Calgary, Alberta is a generally pretty cold city I know little about apart from that it hosted the Winter Olympics when Jamaica entered; and I only know that because Cool Runnings was my favourite film when i was a kid (I still think it’s great. And, interestingly, pint-sized gambling football substitute Michael Owen claims it’s the only film he’s ever seen). There’s something in this cold, bleak environment that must inspire dark, post-punk bands. I guess having to wear big coats and seeing steam come out of your mouth must make everyone feel a little more like Ian Curtis. Read more »
See and hear the Strange Boys
The Strange Boys are a dusty Austin garage rock band and in the last seven days everyone has been getting unprecedentedly excited about them. It’s not that they’re anything other than totally scuzzy and brilliant, it’s just that a band exists happily sitting on their local cloud before one day the rest of the world starts screaming about them. I guess the art is to keep everyone shouting. Anyway, it’s late but they’re playing tonight in Brixton, and I was supposed to go but I can’t because my flatmate’s being a little bitch, so there’s a free space on the guest list. I’ll send the name on the list to the first person to comment beneath and leave their email. Oh, and here’s a song.
The Strange Boys, “Heard You Want To Beat Me Up”
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Foot fetish funk
Back when Texas’s acid-punk (Butthole Surfers, Crust, Ed Hall, Helios Creed) scene was in full swing, a lot of the musicians from those bands worked at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired between tours, including Teresa from the Butthole Surfers, aka that girl featured on the Slacker movie poster who tries to sell Madonna’s pap smear in the film. And it was some of those very strange people who first discovered TJ Wade, a pre-teen blind prodigy who could instantly play anything he heard on keyboards.
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The Choir Quit so you don’t have to
In five nasty minutes listening to the radio this morning, I learnt that today was the centre-point of London’s record-breaking “level three” heat wave, which will eventually explode into violent and unpredictable weather patterns. I also learnt that we were now in “phase six” of the swine flu pandemic, and that right now the terrorist alert is “severe”, which is another way of saying that it’s more likely that your bus to work will soon be converted into a chemical warhead. Read more »
Chatting up our intern from a prison in America
Today we got a letter addressed to our intern (in that it said: “Attn: Intern”), the return address claimed it was from Prisoner #19401-112, Federal Prison Camp, 4000 Victory Road, Lompoc, CA. 93436, USA. It was a request for our intern to check out the prisoner’s band. As asked, we passed it on to Amanda, our intern with a nose-ring. Here is their correspondence.
20 Jazz Funk Greats - come and dance
If you haven’t experienced the maximalist, John Carpenter freestyle magik of Chicago’s Gatekeeper yet then you really need to acquaint yourselves now. Designed to make you want to trance-dance naked inside opulent giallo cathedrals as the sky darkens outside and demonic shadows conjure in the clouds, Gatekeeper’s music plays like a fever-dream of half-remembered horror movies from the 1980s. It’s all smudged lipstick, faceless men in trench coats that conceal horrific secrets, and sacrificial voodoo halls painted in blood hidden away in a vast and ominous metropolis overseen by men with black eyes and sharp suits.
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Nathan Williams of Wavves smokes weed and watches Seinfeld
Nathan Williams’ lo-fi project Wavves was inspired by his loneliness. Wah wah. We love it anyway. Somehow we get a true kick out of it, despite how it could almost definitely be described as a total Debbie downer. And sounding like it’s been recorded inside a hippo’s belly somehow doesn’t mute its extraordinary dynamism and pure character.
Titus Andronicus, Arch M and Your Twenties
Did you see the ‘New Bands 2009′ lists? If the idiots who voted for them knew anything they’d have voted for these three bands. Oh well who cares, the industry can have Frankmusik if that’s what they really want, we’re happy with MP3s from these dudes.
Titus Andronicus
The ghosts of a bloody Shakespearean tragedy or some French existential author are never far from the unflinchingly aggressive Titus Andronicus. These guys played their first UK show at the Old Blue Last a while back and it was intense. Led to battle by the raging bull of Patrick Stickles they smashed the place up, somehow making our sense of impending doom seem like a glorious crusade. Three minutes of low fuzzy vocals on ‘No Future’ burn like a fuse before finally erupting into life with the familiar concrete melodies. Everyone’s got a hard-on for this band, you can see why, they make you want to rage. And read more books. But mostly rage.
MP3: Titus Andronicus – Titus Andronicus
MP3: Titus Andronicus – No Future
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The Books Are Open: Can This Guy Record A Song A Day For A Year?
Does anyone still look at MySpace? I kind of gave up about a year ago but when I logged on the other day I had a friend request with one of those little notes attached directing me to a blog that promised a new song EVERY DAY for a year.
New Mike Bones video
Hey everybody. This is new video for Mike Bones’ ‘What I Have Left’ song that’s taken from his next A Fool For Everyone album which is out next month on Vice Records. Yay! Vice illustrator Tara Sinn made the video! We love it! Yay!!!!
