaps it is for laziness that I want to be able to store it conveniently within the rubric of one discipline and not the other. Would it become more memorable as an object if I associate it with a group- making it easier to recall, or would it be more memorable if it had no associations in my brain for which to reference this unique object, but its singular experience?)
Moreover, there's the dialog stirred by the reproduced imagery, which involves you not turning to high technology, but "backwards" into pneumatic tools- creating a dissonance of time relations, creating a reference to the past, the present and, through the senator's candidacy, the future.
Through your process, instead of condensing all the "parts" of a drawing (line, point, shading, etc.) into as compact (flat) a space as possible, you've opened it up; you've dissected the drawing. You've extrapolated the "parts" of a drawing and put them on display. These "parts" retain functionality, while developing a state of disassociation from one another. But this disassociation is not quite allowed, because all the "parts" continue to function as a unit to make one image. This creates a sense of sophistication that would contradict your decision to rely on primitive tools. But it is in this contradiction and the other contradictions presented in Barack Obama that the artwork actually exists, isn't it? This is not meant to be now or then; it is not meant to be drawing or sculpture. However, it is neither meant to be not now or not then; nor is it meant to be not drawing or not sculpture. It somehow exists as all of these and none of them.
Check out more of Michael Murphy's work at his website.
Music is a competition. Don't let anyone tell you different. Hence these January releases must duke it out in the squared circle for the new release battle royale. It's also a really easy/lazy way for me to review a bunch of music without putting much effort in it. So here's the line-up for the 20 band battle royale. Imagine them walking down the aisle as the names are read by Howard Finkel (too inside?)
Cat Power- Jukebox (Matador) Future of the Left- Curses (Too Pure) Magnetic Fields- Distortion (Nonesuch) Super Furry Animals- Hey Venus (Rough Trade) Vandermark 5- Beat Reader (Atavistic) Times New Viking- Rip it Off (Matador) Black Mountain- In the Future (Jagjaguwar) Devastations- Yes U (Beggar's Banquet) Jack Penate- Matinee (XL) Bob Mould- District Line (XL) Radar Bros- Auditorium (Merge) Blood on the Wall- Liferz (Social Registry) Jeffrey Lewis- 12 Crass Songs (Rough Trade) Dead Meadow- Old Growth (Matador) Xiu Xiu- Women as Lovers (Tomlab) Vampire Weekend- s/t (XL) Chris Walla- Field Manual (Barsuk) Kelly Stoltz- Circular Sounds (Sub Pop) Evangelicals- The Evening Descends (Dead Oceans) Bon Iver- For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar)
So that's a lot of stuff to absorb. After two months of almost no new releases we're getting some music worth listening too. Been looking forward to some of these and others here caught me by surprise. Some former champs might be losing their shine. So this should be an interesting scrum. Let's see what happens.
The bell rings and immediately Bob Mould, Jeffrey Lewis, Jack Penate, Chris Walla and Cat Power are ganged up upon and tossed over the top rope. They were at an obvious disadvantage being solo artists and all. A lot of the other bands have five or more people in em. Here's the problem: Bob Mould, no stranger to the world of pro wrestling, doesn't get it anymore. I had high hopes that with this being on Anti records, they might be able to revive his career. Unfortunately, Mould is still dabbling with electronic music. When he does this it sounds like the Astralwerks catalog circa 1994 with the dude from Sugar singing. Who wants to hear that? Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie fame delivers up a steaming hot plate of blandness on his debut solo record. It's not really possible to hate this, but I fail to see how anyone is moved by anything from the DCFC family tree. Cat Power's second covers collection "Jukebox" is similarly tepid. She takes a lot of decent songs and dulls the edges. Also, I still don't see the logic in drafting dudes from the Blues Explosion, Delta 72, and the Dirty Three to be in your band and then turning them into glorified studio musicians. Jeffrey Lewis' "12 Crass Songs" is an interesting idea. Like last year's Dirty Projectors Black Flag inspired LP Rise Above, Lewis takes crusty anarchist's Crass' back catalog and re-envisions it. It's good for a laugh, but I can't think if any reason to ever listen to this again.
Jack Penate: Too much Franz Ferdinand, not enough XTC
The Magnetic Fields' experiment in noise is worth a listen or two. I've never been a huge Magnetic Fields fan and Distortion dirties up their sound in a good way. They're always good for a handful of great songs and a few bummers as well. But it's not enough to avoid a closeline from the Future of the Left that knocks em right out of the ring. FOTL is made up of ex-members of Mclusky (kind of a Welsh Shellac.) This sounds not so different from the former band: loud, bass heavy, sarcastic. Out of nowhere Xiu Xiu tosses em from the ring. No one saw that coming. I like Xiu Xiu's frontman, Jamie Stewart more than I like his band. He's about as punk rock as you can get in 2008. He's not afraid to say unpopular shit. He wrote a song about not supporting the troops. In a recent interview he dropped a bomb on all the "indie bands" that sell their songs to commercials. However, when your band sounds like Xiu Xiu, I guess commercials probably aren't an option. Anyway, this is ike their 10th album in five years or something. As far as Xiu Xiu goes, I like it ok. It's difficult and noisy and features a fun little duet with M. Gira on "Under Pressure."
At this point in the match Devastations, Super Furry Animals and Bon Iver all voluntarily throw themselves over the top because I listened to those records twice and can't remember one thing about them. Vampire Weekend then Blindsides Xiu Xiu and throws em over the top. There's some tension here since these two are tag team partners. There's a stare down and Vampire Weekend extends their hand in good faith. Xiu Xiu takes the hand and yanks the VW out of the ring disqualifying them. They brawl all the way back to the locker room.
Now a word on Vampire Weekend. The year is just a month old, but it seems they are the hype band of 2008 for sure. Months before putting out an album there was already a considerable buzz. Now that it's out, their mugs are popping up all over the usual places. So what's the verdict? Catchy as hell, sure. Their main gimmick is that they explore "African guitar music through the filter of 80's pop." Which means their best songs sound like the Police and their worst stuff is not so far removed from Reel Big Fish.
Radar Bros. get tossed out next. They certainly have a pleasant alt-country vibe going on here. good songwriting. Auditorium's just one of those albums that'll get lost in the shuffle, but if you slapped the name Wilco on the cover it'd be praised as genius. Evangelicals and Kelley Stoltz are next. Stoltz is someone who's previous records I kind of ignored, but the sunny pop of Circular Sounds is sticking with me. Kind of reminds me of the best moments of Matthew Sweet. 'member him? Evangelicals "Evening Descends" may be the most ambitious of these new releases. The vocals are certainly divisive. They may be overreaching a bit and at times sound like a less song oriented Arcade Fire.
Dead Meadow and Black Mountain are probably the heaviest competitors in this thing. Dead Meadow's new album "Old Growth" finds them scaling down to a three piece. The guitarist that left the band must have been the one that owned all the pedals, cuz this record's got a really clean sound to it. "Old Growth" features a couple of acoustic ballads and one or two songs that seem like attempts to attract a wider audience, but overall it shouldn't really disapoint you if you're a fan. Black Mountain's second full length, "In the Future" trades between heavy galloping rock and long, snail's pace incense burners. The heavier stuff works better for me and I like the even distribution of the male and female lead vocals. This record definitely has some sweet jams that your pep-pep would like if it was 1973 all over again.
But, jesus christ! Out of nowhere comes Blood on the Wall's "Liferz" album and it just blitzes everything in it's path. and continues to rumble on the floor. "Liferz" is nothing new, but synthesizes the best elements of mid-80's SST Records and throws it all out there on a record that's over before you even know what hit you. It's probably the most satisfying 20 minutes of anything I heard this month.
Vandermark 5's beat reader follows last year's excellent Ken Vandermark project Powerhouse Sound. This one's another winner. Funky, skronky modern jazz that is completely tasty. This guy's been around for awhile and must have nearly as many album as John Zorn, but I've only caught on lately.
But for me the most enjoyable listen of the January releases is Times New Viking's "Rip it Off." This band seems to be following the career arc of Guided by Voices. Two releases on Columbus label Siltbreeze and then out of nowhere, they're signed to Matador. They write catchy as hell tunes and bury it all under a mountain of tape hiss and feedback. Everything on here sounds completely joyous. They're not hiding behind that noise, it's a crucial part of the sound. The drummer and keyboard player share vocal duties and provide a steady if unspectacular background for some legit guitaring. Every song on here hovers around the two minute mark. My favorite, Drop-out comes in at 1:04. That's ok though, you can put it on repeat a dozen times or so.
So TNV wins the whole shooting match sending everyone else back to the locker room shaking their heads. A lot of good stuff this month. Hopefully an omen, that this'll be a good year for rock.
You know I love Del the Funky Homosapien. What a delight then, to find out that Pitchfork posted the first song from the new record to be released on Def Jux on March 11th. Lucky for you and me, Del didn't lose any of his wit or weirdness in the long-ass 7 years since his last contribution to the music world.
Here's the post about the record.
The Black Keys will be releasing a new album on the April Fool's day, that by all accounts will be like nothing like they've ever done. They have also announced tour dates starting in March and you know those tickets are going fast so buy them soon. Here's the Pitchfork scoop on the new record (produced by Danger Mouse?! featuring a duet with the silver tongued Jessica Lea Mayfield!!).
In other bearded rocker news, The Avett Brothers released a video for the totally boss song Paranoia in B Flat Major. It's kind of a documentary type of thing. They also like Jessica Lea Mayfield and can be seen performing one her songs in this other video.
Paranoia in B Flat Major
For Today (Jessica Lea Mayfield cover)
In hopefully non-bearded news, The Breeders announced some tour dates to go along with the new record I mentioned the other day. Too bad only 2 of the date are in 'merica. One at SXSW and the other at Coachella. Strangely, Pitchfork has the US dates even though the 4AD site and the Breeders site don't.
aka
?!
What looks like larry the cable guy, wears a yarmulke disguised as a baseball cap, and plays a 3-string guitar better than you can do just about anything?
It's Seasick Steve.
Can I get an O-M-F-G here or what?
This is a month old, but the Breeders finally confirmed a new record. This will be their (her?) first release since 2002. You can check out a new song from the record at their website. The song combines the slow thoughtfulness of Title TK and the dreaminess of Last Splash. So basically...textbook Breeders. That's fine by me.
Here's one my favorites from Title TK, live on Conan which, to critique myself, is neither slow nor thoughtful.
All songs are for listening to. If you like a song, buy the record. If you are the owner or represent an owner of any material and wish to have the material removed, contact us and we will take immediate action.
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