You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November, 2007.
Things happen, then they don’t. Birds come, then they go. White Magic came, then they went. White Magic came to The Echo Saturday, November 24th…late at night. I will say right off the bat, that The Echo was pretty packed, and was packed the entire time for their set even though they didn’t finish apparently until 1:30am (I went home half way through because I’m old). Ill be honest, it’s hard to say what I thought about what I saw of their set. The amount of time it took for them to arrive, set up and play, was just too long. They started to put their gear on stage at 11pm, and by the time they actually started playing it was 12:30am. They weren’t even having technical difficulties it seemed…the bassist didn’t have a tuner, so he had to tune several times with the keyboardist/singer, Mira Billotte, who’s keyboard was being weird and transposing itself differently (total guess), then they meandered, then went into a worm hole, then came back, then didn’t? I was annoyed and tired by the time they went on and felt a bit biased as a result, but people were into it and they seemed to have some avid fans.
Here at Indie Schmarm, we try to do our best to spread good news about good artists. When I heard one of my favorite bands, The Locust, were victims of a massive robbery this weekend, I was crushed. They had played a show in St. Louis recently when their van was broken into and their personal belongings were stolen. Computers, iPods, clothes, cash, keys, passports, medications, toiletries, everything and anything was taken in the middle of the night.
This is a devastating blow to the band because they are mid-tour and it is very difficult for them to recover, particularly Justin Pearson (vocalist/bassist) who lost his laptop that was holding a great deal of financial data regarding his record label, Three One G.
When first asked by my dear friend to write about my experiences in China for Indie Schmarm I felt honored, enthusiastic and was raring to go until it struck me, where would I begin? Should I begin writing about my dining experiences? After all it is not uncommon to see dog, yes that furry bundle of joy that so eagerly greets you at the door after your long rigorous day at work, a man’s best friend…all of that, on the restaurant menu. Then again, there is always the charming little Chinese girl dressed to a tee, who smiles at you while gulping down octopus and squid on a stick. By the way, this deserves a side note. Whoever you are and no matter how cool you think your new haircut and second hand boots you bought from Jet Rag are, these Chinese city girls have it on you. You lose, you just do.
As much as all you slutz hate Britney, jeesus christ she knows how to work a song. Her newest album Blackout features the single Gimme More, and I shit you not, I have never in my life heard a catchier chorus, it’s just stunning really. I mean, I thought Toxic was amazing, but this song just screams club-whore-dance-your-fucking-ass-off-show-your-pune-whore. If you can’t get with this song there’s something wrong with you, it’s fucking brilliant and serious kudos to the writers/producers, I half-stock salute you. Quit the Britney hating, she’s still got my heart.
When one thinks of Thanksgiving, one usually thinks of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and the works, but when you have some of The Parson Red Heads over for Thanksgiving, it’ll usually end up being something like a breakfast, a tofu scramble with pumpkin pie and other desserts, toped off with mimosas. As you all may or may not have noticed, I’ve been mentioning The Parson Red Heads a lot recently on Indie Schmarm. I honestly believe they are the next ones to get some serious attention from the “Silverlake scene” and actually already are. In the last year or two, Cold War Kids and Silversun Pickups came out of the “scene”, and the Red Heads are right on their tales. They’ve played shows with Cold War Kids and other bands such as Cursive, Maria Taylor, The Autumn Defense, The Mother Hips, and in August played The Sunset Junction.
Not too long after touring wrapped up for Broken Social Scene’s last album (the ridiculously beautiful mindfuck that is their self-titled record) reports came in that hinted at a hiatus. Hiatus. That word scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I stopped bathing. I started having conversations with myself in Hopelandic. I nearly shaved my entire body with a dry razor and dug a tunnel to the center of the earth. ‘Cause a hiatus is never a hiatus, it just means “don’t be surprised when we cash in for a reunion tour in 15 years.” Hiatuses are band cancer.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody! I don’t have anything to say except that, and to keep and eye out for a belated Thanksgiving treat sometime in the next week. In the mean time, is there anything cooler than an 80’s Billy Joel? I think not.
End Scene,
Dan Tana
Friday, November 16th, I caught Six Organs of Admittance at Amoeba. I don’t know much about Six Organs of Admittance other than it’s all one man Ben Chasney and whomever he gets to play on his records. He also plays guitar for Comets On Fire and has worked with a bunch of groups including, The Fucking Champs, Current 93, Magik Markers, Badgerlore, among others.
(A fan picking up some She Wants Revenge records)
Hardly does a show come around that brings so much anger and grief in someone it makes them want to tie their dicks to a railing and jump. She Wants Revenge accomplishes this just being them and further accomplished this with their show at the Henry Fonda Saturday the 10th of November. They first of all get to tour in a really big tour bus, and if that’s not insult to injury, people are paying money to support this band. I hope their shows elsewhere have little to no people attending because they are an embarrassment to music and not one person should pay even one cent to further their cause. No person who’s actually into music listens to She Wants Revenge. It’s all scarf toting, leather jacket heroin addicts who need each other for their popularity contest. By the way, the winner wins a crack of rock or a rock of crack and a blow job from this guy.
I’m a busy, busy man. Between golf appointments at the country club, box seats for every local cock fight and charity beer-pong tournaments, I don’t have a lot of time to hunker down and listen to music. I do, however, make it a point to set aside a few passing moments every so often to take a good look at music. Therefore, I now present you with a brief analysis of some choice album covers. In today’s post we shall take a walk through the fertile fields of hard rock…
Upon entering Silverlake Lounge Tuesday night to catch Robert Francis’ set, all I knew about him was what his press release had told me; he was 19, from LA, Ry Cooder gave him his first guitar and was a student of John Frusciante when he was 16 (somehow Frusciante found time between recording and releasing 1,000 solo albums). Granted I had listened to a couple songs online briefly and enjoyed what I heard. So I decided to check him out live. I got there as he and his band were beginning their second song and immediately knew I was going to like him due to the fact that A) he was holding a beer (underage drinking is something I passionately support) and B) he had a pedal steel player (this is always a good thing, any band is better with pedal steel). Luckily my quick judgment was backed up with a half hour of great music.
I was browsing around looking for something else on the Tube as one does, and I ran across these videos of a huge marching band (Pride of Arizona) doing Radiohead songs, fully orchestrated with line formations and flag waving. Whoever put this together and did this with their marching band deserves a Grammy. The amount of work and time to do this is mind blowing. Then they go and do not just one song, but 6 songs (well close to half of each). I might be way behind the times on finding this, and if so, let me still have my glory and excitement.
The first time I saw The Monolators was at the Silverlake Lounge. I was there because The Ghost Kings were gracing us with some rock that night, and The Monolators were playing after them. I was told they were great and to stick around, so I did and was then graced with rock from The Monolators. Since that show I’ve seen them a few times, including their record release show which I wrote about here. I then saw them on Halloween, and although they went on close to 1:00am, the lights were coming on because the bowling ally they were playing at didn’t know they were last, half the band had different members, they still gave 100% and sounded great.
While doing my usual weekly perusing of KCRW playlists, I realized that I completely missed Ryan Adams and the Cardinals performance on Morning Becomes Eclectic this past Friday, November 9th. Luckily, the KCRW peeps document the performances and make them available to listen and even watch at their website. Click here for the Ryan Adams session.
On October 31st Stylus Magazine, one of the most unique and innovative “webzine” publications around, stopped the presses for good.
Since 2001 Stylus has been a place where some of today’s best music and film journalists (for my money anyway, of which there is little) have been given free reign to publish their most passionate and idiosyncratic missives. In a time when thousands upon thousands of websites devoted themselves to publishing up-to-the-second information 24 hours a day, Stylus completely ignored the news (for the most part) and played chronological Twister like a Chuck Palahniuk novel.
While new record and film reviews were supplied daily, 5 days a week, the site’s bread and butter was their columns. “On First Listen” featured staff writers giving their first impressions of classic bands they by all means should have been familiar with but which had somehow eluded them. The “Bluffer’s Guide” series aimed to get the reader well-versed in obscure musical sub-genres (such as “hiplife“, a West African blend of hip-hop, Christian hymns and big band jazz), obscure film icons (1940’s English filmmaking team Powell & Pressburger) and…Reese Witherspoon. They even had a column (Tape Hiss) devoted to covering cassette-only releases.
Sweden’s Shout Out Louds ended their Tank Farm/Future Sounds sponsored American tour with Nico Vega and Johnossi Monday night at Los Angeles’ Henry Fonda Theater. All stops were pulled out and people waiting in line were treated with a skate demo on Hollywood Blvd and an invite only pre-party took place on the Fonda’s roof with complimentary red bull and vodka’s and some tasty burrito’s. An after party also took place with Dim Mak head Steve Aoki helming DJ duties. Big thanks to Tank Farm Future Sounds and Plus One Music for the great night!
Artist: Sunset Rubdown
Release: Random Spirit Lover
Label: Jagjaguwar
Rating: IX
So how does one write a proper review for their record of the year? One could sit and type and erase, type and erase and try to do it justice and at the same time try to convince the world to hear Random Spirit Lover by Sunset Rubdown and agree with you. One could apply the laws of opinion and it might become a bit easier, but not in this case because this review is fact in a lot of cases. I therefore allow myself full snooty rights, complete free reign to say what I want, and that the statements made for this review will be true for the most part and not opinion, and im ok with pissing people off as a result. What if someone said Abbey Road was “just a decent record”, they’d be wrong wouldn’t they? Opinion at a certain point becomes obsolete even though they are entitled to it.
Kevin Drew is my hero. If this were ever more true, it is after seeing him with Broken Social Scene backing him (pretty much the same thing) live at The Orpheum Tuesday the 30th of October. “Kevi” as his peers call him, keeps getting more mystical and more attractive the more I see him and hear his music. As I’ve mentioned before, my most listened to record of all time is Broken Social Scene’s self titled record, and this new release Spirit If… falls nothing short of amazing. The whole atmosphere and the way the show was put together really added to the magic of the night too. It really dawned on me further the other night seeing this show how much better a band is live when the show is loud. This show was nice and loud and the mix was amazing to boot. Whenever the horn players blared in with their respective parts, it was even louder than the rest of the music, which I was more than ok with. Kevin’s banter was really good too and he (and the rest of the band) had a sort of relaxed comfortable attitude about the whole show which made it more entertaining and made the audience comfortable. It’s pretty much the same thing as having tea and cuddling with them for a few hours. Kevin was also a touch sick, yet really pulled it all off, and I didn’t hear a missed note the whole time…well nothing more than is the usual Kevin voice crackle.
On Monday November 5, Tank Farm Future Sounds Tour rolls through LA at The Henry Fonda Theater with Sweden’s Shout Out Louds, Johnossi and locals Nico Vega.
Indie Schmarm is giving away a package that includes a t-shirt from the tour and Tank Farm’s latest compilation which features cuts from Shout Out Louds, Johnossi and Indie Schmarm favorites, Castledoor, to the first person who e-mails dane.sundseth@gmail.com with “tank farm” in the subject line, be sure to include full name and address.