"I never claimed to be different, I only said I was bored"

Image by Wikipedia user goongunther (cc)

Those that know me know that I count Faith No More among my favorite bands of all time, neck-and-neck with Brainiac for the Universal Championship. Angel Dust, my all-time favorite album, took the tiny little room in my brain that contained my concept of what was possible in rock music, and blew its walls to hell with its unapologetic rejection of the mainstream’s expectations for a follow up to their breakthrough album, The Real Thing. “Oh, you liked ‘Epic?’ Then you’re gonna hate this!” they exclaimed, unleashing a glorious mish-mash of an album that was simultaneously ugly, beautiful, confounding and exhilarating. Angel Dust remains a unique species of untamed beast to this day; to listen to it now and remember that there was a time when something this original could exist on a major label is almost mind-bending in retrospect.

But before there was the purposeful, counter-intuitive originality of Angel Dust, there was the pure dog-in-a-science-lab “we have no idea what we’re doing” punk/funk/metal/goth mish-mash of the early Faith No More releases, We Care A Lot and Introduce Yourself, two gloriously raw see-what-sticks splatters of meat on a day-glo kitchen wall. And before Mike Patton lent his vocals to FNM’s breakthrough hits and emerged as one of rock’s best-ever vocalists, the fevered originality of the band was personified in a bouncing ball of manic beach bum energy named Chuck Mosley.

Even after falling in love with The Real Thing, going back to discover the Chuck albums in my teen years elicited a solid “huh?” when sliding the tapes into my double-cassette stereo. There’s certainly a degree of charm in any set of first albums from a band that congealed its vision with later releases—think Pretty Hate Machine, Bleach, Smack Bunny Baby, or any other slabs of protomatter that only hinted at the stars that would blaze bright with later, fully-realized energy. But with Faith No More, the difference between Chuck and Patton cast the band’s evolution in stark relief. While Patton entered the band with a fully-formed, calculated mastery over his dynamic range, Chuck Mosley’s vocals on We Care A Lot and Introduce Yourself were haphazard, off-kilter, and untamed. Whereas Patton has often copped to approaching lyric writing as an exercise in sculpting phrases based on how they sound, Mosley was less focused and more sincere, vomiting heart and soul onto tape via his endearingly out-of-key howl. No time to nail that melody on the head, gang—someone’s trying to charge Chuck 95 cents for a transfer, maaaan.     

Fortunately, back in my younger days we all were more apt to give new, weird music multiple spins to let it sink in and process, to decide whether or not it was our thing, and Introduce Yourself grew on me like a tapeworm. To be real, it carried a lot of similarities with The Real Thing: where TRT featured the metallic dirge "Zombie Eaters," complete with melodramatic synth-and-vocal intro, Introduce Yourself's "The Crab Song" followed the same formula. And it's hard to argue against the connective tissue linking "Epic" with Mosley's signature performance on "We Care A Lot," a song that existed in a pupal stage on the Mordam Records album of the same name before getting reworked for the major label IY. In all honesty, the primary barrier to a true appreciation of FNM's first two records is acquiring an appreciation for Chuck. Once Chuck Mosley clicks with ya, the rest is neon gravy.  

To be sure, there are hits and misses on both albums--they're by no means flawless works. The original version of the song "We Care A Lot" drags compared to its update on Introduce Yourself, and a few of the songs on the first album have instrumental stretches that sound less like musical breaks than places where Mosley couldn't think of any lyrics. Roddy Bottum's keyboards have always enjoyed a healthy dollop of 80s symphonic cheese; on We Care A Lot, they're dramatically goth almost to the point of parody. But when it all works together, like on the theatrical classic "As The Worm Turns" or the nihilistically triumphant "Mark Bowen," those traits are a strength instead of a hinderance.

And that's what's beautiful about Faith No More with Chuck Mosley on vocals: with music this daringly original, unevenness is to be not only expected, but welcomed, because when it works, goddamn, it works. By 1985, Faith No More had gone through a litany of vocalists and a few other lineup changes, and it's not hard to imagine that the revolving door introduced a myriad of ideas and stylistic influences that the band was trying to mix into a final, cohesive stew. Once upon a time, it was expected that a band might need to take an album or two in order to develop and find their groove; in this age of shortened attention spans and increased access to anyone and everyone's catalog online, there's less patience for artist development or evolution.

This is the life lesson i took from bands like Faith No More and Brainiac (whose lead singer, the dearly departed Tim Taylor, once told me "we just try to come up with stuff that's original sounding more than anything"). Sure, there's something to be said for genre exercise -- there's a consistency and prolificity to be had in sticking to a formula, and it's produced some great bands. But it's in taking chances where the real thrill of songwriting lies for me. Sure, not everything attempted pays off, and lots of ideas get trashed, but those moments when you stumble across something that is 100% unapologetically unique to the personalities involved? That's magic.

Chuck Mosley died last week at the age of 57, and his passing makes the world a less weird, less unique place. But at the same time, the world is much weirder for him having been in it--not just for the music he left behind, but for the weirdos he inspired to be the most outlandishly unique versions of themselves, no matter how unvarnished, unfiltered, or even out of tune. No musician should tire of their uniqueness.

HEY!
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
HUH?!

Oh nothing, just wondering what it is you're doing...
Why it is you're doing that whatever it is you're doing
Oh yeah?
WHY? WHY?
I dunno
It just doesn't seem like something you'd be doing
I mean, you of all people, ha!
Know what I mean?

Yeah I know it's been bugging you since the day I was born, huh?
I asked my friend Anne about it
I said
"ANNE, ANNE, ANNE, what am I supposed to do, huh?
It's been bugging them since the day that I was born."

She said, "Do whatever the hell you want to do!
Now is the time where you can do anything!
Everything you do, anything is still gonna turn out great
I mean, you've got the world at your feet."




P.S. One of the last recordings Chuck Mosley worked on is embedded below. Check it out.

The AIDS Wolf Breakup and Art vs. Validation, or: Noise Rock in the Age of Adult Contemporary: What the Fuck is the Point?

One thing i've always been honest about as i spend my time playing so-called "challenging" "noise rock" music is that, bold self-involved "artistic" statements aside, i'm a junkie for validation. I take part in playing live, recording and releasing records, and filming videos in part because i'm desperate for attention and want to be noticed. I'm not embarrassed about this at all--rather, i take pride in the fact that i'm honest about it. Look--human beings are communal by nature (despite your typical libertarian's protests to the contrary). Part of the act of creating art is its exhibition, and while writing a song, painting a picture, or writing a story is a reward in and of itself, there's not a human alive who doesn't enjoy hearing someone say "holy shit, that thing you did kicked ass." And yes, that includes those of us with a contrarian streak who bounce with glee when someone's reaction involves strong dislike. Love or hate, a reaction is validation--that someone is paying attention to you, and anyone who releases their work into the ether for the public to do with as they will wants to, at the very least, be acknowledged for existing if nothing else. Sure, some bands are more concerned with mass acceptance than others, but even the most abrasive, difficult, avant-garde no-waver wants someone to like them.

It's with this in mind that i completely relate to a recent blog post by Chloe Lum, lead singer of AIDS Wolf, exploring the mixed feelings she's experiencing upon the band's decision to break up. The post, "On the End of an Era," is worth a read--it's an honest outpouring of frustration that results from realizing that the musical landscape has changed from the heady days of the band's inception in 2003.

In the early part of the 2000′s there was a swell of noise-rock , noise and no wave influenced bands doing it seriously , some of them managing to find actual audiences.

[snip]

In ’09 we stepped back after our guitarist Myles moved to the UK to woodshed as a trio with Alex. New rig , new songs and an goal towards greater abstraction. Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise had been passed around in the van and as a trio, going towards more a formal and disjointed sound seemed a natural progression.

So we stayed in the jam room for a year and wrote songs complicated enough that the only way to learn them was drilling them over and over for hours. My own lyrics got more abstract as I’d use made up words , vocal imitations of Alex’s electronics and plenty of stream of consciousness & cut up. During this time we wrote and rehearsed the material for Ma vie banale avant-garde.

Then , exactly a year letter we took in on the road and to Dub Narcotic studio in Olympia to record. It was to see that the setting had radically changed in the year we were woodsheding. For one , many of our peer bands had either disbanded , or stopped/seriously slowed down on touring. “I’m in debt and can’t afford the time off work anymore” they’d tell us , or “I want to start a family / go to grad school / get an adult job”. “I can’t face another empty room , it’s futile , pointless , ridiculous , demoralizing”. Same story everywhere and no surprise , we were getting older and so were our friends and what’s marginal at 20-something becomes much more so at 30-something or 40-something. But beyond many of our cohort moving on, there where significant changes in what was deemed “underground” , what could get booked where and under what circumstances. It seemed that as a bunch of 30 somethings in an extended van full of big amps and a loud as hell P.A. had become an anachronism.

All of the sudden bands doing ads for soft drink companies or department stores were considered “underground”. So where did this leave the actual underground, the one that couldn’t sell cars/soda/computers even if if wanted to? Because it was weird/ugly/dangerous/challenging? It left it in a cave.

Anyone who's read anything i've written about the state of indie rock in recent years can imagine that hearing these words out of a like-minded artist whom i've never met is, well, validating in a lot of ways. Like Chloe, i've seen overall interest in loud, noisy, weird, adventurous music wane over the past decade in favor of stuff that used to be filed in the Adult Contemporary bins. Likewise, in our 12 years of activity, my band has seen plenty of like-minded ensembles come and go. In the first five years of our existence, we considered bands like The Sump Pumps, Replicator, Viva La Foxx, Sounds Like Braille, and The New Blind Nationals allies in our own little struggle for community, relevance, and noise; today, they're all gone (it didn't escape me that the AIDS Wolf run started three years after our own, and as they call it quits, we're still truckin').

But mostly, what resonated with me is Chloe's assertion that noise is more and more getting "left in a cave." I've been saying similar things for years now and frankly, it's nice to hear that sentiment echoed by someone i've never met or seen play. It's a bummer, though, to hear that she's not sure whether or not she's done making music altogether. To hear her say "I’m not sure yet if this is the end of me making music or just the beginning of a long break" sounds to my ears like someone who is considering throwing up her hands and conceding defeat, and i really hope that doesn't end up being the case--not that i could blame her. Yes, playing noisy music in a world that largely is indifferent to anything not easily digestible or pigeonholed is very frustrating. It's a money pit with very little return, and year after year it becomes harder to find like-minded people to connect with, be they fans or fellow musicians. It's something that bands that play alt-country or pop-punk really will never understand. One of the HiFi's oldest pals, Nato Coles, formerly of the Modern Machines and now of Nato Coles and the Blue Diamond Band, once compared his Replacements-y singer/songwriter-ish vibe with our "challenging, quasi-arty edge" (his words) and said to us, "playing the kind of music you do would be exceedingly frustrating, and I'm not sure I could do it if I tried." Yes, if we're gonna play abrasive, blow-you-out-the-room maximum-volume noise rock, we shouldn't be surprised if the people who want easy listening flee to the bar. Some musicians are lucky in that their muse leads them toward a brand of songcraft that matches up with the zeitgeist and leads to lots of that sweet, sweet validation from others. Those of us playing noise-related music do not match up with the zeitgeist of 2012.

These are all things, though, that are beyond our control as artists. We have no control over what people like, what blogs decide to write about (even if we have money to spend on "servicing" publications with our records). The problem with looking outside ourselves for validation, while a fundamental piece of human nature, is that it's completely out of our hands, and to hope to drag others kicking and screaming into our way of thinking is to descend into insanity.

So when it comes to validation, what do we have control over? The validation of self, of course. Being able to find the same excitement in getting the fifth record back from the pressing plant that was there with the first. To quote Justin Vernon's grammy speech, writing songs for the inherent reward of writing songs. Reading Chloe's blog, it sounds like AIDS Wolf were still excited about the music they were making, and to me, that sounds like a perfectly acceptable reason for continuing on. But if the lack of return on investment from the outside world finally beat them down, i can't say i blame them, because i've spent many a night banging my head against that wall as well.

Every year i re-evaluate why the hell i'm still in IfIHadAHiFi. The records are expensive, the gas to get to the shows even more so. Booking tours, trying to coordinate four people's schedules, going to the DMV to renew the van's registration, flyering for shows, pleading with friends to come check out our friends' touring bands only to have all of them go bowling that night instead...it's all a pain in the ass, and focusing on it all makes me want to throw my hands up too. But then we manage to finish the music for a song that's been vexing us for the past year and a half and realize that it doesn't sound anything like any song we've written before, and suddenly i'm supercharged again. I am rock and roll's captive, and there's no cure for Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to rock and roll.

I really do hope that all the members of AIDS Wolf keep making music, and i hope that if they do, it's because they love it, not because the pendulum magically swung back toward mass interest in indie rock that actually has some gonads to it. Trends are fleeting; art is forever. Hell, even now all is not lost. All those bands we used to run with? The Replicator guys are Victory & Associates and Cartographer now; last i checked, Amy from Viva La Foxx is still kickin' it in Soapland. Hell, we assimilated one of the New Blind Nationals into our lineup. And at the end of June, a couple hundred like-minded fans of loud, noisy ass-kicking, occasionally challenging rock 'n' roll will convene in Chicago for the 4th annual PRFBBQ. There's plenty of validation out there if you know where to find it. Sure, it's not gonna help any of us break even on our records, but it's something.

You had the Alliance on you... criminals and savages... half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded, including yourself... and you're harboring known fugitives.

We're still flying.

That's not much.

It's enough.

Full Disclosure: Lollipop Factory and Those Poor Bastards are friends of mine

Those Poor Bastards at Turner Hall (photo by Angela Morgan for the Pabst Theater Group)

One of the necessary "evils" of being a musician who also likes to write is inevitably writing about your friends. Internet commenters pounce on any opportunity to discredit music journalists (because, you know, internet one-upmanship is second only to "urine hoarder" on the list of Noble Life Pursuits), and perceived "favoritism" is right up at the top of their arsenal--at least, it is in small cities like Milwaukee where the music scene is so closely-knit that it's nearly impossible to not know at least two-thirds of the musicians, promoters, writers, sound techs, and music store owners by name. (Another classic hurled at the musician/writer is "you're criticizing this because you're jealous that your band will never be this popular." Yes, that's why Bon Iver's falsetto gives me worse shrinkage than the Polar Bear Plunge--i secretly wish my dad had a cabin in the North Woods where i could retreat, order pizza subsist off the land, and whimper into Garageband for a few weeks.)

The plain truth about being a musician who writes (both of which i'll continue to do, sorry) is that musicians meet other musicians on a different level than regular journalists do. We meet by playing shows together, not by hiring PR agencies we can't afford to send each other CDs. We form bonds from being In The Shit together and swapping war stories. And yes, when we happen to like each other's bands, we LOVE each other's bands, because we have had to deal with seeing so many god-awful (or even worse, kinda ok) bands (many of which contain other friends of ours, which is just frustrating) that finding a killer group of musicians that also happen to be rad dudes or ladies is like walking into a club and finding a $10,000 guarantee...er, so i'd imagine. Pile on the fact that in a town like Milwaukee, the musical infrastructure is so thin that if some of us didn't refuse to recuse ourselves from bands we know personally while multi-tasking as musicians and writers, many deserving folks simply wouldn't get covered (or are Matt Wild and Evan Rytlewski expected to attend every show in town while somehow avoiding becoming acquainted with everyone?), and what it all boils down to is: yes, sometimes i like my friends' bands, and thus i will write about them. Deal with it, and be glad i'm not writing about all my friends' bands that i dislike.

Anyone who has friends gets understandably excited when those pals' creative endeavors don't suck; if they're actually amazing, one can get positively orgasmic about it. On the flip, anyone who falls in love with a band would be tickled to discover that the band members are rad folks and instantly friendable. As a dude in a band, it happens to me quite a bit, and it's always a thrill.

I met Beckah and Tweed, collectively known as the Columbus, OH RV-dwelling indie-prog duo Lollipop Factory, while they were in the midst of a week-long stay at the HiFi practice house, the Church of Murray, waiting to get their RV repaired. They were charming, nondescript kids, which hardly prepared me for their colorful, unrestrained showmanship and hilariously over-the-top glam-prog shredding. Two Thursdays ago they made their most recent stop in Milwaukee at the Cactus Club, and those who stuck around after Everybody at Midnight's set and didn't just bail after their friends played were subjected to Lollipop Factory's most uninhibited Brewtown blast yet. Wearing matching black ensembles (she in black leather pants w/matching top, he with black top hat, high-heeled boots, and sleeveless collared shirt with ascot-length tie), Tweed's wall of four full stacks blasted both guitar and bass frequencies while he busted out Queen/Bowie/Hoople-soaked riffage over Beckah's stand-up drumming, both operatically crooning their best Ian Hunter vocals.

Tweed recently rebounded from some serious health problems that left the Factory stranded at home in Columbus longer than they'd like (they literally live out of that RV), and it was apparent that he was thrilled to be back on stage, working his wah pedal while bracing his other foot atop Beckah's kick drum, and occasionally leaping onto one of his speaker cabinets and shredding from five feet above the stage. That wall of amps produces more sound than a duo would be normally expected to generate; hell, Tweed and Beckah produce more on-stage energy than normally expected. It's a show that's loud, over-the-top, theatrical, damn sexy, and punk fucking rock. If seeing a Lollipop Factory show doesn't make you want to instantly be pals with these two crazy-ass weirdos, i hope your anti-anxiety meds start to kick in soon.

A week later i found myself at Turner hall to see my bandmates in Zebras, Vincent and Lacey, back their pal Wyatt as Madison, WI Gothic country trio Those Poor Bastards. I initially became friends with Vince and Lacey out of mutual musical admiration--i was a Zebras fan as soon as i saw them in the Corral Room in Madison three years ago (before my joining the band, obviously). After a couple years of hearing hilarious road stories about Vince's other band touring with Hank Williams III, it was finally time to check them out as they opened the .357 String Band's last-ever Milwaukee show.

I think that even if i were well-versed in Gothic country, i would still rate the Those Poor Bastards live show as "something i've never seen before." Lonesome Wyatt glares out at the crowd from beneath his long black hair and top hat, alternating between spooooky Goth crooning and eeeevil demonic growling, hurling hilariously bleak lyrics about death, God, Satan, and death. Take this darkly comic stanza from "The Bright Side":

You gotta look on the bright side
Take a walk in the sunshine
The lord is on your side
And people are good

Bullshit! Fuckin' bullshit!
Nothin' aint never gonna get no better, no how

Meanwhile, Vince pounds out basic but perfectly musical drum beats while using one hand to add a little moog bass, while recent addition Lacey adds brooding keyboard flourishes of her own. It's a rockabilly Peter Steele backed by analog synths, and it's quite simply one of the best things i saw all year. TPB's recordings are a little more fleshed out, with Wyatt's songs backed by banjo, piano, and other traditional country elements, but for my money, the combination of dark Southern balladeering with fuzzed-up moog is where it's at.

Both Lollipop Factory and Those Poor Bastards have that unspoken "this is how it's done" bravado that declares to the audience, "sure, there's a lot of different music out there, but THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE." One of the most impressive things a band with both talent and charisma can do is convince other musicians in the audience that they want to start a band just like the one on stage. Lollipop Factory makes me want to dress better and turn clubs into arenas with ridiculous taco riffs and fiery licks. Those Poor Bastards make me want to write lyrics as brilliantly populist and singalong as Wyatt's. That these inspiring, bar-raising bands happen to include friends of mine, well, it boggles my head and reminds me that i'm one of the luckiest dudes around, to know people this phenomenally talented and to not have them laugh my pedestrian ass out of the room.

So yeah, i'll write about my friends' bands when they're amazing (they're not always), and i'll present them to you for review, because they deserve the attention (especially since, in the case of TPB, they are largely ignored in their hometown, as so many great bands are). If you like them even half as much as i, i'll consider my job done.

Listen to Lollipop Factory: http://www.myspace.com/lollipopfactory
Listen to Those Poor Bastards: http://www.myspace.com/thosepoorbastards
And then yell at them to get Bandcamp accounts so i can embed their shit

The Great Record Excavation: A is for Arcwelder

In what was probably the most-read post on this blog to date (thanks to a lot of you re-posting it and passing it around...hey, keep doing that), i made reference in the opening paragraph to my CD collection and how it started me thinking about how some of those discs are the only relic i have left to jog my memory about bands long relegated to obscurity. As i said then, it's not an indictment of their quality as bands, per se; rather, it's a symptom of being a music fan and consuming as many different bands as possible.

So here's what we're going to do once a week (or more if i get rambunctious some week): I'm going to go through my recorded music collection, one disc per letter of the alphabet per entry. I will endeavor to grab a CD, vinyl LP, or commercial cassette that is at the bare minimum five years old, but will generally be older (it also has to exist physically in my collection; this isn't the Great mp3 Excavation). I'll re-listen to the record, recall how i came across it, and decide if it has held up over time. I'll also post a SendSpace link to a download of the record, as i'm sure many of these will be out of print or at least difficult to find (however if you like the record and can find it for sale, i of course strongly advise you to purchase it on the off chance that the cash will still make it back to the band members; likewise, if any of the bands i write about in this feature don't want their records downloaded, they can let me know and i'll remove the [temporary] link).

Hopefully, each entry will sort of look like this:


The Album: Arcwelder, Pull (Touch & Go, 1993)

Who they were: Arcwelder were a Minneapolis entrant into the Touch & Go Records 1990s-era noise rock family (sort of amusing, as they would have fit on their hometown Amphetamine Reptile label just as easily). While their rhythmically driving, largely midtempo gallops invited easy comparisons to Jawbox, their growly guitar tones were more in line with several of their Chicago peers and labelmates in The Jesus Lizard, Pegboy, or Pegboy predecessor Naked Raygun.

Where i got the record: Ah, therein lies a tale. I first heard Pull, Arcwelder's third full-length and first of four for Touch & Go, in my pal (and current HiFi guitarist) Chris' Jeep on the way to some Fox Valley show or another back yonder 'round '93 or '94. I remember digging how the drone-like, box fan riffs of songs like "Will When You Won't" were counterbalanced by vocals that were far more melodic than many of the noisy T&G bands i was discovering at the time (Girls Against Boys, Shellac, etc.), and i especially was taken by the tom-heavy drumming on driving rockers like "What Did You Call It That For." Living in the orbit of Green Bay's legendary Concert Cafe all-ages venue, we were treated to a couple live visits from the band as Green Bay was one of the few viable punk towns within decent driving distance of Minneapolis. Still, while we saw our share of Arcwelder shows and enjoyed the hell out of Pull, i feel like our crew still relegated them to "serviceable younger cousin" status in relation to bands like the aforementioned Girls Against Boys, Jesus Lizard or Brainiac. Arcwelder were good, but when reaching for something abrasive on the CD shelf, Cruise Yourself or Liar were more likely go-tos. Thus, as Arcwelder slowed down with age, they began to fade a bit from memory.

Similarly, Arcwelder were seen by me as a fun bonus on the last day of 2006's Touch & Go 25th Anniversary weekend outside the Hideout in Chicago. After two nights of GVSB, Ted Leo, Man...or Astroman?, Killdozer, The Ex, Big Black, etc. holy shit etc., the idea of seeing one of the "minor" T&G bands that i had vaguely fond memories of kick off the Sunday festivities sounded like mere icing on the cake. So when they hopped on stage and proceeded to blow several of us away with one of the more spirited performances of the entire weekend, you could say i was a bit floored. The Graber brothers, Bill and Rob, rolled their way through one rollicking face-scraper after another while drummer Scott MacDonald dialed it in with killer tom fills and SINGING! Holy shit, how did i forget that he was a singing drummer? Awesome! (We singing drummers need to stick together as we get shat on more than regular drummers despite obviously being more talented.)

As they finished their set to a rousing ovation from an obviously gobsmacked crowd, HiFi bassist Josh turned to me and said, "let's go over to the merch stand and buy all their records right now." We made a beeline to where the CDs and vinyl were being sold, and having limited funds, i was forced to choose between four different Arcwelder records, none of which i had ever owned. But of course, familiarity caused Pull to jump out at me; thus, it was Pull that i bought.

Does it hold up? Yup--still awesome. The guitars still pack plenty of sugary hooks inside their distorted bite, while veering nowhere near pop. Songs like "Lahabim" take their time to establish a moody, deliberate midtempo groove, adding what sounds like occasional double-tracked drums for emphasis, while haunted vocal melodies and countermelodies add plenty of tension. Meanwhile, songs like "Remember to Forget" and "Just Not Moving" simply rock out with a bit of grunge-formula loud/louder/loud verse/chorus contrast.

Arcwelder, incidentally, never broke up; they still play infrequent shows around the upper Midwest and even toured the West Coast with Shellac in 2009. Which naturally begs the question: how much to get you guys down to Milwaukee for a show, dudes? For some reason i never grabbed any of your other records, and i'd prefer to buy them straight out of your hands.

Download Pull by Arcwelder right here

Filling the "Best Records of 2011" Gaps

Jesus Christ, 201--maybe it's because i was secretly more active in seeking out new music this year and don't realize it, but you seem to have effectively laid waste to the last two or three years when it comes to having put out a slew of records that i would actually like. So many of my year-end top 10 records lists of the past 10 years have included records that weren't released in that year, thus making my lists more "the best 10 records i finally discovered this year" than anything. This year, there were so many awesome records released that i actually find myself having to either expand past 10 or fail to include some pretty excellent stuff.

Vincent from Zebras recently shot The Wizard, Dixie and me a Facebook message asking for our recommendations for 2011 so he could fill in his gaps, and now i'd like to do the same. Here are the records we came up with in that message thread, with the ones i've heard listed in bold:

Police Teeth - Awesomer Than the Devil (If you still haven't heard this, you're a failure as a music fan)
the Go! Team - Rolling Blackouts
Northless - Clandestine Abuse
Low - C'mon
Obits - Moody Standard & Poor
Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Belong
//orangenoise - //veracious
Boris - New Album/Attention Please/Heavy Rocks
Jesu - Ascension
Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee pt. 2
Memory Map - Holiday Band (You know that thing i said about Police Teeth? Yeah, that)
Helms Alee - Weatherhead
True Widow - As High as the Highest Heavens and from the Center to the Circumference of the Earth
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Tammar - Visits
Crooked Fingers - Breaks in the Armor
Low - C'mon
David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
REM - Collapse into Now
Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
The Blind Shake - Seriousness
Absolutely - Learns to Love Mistakes
Parts & Labor - Constant Future
The Ex - Catch My Shoe
TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
Victory & Associates - These Things are Facts
Trophy Wives - Old Scratch
Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
Wild Flag - S/T
The Poison Control Center - Stranger Ballet
Future of the Left - Polymers are Forever (I count EPs when they are too awesome to ignore)

A few of the records in this list that i haven't heard i still plan to seek out (except maybe that Radiohead, as i've never really cared for or disliked them enough to pay attention...same goes for the REM, actually. Sorry Dixie!), but i'm sure we've all missed a few good'uns in this list. Help us out!

Future of the Left's Polymers are Forever and the Necessity of Evolution

"I'm sick to death of people saying we've made 11 albums that sound exactly the same; In fact, we've made 12 albums that sound exactly the same."
--Angus Young

There are two kinds of music fans:

-Beatles or Stones (or Beatles or Elvis, if you're a Tarantino fan)

-Zeppelin or Sabbath

-Analog loyalists or digital technophiles

-For a while there in 1994, people were supposedly Green Day fans or Offspring fans, which in retrospect is hilariously sad

...You get the point. We love to divide our alliances into two camps and hash it out. The one i'm interested in today is

-People who never want their favorite bands to change, and people who demand evolution and progression

Very few people fall firmly on the hard black or white ends of this spectrum; i like to think that most people want their favorite bands to adhere to the sounds and principles that made the fan fall in love with them in the first place, while not pumping out cookie-cutter copies of their first album ad AC/DCium (although it should be noted that AC/DC is awesome). Still, there are hardliners that fear and distrust change of any sort. Ben Weasel used to insist with relentless frequency in Maximumrocknroll (hey, two MRR mentions this week; sweet) that bands should break up or change their names after three albums because it's unacceptable to tweak a band's sound to avoid running out of ideas (note: Screeching Weasel released its 12th album, First World Manifesto, in March). To the best of my knowledge, The Spits have written one song approximately 630 times; when i saw !!! live, i was really into it until about 20 minutes in when i thought to myself "oh...this is pretty much the tempo they're gonna use all show, huh?" and checked out.

My favorite bands excel by and large at finding ways to let their sound evolve while, well, still sounding like themselves: Fugazi's evolution from their raw debut EP to the nuanced The Argument; Poster Children's journey from the post-punk Flower Plower to the new-wave-tinged No More Songs About Sleep and Fire; Brainiac's Nirvana-esque Smack Bunny Baby to the just plain weird-ass chrome-icide of Electro-Shock for President. When Brainiac ended and John Schmersal continued with Enon, they recorded the phenomenally strange synth-damaged art-pop record Believo! before a wholesale lineup change resulted in the more conventionally post-punk High Society (Schmersal was the only band member carried over from Believo!, and while both records were great, the shift in sound was noticeably jarring).

It was this last example that i kept in mind while clicking on Spin.com's stream of the new Future of the Left EP, Polymers are Forever. Since we last heard from FotL, their sophomore LP, Travels with Myself and Another, had just finished kicking their also-impressive debut, Curses, into the dirt. However, bassist Kelson Mathias then left and was not only replaced by ex-Million Dead bassist Julia Ruzicka, but a second guitarist, Jimmy Watkins, was also brought on board, ostensibly so Andy Falkous could spend more time on keyboards. So a shift in sound should have been expected.

Sure enough, the opening title track is awash with the buzz and fuzz of analog synths while retaining FotL's trademark minimalist arrangements and sneering, acerbic vocals (not to mention an absolutely killer earworm throughout the second half of the song that rates up there with any of their previous hook-laden winners). From there, Polymers are Forever runs a gamut of union-standard abrasive post-punk ("With Apologies to Emily Pankhurst" and "Dry Hate"), cartoonishly dandy stomps ("New Adventures") and a disconcerting, creepily blistering gallop (the closing "Destroywitchurch.com"), all crammed full of Falco's instantly-classic couplets flavored with ridiculous left-field imagery, random pop-culture references and, well, snide Welshness (a winning line from "Apologies:" "I fear most women like I fear tomorrow: absolutely/I can't let something as French as fear determine this insecurity").

Upon repeated listens, the EP has grown from "different, but pretty good" to "hella great" to "goddamn brilliant." It's a grower to be sure--not one song sounds alike, so the record may sound a bit disjointed at first listen. And to be sure, the lineup change is obvious and apparent, but that's not a bad thing. It's not as jarring a shift as between those two Enon albums, but it's definitely not Mclusky Do Dallas.

While the reviews that have popped up today seem mostly positive (hell, aptly glowing for some tracks), the initial response to the title track largely indicated that some folks are legit pissed that Falco isn't putting out Do Dallas Vol. 4. Falkous himself apparently went on some Twitter tirade (since deleted, so i missed it) about lackluster response to "Polymers" when the track was posted at Pitchfork, and anecdotal evidence from my own Facebook feed and some Electrical Audio Forum threads have uncovered similar attitudes (my pal Nick Woods: "Why can't Future of the Left just be a direct rip off of Mclusky?").

It's an attitude that confuses me, because as a musician, if my band were writing carbon copies of the song that made people freak out about us eleven years ago, i'd be eager to hasten death's sweet release by taking advantage of Wisconsin's new concealed-carry law and finding a club where i could shoot myself in the face at the end of (what would be) our last show. If you want Mclusky, pull out your old records. If you want old school FotL, bust out Curses. Meanwhile, i'll stay here on the Andy Falkous bandwagon, because he drives it around some thrilling curves at top speed, it's a hell of a fun ride, and the airbags haven't fired off yet.

Hold the (Yellow) Phone

I suppose that, what with we in the Latest Flame roster brainstorming ways to promote the label and bands in a more aggressive manner, i should be thrilled that the Yellow Phone Music Conference is coming to Milwaukee this weekend. But it probably surprises no one that the descriptions i've been reading on line fill me with a vague sense of...what is it? Oh yeah, bile:

Yellow Phone Music Conference (YPMC) is a three day gathering of talented artists and music professionals. YPMC will present engaging panel discussions and mentor sessions with experienced, respected leaders in the music business, bringing professionals, artists and fans together to share ideas and discover new opportunities.

Yellow Phone is a more focused version of larger conferences which seem to have become less accessible to up-and-coming talent and new industry professionals. The priorities of those conferences have been redirected toward launching signed acts instead of showcasing undiscovered talent. Yellow Phone, on the other hand, is focused on the unsigned artists. With fewer artists and fewer venues, the quality of the talent presented is paramount.

Yellow Phone's goal is to bring together career oriented artists and positive, forward-thinking leaders in today's music business, taking the best qualities of the larger industry conferences and downsizing them into a concentrated, quality experience with powerful, pertinent takeaways.

I suppose that once i read the phrase "career oriented artists" i should stop bitching and just realize that this whole dog and pony show isn't targeted at me, but i remain conflicted. The organizers, local entertainment consultants Doug Johnson, David Silbaugh and Scott Ziel, make some great points in their interview with Even at the Shepherd Express; in particular, they're exactly right about the problem with SXSW and CMJ these days:

"We have all been going to South by Southwest for a long time, but we found it increasingly hard to find unsigned, new and upcoming bands there amid all the established acts," Johnson says. "We had talked to some of our cohorts out in Los Angeles and they had a similar impression. They said they weren't going to South by Southwest because there weren't bands on the spot they could sign, since every act they saw had already been signed. We all thought that these events would work better for both parties if bands were able to network with industry professionals in a boutique situation, where they could actually talk one on one."

Obviously these guys care about making Milwaukee a hotspot on the national music scene, so their plan to lure Big Music Industry Folks from the coast by luring them with hot unsigned talent from New York and L.A., only to subject them to Milwaukee's Most Accessible, is crafty. (What, you think they'd come out to a Milwaukee music fest without bands from the "big" cities? Cool, how many execs were at WMSE's Radio Summer Camp this year?) Where things start to fall apart for our new Little Music Fest That Can is the pricing, which feels more like a Little Music Fest That Cons:

Panels, which will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel, 139 E. Kilbourn Ave., are reserved for attendees paying $99 in advance or $199 the day of the event. However, the shows that will be held at clubs downtown and in the Third Ward will be open to the public for $5 each at the door, with weekend show passes going for $20.

A weekend show pass for $20 is a hell of a bargain, but how many broke-ass "career oriented" bands have $199 lying around to spend on a roundtable discussion on getting your music in a commercial? (Let me save you some money--hire a girl singer who sounds like Feist, and your music will be ready-made for commercials.) That's a level of pricing that screams "scam," and if you don't agree, check out the list of panelists, find the magic word "SonicBids," and get back to me. (As my esteemed labelmate Sean Kirkpatrick of the excellent Nervous Curtains tweeted yesterday, "I would like to pay a monthly fee to be able to pay another submission fee to possibly get a gig that we definitely won't get paid for." Speaking as a former SonicBids sucker customer, i can back this up.)

Still. Conflicted. I want Milwaukee to get the recognition it deserves, but like the selective radio play of Milwaukee acts at 88Nine Radio Milwaukee (where you will get significant local support, provided you play music palatable to easy-listening suburban white liberal "arts enthusiasts"), the local bands showcased by this event are, predictably, mostly commercially viable (ok, i'm not sure why Elusive Parallelograms got on the bill, but in fairness, neither does the band). Does this music conference really showcase the diversity of Milwaukee's music scene? I don't think so, and if you disagree, i have $50 that says you'll never see Northless or Holy Shit! get invited to one of these.

But like i said earlier, this is a festival for "career oriented" bands, a phrase which excludes probably 90% of Milwaukee's finest. Which is not to disparage the Milwaukee bands in this festival, as the musicians i know who are playing aren't exactly looking for fame and fortune doing what they do. So i wish the Brewtown bands well in their shows this weekend (attending the conference shows but don't know which are the Milwaukee bands? They're the ones without emo swoop haircuts).

And hey, if the Big Music Execs without the Wisconsin ties fall in love with our little city over the weekend, i hope they come back and dig a little deeper, maybe even visiting the aforementioned Radio Summer Camp next year. I'm not holding my breath, however, because unlike the Yellow Phone Music Conference, Radio Summer Camp is about the music--not the money behind the music.

My money's on Al, or: THUNDERDOME

First, many sincere apologies to the dozen or so readers i have here who missed the blog last week. The new apartment i share with the gf isn't hooked up for internet yet, and thanks to a backlog of new-school-year orders, AT&T isn't getting to our house until Wednesday (the appointment was booked at the beginning of the month), so i'm dependent until then on my lady's laptop, which was with her in Arizona last week (my laptop mac mini doesn't have wireless; "why would i need wireless on something that's not a laptop?" i asked in 2005. 2005 me should be slapped).

Anyway, while i work on a bigger post for tomorrow, i have a listening exercise for you:

Here is the just-released new track from the "eagerly awaited" Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration, LULU:

The View by Lou Reed & Metallica

Now, i would like you to listen to "Caught in a Circle," perhaps the defining moment in the career of Oshkosh, WI guitar god Al Eide, from his early-90s gem Wild Fury:

Find more Al Eide songs at Myspace Music

Aside from obvious differences in production, i'm not seeing a whole lot of difference here.


Pictured: Wisconsin's Greatest Album Cover Ever

Al, all of us who giggled at you in Oshkosh in the 90s and early 2000s were merely trying to compensate for what we all really knew, deep down: that some day you would end up more culturally relevant than the rest of us. To say that Al Eide foreshadowing a collaboration between two once-important, now-hilarious artists makes him "culturally relevant" is perhaps a sad indictment of the rest of the Oshkosh scene from those days, but there it is. I mean, what counts for more--inspiring what is sure to be the musical laughing stock of 2011, or getting your band on a trial episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon? (Which, incidentally, i will always be insanely proud of the guys in The Willis for achieving, because holy shit.)

I Track Grifters on Kickstarter So You Don't Have To: A Nataly Dawn Update

About a month ago i posted about the massive grift being perpetrated by Pomplamoose (name spelled correctly for Google indexing purposes) singer Nataly Dawn over on Kickstarter--a campaign to raise money for her first solo album after building her reputation by using other people's music to buy a house and remove any need for a day job: a twee, cover band Captain & Tennille, but with a lamer catalog. At the time, her campaign had well exceeded her (seemingly arbitrarily chosen) $20,000 target, netting $43,393 as of August 1.

The campaign ended at Midnight and--strap in, believers in a just and fair God--pulled in a final tally of $104,788.


Pictured: your only sane response

Clearly, Slayer isn't really the house band in Hell; it's Matt & Kim or some shit.

Let's break down what these dolts suckers patrons paid for with enough scratch to keep the Latest Flame roster in vinyl and weed for two or three years:

$10 Pledge: A download of the album before it's released (982 backers): OK, fine. Nearly 50% of the initial target was raised by offering advance mp3s. For $9,820 my band could record three albums, but whatever.

$30 Pledge: A signed hard copy of the album + a digital download of the album before it's released (557 backers): Are they getting vinyl? A CD? DAT? Wax cylinder? Anyone else see the format specified anywhere? For $16,710 my band could record three albums, advertise them, and shoot Pitchfork a bribe for a "Best New Music" mention--and by "bribe" i mean we'd donate $250 to this campaign and ask Nataly to Skype dirty with Ryan Schreiber--we'll toss in an extra sawbuck if necessary ($250 pledge, limited reward SOLD OUT [0 of 10 remaining, Sweet Chocolatey Jesus]).

Oh, and speaking of creepy and gross:

$100 Pledge: SPECIAL EDITION SIGNED POSTER AND ONE-OF-A-KIND POLAROID OF ME TAKEN IN THE STUDIO WHILE RECORDING + special edition t-shirt + signed hard copies of "Her Earlier Stuff" and the upcoming album + a digital download of the album before it's released (110 backers): Ooh! A one-of-a-kind Polaroid! For $11,000 I could take the entire LFR roster to Glamour Shots and offer fetching portraits of Billy from Trophy Wives in rouge and a feather boa, which would be way more entertaining than your very own private dead-eyed gaze from a Christian Fundamentalist hipster on washed-out-looking, obsolete film stock.


If you don't think this is more awesome than a Nataly Dawn polaroid, i'm not sure why you're reading this blog

$2,000 Pledge: I WILL COVER THE SONG OF YOUR CHOICE (within reason) AND UPLOAD THE VIDEO TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL! I'll give you a call and we can talk over the details! (+ poster + t-shirt + signed hard copies of "Her Earlier Stuff" and the upcoming album + a digital download of the album before it's released) (limited reward SOLD OUT [0 of 6 remaining]): I'm guessing that "within reason" means that we couldn't have all pooled our cash and made her cover "I Got Athlete's Foot (I Showered at Mike's)" by Anal Cunt or "Victory Day" by Prussian Blue. People, for $2000 IfIHadAHiFi will cover the song of your choice, without reason. "Forever Your Girl" by Paula Abdul? Done, but "Opposites Attract" is the clear jam, c'mon. "Beverly Hills" by Weezer? OK, maybe i'm being hyperbolic.

$3,000 Pledge: A HOUSE SHOW at YOUR HOUSE with ME playing all of MY SONGS for YOU! If your house is more than a 4 hour drive from my place, you will also have to cover travel and one hotel room for 2 people. If you have any questions, please message me. Thank you!!! (Includes poster + t-shirt + signed hard copies of "Her Earlier Stuff" and the upcoming album + a digital download of the album before it's released) (limited reward [3 of 5 remaining]): I have a message for the two people who spent THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS for a Nataly Dawn house show: is your company hiring? Wait, i have another message: next time, just book David Bazan--he only costs around $800, he sells tickets so it's cheaper for you, and the music's wayyyyy better. And he's better looking.

For hosting the Passion of the Christ of online fundraisers, Kickstarter gets their standard 5% fee, which comes out to $5239.40. Hey, it's a free country, so good for them, i guess. But i feel the need to repeat the last section of my previous post on this matter:

Even more than this just being an extended "other people don't like what i like, i guess i'll go eat worms" snit-fit, it begs to be asked: is this not a complete abuse of Kickstarter's mission? Am i wrong in thinking that a project like this undermines the projects of real struggling artists who legitimately need Kickstarter in order to fund their films, albums, and other projects? I can't be the only one who thinks that this campaign is a classic lesson in Doing It Wrong.

Stay tuned for future Kickstarter projects like
"Help U2 Fund Their African Concert Tour"
"Help Google Buy Kickstarter.com"
"Buy Cher a New Face And Help Her Cheat Old Age For Another Decade"
"Help Keep Prince Fielder in Milwaukee"

OK, i'd actually donate to that last one.

Fuck. Let's end this post on a positive note. Here's something that kicks the entire Pimplepoofamoosealump empire into the dirt: the new Wild Flag video, made, as far as i can tell, without Kickstarter donations.

R.I.P.W.A.H.

Back at it, y'all, with some weird stream-of-consciousness nonsense.

On Wednesday the big Facebook linkfest was all about the news that Jack White has produced/collaborated on a single with Insane Clown Posse for his Third Man Records label. Weird as hell, but anyone who's done more than the cursory research that i have into what Jack White's been doing with the label (read: Everything I Know About Third Man Records I've Heard From The Wizard) knows that Mr. RaconteurWeatherStripe is essentially running his label as a crazy-ass doing-it-because-he-can vinyl nerd boutique (just check out the catalog and dig all the crazy two- and tri-color vinyl runs, as well as some of the other less-than-conventional choices: a Conan O'Brien 7-inch? Pairing the Black Belles with Stephen Colbert and using them to record Elvira's Movie Macabre theme song? Apparently one of the Dead Weather singles comes inside a 12-inch, and then the 7-inch detaches from the inside of it or something. I dunno, sounds like some crazy rock-n-roll warlock shit). So, Jack White working with Insane Clown Posse? Hey, sure.

My not-at-all-scientific take on the whole thing was that maybe this stunt will call enough attention to Third Man that my pals We Are Hex will sell a few more copies of the single they just released on the label, "Twist the Witch's Titty." I'm all for anything that will cast a light on pals of mine, not that it's all that likely. (How many music fans are there these days that pull the old Sub Pop allegiance trip and swear fealty to record labels as eagerly as they do to bands? Yeah, not many.)

Of course, that was before Chris from Police Teeth alerted me to a cryptic breakup notice on Hex's Facebook page, which...well, shit. Now i have to post a eulogy for this fantastic, urgent band.

So. We Are Hex.



My band's known their singer Jilly for ten years in October. We met her in Muncie, IN on our very first multi-day road trip out of Wisconsin, and ever since, we've been hooking up shows in the Dairy State for her bands, many of which she would prefer us to wipe from our brains. (I can say that because she told me that personally. "Dear god, forget any of those bands ever existed.") She started to hit her stride, though, with a band called Ari. Ari. that she formed with future Hex drummer Brandon. A swirling melange of Sonic Youth-y feedback walls over post-punk, gothy synth waves, Jilly swirled around the eye of the Ari. Ari. hurricane, stabbing the occasional black keys while wailing about god knows what, a blur of black hair and tattoos. They were loud, crazy, driving, and thrilling as hell, but as is the case with many a band that shines too brightly too quickly, they burned out in a matter of months.

Enter We Are Hex, Jilly and Brandon's next step in refining the Ari. Ari. cyclone into a more focused weapon of mass destruction. The synth-and-feedback carpet bombing approach was replaced with stabby guitar licks and precision drumming, a post-millennial Siouxie and the Banshees filtered through Touch & Go's back catalog, their makeup washed off with lighter fluid. Their sophomore release, Hail the Goer, will stand as their definitive mission statement--a deliberate tension-and-release exercise that, of course, should have been on every goth bar DJ's playlist for the past year. I'm pretty sure i've seen gamer nerds, metalheads and science fair enthusiasts unscrewing imaginary light bulbs while dancing to this record, but don't quote me on that.

Then again, "should have" will now be used quite a bit when discussing this band. I have no idea why they're calling it quits, but i know this--with a charismatic lead vocalist, tightly-wound, killer songs, and a record on Jake White's label, We Are Hex should have been on the verge of blowing the fuck up instead of imploding. But if there was ever a band that matched my band's ability to hatefuck Murphy's Law, it was We Are Hex. Every time we got together with these guys, the stories would flow about canceled shows, shady clubs ripping them off, and all sorts of random drama. Heck, very few of their Milwaukee shows were without some incident or another.

In Spring 2009 they played Frank's Power Plant with The New Loud and us during that period where the club's owner was getting noise complaints from some asshat neighbors. Soon, the owner was yelling at Hex and telling them they couldn't use their full stacks and would have to borrow gear or not play the show. The band was ready to say "fuck it" and bail before we calmed the owner down enough to remind her that amps have these things called "volume knobs" that can turn the loud boom sounds down if necessary. They, of course, went on to stomp everyone's teeth in that night.

November of last year we brought them to town at Stonefly with our labelmates Trophy Wives. In classic HiFi hometown fashion, no one came to the show save about 15 of our best friends, who can now rub it in to everyone else in Milwaukee that they saw one of the most exciting sets to be played in our city last year, and everyone else missed it, so screw y'all. On top of the low attendance, the "sound guy" took all the money from the door for his "fee," a fitting reward for the bang-up job he did setting up barely audible vocal mics and one kick drum mic.

So if We Are Hex finally ran into one obstacle too many, i suppose i can't blame them for packing it in, although part of me hopes that they looked at the news articles about Jack White working with ICP and thought, "wait, we're gonna be labelmates with Insane Clown Posse? Fuck this, we're done."

In any event, if i know Jilly just a little bit after ten years, i know she'll be back at it with something new and perhaps even more exciting than We Are Hex, and honestly, i'm a little scared of what that could entail.

In the meantime, let's have a wake. Go to the We Are Hex Bandcamp site and listen to their debut, Gloom Bloom, the aforementioned Hail the Goer, and a few other choice treats. Chances are you screwed up and missed seeing them live; make up for it by at least discovering them posthumously, since that's apparently all we've got left.

Martian Dance Bands of the Week! - X's For I's and Pregnant

A few weeks back a dude named Ethan sent me an email with some very nice words about Martian Dance Invasion! and a download link to a rad record called Gravity Wins Again. It's a 2010 release by Ethan's band, Portland's X's For I's, who--full disclosure--share a mutual friend with me in my old buddy Conan Neutron of Victory & Associates, Mount Vicious, Replicator, etc. Being the first person nice enough to send me free music as a direct result of this blog (let the record show that it took roughly 20 days for the first fringe benefits to roll in from this blog--not too shabby), i would be remiss if i did not grant it a few in-depth listens and a review. Good thing that it's pretty damn great.

(NOTE: it may happen--nay, it will happen--that many of the bands i pimp out in Martian Dance Invasion! will be people i know, or have ties to people i know. After touring in a band and meeting/helping out scores of people in bands for 13 years straight, and playing in other bands before that, it's sort of unavoidable. That being said, if you want to send me some music to review or check out, contact me! My info is over in that thar menu to your right. I don't only cover friends' bands, i swear, because some of my friends play in crap bands. The old "they are SUCH nice guys" syndrome, or "when bad bands happen to good people." It's a thing.)



So! X's For I's. Portland. The Pacific Northwest really kills it when it comes to noise-rock, people. From Form of Rocket in Salt Lake City to the Northwest's opposite corner, Seattle's, overabundance of riches (The Bismarck, Police Teeth, Absolute Monarchs, AFrames, The Intelligence, etc. etc.), there's a real appreciation out West for dissonance and hard-driving, scrapey/shredding volume. X's For I's is a worthy member of the fraternity, having schooled themselves in the 90s Dischord Records post-hardcore that bred Fugazi, Jawbox, Q and not U (woah, another alphabet-based name), and even the more emo-tinged Hoover/Crownhate Ruin family tree that has somehow managed to inform Absolutely here in Milwaukee. Gravity Wins Again is full of chewy, rhythm-heavy morsels that stop, start and jigsaw (honestly, there are more starts and stops on this record than a game of Freeze Tag) their way from the Ex-Models to Unwound with a clarity of purpose as direct as their thwomping drums. "4-Eyed Square" in particular owes a lot to the Jawbox catalog, from the J.Robbins-style vocals all the way down to the J.Robbins-style riffage.

This has become an overly name-droppy review. I apologize.

From the handclaps and segmented riffs of "Components" to the harmonized leads and the "you do the math, baby" singalong of "Wolf Tickets," to the head-spinning rhythms of the excellently titled "Alligator Fuckhouse" (which, at the risk of invoking the mighty 'Gazi once again, closes its final 30 seconds with an inspired drop from full-on rock to a gorgeously subdued Lally-style bass-flavored meditation), Gravity Wins Again is a fully engaging thirty-five minutes of driving, impassioned badassery that makes me really mad that we haven't played with them on any of our West Coast tours yet. The album can be streamed in its entirety on X's For I's Bandcamp site, so give it a click.

Meanwhile, in Berkeley,

...i did a bit of shopping at the legendary Amoeba Records and was lucky to stumble onto a copy of another killer late discovery from 2010, the self-titled 12-inch LP from Brooklyn's Pregnant. I first became aware of these guys when my pal Alli from Brooklyn's Nick Cave-worshiping Bootblacks hipped me to them as a possible band to play with on tour. A month or so later, Latest Flame Dan is showing me their LP in his bedroom with the sort of "dude, look what i discovered" exuberance that we over-35 types haven't forgotten but run into way less often than we did in our early 20s.


Pregnant is a bare-bones bargain-basement affair; the album sleeve is black and white and quite possibly was printed at a Kinko's, while the inside contains nothing even resembling anything so modern as a "download code." The music is equally stripped down and basic: songs of a ninety-second average length blur past the ears fueled by Mission of Burma-style post-punk riffs re-imagined by a garage-punk Descendents. The wrist workouts "Do You Feel It?" and "Help" kick things off with double-stroked sixteenth-note guitar chords with only the slightest hint of fuzz, the edge coming more from the downhill rhythm section and Kevin Manion's raspy, Greg Sage vocals.

For a collection of blink-and-you-miss-em supernova bursts of garagey proto-punk, these songs have some serious groove. The frenetic pace is broken only slightly by the waltzing "Skin Display," which spends a whopping 1:37 hammering through a couple verses and a chorus before moving on with a cough to the similarly-abbreviated "Toothache." Both songs swing and sway with some Enchantment Under the Sea slow-dance magic, but don't waste any time and rock no less harder than the barnburning "My Generation" two-note shamble of "Wormie" and "You Think."

It's incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to make straight-ahead punk rock sound fresh and exciting in 2011, but Pregnant pull it off with a combination of attitude, musicianship, and above all, vibe. From the economical packaging to the appropriately lo-fi (read: raw as hell), minimally-overdubbed (if at all) recording, there is a welcome lack of bullshit in this record that is as much a statement of purpose as an accident of economics. If you luck out and find this in the vinyl bin, grab grab grab and spin spin spin. Sure, the band posted a link on their blog to download a vinyl rip of the album (and frankly, i'm shocked they even bothered with such nonsense like a blog, although it hasn't been updated since last September), but this was meant to be listened to with needle on wax, and none of those bullshit ones or zeros.

Tears dry on their own or: Amy, Amy, Amy

Since i was on my way to the Bay Area when the Amy Winehouse news hit, i didn't have a chance to write anything about it until now. Sorry it's not more timely.

I don't pretend to have the same embedded, in-the-shit experience with addiction that Amy Winehouse did, but i have some. While thankfully not an addict myself, i've spent the bulk of my life around addicts in various stages of use and recovery, from family members to former girlfriends. It was with the empathy gained from a lifetime of relationships that i mourned Winehouse's passing when the news hit on July 23. Was it a surprising death? No, but that doesn't make it any less sad.

Of course, the running joke with Winehouse's death was "she should have gone to rehab," which, ha ha, douchebags--she did, several times. While most of that sentiment probably shouldn't be read into as any more than cynical celebrity snark, i can't help but observe it as evidence of how little people really know about addiction. While treatable, it's naive to think of it as curable. Even those who are able to get past their substance abuse know--the addiction stays, and they're changed forever as a result.

A common mistake happens when the drug gets blamed for the addiction, when in fact, something in the addict's life generally is what pushed them toward a need for some sort of chemical release. That misdirection is the fate of so many recovering addicts, who often transfer their addiction to something else (food, other drugs, caffeine & cigarette...even recovery programs like AA can be addictive) instead of combating the reasons they became addicted in the first place. After all, it's easier to blame a faceless substance than it is yourself.

I've spent most of my life learning another important lesson about addiction--it affects and changes those closest to the addict as well. In fact, a large percentage of addicts come from families with an addictive history. So far, i've avoided giving over control of my life to a chemical, but i've only recently begun to recover from my addiction to, well, addicts. As a codependent, my relationships for a long time were dominated by girls who i arrogantly assumed needed my "help" as much as my family needed the oldest kids to compensate for the parent hanging out at the bar from quitting time to closing time. From letting one move in with me to "save" her from her parents, to constantly trying to convince another that her selfish, dramatic behavior was the thing keeping us from a successful relationship, it was a trap i continually, eagerly fell into--finding personal value through subjugating my emotional needs to the far needier requirements of others.

Eventually, the patterns of behavior became so apparent that i finally was able to break the cycle, biding my time and finding a relationship that doesn't come with the emotional imbalance of power that accompanies addict/codependent relationships. But i would never pretend that i'm "cured" of my behaviors; on the contrary, i find myself occasionally putting myself on guard, bracing myself during situations that would have escalated into emotional rollercoasters with former girlfriends, only to be reminded when the ride doesn't leave the station that--oh yeah--my lady doesn't make mountains out of molehills. It's pretty awesome, but i fully recognize that it was my past struggles with codependency that led me to this point, where i can appreciate and enjoy a stable, awesome relationship. I wouldn't change anything i went through; it's gifted me with unique experiences and loads of fuel for my art.

I don't pretend that my experiences with substance addiction (and just as often, the addictive personality type, regardless of the presence of actual drugs) is anything like that of, say, Amy Winehouse or another member of the 27 club. Of course not. But as i think about my own history, and how in its own, strange way, it was a gift, i'm offered some cold comfort as i reflect upon the death of a magnificently talented siren cursed with unconquerable demons. It is the same tortured, addictive soul that crafted the classic Back to Black that also indirectly killed herself, just like how the man who wrote "I Hate Myself and Want to Die" eventually managed to fulfill his wish.

It's a question i often ask myself, knowing that there is a certain breed of artist that, for better or worse, is transcendent not only despite their imbalances, but also because of them. If Amy's demons were the tameable kind, would we have borne witness to such a fascinating single as the nakedly autobiographic, infectious "Rehab?" Had Kurt Cobain been a more well-balanced individual with less of a need to self-medicate with heroin, would we have the unrelenting, largely uncompromising In Utero?

These are hypotheticals, of course, because we know how these stories ended--the same demons that inspired these brilliant works also, in the end, claimed their artists' lives.

If i knew any of these people personally, i obviously know what my response would be to a jerk pointing all of this out: if i had to choose between "Rehab" existing and my friend being alive, well, it wouldn't be much of a choice. But as a fan, saddened by the twists taken in the tales of these people's lives, bummed because Back to Black will now live on in the context of a harbinger, not as a prelude to redemption? The knowledge that there was nothing that could be done, that this is how the story had to end...there's an acceptance in there somewhere.

Amy, Amy, Amy...i'm sorry you could never tame your dragon, and i'm sorry that you could never find peace in living. I'm sorry that your recorded output will be remembered as the genius of a life that was destined to burn out instead of burn long. But i thank you for it just the same. And while you're no longer with us, know that through your music, you live forever, while many less tortured souls will fade into history. There's something to be said for that, i suppose.