Black, Grey, and waking up from a Coma

Weekend- Sports (2010) Slumberland Records



Music stands out to me in different ways. One artist may grab me with some insightful or catchy lyrics, while others make harsh noises that I somehow find soothing through my broken ears... Another way music grabs me is by color.
Yes,
Color.

Some bands really carve their own color spectra... The Grateful Dead give me this sort of bright, translucent, flashing light sort of aesthetic, while Thee Oh Sees send me through muddled purple and black landscapes. Now that I think about it, these color schemes usually arise from heavily instrumental bands.

Weekend, a relatively new San Francisco outfit, produces a similar effect in me. With Weekend, it's spectra of grey and black, and not distinct, but muddied into one another. The guitar (guitars?) (more guitars???) come through your headphones left and right, from what seems like miles away, trying to catch up with the steady and thick basslines... as they layer, and scream, and buildup. Voices in the background start from distant echoes and chants, and beautifully build up in tangible melodies perfectly in tune with the strings and drums.

(((({Deathgaze}))))

This music is dark... but as NPR put it... it still somehow manages to be comforting. Through all the echoes and distortion, are beautiful melodies that may at first seem so distant, but once found are all you can hear.

Sports is due out in November. I'm putting this up NOT to be an asshole to the band, BUT to convince you all to go see them open for Sonny & the Sunsets, and Pains of Being Pure at Heart, at the Echoplex on November 12. Buy their LP, give them a hug, do what you gotta do.

Here's my personal favorite off the album: Coma Summer



love, Amir

Heartbreaker

New song from upcoming Girls EP "Broken Dream Club"... That is all

sorry for the lazy post... watched too much basketball and have too much homework left to do..

-Amir

It's Shite Being Scottish, or, Suck it Sofia Coppola

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
If you took the Smiths, gave them all Robert Smith's wonder-goth hair, and drenched the whole thing in Dick Dale quantities of fuzz, you'd have something sort of-vaguely-marginally close to The Jesus and Mary Chain. No one part of the equation really says anything about how wonderful and revolutionary the band (and moreso) this album was. This is an album that truly started a movement without intending to. The Scottish brothers (Jim and William Reid) who made up the core of the band were the pioneers to make music come off as aggressive through dodgy lyrics, feedback and harmonized distortion rather than windmills, power chords and seizure-victim dancing. This was backed up by a drummer who really did nothing more than bash the shit out of a tom and snare drum.

This was proto-noise, or something to that effect. It's not noise like we have today - it feels thin, trembly, hell, even a little sweet. Speaking of sweet, there's a nice recurring theme of honey and bees in the lyrics, which seems strangely appropriate, considering the songs fluctuate between sweet, flowing songs about beautiful girls - to quick, speed-freak jams about how fucking awesome I am when I ride my motorcycle. It becomes apparent that, most likely, JAMC didn't really give a fuck about pleasing anyone, they just wanted to shake things up, because, fuck you, it was about them.

-Thom

Nostalgia for an Age Yet to Come

Buzzcocks - Love Bites

Consider it an answer to the doo-wop generation. It’s about those kids from the late-70’s that didn’t really have any answers—the kids that learned about love from a piece of vinyl. They’re stuck with the backwash of the more pure past. They’re sitting at the gates of that whole “punk” gig, trying to figure out why it’s not quite adding up. It has the awkwardness of a teen boy struck by a proto-love with no other means of expressing it. It’s heartfelt, it’s calculated, it’s unbearably nostalgic.

The album has that almost nauseating flow and turn like the doo-wops did, but there’s an edge to it—a pure and unfocused angst that takes us back to young adulthood. The benefit of such a combination is most notably in how goddamn catchy the songs are. Pete Shelley’s voice strains in a very early-punk British way, and it’s set to little riffs of clean distortion and nearly surgical drumming (John Maher is right on time). At times the album justifies its patch real estate on the backs of young punks, at times it sounds like a Kinks album, and at times it’s downright orchestral for their setup.

So swirls and swoops take us through the brain of a young male romantic—and the essential emotional range there within. We’ve explored the desperation and innocence of youth and its downs and ups and everything in-between. It’s the principal “what about me?” notion behind an entire limb of 80’s music, and it reminds us exactly how little we’ve progressed from being jilted and unrequited teens. Maybe it’s about us.

-Drew

You play along to songs written for you...

Real Estate- Out of Tune 7'' 2010 True Panther Sounds


Oh sweet guitar.
Oh sweet sun and shine and rain and all.
How you bring out the most innocent emotions in us all.
Why can't every band be like Real Estate?
Why can't every band drop your blood pressure, relax the knots in your muscles, and let music effortlessly and harmoniously flow in and out the highways of your ear canals...

This band is special, so young, so talented. This new 7'' is a sign of even more to come... as if their self titled LP, and Reality EP were not enough. Recorded by Woods' Jarvis Taveniere and featuring Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never on the synth, Out of Tune finds the band sounding better than ever. Well crafted guitar lines flowing in and out of each other, while a steady and soothing bass/drum combination serve as a perfect template for this meditation. B side is fantastic as well.

I was going to wait till my 7'' arrived to get the legal download and put up this post, but shit I can't wait anymore.

Fuck pain meds, download this instead.
Love, amir

(I Don't Think that its Crazy) The Universe is Speaking to You

THE INTELLIGENCE- MALES (2010) IN THE RED


When I listen to the Intelligence, its like trying to keep up with a schizophrenic dude trying to explain to you why he's the only truly free person in the world; it doesn't make much sense but you know there's something valuable in what he's saying. Within that clatter of harsh guitar chords, absurd licks, and synthed out bass, ex A Frames, Lars Finberg nonchalantly speaks the poetry of the apocalypse. Think Stephen Malkimus but sillier and on more drugs.

Males is the Intelligence's most recent venture, and is a turning point for the band in many ways. The sound is crystal clear and very well produced, and for the first time finds Finberg utilizing his live band rather than recording all the instruments by his lonesome self. There are some reworking of old songs (The Universe, Like Like Like Like Like), but the album finds itself mostly wrapped in new material. Highlights include "Sailor Puke", "The Universe", "White Corvette", and "Males".

I'll leave you with this... hands down, the most impressive quality about the Intelligence is this... Lars Finberg strings the PERFECT words together, in an idiosyncratic manner, and manages to get it stuck in your head. TRUST ME

"Winter jingles, Winter abyss//Endless bummer surf's up Christmas fits"

-Amir

Selective Amnesia, and What's Done is Done

The Against Me! starter Pack

Against Me! has the uncanny ability to create die-hard fans—people that live and breathe their music—and very quickly make enemies of them. I don’t know anyone who’s liked them for any given period of time that doesn’t absolutely despise them now.

And it fits the music: it’s impulsive, impassioned, and angry. They took a generation’s worth of punk’s skeletons from outfits like The Replacements, Hot Water Music, and Leatherface and smashed them into something that gave what few of us cared a voice, something to listen to. They combined the post-post-post punk of old and juxtaposed it to the southern (American) sensibilities that pervade our subconsciouses. The impact was at one point undeniable.

They gave young anarchists and the politically unsettled something to sing under their breaths at work and scream drunk and glossy at shows. It’s so easy to write them off as something incidental or anecdotal now, but the unbearable truth is that this music happened. Tom Gabel made the “Acoustic EP”, and that will never go away.

Love them or hate them—hate them or hate them, they’re still out there. Every album they’ve ever popped out has pissed off a section of their fanbase, and that won’t stop. If you hated “New Wave”, you most definitely hated “White Crosses”, and wait for the next. Against Me! hasn’t ever asked for your friendship, and the quiet whimpers and violent foot-stomps you use to show your distaste have never and will never affect the music they make. It’s every man against Tom Gabel, and by now he’s well aware of it.

On another note, if you don’t have at least “Reinventing Axl Rose”, drop everything you’re doing and go get it.

-Drew

The Beach Goth is Back

The Growlers - Hot Tropics
It was Halloween of 2008, almost two years ago, when I first saw The Growlers by accident. There was a free Strange Boys show in Laguna that night, and a band i'd heard mentioned now and again called The Growlers were playing with them. Granted, that night I was too drunk on friendship and $2 beers to appreciate what I was hearing in the background. Luckily for me, the "Beach Goth" pioneers were handing out a free CD with a few newly recorded tracks on it, one of which being being Something Someone Jr, which would become the opening on their label debut about a year later.

Listening to the sampler CD on the way to work a few days later, I instantly fell in love. It was a sound truly their own, like nothing i'd ever heard before. All the best parts of psychedelic, surf, early goth were combined in a druggy haze, which was complimented by frontman Brooks Neilsen's surprisingly detailed lyrics and slurred, soulful, rough squeak of a voice. I needed to get my hands on more. I borrowed their earlier material, which had some great songs from a long-abandoned sound, and attended every show of theirs I could. I had a new band to love, and hell, it was a local band, someone that I could, for a time, consider my own little secret.

Last year, The Growlers were signed by Everloving Records and released Are You in or Out, a collection of selected tracks from the dozens they had recorded in the 4 or 5 years before hitting it big. I had some Growlers on vinyl, and oh, what a joy it was. I was sad the boys were no longer a homegrown sensation, their warehouse parties and secret shows a thing of the past, but at the same time, they were getting the recognition they deserved, and that's what counts. Since then, they've opened for Devendra Banhart, Dr. Dog, Julian Casablancas and most recently, the Black Keys.

And to put a great end to a good year - they have a new 10" EP out - Hot Tropics. It's a mix of new songs and more recent older stuff (all re-recorded though), and it's a nice little collection of jams to get me through until the next full-length. There's a recurring theme of death and souls in the songs (Graveyard's Full, Sea Lion Goth Blues), but it ties together with a love song which fades into an islandy instrumental outro (Underneath Our Palms, Hula Hula Hideout). It's only around 20 minutes, but it's a very nice 20 minutes to be had.

-Thom

P.S. This docuvideo is pretty rad, just like the song

Starter Pack: Thee Oh Sees

INTRODUCING...
THE STARTER PACK
EVERYTHING YOU NEED, IN A SLIGHTLY CONCISE COLLECTION TO GET AN ALL AROUND EARFUL OF AWESOME BANDS THAT HAVE LOTSA MUSIC!!!

For the first band in our series... I introduce you...


THEE OH SEES
FROM SAN FRANCISCO, CA.. LED BY EX COACHWHIPS JOHN DWYER. RAW, PSYCHEDELIC, THRASH, ALL LAYERED WITH BEAUTIFUL GUY/GIRL VOCALS AND SOME OF THE MOST SAVAGE GUITAR WORK TO BE HEARD. THEY KEEP TRUE TO THEIR LIVE PERSONA IN THEIR RECORDS, DON'T MISS OUT ON ONE OF THE GREAT MODERN AMERICAN BANDS (AND THEY'RE ONLY ON THEIR WAY UP).




THIS COLLECTS MUCH OF THEIR WORKS FROM THE EARLY EERIE VAMPIRIC SONGS, TO THE MORE RECENT ROCK AND ROLL STEEZ. I TOPPED IT OFF WITH 2 OF THEIR IMPROVISATIONAL JAMS. ENJOY!!! <3

DOWNLOAD IT HERE!
-AMIR

Guys with Glasses Make Great Albums: Pinkerton

Weezer - Pinkerton
"A long time ago, in an era long forgotten, there was a plague that spread across the land called Grunge. Waves of flannel-clad warlocks trudged throughout the airwaves, their impossibly ripped jeans fluttering in the winds of the worst kind of change. Their battle cries were all the same droning, sandpapery wail, and yet the kings and queens of radio bowed to these audio-marauders.

When all seemed lost in the three-chord void that was left, four noble young beta-males stepped up, a history of rejection and Slayer behind and banner of proud pop-rock shimmering over their terrible haircuts. They called themselves Weezer." - John Wallingford, Music Historian.

Okay, so I wrote that, but whatever, it's true. I imagine when Weezer burst onto the dreary MTV scene in '94 with Weezer, more commonly known as the Blue Album, it was a breath of fresh air so sweet even a pack-a-day smoker could have smelled it. I'm sure there are others who were sick of the grunge scene and what it had degraded into, and Weezer, armed with nothing but angsty pop songs, were the injection of fun that music needed. Remember fun?

But, after inspiring the millions of nerd bands that we have today and giving the A.V. Club an album of anthems, frontman Rivers Cuomo pulled a Sallinger and decided to go into exile at Harvard. While there, he wrote dozens of songs; created, recorded, and discarded a sci-fi concept album that is still yet to see the light of day, and when the insecurities and forlorness went up in smoke and cleared, Pinkerton was recorded.

This is the album that would define Weezer for me - it's melancholy, full of promises to girls that don't know you exist, self-loathing, love letters and all the great riffs and catchy choruses Weezer is known for. The album is essentially where modern emo started (and then got shitty very quickly) and showed that pop sensations could still have feelings, and hurt feelings at that. But wouldn't you know it, the album was a commercial failure.

There is a four-song section in the middle of the album that I can never stop listening to when hearing it. It starts off as a sweet tribute to a Japanese fan and her love letters to Cuomo, him wishing he could meet her one day, even though he never will ("Across the Sea") The next track ("The Good Life") focuses on Cuomo's desires to stop being a dirtbag and get back to the life he once knew, presumably so he can get with the girl he admires from afar on ("El Scorcho") - but wouldn't you know it, she's a lesbian! ("Pink Triangle")

after Pinkerton and all its wonder, Rivers went into exile again, for five years this time. in 2001, The Green Album came out, and it's been a losing battle for Weezer ever since.

But we'll always have Pinkerton, Rivers - and I can't thank you enough for that.

-Thom

Hooks to Hang a Hat On

Spider Bags - A Celebration of Hunger

“I’ve got a bad complexion and a lot to say” is how Dan McGee opens one of my favorite recent albums, and it’s absolutely true. He writes like a guy with really nothing to lose, and he shoots from the hip.

This opening track sets a lot of the tones in the album, as catchy licks and cheeky lines about John Denver’s sex problems give us a clear indication of the free-flowing open-heartedness of the music to come. As the album continues, we hear the strong country influence that the human brain seems to already commit to the moans of a jaded and battered individual. This isn’t Toby Keith complaining about nothing whilst filling his ten-gallon hat with wads of swindled hundreds, this is the real spirit of country music. This is about pain and death and love and drug-binges. This is this man’s life, for better or worse.

Most of the songs are sweet little southern jams, complete with twangy leads and smatterings of keyboard, set to endearing drum beats but flush with the rock and roll influence that so many modern musicians can’t escape. The rhythms hit hard and the hooks stay with you for days. They’re drunken sing-alongs, songs just for fuck’s sake, and dark stills of a distant love in the shadow of a shadowy past.

McGee writes in a way that the listener could never bring himself to doubt. The sixth track, “So Long a Rope”, seems to be about a man’s quiet observations as he’s about to hang himself. “You and me by the cutest tree / On the lawn where I grew up”, he recalls, “So long a rope for such a short distance / Or, at best, a short rope for a long stretch.” Beautiful depictions of ominous trouble, the idea that things aren’t always going to be alright. He shows us a man who’s survived against all odds and now has the burden of asking the “what now?”

It’s the overwhelming question in his life, and he pushes this motif further in “Alphabet City Blues” with an altered Prufrock reference, “So let us go then, you and I / When the evening sky is fallen / The night is dark like you and I”. The question, we see, has no answer, and he’s forced to recount his hazy gone life ad infinitum.

And so the album ends on the only note it could: “My oh my, what a quarrel I’m in.” We’re back to where we started, no worse for wear, and if nothing else with the feeling of company we get from the choruses we’ll be whistling for the rest of the night. Good times.

-Drew

Garage-Garage Punk-Punk

That's right you little audio-monsters, it's a triple upload from me today, and as the title suggests, the genres are gonna go from garage rock, to garage punk, to fuzz-drenched punk. Let's start with the throwbackiest garage rock record since the Redwalls' De Nova


The Shake - Trippin' the Whole Colorful World

Despite what you'll hear in this raucously retro record, this band isn't a passed over gem from the garage-rock heyday of the 60s, it was recorded 3 years ago. One would never know just by listening though - it has all the charm, riffs, attitude and cardboard-y recording quality of Nuggets-era psychedelia, without even a hint of modern flair. Even the Liverpudlian background vocals are spot-on, which is a lot seeing as this quartet is made up of full-blooded spaniards. Pop a Dexy and dance everyone.


The Gories - I Know You Fine, But How You Doin'
Probably the greatest and arguably most influential band to come out of the late 80s/early 90s garage punk scene, The Gories' 1990 seminal album is a must have, simply put. Even as campy as it is, their intro song "Hey Hey, We're the Gories" really does show you who they are, and that's something not all bands can do with the first song you hear from them.


Coachwhips - Get Yer Body Next Ta Mine
This one's an easy sell: John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees' first band with some San Francisco musician friends and the drummer from Sic Alps. It lacks the polish, if you can call it that, of Thee Oh Sees, but it's quicker, barely intelligible, and somehow even more raw then what he's grinding out currently. Also, that's an album cover for the ages, if you ask me.

-Thom

Live It Up

First Blood (2010)- Goner Records
Punk from Oakland slaps on bunny mask, and starts recording music heavily borrowing from the pop of the 50's, with his own scumglam spin. (did I just create the next "chillwave"?)
Nobunny made his big debut with "Love Visions". He'd recorded various tapes and had smaller releases, but "Love Visions" is mainly responsible for getting his music out there. The album made you want to dance, drink, hug, and yell all the hooks that instantly infected your brain. 
"First Blood" is the follow up to "Love Visions". It was released on Goner records and is making its way up the Billboard charts (not really). Suffice to say, the sophomore album curse didn't hit this masked rockstar. Opener "Ain't It A Shame" is a gorgeous and excessively catchy song about pretty much being a shitty boyfriend. "(Do The) Fuck Yourself" quickly turns into an anthem for masturbation, and somehow it doesn't sound shameful or pathetic (as one would assume a song about masturbating late night after a party would be). Other highlights include Gone for good, Breathe, Live It Up, and Never Been Kissed. The album closes with "I Was On (The Bozo Show)". If or not he really was, who knows.
PLEASE, if you enjoy this album, go support this ultra-rad musician live. It'll be a fucking party, I promise you.
Here's a snippet i took off an article in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. You can read the whole article here
The blatant "(Do the) Fuck Yourself" conjures up perverse images straight from Nobunny's stage show, where his masked persona goes public, employing ball-gags while prancing around scantily-clad. When we finally meet in person, I ask him where these antics come from. His answer is quite simple, and makes sense coming from a rabbit, "I'm just horny," he says. All the while, in order to maintain a "shred of anonymity," he wears his favorite deranged-looking mask. It never seems to come off.