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Send submissions (music, visuals, text, whatever) to anuncontrollableurge [at] gmail [dot] com. Some day, I will look at it. Address things to "David" because that's what my name is.
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Neeeerrrrrds!!!
Almost Funny
The Blasto Podcast
Clean Undies
Expressway to Yr Skull
End of Radio
Friendship Bracelet
Get Off the Coast
The Mummies!
Music is a Sin
The Mythical Good Part
Peace & Rhythm
Sex Sux (Amen)
SoundWord
Strange Light
Sweet Baby Lou
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WMUA Blog
Will You Be My +1?
The Year In Rawview
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This is about the best live recording of Racebannon you’re gonna find. Someone should fix that, but who would?
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Mephista at the Stone
I’m still not sure I would describe it as demonic, but Mephista (Slyvie Courvoisier on piano, Ikue Mori on electronics, and Susie Ibarra on percussion) did construct a vivid, narrative set Friday evening at the Stone.
I suppose it’s possible that I’ve got a fairly simplistic idea of what demonic music is.
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The impressions I got from their performance were more varied, their first piece like a rainstorm — Courvoisier’s notes dropping unpredictably; Ibarra playing with a light, subtle hand with occasional blasts of power; Mori’s samples harsh and inhuman. It started softly, and soon became a flood. Through the middle of this composition, sound became muted, dampened by the rising water, Courvoisier plucking the notes by hand inside her piano. It sounded then as if a large ship passed through, but one overrun by a swarm of vermin, shewing through the hull and everything inside, devouring and re-appropriating, creating something new out of this consumption.
The next piece sounded as though it came from the depths of the ocean, massive leviathans disturbing the atmosphere as they slowly carried their giant frames across the deep sky. Soon, an engine sputters towards the listener, and a battle erupts, Ibarra and Courvoisier bouncing around their instruments. The scene eventually gives way to a bizarre serenity, with occasional bubbling up as things settle. A crackling, percussive march in the distance grows louder and louder, but the piece ends just as it reaches us, and we’re left to contemplate the inevitable battle again set to erupt.
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Of these three complex performers, I was particularly impressed with Courvoisier’s playing; her rhythm and chord structure were both beautiful and complex, and at times, it felt as though she was chasing around the room with her sound; everything else was a response to her waves. It will be fun to hear more from her.
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Hey, this place is open tomorrow, and a buncha people are gonna do what looks to be a buncha cool stuff. I’m not sure I’ll be ambitious enough to actually leave the house, but that doesn’t even matter, because they’ve got cameras set up to stream the whole thing here (where you can also find a couple of other cool videos of things to be shown tomorrow. Word is some pretty cool people previously featured here will be doing some pretty cool things.
Maybe I’ll live-tweet it. That’d be cool, right? And also really annoying to anyone who doesn’t care about it, I guess, but fuck those guys.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Parker / Guy / Lytton + Peter Evans, “Scene 1 (Excerpt)”
Scenes in the House of Music (Clean Feed)
Evan Parker on tenor and soprano saxophones, Peter Evans on trumpet, Barry Guy on the upright bass, and Paul Lytton on percussion. Picked this record up after seeing Evans for the second time back in early December at the Stone (impressions from the first time, over a year ago at Amherst College, can be found here), mainly because I’ve seen Evan Parker a few times, and always leave the performance elated, so I was interested to hear how Evans and Parker would interact. I was not disappointed.
Everyone on this record holds it down and beats it senseless. Their expression is broken up into five “scenes,” each twelve to fourteen minutes in length, and each powerful in its own manner. This is definitely one of those “close your eyes and let it work on you” live performances, atmospheric and dense. I spent many an afternoon at work doing nothing but listening to this, and I plan to do so once again in the near future.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Beware the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion, “Cateye Glasses”
Undead in the Fallout Shelter
Hey, so what if it’s a pain in the ass to type out that name? That’s part of the point of being a surf-rock band. You pick names that are a pain in the ass for me to type (see: Man or Astro-Man?, and practically every song and record they ever did). You know what’s also part of the point of being a surf-rock band? Rockin’ like it’s no-one’s goddamn business.
Now, at this point, I shouldn’t have to explain what this stuff is to you. It’s surf! Plus, they like horror comics, so their songs are all named after zombie shit and blood or whatever; they’re all instrumental anyway, so why not just give ‘em silly names like “Zombie Dance Party?” Oh, by the way, in case any surf bands are paying attention, your next item of business is to name a song, band, or record “Seeing-Eye Man For a Blind Retired Werewolf.”
If you’ve not noticed, I’ve gone this whole piece without typing the band’s name (for reasons now obvious to you), but here’s the one and only time I’ll do it, so you know what’s what:
Check out Beware the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion’s music here, and if you’re going to be in Brooklyn Saturday, you might check ‘em out at The Tea Factory. Otherwise, they’ll surely be hangin’ around their own stomping grounds of Eastern Massachusetts, so you can hit ‘em up there.
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Touchable Sound: A Collection of 7-inch Records from the USA
Part of what’s cool about records is the fact that they’re actual artifacts; not only are they a means to transmit sound, but they’re a physical art object on their own. Touchable Sound is a book celebrating and chronicling notable efforts of the past 25-ish years in record design and packaging.
It’s about 400 pages of interviews of and essays written by designers, and tons and tons of pictures of records and record covers. The book is, in itself, an interesting work of design, which you can see in the flip-through video at the top of this page, the smaller width of the essays serving in some ways to place priority on the images (and also to divide the book into sections).
The Locust’s Flight of the Wounded Locust, a four 7-inch release in which the records fit together as puzzle-pieces, shown in the book.
Some of the stories get kind of samey; lots of stories about how the designer had to figure out most of this stuff along the way, and get friends, family, and housemates to help put together packages before they could go out, but then they always manage to save it by describing some bizarre process by which a certain record was made, or simply showing the beautiful results of this work.
Man or Astro-Man?’s UFO’s and the Men Who Fly Them!, an EP that contained a cut-out of a flying saucer, also featured in the book.
There are dozens of creative design ideas in the book (one of my favorites was theHoudini release by Jessamine, which was sealed with a tiny padlock, and required the owner to pick said lock in order to open it and find the key inside), far too many for me to list here — and that would spoil things for you anyway. The whole point of the book is that the packaging can be interesting art in itself, worthy of consideration on its own merits, but I still can’t look at this book without wanting to hear the records.
Grab a copy here, or wherever.
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Universal Order of Armageddon, Trophy Wife, Tournament at the Cake Shop
For those of you unfamiliar with the Cake Shop, here’s my one photo from Friday night, which could be from any night:
Sorry, folks. I just didn’t feel like molesting/getting molested to get a couple pictures that would no doubt turn out shitty anyway due to my total lack of photography skills/focus. Not my thing.
So, while it’s cool in a lot of ways, that’s definitely my least favorite part of the venue. Unless you want to be aggressive in making your way to the front, or be there way early or something, you’ll end up with the view I had, or you can always watch the show on the televisions they have up above the bar for that intimate experience.
Okay, okay, the actual show.
Locals Tournament opened up the night with a blistering set of discordant hardcore jams, melded together with a bit of stoner metal that was what I was aggressive, abrasive, definitely a bit sloppy, and all in all a good time. Their first number blasted out of a “Dazed and Confused” vamp that sounded like Led Zeppelin, if they got their start in the early 80’s touring with a bunch of SST bands. My favorite moments of their set came during a song named by one of their dads, “Surf This,” which really did sound like a Man or Astro-Man? song sped up and covered in a layer of sludge; and the last piece of their set, the name of which I did not catch, but which had several gnarly breaks and fills. Well done, dudes.
The mid-card was Trophy Wife, a guitar/drums duo hailing from Philadelphia. The first thing I noticed was that the drummer was wearing a dress…
@An_Urge: Is it okay to play drums in a skirt? Seems like it would be dangerous…
She seemed to handle it with no issues, though. The pair plowed through their set with a wall of sound that soared around the room, sounding like a punk-rock Japandroids, riffy, full, stripped down, raw, rough, and angry. It also reminded me a bit of a pissed off Marnie Stern. Some of the vocal rhythms were a bit clunky, but I definitely come down on the “pro” side of the column when it comes to Trophy Wife, especially for some of their songs that had a bit of an Eastern, Tetris-y feel to them.
Closing the night was a recently reunited Universal Order of Armageddon, who you might (but probably don’t) remember from the two years they were together in the early 90’s recording a few 7-inches and a couple EP’s before breaking up for whatever reason. I was pretty excited to see them (since I was six years old when they broke up) but, though the guys themselves knocked the shit out of their set, my placement in the room didn’t lend itself to a fantastic aural experience. Throughout their set, some Indian music was left playing over the PA; it was a cool idea, the band playing over this stuff, creating a mesh of varied sounds and rhythms, but I happened to be about a foot away from one of the house speakers, so from where I was standing, it was much more of a battle than a collaborative effort. During the softer parts of their songs, they were completely drowned out by the “background” music. It was actually very cool to hear them blast through the mix during the louder moments of their set, but it wasn’t cool enough to sustain interest for the entire thing. The experience definitely varied depending on where you were in the room, which is true for almost any show, but it varied widely, and that meant it kind of sucked at times. But if you were in the right spot, it was a fuckin’ blast, and you really should check out the band if you’ve never heard of them before. To me, they’re like if Damaged-era Henry Rollins sang for Rapeman. So, they’re pretty fantastic.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Wire, “Two Minutes”
Red Barked Tree (Pink Flag)
New Wire! If you’re not excited about this, you must not know anything about these guys. Go listen to Pink Flag, their first (and most incredible) record, and then, once you recovered from having your ass blown out, you can come back here and read about how good their latest album, Red Barked Tree is. (It’s really good).
Despite the fact that they’re about a million years old (or something), Wire is still able to put out fantastic art-punk records with more vitality than pretty much anyone (see: Object 47). Red Barked Tree serves only to cement the idea that Wire is fucking great, and always will be.
My favorite tracks on the album are “Two Minutes,” a wide, noisy, urgent song that knocks you out in exactly that much time, and “Moreover,” a similarly punchy four-and-a-half minutes of sound blending artificial tones with powerful rhythms for a driving force of movement.
Go buy a Wire record already.
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Cake Like, “Suck”
For fans of Reno 911!, the State, Viva Variety, and anything else involving Kerri Kenney-Silver, as well as fans of dissonant noise-rock, here’s Cake Like. I’ve been re-watching a bunch of Reno 911! lately, and every time I do that, I’m reminded of how awesome this song is, simply because it’s so awesome that I can’t see Kenney-Silver without thinking about this song.
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