Amplifier Worship

A bit late on the update from this one, but last Saturday had me driving down to Columbus to catch SunnO))) and Boris. I had been pretty excited for this show ever since I read about it a couple months ago. I was hoping for an unholy droning east-meets-west sludgefest and was not let down in the slightest. Boris brought the thunder from the east, alternating between Blue Cheer-y, wooly-mammoth-stuck-in-the-tar-pit heaviness and more spastic prog-with-a-fork-stuck-in-a-220-volt socket numbers. They had the younger kids moshing during the latter and the fat, long-haired & bearded dudes in black t-shirts with the sleeves cut off banging their heads slowly in approval during the former tunes. After a short break, the house lights went down and the stage began to fill with fog. Along with the blue stage lights and the numerous tiny red light bulbs hung around, it started to make the transition from concert hall to ceremonial drone cave where the evening's cochlea sacrifice would proceed.
Oren Ambarchi came out (shrouded in the de rigeur black hooded cloak) and began filling the air with piercing tones from his heavily processed guitar. After a few minutes of that O'Malley and Anderson, the High Priests of the Unholy Drone, came out, plugged in, and unleashed the power of the sunn amps. This was the first time I had seen them perform live and had heard how the sound manifests itself physically, but was completely unprepared for it. Up until that point, the loudest band I had seen was Mogwai, but that pain could be alleviated with earplugs. Not so with Sunn. The low end rumbles through your innards and vibrates your teeth. Like some sort of tribal shamans, they had their flock all resonating at the same frequency. If Shiva had an audio accompaniment to his work of destroying planets, it would definitely be SunnO))). (Curiously enough, someone told me that the word "sunno" in Hindi means "listen", but I've been too lazy to look into that. I prefer just believing blindly what he told me) Added to the steel string reverberations were Atsuo's (Boris' drummer) vocal chords and gong hits. Perched at the edge of the stage, and even jumping into the sea of outstretched arms at one point, his blasphemous shrieking-in-tongues whipped the crowd into a frenzy.


This was one of the best performances I've seen in awhile. Added to the fact that it's great music, the atmosphere they create just takes it up to another level. It's a lot more interesting that way than just a bunch of dudes who haven't showered in awhile in the same jeans and t-shirts they've had on for 3 days. With their stage theatrics, Sunn walks the line between over the top, Spinal Tap-esque heavy metal shlock and true reverence. Maybe I'm just some hack writer who completely missed the point, but the boundaries between taking the piss and exalting the dark forces were obscured by the fog machines. As always, the merch tables at shows like this get me into trouble but I was able to sufficiently restrain myself to keep a few bucks in my pocket for a post-show Waffle House stop. Nothing better to fill a post-drone rumbled belly with than a pecan waffle. If I was an enterprising opportunist I would've picked up a couple of the tour-only Sunn discs to flog on eBay (one went for over $140 bucks) but I was content to just pick up the one for myself, along with the picture disc LP of Black One and the high concept 2 disc Dronevil set by Boris. It's somewhat along the lines of the Flaming Lips' "Zaireeka", you sync up the 2 discs to play at the same time. They're impressive enough on their own, but when you actually do sync them up on 2 players, the result is stupefying.

R.I.P. Desmond Dekker

Just a quick shout out to the memory of the man who turned me on to a whole genre of music I would've otherwise missed out on. I went to high school with a bunch of kids who were into ska, but they were all nerds with shaved heads and two-tone suspenders who listened to The Toasters and stuff like that. Not my cup of tea. Then the only experience I had with reggae was the Bob Marley discs that always played at my uncle's house while they all smoked pot. Bob Marley bored me to tears. Let's face it, he's basically the (half) black Jimmy Buffett. I know college freshmen everywhere will disagree with that statement (just look for any dorm room with a poster of Bob smoking a huge spleef), but it's pretty much the truth. My indifference to reggae all changed once I heard a little tune called "The Israelites" in a little movie called "Drugstore Cowboy". That snakey guitar line, repetitive rhythm, and soulful voice was cooler than Matt Dillon's outfits, and that's saying a lot because he looked pretty awesome in that movie. So I credit Desmond Dekker and Trojan Records (for all their amazing re-issues and box sets) for turning me onto a powerful, vibrant form of music that I otherwise would've just dismissed as the soundtrack to overpriveleged white college kids with dreadlocks preaching about the evils of "Babylon".
Here's an awesome video from a TV show show in the vein of "Top Of The Pops" of Desmond Dekker & The Aces performing "The Israelites" to a bunch of Dutch dudes with weird haircuts.

Black Ships Ate The Sky

David Tibet, the primary creative force behind Current 93 describes his newest album “Black Ships Ate The Sky” as “the closest I have come to picturing what I hope, and feel, and love, and fear.” It takes a certain amount of guts to do something like that, to tear down every shred of a protective barrier around your core and expose it to the elements and see what the end result is. What if no one cares? Or even worse, what if when you train that deep of an eye into the deepest recesses of yourself, the end result bores you? Luckily for us what resides inside of David Tibet is something so awe-inspiring, frightening, and magnificient that it’s resulted in the best album these ears have heard in the past 5 or so years. “Black Ships Ate The Sky” is the latest of Tibet’s prolific work with Current 93, released on his own Durtro-Jnana record label. The songs on this album are distinctly divided into two categories. The central theme is a rendition of Idumea (a hymn written in 1793 by the brother of the founder of the Methodist church), interpreted by the likes of Marc Almond, “Bonnie” Prince Billy, and Shirley Collins. Idumea is an interesting choice of a song to cover. It’s lyrical content is similar Tibet’s own lyrics (death, the afterlife/spirit world, eternity) but even more so when you consider the history of the song and who he chooses to interpret it. Idumea made a transatlantic journey and became a staple in Appalachian folk hymns (versions of it appeared on the Cold Mountain soundtrack) and by choosing both American and English artists to cover it, Tibet creates a musical bridge spanning oceans and centuries and left his own mark on an ever evolving art form. Even though this song appears 9 times on the album it never feels repetitive because each artists’ interpretation of it is quite different, the highlight being the almost a capella version sung by Antony. His voice is too beautiful to be human, it sounds like it’s coming from from an impossibly perfect blank eyed marble statue with angelic vocal chords. A modern day Pygmalion. The other half of the album is a song cycle concerning the mysterious black ships. At the peak of his song writing powers, Tibet is on par with the poetry of William Blake. The lyrics paint strange and wonderful and disturbing images of copper kings, umbrella ladies, and black ships devouring the clouds in your head, set to delicately picked folky acoustic guitars and the deep mournful tone of a cello. To the ever changing roster of musicians in Current 93, Tibet has added Ben Chasny. His style meshes so well with Tibet's that it's a wonder it has taken this long for it to happen. The album climaxes towards the end lyrically, musically, and emotionally with the title track, with corrosive, distorted guitars pounding the same chord repeatedly while the cello squeals and wails like John Cale's viola on "Heroin", with an impassioned David Tibet intoning “Who will deliver me from myself? “ over and over. At this point you're so far caught up in the web Tibet has gently spun, lulling you with soothing tones, that the industrial overtones of this song are rather jarring. After Tibet destroys the entire world he had created in the span of those 4 minutes, he uses a reprise of Why Caesar Is Burning as its requiem, and to ease your re-entry back into the "real world". I'm not exactly sure what the black ships are supposed to signify. The one theory I keep returning to is that it's symbolic of humanity's propensity towards self destruction. Of a fate we're almost certainly doomed for if we stay the present course. It's almost as if Tibet is hoping that there is in fact a deus ex machina to deliver us from ourselves.

Finally, the hippies have good record collections

Maybe it has to do with the fact that Phish broke up and the hippies with nowhere else to go have finally started listening to non-jamband fare. Maybe the hippies just decided that the String Cheese Incident wasn't doing it for them and started delving into authentic psychedelic weirdness. Dungen is championing Trad Gras Och Stenar, Devendra Banhart has Vashti Bunyan, Ben Chasny has uncovered Gary Higgins from whatever rock he's been hiding under. For the record I'm not calling Ben a hippie, just using that as a point of reference. And for the record, I think the term "freak-folk" is a really lame buzzword cooked up by lazy journalists who have to categorize everything. For good or ill, as of late there seems to be an overabundance of bands practicing a sort of hippie-ish/back-to-the-land ethos.  The problem with a glut of bands in any one “scene”, other than the inevitable backlash, is separating the wheat from the chaff.  Feathers, a collective from the white mountains of Vermont, fall into the former category. They were the backing musicians on the aforementioned Banhart’s most recent studio album “Cripple Crow”, but their self-titled debut released on Banhart’s gnomonsong label is far superior. This record has me almost ready to put all my metal records in a pile and light it on fire and dance around it barefoot drinking mushroom tea under a full moon. (almost).  Their songs have a psychedelic-folky vibe that makes them sound like they were recorded in a sunlit meadow amongst wildflowers swaying in a gentle breeze or in a circle of gypsy wagons around a campfire. The one track that has especially captured my heart as of late is the closing "Come Around". The harmonies are achingly sweet and the multi-layered instrumental arrangement is just perfect.  More importantly, they have an authentic quality to them that leaves you wondering if the songs were recorded now or in 1973.  They don’t come off as a fly-by-night bandwagon jumping act who all of the sudden started waving their freak-folk flag for an already built in niche audience.

Mogwai and a really shitty band and a ray of hope to not end on a bummer

Sometimes the peripheral things happening at a show are just as entertaining as the main event. The bathroom lines at the Mogwai show last Thursday night at St. Andrew's were one of those moments. A few of the choice overhead comments:

"What the fuck is with this line? I walked past the ladies room and there isn't a line at all"
"That's because there's only like four chicks here"

a guy to another guy washing his hands after peeing:
"What are you doing? Is there something that wrong with your dick that you have to wash your hands every time you touch it?"

then one of the times I went down (I think I put down about 5 tall boys at the show, so there were frequent trips after a certain point) and there were 2 guys bitching about the wait, which was only about 3 minutes or so but that can seem like an eternity with a full bladder. Anyway, these guys were already INSIDE the bathroom waiting for the next available stall/urinal, but one guy egged the other guy on into pissing in the trash can. Then someone else started pissing in the sink. Pretty fuckin' punk rock. Needless to say it's the hardest I've probably ever laughed inside a bathroom other than the time at the House of Blues in Chicago when there were two guys arguing over who was doing more of their stash of blow in a stall next to me. As much fun as the bathroom was, the Mogwai set was even better. Easily one of the more powerful live acts still going today. If you subscribe to the theory that matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction, Mogwai will completely remind you that every particle of your body (and everywhere else for that matter) has been around since the Big Bang. They're so fierce live, and the sheer volume of it is like the sixth member of Mogwai. It was simultaneously beautiful and violent. Of the brilliant new album all I recognized was my personal favorite Friend of the Night and a monstrous version of Glasgow Mega-Snake that closed the show, complete with an extended noisy ending. Other than the opening Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home, the rest was just a blur of their brilliant brand of tension and release. Paik and Film School were playing at the Stick that night as well, but after Mogwai I was just too shattered. Plus seeing anyone else that night (even Paik) would've just been anti-climactic.

After the brilliance of Mogwai on Thursday, I witnessed one of the WORST live acts I've ever come across. I had gone to Small's for the purpose of seeing Light play, and one of the openers just ruined my night. They were called Canada, which is a slight on our neighbors to the north. Knowing that Canada is basically a nation of pacifists that don't shoot each other over sneakers and wouldn't howl for blood over the fact that their name was attached to such a horrible band. If a group of tuneless Canadian pseudo-hippie pot smokers who thought that their THC addled "jamming" in the basement was worthy of putting a group together to torment people who drink at bars formed a band and called themselves U.S.A., I wouldn't doubt a full-on minutemen type assault to put an end to it. As an act of good faith I think their heads should be mounted on pikes in Hart Plaza, facing Canada, with a big banner that says SORE-REE (the phonetic Canadian pronunciation of "sorry") over top of it as an act of good faith. Maybe spare the two lady cello players, but the guys must go. They all switched instruments, which included a fucking xylophone and one of those melodicas that only sound good in dub reggae tunes or if used by Brian Eno. Maybe if they would've all stuck to focusing their effort on one instrument it might've been easier to listen to, but probably not.

As promised I'm not ending on a bummer (well, not exactly). Jason Molina, this generation's Springsteen, has another solo album coming out in August, similar to the Pyramid Electric Co. album from a couple years ago. Molina talks about it here.

thanks for reading, if anyone out there is
xoxox
Anton

Ridiculous

Never underestimate the insanity of an obsessive Morrissey fan(atic). Remember all the crazy shit that supposedly linked Lincoln and Kennedy? Well, some crazy Smiths/Moz fan with a bit too much time on their hands has established a link between Morrissey's lyrics and the death of Princess Di. Here are just a few examples:

Morrissey started THE QUEEN IS DEAD with audio from the film THE L-SHAPED ROOM
about a woman - played by actress Lesley Caron - who moved from France to England.
Diana's body was moved from France to England.
Lesley Caron was born on July 1st.
Diana was born on July 1st.

Morrissey's lyrics to THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT from THE QUEEN IS DEAD concern:
two people
on a date
at night
in the city
driving in a car
fantasizing about getting killed in a car crash
gripped by fear in an underpass

Over a decade later we have Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed:
two people
on a date
at night
in the city
driving in a car
getting killed in a car crash
in an underpass

In 1987, this very same song - THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT from THE QUEEN IS DEAD -
became the 'A'-side of the only Smiths single ('B'-side: HALF A PERSON) in the lifetime of the band to be
released exclusively in France.
Princess Diana died in France.

Oh boy. I wouldn't poke fun if I wasn't completely obsessed with The Smiths myself. It really just makes me feel a whole lot better about it. If ever I think I've gone too far, I can always fall back on the "at least I didn't make a whole website about Moz predicting Princess Diana's death" defense. If you want to read the rest of the material, by all means visit THE DIANA-MORRISSEY PHENOMENOM website.

Acid Mother's Day

What is it with some of my countrymen? I think it comes as an honest-to-god SHOCK to some of them that there are people who don't speak English out there. Before the Acid Mothers Temple show Sunday night (dubbed Acid Mother's Day, clever huh?), I was at the merch table checking out what they had for me to buy when some duder was having a really hard time trying to find out why there was no Acid Mother's vinyl for sale. He kept talking very sloooowly as you would to a child who is mentally retarded and was visibly flustered and kept saying "Well you know, it's a rather common practice for bands to press their albums on to vinyl." I could just see Higashi and Kawabata sitting there thinking, "Fuck you guy, we're going home where we can play pachinko and buy school girl's worn underwear in a couple weeks." The opening act were some band called The Antarcticans who weren't bad but they kinda need to get over the whole Godspeed thing.
The Acid Mothers took the stage to Atsushi-san greeting us in perfect Engrish by saying "Herro Detroit Rock City, happy Acid Mother's Day, how many of you are mother fuckers?" It was already shaping up to be an interesting show. Half the fun is just watching them play. They're not the types of dudes you see every day. I was thinking about what it must be like on tour for them in the middle of nowhere when they stop for gas at 3 in the morning and the guy working at the gas station sees a tall Japanese guy with long silver hair and long pointy beard in pyjama pants walking around the store. Some people just aren't ready for that. I find Japanese hippies to be infinitely cooler than the American brand. I guess when you have a culture that's already a little weird to begin with and then you add LSD into the equation you're just bound to come up with something more fun than kicking around a hacky sack in your birks and twirling devil sticks with a Bob Marley disc playing. But I digress. I was hoping to hear more of the heavy, sludgy, Black Sabbath-meets-Flower Travellin Band type of stuff (which there was some of) but the majority of the show was more along the lines of jazzy free form psych space rock with a lot of feedback freak-out breakdowns and just pure Eddie Hazel-style cosmic slop rock-n-roll. Another thing that's great about Acid Mothers is how their brand of psych isn't blues based like so many of the 60's American and British bands, but is based more on droning eastern ragas, and fed through Marshall stacks and loads of effects pedals it turns into whole different creature. I like to think of it as some form of electric Zen buddhism, because it has that effect on the mind. It occupies the front part of your brain with its mantra (the part that worries about your bills, putting gas in the car, paying rent, etc. etc.) and lets the rest of the mind wander. It's a little reminder that there is a lot more to being human than slaving away to buy a false sense of happiness. That there's more of "us" than there are of "them" and if everybody one day decided to burn their passports and their flags and their credit card bill, that there's nothing "they" will be able to do about it. They got the guns but we got the numbers. I know it all sounds really naive and utopian but it's not a bad fantasy to have, and besides, everyone loves an underdog. That's why I'm glad there are bands like this. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. You just have to throw those seeds to the wind and hope they find purchase somewhere. You'll have to forgive me for all the hippie drivel, my mind is still reeling from the dose of Acid Mothers. Oh and by the way that's all I was on Sunday night, just the feedback, no drugs of any sort so this isn't some sort of post-lysergic revelation or anything. I'll be back to my jaded, cynical self in a couple days I'm sure. It's just nice to know you can slip into that every now and then when you need a reminder that it's not all that bad. That if you free your mind, your ass will follow, no matter what sort of limitations the material world has placed on you. After the show I stopped by the merch table to try and pick out one of the 2 dozen or so CDs for sale. I settled on the Acid Mothers Temple Soul Collective Tour 2003 disc, mainly because there was a pic of Cotton Casino on the cover and I sorta have a thing for her. There are 3 long pieces on it from various Acid Mothers side projects. The first is a gorgeous electric guitar space symphony done solo by Kawabata Makoto that starts off with what sounds like an improv for about 15 minutes before breaking into the familiar melody of Pink Lady Lemonade. The second piece is a side project of Cotton Casino and Higashi Hiroshi called Duo. It's a moog/synth/keyboard soundtrack for spacewalks, ethereal blips and bloops for floating weightlessly through the starlit black void. And finally, as almost an antithesis to the previous 2 pieces is Tsurubami, a 3 piece with Kawabata and Higashi and Emi Nobuko. This is an all improvised, recorded live, corrosive metallic noisy sonic punishment. After a couple minutes it mellows out and settles into an uneasy truce with your ears in an electric drone before going back into the cacophonous squalling and ending on a note of screeching feedback.

Nothing is worse than being outside in the rain. Unless of course you're walking a stupid fucking dog who walks into the biggest puddle in the field and lays down and will not come when you call so you have to wade in there to collar him again and get soaked up to your fucking ankles. I would've been in way more of a foul mood had it not been for the new Stills to keep me musical company. I'll admit, I rolled my eyes when I opened the envelope that this came in. I had seen these dudes open for Echo & the Bunnymen a couple years ago and was thoroughly unimpressed, and really could've cared less for their last album. So I listened to it thoroughly preparing to hate it, but what I heard when I pressed play was quite a pleasant surprise. It didn't even sound like the same band. Where their debut seemed overly somber, calculated, and derivative, their follow up disc Without Feathers has a completely updated sound. It actually reminds me a bit of The Jesus & Mary Chain's "Stoned & Dethroned" album. The opening cut "In The Beginning" starts off with a chugging rhythm, then adds a marching cadence of a drumbeat, and swirling organ chords and guitar licks that turns it into a triumphant psychedelic pop rock tune, complete with a false ending to assuage your disappointment when you think it ends too early and say "Awww, man, that's IT?". While not a perfect album by any means (some of the slower songs seem a bit tedious and "The House We Live In" is sort of a weak tune to end on) the good far outweighs the bad. "Oh Shoplifter" and "Baby Blues" especially stand out.

The new Whirlwind Heat record "Types Of Wood" has also been in heavy rotation over here lately. I don't think these guys get enough credit. At it's best moments "Types Of Wood" will make you feel like you're seeing Erase Errata after they fired their guitar player and got Mark Mothersbaugh to play with them at a crowded house party with a lot of shitty beer in kegs in the basement and everyone's good looking and horny and going nuts and swinging from the rafters and sweaty bodies flailing everywhere. Take a listen to "My Electric Underwear" if you don't believe me. It's that kind of party. Porno funk basslines, brain frying Moogs, and stupid lyrics. That's not a bad thing either by the way, just listen to "Gene Pool Style" to see what I mean. They also have an awesome, hilarious, self-directed video for the spastic "Air Miami" that has more edits than that movie "Spun" but it's a lot more fun and you don't have to see Brittany Murphy.

We Dream In Sound

If I was a lot smarter and knew more about politics I would be blogging about the resignation of Porter Goss, but since my time in college was spent on other pursuits I'm blogging about seeing Elf Power last night. So I ended up going to see them even though it was a last minute decision on my part. And a better decision couldn't have been made on a whim on a Thursday night. I have quite a weakness for Elephant 6 bands. Everyone remembers their first time listening to "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea". That was basically my Fisher-Price My Very First Indie Band Album. And through that I devoured anything from that collective (and their like) that I could get my hands on. Olivia Tremor Control, Of Montreal, Apples In Stereo, Dressy Bessy, and of course, Elf Power. The show last night was just FUN. It brought me back to being in my early 20s (not that they're that far behind me or anything). It sounded like going to sleep and waking up to the sound of babbling bongs, of having a job that afforded me the luxury of setting my own schedule and striking out to whatever destinations caught my fancy. It sounded like smoking cigarettes on a warm sunlit porch with nothing at all to do but maybe scrape together some change and go get a 40. It sounded like optimism and infinite possibilities, which everyone needs a dose of every now and then, no matter how hippie it sounds. There wasn't as much of the really heavy, grimy psych sound from the organs that I liked so much from their earlier albums. They had a lady playing cello which put a different twist on stuff like "We Dream In Sound". I haven't heard much of the stuff from the new album, but the couple songs they played sounded not too different from the stuff on "Creatures" (really nice clean tone from the electric 12 string and a much fuzzier sound from the lead) which was my favorite album of theirs. They did play "Everlasting Scream" and closed with "Let The Serpent Sleep" from that album. I unfortunately didn't have any money left to pick up the new LP (daddy likes his whiskey) but I will definitely keep an eye out for it when my next check comes in.

Plugged in & ready to fall

So...
Last night saw the Alkaline Trio. I was sort of indifferent about going, figured it would just be something to do on a Sunday night, but I ended up having a really good time. They played the Goddamnit album in it’s entirety, Matt and Dan each did a few acoustic songs (which brought back memories of the in-store performance at Desirable Discs in Garden City from way back) then played for about another half hour after that. It was funny hearing all the cheering from the crowd when Matt was talking about all the great fans that had been with them for the last 10 years. When the average age of the people in the crowd 10 years ago would've been about, oh, 9 or 10. on to what I'm listening to...

The new Om album "Conference of the Birds" is quickly becoming my favorite of the year so far behind Current 93's "Black Ships Ate The Sky". (and as luck would have it, those 2 bands are appearing on a split 10" record to be released in May). It took a few listens for it to really click, but this is nothing short of a masterpiece. How Chris and Al can do so much with just drums and a bass is beyond me. It's like building a full sized Eiffel Tower with matchsticks and Elmer's glue. The opening "At Giza" is aptly named. It has a definite middle eastern influence to it. It sounds like the pyramids. It's gigantic, it's mysterious, there are secrets to it that can be revealed if you're willing to explore it. They're tapping into something ancient, timeless, that was here long before you and will be around long after your bones have turned to dust. The bass is utterly hypnotic, starting off soft and slow, lulling you deeper and deeper into its trance and the mantra-like vocals pull you further in. Then it just keeps building and building into a motherfucker of a crescendo about 13 minutes into it. If you're a believer, you can feel it starting down in the small of your back and slowly rising up your spine until it explodes out the top of your head, opening your third eye in the process. The release is almost orgasmic. Om is taking stoner metal to the astral plane, dudes. After that, it's "Flight of the Eagle", no teasing this time, just a thick, Sabbath worthy bass line and the drums anchoring it like the stones of a pyramid while the vocals chant and lock you into the trance created on the first track until you don't even notice that 17 minutes have passed. Lather, rinse, and repeat. This is metal for the mind and soul.

I'm not exactly sure what's going on with music writers at places like Entertainment Weekly and other mags of that caliber, but all the reviews of the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Show Your Bones" album I've read kept comparing it to the White Stripes/garage rock stuff. They couldn't be further from the truth. Sure a few songs have big, gnarly, dirty hooks (Fancy, Honey Bear) but it owes a lot more The Pretenders than the White Stripes. I have to say that my favorite on the album is the single, Gold Lion. Like any great pop single it burrows itself into your brain and you'll still be singing the "ooooh OOOOH" vocals hours after you last heard it while you're in line at the bank. Top to bottom it's an incredibly solid album and shows a lot of progress from Fever To Tell. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs clean up pretty good, the slicker production on Show Your Bones does a lot more for me than the post-punky/electro sound from Fever To Tell, and also shows that they can progress beyond a flavor-of-the-month trend and evolve into something else. Some other New York bands should take note. (I'm lookin' at you, Casablancas)

O.K. so I like a lot of what could be called "pussy music" (Belle & Sebastian, Elliot Smith, Iron & Wine, etc) but even I feel like a bit of a ponce listening to Keane. I mean sure it's well crafted pop songs with pianos and stuff, but come on lads, grow some balls. The Guillemots must've felt the same way. Their debut "From The Cliffs" is definitely worth a listen. They write really catchy tunes with piano (and horns and synths and great string arrangements) that don't make you feel like you're in a khakis commercial when you listen to them. "Trains To Brazil" is my favorite on the album, referencing mid-90's brit pop in the vein of Pulp.

when you say ALRIGHT it makes me feel ALRIGHT!

OK so add this to the long list of reasons why I have a hard time leaving Detroit:
Even though we're at double the national unemployment rate and it really is just an ugly city that no one could love unless they were born here (seriously, have you ever been to San Francisco?), where else can you can go see the

The Hard Lessons play a free show on a Monday night and just completely annihilate the place? You know, I've always thought that The Who would've been the greatest power trio ever if Roger Daltrey had never been in the band. Sometimes, you just DON'T need a fourth member. Seeing the Hard Lessons tonight kinda made me feel like that's what it would've been like. And I'm talking early Who, where it was all proto-punk rock-n-roll energy mashed together with that raw mod/soul/driving your car into the pool of the Flint Holiday Inn on your 20th birthday thing they had going on in the beginning. Have you ever seen Quadrophenia? You know that part where Phil Daniels is wasted out of his mind on speed and booze and jumps off the balcony of the club that's playing northern soul while everyone there is going wild? That's what it felt like tonight, but imagine that moment stretched out for about 50 minutes straight. That was easily the best show I have seen in months. The Belmont is a small enough place, and seeing the Hard Lessons there just now was like watching a fireworks display in a studio apartment. Their timing is a bit off, they just missed the rest of the world caring about Detroit music by about 9 months or so, but if there's any justice in the world, some A & R guy will catch a set like the one they just played and sign them to a lucrative record deal You'd figure after 6 weeks on the road they would be tired out, but the performace tonight was like the burn of a straight shot of Everclear. Ugh, I'm out of lame metaphors, it's really almost pointless for me to write anymore about it, you kinda had to be there. All I'm saying is, catch this band the next time they're around. If it was a tenth as good as it was tonight you're in for a treat.

finally...

So, living in Detroit, it's easy to hate life in the months between November and April. The sun is replaced by a thick, low hanging layer of grey clouds, it's fucking cold, you're part of the 14% unemployment statistic, etc., etc., etc. And it's not helping much that I've been listening to lots and lots of drone/doom/sludge. I've basically been turning into Gollum (and we forgot the sound of trees, the softness of the wind...) Anyway, a little ray of sonic sunshine came to me in my e-mail the other day. The new Envelopes album is out as a reminder that winter pays for summer. Coming from Sweden, they know a thing or 2 about brutal winters. They combat that by making bright sunshine-y pop music. "Free Jazz" has sort of a late-era Talking Heads/Tom Tom Club vibe to it, lily-white funk rhythms with really cool spaced out keyboards. "Isabel & Leonard" and "Sister In Love" are reminiscent of classic Elephant 6 indie pop, bouncy, fuzzy, songs with sugary sweet melodies and fun/stupid lyrics that get stuck in your head for hours afterward. For those living in northern climates, this will remind you that soon you'll be riding your bike and eating sandwiches on the grass in the park and watching girls walk around in skirts and tank tops again. mp3s / videos here!

read up, there's a contest in this one!

I've got fuck all to do with myself this morning so I figure I will catch up on blogging. I'm about recovered from last night's Arab Strap show and the related festivities. It was a pretty good show, nothing mind blowing and they're actually a bit better on record than live, but it was still a good way to spend a Monday night. My only gripe was that they played "The Shy Retirer" with just an acoustic guitar and Aidan singing. I like it better the other way. Anyway I woke up with the slightest touch of a hangover that I knocked out with a strong cup of tea and "Gold", the new Franklin's Mint album. It's Phil Franklin's (from The Sunburned Hand Of The Man) new side project. It sounds nothing like Sunburned's frenzied, terrifying acid trip freak outs, it's more like the most soothing, laid back country/psych tinged folky rock you can imagine hearing. It's so good that a time machine should be invented so someone can go back in time and kill The Eagles when they first started and replace them with Franklin's Mint. It's seriously tied with Velvet Underground & Nico as my favorite album to hear after a rough night out. The acoustic guitars are tempered with organs, strings, a touch of fuzz, and just the right tempo drums to ease you into the day. It also comes in a beautifully silkscreened package in a limited edition pressing of 1,000, available at Eclipse Records .

On to the new Morrissey. Been listening to this one pretty much non-stop for the past week. I'm really not capable of giving a non-biased review of this as I'm pretty much queer for anything Smiths/Moz related. In short, I love it. After sort of a weak spell for awhile, "You Are The Quarry" found him back in top form, and the new "Ringleader Of The Tormentors" is even better. As is evident from the cover art (showing Steve The Nutter playing a violin, bedecked in a tux) there's a lot of strings on this album. He even got Ennio Morricone to write and arrange the string section on "Dear God Please Help Me", the song that probably has the most sexually explicit lyrics to appear in a Moz song. "Now I'm spreading your legs / with mine in between / dear God if I could, I would help you." However, still no mention on the gender of the leg spreadee, so the debate rages on.
One thing that I do have to bitch about politically (other than the requisite PETA plug in the liner notes) is the photo on the inner booklet of Steve sitting on a Vespa with the words SMASH BUSH spray painted on a wall behind him. The word BUSH seems suspiciously photoshopped, the wall behind it is considerably darker than the rest of the wall so the letters are a bit blurred, and the rearview mirror from the Vespa somewhat obscures the B so it's not easily read at first glance. If anything they should've photoshopped it to stand out more, to really get the point across. Maybe the label didn't want to alienate the Republican For Moz fanbase, but somehow I doubt that minority would care much. Don't underestimate the rabidness of the Morrissey disciples. Even the hardline right wing Morrissey fans (of which I'm sure there are, somewhere) are cheerily singing along to "If your God bestows protection upon you / and if the USA doesn't bomb you / I believe I will see you somewhere safe". It all comes down to the fact that underneath all the narcissism and militant neo-fascist vegetarianism, the dude is just a really great singer/lyricist and that transcends even the most mundane aspects of the baggage that comes along with it.

Here's a fun little game to play. Which of the following are real Morrissey song names, and which are phonies? see how many you can get right! e-mail (antonlachey@yahoo.com) me and I'll send you a mix tape if you get them all right, and no fair cheating with search engines and what not. If anyone is even reading this.

1. The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores
2. The Maitre d' Has Killed Any Chance I Had At True Happiness
3. Russian Hands, Roman Fingers
4. Pregnant For The Last Time
5. The Last Of The Famous International Playboys
6. I Will Lay My Dreams To Rest Next To You On A Bed Of Nails
7. Satan Rejected My Soul
8. No One Will Ever Fill Your Shoes
9. Won't Anyone Ever Take Me To Tea With The Queen?
10. Don't Make Fun Of Daddy's Voice

not feeling too clever tonight

all right enough bullshit, i'll get to the point
Trad Gras Och Stenar - Got a re-issue of an album called "Djungelns Lag" recorded live in 1971. These guys are a band of Swedish hippies and can get a bit wanky at times, but it's pretty solid even if it is a bit longwinded. The shorter songs are easier to listen to but even the longer songs are worth sticking out til the end because they're still really interesting and well played and trippy.

Wolfmother - "Dimension" EP - Right, I know what you're thinking, ANOTHER fucking band with the word "wolf" in their name. It was about enough to make me not want to play the advance copy I got but I did anyway and was very impressed. They come off sounding something like Deep Purple without the classic rock baggage. Cool keyboard parts and really heavy fuzzed out guitar riffs to feed your head. The EP "Dimension" should be out now at your favorite Local Indie Record Shop. Apparently these guys are great live but I couldn't tell you. However what I've heard on the new EP is definitely worth a listen. Stop by their page on the new crack (myspace) for a listen. Wolfmother

Some Girls - "Heaven's Pregnant Teens" - Holy shit would I ever be into this band if I was about 10 years younger. Even being a jaded old jerk I can still appreciate this. It's like metal with all the fat trimmed and smashed into minute and half long spazzed out thrashing blasts of sonic torture. It's also got really cool, dark lyrics that aren't all stupid and sounding like they were pulled from a sullen high school sophomore's notebook. Go here to hear a couple of the tracks. But as usual the better songs aren't up there and you're better off just getting the whole album and listening to it. On vinyl from ThreeOneG records and on CD from Epitaph.

The Cloud Room - self-titled - So this is a Brooklyn band, but they have an England thing happening. It's tough to pin down, sorta the midway point between the early 90s musical forces from the other side of the Atlantic, brit-pop and shoegaze, but with more energy than either. "Hey Now Now" is catchier than syphilis at a Thai whore house, but a lot more fun. click here to see what I'm talking about

Cat Power "The Greatest" - I can't really say enough good stuff about this record. I can't wait to make out to it. Amazing blue eyed soul to make you fall in love with Chan Marshall, as if you haven't already. More to follow once my review gets published in the A2 Paper.

I saw Low tonight and was pretty underwhelmed. I love sitting at home listening to them in a dark room but I don't think it really translates so much to the stage. At least not in a club with a bar where people are being loud and drinking. Also, Alan Sparhawk said that opening band His Name Is Alive were a bunch of dicks and I don't think he said it in a friendly, joking manner. Maybe he was mad about having a tough act to follow. Does anybody read this?

\m/ Early Man \m/

So as of late Early Man has been in heavy fucking rotation. And I do mean heavy. This record is a late comer into my top 10 list for 2005. The story goes like this: these 2 guys were raised in the Pentecostal faith and had no knowledge of secular pop culture until the age of 19, when they discovered rock and roll. After being ostracized by their families they move to New York and start a band. Could be a bullshit story to fuel the hype machine, but at least it's a killer story. More compelling than a drum and guitar duo claiming to be brother and sister but are ex-lovers. Anyway, this particular drum and guitar duo make a hell of a racket. Pulling from classic metal influences like early Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest, the fact that these guys had been allegedly shielded from pop culture may be their saving grace. I'll just be blunt and say that most popular (or mainstream or whatever you want to call it) heavy acts these days just fucking suck (although there are exceptions to the rule). (excuse the double parentheses in that last sentence by the way) Maybe whatever it is that these two weren't exposed to as kids kept them from having short black hair, multiple lip piercings, a black t-shirt with another shitty bands logo sloppily screen printed on it, and writing "metal" songs about heartbreak. Let's face it, Zappa was right, broken hearts ARE for assholes. There's no crying in metal. Early Man knows this. That's why they wrote "Death Is The Answer". It starts off with this slow, lumbering Sabbath riff and heavily reverbed Ozzy influenced vocals. It makes you want to forgive the "Prince of Darkness" for his "reality" show follies and that hag he married and the 2 brats he spawned. Then it moves into a faster paced middle section, with scorching twin leads before reprising with the aforementioned Sabbath intro. Overall it's just a solid, heavy record that can be played from start to finish without having to skip any weak tracks. Although you'll probably want to replay Death is the Answer a few times. Enough of me flapping my god damn gums about it, I like to carry on after a few drinks. Just listen to it http://static3.state51.co.uk/matadorrecords.com/mpeg/early_man/early_man_death.mp3. Oh yeah, their full length was put out by Matador, who is also putting out the next Belle & Sebastian LP in February. AKA the polar opposite of what Early Man sounds like.

another recruit for the medicated girls brigade

Hey Voltaire has a new band. Shut up, don't wrinkle your nose up like that. Called The Oddz, it sounds absolutely nothing like his main band. Instead of melancholy cello drenched dirges, this is happy indie pop-meets-new wave, yielding highly infectious results. The song that I've been listening to non-stop over the past couple days is "Medicated Girls Brigade". It almost reminds me of the Dead Milkmen, both for the clean, jangly guitar tone and the liberal dose of dark humor thrown into the the lyrics . (and listen to the chord changes, is that a brighter, slowed down "Skulls" by The Misfits??) Lyrics wise, it's a lighthearted, whimsical protest paean against pharmaceutical corporations and their doctors/pushers. He beseeches his beloved to not take her mind altering medications " i love your eyes and their far off gleam / i love your smile crooked as it seems / i love the way that you see the world / and i just cant see why they would want / to make you just like every other girl", employing the Warren Zevon "I'd rather feel fucked up than feel nothing at all" school of thought. And be sure to listen to "1 Semester Lesbian", about a girl going off to school and experimenting with alternative lifestyles after seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show. You don't have to take my word for it, because ultimately I'm just a dude sitting in front of my computer in my underwear on a Sunday afternoon feeling groggy from the NyQuil I drank last night to knock out my cold. go to www.myspace.com/theoddz and listen to it firsthand.

more weird fucking belgians - Silvester Anfang

as (not) published in the Dec. issue of the Ann Arbor paper (i wrote it for them but they did not publish it. no one got reviews published this month, just the top 10 list of the year from all of us "journalist" scum)

Right now there’s a little-known, mostly improvisational noise/folk/drone collective called Funeral Folk in Belgium that is the best export besides their drunkenness-is-next-to-godliness beer. (That’s not meant to be sacrilegious, their beers are brewed by monks in abbeys for Christ’s sake. Literally.) These artists are heavily influenced by the aforementioned ales, and also have a great sense of humor about them. Many of the band names are references to Scandinavian black metal (Chainsaw Gutsfuck and Silvester Anfang are both names of Mayhem songs) but instead of blast-beat drumming and abrasive, shredding guitar riffs they are cranking out experimental lo-fi recordings made with acoustic guitars, didgeridoos, melodicas, bells, keyboards, toy pianos, alarm clocks, televisions, and basically anything else that can make a noise. Silvester Anfang’s “Raping The Goat” CD-R is their American debut on Digitalis Recordings. The cover art takes the piss out of satanic imagery found on black metal records, inverted hot pink crosses and “100% Evil” scrawled across the back in hot pink letters. Doesn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of non-believers. It is two tracks of airy, meandering improvisation that stretch nearly 40 minutes in length. If you’re a patient listener you will love this CD. The opening track “Raping The Goat” begins with an extended ambient intro which finally falls into a marching drum beat and more structured guitar chord progression, punctuated by random blasts of horns. “Ripping The Rectum” sounds a bit like a less psychotic Sunburned Hand Of The Man song, with its click-click-click percussion sounds and guitar and horn interplay. All in all it basically sounds like those impromptu jam sessions you have in the basement of a friend’s house who has a lot of random instruments laying around and you’ve been drinking into the wee hours of the night. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Visit www.funeralfolk.tk to hear some soundclips. This particular release is available at foxydigitalis.com in a limited edition run of 100

SunnO))) "Black One" review

as published in the November issue of the Ann Arbor Paper

Remember that old Cheech & Chong bit about the guy who played Black Sabbath at 78 speed and saw god? Have you ever wondered what would happen if that idea was reversed, and you played Sabbath at 16 speed? Instead of a stairway to heaven, are you subjected to a glimpse into the underworld? Guitarists Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson of SunnO))) have been seeking an answer to that question since 1998 when armed with their guitars, stacks of vintage Sunn amps, head to toe black hooded cloaks, and a bong they recorded The Grimmrobe Demos. Since then they have been modern day prophets of doom, unleashing album after album of droning, skull-crushing, low-end riffs, usually augmented with guest vocalists and musicians. As their website states, “The powers that be contracted the heaviest low end destructors SunnO))) to create the most subharmonic drone recording ever put to tape. A test impossible for most mortals. Prepare your sound system!” Aptly titled “Black One”, their sixth album on Southern Lord records is also the darkest so far. This release is denser and more focused than their previous two albums (White 1 and White 2) which explored more ambient territory with keyboards and percussion. “Black One” is a return to bleak,atmospheric droning and gargantuan guitar chords that plumb the bottom of the spectrum of audible sound.

“It Took The Night To Believe” features a decelerated Norwegian black metal riff atop a steadily droning rhythm joined with an impossibly deep vocal track that sounds like it’s issuing from a crack leading to the earth’s molten core.
As on their past albums, guest “vokillists” (this time Wrest and Malefic of Lurker of Chalice and Xasthur, respectively) articulate the lyrics. The vocals range from deep, demonic, unintelligible invocations on “It Took The Night To Believe” to shrill banshee wails on “CandleGoat”. At times the vocals can be a bit over the top, blurring the line between comically absurd and geniunely frightening. Malefic goes so far as to be sealed in a coffin and placed in a hearse while recording the vocals to closing track “Bathory Erzsebet”, his claustrophobia adding a palpable sense of terror to his screaming.
SunnO))) is quite a departure from your average heavy metal band. In a field flooded with unoriginal and just plain untalented acts, they have won over a few anti-metal friends of mine with their willingness to experiment and not be imprisoned by the boundaries of any genre. “Black One” is an excellent accompanitment to the days getting shorter, the falling leaves, and the jack-o-lanterns rotting on your porch. Play this album as a fond farewell to the last vestiges of warm weather and prepare for a long dark winter.

Oren Ambarchi "Triste" review

as published in the October issue of the Ann Arbor Paper

In the 17th century, people weren’t ready to buy into Galileo’s claim that the earth revolved around the sun. Likewise, the masses won’t be clamoring to purchase Oren Armbachi’s CD reissue of “Triste” . You won’t hear it blaring from a sorority girl’s SUV at a red light or on the latest episode of the OC, but just wait a couple centuries or so and it will probably sound contemporary. The sounds encoded on this little plastic disc are very futuristic. Originally available on a long out of print vinyl LP, Southern Lord records has reissued it in CD form and sweetened the pot with some new remixes. An Australian native who has collaborated with a diverse cross section of musicians including avant garde jazz artists John Zorn and Otomo Yoshihide, as well as the drone metal band sunnO))), Armbachi seems to reinvent himself on every solo release. “Triste” is a two-part minimalist composition made with a heavily electronically processed guitar. Part one is the slower of the two, where we are familiarized with the handful of guitar notes that will comprise the bulk of the music. Each one is sustained at length, almost like savoring a mouthful of vintage wine. These notes are then played in quicker succession in a seemingly random order. This is perfect for those nights when you can’t sleep. When every sound outside your window makes you jump, when you’re just staring at the weird patterns of diffused light and shadow on the walls and instead of closing your eyes to make it go away, you want to revel in the strangeness of the moment. As the first segment draws to an end the individual guitar notes give way to a spooky, almost subsonic droning, punctuated by erratic popping sounds which sound like a guitar being plugged in and out of an amplifier, which is then topped by a wavering shrill tone. If you could physically see music, this is what it would look like in the reflection of a fun house mirror. The guitar tones are folded, spindled, mutilated, mutated, and layered until it sounds like a digital swamp populated with frogs, birds, and crickets. The second segment comes to an end in a cacophony which I can only describe as what it might sound like if a robot were to disgorge its electronic innards. Following the original two sections of “Triste” are remixes of each track by tape loop artiste and founding member of the Los Angeles Free Music society Tom Recchion. Though greatly abbreviated in length, Recchion fleshes out the stark compositions with hints of percussion, keyboard flourishes, and more droning. As I said before, this piece is definitely not for everyone, but anyone who enjoys music from the deepest sectors of left field is sure to enjoy this.

Daniel Lanois Belladonna review

as published in the September issue of the Ann Arbor Paper

Daniel Lanois is jack-of-all-trades in the music business. He made a name for himself by composing and playing music on Brian Eno’s groundbreaking ambient albums On Land and Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks. Rolling Stone magazine hailed Lanois as “the most important record producer to emerge in the ‘80s,” most notably for his work on U2’s legendary The Joshua Tree and Peter Gabriel’s So. Upon my first listen to Belladonna, the latest in a series of releases on the Anti label, the album struck me as unremarkable. I liked it enough for the echoes of his collaborations with Eno, and I found it pleasant enough as background listening.


But an underhanded brilliance slowly burns throughout Belladonna. It wasn’t until a late night drive through the streets of downtown Detroit that I finally crossed the invisible line from listening to hearing. Focused on nothing but the road, I let the dulcet tones of Lanois’ pedal steel guitar envelope me. This is the soundtrack to one of those dreams in which you’re in a place that you recognize but somehow everything is different. The lurid light from street lamps shining through the steam billowing from sewer grates combined with the music to transform my short drive home to an ethereal interplanetary voyage.


Once home I went straight to my room and started Belladonna from the beginning, fully immersing myself in this parallel sonic dimension via my headphones. It’s almost a shame that Lanois even bothered separating this album into 13 individual tracks; it’d be better enjoyed from start to finish with no interruptions. Each track builds on the one preceding it like chapters in a book. Let “Sketches” take you to the bright side of the moon, where the keyboard notes fall like silvery raindrops, the whisper-like drums just barely audible. Listen closely to the eerie approximation of vocals on “Oaxaca” and try to figure out if they were generated by man or machine. Drop in on the mariachi fiesta of “Agave,” a bit of a nod to Morricone with its horn arrangements and militaristic marching drums, evoking images of spaghetti westerns with cowboys in space suits, finding out who has the fastest gun on Mars. Linger on the impressive finale of “Todos Santos” where the washes of sound are not unlike the colors of a Rothko painting. The landscape of this album flows so seamlessly from lush, densely layered compositions to spacious, airy sections that it never becomes tedious. It’s the perfect antidote to the short-attention-span sickness that infects our society.