Happy Fucking Holidays - Here's Your Shit, Now Get Outta Here

It being the holidays and given that its a tradition at so-called MP3 blogs to give shit away that isn't ours, I thought I would be no different.

Here is a ringtone from New Times Viking's free promotional MP3 from their most excellent recent digital, uh, 7" - "Call & Respond" - the ringtone is renamed just "Call Respond"

Jack Rose - some downloads

Silver Currant blog has a 2009 Jack Rose live show for download

And there are some links to Jack's favorite Raga, upcoming release news and tributes sites on Ilx's I Love Music Board

"Which Of You Assholes Ate Christmas!"

DES ARK + PYGMY LUSH recorded in September 2009

http://desark.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/new-song-which-of-you-assholes-ate-christmas/

Blog about Jenny Mae and the late Jerry Wick (Gaunt)

Bela Koe-Krompecher started a blog about his life with Jerry Wick from Gaunt and Jenny Mae (There's a Bar Around the Corner Assholes). via http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=505

My Faves of '09

As if you all care... I mean I got delisted from Hype Machine in 2009 and posted maybe 20 times total but hey I'm still here and you know gosh-darn-it I still care.

Fave albums - these are selected as stuff I like to listen all the way through, in order and not get tired and then do it again... the songs hang together -- that's why they call them albums or something like that:

1. Embryonic / The Flaming Lips (psyche headphone masterpiece)
2. Transmissions from Sinai / Various Artists (nice collection of art doom metal)
3. For the World To See / Death (literally retro Detroit I-spit-on-you rock)
4. Summer of Hate / Crocodiles (the album NTV should have done)
5. Horehound / The Dead Weather (surprised me, too)

Honorable mention (because not all the songs work): Dark Was The Night compilation album & Steve Earle's cover album of Townes van Zandt songs

Most Over-rated: Grizzly Bear's album that starts with a V

My fave songs tended more towards poppy shit than my fave albums did. Most of these artists had so-so albums lightened up by these great songs and alot of these songs can be found online easily:

1. "Now We Can See" - The Thermals (pictured above)
2. "I Don't Feel So Happy Now" - Personal and the Pizzas
3. "Angela" - Jarvis Cocker
4. "Pine On" - the Obits
5. "Home" - Edward Sharpe
6. "They Done Wrong / We Done Wrong" - White Rabbits
7. "My Only Offer" - Mates of State
8. "The End is Near" - Fiery Furnaces
9. "My Friend" - Bill Callahan
10. "In Our Talons" - The Bowerbirds

Honorable mention: "Wet Wings" - Dan Deacon (I'm so not on this guy's wagon but this experiment worked well on a mix-tape I made)

Favorite Shows I Played or Saw:

1. Pygmy Lush (picture above) at MacRock, Harrisonburg VA (guys blew me away with both their electric and acoustic set)
2. Whatever Brains at MacRock, Harrisonburg VA (insane set)
3. Vetiver at Iota, Arlington VA
4. Soft Power at Black Cat, Washington DC
5. Parade (me on drums) at St. Marks' Church in DC (loved doing this show about Leo Frank and The South)

Most over-rated: The XX on Carson Daly - whatta bunch of moronic deadbeats!

Versus / Soft Power at Black Cat DC 12/12/09

let's get technical

Soft Power | MySpace Music Videos

Soft Power is sort of a late 80's "Underground" power / art / guitar band - Nice Strong Arm, Music From Elba, late 80's Sonic Youth but as if rewritten by some German art rock band from the early 80's. The band is fronted by the guitarist and guitarist/bassist who offer male/female vocal tradeoffs on the songs. The drummer ties this band together - innovative beats and knows the songs better than the others. There's a keyboardist who generally provides background with occasional riffs thrown in - I kind of like it when the keyboardist knows how to take the backseat.

The band does some interesting stuff with odd measures. I counted one songs that appeared to be in 15/8 and another that veered from 6/8 to 4/4. The drummer never stumbled on any of this. A band to continue to watch over the next few months.

Versus are a mid-90's to late 90's Teen Beat/Merge who (I think) were once local to DC but now live in Brooklyn and aren't really a "functioning" (touring) band anymore but are putting together a new set of songs. They've got guitar, bass, violin/keyboardist, drummer. They added a fifth member halfway through the set - I think he was covering bass but couldn't really see from my vantage point.

The pros for this band is that half their tunes are an interesting take on post-punk - where the "punk" part is defined as garage punk (so I guess its post-garage punk). These songs (and I can't name them) shimmer and throw in exciting twists at the genre. Richard Balyut (the nerdy lead), while not exactly a likable prescense onstage, does best when he's mixing/harmonizing vocals with the competent female bassist (Fountaine Topps?).

However, the other half of their stuff seems too 90's indie rock and antiquated. The thing is I don't know enough about their music to tell whether this was the old stuff or the new stuff. I'm thinking it was the old stuff I didn't like.

The problem with this band is the drummer. He doesn't know the meaning of loosen up. A kid playing pots and pan in the kitchen plays with infinitely more joy and ease than he does. It's in the wrists man - feel the beat, be the beat, it's like you are trying to hunt and kill the beat. Being as the drummer is the lead's brother I don't see them changing up anytime soon.

Like I implied above, I didn't really "get" the lead singer. He's kind of a nerd who thinks he's cool and I just find that, well, annoying to watch onstage (I don't like Carrot Top either). Judging from my +/- CD collection, Richard Balyut may be better suited for studio work than live appearances.

Jack Rose - 1971 - 2009 RIP

More sad news:

Jack Rose, a renowned Philadelphia-based acoustic guitarist, has died of a heart attack at 38, the Philadelphia Daily News reports.

Rose was born in Virginia in 1971. His professional musical career began in the Richmond noise band Pelt, which formed in 1993. But Rose is best known for his solo work, which he began recording in the early 2000s, releasing numerous EPs and LPs on a number of different labels, most frequently VHF.

http://klang.org/stories/219-1971-2009

Pelt - "Deep Sunny South"

• Buhbomp has links and videos
• Glenn Jones reacts

Al Alberts RIP

Just was squeezin' out a log in the water cabinet, reading this week's EW and come across the sad, sad news that Philadelphia's Uncle Al Alberts has succumbed. This is indeed the capstone of celebrity deaths this year for me!

As anyone who grew up in the 70's in Philadelphia and watched too much TV, Mr. Alberts curated a weekly show of proto-Jon Benets and 8 year old boys in suits, with spit-coiffed hair, trained to sing like Frank Sinatra. Mr. Alberts and his wife were sort of the local Jim and Tammy Faye except their religion was 30s and 40s show tunes and standards. Hosted on the twisted WFIL Channel 6 (which also featured the perennially sloshed Sally Starr, the ambiguously gay Gene London and legendary sky divin' anchorman Jim O'Brien), Mr. Alberts was just as freakish as the little kidults he hosted every week. Paul Begala could only wish to have his forehead topped by the Conway Twitty style hair apostrophe.

Despite all this, perhaps Mr. Alberts will (hopefully) be fondly recognized not for his Phillie freakshow but as one of the Four Aces whose graceful male harmonies soothe us even to this day.

Love Is A Many-Splendored Thin...

Stranger In Paradise - The Fou...

Image found at http://www.singers.com/jazz/vintage/fouraces.html

CORRECTION: Gene London was on WCAU Philadelphia (the CBS channel). As Wikipedia notes: "Early programs began with Gene London opening the door of his General Store and flipping the sign to read "Open for Business." As the kids passed by Gene, he palmed the tops of their heads and sang the opening theme song."

Arms - "Kids Aflame"

ARMS (Todd Goldstein) photo by Elizabeth Weinberg, June 09

This is lo-fi bedroom closet pop at its best - vocal harmonies mixed with banjo and finger snaps all fronted by a Neil Youngish nearly breaking vocals whining "They lie, they lie to your face / you were in love / you were on your way." The band does shows so there must be a band as well and not just a multi-tracking gargoyle behind this.

Group/project called Arms who released an LP this year that was massively and unfortunately (for them and anyone else who cares) ignored. Guitarist is also with Harlem Shakes but I have yet to hear of them so I just offer that as a factoid.

Here's a direct link to the subject MP3 [Arms - "Kids Aflame"] - but do go to the Arms site and check out the music tab for more. "Whirring" is another tasty piece of home recording for ya.

Apostle of Hustle - "Soul Unwind"

The band of the day is guitarist Andrew Whiteman's Apostle of Hustle from Toronto, Ca - home of the Space Needle and a bunch of fine restaurants and bus stations.

While the 2009 album ("Apostle of Hustle Eats Darkness", great name) was a bit uneven, perhaps too overladen in experiments and concept, this track, which incidentally is free, was the standout.

Not sure whether its the Broken Social Scene ca. 2006 vibe or the amped up drums and vocal recording distortions.

You can download "Soul Unwind" at RCRD LBL - here

Apostle of Hustle website

A Classic Education - free digital single

Today's band is an Italian bunch that make wistful yet dark lo-fi pop and cover old classics like "Spanish Harlem".

Anyway, Holiday Records has a digital freebie of their original "What My Life Could Of Been" b/w "Toi", a cover of a song from an obscure 60's movie. It's not the best I've ever heard this week and I certainly wouldn't order you to go out of your way to buy their records until I hear some more virtuosity and originality but it's free and at least worth the time it takes to click.

You can pick up the digital single at Holiday Records and learn more about the band at SoundSXP.

More links:

"Toi" video

Their tiny website streams this single

Acid Mothers Temple - Are We Experimental? LP

Warning, this music may not make you peaceful and loving as the cover suggests. In other words, you'd be foolish not to plug this into your earlobes prior to, I don't know, sacking a city.

Obvious tribute in the cover above which if you don't get well STOP READING NOW but it they froze Jimi, Noel and Mitch in a single moment of pure acid reflux, this might be the resulting melt. If other purveyors of so-called psychedelic music aren't malevolent as you would have liked and you just felt well lost at sea with it all, then this my friends is your lifesaver even if it is a eye-popping, ear-liquifying, tounge-scroggling noose.

I haven't always appreciated these geniuses too much before but I'm gonna have to stop being such as wuss.

Wired Stinky Pussy Luver - Aci...

Not for the faint-hearted or impatient. Other great song titles include: "Goodbye Big Asshole Emanualle" and "Ultimate Unhip Blues" (Mr. Acid Mothers Temple's guitar here is well real, real inspired - hail feedback and skronk!).

Here's more on Acid Mother Temple

Aa

In case you are ever stuck for a band name in Scattergrams that starts with A and you think your neighbor has already got Arizona Amp and Alternator, you can clue them into this Brooklyn 4-drum electronix noise band. But hell, I just make up band names - my relatives never know the diff.

This name thing, though, is making it hard to google them (hell-o AA Bondy, wtf are you?), and I guess that adds to the mis-teek. So they go by BigALittleA

Kinda reminds me of a tight butthole surffin' down the NYC sewer in that closing scene from Escape From New York that I imagined. The only thing that kinda makes me cringe, though, is I start to thinking about those dorks that dance around on stage with garbage can lids.

Some samplin's

Best Of Seven - BiG A little a

Aa (the band from Brooklyn) lala

Aa (the band from Brooklyn)'s website

Magik Markers side project

Why Mp3 Blogs and Pitchfork Make Music Suck

Pitchfork responded the next morning with a headline that would echo across the Internet: "Wavves Self-Destruct in Barcelona." Indie sites Brooklyn Vegan and Stereogum pounced on the story, and their reader comment sections quickly turned rancid.

"happy it didnt take longer for everyone to realize this band sucks," said one commenter on Brooklyn Vegan

From article on Wavves

It's all about the "next big thing" and then "how to take down the next big thing"... I don't know which is worse.

Super Awesome Happy Fun Set - DEERHOOF

The ATP set by Deerhoof is available for download at the every day awesome Free Music Archive.

The set includes "+81", "Perfect Me" and "Fresh Born"

The sound is "B"

Download Deerhoof at ATP here.

Deerhoof photo by Michaelcz under CC

TV Montage Song of the Week: "Kingdom of Rain"

Not great TV but I saw this on "Lie to Me" and had to share... missed it the first time in 2007. This is Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) singing. The band is Soulsavers.

I'm gonna punch all your blood out

Greetings, reader.

Here's some stuff you oughta want or oughta want to know:

- WFMU posts 70's rock stars and celeb's anti drug commercials. These will certainly fill out those mix tapes.

- Turntabling.net is a cool vinyl blog - the mod is currently on a massive road trip to visit stores that sell vinyl. Give them gas or sandviches if you see them.

- I've been delisted from Hype Machine for lack of activity. I feel free.

Free Free Jazz. Made in Japan. And America.

You hate free jazz so do not download this. But I've loved Chris Corsano since he played with Ben Chasney on that Six Organs record. Here he's teamed with some free flowing 65YO alto sax player and a double bass.

The shit gets really intense about seven minutes in so let it build on ya. Via Brainwashed.

"Friendly Pants" Akira Sakata and Chikamorachi - buy it or dl it here if my direct link doesn't work.

O Sweet Mama... It's the Pens

I break radio silence for one of the few tracks these days worth breaking radio silence for. I found these young aspiring hoodlums out in my backyard throwing shit around, smoking reefer, breaking my swingset and shoving the sandbox dirt up their hoo-has. The cats are also missing.

Their myspace ID is "penispenispenis" and Rupert Murdoch regularily logs in just to see if its true.

"Networking" is glee for kids without glee.

"Networking" - Pens

Buy it here and listen to the title track of their crayoned masterpiece.

Note for parents: Coke Machine Glow doesn't get it.

Zombies on Your Lawn

Geez, what's wrong with bloggers these days - here's this great theme song from one of the greatest VGs of the year and no one is giving it love. We'll just have to fix that and make sure this gets some Hype Machine luv and lolz.

Laura Shigahara - "Zombies On Your Lawn"

(Great for kids mix tapes - proof).

Ms. Shigahara's blog has this perm-loaded (we'll only be offering our zombie killing lawn for a limited time). Snatch up the Japanese version as well (even MORE fun for kids mix tapes) and check out the link to the viddie she got shot for this song.

This weeks for real montage song

Maybe I should do a blog about music used on TV shows - seems to be the only thing I'm doing these days with this thang.  Ha ha.

 "La Maree Haute" stands for "High Tide" and it comes from the lovely and talented Lhasa de Sela, a Mexican-American who sings in French and has a brand new spanking 3rd album out.  

It was featured on the off-montage from this weeks' RESCUE ME (episode "Wine").  I guess since the episode concerned a French journalist simultaneously trying to get into Denis Leary's character's pants and writing a book about 9/11, it was appropriate.  Why do women throw themselves at this character?

"La Maree Haute" - Lhasa de Sela

Little Itty Bitty Weekly Best TV Background Song Posting

It's not exactly a montage piece (for that I would have used the odd music behind the final scene of "Rescue Me") but this song plays in the background of the great mythos-building episode of this weeks "Supernatural"

"A Little Bitty Tear" - Burl Ives

This song is also great for Asian girlfriend cellphone montages - check out this awesome piece of found art:

And of course, what mention of Mr. Ives wouldn't be replete without a nod to the world's greatest EP.

This week's TV montage song

"Hey Ya" by Ted

Eat Skull

Raven Sings the Blues has some new Eat Skull up.  You'd be foolish to ignore.

this week's closing montage cut

"Fake Empire" - The National (Southland) - from The White Sessions recorded 5/7/07

Bats for Lashing

Now that this band is getting huge, I should point out that I was the first blog to blog their bloggy goodness. Hype Machine doesn't go back this far but here's the posting for proof. Pats on my back or head accepted.

Entertaining Ourselves

Bull Tongue Goes Online

Yeah, Sheesh, indeed. B. Coley and Thurston M.'s Arthur column is now an online thingie with links and everything.

Nice find of this month's Top 10 - The Renderers.

We stay because we don't know where else to go

"Lonely Ghosts" - O+S - It's like Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby but with different chromosones. Its's like YLT but not Jewish or old.  It's like Aimee Mann but with less complex issues.

See also DOLLHOUSE - "Needs" ep.

Photo blatently ripped off for total non-commercial use from Love's oddball doll photo stream

MacRock Day 2 - the party's over

Friday's shows seemed so much better than Saturday for me.  Maybe it was the fatigue kicking in - ameliorated no doubt by the bad night's sleep at the Budget Inn motel or whatever it was called - stanky room, rough sheets, thin walls and I found a puddle in the bathroom from somewhere undefined.

I got back in time for Whatever Brains and Monument sets at Artful Dodger, an arty but servicable college bar right next to the Theater.  Neither of these bands turned out to be too memorable for me  - I had higher hopes for Whatever Brains and lower hopes for Monument and they were just okay.  I stuck for one song of Piroutte but that wasn't happening either.  There's just something so wrong about seeing a band in a bar when the sun is so high in the sky still.

On to Clementine where the initial novelty of Eternal Vacations got them through about one song for me but it quickly wore off.  The band is a two person outfit like White Stripes and do a Deerhoof-ish hard psyche.  It's a band worth watching I think - there's a spark of something there - just needs some feed and caring to get it out.  (Speaking of which -- lots of two-person bands this year).

Super Vacations totally turned me off.  It was like watching a bunch of apes except not as funny (think Lancelot Link's band).  They do some sort of pysche-garage schtick but I didn't think they did it very well.

I then went up to one of the odder venues -- a living room sized apartment above a wine bar where Pygmy Lush just blew me away with their "quiet" set.  It wasn't acoustic and the whole band was there - hard to believe this was the same band that played a Flipper Holish skater thrash set the previous night. 

Caught the end of Cinnamon Band's set and was impressed.  Another two man act with awesome sounding drums and interesting songs.  The demo they are selling is a disappointment- -underproduced but not in a good way and the studio they used must have been rotten  - but that's why they call it a demo.  They deserve some larger exposure as they are local to the area.

Cinemasophia - I hate to be brutal but the thought that kept on repeating in my mind was "why hasn't this band broke up?"  They don't seem to enjoy what they are doing, sound slightly under-rehearsed (just enough to be noticable). They do not play as a coterie of musicians should  --- their drummer is all but ignored and the lead guitarist/singer seems oblivious of his other guitarist.  I can kinda hear the Decemberists go garage vibe they are trying for but either they were having a bad day or they need to regroup.

Gifts From Enola - Answering the question as to whether we really need another Explosions in the Sky.  I say no but the audience enthusiasm suggests yes.

Power Pill Fist - Oh, such wankery.  Video-game electronics are layered while an old silly movie from the 60's or 70's plays and another screen shows some random computer graphics circa 1981.  The movie choice was kind of funny -- it was about a guy who trolls for women in his helicopter and then takes him to his mansion where he feeds them to the cats.  He has a bald fat guy with a limp and wearing a servants robe helping him.  I was fuming though cuz it went on way too long and I wanted to hear the next act and not lose my seat.

Pattern is Movement - their new CD is of that genre that has yet to be named and probably never will - a sort of balance of Modern Classical, Show Tunes, Indie and Prog.  PiM fill the room that Swami Sufjan left as he dallies in sabbatical.  Yet they fill the room with impressionistic pieces where Sufjan is at heart a story teller and portrait artist.  

Live, they are more of an assault on the senses than their studio work suggests - the drums are incredibly defeaning and the keyboards aren't as varied as in the album (often reminding me of this guy I used to play with at the Holiday Inn near the airport).  

Lots of fat jokes between songs from Andrew Thiboldeaux - perhaps too many - but overall the best between song banter I heard all weekend.  Loved his riffs on going to a Ci-Ci's in West Virginia ("where they have to greet you with 'Ole!'").  Didn't so much love their R&B cover.  I know its a tribute to the R. Kelly / Timberlake axis of music and they do it well -- I just can't stand that music.

Final Jerry Springer thoughts:

- nice spacing between venues and huge variety of other restaurants and bars to chill out.  Harrisonburg is a great place for a small music festival.

- the label expo was kind of sorry.  Too band some of the labels that host the bands on the roster could'nt make it.  There were more "non-label" vendors there than labels.

- I'm in awe and inspired at almost all the drumming I saw all weekend.

- There should be more small regional festivals like this.  SXSW is the mother ship and its gotten way to big and way too much hype.  Really - Rachel Ray is now validating bands???

image via public-domain.zorger.com

MacRock Live Friday

Some quick impressions of the bands.

American Tourist - needed three songs to warm up and by the fourth song (which was very good) their set was over. They do suffer from a bit of sameness in song structure. Think Okkervil River - whisper to scream dynamics.

Josh Small - nice picking; too much singing.

Tideland - Tight enough hardcore - they could use a week or so more rehearsing.

Pygmy Lush - dronethrash with overtones of Flipper, Buttholes

Brainworms - incredible set of prog-core. Extremely tight and awesome sound/mix.

Antlers - I couldn't really dig this after Brainworms. Instrumentalcore, I think -- I left after two songs.

Extraordinaires - Decemberists meets Jam band but without the Jam and plus English glam/classical rock + reggae overtones. Nice songs - worth tracking - look for new record soon.

Des Ark - strutting and boiling rage on stage. I like her rocking songs - she's got some great musicians backing her and her stage prescense makes up for the lack of guitar prowess - but her acoustic stuff was hard to hear and I'm afraid if I could have I'd stamp it overly precious. That said, the rocking songs were some of the best I heard that night (Brainworms might have peaked over the top, though).

Medications - very tight, post-dischord era progpunk. Good to see them together again.

May I draw your attention to...?

This being MacRock overdrive, might I point out this stellar posting from Bright Young Things (v. cool name) written by one of the organiziers of the festivale:

http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/music/macrock-preview/

Back to Team Fortress 2.

MacRock 8 - Canada Cream Corn Can Crease Crybabies Coronations

I'm kinda getting worn out with this burst of blogging but I can't NOT get by without noting the stellar HC/Punk line-up on Saturdaynight -- it has a hole bunch of good 'uns --highlights inclood reunited Spanish Bombs and the prolific End of Year ("Michael Larsen" court. DeathWish Inc.). Stick some doom and some 80's generic-core in a grinder and out came Black Teeth. DC's Police & Thieves hew to Faith/Void/Threat altar worship ("Exit Strategy" via Young Blood Recs). Had I ever heard the originals, I'd kinda get nostalgic it's that yeah. I politely fail to point out the whole "you were in diapers when this music was new" meme-thing. If I write anymore, my elbows will collapse and I'll pee in my pants. The rest o the lineup

Blue Nile

181 North Main St., Harrisonburg, VA, 22802

3:30pm - 3:50pm	Nervous Habits
4:05pm - 4:25pm	Constrictor
4:40pm - 5:00pm	Just Die!
5:15pm - 5:35pm	Shards
5:50pm - 6:10pm	The Guilt
6:25pm - 6:45pm	No Excuse
7:00pm - 7:30pm	Police & Thieves
7:45pm - 8:15pm	Kingshead
8:30pm - 9:00pm	Balaclava
9:15pm - 9:45pm	Savage Land
10:00pm - 10:30pm	Black Teeth
10:45pm - 11:15pm	Spanish Bombs
11:30pm - 12:00am	End of a Year

Strolling through Memory Lanes

Funny the things you find on your own blog sometime. F'rinstance:

Circular free association fun: Antietam the band was formed in Louisville on Derby Day, 1984. A horse named Swale won the Derby that day. A swale is a "depression in the earth." Antietam was named after a Civil War Battle that occurred on September 17, 1892. The "Bloody Lane" is an 800-yard "sunken road" - or a "depression in the earth" is one of the more notorious sections of the Antietam battlefield. Music from Elba includes an anti-war song "War is (the health of the state)" Another song from Elba is called "The Haunting of Rocky Face Ridge" home of another Civil War Battle in Georgia. Georgia Hubley produced the third Antietam album, Burgoo, which is a traditional Kentucky stew served on Derby Day.

I wrote this? - how cool is that?

MacRock 7 - Pine on (Street)

Clementine Cafe

153 S. Main St., Harrisonburg, VA, 22801

4:50pm - 5:10pm	Elephant Child
5:30pm - 5:50pm	Facepaint
6:10pm - 6:30pm	Eternal Summers
6:50pm - 7:20pm	Super Vacations
7:40pm - 8:10pm	Mas y Mas
8:30pm - 9:00pm	Snack Truck
9:20pm - 9:50pm	Ancient Sky
10:10pm - 10:40pm	The Points
11:00pm - 11:50pm	Obits

I'll politely not speak of the first two bands 'cept they seem a bit outta their league. Waaaait, that's not polite.

Eternal Summers is blog-love creature getting first SaithDuhWankerphone love and then GirrlVsBare luv and then even more Say-Yo-Gramma'sphone luv. WTF? A Roanoke band? Way coollllzzzz... See the saga unfolden here. VinylMine weights in heavily and saith the VinylMine: I kinda nice, a girl band version of The Warlocks (oh wait, we're supposed ta hate the Warlocks, nyah).

Super Vacations follows Eternal Summers, geddit? And I guess they can borrow their reverb boxes, too. One song on their bi-space page "10 Seconde Freakout" is as if Jesus and Mary Chain got faster, lo-fi and better sounding all at once. The others well kinda weird, kinda bad in a good I don't really know how to play my guitar but it makes cool sounds way....

Mas Y Mas - I thought they were a Los Lobos tribute group but turns out they're a concept band - currently flagging some sort of subgenius-style meme about Pepsi and China. The music has a World Music meets Jonny Richman feel to it. Their tryspace page calls it Chinese Pop but more like Chinese INDIE pop whatever that is. My mantra: I'm not opposed. I'm open to any and all possibilities that this might bring it on. Change is good, world music can be good. World music, ironic mash-ups and bearded men can be good, too.

Snack Truck - Uh, instrumental group. Not totally gone.

Ancient Sky - Brand-spanking four-man new group from Brooklyn. Farfisa organ and guitar seem to be the core of the sound. Like their fourth or fifth show and they got a decent spot in a "festival" if that's what this still. I think if you like Akron/Family, Iron Butterfly & Six Organs of Admittance, this might be your thing.

The Points - Sneering/party-grade mid-to-fast late 70's/early 80's punk rock, slightly updated, and from DC's Mud Memory lapel/label. KinDuh like "Feeling Sorry" and "No Girl" currently streaming on their blahspace page.

The Obits - Rough-hewn band makes a nice back-to-back with the Points.

"Pine On" - crtrsy Subpop

MacRock #6 - Saturday night's alright for drowsing

The line-up:

Court Square Theater

61 Graham St., Harrisonburg, VA, 22801

5:00pm - 5:20pm	The Great Migrators
5:30pm - 5:50pm	Wild Animal Party
6:10pm - 6:30pm	Moon High
6:50pm - 7:20pm	The Cinnamon Band
7:40pm - 8:10pm	Cinemasophia
8:30pm - 9:00pm	Gifts From Enola
9:20pm - 9:50pm	Power Pill Fist
10:10pm - 10:50pm	Pattern is Movement
11:10pm - 11:50pm	Cast Spells (Dave of Maps and Atlases)

Great Migrators and Wild Animal Party are two local bands, interesting listens, unpolished indie pop-rock. They don't strike me as nothing special but then again they don't seem horrible or anything.

Moon High is an anamoly from Columbus, Oh - a folk collective from a town that usually produces more rockinger types.

Cinnamon Band is another local act - two men, one guitar, one drum set - Songs:Ohia, Great Lakes Swimmers type stuff.

Richmond gives us Cinemasophia, a new group (if by new you mean two years old and about ready to drop their first full-length), that has an interesting lush, fuzzy quality to them - like a big old blanket - the layered vocals, crispy but wet drum sound and jews harp guitar wants to wraps around your ears. I think the kids call it shoegaze or something. I'm most interested in hearing more here. Jay Breitling, (( whomever HE is but I understand he likes it when you say his name)), has listened to their recent album with great intensity - here.

Gifts From Enola do the cinematic orchestral instrumental Crack the Explosions on the Saxon Shore thing, I guess, I do. Not my cup of ale but Dog bless 'em anyway as I'm sure they bring light into someone's world.

Power Pill Fist are: electrical powertool kitchysink chunky-sized hypnohouse industromeat improv(able) videogling gamertong bleatreatbliptrip stuff. They live to own YOU. Not me. YOU.

Pattern is Movement - I'd like these guys more if they grew longer beards and got balder and fatter. This is what I love about them, fuck the music. No seriously, I saw them in 2005 and I was blown away and that's not usually the case with highly choreographed prog-math type duo (trio?) (to be fair, I think their band was larger when I saw them last). I think its just that I respect the hell out of their hearing ability, the ability to keep all in tune, melody, rhythm and make it look like they're eating lunch or taking the dog for a walk.

First time, I saw a drummer roll his brushes on his snare like he was kneading dough and it made such an asskicking sound that I've never been able to reproduce. No really seriously, fatter and balder, please. I need company at these shows.

"Right Away" - courtesy Home Tapes

Cast Spells has that sort of laid back American Analog Set vibe going. Or is it just that they use vibraphone that I'm drawing the comparison. Interesting, never heard of them before but they're from Chicago and list Pattern is Movement as a friend on their whyspace page.

Macrock #5 - one of these things is not like the others

Whatever Brains - This is the band to see at 2:35. Dude, I hear this band, I hear 100 million tormented children screaming at once with 500 billion guitars chiming along and 11, 000 trillion drummers stomping. And lo it was good. And low, it sounds so much better than one child screaming. Does this have beast have legs? What kind of legs and do they have multiple joints, retract up to the side, are hairy, splotted or splayed. Earplugs will be stomped into the ground.



Here's the rest of the Saturday Artful Dodger line-up. I'm sure they are all very well-spoken, over-rehearsed, cute in that regretful sort of way and oh-so indie-rock nice. I'll be sure to pinch their cheeks.

Artful Dodger

47 Court Sq., Harrisonburg, VA, 22802

2:00pm - 2:20pm	Invisible Hand
2:35pm - 2:55pm	Whatever Brains
3:10pm - 3:35pm	Monument
3:50pm - 4:10pm	Pirouette
4:25pm - 5:00pm	Algernon Cadwallader
5:20pm - 6:00pm	Slingshot Dakota

MacRock #4 - the golden ticket says pass

who do you think you are, edie sedgewick?
pict courtesy wikipedia

Gar... what have I gotten myself into. Let's make this short - here's the line-up of the next group o' bands:

Clementine Cafe

153 S. Main St., Harrisonburg, VA, 22801

4:50pm - 5:10pm	Rapid Cities
5:30pm - 5:50pm	Title Tracks (ex Q and Not U)
6:10pm - 6:30pm	The House Floor
6:50pm - 7:20pm	New Rock Church of Fire
7:40pm - 8:10pm	The Fordists
8:30pm - 9:00pm	Edie Sedgwick
9:20pm - 9:50pm	Liquid Limbs
10:10pm - 10:50pm	Fin Fang Foom
11:10pm - 12:00pm	Medications

This is sort of the obligatory Mac-Rock Dischord-lovein line-up full of "good guy bands" - mostly soul-less and over-saturated with influence and too smothered in their earnestness to really stick out in a crowd. Doon't get me wrongga... They're all technically competent and perhaps talented but they seem to lack any sort of meaningful life experience beyond seeing Fugazi play live. And that ain't enuf.

Out of this group, Edie Sedgewick is an original and pretty funny if you follow his campy set-up - ironically, though, its an act which, if it had come out of outsider land, it would have never gotten the acceptance it has received. That said, it's just a bit too thought out to truly be a wonderful outsider act. Is he still doing his music backup with an iPod I wonder?

I'm happy to see Medications are back together - they had some good songs back in 2005 but then lost steam when their drummer moved on... if there's no other conflicts, I would try to check them out, see where they're heads are at.

"Twine Time" - dl ctsty: Medications

MacRock #3 - We covet our neighbor's wife but quietly

Artists playing at MacRock in the "soft rock" venue

Zac Hryciak & the Jungle Beats - appealing youngster who has surely sniffed his gatefold Banhart and Jana LPs all too often. Derivative sure but also dulcet, sweet and harmless. Don't believe me then check out his "Up On The Mountain" cut on his cryspace page before dismissing him too quickly.

American Tourist - and continuing in the folk vein... more business, less hat than the previous guy which aint thought of neccesarily as a good thing Recent JMU grad so home court blahblah. His mountain song is "House Mountain" (there's more at his website) recalls Animal Collective's forays onto the porch.

Josh Small - Sloppy Fahey axe-oriented classish folk but w/enough raw talent to make ya kinda perk out an ear or three. Nothing I'd norm. seek out but the slight type of stuff that didn't make you 180 degree when you heard it in coffee shops (B.S.W. - as in Before the Starfuckstrification of the World). "Move Your Hips" (courtesy Suburban Home Records)

Pree - Tell the cops: Jana Hunter is locked in a closet somewhere in Arlington being fed cathair and Easy-bake oven cakes. Pree is May Tobol's project and no it's not slang for pre-ejaculate although that would be way cool if it was. It's an obscure reference to the title of a somewhat disturbing Jeff Mangum song. IT also rhymes with twee but that's gotta be a coincidence. Lotsa love already for this project on the hype so I ain't gonna add to it.

The Young Sinclairs - Kindercore's garage-psyche revivalists. What's lacking in gusto is traded in for authenticity. Roanoke calling to the far away towns, phoney flaming groovies has bitten the dust.

Accordian Death Squad - Be thankful you live in a era when people have the leisure time to form bands like this. Or be not thankful because it adds more evidence to the already so full its sinking feeling that nothing much really matters anymore and so people just do anything and seem to want a paycheck/bed&board/props for it. Not everybody is worthy of being Jack Rose.

Still. I am not mean.

It's quite fetching instrumental Balkan-punk fare suitable for your next chili-cookoff or indie film soundtrack. I wouldn''t kick them out of my backyard if I had one and I'd probably kick out Gogol Bordello. Whereas. If Hawk and a Handsaw showed up, I'd tell these guys to just shut the fuck up and sit down.

The Extraordinaries - Ah, a pop band?! I like their "The Chicken Or The Egg or The Song" - after this the Beatles swipes get a bit too obvious. I like Dr. Dog more but I wanna be present for their set if possible.

Des Ark - The place to be at 10:10 on Friday night. Everytime I see or hear this rage-folk/rock singer, I wanna buy her a sandwich and a beer or something. And everytime I see her she's gotten more awesome and grown like 50 feet taller. huge ketch, not at all "soft rock", an original coming up for air, touched by God, etc. etc. "Jesus Loves You"

Bowerbirds - I've already expressed what passes for fealty these days to the headliner & we could have done so much worse but perhaps better - they'll certainly fill up drab and empty spaces with their pretty "soft rock" ness... Never seen them live so I'd be happy to hear what they do with fare such as "In Our Talons"

MacRock Revue #2: Just don't act like you've been here before just dance

yes, you will worship these fuckers

Hail Hydra - Points for the Marvel comic book ref. "Oil Seller" (342 plays on their Myspace page) kinda gives you the tingly feeling you get when your balls automagically shift in the sac and the pubes kinda tickle ya insides your underwears. I'll be elsewhere when they play but if I feel the earth shift a few notches, I'll know whom (or it who?) to blame.

MouthEater - anudder VAG band - makes me think this here MacRock has stacked the deck for the Sons of the Confederacy. Moutheater is the sorry howling of the smashed and rotten tomatoes lying on the floor of stage David Yow and Michael Gerard built in their garages with their 9-5 paychecks. You can't help but feel that this vocalist has already started building said stage and is looking forward to years of entertaining his nieces and nephews after doing their taxes. Which is to say I probably will truly like and respect this outfit and hate myself for doing so. See?

Mouthbreather - so right after Moutheater comes this Richmond crew and is it a coincidence or is something at play at some higher level of the universe? Wasn't Mouthbreather a Jesus Lizard song, too? Wow, because unlike Moutheater, Mouthbreather doesn't sound even remotely like Jesus Lizard more like an thrashy emo band lost somewheres in the mid to late 90's. So what gives, universe? Some other blog has an empty-3 for your collection if you don't beleeve me and want to make your own conclusions ref: general sucktitude of this vibe.

Tideland - Kelley Deal has huge fucking migraine headaches, so fucking huge, every bone aches just to make her brain feel like it won't explode and all that pain, she has to record that shit it runs off her brain in thick green blobs and she pushes it into a tiny tape machine (THAT REALISTIC thing she swiped from DAd cuz it had a handle and she used to bop down the street to it while chewing bubblegum) and it makes everything tinny and without that low and high end shit she can sleep at night knowing and she dreams then that she's got some band thing going and its going to be named after some Terry Gilliam flick she hated because it was so fucking cute and sad and stolen from her life and in the dream her band reaches its zenith opening for another scummy band in some scummier midwestern college town than the last one they played. In the middle of one of the songs, she remembers how she wants to kill her sister and replace her with some other sister that skinnier, more bitchy, less nice (maybe that other Kim) and doesn't flush her stash down the toilet at the gas station where they stopped to get gas and water and cigarettes and whirly pops - she's crying in the gas station and that chick at the cash register who used to play bass in Scrawl hands her a tissue. Its. So. Really. Bad...likethat. Or something. And if this band does "Shatterface" and if it doesn't sound too much like the Silversun Pickups then none of this ever happened.

Pygmy Lush - Tideland's Sterling, VA townmates jump right in next. Will they be emo's answer to White Zombie's second album [(and yes, emos, there is a need for an answer to Soul Crusher in I count at least 30 countries, so shut yer fat traps up and just, y'know deal with it or get into your fucking time machine and go write a song in 1989 that is better than "Godslayer", Q.E.D.)]... or will they be wearing their M. Ward asshats and singing into some vintage microphone aboot trains and shacks and the walking dead and wondering where they can buy a scarf or sumpin'. So... If yer Dad was a security guard at some black windowless building in the world's most powerful country, you'd probably do goofy shit like this, too. Band motto: "Slurp shit and die"...

Brainworms - the entire demo of 16-25 year olds from Richmond VA will prolly be in Harrisonburg next weekend. They will be pounding under mic'ed drums, getting cramps in their necks, standing around talking shit between sets, breaking guitar strings, making $16.50 at the merch table (which pays for gas, yay) and getting their whole I ain't gonna do drugs and drink likker vows tested. Hard. On Monday there will be much headaches and a full accounting. Many kitchen tables will be play host to streams of invective, grudges and complaints. Suicides, murders and even some guys will go gay. Rock is a fucking evil business you'd better know. You might as well learn how to read music and keep better time or just totally go do something else like knitting or soccer. "Born With a Beard " mp3 courtesy of Rorshack Records. Continental European tour begins in May.

Antlers - (not THE Antlers or Crystal Antlers you dimwitted fucks). So... What happend to Mass Movement of the Moth? Kinda liked them. I once asked myself this question in 2006. Or was it 2007? And then I drank a diet Coke. Considered a cheese snack. I think I turned on the TV. I sleeped walked that night (or should it be sleptwalked?) and found myself a choclate glazed donut filled with Reeces Pieces. I choked on the green piece until I realized there are no Reeses Pieces that are green so I must have been drugged. PRobably the diet Coke - who knows where it got it? Oh yeah, Richmond Virginia, hey I know that dude - he's in my journo class down at Virginia Commonwealth. He said the Fleet Foxes CD was shit and why was I wearing their t-shirt. I said it was better than anything he liked (Gwar, probably) ... ...fucker dosed me over some stupid band convo..."Catalpa " (again, thanks or not thanks to Rorshach Reccids ) and then I woke up in someone else's living room and played some X-box for awhile and went home in my boxers and t-shirt.


My Disco - (no, no, not My Dear Disco). Kenny Powers on My Disco: "Hey is this mic on? Yeah, shit. This is some of that post-punk minimalist shit that retards listen too. But even so, I cannot say how much the sustained single guitar chord stokes the buzz I got from this weed and coke. If I could put this tune behind that scene where Stevie smashes all those fire alarms at Jeff Davis High School, then my TV show would have been fucking perfect. Can't believe Australians made that shit." "You came to me like a cancer lain dormant until it blossomed like a rose " MP3 blatantly hotlinked via SXSW.

Young Widows - Tundra melodies for old Russian farmers who got fired from their position in the Army for drinking too much and bleeding in all the wrong places. They packed up their shit and moved to Siberia where they hunted wolves and slurped potato and leek soups into their toothless souls. They dreamed of fat Caddilacs and fags on Miami Beach retching out their silvery guts of all the octupus and cheese rind and sour wine. Dogs came to grin at them and they could feel the cold from the outlayer of the skin of their feet to their scab-ridden bald heads. Inside bars, they knocked themselves out playing Pac-Man and that other video game with the worms that came down on top of you. They would stumble out, rank of Husky dogpiss and peach mouthwash, watching flocks of moths rise and fall with the suns and moons. Their faces fell into the ground and there they remained until the next issue of Maxim dropped. That metal blog Brooklyn Vegan has told this story already so don't act like you believe me until you have been there, maaan.

MacRock Revue #1: Skateboards Optional

The joke of vodka fart in post was wery funny, comrade

Hey MACROCK is next weekend - Ima taking a listen to sumbitch of these bands, mosta I never heard of. I'm down in this post with that metal showcase on Friday night or whatever the kids are calling it these days:

Forensics -- Hard garage/new age outfit who cover Ms. Spears, Murder City Devils in between 'riginal ear-ripping 80'sish 'core and floaty instrumentals. Worth a trip to the Lucy Simms Boys and Girls Rec Center just to see if the merch table includes the 2005 split 7" they made with Daughter Of Ozzy. They've subtitled their act "Sonic Victimization Unit" uh so I'm guessing I should take along multiple pairs of ear plugs. Boat Day from 2004's Things To Do When You Should Be Dead Anyway courtesy Magic Bullet Record... you could start your night in worse places.

Inter Arma - In H-burg, necks and hair will gyre and gimble, peni will be poorly mimsy, pus heads into waiting borogrove mouths of brillig momes and slithery guitars will shred the slithy toves. Richmond has a toxic reason to raise their heads only slightly higher than they are now. '

'bout this time I'm expecting to be leaving the jernt for other "showcases" but here's my honest impressions of some of the other bands:

A Cosmonauts Ruin - Question: What are vodka farts? Answer: A cosmonaut's ruin. Har. Har. Uh. Make up your own, dudez it's funn. Comes now this edge o' abyss sci-fi-fantasy hardsplore. Oh yay. Uh, from Richmond - once and future home of The Prevaricators so its got some claim to metalcore umma I guess. To quoth a Myspace pal of theirs: "Those songs are just straight brute and smell of old spice that only the manliest of men can wear."

Music Hates You - They're from alternate reality Athens GA where Athens GA is actually Detroit and its '69. About the most metal of the bunch. They have two cuts up on their webbysite and while I'm not gonna rush to their table for T-shirts or anything, I imagine if I'm present I'll be banging my head like the rabid cocker spaniels this music was meant to torment.

The Devil and The Sea -- I would have named my band something more ludicrous like The Devil and The Sex or The Devil and the Cupcake but then I woulda missed the oh so not so subtle reference to the mash-up of black worship with wayfaring chanteys. Haul that line, raise the sale and kiss that demon's ass, drink some urine sorta thing going... "Monolith " curtsey of label Acerbic Noise .

Black Tusk - isn't it weeeird how when you get closer and closer to the headliner in a "metal showcase" you get more hate, more disgust, more unfunny and that's not just from the bands? So chuggy it makes me shruggy. And I guess Black Tusk is easier to say than Black Rhino but the latter is an only slightly cooler name, is it not? Say something positive. Well. It sooths me heart that children such as this were never taken under Sally Struthers helpful wing and taught to mind their manners and shave their beards. That esteemed metal fan Brooklyn Vegan* helpfully links (how unmetal of them) to their SXSW mp3 - so like dig. Or don't.

*Yes, I know its not REALLy Brooklyn Vegan.

I am true Cosmonaut's ruin

HypeM Lunchtime Listening Party

Nathan Hollywood - mediocre spooky cowboy songs. Laughing Evergreens

Flight of the Conchords - We're supposed to take them seriously outside the context of the TV show? F that. They ain't that good. Music from a Green Window

Anonymous??? "Died in Ya Arms" - Mixtape DJs....zzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzzz.... oh wait, I'm white I'm supposed to claim this is very good pat child on head for being sooooo clever replaying someone else's music. F that. Subservient Experiment

The Unbearables - Twee pinky-finger extended chamber orchestra rock. You will want to kill yourself five minutes into it. Sufjan, pls smite your bastards. Subservient Experiment

The Police - Roxanne (Discotech remix). Some things should remain buried. Unless this was meant to be an example of "comedy rock" ... Chromemusic