Child Bite | Sohns | Lisa Frank (The Nightmare): Child Bite is often described as art rock and I just don't know if that means what it did ten years ago, let alone forty years ago, when the term started being thrown around a lot. Now-a-days it most likely means that the band plays music that is:
A. Safely described as "angular" by lazy writers that don't want to really think about a group's influences. B. Contains songs longer than three minutes. C. Doesn't sound like, oh, I don't know...Dawes. That's a safe festival rock band to use as an example.
So, this is the face of art rock in 2010. It sounds more like male-pattern-baldness, late 80's, DC Hardcore more than anything else I can think of, but that's fine and I'm sure they put on quite a show.
Lisa Frank is a gang of what sounds like the worst jean-jacketed, cigarette-smoking girls from your old middle school recording on a boom-box after keying cars all afternoon. I have been really beaten down by all the Austin garage rock that I'm "supposed" to like from the past 18 or so months especially, but that's okay. They're from San Antonio! I'm glad that bands like this can still exist and not be horrible. The songs on their page are so ridiculously over-driven that it transforms their music into a completely different experience than you would expect from three chord punk songs, and of course, that's the point.
RTB2 | Old Snack (The Belmont located at 901 Fort Worth Avenue in Oak Cliff) Two Denton favorites perform poolside at The Belmont to raise funds for The Texas Theater, which is certainly a worthy cause. Can anyone name all the bands Ryan Becker is in? A small group of us were doing this at a party recently and having a tough time of it. I need to get out of The Metroplex for a while.
Teenage Cool Kids | Weed Hounds | Final Club (Rubber Gloves) Holy crap. I hadn't listened to Teenage Cool Kids in a REALLY long time up until a few hours ago, and they sound radically different than what I remember from the last time I heard them. Feel free to check out the new songs they're streaming on their Facebook page if you wanna hear what I mean-- long gone are the ecstatic pop-punk Descendentisms I recall from their earlier material, replaced with some very catchy and competently crafted nods to mid 90's College Radio chart toppers, most notably Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Built to Spill, with smaller yet audible nods to Silver Jews (mostly through the vocals), Dinosaur Jr., and others that I can't even recall right now because it was a long time ago and they weren't that good anyway. It's strange when you consider their past, but this slack-influenced sound seems to suit Teenage Cool Kids quite well, even if it makes me a little bit nervous about a full-on 90's indie revival if stuff like this catches on with the "kids." Oh well, I guess it would be a lot better than Ishi or whatever people in Dallas are into these days-- Anyway, if these new tracks, pulled from their upcoming album Denton After Sunset, are any indication of what the rest of the record sounds like, then I think people outside of Denton will start to hear a lot more about these guys in the coming months-- they look to the past, sure, but Teenage Cool Kids are certainly able to update these sounds and put their own stamp on them. Pretty solid stuff all around. Meanwhile, New York's Weed Hounds have positioned themselves right in the middle of this lo-fi twee/ C86/Shoegaze revival. It's decent stuff, although you've heard it done, and re-done, much better.
Tonight you can pick up a copy of the new Bad Sports album out on Burger Records and available at the show. The rest of the line-up tonight consist of other Burger artist from across the West Coast, so this would be a great opportunity to see some of the stuff coming from over there.
Mario Bava is primarily known for his morally depraved but visually stunning slasher/suspense films like Kill Baby Kill and Hatchet for the Honeymoon. The visual sumptuousness Bava is known for can be found all over Diabolik!, but instead of the protagonist being a blood thirsty psycho maniac he is a high class thief with a cunning and sexy side kick. Kinda like the anti James Bond. The Ennio Morricone soundtrack is just the icing on the cake. Very entertaining film more than worth the five dollar donation they are asking at the door.
We've teamed up with our friends at Waaga Records to present this Friday's show at the Granada, and they've provided us with a pair of tickets to give away to the show. If you'd like to win them, simply email weshotjrtix@yahoo.com any time between now and Wednesday at 5pm with your full name in the email body and "Octopus Project" as the subject line, or simply retweet this. We'll choose one winner at random, so good luck!
It was strange to see so many familiar faces at Trees of all places last night. Some people say it felt like 2003, but it was a lot more like the 90's or 2000 at the most to me. I say that with no opinion on whether or not that's a good thing, as I have no love or nostalgia for said decade other than a few selfish memories that I would never wish to impact the lives of anyone other than myself. In other words, just because I may find "Dreams" by The Cranberries "What's Up Fatlip?" to be especially great for radio or MTV fodder, that doesn't mean I wish to impose that on the lives of today's teens.
Lightning Bolt did their classic floor performance which launched a thousand stubborn bands that similarly refused to play on a stage, but there was something really strange about it at Trees in 2010. I hate to sound like "Old Man DL," but I clearly remember this act being much more surprising and intense in the tiny setting at RGRS, when they cut off Arab On Radar mid-sentence as the band was leaving the stage from the 2002 "Oops!" Tour performance. A lot of what went on last night seemed like a tribute to a time that has long passed, but that has nothing to do with the bands, who all were excellent, more or less, as much as our own local identity concerning venues and our ability to either keep them afloat or consistently book interesting acts. Speaking of things that have long passed, the virtual fight that broke out regarding that 2002 Rubber Gloves show on the recently revamped Dallas Hardcore message board, between the bitter metalcore bros and the younger and more art-friendly crowd, is a favorite memory of early aught's DFW music scene infighting that acted as an ominous sign of where attitudes regarding music would be heading in the following eight years. Ah, the good old days.
I had a funny conversation with an Observer contributor who shall rename nameless, about how nobody was necessarily assigned to cover last night's show, but this particular contributor insisted on the assignment. My guess is that the expert music staff over there has perhaps never heard of one of the most important acts from the transformational Providence noise scene. But that's just a guess.
There are a lot of intense metal and punk shows tonight at some great venues in all three major cities, as well as one eyebrow-raising show at Art Six which is presented by The Schoolhouse. I say "eyebrow raising" because I just can't picture bands as loud as Handbrake and Deep Snapper playing The Schoolhouse. Oh, and by the way, Deep Snapper just added a new guitarist, Aaron Bartz of Tame...Tame and Quiet.
Sad news about Harvey Pekar today. He was a revolutionary. The above clip is really charming, and candidly shows one of the many everyday things of which he was so incredible at exploring every last little nuance. His Free Jazz speech at NX35 in 2009 contained a lot of radical information given the event and the setting, and it was an honor to meet him. RIP.
MON: Inter Arma/Bastard Sapling/Lions of Tsavo/Baring Teeth (Phoenix Project) MON: Big Blow/Dark Forces/Big Kids/1994! (Rubber Gloves) MON: The Short Path/Deep Snapper/Handbrake/Drawn By Jaymz/Dear Human (Art Six) MON: Innards/Big Fiction Tour Kickoff/Pianos Become the Teeth/We Were Skeletons/Decades (1919 Hemphill) TUE: Bad Sports/Red Dons/Apache/Cum Stains/Cosmonaut (Rubber Gloves) WED: Teenage Cool Kids/Weed Hounds/Final Club (Rubber Gloves) WED: Red Dons/Occult Detective Club/The People Men/Collick/The Atom Age (1919 Hemphill) FRI: American Werewolf Academy/Eaton Lake Tonics/Deep Snapper (Bryan St Cavern) FRI: The Octopus Project/Florene/Fur (Granada) FRI: Darktown Strutters/DHARMA/Sans Soleil (Dan's) FRI: Fate Lions/Sundress/Quiet Company (Cavern) FRI: Weird Al Yankovic (Nokia Theatre) FRI: Knocked Out Cold/Electric Vengeance/Slow Children/Shudder/The Ratt Bastards (1919 Hemphill) FRI: Foe Destroyer/Opposite Day/Bronze Whaler/The Gypsy Bravado (Hailey's) SAT: Spooky Folk/Dear Human/Bad Sports/The Backsliders/The Phuss/VIDEO/Nervous Curtains (The Bone) SAT: Spector 45/Legsweeper/Warbeast/Akkolyte/Shaolin Death Squad/Yells at Eels/Mariachi Quentzal (Reno's Chop Shop) SAT: The House Harkonnen/Mount Righteous/Ishi/Florene/FUR/RTB2/The Hope Trust (Trees) SAT: The Uptown Bums/Whiskey Folk Ramblers/Matthew and the Arrogant Sea/Air Review/Smile Smile/Foe Destroyer/Tweed EQ (The Door)
Last night was pretty chaotic. I arrived at Mabel Peabody's to find a disheveled Pocket Change outside the club sitting atop their equipment. Turns out that the band was not allowed inside of the club due to a member being underage, an issue the band believed was not going to be an issue. It looked like there might be some hope after the band spoke with some people familiar with the logistics of matters such as these. Lawyers were consulted, law books checked but the manager just wasn't having any of it.
So no Pocket Change. Bummer? Yes, but the show must go on. Unfortunately the manager of Mable Peabody's must not be familiar with that saying. The paying patrons were informed that the show was being shut down due to some complaints from bar regulars after a challenging and awesome set from the Cuckoo Byrds. I guess the mainstream just isn't ready for our community yet. It was a very surreal moment. I have attended shows that were shut down due to police intervention or excessive bleeding, but never because someone didn't like the music. Everyone who was in attendance (for the show) was in a state of shock for a good five minutes, left in a "Is this really happening?" state. Once the Lady GaGa came blaring in over the loud speaker the finality of it all sank in.
Instead of wallowing in negativity or burning the place down, the show was relocated to the residence of a member of one of the scheduled performers Betdat. What we have below is the debut performance from the newly formed and barely legal Pocket Change along with a clip of the gracious Betdat and the infamous Cuckoo Byrds in their bar shattering performance. It ended up being a much later night than I am sure anyone intended, but the comradery and shared enthusiasm for music experienced last night more than made up for that extra adderal I had to pop to get through Sunday school this morning.
