There's a band playing this weekend at 1919 called "Cruddy," and that's what this list is: cruddy. Sorry, everyone. Everything went wrong today and I only got to describe the Boy Tap set. There's something kind of amazing about that. See you next week. -Defensive Listening FRIDAY
Billingham's Defense System One Year Anniversary Party with BDS | Ocelot | Boytap | Sydney Confirm | Richard Blake | Select | Big J | Schwa | Yeah Def (Fallout Lounge) Show starts at 5:30 PM and there will be barbecue for early attendees. I saw Boytap recently and was impressed by the cohesiveness of the show despite the fact that the group admitted to not having played together much previously. Their set consisted mostly of party music fair that didn't take itself too seriously; synth pop with outrageous vocal antics, but backed by an extremely capable backing band including members of The Frenz as well as Heaven Is A Hotel for that particular show. Happy Anniversary to BDS, and thanks to Schwa for always playing "Optimo."
Curated by John Pomara. Seems that Cora Cohen is probably the highlight here. Johnny Robertson wins this year's award for most annoying web portfolio gallery ever, but his paintings are pretty. But my favorite here is easily Jennie Ottinger (so amazing: this, this, and this, plus the featured image above). Here is an interview with Ms. Ottinger. And there's much more good stuff here.
Oh, Kat Gardner. So hard to make a decision about that. Almost as titillating (artistically, of course) as my favorite North Texas artist Haylee Ryan Yale. A quick look at Jonathan Kimbrell's site makes you realize he's the "mid-century ideology & imagery", which I guess leaves Kat Gardner with "modern chaos".
Some of this glass looks really amazing, like this (Mark Abildgaard) and this (Anna Booth) and this (Steve & Claudia Beckwith) and this (Steven Anderson). They've got an all day event going on Saturday at their Addison location (Southeast corner of Belt Line and the Tollway).
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart | Depreciation Guild | Cymbals Eat Guitars (Lola's) My life revolves around pop music, always has, probably always will. Especially pop that I will not so simply refer to as "independently produced forward thing pop," instead of that dreaded "indie-pop" term that we like to throw around so much. This pop music beast shows it self to me in varying, spectrum-bending ways. On one end we have pop deconstructionists like Ariel Pink who strips away all of the sheen brought on by timely studio tricks, leaving the listener with hooks at their most frail, sleazy, and challenging.
Then we have the Max Tundra's, whose job it is to turn the pop song upside down, filter it through his post modern hyper digital perspective, leaving us with an equally challenging and yet totally different piece of Pop Art brilliance.
So we are left with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the New York-based band whose self-titled release has not left my record player for more than a 24 hour period since it's release in February. Critics love to tie their influences to the whipping post; Ghosts of "Ecstasy and Wine"- era My Bloody Valentine, everything C86 and (gasp!) even The Smiths can be heard throughout their music. I will not deny, they do wear said influences on their sleeves, but come on, that stuff was 20+ years ago. Countless bands have attempted to recreate said sound, just like any other genre, since The Smiths broke up. Very few have done it with favorable results. These New Yorkers know how to write great songs, and know which medium to deliver them through. Three chords may be enough to make up a pop song, but it takes those chords coupled with heart to make it great. Luckily and ironically, Pains have that in spades. Whereas Ariel Pink is too simple for some and Max too out there, Pains' Achilles' heel is that they relish in the sound that means a lot to a certain set of music listeners. I for one, thank them for that.
The recently released "Higher Than the Stars" EP is an obvious extension of their debut. The fuzz has been cleaned up on a couple tracks, letting those glorious hooks and even the vocals shine though. Saint Etienne, another band unwilling to compromise their pop vision in lieu of records sales, offer a pleasant re-mix as well. Wisely chosen. Can't wait to pick up the vinyl so it can rest at its new home atop my stereo. If this kind of music gives you a huge boner like it does me, might I suggest that you also check out the criminally overlooked Bubblegum Lemonade debut, "Doubleplusgood," released last year. Another amazing record. Let's hope that we are on the precipice of an independently produced forward thing pop revival.-(FP)
Chris Clavin | Imperial Can | Gerd | Genius Party | Star Commander (1919 Hemphill) Look, there might be some people at this show awkwardly looking at the ground and unable to make eye contact because they thoroughly fucking enjoyed themselves at a certain big event last night. It's okay to have a good time, okay? Life is so full of pain, take happiness anyway you can.-(DL)
Experimental Dental School | El Paso Hot Button | History At Our Disposal (The Lounge) Wish I had more time to talk about Experimental Dental School's genuinely interesting music; ambitiously stuttered rhythms with smooth yet quirky vocalizing over it and somehow created by a mere duo, but it's worth checking out at The Lounge tonight. -(DL)
The Polyphonic Spree | DJ Lord (The Palladium) FREE SHOW FOR 21 AND UP/SPONSORED BY SOCO | THAT'S SOUTHERN COMFORT FOR ALL OF YOU UNDERAGE LIGHTWEIGHTS WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT REAL "WHISKEY FLAVORED" LIQUOR IS ALL ABOUT. ON THEIR WEBSITE THEY HAVE INSTRUCTIONS SHOWING YOU HOW TO PUT A HOT DOG IN A CROISSANT BEFORE YOU MICROWAVE IT. CHECK IT THE FUCK OUT. SEE YOU TONIGHT.-(DL)
I don't how easy it will be to show a film at The Cavern, but they will attempt it at Top Notch tonight along with a bike ride. From Sober:
This is a special edition of Top Notch.
Sixty 4 Art Collective and myself will be hosting a bike ride that will start at Mockingbird Station @ 8pm. The ride will end at The Cavern @ 10pm, where we will be screening the brand new "Fixed City" film for the first time in the US!
Stick around for Top Notch! I have the homie Dayta from Houston rocking with me.
Monotonix | Harlem | Uptown Bums (Rubber Gloves) Monotonix are worth the slightly higher ticket price tonight, and you should really see them before they are forced to play a lame venue due to their ever increasing profile. I think it's really cool that Drag City put their record out, and I certainly didn't see that one coming. The Chicago-based label has definitely kept things interesting even if I don't always understand their actions. I recently overpaid for a publication they put out simply because they had an article on Del Shannon mixed in with all of the weirdo folk articles. -(DL)
Hey everyone, the folks at Spune were nice enough to hook us up with a pair of tickets to tonight'sPains of Being Pure at Heart performance at Lola's in Fort Worth. If you'd like to win them, just email weshotjrtix@yahoo.combefore 1pm today. Please include your full name in the body and make "Pains of Being Pure at Heart" the subject. We'll choose a winner at random. Good luck!
Hey best friends, it's been a little while. How are you? Some of you might have noticed that I haven't been doing a lot of writing around here lately, and I wanted to let you know why. A couple weeks ago, I moved from Dallas to a temporarily undisclosed city far away from Texas, and I've had to take some time to get settled into a new apartment, a new job, and essentially a new life all together, and I simply haven't had the time to contribute much to this blog. Sorry about that.
But before I left, myself, DL and the other WSJR contributors spent some time discussing what would be done once I departed. After pondering many different options, we decided that instead of throwing a goodbye party and calling it quits, we would try something completely new with the website, not only to keep things exciting for us, but also to provide something more entertaining for all of you.
Over the past few months, we've been making friends in a small handful of exciting cities around the country, and we've decided to join forces with some new people and expand the scope of this website to include coverage of the music scenes in at least three new cities, including the one I'm currently living in, as well as to provide a more national focus on music we're (and hopefully you're) interested in from all over the country. We'll still continue to provide the same kind of substantive coverage of DFW and Denton music that you've seen here for the past (gulp) three and a half years, and I'll still be contributing to the site fairly frequently, along with DL and a group of smart new local writers to whom you've recently been introduced. So in short, we won't be sacrificing any local coverage as part of this transition, but simply adding to what we already do, and hopefully helping to raise the profile of local DFW/Denton bands in several new cities with thriving music scenes.
I don't want to give too much away right now because we'll have a more formal announcement for you in the next few weeks explaining which cities we'll be covering and how we're going to do it, but for now, let me just tell you that I'm very excited about our plans, and I think most of you will be very pleased with the way things go around here over the next few months.
Anyway, thanks to all of you for making this summer the most highly trafficked season in the history of this website, and I hope you all will stick around to see what we're going to do from here on out. And oh yeah, one more thing-- by popular demand, It Lists will now appear in the morning or early afternoon each day in order to give you more time to see which shows are the easiest to make fun of. Here's today's list:
Ra Ra Riot | Maps & Atlases | Princeton (The Granada) As I was reading a couple things about Ra Ra Riot last night, I noticed that they had recorded a session for Daytrotter back in 2007, and this seemed like an important thing to mention because Daytrotter is an important thing, right? The weird part was that as I sat and thought about it, I realized that I didn't even really know what the hell Daytrotter actually was. Criminal for a blogger, right? I mean, Gorilla vs Bear and Pitchfork and Stereogum and all those places talk about it all the time, and I know its a pretty big deal in the world of "Indie Rock" and all that, but I've just never taken the time to really look at it since it always seems to feature like a recording of St. Vincent playing a cover of an Irish drinking song or some garbage. Actually, I don't even know if St. Vincent has ever recorded with Daytrotter, its just a figure of speech.
I guess the point in bringing all this up is to demonstrate my feelings of detachment from the kind of music Ra Ra Riot makes. This is Indie Rock with a capital "I," and although most of it is pleasant enough, all of it feels like its just kinda sitting there, waiting for its chance to start being played over the loudspeakers at Banana Republic instead of Urban Outfitters because those are the people who still actually buy CDs, right? Influences seem to range from Interpol to Coldplay to Arcade Fire, with nods to Elliot Smith and 90's Brit Pop and Post-Punk, and I wasn't kidding when I said it's pleasant enough because it is. But much like Daytrotter, I kinda know what its like and I don't have a problem with it, but I also know that I don't have to pay it all that much attention in order to conclude that I don't really give a shit.
Chicago's Sung Tongs and Elephant 6 influenced Maps and Atlases open, and they're a bit more interesting.-(SR)
I want to add that Princeton is one of the few bands I've seen recently where I felt that the record sounded better than their live show, which was fine, it just didn't capture some of the little subtleties and influences apparent on the recording that I'm sure they would want to convey through a performance.-(DL)
Social Junk | Mincemeat or Ten Speed | Dick Neff | Guilt Trip | Corporate Park | Joey Lawrence Gets A Coke Problem (House Of Tinnitus) Philadelphia's Social Junk certainly don't make pop music, but they are still probably one of the most accessible bands to have ever set foot in House of Tinnitus, even if you'd never use the word "accessible" to actually describe their music. Confused? Well, this really says more about House of Tinnitus' challenging bills than it does about the band, but its still important to note because it might provide you with just a glimse into Social Junk's sound-- this is found sound happy, largely instrumental psychedelic music that ranges stylistically from peaceful bird chirping and drones to more rhytmic, early industrial influenced experiments with elements of tribal percussion and general abrasion. This is tough, interesting music to be sure, but the group's quiter moments might just be right up the alley of a few people who don't often listen to "harsh noise," for lack of a better term. Social Junk is an excellent group that shouldn't be missed, especially in one of the most intimate and welcoming spots in the area.
Mincemeat or Teenspeed are another fantastic Philadelphia group with an eclectic set of influences ranging from Afro Funk (including Konono No 1) to harsh noise to 8 bit to psychedelic folk, all of which come together incredibly well, surprisingly enough, resulting in one of the more interesting bands I've stumbled across this year. We highly recommend that you show up early to catch them.-(SR)
Nobunny | Video | Hunx And His Punx | War Party (Mable Peabody's) Another show definitely worth checking out in Denton tonight, featuring the masterful pop songwriting of Nobunny, a guy who always backs up his performances with a rotating cast of able musicians, including local Payton Green. Hunx and His Punx includes the kind of great lyrical content that often occurs when punk bands tackle gay themes, and there's no doubt in my mind that Video will put on a flawless show. -(DL)
Binary Sunrise (Good Records) Show celebrating the release of the group's new recording which is released on the venue's label, Good Records Recordings. -(DL)
Wind Suit Party with Ghost Pizza | Land Mammals | 90210hh!/Vessels (Hailey's) Free entry when wearing "appropriate attire." Presented by We Made Out Once.
NOTE: "Decades" is canceled at Rubber Gloves tonight, due to DJ No Dad's illness.
Creed (Superpages Center) I hate the fact that Creed is such an easy target, a punchline band even for people with poor taste to make fun of. Just remember, Radiohead, The Arcade Fire, and Iron & Wine are like Creed to some people. I don't know who, but I just thought I'd mention it. By the way, Pitchfork covering the "Decade in Indie" is kind of like Sean Hannity reporting on Townhall crashers and shit, isn't it?
Greg Ginn & The Taylor Texas Corrugators | Jambang | Zanzibar Snails (Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio) I'm not going to attempt to breakdown Ginn's career by explaining that playing in a Texas-themed jam-band is actually the most unexpected and punk thing that he could have done, but I will say this: Greg Ginn has always done exactly what he wants to do, he always will, and if you think you're that free, you're probably lying to yourself. He pretty much invented hardcore, and decades later, it seems he could care less. Though that may be a depressing thought to some, I've always admired people that could do something completely revolutionary and shrug it off eventually, even if I don't necessarily consider myself a big fan of their current work.
Who could blame someone for shunning something with so much attached cultural hubris? That's a common thread running through the various bios of pioneers in just about every art movement going back to the first time anyone cared to ask. Some people feel that running in place is the most profound statement they can make, and others feel that you must forever radically shape-shift in order to evolve as an artist. For better or worse, Ginn evolved, even while still playing in Black Flag, which has been well-documented. Interestingly, he recently performed with The Dirty Projectors, just another in a long line of artists who have interpreted his work, however this popular, modern, indie rock group somehow managed to be christened with the distinction of winning the fleeting and mysterious stamp-of-approval from the man himself. It's worth mentioning that most people try really hard, create total garbage, and then spend the rest of their lives bragging about the one thing they did that was never good in the first place. You could never accuse Greg Ginn of anything like that.
Telefon Tel Aviv | The Race | Ishi DJ Set (The Cavern) None other than Stoned Ranger(!) told me today that Telefon Tel Aviv's latest analog-only record was pretty good, and I should go back and see if I can notice much of a difference when they changed their approach towards both synth and recording technology. The duo was also involved in some sample work for Berlin/Los Angeles-based electronic software maker, Native Instruments; I'm assuming before the tragic and untimely death of founding member, Charles Cooper.
On a lighter note, I met some employees of Native Instruments in Germany this past summer, and after some extensive discussions regarding their work, came to the conclusion that they are the happiest workers on earth.
Didn't know Ishi had reached "DJ set" status already.
Nite Maus here, still house sitting for SR and DL. Not much going on tonight, aside from the usual. Mayhem Mondays (Fallout Lounge) Cool Out (Cavern) Bad Ass Jazz (Amsterdam)
MON:Securicor/Maleveller/Releaser/The Initiative (Phoenix Project) TUE: Gregg Ginn and The Taylor Texas Corrugators/Jambang/Zanzibar Snails (Rubber Gloves) WED: Ra Ra Riot/Maps & Atlases/Princeton (The Granada) WED: Social Junk/Mincemeat or Ten Speed/Dick Neff/Corporate Park (House Of Tinnitus) WED: Nobunny/Video/Hunx And His Punx/War Party (Mable Peabody's) THU: Chris Clavin/Imperial Can/Gerd/Genius Party (1919 Hemphill) THU: Experimental Dental School/El Paso Hot Button/History At Our Disposal (The Lounge) THU: The Polyphonic Spree/DJ Lord (The Palladium) THU: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart/The Depreciation Guild/Cymbals Eat Guitars (Lola's) THU: Monotonix/Harlem/Uptown Bums (Rubber Gloves)FRI: Psychedelic Furs/Happy Mondays (House Of Blues) FRI: Busdriver/Abstract Rude (The Cavern) SAT: Binary Sunrise/Darktown Strutters/Buttercup (City Tavern) SAT: Kylesa/Tombs/Bison BC/Curse The Heavens (Rubber Gloves) SAT:The Theater Fire/Whiskey Folk Ramblers/The Southern Sea (Lola's) SAT: Record Hop/PVC Street Gang/The Cocky Americans/On After Dark (Boiler Room)
