Maybe I was just having a great time anyway, but for some reason I really liked watching the band Lemonade on Saturday when they opened up for Telepathe. I wasn't expecting to enjoy them at all, and almost everyone I was with disagreed with me, but what I heard was a band with influences ranging from Acid House to A Certain Ratio to dub to afrobeat to Liquid Liquid to PIL to various other forms of rhythmic world music, and I enjoyed the shit out of it. Anyway, not a whole hell of a lot happening tonight, but here's what we got:
Wow, slow week. If we missed anything, let us know.
SHOWS OF NOTE THIS WEEK
TUE: Jenny Lewis/Heartless Bastards (Granada) THU: Starlight Mints/Evangelicals/ Matthew and the Arrogant Sea (Granada) THU: John Vanderslice/The Tallest Man On Earth (House of Blues-- Pontiac Garage) FRI: Big Fiction/Legsweeper/Gun Gun/Muhammed Ali (Bike House) SAT: Waxeater/Daniel Francis Doyle/A Smile Full of Ale/The Sneeze (1919 Hemphill) SAT: Cryptacize/Fishboy/Shiny Around the Edges (Rubber Gloves)
Peter Murphy (Lakewood Theater): The Bauhaus Singles Collection (Volume 1) is undeniable; a nasty, solid slab of extremely dark and desperate punk rock. The rest of their catalog is a murky, gothy swamp after that. I think I should give it another chance, and I'm partly saying this so some of you aging geeks with upside down anchs hanging in your closet can point me in a better direction than I've been led in the past. As for Peter Murhphy as a live performer circa 2009, he apparently still has what it takes after all this time. And I hear he's a hell of a dancer.
Bad Sports | Uptown Bums | Brother Machine | Kampgrounds | the Teenage Bees | the Cunts/Younger Sons (2311 Houston Pl. Denton) Solid house show tonight should attract a healthy turnout amongst Denton's DIY community, which is probably struggling a bit to find a new home base after the recent closings of a few beloved house venues that had become impressive centers of activity. And we should all root for this community to grow and prosper, because after all, I could have stayed in Denton during SXSW this year and seen almost half the bands I really wanted to see in Austin. At houses. With no crowds. For next to no money. And props to the Teenage Bees for having a "Teenage Bees" theme song. I love when bands do that.
Meat Puppets | Retribution Gospel Choir (House of Blues) This is like the third time the Meat Puppets have been through town in the past couple of years, but this visit seems to have gone unnoticed by a lot of people around town, perhaps because its just strange to think of the Meat Puppets playing at House of Blues. Anyway, I probably don't have to say much about this band to most people reading this site, but the band's first three albums absolutely can't be denied, and to tell you the truth, I even used to dig their 1994 Alternative Nation smash single "Backwater" quite a bit, which is nothing compared to their earlier material. And almost all of their early stuff still sounds so goddamn fresh too-- if Meat Puppets II had come out this year, Terminal Boredom and Todd P would building shrines for them as we speak.
Unholy Grave | N.I.B.I.R.U | Magrudergrind | Akkolyte (Alamo, 8335 Camp Bowie, Ft. Worth) This all ages/BYOB show looks great, but I'm going to spare you and let Japanese grindcore legends Unholy Grave explain themselves (via their Myspace page description)
UNHOLY GRAVE was formed by TAKAHO (ex:DEATHPEEDM,ex:NAUSEA) to play GRINDCORE in very early 1993.since then, we have over 50 releases in underground. played at tons of gigs/fests includes foreign tours.(USA,UK,AUSTRALIA,EUROPE,SOUTH-EAST-ASIA) besides UG, TAKAHO is organizing "GRINDFREAKS"gig (since 2001) & "GRINDBASTARDS"fest. (since 2007) and with chew/CORRUPTED, TAKAHO is running underground records shop "GRAVE" & DIY label "GRINDFREAKS"...after 15 years of grinding struggle, still our passion for the "GRINDCORE" is real.....
Big J | Sober (Suite Basement located at 4515 Travis St.) Free with RSVP (4 guests with RSVP). Email full name to: suite.basement@gmail.com
SATURDAY
Telepathe | Lemonade | Fight Bite (Hailey's): Telepathe are a Brookln based group that has received about as much online buzz as a band possibly can. A lot of times this means I'm going to hate them, but Telepathe is an exception to this rule, with an interesting array of influences ranging from contemporary R&B and top 40 hip hop to mid 80's Wax Trax and the darker side of 80's New Romantic pop. At first you might perceive the group's lyrics and vocal delivery as being a bit weak, but a few more listens reveal the subtleties of their approach and open things up a little bit. This kind of music is hardly a revolution these days, but if you're going to go see a band like this, you could do a whole hell of a lot worse.
Ear Pwr | Alex Atchley and the Bad Times | Eat Avery's Bones (The Handsome Kitten) Eat Avery's Bones joins a growing list of local bands with killer full-lengths that will never see the light of day. That's a shame, but if you make it to this show, ask them for a CDR at the very least.... you won't be disappointed.... not to mention that all the members of the band are some of the chillest bros and babez you'll meet in the 'local scene.' Also-- its funny when a band sounds exactly like you think they're going to, as is the case with Ear Pwr-- super poppy, relentlessly hyper synth pop/chiptune influenced craziness thats SO punk because its SO not. You've heard this before, but if you liked it, you'll like this. Also a good excuse to check out the new Dallas DIY spot Handsome Kitten.
DJ OPS | Kashioboy | Pocket Change (Muscle Beach) Pre party that takes places before the Telepathe show at one of our favorite DIY spots, located at 907 Denton St.
Hey there, our pals at Spune have given us two pairs of tickets for Saturday's Telepathe | Lemonade | Fight Bite show at Hailey's, and we're gonna give them away to the first two people who email weshotjrtix@yahoo.com with their full name in the body and "Telepathe" as the subject. We'll have a preview for the show a little later today, and we'll let you know when the contest is over. Good luck ya'll! TICKET CONTEST ENDED A COUPLE HOURS AGO, SORRY TO THOSE WHO ENTERED RECENTLY :(
St. Vincent | Pattern Is Movement (The Granada) For me to say anything about St. Vincent at this point would be like me trying to give my two cents on Cowboys training camp. It's a completely overexposed subject in the local media that a bunch of "experts" weigh in on, boring everyone who has to read their press-release tainted tripe to tears, or even worse, until tears of pure blood drip down your face and stain the news-print document you clutch in your bored little hands.
I'm sorry. Let's slow down a little bit.
Look, the hype isn't her fault and I should mention that St. Vincent plays inoffensive, meticulously constructed, pop songs with superficially "weird" sounds thrown in, along with the occasional odd structure. Critics love that. There's nothing really terrible about it, but I used to get her mixed up with Regina Spektor, until I heard Regina Spektor do this wonderfully arranged and surprisingly decent version of "Real Love." I don't get them mixed up anymore.
Santigold | Amanda Blank | Trouble Andrew (House Of Blues) However unfairly, Santigold is often compared to MIA. For her sake, it would be a shame if Santoigold would ultimately be more known for her work being sampled more than anything else, a fate that has befallen MIA, who is rather successful in spite of that fact. Of course, this is nothing new, it's been happening since ESG had an underground hit with "UFO," but the track was much more known for being so commonly sampled in hip hop songs. Anyway, the track that made me think of this in the first place, "Brooklyn Go Hard" is on the Notorious soundtrack, and it's by Jay-Z, who Santigold is supposed to eventually collaborate with again at some point. Whatever comparisons you make with Santigold, don't just say anything about R&B. Her annoyance at being lumped in as an R&B artist produced some rather truthful insight on the vague racism often inherent in genre classifications, and she blurted some pretty choice quotes in this Lipster interview:
"It's racist (laughs). It's totally racist. Everyone is just so shocked that I don't like R&B. Why does R&B keep coming into my interviews? It's pissing me off. I didn't grow up as a big fan of R&B and, like, what is the big shocker? It's stupid. In the beginning I thought that was funny. I'm an 'MC', I'm a 'soul singer', I'm a 'dance hybrid artist'. And some guy said I looked like Kelly Rowland!"
Santigold claims that people are overlooking the New Wave and Rock influences in her music and it all kind of reminds me of when I worked at this record store, I won't name any names, and I had this one boss who insisted on putting Prince and Michael Jackson in the "Soul/R&B" section, as opposed to "Pop/Rock." I confronted him in my last five minutes on the clock, on my last day at work, and explained, "Prince and Michael Jackson are in the top ten list of the most important and iconic artists in POP MUSIC. Why do you insist on categorizing them otherwise?" Anyways, kids, I don't recommend basically calling your boss a racist on your last day at work, but sometimes you just have to.
Ty Segall | The Moonhearts | The Aquaholics (Club Dada) Wait, let me get this straight: A ONE-MAN BAND that plays GARAGE ROCK?! Wait, what? Are you serious? So, he just has a bass drum and a tambourine? And he drums while playing guitar? That is really crazy! And he could have chosen any type of music but he chose GARAGE ROCK! How fucking mind-blowing! How does he go on tour? Does he have to load all of his equipment himself? Is he one of those dudes that asks the crowd to buy him a drink from the stage? How does he sell his merch? He must have to bring a "band" full of roadies, haha. WHOA.
First of all, I wanted to pass along this email from one of our recent ticket contest winners concerning the risks you run when you win tickets to one show and accidentally show up for another show:
So this is kind of a strange story. I accidentally went to the Lounge on Elm, thinking that the Holy Fuck show was last night. I walked up to the bouncer and told him I was on the list, he looked at me like I was delusional and said the cover was $5, so I paid him and walked in. This band from DC was setting up at the time,they were called Deleted Scene and as I walked around I thought, where IS everybody? I finally walked toward the stage and this drunk chick approached me and mentioned how it's strange that we were the only ones there. I agreedand so she said, "Well that means we can get away with showing our tits, right?" I was a bit bewildered at the comment, but not as much as when she pulled down her dress and let her tits hang out showing them off to the band and smiling. She attempted to take my shirt off too, but I kindly pushed her hands away. The band was definitely shocked and humored as well, they had a hard time tuning their instruments with the topless girl dancing about. I just sort of stood behind her laughing at their reaction and at her, obviously. She finally left for a very long cigarrette and I stood there, an audience of one,and listened to their entire set. The band wasn't all that great, but I was grateful to have shared such an akward moment with them.
This is truly amazing to me. Now for some shows:
Balmorhea | Tiny Vipers | Sleep Whale (Hailey's) Driving through Balmorhea, TX last year on my way to Marfa kind of helped me contextualize exactly what this band is inspired by and what they're trying to do, and although this certainly made me appreciate the material a little more (there IS a time and a place for it), this Austin, TX group feels just a little stiff and uninspired at times, making for a pleasant but less than thrilling listening experience
Copwatch | Conspirator | Violent Messiah | Ippur (Bike House, Dallas) I promise that "pleasant" and "listening experience" will never be used to describe any of these groups. And in this case, it means this show will be great.
The Art List is a little early this week because I wanted to note the Skip Noah opening tonight. I was really impressed by his stuff when I started putting the List together this morning. So I emailed him some questions. And he wrote back. His show opens tonight at North Lake College in Irving (see below).
Greatness: Skip Noah
Richardson Heights: I was initially attracted to the name of your show opening this week, "Giraffes and Seahorses". What significance do those two creatures hold for you?
Skip Noah: Both giraffes and seahorses are very unique animals, and I’ve always had an affinity to anything out of the ordinary. I’ve included a character named Bacchus Giraffe in 3 of my paintings, Bacchus Giraffe Drunken God of Mythology, Dinner with Bacchus Giraffe and Pomegranate Seeds. My Bacchus Giraffe character is a modern take on the Roman God of Wine Bacchus. I’ve always thought the form of the giraffe, with her long neck, orange spots and gentle character to be very appealing to me. I’ve had dreams before where a giraffe has acted as a messenger is some way, conveying some underlying philosophy of life to me, as is the story with Pomegranate Seeds, where the giraffe tells me about the momentum of life reproducing itself infinitely using a pomegranate and its seeds as an example. As far as seahorses I’ve including them in a number of paintings as well, such as Persephone’s Part Time Waitressing Job in Hades. They are the ambassadors from my world (the one inside my head) to the world I’m creating on the canvas. They look on at the characters in the art with concern, scorn or acknowledgment. To me seahorses are the religious monks of the ocean kingdom, constantly wandering the depths contemplating their own existence and its relation to everything else.
RH: What is your studio set up like? What kind of environment do you create when you get down to work?
SN: My home is my studio. I like to have a set number of hours set aside before I paint, because I lose track of time completely. What seems like 15 minutes can in reality be 3 hours when I’m at work. I usually like to have some music playing while I paint, I enjoy Indian Ragas and Sufi music, or more popular bands like Gorillaz, Bjork and Radiohead. My studio is pretty messy, paints everywhere, a graveyard of abused paintbrushes scattered about like the aftermath on a battlefield, a rainbow of dried colors on the floor.
RH: I'm glad you found a use for all those old computer parts. Can you describe the techniques you employ when assembling your mixed media pieces, such as Pierre Reading the Odyssey?
SN: A discarded motherboard looks much nicer in a piece of art that it does sitting in a landfill in a developing country. In the piece Pierre Reading the Odyssey [featured image], I took a big bag of “stuff” that I had collected and just went through it piecing together this scene. I wanted to have it as dimensional as possible so the viewer would want to reach out and put their hands on it, to feel the different textures with their own fingers, to feel as if the could be sitting there in the room with Pierre. I would first put together the basic structure of the painting, Pierre (my favorite character from War and Peace) holding his copy of The Odyssey (one of my favorite classical stories), the candle, the flowers and so on. Then I start building outwards, adding layer on layer until I achieve the effect I’m looking for. I glued a variety of materials together to create this piece, everything from cardboard, computer parts, human hair (I shaved my head and used the hair), Japanese fan, a discarded hookah, coins and many other things. I consider my mixed media pieces a type of sculpture on canvas. Lots of glue, paint and random objects are what I use, and placing them together like a collage to make a new, consolidated creation.
In Peony I wanted to have a stand alone mix-media sculpture without the canvas. I found a tree limb on the ground in the woods in Austin that was the perfect fit for the woman to lie on. I built a skeletal frame and built the body out from that. I added a white cloth to drape around her waist, to add vertical balance and a sense of purity. Everything on the statue (except the wood, shelf and cloth) I built using recycled mixed media.
WEDNESDAY
Giraffes and Seahorses Skip Noah North Lake College 500 North MacArthur Blvd., Irving, Tx 75038 Reception June 17, 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM Through July 7th...
THURSDAY
Hey Goss Michael, your web site sucks! But I was able to extract that this is "a group exhibition featuring new acquisitions of Contemporary British Artists" intending to "transform the galleries into a place of reflection, introspection, and a cabinet of curiosities". Due to the preponderance of artists in this list with either Wikipedia entries or Saatchi Gallery profiles, I guess this is a big deal:
I appreciate anything in the suburbs. The ArtCentre is probably the best thing to happen for the Plano art scene since John Ledbetter's Plano Center for Art. All North Texas artists:
*"Junko is incredibly skillful, careful, and fun to meet in person. [...] She is Japanese. So she has very special mind which is come from her back ground as Japanese. Calm, quiet, gentleness, peacefulness, happiness, solace, restful, comfort or so. Her paintings show these expression came up from her inside."
SATURDAY
"Groundbreaking"! I really like this photo of Justin Bua with Sir Mix-A-Lot.
Camera Obscura | Anni Rossi (The Loft) Camera Obscura is one of the only pop groups of their stature that I not only can tolerate, but that I wholeheartedly support. And by "stature," I mean that I was recently listening to modern classic, "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" in my car, and the song was almost playing exactly where it left off on the PA when I walked into a grocery store.
I usually can't stand overly precious groups in this genre. The type of hyper-produced bombast that they overload their songs with is something that many have attempted since Belle And Sebastian's peak around ten years ago, often to embarrassing results. Most people just don't have the first clue about how to gracefully insert a trumpet or flute into their music without it sounding completely forced or silly. I wish that weren't so, but more often than not, it is. There is some intangible to CO's music that transcends the whole kitchen sink nature of the instrumentation and the inevitable weepy melodrama that plagues so many of these records. It could be lead singer Traceyanne Campbell's ability to sound meek while simultaneously belting it out, or that the writing is so strong that these songs wouldn't suffer with even more sonic embellishments tossed in, or the opposite: if they were under-produced, covered with hiss, and released on cassette. In either case, I think Camera Obscura would still be a completely enjoyable experience. They conquered the near-impossible task of playing a convincing yet unavoidably brief set at a SXSW day show at the Mohawk when I saw them, and I'm sure they'll be even better tonight.
