On Thursday Milwaukee Record ran my feature article on Latest Flame Records closing up shop after nearly 13 years of kickass releases. It was really difficult to write that piece without injecting lots of personal asides and, admittedly, sour grapes and snarky butthurt feelings about Dan's decision to close up shop, which is why i'm hopping over here to do that, naturally. Make no mistake--i fully support Dan's decision to stop setting his personal income on fire in order to allow his favorite bands to have something to sell at shows. But the day i got the email from Mr. Hanke breaking the news, i felt like a family member had died.
To me, Latest Flame Records and the bands that recorded for it during its noisy second act were family. Having become aware of punk rock and independent record labels beginning with a mind-expanding summer between my senior year of high school and the onset of college in the early 90s, i was immediately drawn to the romantic notion of record label as symbol of quality and community. If i bought a Touch & Go Records release in the 1990s, i had a pretty good idea of what it sounded like before breaking the shrinkwrap--it was going to be loud, it was going to be abrasive, and it wasn't going to sound exactly like anything else available. And i was probably going to love it. Just as importantly, i had a pretty good notion that each of those bands were likely to play shows together, tour together, hang out together. Eli Janney of Girls Against Boys recorded Brainiac's Hissing Prigs in Static Couture. Blond Redhead opened for Shellac at the Congress Theatre. And so on. It quickly became a dream of mine to be a part of something like that. Dan shared that dream and made it happen with a stacked roster of aggressive and off-the-beaten-path-yet-completely-accessible-if-you-give-it-a-chance rock tunes from the likes of Police Teeth, Waxeater, Trophy Wives, Nervous Curtains, his Like Like The The The Death, and my own IfIHadAHiFi and Body Futures.
Music, like any art, is deeply personal and subjective, of course, and that the Latest Flame roster never exactly set the world on fire is by no means an indictment of its quality....of course. It's the same story that scores of labels that have come and gone have endured over the years. But when you're sinking the amount of money that it takes to release a record or a CD into something in which you believe, it's hard to not be frustrated when those efforts aren't validated by the outside world. We are only human beings, after all, and human beings are inherently social creatures seeking outside validation. But make no mistake: almost every time i get on stage with Body Futures or IfIHadAHiFi, and every time i throw on one of our records, i feel completely validated in that we've produced music that i would want to listen to and would be stoked about even if i wasn't in the band, and that's all anyone can realistically hope for. As my friend John Dykstra has often said to me, we should all be thankful for living in a time where we are able to make music and press records with our pals in the first place; should anyone else actually enjoy it, that's a bonus.
Still, being able to cover costs would have been a nice bonus.
In the spirit of celebrating the diverse Latest Flame catalog, here are ten Latest Flame releases that everyone should hear. Dan was kind enough to document it, so dammit, it should be heard. This stuff is all over the map, from new-wavy power-pop to wiry post-punk to brutal riffage, and it all deserves to be remembered. I hope you take some time to check them out if you don't know about them already. And thanks, Dan, for helping all of us live that dream of being part of a musical family with a sense of real community and belonging, just like those indie labels of lore. What a gift.
In more-or-less chronological order:
Showing posts with label police teeth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label police teeth. Show all posts
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Quarters Rock 'n' Roll Palace Will Save Us!
Whenever i get a message from an out-of-town musician friend looking for help getting a Milwaukee show on a Monday or Tuesday, i break out into hives, my teeth itch and i feel a dull ache and nausea not unlike 30 seconds after a solid punch in the nuts. I've spent enough Monday and Tuesday nights apologizing for our town's generally weak showings on those nights (not that it's anyone's fault, as day jobs are, in the common parlance, a bitch) to finally be fed up with the whole endeavor. It's the same on the other side of the fence as well; if i'm booking a tour and we're not heading somewhere with solid Monday night potential (see: the old Uncle Festers' Punk Rock Nights in Bloomington, IN; New Brunswick, NJ basement shows), my instinct now is to say "screw it" and schedule a day off of chilling out in a hotel watching wrestling.
I hoped that when my friend James' band Male Bondage stopped by Quarters Rock 'n' Roll Palace on Tuesday night while on tour from Indianapolis, there would at least be fifteen or twenty stragglers wandering in to see them sandwiched between Absolutely and Lord Brain. Instead, Male Bondage completely threw down their top-volume combination of overpowering post-hardcore Jehu drive and pseudo-psych Meat Puppets licks in front of a jazzed and packed room...on a Tuesday night. What in the samhell?
Dear Milwaukee: something is brewing at Quarters, and it is exciting. Aaron Skufca's busted his damn fool hump making the humble dive on the corner of Center and Bremen a nearly sure bet for a night of drinking and punk rock, and if stuffing 40-50 people into the Rock 'n' Roll Palace's itty bitty bar on a Tuesday night is any indication, it's working. (Sure, it doesn't hurt that Absolutely is a killer band and can probably draw 50 people by themselves on a good night, but since when does heady Unwound-inspired noise consider a Tuesday a good night?)
So what's working in Quarters' favor? This is all speculation, but it feels like a perfect storm of positives:
1) It's small, but not Circle A small. Get 20 people through the door at Quarters, and it feels like a party inside already, unlike larger mid-sized venues like Stonefly and Mad Planet, where 20 people feels like a bummer. Combine this with the large bay windows in the front of the bar, and the odd stray is likely to glance in through the window, see something interesting's happening, and wander in. And that's likely to happen a lot, because of
2) Location, Location, Location. The second most important group of three words in Real Estate (behind "Indian Burial Ground"), Quarters is smack dab in the middle of Riverwest foot traffic, surrounded on all sides by Foundations and Fuels and That Hookah Bar I Still Have Never Wandered Into. Ever since Quarters re-opened after that whole unfortunate "dude getting shot outside" thing, it's seemed to evolve into a place where everyone within a four-block radius between the ages of 21 and let'ssay40becausei'mold is likely to gravitate if they want a beer after work. And if there happens to be a band playing, what the hell? May as well check it out, because
3) The shows are cheap. Because Quarters doesn't take anything out of the door for sound (which, by the way, is pretty darn good for a tiny room), it's easy to get touring bands good money while keeping the door low, which encourages people to wander in and give new bands a try. Heck, just last night my friend Zach wandering in to the Absolutely/Male Bondage/Lord Brain show because he had nothing else going on and what's five bucks for some live tunes? IfIHadAHiFi played there on Friday with Police Teeth, Strange Matter and Like Like The The The Death, and thanks to the karmic "local bands don't take any money when touring bands are playing" rule, Police Teeth managed to pocket $244 from a door that got sassy and bumped it up to $6 since it was a Friday. Are you as old as i am, and remember when $6 was seen as outrageous for a punk show? Yeah, that was 1990 dollars, gang. A movie is ten bucks these days! Seeing a show at Quarters is cheaper than going to see Wrath of the Titans, and the loud noises are less obnoxious!
Sometimes a venue manages to exist in a perfect storm of circumstance and smart planning. Sure, none of it's rocket science, but not every bar can pull it off. Quarters, having re-opened in a neighborhood that has some musical open-mindedness with a plan that focuses on cheap fun while keeping the needs of touring bands in the forefront, seems to be onto something. It's a little early to proclaim it the Savior of the Scene or anything like that, but man, am i jazzed it exists right now.
By the way, i'm totally not kidding about Male Bondage. Get on this. (Upon listening to the recordings, they have way more of a Double Dagger thing going than what i picked out live. Volume!)
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Martian Dance Invasion's Favorites of 2011!
2011 was a banner year in that nebulous musical genre known as "Stuff DJ Likes." Seriously, in most years my Top 10 has to be filled out by records from previous years that i had only that year discovered. This year there was so much rad stuff out there that not only have i been forced to expand to 15 to include some tunage that you need to be aware of, but i'm fully aware that there are records out there that i still haven't managed to listen to that probably would have made it onto the list (my profuse apologies to Brief Candles and Hurry Up Shotgun for not getting to your records yet. I'm honestly pretty disappointed in myself. Not sarcasm).
As i pointed out last week, i'm not doing this for a living (obviously), so i don't have the benefit of having myriad labels and PR companies throwing promo discs at me. On the other hand, i feel like it means that i came to this list organically (in fact, of the 15 acts in the list, 12 are ones i've seen live). These are records i went out of my way to hear and in some cases, had to really dig for. If you find one new band that trips your trigger in this post, i will have done my job; feel free to let me know what i missed in the comments. So, without further ado...
DJ "DrAwkward" Hostettler's 15 Favorite Releases of 2011 (Compiled Without the Benefit/Shackles of PR Deluging)
15. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
Here's what's weird about Belong:
Most people familiar with my musical musings know that i abhor Smashing Pumpkins. I think that they were an overrated cash-in by a careerist hack who saw the writing on the wall in the late 80s and donned the sheep's clothing of Alternative Nation at the right time (see also: Cuomo, Rivers). Great trend-spotter, shitty performer--but then, knowing how to market is a more valuable wealth-building skill than musical talent.
So it's funny to me that i practically listened to this disc--which sounds like a collection of songs crafted by an Earth-295 version of the Pumpkins that didn't totally suck--on repeat through much of the first half of 2011. The wispy vocals, the alternately fuzzed and shimmering guitars...it's Siamese Dream without all the overwrought croaking and orchestral chimes and songs ostensibly about abortion or whatever. (So...it's Gish? Um...maybe this thesis applies more to the title track than the rest of the record...)
Of course, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart stand on their own as a killer Britpop/shoegaze hybrid and have managed to more than compensate for their awful band name. "The Heart in Your Heartbreak" contains some of the most infectious wordplay of 2011 and inspired some serious head-bobbing in the car. That toffee-thick keyboard line at the end of the song sends it over the edge into potential Best Single of 2011 territory. Wait, was it even released as a single? I don't even know. Music journalism!
14. Absolutely - Learns to Love Mistakes
Milwaukee's Absolutely produced a truly captivating, powerfully driving throwback to the days of moody, ponderous noise-rock like Unwound and some of the forgotten gems of mid-90s Dischord Records post-hardcore like Hoover and The Crownhate Ruin. Learns to Love Mistakes mines territory that has otherwise been relegated to the dollar bin of indie-rock history while adding a fresh Beer City perspective, tying crunchy, intricate guitar harmonies and seemingly off-mic, shouty vocalizing together into extended compositions that flow despite their complexity.
Ironically, a highlight for me is the second half of "Denim on Denim," which breaks down and briefly strips away all the killer riffage and showcases what holds the whole convoluted mess together--the loose-but-locked-in rhythm section of drummer Charlie Hosale and bassist Andy Mcguire. It's hard to call them a "secret weapon" when they constitute two-thirds of the band (and especially when all their on-stage lighting emanates from inside Hosale's kick drum), so let's just call them what they are: a rhythm section that shuffles with a Verbal Kint hitch but packs the mental sledgehammering of Keyser Söze. You'll gasp and gape at how obviously it all falls together, and how you didn't see it coming.
13. Wild Flag - S/T
Yeah, i know--it's not Sleater-Kinney. But you have your Sleater-Kinney records to listen to whenever you want. Meanwhile, here's a quartet of pals who got together to have fun because, dammit, they felt like it. And it sure is fun. And catchy. And dance-around-the-living-room-waving-arms-over-head bouncy. And, well, hell, Carrie's playing guitar and Janet's drumming, so it can't help but be a little S-K-ish. Which is, of course, a great thing. Welcome back, girls!
12. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
I was surprised to like this album as much as i did, considering it's such a mellow downscaling from previous TVotR releases, but Nine Types of Light defies comparisons to Dear Science and others by virtue of its uniqueness in their catalog. "Killer Crane" is a hypnotic distillation of everything that makes TVotR compelling artists: a seamless mix of the folksy and ultra-modern (throwing banjo and cello into the synthetic mix), tied together by Tunde Adebimpe's powerful yet vulnerable, humanizing vocals. But while "Killer Crane" is a subdued, meditative ballad on an album with lots of mid-tempo chilling, there are still plenty of rockin,' hard-dancing hip-churners on here (not the least of which is the groovy "No Future Shock" and "Repetition").
I finally got to see TVotR live this year and was absolutely floored by how full their music sounds live. I expected a lot more loops and sequences, yet the band seemed to be handling pretty much everything live, giving every song a perfectly organic, acoustic/electric groove that pulled the entire Pabst Theater audience along like fish on a hook. The song selection that built to the set's explosive climax had the audience bubbling and frothing until "Wolf Like Me" (if i remember correctly) triggered an explosive boil. It's been a long time, if ever, since i've seen a crowd that locked in with the band. No comparisons to a celebrant church congregation could do it justice.
11. Northless - Clandestine Abuse
"Dick-flatteningly heavy" was the phrase a European friend of mine used to describe Clandestine Abuse, by far the best Milwaukee record i heard this year, when i pointed him to it back in March. It opens up with unrelenting force and volume as Eric Stenglein bellows over the proceedings like a bear that was awoken a month into Winter.
And yet, as the album progresses, harmonies and downright pretty songwriting flourishes emerge like a zombied butterfly fighting its way out of amber. The sequencing of Clandestine Abuse is inspired genius--open with pummeling assaults on the eardrums and temples so that by the time Eric actually sings on the unnervingly beautiful "The Storm," the full in-album evolution from thundering doom metal to earnest, heart-wrenching doom-metal is complete. Look, this record is so good that Kuma's Corner in Chicago made the "Northless" its specialty burger of the month in March. If that's not a ringing endorsement for a metal band, then none exist.
10. Future of the Left - Polymers are Forever (EP)
Speaking of evolution -- Future of the Left's lineup reshuffling (replacing bassist Kelson Mathias with Julia Ruzicka from Million Dead and adding Jimmy Watkins on guitar) opened doors for Andy Falkous to play around and experiment with what was an already-winning formula that resulted in one of 2009's best records, their sophomore Travels With Myself and Another. The piss, bile, and snarkily smart-assed lyricism that was present in that other band that existed before this one carried over, but with a, well, evolved sense of post-punk songwriting and riffcraft. Now, with an extra guitar in the mix, Falco has free reign to fuck around with synths as much as he wants, and the results speak for themselves in the opening title track of this EP (included on this list of albums because it towers that far over so many other releases this year). "Polymers are Forever" starts with disjointed synth stabs and the barest minimum of drumming, only to cohere into the most infectious earworm of 2011's second half as Falco repeats "pullin' me down, then i'm dead, then i'm gone" until you're still not tired of it.
The rest of the EP, of course, sounds nothing like the title track, veering from kamikaze punk blasts to nigh-comedic polka to the galloping grunge of the closing "Destroywitchurch.com." It all forecasts a 2012 full-length that is guaranteed to make my top 10 list next year as well. But with Future of the Left cementing their foothold as one of my favorite currently-active bands with the challenging, diverse and searingly brilliant Polymers are Forever, they could likely reimagine the soundtrack to Meet the Feebles and i'd hail it as some sort of rationalized genius.
9. Parts & Labor - Constant Future
Parts & Labor were a band that a friend of mine had gotten after me to listen to for about a year or two before a new record provided an excuse to finally get on that shit. What i discovered was Constant Future, a dazzling achievement in crafting savory pop morsels out of bloopy-bleepy noiseboxes and absolutely blistering drumming (Milwaukee native Joe Wong, you are a beast).
The secret genius of these songs is that while there's so much going on in them, the musical composition behind the synths and samples is actually fairly basic--if this were a guitar rock album, it'd be handed as many Who comparisons as Call Me Lightning's record from last year. It's non-stop triumphant, soaring arena rock anthems that just so happen to be communicated with keys and buttons instead of strings. And yet, as with TV on the Radio, it all sounds perfectly organic and not at all sterile. They also put on a hell of a live show, as evidenced by their room-packing appearance at Cactus Club on a Monday night(!) early this year (did i mention Joe Wong is a beast?). Thanks for ensuring i check these guys out, Chicago pal who doesn't like her name put on the internet!
8. The Blind Shake - Seriousness
Truth be told, The Blind Shake are a much more ferocious band than what they let on in recorded form. On record, they are a more than capable surf-tinged garage band writing bite-sized blasts of reverb-soaked frenzy, but live, they're an explosion of psyched-out, double-picked noise-punk that overwhelms you in high kicks, jumps, stomps, and walls of feedback before unplugging everything 23 minutes later, leaving you to ask yourself what the hell just happened. It's criminal that one of the most searing live bands on the planet is also one of the most obscure, but so it goes in this day and age.
Still, Seriousness stands on its own with Ventures-informed nitro-burning guitar play and high-pitched vocals that leave the listener checking to see if their iPod's set to 78 RPM before realizing that, duh, they stopped making 78s long ago. "I'm Not an Animal" plows along in the most base primal punk tradition while "Hurracan" forcibly breathes new life into twelve bar blues. It's a great record, but i'd be lying if i didn't cop to ranking this a little high by projecting memories of the live show onto the wax.
7. Obits - Moody, Standard & Poor
Has any recent punk musician settled into the role of cool, laid-back elder statesman more effectively than the formerly throat-shredding voice of Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes, Rick Froberg? Obits expertly blends the urgency of those earlier, thrillingly essential outfits with the casual, effortless vibe of Creedence Clearwater Revival, of all frickin' people, and it works so well. Moody, Standard & Poor doesn't do a lot to expand from the formula that made their debut, I Blame You, a winner, but they don't have to because it still sounds completely fresh and revelatory. Anyone who thinks Obits comes off as "lazy" or "half-assed" is coming at this from the wrong angle; just because these cats aren't flooring it to the payoff a la Jehu or Hot Snakes doesn't mean there isn't fire under their asses. Instead of going nova and flaming as hot as possible, there's a slow burn underneath every Obits song that carries over to the next, slowly building to a crescendo that could be years in the making, but the journey is oh so captivating. The shuffle of "I Want Results" and the swagger of "You Gotta Lose" and "Killer" add to a growing arsenal of reserved, confident ass-kickings that won't lose steam after a mere three records, and i can't wait to hear how this band sounds five albums deep.
6. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Oh, to inhabit the brain of Annie Clark for a day, just to poke around and reverse engineer a reasonable facsimile of her songwriting process. The weird, alien angles she lets herself be photographed in only hint at the otherworldliness of her Baroquely Europan craft.
Full disclosure: Actor never really clicked with me, and i'm still not sure why. I suspect that, with so many bands i love, it comes back to having my ass handed to me in the live setting at the Pabst Theater, then finally getting my hands on Strange Mercy and immediately understanding what's going on in every little fold and crease between processed guitar and cosmic arrangement. The rhythmic intricacies of this record somehow teeter between completely illogical and completely captivating; while St. Vincent's music is nowhere near the thrash-punk metaphor of a runaway locomotive, the off-kilter vocals and guitar runs still leave the audience wondering when everything's gonna come spilling off the tracks--which, of course, it never does.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, live covers of Big Black's "Kerosene" and the Pop Group's "She is Beyond Good and Evil" have assured Clark of a degree of unimpeachable cool, but it's obviously the original material that seals the deal. To be a dazzlingly off-kilter guitar wizard, write trippy dreamscapes like "Neutered Fruit," and have killer taste in cover songs? Forgetaboutit. I'm sold for life.
5. Crooked Fingers - Breaks in the Armor
And there i thought that Crooked Fingers had run out of steam. So did Eric Bachmann, apparently, having taken off to Taiwan with little intention of recording solo material ever again. And yet, what should emerge from his stay on that island but the best Crooked Fingers release since the 2000 debut, Breaks in the Armor. The opening twofer of "Typhoon" into "Bad Blood" is classic Bachmann--a moody harbinger of what's to come followed by a full-scale landslide of earthy, bourbon-soaked romance built from weathered guitars and department store keyboards. This release has the added bonus of guest vocals from Athens singer-songwriter Liz Durrett, adding lovely background harmonies behind Bachmann's endearing half-croak, half-croon.
In this day and age of folksy beardos getting so much indie-music love, it's patently absurd that Crooked Fingers isn't huge, but screw it--if it means that the band's destined to forever pack rooms the size of the Cactus Club, it's the world's loss and my gain. As Juniper Tar's Ryan Schleicher said to me at their brilliant Cactus performance last month, "it's a crime that he's not bigger than this, but selfishly i don't want him to be." Ooh, you mean we get to stand mere feet from the man as he hunches over and spills himself into his microphone, and we never have to deal with a six-foot-high stage or barriers and security douchbags? Fine, mainstream--you can have those other guys. We're good to go.
4. The Poison Control Center - Stranger Ballet
One major regret i have from this year is the unfortunate timing of a trip i took to Oakland in July with the girlfriend. I was tagging along on a work trip, so there was no rescheduling, and it was a great time, but it also meant that i missed The Poison Control Center at (of all places) Bad Genie. Everything i've heard and read about their live show suggests that it'd rank up there with the heavyweights--The Blind Shake, Melt-Banana, the pAper chAse, etc. Alas, while 20 people at Bad Genie witnessed pure pop Armageddon (while friends of mine in the audience gleely texted me details of what i was missing), i must be content with being hopelessly addicted to Stranger Ballet, a pure, perfectly cut power-pop diamond in the Iowan rough.
God damn, this record. Who else could make "your day's just shit and piss" sound like the cheeriest affirmation of life's inherent awesomeness? And yet, that's the first sentiment expressed in the opening "Torpedoes on Tuesday," an immediately infectious morsel that uses a simple, delicate keyboard line to rope the audience in for what explodes into grandiose summertime rave-ups and singalongs. From then on, it's non-stop humming and head-bobbing and hopping and flailing and dancing on the hardwood in your jammies. There are goofy random noisy bits for the post-punkers, balls-out guitar hero madness for the rockers, laid-back fuzz for the Pavement-loving slacker indie rockers, and sugar, syrup and hooks for EVERYONE. My GOD, how is this band not on every magazine cover in the country? That "Seagull" and "Reoccurring Kind" are not burning up radio charts and sparking a revival in Big Star's album sales with their joyous Gospel-level rapture is a structural and institutional failure of America's popular culture. FIX IT, PEOPLE.
3. Helms Alee - Weatherhead
My love affair with Helms Alee began with a sweaty, drunk festival show in the basement of Seattle's Cha Cha Lounge, where my inebriated jaw was unable to do anything but hang agape while Ben Verellen, Dana James, and Hozoji Matheson-margullis did their thing. Their thing, incidentally, is a confounding and thrilling hodgepodge of mathy, melodic, and brain-squelchingly heavy doom metal that somehow occupies whatever territory lies between the Melvins and Unwound. While their debut, Night Terror, was a glorious jumble of rolling drums, moody, forceful guitar and bass, and alternating female harmonies and male screams, it all sounds downright straight-laced compared to their brilliant follow-up, Weatherhead. "8/16" is a five-minute tour de force of stylistic shifts and 90-degree inertia-defying twists and turns, showcasing everything that makes Helms Alee one of the most captivating heavy bands going.
Of all the entries on my list, this is one whose omission from most every best-of list i've seen absolutely confounds me. This is a band that knows exactly what its strengths are and plays to them while taking massive risks (in the case of this record, long, ponderous interludes and sleepy meditations) that pay off nearly every time. I haven't heard a heavy record this adventurous in some time--maybe because i don't often seek out a lot of stuff on the heavier end of the spectrum. Is that it? Am i sitting over here having my mind blown by something that seasoned metalheads consider routine? It's hard to fathom, because intelligently, thoughtfully crafted compositions that also bash your head in seem pretty hard to come by unless they're bogged down in annoying virtuoso wankery or pretentious prog rock. Helms Alee avoid pretense by virtue of being goofballs that just happen to be intensely talented and driven to kick asses nationwide.
2. Police Teeth - Awesomer Than the Devil
Full disclosure: these dudes are my labelmates and brothers, and every time i get to hang out with them is special times. That being said, part of why i love them so much as people is because they consistently put out incredible, buzzy indie-rock that gets me and that i've loved before meeting them all in person (excepting their guitarist James, but that's a long story involving broken teeth and Everclear and it'll just get us off subject). As they astutely described themselves on their old MySpace page, their sound can be summed up this way: "if you're over 25, Superchunk meets the Wipers. If you're under 25. Hot Snakes meet the Thermals." Of course, they wrote that five years ago, so maybe we should bump that age to 30. (Aging, amirite?)
Awesomer Than the Devil continues many of the aging, jaded rocker themes that spun 2009's Real Size Monster Series into a concept album about the foolhardiness of devoting part of one's life to playing in a touring rock band (something admittedly not everyone can relate to); "Rock & Roll is a Pyramid Scheme (Parts 1 & 2)," in fact, advises we musical hobbyists to not "take this shit so seriously." They're dudes in the same spot as me--in it for life, but in a realistically compartmentalized manner. No, they'll never be famous, for whatever reason--they can't/won't tour extensively (does that even help anymore?), they can't afford PR, no one smells a hit single (which is just nuts), but when they're doing their thing, they do it with more heart and passion than most of the bands who get it handed to them on the proverbial silver platter. A dollar is worth more to a poor person than to a rich one, and putting out a killer record or playing a rippin' show matters more to guys like Police Teeth than to, say, the Strokes, a band with rich parents who i'm sure had nothing to do with them getting a record deal. Just saying.
1. Memory Map - Holiday Band
More full disclosure! Memory Map contains band buddy Mike Bridavsky of Russian Recording in Bloomington, IN, who previously shared the stage with my band in the excellent noise-rock ensemble Push-Pull. When he showed up in Milwaukee with this new outfit, the only thing i knew was that they most definitely are not noise-rock. But what i wasn't expecting was a hard driving, alt-country flavored rock band that could be best described as a psych-tinged Allman Brothers. But that glosses over everything that makes Holiday Band the record that i kept going back to for repeated listen after repeated listen in 2011.
The closing track, "Protection Clause," is a case study in what makes the entire record such a poignant listen. Cascading, interweaving guitar lines bob in and out and around each other while the vocals wistfully explain some vague truth about life and friendship that any listener can project into the lyrics.
so let's be honest come and see me
a lesson i've learned is "don't wait"
if afterwards it seems it just wasn't meant to be
at least we weren't stuck standing in the rain
Gorgeous vocals, gorgeous guitar work, propulsive, solid drumming, hummable melodies...slam dunk, y'all. There isn't a single record i went back to more this year to end a night, score a road trip, or just zone out, and i've been recommending it to everyone within earshot since i first picked up the record in May. So here's one more--give this stuff a spin. If it's not your bag, well, at least i tried and at least so did you.
Honorable Mentions: Records from 2010 That Would Have Been on 2010's List Had I been Paying the Fuck Attention
2. My Disco - Little Joy
It took me months to get myself a copy of Little Joy after learning late last year that it had been released; had i been a little more aggressive in finding it, it would have made the list last year as an easy top 5. My Disco's uber-minimalist tranced-out dance beats and grooves constitute some of the most exciting music i've heard in recent years. One chord--sometimes one note--or one beat repeated for six to nine minutes. Tension and...tension. I imagine the remixes for this record sound great if you're on drugs. None of this sounds like what you'd expect one to say about a band that took their name from a Big Black song, but there it is. My Disco is about picking a vibe and running with it until the audience is hypnotized to purchase their record when they use a secret trigger word, which frankly is way more effective than backward masking.
1. Pregnant - Pregnant LP
These guys reside in Brooklyn, but if they're stereotypical trust fund Williamsburg hipsters, it doesn't show in their music, which is lean, bullshit-free post-punk, a fevered amalgam of Mission of Burma and Radio Birdman that gets its point across in songs averaging two minutes or less in length. The single "Wanna See My Gun?" is a comparative marathon at 4:15; no other song even comes close. And there's a totally refreshing don't-give-a-fuck vibe to the entire proceeding; they pressed 300 copies of an album that looks like the cover art was printed at Kinko's because they wanted to press a cool-looking record with the most minimal overhead, and then, just to get people to listen to the music, they put the whole record up on Bandcamp for FREE. Ridiculous. No frills punk rock that's as gripping as it is high energy. I hope i get to see them live someday.
Get Off My Lawn: Why the Hell Do People Love These Crap-Ass 2011 Releases
2. Washed Out - Within and Without
It was bad enough when Vampire Weekend turned Paul Simon's Graceland into an "influential indie touchstone;" now we have part of the stupidly labeled "chillwave" movement trying to do the same to even more limp-dicked 80s groovers like Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face" or the entire Berlin catalog. I dunno if the dude behind Washed Out is old enough to remember how uncool that nonsense was in the 80s, but i'm really afraid he legitimately thinks there's something to be said for writing boring-ass background music that would fit perfectly behind Tom Cruise giving it to Kelly McGillis in Top Gun. The perfume ad cover art certainly suggests that he's more into contrived love scenes than shooting down fricking MIG fighter planes. People, "chillwave" isn't a genre; it's a bunch of dudes in bedrooms that think Bloodsport needed more love scenes and less underground MMA.
1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
If Bon Eye-ver were from any other part of the country, i'd likely relegate his forgettable lilting falsetto to the Fleet Foxes/Mumford & Sons "meh" column--lame, but nothing to get worked up about. But no, Mr. Eye-Ver hails from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and when someone or something from Wisconsin happens to get a little bit of national love, the entire Wisconsin media goes apeshit. "Look, everyone! We can become famous too! We're not provincial small-town nobodies after all!" Really, i suppose my beef isn't so much with Mr. Eye-Ver (to whom i give massive props for his comments "pooh-poohing" the Grammys--although The Avalanches have a good point about dude's whiskey endorsement) as it is with the breathless mystique that's risen around him thanks to his PR and his cabin in the woods story and all that nonsense. Dear Wisconsin media: stop it. And by the way, Milwaukee media? Stop pretending he's Milwaukee's property. Just because we're the largest city in the state doesn't give us an immediate claim on the entire state's cultural output. God forbid Zola Jesus blows up and we end up in a pissing match with Madison over one of their own.
Oh, and speaking of dudes making music for Top Gun fanfic sequels...
As i pointed out last week, i'm not doing this for a living (obviously), so i don't have the benefit of having myriad labels and PR companies throwing promo discs at me. On the other hand, i feel like it means that i came to this list organically (in fact, of the 15 acts in the list, 12 are ones i've seen live). These are records i went out of my way to hear and in some cases, had to really dig for. If you find one new band that trips your trigger in this post, i will have done my job; feel free to let me know what i missed in the comments. So, without further ado...
DJ "DrAwkward" Hostettler's 15 Favorite Releases of 2011 (Compiled Without the Benefit/Shackles of PR Deluging)
15. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
Here's what's weird about Belong:
Most people familiar with my musical musings know that i abhor Smashing Pumpkins. I think that they were an overrated cash-in by a careerist hack who saw the writing on the wall in the late 80s and donned the sheep's clothing of Alternative Nation at the right time (see also: Cuomo, Rivers). Great trend-spotter, shitty performer--but then, knowing how to market is a more valuable wealth-building skill than musical talent.
So it's funny to me that i practically listened to this disc--which sounds like a collection of songs crafted by an Earth-295 version of the Pumpkins that didn't totally suck--on repeat through much of the first half of 2011. The wispy vocals, the alternately fuzzed and shimmering guitars...it's Siamese Dream without all the overwrought croaking and orchestral chimes and songs ostensibly about abortion or whatever. (So...it's Gish? Um...maybe this thesis applies more to the title track than the rest of the record...)
Of course, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart stand on their own as a killer Britpop/shoegaze hybrid and have managed to more than compensate for their awful band name. "The Heart in Your Heartbreak" contains some of the most infectious wordplay of 2011 and inspired some serious head-bobbing in the car. That toffee-thick keyboard line at the end of the song sends it over the edge into potential Best Single of 2011 territory. Wait, was it even released as a single? I don't even know. Music journalism!
14. Absolutely - Learns to Love Mistakes
Milwaukee's Absolutely produced a truly captivating, powerfully driving throwback to the days of moody, ponderous noise-rock like Unwound and some of the forgotten gems of mid-90s Dischord Records post-hardcore like Hoover and The Crownhate Ruin. Learns to Love Mistakes mines territory that has otherwise been relegated to the dollar bin of indie-rock history while adding a fresh Beer City perspective, tying crunchy, intricate guitar harmonies and seemingly off-mic, shouty vocalizing together into extended compositions that flow despite their complexity.
Ironically, a highlight for me is the second half of "Denim on Denim," which breaks down and briefly strips away all the killer riffage and showcases what holds the whole convoluted mess together--the loose-but-locked-in rhythm section of drummer Charlie Hosale and bassist Andy Mcguire. It's hard to call them a "secret weapon" when they constitute two-thirds of the band (and especially when all their on-stage lighting emanates from inside Hosale's kick drum), so let's just call them what they are: a rhythm section that shuffles with a Verbal Kint hitch but packs the mental sledgehammering of Keyser Söze. You'll gasp and gape at how obviously it all falls together, and how you didn't see it coming.
13. Wild Flag - S/T
Yeah, i know--it's not Sleater-Kinney. But you have your Sleater-Kinney records to listen to whenever you want. Meanwhile, here's a quartet of pals who got together to have fun because, dammit, they felt like it. And it sure is fun. And catchy. And dance-around-the-living-room-waving-arms-over-head bouncy. And, well, hell, Carrie's playing guitar and Janet's drumming, so it can't help but be a little S-K-ish. Which is, of course, a great thing. Welcome back, girls!
12. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light
I was surprised to like this album as much as i did, considering it's such a mellow downscaling from previous TVotR releases, but Nine Types of Light defies comparisons to Dear Science and others by virtue of its uniqueness in their catalog. "Killer Crane" is a hypnotic distillation of everything that makes TVotR compelling artists: a seamless mix of the folksy and ultra-modern (throwing banjo and cello into the synthetic mix), tied together by Tunde Adebimpe's powerful yet vulnerable, humanizing vocals. But while "Killer Crane" is a subdued, meditative ballad on an album with lots of mid-tempo chilling, there are still plenty of rockin,' hard-dancing hip-churners on here (not the least of which is the groovy "No Future Shock" and "Repetition").
I finally got to see TVotR live this year and was absolutely floored by how full their music sounds live. I expected a lot more loops and sequences, yet the band seemed to be handling pretty much everything live, giving every song a perfectly organic, acoustic/electric groove that pulled the entire Pabst Theater audience along like fish on a hook. The song selection that built to the set's explosive climax had the audience bubbling and frothing until "Wolf Like Me" (if i remember correctly) triggered an explosive boil. It's been a long time, if ever, since i've seen a crowd that locked in with the band. No comparisons to a celebrant church congregation could do it justice.
11. Northless - Clandestine Abuse
"Dick-flatteningly heavy" was the phrase a European friend of mine used to describe Clandestine Abuse, by far the best Milwaukee record i heard this year, when i pointed him to it back in March. It opens up with unrelenting force and volume as Eric Stenglein bellows over the proceedings like a bear that was awoken a month into Winter.
And yet, as the album progresses, harmonies and downright pretty songwriting flourishes emerge like a zombied butterfly fighting its way out of amber. The sequencing of Clandestine Abuse is inspired genius--open with pummeling assaults on the eardrums and temples so that by the time Eric actually sings on the unnervingly beautiful "The Storm," the full in-album evolution from thundering doom metal to earnest, heart-wrenching doom-metal is complete. Look, this record is so good that Kuma's Corner in Chicago made the "Northless" its specialty burger of the month in March. If that's not a ringing endorsement for a metal band, then none exist.
10. Future of the Left - Polymers are Forever (EP)
Speaking of evolution -- Future of the Left's lineup reshuffling (replacing bassist Kelson Mathias with Julia Ruzicka from Million Dead and adding Jimmy Watkins on guitar) opened doors for Andy Falkous to play around and experiment with what was an already-winning formula that resulted in one of 2009's best records, their sophomore Travels With Myself and Another. The piss, bile, and snarkily smart-assed lyricism that was present in that other band that existed before this one carried over, but with a, well, evolved sense of post-punk songwriting and riffcraft. Now, with an extra guitar in the mix, Falco has free reign to fuck around with synths as much as he wants, and the results speak for themselves in the opening title track of this EP (included on this list of albums because it towers that far over so many other releases this year). "Polymers are Forever" starts with disjointed synth stabs and the barest minimum of drumming, only to cohere into the most infectious earworm of 2011's second half as Falco repeats "pullin' me down, then i'm dead, then i'm gone" until you're still not tired of it.
The rest of the EP, of course, sounds nothing like the title track, veering from kamikaze punk blasts to nigh-comedic polka to the galloping grunge of the closing "Destroywitchurch.com." It all forecasts a 2012 full-length that is guaranteed to make my top 10 list next year as well. But with Future of the Left cementing their foothold as one of my favorite currently-active bands with the challenging, diverse and searingly brilliant Polymers are Forever, they could likely reimagine the soundtrack to Meet the Feebles and i'd hail it as some sort of rationalized genius.
9. Parts & Labor - Constant Future
Parts & Labor were a band that a friend of mine had gotten after me to listen to for about a year or two before a new record provided an excuse to finally get on that shit. What i discovered was Constant Future, a dazzling achievement in crafting savory pop morsels out of bloopy-bleepy noiseboxes and absolutely blistering drumming (Milwaukee native Joe Wong, you are a beast).
The secret genius of these songs is that while there's so much going on in them, the musical composition behind the synths and samples is actually fairly basic--if this were a guitar rock album, it'd be handed as many Who comparisons as Call Me Lightning's record from last year. It's non-stop triumphant, soaring arena rock anthems that just so happen to be communicated with keys and buttons instead of strings. And yet, as with TV on the Radio, it all sounds perfectly organic and not at all sterile. They also put on a hell of a live show, as evidenced by their room-packing appearance at Cactus Club on a Monday night(!) early this year (did i mention Joe Wong is a beast?). Thanks for ensuring i check these guys out, Chicago pal who doesn't like her name put on the internet!
8. The Blind Shake - Seriousness
Truth be told, The Blind Shake are a much more ferocious band than what they let on in recorded form. On record, they are a more than capable surf-tinged garage band writing bite-sized blasts of reverb-soaked frenzy, but live, they're an explosion of psyched-out, double-picked noise-punk that overwhelms you in high kicks, jumps, stomps, and walls of feedback before unplugging everything 23 minutes later, leaving you to ask yourself what the hell just happened. It's criminal that one of the most searing live bands on the planet is also one of the most obscure, but so it goes in this day and age.
Still, Seriousness stands on its own with Ventures-informed nitro-burning guitar play and high-pitched vocals that leave the listener checking to see if their iPod's set to 78 RPM before realizing that, duh, they stopped making 78s long ago. "I'm Not an Animal" plows along in the most base primal punk tradition while "Hurracan" forcibly breathes new life into twelve bar blues. It's a great record, but i'd be lying if i didn't cop to ranking this a little high by projecting memories of the live show onto the wax.
7. Obits - Moody, Standard & Poor
Has any recent punk musician settled into the role of cool, laid-back elder statesman more effectively than the formerly throat-shredding voice of Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes, Rick Froberg? Obits expertly blends the urgency of those earlier, thrillingly essential outfits with the casual, effortless vibe of Creedence Clearwater Revival, of all frickin' people, and it works so well. Moody, Standard & Poor doesn't do a lot to expand from the formula that made their debut, I Blame You, a winner, but they don't have to because it still sounds completely fresh and revelatory. Anyone who thinks Obits comes off as "lazy" or "half-assed" is coming at this from the wrong angle; just because these cats aren't flooring it to the payoff a la Jehu or Hot Snakes doesn't mean there isn't fire under their asses. Instead of going nova and flaming as hot as possible, there's a slow burn underneath every Obits song that carries over to the next, slowly building to a crescendo that could be years in the making, but the journey is oh so captivating. The shuffle of "I Want Results" and the swagger of "You Gotta Lose" and "Killer" add to a growing arsenal of reserved, confident ass-kickings that won't lose steam after a mere three records, and i can't wait to hear how this band sounds five albums deep.
6. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Oh, to inhabit the brain of Annie Clark for a day, just to poke around and reverse engineer a reasonable facsimile of her songwriting process. The weird, alien angles she lets herself be photographed in only hint at the otherworldliness of her Baroquely Europan craft.
Full disclosure: Actor never really clicked with me, and i'm still not sure why. I suspect that, with so many bands i love, it comes back to having my ass handed to me in the live setting at the Pabst Theater, then finally getting my hands on Strange Mercy and immediately understanding what's going on in every little fold and crease between processed guitar and cosmic arrangement. The rhythmic intricacies of this record somehow teeter between completely illogical and completely captivating; while St. Vincent's music is nowhere near the thrash-punk metaphor of a runaway locomotive, the off-kilter vocals and guitar runs still leave the audience wondering when everything's gonna come spilling off the tracks--which, of course, it never does.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, live covers of Big Black's "Kerosene" and the Pop Group's "She is Beyond Good and Evil" have assured Clark of a degree of unimpeachable cool, but it's obviously the original material that seals the deal. To be a dazzlingly off-kilter guitar wizard, write trippy dreamscapes like "Neutered Fruit," and have killer taste in cover songs? Forgetaboutit. I'm sold for life.
5. Crooked Fingers - Breaks in the Armor
And there i thought that Crooked Fingers had run out of steam. So did Eric Bachmann, apparently, having taken off to Taiwan with little intention of recording solo material ever again. And yet, what should emerge from his stay on that island but the best Crooked Fingers release since the 2000 debut, Breaks in the Armor. The opening twofer of "Typhoon" into "Bad Blood" is classic Bachmann--a moody harbinger of what's to come followed by a full-scale landslide of earthy, bourbon-soaked romance built from weathered guitars and department store keyboards. This release has the added bonus of guest vocals from Athens singer-songwriter Liz Durrett, adding lovely background harmonies behind Bachmann's endearing half-croak, half-croon.
In this day and age of folksy beardos getting so much indie-music love, it's patently absurd that Crooked Fingers isn't huge, but screw it--if it means that the band's destined to forever pack rooms the size of the Cactus Club, it's the world's loss and my gain. As Juniper Tar's Ryan Schleicher said to me at their brilliant Cactus performance last month, "it's a crime that he's not bigger than this, but selfishly i don't want him to be." Ooh, you mean we get to stand mere feet from the man as he hunches over and spills himself into his microphone, and we never have to deal with a six-foot-high stage or barriers and security douchbags? Fine, mainstream--you can have those other guys. We're good to go.
4. The Poison Control Center - Stranger Ballet
One major regret i have from this year is the unfortunate timing of a trip i took to Oakland in July with the girlfriend. I was tagging along on a work trip, so there was no rescheduling, and it was a great time, but it also meant that i missed The Poison Control Center at (of all places) Bad Genie. Everything i've heard and read about their live show suggests that it'd rank up there with the heavyweights--The Blind Shake, Melt-Banana, the pAper chAse, etc. Alas, while 20 people at Bad Genie witnessed pure pop Armageddon (while friends of mine in the audience gleely texted me details of what i was missing), i must be content with being hopelessly addicted to Stranger Ballet, a pure, perfectly cut power-pop diamond in the Iowan rough.
God damn, this record. Who else could make "your day's just shit and piss" sound like the cheeriest affirmation of life's inherent awesomeness? And yet, that's the first sentiment expressed in the opening "Torpedoes on Tuesday," an immediately infectious morsel that uses a simple, delicate keyboard line to rope the audience in for what explodes into grandiose summertime rave-ups and singalongs. From then on, it's non-stop humming and head-bobbing and hopping and flailing and dancing on the hardwood in your jammies. There are goofy random noisy bits for the post-punkers, balls-out guitar hero madness for the rockers, laid-back fuzz for the Pavement-loving slacker indie rockers, and sugar, syrup and hooks for EVERYONE. My GOD, how is this band not on every magazine cover in the country? That "Seagull" and "Reoccurring Kind" are not burning up radio charts and sparking a revival in Big Star's album sales with their joyous Gospel-level rapture is a structural and institutional failure of America's popular culture. FIX IT, PEOPLE.
3. Helms Alee - Weatherhead
My love affair with Helms Alee began with a sweaty, drunk festival show in the basement of Seattle's Cha Cha Lounge, where my inebriated jaw was unable to do anything but hang agape while Ben Verellen, Dana James, and Hozoji Matheson-margullis did their thing. Their thing, incidentally, is a confounding and thrilling hodgepodge of mathy, melodic, and brain-squelchingly heavy doom metal that somehow occupies whatever territory lies between the Melvins and Unwound. While their debut, Night Terror, was a glorious jumble of rolling drums, moody, forceful guitar and bass, and alternating female harmonies and male screams, it all sounds downright straight-laced compared to their brilliant follow-up, Weatherhead. "8/16" is a five-minute tour de force of stylistic shifts and 90-degree inertia-defying twists and turns, showcasing everything that makes Helms Alee one of the most captivating heavy bands going.
Of all the entries on my list, this is one whose omission from most every best-of list i've seen absolutely confounds me. This is a band that knows exactly what its strengths are and plays to them while taking massive risks (in the case of this record, long, ponderous interludes and sleepy meditations) that pay off nearly every time. I haven't heard a heavy record this adventurous in some time--maybe because i don't often seek out a lot of stuff on the heavier end of the spectrum. Is that it? Am i sitting over here having my mind blown by something that seasoned metalheads consider routine? It's hard to fathom, because intelligently, thoughtfully crafted compositions that also bash your head in seem pretty hard to come by unless they're bogged down in annoying virtuoso wankery or pretentious prog rock. Helms Alee avoid pretense by virtue of being goofballs that just happen to be intensely talented and driven to kick asses nationwide.
2. Police Teeth - Awesomer Than the Devil
Full disclosure: these dudes are my labelmates and brothers, and every time i get to hang out with them is special times. That being said, part of why i love them so much as people is because they consistently put out incredible, buzzy indie-rock that gets me and that i've loved before meeting them all in person (excepting their guitarist James, but that's a long story involving broken teeth and Everclear and it'll just get us off subject). As they astutely described themselves on their old MySpace page, their sound can be summed up this way: "if you're over 25, Superchunk meets the Wipers. If you're under 25. Hot Snakes meet the Thermals." Of course, they wrote that five years ago, so maybe we should bump that age to 30. (Aging, amirite?)
Awesomer Than the Devil continues many of the aging, jaded rocker themes that spun 2009's Real Size Monster Series into a concept album about the foolhardiness of devoting part of one's life to playing in a touring rock band (something admittedly not everyone can relate to); "Rock & Roll is a Pyramid Scheme (Parts 1 & 2)," in fact, advises we musical hobbyists to not "take this shit so seriously." They're dudes in the same spot as me--in it for life, but in a realistically compartmentalized manner. No, they'll never be famous, for whatever reason--they can't/won't tour extensively (does that even help anymore?), they can't afford PR, no one smells a hit single (which is just nuts), but when they're doing their thing, they do it with more heart and passion than most of the bands who get it handed to them on the proverbial silver platter. A dollar is worth more to a poor person than to a rich one, and putting out a killer record or playing a rippin' show matters more to guys like Police Teeth than to, say, the Strokes, a band with rich parents who i'm sure had nothing to do with them getting a record deal. Just saying.
1. Memory Map - Holiday Band
More full disclosure! Memory Map contains band buddy Mike Bridavsky of Russian Recording in Bloomington, IN, who previously shared the stage with my band in the excellent noise-rock ensemble Push-Pull. When he showed up in Milwaukee with this new outfit, the only thing i knew was that they most definitely are not noise-rock. But what i wasn't expecting was a hard driving, alt-country flavored rock band that could be best described as a psych-tinged Allman Brothers. But that glosses over everything that makes Holiday Band the record that i kept going back to for repeated listen after repeated listen in 2011.
The closing track, "Protection Clause," is a case study in what makes the entire record such a poignant listen. Cascading, interweaving guitar lines bob in and out and around each other while the vocals wistfully explain some vague truth about life and friendship that any listener can project into the lyrics.
so let's be honest come and see me
a lesson i've learned is "don't wait"
if afterwards it seems it just wasn't meant to be
at least we weren't stuck standing in the rain
Gorgeous vocals, gorgeous guitar work, propulsive, solid drumming, hummable melodies...slam dunk, y'all. There isn't a single record i went back to more this year to end a night, score a road trip, or just zone out, and i've been recommending it to everyone within earshot since i first picked up the record in May. So here's one more--give this stuff a spin. If it's not your bag, well, at least i tried and at least so did you.
Honorable Mentions: Records from 2010 That Would Have Been on 2010's List Had I been Paying the Fuck Attention
2. My Disco - Little Joy
It took me months to get myself a copy of Little Joy after learning late last year that it had been released; had i been a little more aggressive in finding it, it would have made the list last year as an easy top 5. My Disco's uber-minimalist tranced-out dance beats and grooves constitute some of the most exciting music i've heard in recent years. One chord--sometimes one note--or one beat repeated for six to nine minutes. Tension and...tension. I imagine the remixes for this record sound great if you're on drugs. None of this sounds like what you'd expect one to say about a band that took their name from a Big Black song, but there it is. My Disco is about picking a vibe and running with it until the audience is hypnotized to purchase their record when they use a secret trigger word, which frankly is way more effective than backward masking.
1. Pregnant - Pregnant LP
These guys reside in Brooklyn, but if they're stereotypical trust fund Williamsburg hipsters, it doesn't show in their music, which is lean, bullshit-free post-punk, a fevered amalgam of Mission of Burma and Radio Birdman that gets its point across in songs averaging two minutes or less in length. The single "Wanna See My Gun?" is a comparative marathon at 4:15; no other song even comes close. And there's a totally refreshing don't-give-a-fuck vibe to the entire proceeding; they pressed 300 copies of an album that looks like the cover art was printed at Kinko's because they wanted to press a cool-looking record with the most minimal overhead, and then, just to get people to listen to the music, they put the whole record up on Bandcamp for FREE. Ridiculous. No frills punk rock that's as gripping as it is high energy. I hope i get to see them live someday.
Get Off My Lawn: Why the Hell Do People Love These Crap-Ass 2011 Releases
2. Washed Out - Within and Without
It was bad enough when Vampire Weekend turned Paul Simon's Graceland into an "influential indie touchstone;" now we have part of the stupidly labeled "chillwave" movement trying to do the same to even more limp-dicked 80s groovers like Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face" or the entire Berlin catalog. I dunno if the dude behind Washed Out is old enough to remember how uncool that nonsense was in the 80s, but i'm really afraid he legitimately thinks there's something to be said for writing boring-ass background music that would fit perfectly behind Tom Cruise giving it to Kelly McGillis in Top Gun. The perfume ad cover art certainly suggests that he's more into contrived love scenes than shooting down fricking MIG fighter planes. People, "chillwave" isn't a genre; it's a bunch of dudes in bedrooms that think Bloodsport needed more love scenes and less underground MMA.
1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
If Bon Eye-ver were from any other part of the country, i'd likely relegate his forgettable lilting falsetto to the Fleet Foxes/Mumford & Sons "meh" column--lame, but nothing to get worked up about. But no, Mr. Eye-Ver hails from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and when someone or something from Wisconsin happens to get a little bit of national love, the entire Wisconsin media goes apeshit. "Look, everyone! We can become famous too! We're not provincial small-town nobodies after all!" Really, i suppose my beef isn't so much with Mr. Eye-Ver (to whom i give massive props for his comments "pooh-poohing" the Grammys--although The Avalanches have a good point about dude's whiskey endorsement) as it is with the breathless mystique that's risen around him thanks to his PR and his cabin in the woods story and all that nonsense. Dear Wisconsin media: stop it. And by the way, Milwaukee media? Stop pretending he's Milwaukee's property. Just because we're the largest city in the state doesn't give us an immediate claim on the entire state's cultural output. God forbid Zola Jesus blows up and we end up in a pissing match with Madison over one of their own.
Oh, and speaking of dudes making music for Top Gun fanfic sequels...
Friday, December 2, 2011
Rock and Roll is a Pyramid Scheme
I've been mentally adjusting my personal "best records of 2011" list in anticipation of writing it out for both this blog and for my acquaintance Matt's annual Top 10 Party and Blog, and it's led me to think a whole lot about something that's been brought up among a couple of us in the Latest Flame camp: the shifting role of money and social class in popular music. I mean, let's not play naive or stupid or anything; obviously, money's had a lot more to do with who becomes popular than music itself does for as long as we've had a record "industry." That's not news. But with the advent of the internet, MySpace, filesharing, Bandcamp, etc., a lot of writers all but declared a new era of independent freedom and visibility for even the most basement-ridden of obscure basement bands. Now artists can charge what they want to for recordings without need of a Big Record Label, and anyone can be discovered on their MySpace page, conveniently ignoring that the only artists who can make money off pay-what-you-want downloads are those who previously built an audience thanks to major-label ad dollars, and not realizing that thanks to the now deafening din of billions of media players on millions of Bandcamp pages, those dollars still have to get spent on PR and advertising in order to get them heard by the folks peddling the most influence.
It's not necessarily as nefarious as all that, of course--i'm sure the fine folks at Pitchfork and Spin and what have you are genuine music lovers. But when you have hundreds of PR firms flooding your desk with thousands of promo CDs that you'll never get through, how much time do you have to actively search for new music on your own? I'm asking--i don't really know. I'd assume some effort has to be put in; i know for me the temptation to get lazy and just focus on what's on my desk would be overwhelming, and thus, i'd likely miss out on a lot of the records that i'll be listing in my year-end selection.
I don't do this for a living, so when i rank my favorite albums of the year every December, it's just that--my favorites among what i've heard that particular year. This year, i probably managed to hear somewhere around 30 new releases, which is really good for me. But it also means i definitely missed some records that i'm sure i'd have loved. So it goes--there's only so much time in the day, even when you've been unemployed since May (actually, that could account for why my number is so high this year). I find new music from friend recommendations, a few places i trust online (which aren't many), and most of all, from going to and playing as many shows as i can. I'm in the shit, y'all.
On the flip side, i'm bracing myself for a bunch of "best of the year" lists at the usual Big Music Mags that will look awfully similar to each other. Paste already crowned Bon Iver by Bon Iver their #1 of the year, because of course they did. (Spoiler alert: that record will not be on my list.) Absolutely put out a record this year easily as good as anything on Paste's list, but they're a local Milwaukee band with no one championing them but themselves, Steven Hyden (who mentioned them in an AV Club piece earlier this year only to be met with snide "i've never heard of them, so Hyden must be trying to earn hipster points" comments) and me, i guess, so what are the odds that someone from, say, Pitchfork or Spin saw Hyden's post, saw a name they were unfamiliar with, and gave it a shot? Is that their fault? Not necessarily, because "Absolutely," while being sort of a ridiculous name for a band in the first place, is just one in a wild blur of band names they see every single day. Law of averages. That's just the way of the music world.
So when i run my list, i will be sure to list it as my "favorite" records of the year, not the "best of" the year, because that's a silly thing to say when i haven't heard every note that was recorded in 2011. And when the Big Boys run their "best of" lists, we should probably remember that it's just their favorites as well, because while they listened to a lot of stuff, they missed a lot as well, and for the opposite reason.
* * *
Speaking of the authors of the song from which the title of this post came from, Radio K in Minneapolis had our boys Police Teeth and Waxeater on to perform live last June when the bands toured (and came through Milwaukee, which many of you missed. Shame upon your families). Three songs from each performance are now up on their site (and may have been for a while, i dunno--i just found them today thanks to Rob from Waxeater), and you can hear them for yourself by clicking here for Police Teeth, and here for Waxeater. Bands we like.
It's not necessarily as nefarious as all that, of course--i'm sure the fine folks at Pitchfork and Spin and what have you are genuine music lovers. But when you have hundreds of PR firms flooding your desk with thousands of promo CDs that you'll never get through, how much time do you have to actively search for new music on your own? I'm asking--i don't really know. I'd assume some effort has to be put in; i know for me the temptation to get lazy and just focus on what's on my desk would be overwhelming, and thus, i'd likely miss out on a lot of the records that i'll be listing in my year-end selection.
I don't do this for a living, so when i rank my favorite albums of the year every December, it's just that--my favorites among what i've heard that particular year. This year, i probably managed to hear somewhere around 30 new releases, which is really good for me. But it also means i definitely missed some records that i'm sure i'd have loved. So it goes--there's only so much time in the day, even when you've been unemployed since May (actually, that could account for why my number is so high this year). I find new music from friend recommendations, a few places i trust online (which aren't many), and most of all, from going to and playing as many shows as i can. I'm in the shit, y'all.
On the flip side, i'm bracing myself for a bunch of "best of the year" lists at the usual Big Music Mags that will look awfully similar to each other. Paste already crowned Bon Iver by Bon Iver their #1 of the year, because of course they did. (Spoiler alert: that record will not be on my list.) Absolutely put out a record this year easily as good as anything on Paste's list, but they're a local Milwaukee band with no one championing them but themselves, Steven Hyden (who mentioned them in an AV Club piece earlier this year only to be met with snide "i've never heard of them, so Hyden must be trying to earn hipster points" comments) and me, i guess, so what are the odds that someone from, say, Pitchfork or Spin saw Hyden's post, saw a name they were unfamiliar with, and gave it a shot? Is that their fault? Not necessarily, because "Absolutely," while being sort of a ridiculous name for a band in the first place, is just one in a wild blur of band names they see every single day. Law of averages. That's just the way of the music world.
So when i run my list, i will be sure to list it as my "favorite" records of the year, not the "best of" the year, because that's a silly thing to say when i haven't heard every note that was recorded in 2011. And when the Big Boys run their "best of" lists, we should probably remember that it's just their favorites as well, because while they listened to a lot of stuff, they missed a lot as well, and for the opposite reason.
* * *
Speaking of the authors of the song from which the title of this post came from, Radio K in Minneapolis had our boys Police Teeth and Waxeater on to perform live last June when the bands toured (and came through Milwaukee, which many of you missed. Shame upon your families). Three songs from each performance are now up on their site (and may have been for a while, i dunno--i just found them today thanks to Rob from Waxeater), and you can hear them for yourself by clicking here for Police Teeth, and here for Waxeater. Bands we like.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
"The Black Flag touring model is long, long dead"
Tuesday night i unpacked my CDs and began to arrange them in the apartment i now share with Liz (as opposed to my original idea of stashing them in the basement since most of them are on my computer anyway). I'm glad i didn't hide them away, because the process of going through my CDs always stirs years of half-remembered memories of bands that otherwise would be long forgotten. There's a disc on the top row called Juvenile Anthems by a band called Anger; i remember them as a run-of-the-mill punk band that i found entertaining at the time but i might not be as into today, 14 years later. Thanks to their show at the Concert Cafe in Green Bay, i've got the Black Halos' The Violent Years, which i'm positive i only listened to once. Digging around in my car i located a CD i picked up at the Borg Ward by a rad weirdo-punk band called Beings; did they open for Torche? I can't remember, but i remember liking them and hating that my aging disc drive refused to rip the songs onto my Mac Mini. Red Planet's Let's Degenerate? Another more power-pop reminder of my Concert Cafe years.
It's a good thing i have these CDs; otherwise, there's a very good chance that i'd have forgotten about every last one of these bands, good and bad. It reminded me of something i wrote on our tour blog, something that i thought about a lot during our road trip:
I count twenty-one CD copies of our new EP remaining out of 50 we started tour with. That's twenty-nine copies out there along the East Coast. Assuming they don't get dumped at a CDMax in a few months, that's hopefully twenty-nine people who will, at the very least, have that same "oh YEAH!" moment i just had while eying my Anger CD for the first time in years. As i said elsewhere in that paragraph, this tour was a pretty inefficient way to encourage memorization of our band name, but for us, the biggest reason to play shows is to visit our friends and play music for them.
Unfortunately, that's not the most fair attitude to have when we have an awesome dude at Latest Flame Records mortgaging his future to promote bands he loves. If we want to move product (if we don't, it sort of makes us assholes, really), conventional wisdom would normally dictate that we have to tour more often than the middling two weeks per year we generally embark on. However, it's 2011, and certain truths have taken hold in our post-Napster age: people are buying less and less physical music, and the number of touring bands competing for that ever-shrinking fan dollar is higher than ever. Also dwindling rapidly is the number of people who value music, period, as evidenced by the basement show we played in Bloomington, Indiana that earned us a cool $13 in donations from about three of the twenty-some kids in attendance. "Hey, man, cool show! Your band is really good!" "Hey, thanks! Did you donate anything for the show at all?" "Aw, dude, i have like no money. *drinks BYO beer #5* So when ya coming back to Bloomington?"
It's obvious that young people don't put a price on music the same way that those of us who grew up with vinyl, cassettes and CDs did, and hell, many of them don't seem to value live performance over the beer they're drinking that night (though i doubt that's a recent development). Yes, money isn't the main reason that anyone should play in a band, but without it, producing recorded music--even the digital kind--becomes less and less appealing of an idea. Look, we can all talk until we're blue in the face about how we make music for ourselves, and how none of us are looking to do this for a living, and that may even be true, but let's be honest--validation is pretty damn sweet too.
So, assuming that there are still people who care about physical music products, and people who still care about seeing new or more underground live bands, what's the best way to reach through the sea of apathetic bodies and connect with those more "active" (for lack of a less douchey, less marketing-sounding term) listeners? I have some thoughts on this, but would love to read some in the comments too:
1) Quality over Quantity. Being able to tour three months out of the year would be awesome, but it's also unrealistic for dudes in their 30s with day jobs, and a lot of those shows would be of the Bloomington basement show sort anyway. But there are ways to tour smarter instead of tour harder. Coordinating with the label to see where the record's getting played; more aggressive regional touring (we could probably stand to hit Minneapolis more than once every two years, honestly); and working those bigger shows wherever possible. That one Archers show was probably more effective than a week of touring as far as getting the name out and about.
2) Teamwork, online and in the meat world. Videos. Twitterz. Podcasts. Facesbooks. Blogs. ENTERTAINING CONTENT. Yeah, establishing a solid base of followers on the internet is a long commitment, but at least you can do it from your living room. During a conversation with James from Police Teeth, he said he was pretty sure PT has sold more records online than via shows. "The Black Flag touring model is long, long dead," he said, and i think he's right.
So how do we coordinate that stuff? Like i said, it's got to be entertaining, and then shared like crazy amongst like-minded folk. The Latest Flame bands have been walking around saying "less of a label, more of a street gang" ever since NAP JUSTICE; maybe we should start acting like an online street gang? Heck, i wear the shirts of other Latest Flame bands at nearly every show i attend these days, and i wore Waxeater's shirt on stage at the Archers show. I dunno how much love that gets the other guys, but there's a mentality involved that puts me in the frame of mind to hype my pals every chance i can get. I was wearing the Waxeater shirt when we arrived in Philly on tour, too; when some of the other bands showed up, they reacted. "Oh hey! Waxeater! All right!" Familiarity compounds on itself and breeds more familiarity.
Any other thoughts? I'd love to hear 'em.
It's a good thing i have these CDs; otherwise, there's a very good chance that i'd have forgotten about every last one of these bands, good and bad. It reminded me of something i wrote on our tour blog, something that i thought about a lot during our road trip:
As i stood around at the Caledonia Lounge on Tuesday night watching everyone drink, chat, and completely ignore our merch table (save the bartender and Chris Dragon's friend Sarah, who accounted for our first CDs sold in four days), i thought about the hundreds--thousands?--of touring bands i've seen over the years from the Concert Cafe in Green Bay to the Cactus Club in Milwaukee, and i'm sure that many of the ones i've forgotten were damn fine. Do any of the attendees at the Longbranch in Knoxville even remember the name "IfIHadAHiFi?" Or are they more likely to say "oh, man, that band...I Wish I Had A HiFi? They were great," their memories of the bands they saw on a random Monday night in August 2011 already fading into a jumbled mash of beer and feedback? As in love with our self-constructed image of the band too crazy to ignore as i am, i realistically get the feeling that by tomorrow it'll be "those bands with the crazy drummer" and "yeah, that night our pals played with some touring bands" by September, if not Friday.
I count twenty-one CD copies of our new EP remaining out of 50 we started tour with. That's twenty-nine copies out there along the East Coast. Assuming they don't get dumped at a CDMax in a few months, that's hopefully twenty-nine people who will, at the very least, have that same "oh YEAH!" moment i just had while eying my Anger CD for the first time in years. As i said elsewhere in that paragraph, this tour was a pretty inefficient way to encourage memorization of our band name, but for us, the biggest reason to play shows is to visit our friends and play music for them.
Unfortunately, that's not the most fair attitude to have when we have an awesome dude at Latest Flame Records mortgaging his future to promote bands he loves. If we want to move product (if we don't, it sort of makes us assholes, really), conventional wisdom would normally dictate that we have to tour more often than the middling two weeks per year we generally embark on. However, it's 2011, and certain truths have taken hold in our post-Napster age: people are buying less and less physical music, and the number of touring bands competing for that ever-shrinking fan dollar is higher than ever. Also dwindling rapidly is the number of people who value music, period, as evidenced by the basement show we played in Bloomington, Indiana that earned us a cool $13 in donations from about three of the twenty-some kids in attendance. "Hey, man, cool show! Your band is really good!" "Hey, thanks! Did you donate anything for the show at all?" "Aw, dude, i have like no money. *drinks BYO beer #5* So when ya coming back to Bloomington?"
It's obvious that young people don't put a price on music the same way that those of us who grew up with vinyl, cassettes and CDs did, and hell, many of them don't seem to value live performance over the beer they're drinking that night (though i doubt that's a recent development). Yes, money isn't the main reason that anyone should play in a band, but without it, producing recorded music--even the digital kind--becomes less and less appealing of an idea. Look, we can all talk until we're blue in the face about how we make music for ourselves, and how none of us are looking to do this for a living, and that may even be true, but let's be honest--validation is pretty damn sweet too.
So, assuming that there are still people who care about physical music products, and people who still care about seeing new or more underground live bands, what's the best way to reach through the sea of apathetic bodies and connect with those more "active" (for lack of a less douchey, less marketing-sounding term) listeners? I have some thoughts on this, but would love to read some in the comments too:
1) Quality over Quantity. Being able to tour three months out of the year would be awesome, but it's also unrealistic for dudes in their 30s with day jobs, and a lot of those shows would be of the Bloomington basement show sort anyway. But there are ways to tour smarter instead of tour harder. Coordinating with the label to see where the record's getting played; more aggressive regional touring (we could probably stand to hit Minneapolis more than once every two years, honestly); and working those bigger shows wherever possible. That one Archers show was probably more effective than a week of touring as far as getting the name out and about.
2) Teamwork, online and in the meat world. Videos. Twitterz. Podcasts. Facesbooks. Blogs. ENTERTAINING CONTENT. Yeah, establishing a solid base of followers on the internet is a long commitment, but at least you can do it from your living room. During a conversation with James from Police Teeth, he said he was pretty sure PT has sold more records online than via shows. "The Black Flag touring model is long, long dead," he said, and i think he's right.
So how do we coordinate that stuff? Like i said, it's got to be entertaining, and then shared like crazy amongst like-minded folk. The Latest Flame bands have been walking around saying "less of a label, more of a street gang" ever since NAP JUSTICE; maybe we should start acting like an online street gang? Heck, i wear the shirts of other Latest Flame bands at nearly every show i attend these days, and i wore Waxeater's shirt on stage at the Archers show. I dunno how much love that gets the other guys, but there's a mentality involved that puts me in the frame of mind to hype my pals every chance i can get. I was wearing the Waxeater shirt when we arrived in Philly on tour, too; when some of the other bands showed up, they reacted. "Oh hey! Waxeater! All right!" Familiarity compounds on itself and breeds more familiarity.
Any other thoughts? I'd love to hear 'em.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Nap Justice! The Story of NAP JUSTICE
Once upon a time, my goals for playing music were fairly ambitious, and not in any way matched by the amount of work necessary to meet that goal: 1) get as many people as possible to hear my band; 2) get signed to large indie label (dream destination: Touch & Go); 3) maybe get to a point where i could make a living playing in my band. Real life and a desire to not live in abject squalor during the 4-5 months i wouldn't be on the road per year doing the necessary touring in order to achieve those goals soon forced a harsh, severe re-evaluation (not to mention the fact that our music is in no way marketable. At all). Today, when it comes to playing the rocks and rolls musics, i have modest goals: 1) write and record the best music possible; 2) get it heard by as many people as possible who would enjoy it; 3) make as many like-minded friends around the country as possible. That new #3 is a goal that i always had but didn't realize until, well, i had achieved it. Now, i understand that the most rewarding part of playing in an independent rock band is realizing that it's a fantastic excuse to meet and visit an incredible network of like-minded fools across the nation, if not the world.
Two bands that qualify as "unstoppably crucial pals" are also our labelmates on Latest Flame Records: Seattle, WA's Police Teeth and Kentuckiana's Waxeater. Along with our other LFR pals Trophy Wives, we've formed the unofficial nucleus of what we consider "less of a label and more of a street gang." That street gang's name, other than "Latest Flame Records," is NAP JUSTICE, and NAP JUSTICE laid down some amplified law on Saturday, while Police Teeth and Waxeater were in town.
After a wildly entertaining Friday night show at the Cactus Club (which included local noisemakers Absolutely, a band you should probably get on board with right now), we prepared for a basement show at the HiFi home base, the Church of Murray (a makeup for a scheduled Madison show with Zebras that was canceled due to Madison cops being lame, which is hard to say in the wake of their overall awesome behavior during the WiUnion protests), by spending the day consuming heroic levels of alcohol and meat, occasionally taking a break to walk down to the street fest on North Ave. to see Scarring Party and Call Me Lightning. By Liz's estimation, the party consumed:
which sounds about right. Later in the afternoon, a couple Waxeaters and Police Teethers crashed into mid-afternoon nap mode to recharge for the actual show, only to be eventually stirred from their slumber by the Church of Murray's across-the-street neighbors--an Axe* of dudebros who had decided to let a hippie jam cover band set up on their porch. As we tried to enjoy the outdoors, The 311 Matthews Traveler laid down the most "mellow" of jams, harshing ours with atrocious renditions of the usual hippie nonsense - Dave, Sublime, and countless blasphemous renditions of CCR tunes.
Slowly but surely, our patience wore thin. Each rendition of a watered-down lite rocker was punctuated with a "YOU SUCK!" or a "STOP PLAYING!" from one of us (usually Yale), or a "BONNAROO!" volleyed at a wasted hippie staggering away from the dudeporch. When Bronaked Ladies dared to sully "Folsom Prison Blues" with their inoffensively offensive hemp-rock, it was decided that a retaliatory strike was needed--nay, mandatory. (EDIT: Yale has sagely reminded me that it was actually a mashup of "Folsom Prison Blues" and the "Beer Barrel Polka." Information presented without comment.)
The Wizard fetched a practice amp and Police Teeth drummer Richy (derisively referred to by his bassist Chris as "the best guitarist in our band") plugged in just in time to join Hurl Jam on a run through "Mary Jane's Last Dance" by Tom Petty, easily outshredding the acoustic guitarist across the street. When the Petty waned, Richy launched immediately into the opening riff to "Paranoid," inspiring a full Church of Murray balcony singalong. NAP JUSTICE was on, and into their third tune, a gut-busting rip through the opening strains of Slayer's "Raining Blood." By this time there wasn't a dry eye or upright torso in the house, as everyone was doubled over in pain from abdominal-toning laughter.
Once Richy was done, PT guitarist James took over for some AC/DC and some other classic punk i can't remember. Waxeater's guitarist (and one of our most essential band pals) Rob Montage began to assist on snare drum as Richy dangled a grill lid for use as a cymbal/cowbell. Our friend George, who had made a trip away from the house, returned with the following report: "you can't hear anything but your guitar anywhere except directly in front of their house. It's pretty impressive."
Eventually, the band across the street cracked and responded with their take on Cee-Lo's "Fuck You," which James simply played along to. After that, they were done, and NAP JUSTICE had prevailed. Latest Flame Records: less of a label, more of a street gang.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE!
Chris and i lose our collective shit while Richy lays it down (not pictured: [B.]O.A.R.)
James and Rob take over
Grill Cymbal!
Moral: Do not mess with Latest Flame bands. Because we're fucking assholes.
After the NAP JUSTICE set, the proper basement show was on, which was totally fine, save that part where HiFi only played two songs because the Wizard stormed off the stage for some reason. Eh, whatever, at least we got that out of the way before tour.
*yes, an "Axe" is the proper collective noun for dudebros. Just ask Neil Hamburger.
Two bands that qualify as "unstoppably crucial pals" are also our labelmates on Latest Flame Records: Seattle, WA's Police Teeth and Kentuckiana's Waxeater. Along with our other LFR pals Trophy Wives, we've formed the unofficial nucleus of what we consider "less of a label and more of a street gang." That street gang's name, other than "Latest Flame Records," is NAP JUSTICE, and NAP JUSTICE laid down some amplified law on Saturday, while Police Teeth and Waxeater were in town.
After a wildly entertaining Friday night show at the Cactus Club (which included local noisemakers Absolutely, a band you should probably get on board with right now), we prepared for a basement show at the HiFi home base, the Church of Murray (a makeup for a scheduled Madison show with Zebras that was canceled due to Madison cops being lame, which is hard to say in the wake of their overall awesome behavior during the WiUnion protests), by spending the day consuming heroic levels of alcohol and meat, occasionally taking a break to walk down to the street fest on North Ave. to see Scarring Party and Call Me Lightning. By Liz's estimation, the party consumed:
1 bottle of Everclear (mixed into "doom punch")
2 bottles of cheap bourbon
2 30 packs of PBR
1 30 pack of High Life
Assorted other sixers of higher quality beer
Many, many meats
which sounds about right. Later in the afternoon, a couple Waxeaters and Police Teethers crashed into mid-afternoon nap mode to recharge for the actual show, only to be eventually stirred from their slumber by the Church of Murray's across-the-street neighbors--an Axe* of dudebros who had decided to let a hippie jam cover band set up on their porch. As we tried to enjoy the outdoors, The 311 Matthews Traveler laid down the most "mellow" of jams, harshing ours with atrocious renditions of the usual hippie nonsense - Dave, Sublime, and countless blasphemous renditions of CCR tunes.
Slowly but surely, our patience wore thin. Each rendition of a watered-down lite rocker was punctuated with a "YOU SUCK!" or a "STOP PLAYING!" from one of us (usually Yale), or a "BONNAROO!" volleyed at a wasted hippie staggering away from the dudeporch. When Bronaked Ladies dared to sully "Folsom Prison Blues" with their inoffensively offensive hemp-rock, it was decided that a retaliatory strike was needed--nay, mandatory. (EDIT: Yale has sagely reminded me that it was actually a mashup of "Folsom Prison Blues" and the "Beer Barrel Polka." Information presented without comment.)
The Wizard fetched a practice amp and Police Teeth drummer Richy (derisively referred to by his bassist Chris as "the best guitarist in our band") plugged in just in time to join Hurl Jam on a run through "Mary Jane's Last Dance" by Tom Petty, easily outshredding the acoustic guitarist across the street. When the Petty waned, Richy launched immediately into the opening riff to "Paranoid," inspiring a full Church of Murray balcony singalong. NAP JUSTICE was on, and into their third tune, a gut-busting rip through the opening strains of Slayer's "Raining Blood." By this time there wasn't a dry eye or upright torso in the house, as everyone was doubled over in pain from abdominal-toning laughter.
Once Richy was done, PT guitarist James took over for some AC/DC and some other classic punk i can't remember. Waxeater's guitarist (and one of our most essential band pals) Rob Montage began to assist on snare drum as Richy dangled a grill lid for use as a cymbal/cowbell. Our friend George, who had made a trip away from the house, returned with the following report: "you can't hear anything but your guitar anywhere except directly in front of their house. It's pretty impressive."
Eventually, the band across the street cracked and responded with their take on Cee-Lo's "Fuck You," which James simply played along to. After that, they were done, and NAP JUSTICE had prevailed. Latest Flame Records: less of a label, more of a street gang.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE!
Chris and i lose our collective shit while Richy lays it down (not pictured: [B.]O.A.R.)
James and Rob take over
Grill Cymbal!
Moral: Do not mess with Latest Flame bands. Because we're fucking assholes.
After the NAP JUSTICE set, the proper basement show was on, which was totally fine, save that part where HiFi only played two songs because the Wizard stormed off the stage for some reason. Eh, whatever, at least we got that out of the way before tour.
*yes, an "Axe" is the proper collective noun for dudebros. Just ask Neil Hamburger.
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