Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.
Devendra Banhart “Don’t Look Back In Anger” (Oasis cover)
Yes, a bunch of new Oasis demos leaked all over the place this week. But just like the band’s last five albums or so, they’re horrible. Luckily, the same isn’t true of this beautifully wobbly cover of the Brit-pop group’s classic “Don’t Look Back In Anger” as reinterpreted by the blessedly cosmic Devendra Banhart.
Bart Davenport “Beg Steal Borrow”
Just in time for his new album, this East Bay singer-songwriter’s under-appreciated self-titled release is getting reissued. Luxuriate in this standout cut’s summer-breeze melody and the ex-Loved Ones frontman’s satin-smooth harmonies.
(via Antenna Farm Records)
The Last Shadow Puppets “The Age of Understatement (Acoustic)”
The Arctic Monkey’s frontman’s side project with Miles Kane is so good we kind of wouldn’t mind if Alex Turner never went back to his day job with the leading lights of British guitar rock. Here, the title track of the duo’s sweeping debut album gets the unplugged treatment.
MP3: “The Age of Understatement (Acoustic)”
MP3: taotu.mp3
Shy Child “Astronaut”
With the Killers on a break, why not invest a little time into their slightly more punky keytar-slinging cousins? One listen to this slice of trendy, ’80s inspired mayhem and you’ll understand why Stella McCartney recruited them to soundtrack her line at last year’s Fashion Rocks.
MP3: 06Astronaut.mp3
The Dandy Warhols “The World The People Together (Come On)”
Dumped by Capitol, these Portland rockers have lost none of their pop sheen of affection for unwieldy song titles as they re-enter indiedom. This propulsive preview track from their self-released sixth album, Earth to the Dandy Warhols, has a bit of a Chemical Brothers vibe, which so does not surprise us.
(via Stereogum)
Tokyo Police Club’s debut full-length, Elephant Shell, sits in that purgatory between full of potential and full of crap. I call this zone a purgatory because it is quite possibly the most difficult place to be as a new artist. Unlike being written off as simply shitty, it’s a station that’s sure to garner mixed reviews and bombastic claims in either direction. Unlike being adored, no comparable ego massage comes from being OK. What are you left to do? Twiddle your thumbs?
Let me follow this rather bitchy opening with a disclaimer: Elephant Shell is not a bad album. Their sound is mobile, energetic—guitars bounce eagerly, like superballs, jostling around with speedy drum lines, occasional shouts, bright keyboards. When they’re on, such as in the ambitious “Sixties Remake” or racing “Graves,” the music is positively itching with eager fun, but the jubilation all too often comes off as hollow, put on, make-believe. Lead singer Dave Monks has a voice that squawks more than sings, adding a “quirkiness” to the music that is more aptly described as mildly irritating. The songs, so often orbiting around the same poppy post-punk territory, blur into one another uncomfortably. And here, my friends, is the album’s major flaw: that more than anything, it’s insecure and immature, the musical equivalent of puberty. This is not simply, or even primarily, because the band members themselves are so young. It is largely because they fail to convince the listener that they know who they are–that this identity they’ve tried on now is anything but the flavor of the month, one that will be traded as soon as it proves out of style or, worse, until they get bored.
Given how much this young band has been through in their already short career–blogosphere darlings, whirlwind multinational tours, getting signed to solid independent–Elephant Shell was destined not to simply exist as music, but instead to premiere as event. It’s expected that with so much scrutiny and pressure and expectation, TPC would be undergoing something akin to an identity crisis. But it makes Elephant Shell sound like a mask. I’m still waiting to hear what they really sound like.
Call your acid dealer. This news from the Butthole Surfers’ MySpace page: The band will reunite for a brief stretch of U.S. live dates, to be followed by a European tour. They’ll be playing with a large chunk of the original lineup, with bassist Jeff Pinkus and both King Coffey and Teresa Taylor on drums. (Paul Leary is committed only for the NYC show thus far, but may play other U.S. dates). This is the first time this lineup has played together since 1989. To further weird this out, the band will be joined onstage by the Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars. That’s right: teenage kids live on stage with the Butthole Surfers.
Just let that sink in for a moment. Maybe go back and revisit their live “Blind Eye Sees All” video, and imagine these guys with underage kids at a concert. Times have changed, but let’s hope the Butthole Surfers haven’t. Find out on these dates:
June 24 - Asbury Park, NJ - Asbury Lanes
June 26 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
June 27 - Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory (w/ Sound of Urchin) (part of the Paul Green School of Rock Music Festival - 3 day passes w/ Devo and more available.)
July 29 - New York City - Webster Hall
Triclops! is a four-headed, multi-limbed beast that roams the fallow fields of the Bay Area. Its bloodlines run deep, from Oakland punks the Fleshies, to rockers Lower Forty-Eight and Bottles & Skulls, and to the region’s long-running prog-punk hybrids, dating all the way back to Victims Family. If you encounter this creature, Fuzz recommends that you remain calm. It will play its mating call for you if it is convinced you do not pose a threat. That call may bewilder you, and you might find your head banging in rhythm with its ululations. Again, remain calm–if Triclops! senses a threat, you might get your head torn off.
Field recordings have captured this creature’s rituals, and as a public service, they have been released for study and warning alike across a number of releases on labels like Sick Room and GSL. Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles imprint has recently issued the most comprehensive document of Triclops! to date in a full-length album, Out of Africa, revealing an abnormally high intellect and fearsome dexterity. Its odd vocalisms require multiple listens to comprehend, and at first might seem to rise from a dialect you have never heard before.
Triclops! is aware. It reads the paper and is suspicious of humanity’s misgivings. A quick listen to the tracks offered by Fuzz validates these speculations. “March of the Half-Babies” and “Freedom Tickler” are posted here for your own safety. Get to know the warning signs, so that when Triclops! approaches, you will be prepared and responsive to its alluring threats. Those who have approached Triclops! in peace have reported an experience of exhilaration and enlightenment. Those who have panicked in Triclops!’s presence have been known to experience buffeting, social castigation, and the aforementioned beheading. The choice is yours.
As the 1980s dawned, American punk found its voice. Hardcore acts scowled and grimaced in hundreds of regional scenes between Black Flag’s angry West and Minor Threat’s steely-eyed East. Despite hardcore’s sonic standardization, powerful music abounded–but humor floundered. So when a gloriously goofy band like The Meatmen emerged from that solemn landscape they became more than court jesters; Tesco Vee’s fraternity of sophomoric pottymouths were genuine rock ‘n’ roll heroes. At the time, few bands strove to put smiles on faces–even the brilliantly ridiculous Misfits would kick you in the head upon suggestion they weren’t dead serious. The Meatmen proved that punk need not be joyless.
Vee (Robert Vermuellen) was a Lansing, Michigan rock fan and Michigan State English student who eventually combined his love for loud music with his writing skills and launched a series of zines, including Touch and Go, which became a flame that attracted Midwest-scene mojo. By 1980 he had formed The Meatmen, obnoxious innovators who adapted hardcore’s sonic simplicity but rejected its non-theatricality. Tesco regularly took the the stage in leather sex garb and wielding props. After Necros bassist Corey Rusk helped Vee turn the Touch and Go zine into a record label, the Meatmen launched their ridiculous recording career and Rusk began building Touch and Go Records (now in its 26th year) into arguably one of the best indie labels in existence.
Releasing several EPs of ultra-offensive joke punk, the Meatmen (in less than an hour of material) managed to attack gays, women, the handicapped, the elderly, Rastafarians, onanists, aborted fetuses, Jack Grisham, and countless others. We’re the Meatmen and You Suck, their 1983 LP (really an expanded EP reissue), managed to render half-assed hate speech comical in part because of Tesco Vee’s transparently tenuous tightrope walk between articulate wordsmith and his inner dumbass.
The band soon dissolved and Vee relocated to Washington, DC, where the Meatmen had mysteriously made a big impression on righteous straight edgers. Reforming the band with Brian Baker and Lyle Preslar of Minor Threat, the ‘85 Meatmen proved to be the mightiest. With disciplined musicians behind him Vee expanded his comic visions, crafting songs that explored hard rock from the rawest punk to flamboyant metal, creating powerful sonic backdrops for motormouthed comedic rants. On War of the Superbikes and Rock ‘n Roll Juggernaut he skewered the fans, but also revealed himself to be one, celebrating clichés, covering favorite bands, and living a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy. Certainly the Meatmen continued to spew bile (forever telling us what sucks, be it crippled children, you, French people, you again), but Vee also found the freedom to move beyond insult comedy.
After this incarnation, the band dissolved in 1989 and Tesco briefly attempted to translate his humor to MTV. He then got back on the horse, fronting Tesco Vee’s Hate Police, then reforming the Meatmen. Though new lineups were consistently rocking, rarely did they provide as nurturing a backdrop for humor as his ’80s bands. Though several bright spots shone through, his obnoxiousness now seemed downright obnoxious. By 1997 the Meatmen were kaput.
There are many cult bands in music history whose haters are simply mistaken. If you believe that the music of Sun Ra, or X-Ray Spex, or AC/DC is not good–subjectivity be damned–you are wrong. However, the Meatmen do not fall into that category. It is completely reasonable for anyone turned off by posturings of homophobia, racism, sexism, or baby seal abuse to go ahead and hate them. Even if you’re a fan but you think their early work tries too little, their middle phase is overambitious, and their later work is ugly, I wouln’t argue. If you can’t get past Tesco’s lyrics (Trouser Press compared them to things assholes shout out of moving cars), fine. However, if you like the Meatmen, you do not suck. Tesco’s comedic stage presence, love of music (revealed by his cover songs), creative euphemisms for female genitalia (“pickle parlor,” “glorious gravy boat”), and relentless jesting make a case that his songcrafting is an act of joy, not an outlet of hate. Those who get the joke can dig the Meatmen shamelessly.
Recently Tesco reactivated the band, reissued most of the non-Touch and Go material, compiled a DVD, and took a new Meatmen on the road. Over the dozen years since the band last gave it a go plenty of things have sucked. If ever we needed an experienced “that sucks” finger-pointer the time is now–and if, as in 1982, we must learn once again that it is we that do the sucking, so be it. Welcome back Tesco!
Genius or heathen, social commenter or iconoclast, role model or laughable dumbass–no matter how you cast him, the Meatmen’s Tesco Vee never fell in the middle. With album titles like Crippled Children Suck, We’re the Meatmen…and You Suck! and Pope on a Rope, the comically irascible Vee (née Robert Vermeulen) helped draft the blueprint in the ’80s for politically incorrect punk to come. Now, after a 12-year absence, he’s formed a new version of the Meatmen, taken them on tour, reissued some records and is ready to challenge social mores once again with a covers album, Meatmen-style. From Lansing, Michigan, where he spent his teenage years and has raised his family for the past decade, Vee explains how absence has made his heart grow fonder and, more importantly, why we still suck.
Fuzz: Why, after 12 years, did you want to do the Meatmen again?
Tesco Vee: That’s the one my wife asked me a couple of times. “I thought you swore you were done!” I don’t know. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I moved back to Michigan and was all happy. And then John [Brannon] from Negative Approach called me and said, “Come on, man. We’re doing our first show in Detroit in 24 years.” First he said, “Come out and introduce us.” Then it was, “Do a couple songs.” Then it became a half-hour set, and the guys from NA backed me up. And, I don’t know, it felt good. It felt like I could still do this. I could still hop around in 120-degree heat and not have the big one.
Will you be writing any new music?
After we finish this covers CD and go to the well again and write a new album–I always call that climbin’ the mountain. Sometimes I think, like, with Pope on a Rope, I went for the throat and ripped the throat out and flogged everybody to death with it and now, where do I go from here? But I guess I’ll have to try.
What’s got you pissed off these days?
You name it. There’s plenty to be pissed off about. But it has to have the Tesco twist and be clever and funny and all that neat stuff.
Since you use humor so well, how serious have your rants been over the years?
In a way, it’s like don’t ask Van Gogh why he cut off his ear. Don’t ask me if I’m serious. Obviously, I’m a mean-spirited fellow, and some of that stuff I really feel. I think everybody has those feelings, but they don’t allow them to be verbalized or come out. They keep them quelled under layers of P.C. or just common sense, but I choose to let it all come out and I guess that’s my purpose on the planet, from my perspective.
Can you think of a time when one of your jokes got you in trouble?
Not specifically. I know where the flashpoints are, and I kind of dance around them, but, no, I’ve never been jacked up against a wall. Although [Long Beach hardcore group] T.S.O.L. did jack [Minor Threat/Meatmen guitarist] Brian Baker up against the wall in [Washington D.C.’s] 9:30 Club. This was sometime in the ’80s. And T.S.O.L. are big boys, and they found out about the [Meatmen’s] “T.S.O.L. Are Sissies” song and they were looking for me. I specifically did not go to that show. Them and all their roadies jacked Brian up against the wall.
Rather than bands you think are sissies, what punk bands have you liked lately?
Some of the punk I hear on XM is pretty good. Off the top of my head, the Casualties, Guttermouth and bands like that, that are sort of old school. Too much teenie punk, though. That’s the reason I came back. I needed to school this generation on how it’s done. I blame Green Day.
Speaking of making a change, you’re selling “Tesco Vee for President” stickers on your website. What would your first act in office be?
Probably legalizing marijuana. That’s needed to happen for a long time. I think I’m gonna plug [Fear frontman] Lee Ving as my running mate, too. I think it’s a marriage made in heaven–or hell.
Since it’s such a big part of your life, how did you explain the Meatmen to your kids?
I have a son and a daughter. They were raised around it and they always knew of it. And once my son was old enough to get into music, he was bragging to his friends that, “My dad is Tesco Vee.” He and my nephews were like, “We were born too late. You’ve gotta do this again.” My son and my two nephews are going out on the road with us now. And they’re the road crew and the drivers and the merch sellers, so it’s a family affair.
Your son gets to hand his dad an inflatable dick.
[Laughs] Exactly. What’s not to like? He scrawls “Son of Vee” in black paint on his chest, and comes out onstage in a gorilla mask and shoots confetti cannons. He’s having a good time.
Since information about you is so available online now, how do you feel about how you’ve been portrayed over the years?
I think I’m happy with it. People love me, people hate me. And there are people that want me to go away and go die. I got an email, because I have my contact info up, and some guy just said, “You were sucking my dad’s dick in Detroit in ’82.” And it’s like, “Wait a minute. Hold on. First of all…” But that’s fine. That’s one reaction. Other people tell me they love me. And that’s the reason I keep going. But when I look at my Wikipedia bio and all the things people have written about me, it’s all true. Well, it’s not all true. If it makes me more interesting than I really am, then that’s OK, too. Overall, I’d say I’m happy with my place in the world. When I die, I’ll have left quite a stain on the underpants of society.
We’re the Meatmen…and You Suck! (Touch and Go, 1983)
This album may merely be a reissue of the Meatmen’s Blood Sausage EP, beefed up with eight ridiculous live tracks, but with its goofy cover art and joyfully offensive music it stands as one of the most iconic albums in American punk history. There are few examples of a band so capably pulling off the oxymoronic feat of intelligently being genuinely stupid. Contained within these grooves are catchy, sloppy hardcore songs that express joy at the death of John Lennon, appreciation for the work of porn star Vanessa Del Rio, and odes to homosexuality and womanhood that could only make gays and gals glad to be different from these juvenile jokesters. Tesco Vee’s semi-inept vocals (despite an impressive tapeworm impersonation) joyfully spew hate evenhandedly. And while it would be easy to dismiss these oafishly offensive tunes as unoriginal and dumb, something about Tesco’s absurdist sense of humor makes these rants actually funny. This album sets the tone for all future Meatmen albums by making ridiculous pop culture references (Grease 2) and boldly declaring what sucks (crippled children, you).
War of the Superbikes (Caroline 1985)
At risk of losing my punk credibility, I declare that despite the timelessness of We’re the Meatmen, this is the band’s finest moment. Somehow a move to DC (known for their hyper-serious punk scene, personified by the members of Minor Threat) and the assembly of a new lineup (including Minor Threat members Lyle Preslar and Brian Baker) made Vee shift from sloppy jokecore to sophisticated comedy rock far more akin to a National Lampoon album than a Black Flag record. This new disciplined crew was capable of seriously shredding, and Tesco uses this skill set to explore ridiculous rock on the melodramatic title track, the breakneck “Abba, God and Me,” and reverent covers of Pagans and Nazareth tunes. The highlight is the hilarious “Punkerama” a tour de force assault/celebration of rockers, punks, and game shows, that outs Rob Halford and Joan Jett, name-checks obscure hardcore band the Clitboys, and demonstrates that Vee is capable of funny voices not hinted at by his grunting singing on the debut.
Rock & Roll Juggernaut (Caroline, 1986/Meat King, 2008)
One might call this the least Meatmen-ish album of the band’s career. Take away the German oompah song and the quintessentially-Meatmen “French People Suck” and this almost seems like a normal rock band making a real album. While far from straight metal (plenty of punk in the mix), songs like “Centurians of Rome” and “Turbo Rock” don’t seem like parodies of grand rock clichés, but rather enjoyable examples of such. The six stellar bonus tracks on the new reissue include live versions of Superbikes and Juggernaut songs.
We’re the Meatmen…and You Still Suck!!!(Caroline, 1989/Meat King 2007)
Not much to say about this live ambush (compiled from shows in DC, Boston, and New Jersey) other than to point out that it is extremely convincing. The minimalist early Touch and Go material, the hard rocking tracks from the mid-eighties, and the cover songs sound great together, surprisingly cohesive in their obnoxiousness. The recent reissue adds a few tracks.
Crippled Children Suck (Touch and Go, 1990); Stud Powercock: The Touch and Go Years 1981-1984 (Touch and Go, 1990)
As the eighties became the nineties Touch and Go decided to get nostalgic, honoring their founder by releasing the eighteen track Crippled Children LP (compiling songs from the EP of the same name plus rarities) and the 39 track retrospective CD Stud Powercock which included virtually every early Meatmen recording (even the not officially Meatmen 1984 release “Dutch Hercules” by Tesco Vee and the Meatkrew, which introduced the hard rocking DC sound). For fans of early Meatmen, this orgy of audio is all you’ll ever need, but metal heads who came to the party a little later may have trouble digesting the raw meat of these lo-fi reissues, demos and live tracks.
Tesco Vee’s Hate Police Gonzo Hate Vibe (Staple Gun, 1992/Meat King 2007)
Not long after Touch and Go got all wistful about the days of early Meat, Tesco theoretically moved forward by starting a “new” band. Considering the revolving door band-member policy of The Meatmen, and the fact that this album–and Hate Police’s numerous singles, compilation appearances, and tribute album tracks, including an infamous cover of REM’s “Losing My Religion”–continued the hard rocking, sensibility-offending tradition of late ’80s Meatmen, the significance of the new name is unclear. If anything, this album strains to be extra puerile as Tesco croons about big boobs, big dicks, two different types of anal ooze, and just in case you didn’t understand he was trying to offend, clubbing baby seals to death. On the Nostradamus tip, the song “Fuckin’ the Dough” predicted the American Pie baked goods copulation trend a good seven years before that fad took off. The 2007 reissue features an overwhelming 11 bonus tracks (REM included).
Toilet Slave (Meat King, 1993)
Tesco’s return to Meatmen branding was released on his own label in limited quantities with cheap looking artwork, but it sounds better than it looks. Though not exactly a departure from the heavier, more metal Meatmen stuff (Heavy Meatal?), with a new lineup, the band became more straightforward bar punk. This CD does contain some nice twists. For example, I assumed the song “Real Men” was using flaccid penis positions as a metaphor calling for a return to Republican values at the dawn of the Clinton era (“real men hang to the right”), but then the album wraps up with a call to murder GOP members. So I guess sometimes a penis is just a penis.
Pope on a Rope (Pravda, 1995/Meat King 2008)
This album features a return to good cover art (love the Mad Magazine font) and good cover songs (Blue Oyster Cult and Gang Green get the Meat-treatment) but overall this is coarser and less fun than previous releases. Without Lyle Pressar’s guitar flavor, some of the harder music here is kind of plodding. Combined with Tesco’s vocals becoming more guttural, this makes this release sometimes sound more like unfunny Mentors music rather than the joyful comedy of classic Meatmen. The new reissue includes five bonus tracks, including the excellent Boris the Sprinkler split EP (Deep Purple cover intact) and the “Green Acres” theme song.
War of the Superbikes II (Go Kart, 1996)
As the title indicates, this isn’t so much a reissue of War of the Superbikes with ten newly recorded bonus tracks, as it is a new album that just happens to open with the original Superbikes in its entirety. As a reissue it would be a disappointment, as the cover art is inferior and the 1985 recordings sound better by themselves, but as a new album it’s reasonably solid. Tesco is in classic form, making fun of Morrissey and grunge and paying tribute to blowjobs and death metal. The highlight here is the masterful cover of Venom’s “Evil in the League with Satan,” which maintains the thundering boogie-metal of the original, but thrashes it up a notch, and somehow makes it funny. Tesco will be reissuing this in 2008, presumably with bonus tracks, which may qualify as War of the Superbikes III.
Blight Detroit: The Dream is Dead (Touch and Go, 1995)
Add Meatmen absurdity to the Fix’s straightforward rock and the sum is…humorless art noise? For reasons lost to time, Tesco’s 1982 band Blight, formed with members of the Fix (the Touch and Go band whose 2006 compilation CD made available one of the all-time most expensive punk singles), was devoted to art damage music informed by hardcore and industrial, but also related to the more ambitious (some might say pretentious) work of Chicago’s ONO and Michigan’s Destroy All Monsters. Tesco’s most serious (and to Meatmen fans, least interesting) work appeared on one obscure vinyl EP, and several impossible to find cassette compilations, making this 1995 reissue pretty unexpected. Tesco trivia: This CD contains his finest trumpet playing.
Evil in the League of Satan (Go-Kart 1997)
This CD mostly compiles previously released nineties Meatmen tracks, including a few from “Toilet Slave.” A somewhat half-assed album, the most memorable cuts here are collaborations (including good ones with Rev. Norb, earth’s greatest devotee of Tesco lyricism, and unfortunate ones featuring vocals by the late Bianca Butthole, frontwoman of Butt Trumpet, which may have been the worst punk band ever). This double disc also features a CD-Rom of live footage and vintage Meatmen images (many of which appear these days on Tesco’s website). This would have been a disappointing swan song for such a mighty band, so it is with both relief and anticipation that we look forward to the forthcoming The Meatmen Cover the World album that will be infecting speakers–and now earbuds–later this year.
Russian Circles play within the confines of instrumental/metal/post-rock as it exists today, a game left to bedroom dwellers glued to guitars and practice pads in an attempt to master technique and then learn how to play through it. To them, bombast is language; the quiet/loud struggle in their dynamic range is all the vocalizing asked of them. It’s hard to be all too expressive with the limited vocabulary afforded them, one abutted by Helmet to the north, Explosions in the Sky to the south, and all manners of junior varsity pedalhoppers in between.
Technically, these guys are pretty much always on, in particular drummer Dave Turncrantz, with a surprising short game that favors taut, precise control over little touches like rim clicking and hi-hat rolls. Guitarist Mike Sullivan and bassist-for-hire Brian Cook, of Botch and These Arms Are Snakes, give him plenty of chances to execute pristine builds, as on the opening moments of the title track. He’s also wise not to overplay, but his bandmates on stringed instruments might do well to ignore that style and tear into it. Everything here is so cleanly executed, so devoid of flare and flavor, that the results are quite a chore to get through for anyone who’s been following the score for even a few years through the ascent of similar acts of suburban gravitas like Isis and Pelican. Sullivan employs far too much repetition in both his riff-writing abilities and his performance. He’s a human digital delay pedal, tapping away at his fretboard in circuitous patterns and shredding away on one riff, more concerned with keeping in rhythm than breaking off and exploring all the empty spaces these six orderly tracks create. Everything they lay down on Station reads cold and resolute, yet far too earnest and eager to please.
Despite glaring evidence to the contrary, instrumental rock music can indeed have something to say. Some believe it has the most to say of any rock or pop music out there, for the expressiveness and abilities of the musicians playing it to tell the tales a singer can’t. Russian Circles nail the abilities part so hard that it seems they forgot to consider the expression. These guys have peers which currently flank and outrank them, partly because they’ve all found that voice already. Best to check in with these guys when you’re certain the other shoe has dropped.
Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.
Coldplay “Violet Hill”
For those hoping that bringing Brian Eno into the studio and giving their forthcoming album a ridiculous title like Viva La Vida of Death and All His Friends would signal that Coldplay was about to pull a Radiohead and start making records that sounded like fax machines, this freebie single might be a bit of a disappointment. For everyone else, it’s exactly what you wanted–an epic, mid-tempo piano ballad with Chris Martin beautifully spouting off his usual nonsense over the top. Cheers.
MP3: “Violet Hill”
MP3: 01 Violet_Hil.MP3
Dizzee Rascal “Where’s Da G’s”
Apart from the part where he goes, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!,” what we don’t know what this veteran British rapper is going on about on this track from his belatedly released new album, Maths + English. All we know is that it’s probably the closest thing we’re ever going to get to a hip-hop Cylon.
MP3: “Where’s Da G’s”
(via Daily Rind)
Les Savy Fav “Sweat Descends”
After allegedly killing it at Coachella his year, bloated, bald, bearded and shirtless Les Savy Fav frontman Tim Harrington is ready to destroy your iPod with this raucous old school sounding punk joint from the group’s latest, After the Balls Drop. The Replacements would be proud.
MP3: “Sweat Descends”
(via Les Savy Fav)
Newton Faulkner “Dream Catch Me”
Thanks to that idiot on “American Idol,” sensitive singer-songwriters with dreadlocks are all the rage this season. Too bad there’s only one with an actual album out. Still, we’ve got to admit, Newton Faulkner’s first single from his debut album, Hand Built By Robots, is pretty damn good. Crowded House-esque, even.
MP3: “Dream Catch Me”
MP3: DreamCatchMe.mp3
South “Better Things”
Don’t count these Brit-pop also-rans out just yet. From its fifth album, You Are Here, the trio returns with a pretty, straightforward ballad for some very complicated times.
MP3: “Better Things”
(via Bluhammock Music)
It is the sound of a Brooklyn night that Religious Knives chases: a bag of green in the hand, rooftop hangs, leaning on the keys, leaving one place to go to the next. Over a handful of heavy releases, this outfit–now a quartet of guitarist Mike Bernstein and keyboardist Maya Miller, both of Double Leopards; drummer Nate Nelson of Mouthus; and recent addition Todd Cavallo on bass–has matured from a slurred, anxious drone into something much more relaxed, confident and fleet-footed, set against martial rhythms and repetitive, deep tonal anchorage. The group’s sole instinct seems to be how to treat these vibes and test them against time and conditions to impart the true, tangible core of the sounds they create with altered mood and hazy perception.
Resin, the first “studio” recordings of their quartet lineup, combines the tracks from an earlier 12” single, a handful of tour-only cassettes and CD-Rs and a few unreleased and live offerings. Sounds coalesce on Resin almost instantly, setting up a brocade of thick, aggressive stew for the drums to roil beneath on opener “In the Back.” Steadiness is key here, and what separates this track from, say, Sonic Youth’s first EP, is merely a matter of a few decades and some grittier production, but that’s not really the point. It’s somewhat of a foregone conclusion that nothing new is going to happen in any record you listen to. Religious Knives understands this, and instead works on the feelings that this music can impart–a disruptive dream state where safety and anxieties begrudgingly coexist–to leave the listener with a more lasting impression of their soundcraft. As Resin surges on, you’ll hear similar paeans to the Fall (“Everything Happens Twice” could have appeared on “Dragnet”, sans Procol Harum-esque organ solo), to the Doors (“The Sun” and both halves of “Twelve Bottles and One White Cone,” featuring No Neck Blues Band drummer Dave Nuss), and to the lonely-soul aspects of dub reggae (“Luck,” backboned with a haunting melodica lead). But overall you’ll discover a band that has exercised a great deal of control over this corner of music, and manipulates space, silence and headroom to create a profound state of being, lurching onwards with the weight of city life all across their shoulders, trying to alchemize it into Acapulco gold.
Henry, We Hardly Knew Ye
It would be folly to try and string together a cohesive narrative of the career of musician, artist, mathematician, philosopher and North Carolina native, Henry Flynt. His life has played out much like one of his madcap art stunts. In 1989, Flynt traveled to an as yet unopened art galley in Italy to scout the space and negotiate a showing of his own art. He photographed the rooms in the gallery, returned home, and then sent the photos he had taken of the empty walls of the gallery to the gallery owners announcing that his “show” was already over, before it had taken place. And the photos proved that the show had in fact occurred, unbeknownst to those who had been in attendance–namely Flynt and the gallery owners. Then Flynt made posters announcing the “show,” but told patrons not to bother about attending because it had already happened.
All of Flynt’s accomplishments occurred as though in a virtual vacuum, but have been documented with photos and recordings that seemingly prove that it did all happen in the real world. He could just as likely have made all this stuff up a few years ago: that he left Harvard in 1961 before obtaining a degree; that he moved to New York, hung out in the Yoko Ono loft scene arguing the finer points of musical pretension with John Cage; was squeezed out of the Velvet Underground for playing his fiddle too hillbilly; recorded several albums of his own compositions with various incarnations of bands during the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s; started a movement to rid the world of formal art; produced several installations of his own art work; and wrote extensively on philosophical problems. He could have made it all up because there seems to be almost no one who was aware of Flynt while he was doing all those things.
Even if it is all an elaborate fabrication, his records are pretty damn good.
Imagine that Warren Ellis (of Dirty Three and Bad Seeds fame) and the Rev. Horton Heat had grown up attending a one-room schoolhouse together where Ornette Coleman was the only teacher, and they formed a band with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson; they might well have sounded like Henry Flynt.
For all the yammering Flynt does about jazz, Hindustani, and classical (there’s a three hour interview from a 2004 radio broadcast, during which you can hear several of Flynt’s recordings)–and despite the fact that he has subjected himself to extensive instruction in music theory and performance (he plays at least violin and guitar, plus he tosses around technical terms like triads and fifths and interval modulations and peppers his lengthy orations with artsy, pseudo-intellectual jargon, such as referring to particular gigs as “sound environments” rather than concerts)–his music rocks. It is a very unlikely yet highly infectious mélange of jazz, Appalachia, and rock, with infusions of Eastern experimentation.
One of the more transfixing of Flynt’s recordings is the forty-four minute long “You Are My Everlovin’ ” (Recorded Records, 2001), something Flynt called New American Ethnic Music. It is comprised of semi-sophisticated, old-timey style fiddle, sawing over the top of a deep tambura drone. If you surrender your body aural to its wilting beauty, it could deliver you unto a deep woods trance state, meditated into a reincarnation of an immense anthropomorphized oak tree, like the Ents in Return of the King-before they freaked out and stormed Isengard, of course.
The recordings that Flynt produced with his fully-staffed bands, The Insurrections and Nova’Billy, are informed by many of the same influences as were say, James Blood Ulmer or Danny Gatton, or even Led Zeppelin, but managed to sidestep the trappings of a producer’s meddlesome ambition or a record label’s marketability mandate.
A single volume of Flynt’s collected writings, Blueprint for a Higher Civilization, was published in Italy in 1975 and is of course long since out of print. You can still find lengthy sections of his musings available at a fan-maintained website, www.henryflynt.org
His musical recordings had collected, in some cases, nearly forty years of dust before a barrage of Flynt sides was released, mostly by Locust Records and Recorded Records, between 2001 and 2005. Having never found an audience or even a record label during his more productive years, Flynt, after some mysterious mishap on the way to a gig in Berlin in 1984, finally lost his ambition for public performance. He has not performed in public, nor, he claims, has he played, or otherwise composed or produced any music since.
Discography:
The first two titles were recorded in the early 1960s. The other titles show the year the music was recorded, followed by the year it was released:
Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Volume 1 (Locust Music, 2002)
Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Volume 2 (Locust Music, 2002)
C Tune (Locust Music, 1980, 2001)
Raga Electric (Locust Music, 1963/71, 2002)
I Don’t Wanna (Locust Music, 1966, 2004)
Purified by the Fire (Locust Music, 1981, 2005)
Graduation And Other New Country & Blues Music (Ampersand, 1975/79, 2001)
You Are My Everlovin’/Celestial Power (Recorded, 1980/81, 2001)
Spindizzy (Recorded, 1968/83, 2002)
Hillbilly Tape Music (Recorded, 1971/78, 2002)
My jaded ass does not listen to much new American music. Basically, if there is not a lilt of a British accent in the lyrics, I have no interest. Also, if something is trumpeted as the “next big thing,” I turn my nose up at it like a fluffy white bitchy kitty in a Fancy Feast commercial. Hence, my musical choices seem to be limited–much to the chagrin of my office mates–to a pastiche of old Phil Collins jams, Ella Fitzgerald, and random CD’s that my British cousins send me (The Pigeon Detectives, The Wombats, A Certain Ratio). I am not proud of this heinous character flaw–oh, blasted genetics!
So, imagine my rapture upon a recent trip abroad: I picked up the latest copy of NME (yes, I am a sucker, even when my dollar is worth only 49 cents to one pound) and an American band, Black Kids, was featured next to my dear sweet beloved Ms. Nash and the Kooks. Who were these Black Kids? They looked cool, NME said they were cool, and, best of all, I could not find the Kids’ music ANYWHERE! I wanted to know more. Suddenly I was 12 years old again, on a quest to get to the bottom of this seemingly mysterious group.
After several months of illegally downloading every song I could find online (the only way I could get their tunes, for the longest time, I swear!), including the insanely infectious “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You,” and “Hurricane Jane,” from their debut demo EP, Wizard of Ahhhs, I finally bought a 12” for $12 from the UK. My pursuit of them left me feeling like a stalker in the bushes outside an apartment complex (minus the binoculars), but I finally had the delight of interviewing one of the Kids, a gem of a drummer, Kevin Snow, as the band made their way through the Grapevine from the Coachella festival to their gig here in SF. The sweet dear–his phone kept cutting off during our chat–but Kevin soldiered on, and persevered through four call-backs to make me swoon for more, more, more KIDS!
Coachella was the Black Kids’ first festival and Kevin described it as “totally surreal and exciting.” When asked what was his favorite tour tchotchke was, he confided that the band took the gold-framed Big Daddy Kane record album in the band’s Coachella dressing room in Indio. I have to say, I did fall a bit in love with his reply.
The band recently returned from the UK, where they worked on their debut full length with British rock icon Bernard Butler of Suede–swoon again! Could this band get any cooler? Oh, yeah, they could! When I told Kev–yes, I am now that down with him–that I loved Morrissey, he told me that the Moz father was supposed to come to one of the band’s UK gigs, but canceled at the last minute (OMG, could I please be your merch girl, Kids?!?!?!).
As his bus rolled towards The Bay, I asked Snow, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, if he had ever been to San Francisco. Yes, back in the late 1990s, when he and the Kids’ lead singer, Reggie Youngblood, had been on a cross-country, broken-down van tour with their old ska band, living on 75 cents a day. In an age when bands seem to break by just throwing a few demos up on MySpace and without doing any real time on the road, these guys have truly, truly earned it–they have literally been at it for ten years.
Watching the Kids perform later on that night at the packed, sweaty San Francisco Mezzanine, I saw what the hype was about. The Kids more than delivered–even as the openers on a three band bill–they completely wowed the jaded San Francisco crowd.
The time spent in their past bands showed in the polished stage performance, as Youngblood led the crowd through the singles, as well as their newer songs. Ali Youngblood and Dawn Watley are probably the most amazing female frontwomen I have had the joy to experience since seeing the Go-Go’s in fifth grade (and if someone at Vidal Sassoon does not snap up that Dawn as an ideal hair model, they are high). These ladies do not rely on stage dramatics/bizarro outfits (like my beloved Karen O, bless you, lady) or choreographed dance routines (Madge, a second bless you) to get through a song; instead, these hotties rock because they were actually having fun. They looked like they had to “Hit the Heartbrake,” (could I love a song anymore? I cannot remember the last time I moshed to a song) themselves. I wanted to go cocktail with these chicks. Even my best friend was getting down–and he historically only likes bands with back up dancers. No pretension, only desperation to connect with the audience at a darkened venue.
Yes, I am a fan, clearly. As a veteran of literally hundreds and hundreds of shows, it means a lot when after a gig people come up to you and say, “I never heard of that band, but now I love them.” That happened after the Kids.
Kevin had told me, “ I can’t believe this is happening to me.” You deserve it, toots.
John “Speedo” Reis, mastermind of San Diego’s Rocket from the Crypt and co-front man of Hot Snakes, has assembled yet another crew of forge-smithed journeymen, herded them into the van and has them on road. The new outfit, The Night Marchers, kicked off a thirteen-date, coast-to-coast, rock-venue luge ride last Friday in Mesa, AZ, and still have stops to make in Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Detroit and the major markets of the North East, in support of their debut release, See You In Magic (Vagrant/Swami), before crossing the pond for a run of UK dates in June.
Drummer Jason Kourkounis, ex- of Delta 72, who also sat behind Reis in Hot Snakes, boasts of the Marchers’ “all Greek rhythm section”, where he teams up with Montreal bassist, Thomas Kitsos. The line-up is rounded out by former Hot Snakes hand Gar Wood, who has traded the bass guitar he played in Snakes’ for one of the six-string variety in this new assembly.
The Night Marchers are considerably more straight-ahead than Hot Snakes, even reminiscent of a stripped down version of Rocket. Magic is a rapid-fire blast of one irresistible head-bobbing hook after another. The tunes on Magic endeavor to affect the end of hammering home these hooks by employing every instrument in the band as a percussion instrument. Guitars are beaten raucously as though by the right hand of a drummer pounding out a call to a battle march on his snare head.
By all reports from the early shows, it sounds as though Reis’ new outfit might well be worth catching if they are coming thorough your patch of weeds.
April 30 - Seattle, WA - Chop Suey
May 2 - Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
May 3 - Omaha, NE -Waiting Room,
May 4 - Chicago, IL - Shuba’s
May 5 -Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
May 7 -New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
May 8 -Boston, MA - Middle East
May 9 -Philadelpha, PA - Warehouse Show
May 10-Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
The four original members of The Verve, reunited on a San Francisco stage last week for the first time in about a decade, set list slightly dumbed down for American ears. They skipped over the first batch of early blissed-out ’90s import EPs, their epic debut album, A Storm In Heaven, and a good chunk of its follow-up, A Northern Soul, focusing instead primarily on songs from 1997’s Urban Hymns, the final release that made the group a household name thanks to a little song called “Bittersweet Symphony”.
That they waited to dispatch that tune until the end of the night was a little disappointing, considering the sold-out room was packed with die-hard fans that would have been just as thrilled to hear an encore stuffed with obscure b-sides. But this was just a warm up for the band’s Coachella show, and minor sequencing grumbles aside, the concert crackled with electricity.
Not only did singer Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bassist Simon Jones and drummer Pete Salisbury still look like lithe young men–a rarity at any reunion show–but they played with the kind of wild-eyed conviction usually reserved for pimple-faced acts with funny names like the Arctic Monkeys and The Kooks.
Ashcroft remains one of rock’s great frontmen, capable of kicking songs into orbit simply by hunching over and opening his eyes really wide. They ran through an absurd number of great tunes–”The Drugs Don’t Work,” “History,” “Lucky Man”–and even splashed out a pair of decent new ones, suggesting the reunion isn’t so much a nostalgic space-rock trip as a new beginning.
Photo via Stereogum
KIT hails from Oakland, CA–the name stands for “Keep It Together” or perhaps “Kill Interested Traitors,” but you’ll have to ask them if you want to know for sure. Short bursts of action seem to be the group’s M.O.; since their inception, they’ve all but limited themselves to appearances on split vinyl singles with bands like Deerhoof, Wives, and Mirror/Dash, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon’s side project. Active mainly on the West Coast, theirs is an under-the-radar sound: a blend of no-wave guitar windmillery, chirping female vocals, and storming rhythms, as much a product of the Bay Area’s nascent art/rock/noise scene as it is the enlightened politics and do-it-yourself charm of operations like Kill Rock Stars and K Records. Moreover, KIT has survived two generations of said SF bands, from an early ’00s coterie of acts like Numbers and the Coachwhips to current thrillers like Sic Alps.
KIT’s two offerings on their Fuzz page acutely telegraph the group’s condition. “Tethered Wing” trades broken guitar strings for a panoply of small, cute electronic effects, as vocalist Kristy G shouts missives to the animal in question: “Get away!/Fly away!” The track itself revels in the struggle of this trapped beast via high-velocity drumming and restless energy, crumpling itself into a paper bag and throwing itself away by the time its brief runtime clocks out. “Star Sign” delivers the melody as promised, vacillating between single-note needlings and stuttering beds of thumping percussion for the vocals to ascend. Again, it’s over before you know it (KIT’s reputation as a live act is also one for brevity, understanding the audience’s inability to process such signals for longer than 10 to 15 minutes at a stretch), but still you come back for more.
KIT’s next performance takes place at a “mixtape exchange party” on May 3rd in San Francisco at ArtSF, 110 Capp St. Get your tape decks rolling once again, slap 90 minutes of music together and bring it on down.
Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.
Lily Allen “I Don’t Know”
The British pop tart gets serious on this leaked demo, contemplating her place in the world over a not-too-solemn synth score: “And I am a weapon of massive consumption/ It’s not my fault, it’s how I’m programmed to function.”
MP3: I Don't Know.mp3
Nine Inch Nails “Discipline”
After getting something like 17 albums of instrumental music out of his system, Trent Reznor returns to making manic electro-noise-pop on this track. The best part is that he’s giving it away for free.
MP3: Discipline.mp3
Scarlett Johansson “Anywhere I Lay My Head”
Produced by TV on the Radio’s David Sitek, featuring cameos by David Bowie and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and comprised entirely of songs written by Tom Waits, actress Scarlett Johannson makes what is possibly the first credible album by an actor. Ever. Here’s a taste.
(via Bring Me Up)
No Age “Eraser”
Sub Pop continues on its quest to sign on all the world’s most interesting bands. This Los Angeles fuzz-rock duo’s stratospheric tune must be the reason why.
MP3: radywem800.mp3
Santogold “L.E.S. Artistes”
This week’s totally awesome ’80s throwback comes via Santi White, a sartorially savvy Brooklyn musician that records under the name Santogold. With M.I.A. producer Diplo at her side, she blasts hipsters while simultaneously offering them a wicked future anthem.
MP3: 01 LES Artistes.mp3
Vampire Weekend: “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (Black Dominoes Remix)”
It seems like we weren’t the only ones thinking Vampire Weekend’s take on Paul Simon’s Graceland album would sound a lot better with a twist of random noise and dash of Latin space.
(via Pretty Much Amazing)
Shinichi Osawa: “Star Guitar (ft. Au Revoir Simone)”
The Chemical Brothers’ best song gets a rough-hewn remake and becomes even better. Well, almost.
(via The Yellow Stereo)
Shoegaze fans, rejoice: My Bloody Valentine are coming back to the U.S. for what may be the most proper concert fest: All Tomorrow’s Parties, September 19th-21st, in lovely Monticello, New York, on the grounds of Kutshers Country Club. Can you think of a better place to roll around freaking out listening to looped feedback than a golf course?
If My Bloody Valentine alone aren’t enough to lure you to a weekend in the country (imagine the foliage!), read the rest of lineup, designed to make any indie rock fan who cut their teeth in the ’90s cream their figurative jeans: Shellac (Steve Albini), Mogwai, Polvo, Fuck Buttons, Autolux, the Drones, Low, Wooden Shjips, Edan, and Thee Silver Mount Zion Orchestra are slated to perform sets.
And how many times have you wished you could hear your favorite band play your favorite album in sequence, live? There will be plenty of that, too. Built to Spill will perform Perfect From Now On; Tortoise will re-enact Millions Now Living Will Never Die; the Meat Puppets will thrash out Meat Puppets II; and Thurston Moore will break Psychic Hearts.
Tickets go sale today (April 25) at atpfestival.com.
Wine-drunk in the churchyards, climbing burial mounds
And the band marched in circles, continued the sounds.
– Dark Meat, “Freedom Ritual”
You’ve never heard anything quite like Universal Indians before. No, really. You haven’t. While Detroit five-piece the Dirtbombs feature two bass players and two drummers, Athens, Georgia’s Dark Meat/Vomit Lasers Family Band/Galaxy–or just Dark Meat for short–boasts 17 musicians banging away on a variety of instruments: Celtic harp, didgeridoo, fiddle, horns, and a beer can (naturally). There’s also a group-within-a-group, the Phil Spector-inspired vocal trio the Subtweeters.
More conventionally, Dark Meat incorporates bass (one player), drums (two), guitars (three), and brass (fourteen), yet the effect isn’t as hippie dippy–or completely cacophonous, for that matter–as that line-up implies. Unhinged rave-ups, like “Well Fuck You Then,” “Assholes for Eyeballs,” and “There Is a Retard on Acid Holding a Hammer to Your Brain,” don’t exactly suggest sunshine and flowers.
North Carolina songwriter/guitarist Jim McHugh, the ringleader, has a vocal style that lies between Iggy Pop and Mark Arm, further distancing Dark Meat from the realm of freak folk or New Weird America. Granted, they’re weird all right, but except for the a cappella intro, there’s little folk to be found on their first record. Dedicated to the “Holy Ghost of Albert Ayler” (the free jazz sax player), Universal Indians comes on like the peyote-popping grads of a high school marching band reuniting to play proto-punk.
This expanded edition of Dark Meat’s 2006 debut adds three bonus tracks: two live numbers recorded in Gram Parsons’ not-so-happy hunting ground of Joshua Tree, and Ayler tribute “Universal Indians.” Apart from atonal instrumental “Disintegrating Flowers” (a little irritating, but it’s over in two minutes), the whole strange set works better than it should. Nonetheless, this collective probably makes an even greater impression on stage, where their costumes and confetti become part of the spectacle.
Tour dates:
Apr 25 2008 - Red Barn, Peoria, Illinois
Apr 26 2008 - Empty Bottle w/ ENON, Chicago, IL
Apr 27 2008 - Nomad World Pub, Minneapolis, MN
Apr 28 2008 - The Aquarium, Fargo, ND
Apr 29 2008 - The Waiting Room w/ Drakkarsauna, Omaha, NE
Apr 30 2008 - The Jackpot Saloon w/ Drakkarsauna, Lawrence, KS
May 1 2008 - Hi-Dive Saloon w/ Drakkarsauna, Denver, CO
May 2 2008 - Kilby Ct., Salt Lake City, UT
May 3 2008 - Friend Friend Friend Fest, Missoula, MT
May 4 2008 - The Comet, Seattle, WA
May 6 2008 - Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR
May 8 2008 - Hemlock Tavern w/ The Ohsees, San Francisco, CA
May 9 2008 - The Cellar Door, Visalia, CA
May 10 2008 - The Echo Lounge, Los Angeles, CA
May 14 2008 - Walter’s on Washington w/ Quiet Hooves, Houston, TX
May 15 2008 - The Mohawk w/ Quiet Hooves, Austin, TX
May 16 2008 - Lola’s w/ Quite Hooves, Ft. Worth, TX
May 17 2008 - Good Records, Dallas, TX
May 18 2008 - The Conservatory w/ Quiet Hooves, Oklahoma City, OK
May 19 2008 - Mojo’s w/ Quiet Hooves, Columbia, MO
May 20 2008 - The Record Bar w/ Quiet Hooves, Drakkarsauna, Kansas City, MO
May 21 2008 - The Blue Bird w/ Quiet Hooves, St. Louis, MO
May 22 2008 - Mike N Mollys w/ Quiet Hooves, Champaign, IL
May 23 2008 - Summercamp Festival w/ Flaming Lips, Chillicothe, IL
May 24 2008 - Av/Aerie w/ Quiet Hooves, Chicago, IL
May 26 2008 - Lee’s Place, Toronto, ON
May 27 2008 - Zoobizarre, Montreal, QC
May 28 2008 - Music Hall of WIlliamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC
May 29 2008 - Space 1026, Philadelphia, PA
May 29 2008 - Johnny Brendas, Philadelphia, PA
May 30 2008 - Mountain Jam w/ Levon Helm, Woodstock, NY
Nobody ever said making a second album was easy. This is especially the case for buzz bands, and doubly bad if your debut was dubbed “critically acclaimed” by those ever-important music mags or if your tunes received a cyber thumbs up straight from the blogosphere. On their second album Konk, Brighton-based Brit-pop outfit the Kooks struggle with the age-old dilemma of the anxiety of influence. This rugged pop foursome–who borrowed their quirky moniker from a David Bowie song–cite directly from their sonic sources on their sophomore effort, drawing inspiration from the British bands of rock’s past and present, revealing very little of their unique musical point of view.
Konk is a not-too-terrible amalgamation of the Kinks’ delicate rock-infused whimsy, the brash rebellion of the Who, and the defiant growl and over-confident swagger of the now defunct Libertines. The opener “See the Sun” could be mistaken for an early track by the latter, written on one of Pete Doherty’s sober and more optimistic days. “Down to the Market” revives the teen-friendly exuberance of the Undertone’s underage classic “Teenage Kicks,” and the feigned studio intimacy of “Tick of Time” combines the beautiful wistfulness of early Kinks tracks laced with a reggae-esque lazy drawl. All in all, Konk isn’t unlistenable; in fact its dozen-or-so tracks are pleasant pop ditties that would fit perfectly as the soundtrack for a lazy summer night at the pub or as background music for a sleazy-teen romantic scene in “Gossip Girl”. But if it’s British rock you’re craving, dust off your records and stick with the classics.
I want you to take a look at the photo on the left (full-size here) for a second, because it is blowing my mind. It was taken at an overcrowded Jay Reatard show which took place in Toronto last week at a venue called the Silver Dollar. It’s compositionally important for a number of reasons, which we’ll get to in a moment.
Jay Reatard has been creating garage rock, punk, and electronic new wave/industrial mayhem for the better part of the last decade under a variety of guises–the Reatards, Lost Sounds, Angry Angles, Bad Times, Final Solutions, and any number of production credits (most notably the Reigning Sound’s landmark Too Much Guitar album)–that had found him entrenched deeply into underground music, and enjoying his stay. It was never too hard to locate one of his projects if you dug deeply enough into those scenes. If you’re one who pays attention to names, venues and labels, you would have come across him as well.
At the end of 2006, Reatard released a solo album, Blood Visions, and spent much of 2007 watching it rise up as word slowly spread on its own. People got excited because they felt like they discovered this guy with minimal help from the press, and more from record store clerks and live gigs. It showed a musician careening right at the edge of control, whipping out hyperactive, aggressively tuneful punk rips like eggs thrown from a moving car. It was nothing the Adverts didn’t do in 1977 (or the Futureheads in 2004), but there will always be a place for the artist out there who can do right by this sort of sound, and right now, that place is all his, and he’s claiming it as quickly as he can.
He’s been out of his native Memphis on and off for a few years on tour with his backing band, the Boston Chinks, or as a one-off with another project. The first of his six new projected 7” singles on the Matador label has been released. To stoke demand, each successive release in the series will be pressed in a smaller quantity than the previous single, starting at 2500 copies of the first one, “See Saw” b/w “Screaming Hand,” and ending with only 1000 of the final single.
Now, the public is learning what to expect from Reatard in the live setting–chaos. That chaos is turning into a demand, as he posted in his blog about their show in Toronto last week. And here’s video of the incident in question.
I watched this several times in a row, and my opinion changed from rubbernecker to moral outrage, then to a sort of amazement that we’re all able to see this, together, en masse. But I was more drawn to the act than anything else, and the photo above sealed it. Reatard was so deflective of a highly unstable environment that he did what, in the moment, he very might have felt had to be done. And premeditation aside–its presence here is debatable–what is really happening? That someone’s reclaiming rock and roll from the spectators, and catalyzing the force of sound into a physical manifestation? Or that he’s sucker-punching some hapless kid who knocked out his guitar cable?
Either way, the photo clinches a moment just before contact. Young girls in the crowd look on with elation. The recipient of Jay Reatard’s fist is proud and amazed: Hartford Whalers cap on askew; Locust tattoo an earlier reminder of what might have been a lifetime of jumping on other people’s bandwagons–from trip-hop to “the return of rock,” from electroclash to no wave to nu-rave to nu-disco. Jay Reatard’s fist, his gesture, summarizes his entire experience with performing up to this point, and does so by annihilating the one in front of him, symbolically ending ten years of cultural flip-flop in one violent display. This is where punk rock clobbers the hapless bystander; where realism pummels idealism; where not everybody is a star anymore.