New Science Projects | Matthew And The Arrogant Sea | Verulf | Bryce Isbell (J and J's Pizza) If you're looking for an unconventional take on the singer-songwriter genre, you'll find more than enough at J and J's tonight. The New Science Projects are the act I've been exposed to the most here, and they are also the most challenging out of this bunch. We mentioned Matthew And The Arrogant Sea earlier in the week since their side project, Gashcat, just performed on Tuesday. Imagine that.
80's Night With DJ G (Hailey's) According to the New Science Projects' Myspace page, "Denton Hipsters" go to this instead of seeing their shows. So if you're too hip, well then act accordingly. I've been to a few myself, and I disagree. There is no way all of those people can be hip.
Sticky Buns Dance Party (Rubber Gloves) The Sticky Buns kids are throwing another ridiculous dance party with a highly eclectic playlist and an "I don't even know how to take myself seriously" attitude. Punk, funk, disco, hip hop and whatever else they can find.
Royals/Artwork | White Arms of Athena | Justin and Monroe | Koji Kondo(1919 Hemphill) This mostly hardcore show was moved to 1919 at the last minute, so hopefully more than a few people got the message. Koji Kondo, who will be touring with the Undoing of David Wright later this month, will get things off at 7pm.
we are bringing back the TV Carnage. In case you do not know, TV Carnage collects the absolute worst segments of television programing and tightly condense them into 90 minute fun fests. In between carnage segments there will be music playing with crazy things being projected on the walls. Just like in the 60s!
Gashcat | Barn Burning (Rubber Gloves) Gashcat is a side project that splintered out of Matthew And The Arrogant Sea. So if you check out Matthew And The Arrogant Sea's Myspace calendar, you'll find that either of these acts will be playing every night until 2008. The recordings are subdued and distant, with a sound that is interesting in that the songs, structures and intent aren't immediately apparent. This is a definite positive except that music relying so heavily on recording fidelity as an extra intstrument is often in danger of coming off as standard and unremarkable live. Hopefully, that's the not the case. Rhode Island's Barn Burning will face the same challenge, although mostly with the vocals.
Doppleganger | Network of Terror (1919 Hemphill) Doppleganger is a collaborative effort between members of Koji Kondo and the noise outfit Judascow. The results so far seem to be a much looser affair than Koji Kondo, with humming sound-scape backdrops and freer playing in general. Network of Terror sounds much like their name implies, with the terror mostly communicated through blastbeats and screaming.
Unfortunately, I can't really write a full review of The Last Ones on Earthdebut because I only got a chance to listen to it once all the way through. So I figure if anyone would like to do a write-up of this CD and submit to us, they're welcome to do so. You can even borrow my copy. All you have to do is go pick it up near the corner of Main and Haskell, which is where I threw it out the window of my car.
I've been able to goof off for the past couple of Mondays (especially last week), but now that I'm back to non-goof off Monday, I think I'm starting to feel like this:
Anyway, no matter how you're feeling, you've always got Jazz at the Amsterdam on Mondays, and for those that might like to spend the evening watching one of the cute Strokes play some cute songs, you can go to the House of Blues to see:
And just for fun, can someone name a worse early 00's garage band than Mooney Suzuki? I mean I guess their first album was decent, but didn't they start letting NSYNC produce their albums or something? And no, Jet doesn't count in this little contest.
Jesus Christ.... we've said it before and we'll say it again: Blogger is free, and you get what you pay for. After being labeled a "spam" blog by one of Blogger's trusted "spambots," we were locked out of our blog on Friday afternoon and have just now been given access again, meaning that we didn't get to post a weekender or anything else for several days. Somewhere, a member a Belafonte has a tear in his eye.
Anyway, the really crappy part is how Blogger's spam spotting works: The robot finds your blog, suspects that it's a spam blog, and automatically locks you out in order to shut it down. The problem is that this apparently happens to dozens of legit blogs every single day, and once a blog is locked for spam, Blogger insists that you wait for up to a week or longer in order for a human being to actually go to your blog and confirm that it isn't spam. Then, and only then, will they unlock it and give you the privilege of blogging once again.
Yeah I know, bitching about a free service is kind of stupid, but Google certainly isn't running Blogger out of the kindness of their hearts, and this guilty unless proven innocent approach to security seems to go right along with Google's happy new partnership with the Chinese government. Get in where you fit in I suppose. Expect a "very short because we didn't think we were going to post today" it list a bit later.
So now that Memorial Day has come and gone, it's safe to say that Summer is officially upon us. Here in Texas, the season can be a little hard to take to say the least, but whether you're looking forward to the heat or dreading it like we are, we figure the concept of "summer" provides us with a nice opportunity to kick off something new on this blog...
So over the next few hot months, we're going to present "We Shot A Mix," a brand new series of posts where we invite one local DJ, band or DJ group to put together an original, party oriented dance mix for your downloading pleasure. There will be no criteria or theme to any of the mixes: they do whatever the hell they want, give it to us, and we give it to you. Pretty simple. We figure with the number of good DJs and tasteful musicians in the area these days, it should be pretty easy to convince people that this is in fact a brilliant idea. You should expect a diverse range of artists to participate over the next couple of months, and I'm sure the mixes will all be full of new music and pleasant surprises.
Anyway, we're happy to kick off the We Shot A Mix series with Pretty Vacant, a new DJ duo who played a big role in getting last weekend's excellent Glass Candy show together. Consisting of Dallas party people Lolita and Justin V (former member of High Society), Pretty Vacant brings a diverse and tasteful palette to the table, focusing on everything from new house (I refuse to call it "Blog House") to disco to punk to synth pop. The mix below consists of original songs and remixes by the likes of Brazilian Girls, The Teenagers, Mstrkrft, New Young Pony Club and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, among others, and the thing builds up, peaks and comes down over the course of just under 30 minutes. The mix is very well put together, by the way, featuring a dark party vibe that's a lot of fun without being too obvious. I honestly enjoy every second of it thanks to the choice remixes and artful execution, and I think once you listen to it, you'll agree that we're likely to see these kids around town a lot more in the coming months.
