The Numerators | Sunn Talk | Kiwi Sisters (The Cavern) Always a great time with the Numerators. And I'd never heard of Garland's Kiwi Sisters until today-- kind of interesting, at times decent loner bedroom synth pop, and sort of shitty in parts too. I really don't know what to think, but its worth checking out to see what you think.
Bone Thugs n Harmony | Johnny Ringo (House of Blues) Goddamn, I love Bone Thugs. I also love Cleveland, where they're from. I don't know what it is, exactly, but Bone's best singles just fucking kill it every single time. I rocked em in 10th grade, and I like them as much or possibly even more now. Of course, the irony of a bunch of suburban kids singing along about "the first of the month" isn't lost on me, but that's kind of part of the fun, isn't it?
Interpol | White Rabbits (Palladium) What happens to someone like Carlos D when first they're cool, then everyone makes fun of them, then they become unworthy of even mockery? Now that hipsters are more or less a thing of the past, I can't imagine what this guy will possibly do with the rest of his life. I mean, he was more of a professional hipster than anyone I can think of. And if you haven't read the article linked in the previous sentence, I would highly recommend checking it out-- a good look back at the counterculture decade that never was. I'd be curious to see what any of you have to say about that.
Tonight we have two releases from Texas' finest, the 13th Floor Elevators. Both of these recordings are from the same show, the infamous February 18, 1967 gig at the Houston Music Theatre. I've only included the first two thirds of the Death in Texas cd, which is disc 10 of last year's limited edition (and totally awesome) Sign of the 3-Eyed Men box set put out by the resurrected label International Artists. The tracks I left off were from reunion shows in the late 70s and mid 80s. The Magic of the Pyramids has several songs from the same show that aren't included on Death in Texas, as well as an alternate version of the Easter Everywhere gem 'Dust.'
The Magic of the Pyramids was actually the first Elevators recording that I ever bought and I can't tell you how many straight months that it stayed in the tape deck of my 1975 Cadillac when I was a teenager. Maybe that's why I have always had a soft spot for these recordings when many consider them a complete mess and a document of a band that was falling apart. The late Elevators guitarist Stacy Sutherland gave his recollection of the night in a 1977 interview:
"The most mystic vision I ever had was concerning a show we did here in Houston, Theatre In The Round [a k a Houston Music Theatre]. And I had taken some acid, I hadn't had any in quite a while, and it was a super strong dose, about a 1,000 microgram or something. And we had to do a concert, and all of a sudden everyone started glowing. They had a foot of light, like a neon light around them in the room… real bright. And everyone started glowing away, and I freaked out that I was going to die or something. I had some bad trips before, but nothing like this. And then everybody turned into wolves, and I thought that our band was evil, because of some of the things we had advocated. We had had a controversy going on quite a while about advocating drugs and so forth, and mixing it with religion, you know. 'Cause I felt like that was pretty dangerous ground to tread. And Tommy and I were arguing about that quite a bit. I got on a bummer about it evidently. And I was tryin' to escape the room, I didn't know what I was gonna do, but I was gonna get out of there. I didn't want anything to do with it 'cause everybody was turning into animals. And all of a sudden there were angels, and I couldn't move my body anymore. I lost physical feeling all over and I was laying on the floor. And everybody turned into angels, and everybody in the room was the judge at my trial to decide whether I was worthy to enter heaven or hell. Because it was absolute that I was going to die anyway you know."
The rest of the interview, along with a wealth of other Elevators info, can be found here. Enjoy!
There will be a Not New Music coming later today. In the meantime check out some great guitar work from Mark Knopfler in this Dire Straits clip from the Old Grey Whistle Test back in 1978.
Aw, is this the last time We Shot JR will ever tell you about Cool Out at The Cavern? We had some good times at Cool Out. I remember discussing "Where The Scene Was At" and "What makes the perfectly bloggable MP3?" and "Why does that guy from The Observer always have that little notepad with him?" This is all while fielding requests to kiss Thatcher on the cheek. Cool Out is like so many other things around here:
1. People make fun of you for doing it. 2. The people who made fun of you wind up doing it themselves. 3. It becomes such an institution that nobody would question it either way. 4. Once it's gone, people will miss it.
I don't know if we'll be so lucky. I have no problem with Cool Out. I never have. I always heard more disco and soul and Danceteria tracks than anything that resembled "Blog Haus" during those tumultuous years.
Oh, I almost forgot. Speaking of the scene and since you're saying goodbye to us, I wanted to give a long-delayed goodbye to a local scene legend. Yes, this is a tribute to someone I came to know only through the wonderful world of the We Shot JR Twitter account. It's Dustin Hollywood, the local party photographer who moved to actual Hollywood. When he lived in Dallas, he worked for Helloooooo Dot Com and he also worked for Rockwell Collins, the defense contractor. You can read about this in the Dallas Morning News article linked above. He recently did a remarkable feature with the fashion blog Style Like U, where he explained his largely organic jewelry style and it's worth checking out as well.
I always found that dichotomy of Hollywood's photography and the lifestyle it represents with the sometimes conservative tone in his tweets fascinating. I have friends who work for Rockwell Collins; but they tend to be housewives and family men, never a Dallas party photog. You might say that in his time around here, Hollywood was kind of like "The Juan Williams of Dallas Nightlife Photography," you know, kind of the way that Williams was the most conservative man on NPR, or now the most liberal guy at Fox News. Makes your head spin.
Speaking of NPR, I wanted to share with you some of Dustin Hollywood's most entertaining Tweets, in which he addresses National Public Radio. Read a few of these and you tell me if Dallas hasn't lost one of its most fascinatingly complex talents:
TUE: Interpol/White Rabbits (Palladium) TUE: The Fresh & Onlys/Royal Baths/Rayon Beach (The Nightmare) WED: The Numerators/Sunn Talk/Kiwi Sisters (The Cavern) THR: Ra Ra Riot (Granada) THR: Tim Kasher/Minus the Bear (House of Blues) THR: And You Will Know us By the Trail of the Dead (Loft) FRI: Bad Brains (Granada) SAT: We Shot JR is Dead (Rubber Gloves) SAT: Darktown Strutters/Damaged Goods/Yeah Def (Hailey's) SUN: Pinkish Black/Transistor Tramps/Vaults of Zin (Chat Room) SUN: Helmet/Intronaut/Descender (Loft) SUN: Danzig (Palladium) SUN: Commando/Heavy Cream/Uptown Bums/Video (Rubber Gloves)
La Meme Gallery Opening: Mustache Club/Skunk Ape | Yeah Def (Rubber Gloves) Featuring work by John Gonzalez. You wouldn't believe how many acts are called "Skunk Ape."
Black Friday One Year Anniversary with Tense | Anthony Stanford | Keith P | Ben White (Fallout Lounge): Well, this has easily been one of the best DJ nights that's come about in recent memory, and I'm glad to see it reach the one-year mark. Black Friday has always been great for its lack of pretense; you don't feel embarrassed to be there, and it's the perfect night for those who have a little too much Dark and Cold Wave in their collections to not be what one would consider a "closet goth." You know who you are. And you know that it's been a long time since you heard any new music, or returned to any of the spiky post punk records that got you into this stuff. Ben, Keith, and Anthony have all taken the respective tentacles of this genre to their most obscure tangential conclusions, and Dallas audiences have been lucky to hear this stuff blasting out of the taxed speakers of the Fallout for a whole year now thanks to their efforts.
They certainly must have put their heads together for this one, by recruiting //TENSE//, the Houston act that plays an updated version of EBM; the polyrhythms of which have evolved slightly from the more straight-forward Industrial attack that they employed at the K.O.L.D. venue in Denton a couple of years ago. Though their sound has changed somewhat, the mood and themes are as dark as ever, and one would be hard pressed to think of a more fitting band for this occasion.
It should also be noted that //TENSE// will be touring with Industrial pop legends Nitzer Ebb on their North American tour; surely a dream come true for most bands in this genre.
Missile | The Phuss | Max Cady (The Curtain Club): Have you seen the Missile video? Click on the link to check it out. Is this a small band pretending to be huge? Or a huge band pretending to be small? Semantics.
