Looks like a slow week for noteworthy shows, but if we missed something, let us know in the comments and we'll add it:
SHOWS OF NOTE
THU: John Legend (Nokia Theater) THU: KRS One (Minc) FRI: Akkolyte/Vorvadoss/Fighting Change/Scumrush/Enemies of Inertia/Blood OV (Reno's) FRI: Matthew and the Arrogrant Sea/RTB2/The Beaten Sea (1207 Annex Ave., Dallas) SAT: No Babies/Drug Mountain/Fungi Girls/A Smile Full of Ale (1919 Hemphill) SUN: Some Jerk Off/Orange Coax/Geistheistler (Majestic Dwelling of Doom)
Not the greatest weekend in the world for shows, but still a few things worth checking out:
FRIDAY
LATE ADD: Fizzy Dino Pop | Dj Ops/Blue Fabric (408 Ponder, Denton)
Yo Majesty | Natalie Stewart (Hailey's) You might be tempted to lump Yo Majesty in with some of that other hipster hop bullshit (am I the only one who tried real hard but couldn't ever get into that Cool Kids record?), but I've seen the women of Yo Majesty twice and they are pretty much the real deal. By the way, I recently rediscovered Queen Latifa's "Just Another Day." Remember that jam from back in the day? It rules. There is also a picture of a topless memeber of Yo Majesty somewhere on WSJR. Post the URL to win a free prize!
Cartright | Circlebirds | RTB2 | Heartstring Stranglers (Fra House) DL once called Cartright the worst local band, and I had to laugh at that a lot because even though I actually don't mind Cartright much, I can totally see why someone would say what DL did. Fortunately for society at large, however, most people in the world are not like us, and in fact, Cartright, during their time in Denton, had one of the most loyal local followings of any band I've seen around these parts, especially when they played at their home base, the Yellow House. Yeah, I can see how they are a Cetro-matic and Replacements rip off, but I've seen several of their shows over the years and I've never NOT had fun. That might have been due to the settings more than the band, but isn't context EVERYTHING these days?
Baptist Generals | Robert Gomez | Doug Burr | Dust Congress (Sons of Hermann Hall) Sons is an appropriate setting for this show for sure, and in my not-so-humble opinion, Dust Congress are the highlights here, although to quote a WSJR associate, Baptist Generals DID get like an 8.5 in Pitchfork six years ago. JK guys!
Tame...Tame and Quiet | Shiny Around the Edges | Kaboom (Chat Room) If you haven't been to the Chat Room yet, it's a pretty great place to see a show, so check it out. Oh, and you just lost Ft. Worth Vegan Scene points. Bummer.
Hot Flash (Fallout Lounge) The Hot Flash crew tonight will also feature Genova. Should be the usual hipster meat market at Fallout if you're looking for some, uh, meat. But if you're in the mood to dance, Hot Flash is always fun and relatively douche free compared to the rest of the dance clubs in Dallas.
SUNDAY
Three on Sunday with Martin Iles (Dan's Silverleaf) Martin will be bringing you the following:
In this animated short, band practice is interrupted by “Donald Trumpet”, who tells the musicians about some of his problems. These problems include pizza, hot dogs, soft serve ice cream, and more.
Hooliganship is the Northwest’s answer to the visual culture of Fort Thunder, Forcefield, Paper Rad, and Dear Raindrop. Using music, animation, installation, and performance, the duo “revel in a hypnotic abundance of digital information”. LINK
LORD of the UNIVERSE TVTV (Top Value Television), 1974 (60 min.)
He was the 16-year-old Guru Maharaj Ji and, as the Millennium approached, he promised to levitate the Houston Astrodome. It was the early Seventies and anything was possible so thousands flocked to his gathering. Follow him from his mansion in New York to the limousines in Houston, listen to his followers and watch the spectacle unfold just as the guerilla documentary collective TVTV did in this long out of print Alfred I. DuPont award winning documentary.
“If this guy is God, then this is the God the United States of America deserves.” - Abbie Hoffman
NINA SIMONE LIVE VARA/GRANADA, 1965/1968 (60 min.)
Featuring performances in Holland on December 25, 1965 and on England’s Granada TV on September 14, 1968.
Songs include... Brown Baby, Four Women, The Ballad of Hollis Brown, Tomorrow is My Turn/Images, Go Limp, Mississippi Goddam, Go To Hell, Ain’t Got No/I Got Life, Backlash Blues, I Put a Spell on You, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, Why? (The King of Love is Dead). LINK
Sorry, we're really trying to start publishing these things earlier, but sometimes life gets in the way:
Damaged Good$ | Prince William | Scuba Team Go | Johnny Moog (Granada) This is at least a partially great line up at the Granada tonight, and I hope enough people come out to see it so that the place doesn't look empty. Perhaps I'm underestimating the draw of Dallas' Damaged Goods, and I might very well be considering the appeal they seem to have amongst the hipster hop set, but when I see a line up listed in a local paper and my first guess would be that the show was taking place at Hailey's or the Cavern or something, the Granada just seems like it might not be the right place for it. Again, the line up is solid, and Kudos to the Granada for taking a chance on a nearly all local bill like this, I just hope that it works. That's all. Most of you have heard us talk a lot about Damaged Goods and Prince William by now (which is good since they are the highlights) they are , but we've only said a little about the other two acts. Scuba Team Go is kind of a strange one-- they sort of remind me of some of that white boy EMO hip hop shit, like Why? or something, mixed with like, uh, other EMO shit. I don't know. I don't care. Some of their beats are actually pretty decent, mixing 80's electro pulses with nods to 90's RZA, but I can't imagine seeing this group live and not feeling like I needed to be doing something else with my life. Johnny Moog is a friend and favorite of Prince William's, and his oversexed, slick r&b funk is solid as shit and well worth checking out.
Drug Mountain's debut at The Exploding House on Monday night was a startlingly confident performance; a mix of sax blasts, stop-start skronk, busy baritone lines, and very convincing screams tying it all together. In some ways the confidence isn't all that surprising. I want to go ahead and admit that I have met Bryan Mckendry, lead singer of Drug Mountain, on more than one occasion. I've actually met a lot of you many times, but few of you put on the type of show this guy does. I have been a fan of this man's music for the past five years, since before I had actually met him, when I heard his first group, Blank Blank. As far as confrontational front-men go, Mckendry is as unforgettably unpredictable as the best I've ever seen, along with David Yow and Mark E. Smith. Big praise I know, and I also know that Mckendry can be a prickly conversationalist. In fact, he once almost got me arrested after yelling "Fuck you, cop!" at a cop car...with a cop in it...a cop who had happened to have his window rolled down. So I tried to conduct this interview with a tone that I thought he would understand. I mean, he quotes Wolverine. I am not shitting you:
So, there are a lot of saxophones in bands now days. What's the inspiration for that? It seems like it's used more as a weapon or an annoyance. What gives?
I dunno how the sax thing happened. Bobby (Taylor) was supposed to play drums in the band, but he showed up with a sax instead. I got jealous and got one too. I suppose sax is our gimmick.
You've played in other groups like Blank Blank and Ancient Fistory. One is a hardcore/grindcore act and one is a harsh noise project. Drug Mountain is obviously not indie pop. What draws you to these sounds, and what are the origins of your interest in these various types of loud or extreme music?
In high school my favorite bands were Painkiller and Man Is The Bastard. I can get down to some Jimmie Rodgers, but something about ugly music always resonated with me. To be honest I don't have any real talent, otherwise I'd be playing western swing instead of pretending I'm John Zorn.
What separates Drug Mountain's music from the other acts I listed?
Three years and two saxophones.
The band name itself is instantly memorable. How did you come up with it?
A couple years ago I smoked weed one time and I rode a wave of creativity for almost two days. I made a big binder of MacGyver art in ms paint. one image showed MacGyver climbing a mountain with DRUG MOUNTAIN scrawled across the bottom. I thought the phrase was funny ever since. The [Mount] Righteous dudes think the name is a rip on them, but that's just not the case.
There has been a huge resurgence of bands discovering the joys of recording on boom-boxes and barely functioning karaoke machines. The recordings on your page aren't exactly of the same kind of poor fidelity that these machines result in, but there is some definite clipping and distortion. Is it important to you to have the recording process match the nastiness of the music? What are your recording plans at this point? How do you plan on releasing your music, if at all?
We recorded that stuff on a crappy four track with one mic just so we dont forget the songs. Sorry I don't have Cubase. We're going to Electrical Audio in April to record. If all goes according to plan we will put it out on Real Vinyl, it's a label we threw together with Ben Rogers from The Chat Room and Metrognome [Collective]. There should be some other cool acts on that as well.
One of your tracks is entitled "Milk Is Gay." That's pretty offensive. I'm assuming you don't mean "Milk Is Happy." Maybe you're referring to Harvey Milk? Look, I know there is a healthy vegan community in Fort Worth, yet I will stop short of generalizing the scene there. Would you say these lyrics are pro-vegan? Are any of your lyrics? Would you like to maybe share a verse of this track with us?
One of our first songs was vegan. It was called "You're Eating It." We wrote that when we were trying to be a doom metal band. Turns out we don't know shit about doom metal. "milk is gay" isn't all that vegan, I just hate milk. I hate soy milk too Fuck all the milks. I never ate cereal as a kid just to avoid milk. My mom thinks milk is more important than water. Why would you want to consume milk beyond infancy? Especially milk for some critter? Fuck that. Milk is gayer than a catholic priest.
Your live show is generally pretty confrontational and I've seen you push audience members, throw things at your own band, and try to order food mid-song and just leave the rest of your group hanging. Care to enlighten the rest of us as to why you'd behave so rudely to your staunchest supporters and allies? Is it safe to say there's a bit of suburban rage involved there? Is it all an act or are you an angry person in your daily life as well?
Dude, you know I'm moody as all hell. I've got some crummy qualities but I make OK use of 'em on-stage, to quote Wolverine of the X-Men, "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice." I'm pretty sure getting all pissy on stage helped me be a nicer guy the rest of the time. I'm not the prick I used to be.
I know you have a lot of roots in the Grapevine/Colleyville area and so do the members of Mount Righteous. I see you're playing a show together soon with Fishboy, who I believe is also from the same area. Do you consider these acts to be your peers pushing towards a similar goal, or is it more of a friendly rivalry?
Yeah, we went to school together. I'm still pals with some of the Righteous crowd but thats a whole different mountain. When Joey [Kendall] asked me to play at Rubber Gloves, I was pretty sure he had the wrong number. I like diverse shows, it ought to be fun.
What would you do if a young fan walked up to you after a show and asked, "You got any merch?"
In order for this list to make any difference at all, I must go ahead and post it without getting to say much. Sorry about that. I can say that this is a handful of decent shows for a Wednesday. The 1919 show was very last minute and thrown together in the past few days from what I can tell. Check back with us tonight for more exciting conspiracy theories and the usual parade of cowardly sucker punches. I mean, extremely insightful commentary from all of our best friends. Love ya!
As far as I can tell, the French prog scene of the 1970s was composed of Magma, Heldon, and people that played with Magma, Heldon, or both. Richard Pinhas' (and I thought my pseudonym was awesome!) Heldon is by far the more accessible of these two groups and I love damn near everything he ever recorded, but Magma's excellence should not be overlooked by the more adventurous.
'Interface' was Heldon's sixth record, marking somewhat of a turning point in their sound. The King Crimson influence was still heavy on Pinhas' brain, but he started to incorporate a more rhythm heavy, drums/big moog bass sound to accompanyh his Robert Fripp-like guitar work. This may not be the most user-friendly release in the Heldon/Pinhas catalog, but it is certainly one of the most rewarding and a great starting point for the uninitiated.
The Pharmacy | Raggedy Anns | Drug Mountain | Trifle Tower (Exploding House, Ft. Worth) Big show tonight. Fort Worth, you're lucky to have something this good to do on a Monday night. We're pretty pumped about seeing the official debut of Ft. Worth's Drug Mountain this evening, as they sound like they might end up being one of the harshest and most interesting local groups you'll encounter this year. Featuring members of Orange Coax and Nouns Group, among others, Drug Mountain's sax dominated rhythmic attacks remind me of bits and pieces of everything from Savage Republic to Maximum Joy to DNA, with the added distinction of sounding simultaneously precise and highly chaotic. Shit's stressful, and it's good. Highly recommended. Headliners The Pharmacy are a solid pop group that sound like so many different things all at once that it's almost stupid to attempt to describe them in terms of influences. Maybe that's what "indie rock" is now. I don't know. But I like it, so I know that couldn't be right. Anyway, The Pharmacy sounds like one of those bands who could play Exploding House in January and pack a "legit" venue three times its size in March.
The Donkeys | Orange Peel Sunshine | League of Fucking Decency (The Lounge) League of Fucking Decency have this one song on their Myspace page called "Old Timers" that's basically a really shitty cover of "Head Like a Whole" by Nine Inch Nails, and it's annoying enough to be kind of funny. Otherwise, I don't know why I'm listening to this group. San Diego's Donkeys are sort of like a country doo wop group for hipsters (we're talking like Gram Parsons and Exile on Mainstreet stuff here), but they are actually pretty good too. Go figure.
