A great new video from Chris Garver, who just released the capriciously titled "December 2006 EP"

As always, you can check back with us over the weekend to see if we've deemed anything else cool enough to add to our cool as fuck weekend cool list. Cool?:

FRIDAY

Dr. Dog (Good Records Free Instore, 4pm)
If you don't have tickets to the Granada show, you'll probably want to stop by Good Records for this performance. I have yet to see Dr. Dog live, but I'm really looking forward to it. DL highly recommends their live show, and I would recommend their records to anyone that shares a passion for classic pop rock with rough edges. Or to put it another way, Guided By Voices.

The Black Keys | Dr. Dog (Granada)
At this point I think we've talked about this show enough, but needless to say its going to be great. And I found out today that its completely sold out, so if you aren't already going, tough shit.

The Party w/ DJs Nature, Sober and Select (Zubar)
Whatever you're doing in Dallas tonight, you're going to at least want to pop your head in at Zubar. Once you're there, you'll probably end up staying for the rest of the night. Everyone that reads this blog knows how much we dig the Central Booking crew, and its becoming more apparent each month that everyone else in Dallas digs them too. I don't know how this could be MORE fun than Nature's Zubar show last Saturday, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is. If you haven't checked out the Party yet, your only available excuse is that you're lame. And thats not really an excuse.

Ladytron | The Burning Hotels | Dreamtigers | The Flashlight Party (Hailey's)
So in case you don't know, heres the deal with this show: They have apparently passed out a couple thousand "tickets" to the show, and if you don't have one by now, you're not going to get one. And even if you do have one, theres a catch. The show is first come first serve, and requires a wrist band for admittance. This means that even if you have a ticket, you have to take it up to Denton, show up at Hailey's (Flashlight Party recommends getting there around 5pm), and wait in line in hopes of trading your ticket in for a wrist band (who planned this shit anyway, SXSW?). Needless to say, if you don't get a wrist band, your ticket is about as valuable as a used Hagfish CD. So basically, there are four times as many tickets as there are wristbands. Good luck. And I don't know who was actually responsible for picking this line up, but its a great one... if you end up getting in, I would highly recommend catching Dreamtigers, one of Dallas proper's most promising new electronic/hip hop acts. And of course, Ladytron is really amazing live. I'd bet a lot of people that don't even dig their records will be totally impressed with their show. And by the way, you can also check out the Burning Hotels if you want proof that Dallas now, officially, has its very own Killers rip off band. We did it guys! To be honest, I kinda didn't want to take a jab at them when I saw how young they were, but Burning Hotels probably get laid a lot more than I do, so they can kiss my ass.

Buffalo Killers | Lions | The Future Unlived (Club Dada- Black Keys after party)
Callithump has put together a nice little after party for the Black Keys show. I've heard a total of 6 Buffalo Killers songs (the band includes ex members of Thee Shams), and I dig the hell out of all of them. Think Beatles at their loudest ( but maybe not quite as rocking as "Helter Skelter"), glam era Bowie, and some massive fucking guitar solos with more of a dirty blues twist than either of the aforementioned legends. Its like psychedelic T. Rex, and no, its not just bearded hipster irony. These guys can really play, and they sould like they could be a wonderful live band. Read a short interview with Buffalo Killers here.

SATURDAY

Dat Politics | The Great Tyrant | Kevin Blechdom | Tolar | Dj Stephen R (Metrognome Collective Ft. Worth)
It's great to see Metrognome putting on some shows again, and this one promises to be one of the most interesting and fun ones yet. You have the brutality of FW hardcore fixture, Tolar, with the party savvy intuition of DJ Stephen R. Then there's the progged out epics of Great Tyrant back to back with the electronic experiments of the very surreal and very female, Kevin Blechdom. Finally there's Dat Politics, a French electronic group that's recorded for Chicks on Speed Records and drawn comparisons to Bis. I haven't heard that name in a long while. This show kind of reminds of our show at Art Prostitute next weekend. Yeah, that's how cool it is.

A Spune Christmas (Hailey's)
I gotta say, whatever errors Spune has made in the past with booking big shows, this is going to be a pretty goddamn solid one almost all the way through. Performers include Ghostcar, Red Monroe, Marked Men (these guys are surprisingly low on the local radar considering how much ass they kick), Record Hop, Pleasant Grove and Starlight Mints. Should be a blast. Click here for more details and all the Myspace links. You gotta give Spune some props on this one. Any show that starts with Ghostcar and ends with Starlight Mints is pretty good in my book.

SUNDAY

Dr. Dog took me completely by surprise last year. I had almost lost hope for bands whose lyric sheet ever includes "ooh-ahh" or "shoo-wop" as a verse, phrase, or chorus. Upon hearing the first track, "The World May Never Know" off of their 2005 album, "Easybeat", I knew that this was not only a glaring exception to what I had written off, but also a remarkably good band. Rarely does a song leap out and hit me over the head so immediately. I played the album for many friends and most (the smart ones anyway) agreed that it was so familiar and yet like no other typically unimaginative new Pop-Rock band.

Dr. Dog could somehow sound like the best slide solo off of a George Harrison record, The Great Lost Kinks Album, Neil Young's flawless Seventies output, and every other obvious and not-so-obvious musical moment from the great album period between 1967 and 1975. Many bands mine this era and hope to accomplish much with an annoyingly smug set of retro-isms. Unfortunately, cute references alone are not enough to sustain a career, much less an album or live set. I caught them at South By Southwest in March and wondered if they could match the charm and beauty of their records. I was surprised again to find that they didn't merely crank out their set in an overly rehearsed fashion but teetered on imploding under the weight of their own enthusiasm. I witnessed a performance by them so triumphant, I was booing Centromatic on my way out of the club. There is an extremely well thought out and beautifully executed anachronistic quality to Dr. Dog's music that I wish were much easier to find in music today. Judging from the phone conversation I had with one of Dr. Dog's main songwriters, Scott McMicken, he probably feels the same way:

You were fairly unknown at the beginning of South by Southwest earlier this year and I noticed that by your last performance at Red Eyed Fly, I believe, that the excitement and the crowd had grown quite a bit. So did South by Southwest turn out how you thought it would, or better than you hoped?

Certainly better than we hoped. I didn't really have much perspective on what the whole thing was to begin with. And then, see, last year...well, this most recent one was our second trip there. And the first year, the year before last, there was even more of an arc to it. I mean we went there with literally no recognition and by the last show we had definitely seen a growth in the amount of people who were coming to see us and there were some blurbs in the paper, the South By Southwest paper. And that's where we met James Endecott and got hooked up with Rough Trade.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And that's when we first met with who we ultimately signed a publishing deal with, which is Chrysalis. So like...the South By Southwest Festival, it turns out, can be a really awesome thing for a band if you go down there and really work your ass off and play as much as you can. Which we did because that's sort of how we approach everything. But I certainly never guessed that it would have lead to as much positive reinforcement as it has.

So you made noticeable improvements on the recording fidelity of your music with each successive release. Have you improved the fidelity out of style? Or were the lower fidelity recordings out of necessity?

They were out of necessity but that was never a compromise. I mean, we were never upset about that in the least. But as with everything that we do, and especially I try to do, is to take on new challenges and new opportunities whenever we get the chance. So, you know, when we got hooked up with Rough Trade and that was the first time we ever made an album where somebody was giving us money to do it, the first thing we did was buy a new tape machine that was capable of recording twenty four tracks rather than just eight. Which is what we'd been dealing with. The fidelity that exists on "Toothbrush" and on "Easybeat" is, in my opinion, certainly ideal. I love the way they sound and that's why we made them sound that way. So our improvements in the studio had more to do with just having more tracks. And ultimately we just wanted to do more overdubs, do more with vocals, do more with percussion and everything that we've never been able to have the room for. But there was definitely still an ear towards keeping it warm and typically smaller than the average modern rock record. Just more gentle overall. But, on the other hand, I do acknowledge that our newest best recordings, the EP and the new album, are quite a leap in fidelity. But I think they're still sort of in the same family, fidelity wise. I think they still resemble... I just hope that it sounds like the next logical step for us to have made because that's what it was for us. It was like, "Okay, we had eight tracks, now we have twenty four. What does Dr. Dog do when they have twenty four tracks?" And that's what we did, you know?

So is the next full length going to be full-on big studio or is it going to be just pretty much what "Takers and Leavers" sounds like?

The next full length was recorded in the same studio as "Takers and Leavers". So it's very similar. And two of the tracks on "Takers and Leavers" are on the album. "Ain't it Strange" and "Die Die Die" are on the upcoming album. So that should give you a pretty good idea about what the record sounds like. It's by no means a big studio. It's still our homespun kind of take on things. It's just that we have a bigger room. We used to be in a basement and we moved to a warehouse, a bigger room and sixteen more tracks. Still the same microphones. Still the same process of mixing that went in to everything else. It's still kind of in our hands. And by conventional standards our studio is by no means a big studio, but we just tried to get the sound as cool as we could.

So you mentioned the big sound of modern rock records. What is it about most modern rock recordings that bothers you? Because a lot of them bother me too, actually. But what is it that bothers you about them?

Well, I just don't find the sound of a lot of modern rock records to be relatable. Like I don't hear their representation of instruments as accurate or even realistic. I think everything is so overblown and I think it's all just to sort of show off technological muscle. I think when I hear that shit I'm not...I don't know. The way they stuff fifteen microphones all over a drum kit. I mean on a very basic level I just feel like that is an unrealistic experience of a drum kit. At no point are you hearing...at no point do you have your ear two inches from the tom that's being hit. And I just think that there's something not natural about it and just in terms of what instruments typically sound like to me just being played in a room. For instance, to illustrate the point further, when we record drums we just walk around the kit until you find a cool place where you think it sounds good and just put the microphone there and therefore, the microphone becomes the person. To me that seems like the most logical way to replicate what a drum kit would sound like if you're standing in a room listening to it. So that's everything. I just think that a lot of modern rock records put way too much emphasis on this sheen. I think that a lot of times that takes over the amount of thinking that goes into playing smart parts that work well from one instrument to the next and nice textures and stuff. I mean in this kind of hypothetical modern rock record we're talking about. It just seems they tend to lack any kind of nuance and they just try to go right for the gut. I don't know really when that happened to pop music. I think that it's just like kind of everything else about the industry which is just as propelled by money, I suppose. And the next thing. Everybody's looking for the next thing constantly and people don't seem to be too critical of technology. But you know, also it's kind of like: to each his own. We just happen to be five people who are far more comfortable with far less choices than the average band from what I can gather. I mean we'd be much happier in an empty room with a four track and a couple of acoustic instruments than we would be in a state of the art digital studio with infinite tracks and banks and banks of effects, and preamps, and compressors. I just can't function in a situation like that, because to me the bulk of the thought seems to need to be filtered more through the song writing and the arrangement of the songs and the nuances rather than how you're gonna get the maximum amount of power out of every hit on the song or something. It's stuff to think about. I definitely get asked about this a lot. This whole "hi-fi/lo-fi" thing. I totally see why people call us a "lo-fi" band. I'm just not exactly sure I understand it but maybe it's just that in a perfect world I don't think the term "lo-fi" would really be necessary. When something sounds right, I feel like it's hi-fi. If it gives you everything you want out of it that's kind of what I consider hi-fi.

Actually a recording engineer friend of mine who had heard "Easybeat" said when he first heard it, it was the first record that had made sense to him in years. As far as the recording goes.

Oh, that's awesome. That's cool. We definitely get a lot of props from people in the recording industry, for sure. Almost more than anyone else. I think that's kind of nice. I think in general that we're part of a larger group of people that's starting to maybe reassess the way that they think how albums should sound. Of course I'm no expert on any of this shit I'm talking about but I have noticed that more bands that I'm friends with and encounter are recording their own albums and taking that power back. I mean I've been in bands in the past where you save a couple thousand bucks and find the nearest twenty dollar an hour studio and go in there and just get depressed pretty much immediately. You have no ability to translate the sound you have in your head to the tape or computer or whatever. And you're just kind of at the mercy of some guy who by and large probably doesn't have any real faith in the fact that bands or musicians know what's right for their songs or something. I only say that from first hand experience. I think it's really important for musicians to learn how to record well if they're recording something that means anything to them. It's really not that hard, it just takes a little trial-and-error and a little bit of confidence, I suppose.

I thought "Easybeat" was the best record of 2005. Pitchforkmedia butchered it and then for some inexplicable reason they reported your deal with Rough Trade in a very negative light. They suggested that your fans must be drunk in order to like your music and that New York Times reporter, Kelefa Sanneh must be a friend of yours just because he wrote favorably about you. Have you found yourself wondering: "Why all the animosity?"

Yeah, I can't lie, my gut reaction to that kind of stuff is always just kind of like, "Fuck you" or whatever. But I know that deep down it's irrelevant and that there's so many factors of how a band's going to be perceived. And something like Pitchfork, to me, totally represents that perspective on indie rock or modern independent music, something that is so fragmented by all these sort of classifications. All of this outside information seems to factor in so heavily on how a band's going to be judged. From the clothes they wear, to the type of people who like them, to what their history is. If it looks they've gotten lucky or if it looks like they're the underdog or whatever. I just know there's a million factors like that buzzing around in the world that Pitchfork creates. So ultimately it's very easy to pass off as irrelevant to us because if we put that much stock in one review, however powerful it is, we'd be in sort of rough shape. I mean we've gotten tons of other great reviews. Just being at shows and talking to people has a lot more of an impact on your sense of what people think you do than one review in Pitchfork. I'm kind of proud of the fact that Pitchfork doesn't like us, because whether or not I was even in a band that got talked about by Pitchfork I'm fairly certain I would disapprove of that whole thing or at least think very critically about it. So it makes sense to me that if we as people don't really approve what they're doing, then they as people shouldn't approve of what we're doing. Something about that seems to make sense. But, yeah, I just think it's kind of a shame. It's even kind of a shame when they help a band out so much. One review from them that can take a band that's maybe toured for a total of two weeks and they get this great review on Pitchfork and then they go out and they're selling out houses all over the place. In a way that's awesome. But there's also something kind of unfortunate about that. As long as you're taking for granted that that band would have continued to progress and get to that point slower and build a fan-base more organically. I mean, if you rise that quickly, you can easily fall that quickly. Versus, if you went out and just played in front of people for a long time. Or even just having your CD out there, floating around and have people talking about it for a long time. I think you create a stronger foundation for yourself that at some point will never go away. I mean I look at the band, My Morning Jacket. That's a perfect model of how smart bands can be just in how they approach their vision. I mean every single album from "Tennessee Fire" to "At Dawn" to "It Still Moves", now to "Z" is one logical step forward. On top of that, just pounding the pavement and playing incredible shows for people all the time. At this point they're set. I think the fans that they have now will be their fans until the day they're dead. No matter even if they put out a shitty record or what. I think that's really important. That's why I say that even the kind of positive aspects of Pitchfork have a double edge to them.

I know that you've been repeatedly pegged with sounding like this or that famous sixties group. Compared to a lot of other working bands today that might have similar influences or play pop songs I think you guys rock a lot more forcefully live and rock more in the live setting than even the carefree abandon on your records suggest. Besides what people perceive as obvious influences on your recorded music do you have any live influences that inspired the energy in your live set?

Live influences?

Yeah.

Oh, definitely man. My Morning Jacket, again. They were really our first experience with what a live band is, I feel like. In the sense of they're the first band that took us on tour. We'd never been on tour before. We'd barely even played around Philly. Literally: barely. We were just exposed to what a touring band is and how a touring band can operate through what I feel is the best model for that. Like I just said about them, they're amazing. They work really hard. And they play every show like it's their last show. They respect their audience and because of that they want it to be great. And because they want it to be great it displays that they love what they're doing and since they love what they're doing every night, it's going to be a fantastic show. I mean I've gone and seen a lot of awesome shows in my life. I've seen tons of great bands and everything but I have to list them as the most influential only because they were our first direct experience as a band with another band. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like I wasn't there seeing them every night in the audience. We were there, theoretically, to do the same thing they were doing. They definitely set a standard for me. I love them and I love our friends, The Teeth, back home, a phenomenal live band. And Architecture in Helsinki, which we toured with, taught me a whole lot about playing live and how each individual musician can sync collectively towards a greater sound. I mean they have just so many small little sounds. There are eight or nine people in the band. A whole song might go by where one person hits a triangle every minute and a half or whatever but it was just really inspiring to see that kind of lack of ego in a live performance where what seemed to matter most to them was the overall output of the sound rather than what they were feeling as individuals. That's a tough thing to learn, that kind of restraint and that sort of taste live. I've certainly been the type of musician who feels like you want to carry everything and you want your guitar to be the loudest and that's what you're thinking through in the parts that you're playing. But you're going to have to think outside of that and let everything blend together. Architecture in Helsinki definitely taught me a lot about that.

So this is the last question. There is so much going on with the harmonies and everyone contributing that it's sometimes hard to tell who probably wrote what. How is the songwriting divided by the group?

Oh, well the songs are all written by either me or Toby [Leaman]. And in 99% of the cases , if he wrote it he's singing lead. If I wrote it I'm singing lead. There are a few where it's two or three part harmony the whole time so you might not have a sense of who actually wrote it. But that's your best clue: just basically who's singing lead. It's very easy for me to tell by our recordings who's who, obviously, but I have had people say that on the recordings sometimes you can't tell. Or they thought songs that Toby was singing were actually me singing. We don't even really write together. We definitely pay a lot of attention to each other. If he gets into a new thing in song writing, I'm definitely paying a lot of attention. He's by far the biggest influence on my song writing. We bring basically completed songs to practice or to the studio and then just help each other sort of chop them up or add little bits here and there. In a couple examples I've had half a song, and he's had half a song, and it worked out that you could just tape them together and it sounded cool and that's happened a couple of times. Or helping each other with gaps in the lyrics from time to time. But by and large we write independently and just submit them to total criticism.

Dr. Dog plays a free in-store at Good Records tomorrow at 4:00 PM. They open for The Black Keys tomorrow night at The Granada. Their newest release is an EP, "Takers and Leavers".

Thanksgiving | Mt. Eerie (Metrognome Collective-early show@5pm) AND (Rubber Gloves)

If you're a Microphones fan you probably already know about this. I want to point out that Thanksgiving has already changed their name to Adrian Orange w/Child Slave Rebellion. This might have been inspired by Phil Elverum's various name changes. I don't think it was the greatest idea in this case. What I do think is a great idea is to play two of the area's best venues in the same night.

Sean Kirkpatrick | Will E. LeeShibboleth | I Heart Trouble | Astronautalis (Club Dada)

Widely respected keyboardist and his friends play for a good cause tonight at Dada.

DJ G (Hailey's)

Whatever you might think of the Black Keys' music, I imagine most of you would agree that they are one of the best examples of a no bullshit rock band in the "indie" music world today. They're not trendy, ironic, or "artsy," and their primary list of influences could possibly be more familiar to your grandfather than to you. Every time I turn on one of their records, I'm reminded of why blues has continued to excite people long after post-punk supposedly killed it, and how sometimes a guitar and a drum kit is all it takes to wow everyone in a room. The Black Keys' approach to music is a relatively simple one in today's musical climate of Sufjan symphonies and Jewelled Antler art armies, and in many ways its quite refreshing.

But despite this distinction, it seems kind of strange to refer to them as an "indie" rock band at all, doesn't it? After all, their stripped down guitar/drum/vocal blues assault has much more in common with old timers like Muddy Waters, Junior Kimbrough and Jimi Hendrix than it does with say, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion or the White Stripes. In fact, their songs, recordings and overall delivery point to something beyond contemporary notions of cool "authenticity." They don't sound like an "authentic" blues band or an "indie" blues band, they just sound like a fucking blues band. And a great one at that.

And since they're playing a highly anticipated (at least at WSJR headquarters) show with the excellent Dr. Dog at the Granada this Friday, I decided to ask them about their music, their city, and how their band fits in with this whole "indie" rock thing that no one really seems to get. And yes, I asked about Wolfmother too. Here is my telephone conversation with drummer Patrick Carney:

Would you tell me about how the band got together?

We just grew up in the same neighborhood and knew each other for a long time, and we both got into music at the same time. We didn't know anyone else that wanted to play or could play, and since I played drums and Dan played guitar, we just started playing together and it evolved into a band from there. We got together in 97, so we were about 17 at the time.

I wanted to ask you about your hometown Akron since I've read so much about places in the northern Ohio rust belt and the effect that those surroundings had on other bands from the area such as Devo, the Dead Boys and Pere Ubu. Did those surroundings have an effect on your band's sound?

Well I think most likely it did I guess. I love the Dead Boys and some other bands from Akron, but when we were growing up as teenagers, the music scene in Akron and pretty much all of northeastern Ohio's pretty much sucked. There were some cool small bands but not really any good bands doing anything on a large scale. We were paying attention more to the old stuff than the stuff that was going on at the time. Theres just something about Ohio and lo fi I think.

I've read that the industrial atmosphere in Cleveland and Ohio in general has been a really big part of what a lot of Ohio bands have been all about. Do you think Akron had that kind of effect on you?

At one point, Akron was more of an industrial town than Cleveland, but when we were growing up, it was all over both places. I think when we were growing up, like every other band in Akron, we were more influenced or affected by a desire to get the fuck out, or do something that will prevent you from being stuck in the city, or in a situation. And a lot of my friends left town, but a lot of people like me and Dan will tell you that its fucking cheating to move to a cool city and forget about your hometown. Its a lot harder to stick around and make something worthwhile. Theres a lot of people that have stuck around, and there are a lot of good bands around Akron now. Theres even an independent record store there for the first time and a cool venue as well. Growing up in Akron, you know its a shithole. But I think it influenced our DIY aesthetic and our approach to things. I'd rather make a difference in Akron that go to Williamsburg or something.

Yeah, I think a lot of people in Dallas sort of feel the same way about our town, albeit for different reasons. So could you tell me about recording the new album?

We recorded it in my basement, and we did it all ourselves. No one else knows how our shit is set up, and I even forget half the time.

What was your motivation to do it yourself?

A couple reasons. For one, I think its the most fun to do it yourself. I think the most fun part about recording is actually recording, and I didn't want to pay someone to have all the fun. I've always recorded the records myself, and when we have other people record us for demos or something, it always sounds like garbage. I'm sure there are people out there that can record us and make us sound better than we can, but it would be less fun for us, and thats the reason we make music.

How does your song writing process typically work?

Dan writes all the lyrics either before or after we get all the songs together. We'll just be in the basement and I'll come up with a drum beat or Dan will come up with something or something will just come up while we're playing and it works. And from there, we just jam and try to come up with more. We work pretty fast, and if we don't get anything within like an hour and a half, we just move on to something else.

One of the things that has always struck me about your band is Dan's voice. Is the power and uniqueness of his voice something that stood out to you guys right away?

I've always known that Dan was a really good singer and guitar player. And when we first started off, that was the thing that everyone would talk about. Everyone would say that he sounded like an old blues guy, or the record sounded like something from the 60's. But I think everything about the band has gotten better since we first started out. We've just become better musicians overall. I think a lot of our sound has to do with Dan's voice and guitars, as well as the actual rooms we've recorded in. When we play in a small space it sounds old. When you record in a big studio and a big room, you have a better chance of sounding like Van Halen than Cream.

Do you find that the two person set up is limiting in any way, or possibly could be limiting in the future? Are there things that you've wanted to do and couldn't because there were only two people in the band?

No, I don't think so. For us, it never really comes up as an issue. We'll put bass on stuff in the studio or something, or overdub the guitar if we want. We have no problem with that. We just won't play a song live if we can't pull it off. But the songs on our new record, we can play every one of those songs live. Thats part of the reason we did it so stripped down, so that we could build up smaller songs and play them live. I think we've put out about 50 songs or more, probably more. And out of those, we can play most of them live.

Do you think its strange that you guys get lumped in with "indie" bands, even though the music you make doesn't really have much to do with a lot of that stuff?

No, I grew up listening to indie rock more than anything else, and I wouldn't really want to run in any other circle in the music world I guess. There are a lot of indie bands that don't really sound like "indie" rock bands, you know?

So what is it that you find appealing about that categorization?

I think as far as indie bands go, we're not really on an indie label, but we did put out three full lengths and an EP on a ridiculously independent label. We toured in a lot of vans and busted our ass and paid our dues. I don't know. Its kind of what we are I guess. Our debut record didn't come out on a major label, and its weird enough for me to see bands come out with a debut record on a major and still get called an indie band.

Yeah, the word "indie" really doesn't have anything to do with record labels anymore.

I think its more about a certain type of hair cut to be totally honest.

What were some of your favorite bands growing up?

Pavement, I was obsessed with them. And you know, Built to Spill, Modest Mouse. I guess the stuff that is now considered the classics. The best concert I've ever seen was Pavement on May 19th, 1995 on the Wowee Zowee tour. And my first concert was Dinosaur Jr. To me, that was like the indie rock peak. All these bands that had been around for a really long time actually started getting played on the radio. I don't know if those bands even realized it at the time, but there seemed to be a year long gap when all that was happening that has had more of an effect on music now than anything else. People like us heard that music as it came through the mainstream in that one window of time, and it changed my life and the lives of a lot of people my age.

Are there any bands around right now that you think might have a similarly big impact years from now?

I don't know. Its hard for me to tell. I'm used to something not getting on my radar until it reaches a certain level, but now I'm able to pay attention to bands that only sell a couple thousand records, so its hard to say. I think the Black Angles and Dr. Dog are two really fucking good bands.

Are you a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion fan?

Oh yeah, definitely.

Because you guys play a more traditional blues based garage rock, and they obviously draw from a lot of that too, although they obviously process it much differently.

I saw them when I was sixteen and was obsessed with Orange,, and they definitely influenced me for sure. My only problem with them is that they paid more attention to their schtick than actually writing songs in a way. When I listen to it now, the drums and the guitars sound fucking awesome, but its almost like they kind of seem a little bit dated, a little goofy. But bands that actually wrote songs, like Pavement, don't seem dated at all to me.

Since you guys write more traditional songs, I wondered if you were a little reluctant to get behind the things that Jon Spencer does.

I think they're really good, and they're an amazing live band. They sounded better live than on record. I'd just rather just be a human being on stage, rather than going up there and having to rehash some character. That would make me feel like a total fucking goofball.

What do you think of Wolfmother?

I know those guys, and they're nice guys. They opened up for us a long time ago. I think they rushed into it a lot. Its hard to say this too because when you're an Australian band, its really hard to get to the U.S. and to come over here and tour. Most Australian bands can't do it, and its almost as if a lot of those bands are pressured into signing deals that most bands over here won't sing, like a huge major label deal, which is basically a total gamble. I think there are some outside factors that play into it.

Are you guys going to be out and about in Dallas after the show on Friday?

Yeah, our friends Buffalo Killers are playing right after we're done, so we'll be there. Its kind of the after party for the show. They are a really great band, everyone should check them out.

We'll have good stuff for you later this evening, so check back wit us. Stuff to do:

The Party w/ DJ Nature (Rubber Gloves)

This is Radio Clash w/ Flashlight Party (Hailey's)
Stop by and try to scoop up some of the tickets they'll be giving away for the free Ladytron show happening this Friday, December 8th at Hailey's. The Flashlight Party guys will be playing records before Ladytron's set, and they apparently have a handful of tickets to give away tonight..... you can also get tickets for the show by "tracking down" your local Camel rep, but our rep is apparently a lazy piece of shit that you can't, um, track down. See for yourself.

Metro with DJs Nicole and Laureen (Monkey Bar)
Post-punk, brit pop and all that jazz.

Sci Fi dorks and fans of experimental cinema will want to head up to Secret Headquarters this evening for their screening of Spectres of the Spectrum at 8pm. Truth be told, I haven't seen much of this film, but the bits and pieces I just viewed were more than enough to convince me that it is worth my time (and yours). Filmmaker Craig Baldwin takes bits and pieces of recorded television programs from the 50's and mixes it with his own fictional film footage to create what he calls a "media archaeology zone" to tell a fictional story about some kind of war machine that is being used to take over the planet. The machine described in the film is apparently inspired by an actual part of the Pentagon's Star Wars program, but I've never heard of it.... if you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, click on the link above and read the synopsis. Sounds like a lot of fun.

1. Wolfmother - Wolfmother (on site sell)
2. Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas
3. Joanna Newsom - Ys
4. Benoit Pioulard - Precis
5. Radiant - We Hope You Win
6. Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
7. Damien Rice - 9
8. Mark Kozelek - Little Drummer Boy: Live
9. Beach House - Beach House
10. Califone - Roots & Crowns
11. The Shins - Phantom Limb
12. The Animal Collective - People EP
13. Swan Lake - Beast Moans
14. El Perro Del Mar - El Perro Del Mar
15. The Decemberists - Crane Wife
16. Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
17. The Polyphonic Spree - Wait
18. Icy Demons - Tears of a Clone
19. Adrian Klumpes - Be Still
20. Midlake - Milkmaid Grand Army EP

1. Parts and Labor | Bitchin' Kitchen | The Brewers (Rubber Gloves)

Parts and Labor are a really good band when the unimaginative and sometimes childish vocals don't get in the way. The backing tracks and instrumentals are really impressive but the vocals can be really grating for some reason. Always a shame when that's the case but sometimes that's exactly why some bands are popular. Bitchin' Kitchen is Ed from Fra Pandolf doing guitar calisthenics with what sounds like an array of effects. The Brewers are fairly straight ahead rockers from Denton (by way of Longview).

2. Bad Ass Jazz Night at The Amsterdam

Our usual recommendation for Mondays.

Well, its official. As of right now, Central Booking is the best thing going in Dallas proper. Period. No one else has even come close to touching the events they've been putting together over the past few months, and Nature's show with Klever at Zubar on Saturday was no exception. In fact, it was one of the best parties Dallas has seen all year.

Klever's ability to feel out the vibe of the crowd and give them what they wanted was amazing, and as a result, his set felt like the only thing that mattered while it was happening. He mixed hip hop and dancefloor pop hits with such a random collection of other tracks that I really can't express how good it was without listing the songs themselves... and instead of doing that, I'll just provide you with an example of something he played near the peak of the set:

Looks like a fairly thin weekend on the live music front.... boohoo. Anyway, check back with us today, tomorrow and Sunday for updates to the list. If we hear about anything good, we'll be sure to post about it before 6pm the day of.

FRIDAY

You might want to start your weekend by heading over to Central Booking and downloading some party tracks from their En La Calle series. Everything they post is great, and their tastes are always about six months ahead of the coolest person you know.

Mates of State | Asobi Seksu (Sons of Hermann Hall)
Clearly the best rock show going on tonight. To me, the real draw of this show is Brooklyn's Asobi Seksu, who play a poppy and cohesive brand of spaced out shoegaze that can transition from sweet indie pop to melodic, out of control walls of guitar noise at the drop of a hat. Citrus, their latest record, has really grown on me in recent weeks, and I'm very interested to see if the band can pull off the energy and precision of their record in a live setting. And with another pretty good band on the bill, it might be worth your time to find out.

Pawn Gallery Grand Opening (2540 Elm Street, Deep Ellum, 7pm)
This new and somewhat promising gallery in Deep Ellum will open its doors with a show called Interior Landscapes, featuring the work of photographers Wafaa Bilal and Christine Taylor. Both look fairly interesting and just a little creepy. Add free wine, beer, and food and you've got a pretty good start to a Friday evening.

Art Conspiracy (Longhorn Ballroom, 216 Corinth, Dallas)
Apparently, over a hundred and fifty artists gathered somewhere in Dallas today to create one of a kind original works of art on 18x18 plywood squares, and will be sharing these works with the public tonight beginning at 7pm. Admission is ten bucks, and the art will be available for people to take in exchange for a $20 donation to La Reunion, an Oak Cliff based artist residency program. It costs ten bucks to get in, and the price of admission will include performances by Happy Bullets, Spitfire Tumbleweeds, Fishboy, Salim Nourallah and Peter Schmidt and his Gentlemen Scholars. And I believe the Longhorn Ballroom is the place where the Sex Pistols played during their one and only trip to Dallas, so it might be cool to check it out for that alone. All the proceeds will go to La Reunion.

SATURDAY

Klever | Dj Nature (ZuBar)
Nature's Zubar shows are always a good time, and you should know that by now. Don't know much about Klever, but I like what I've heard of his (mostly hip hop) stuff.

Improvised Silence (Firehouse Art Studio, 4147 Meadowbrook Dr., Ft. Worth)
Improvised silence is a monthly experimental music showcase out in Ft. Worth, and this month's edition will feature performances by P.D. Wilder and Oveo, who are a wonderful band to experience live. Starts at 8pm, and donations are requested.

And/Or Gallery (4221 Bryan St. Dallas)
Treewave's art gallery will be hosting a show curated by Vance Wingate and featuring the work of local artists C.J. Davis, Garland Fielder, Brian R. Jones, Jessica McCambly, and Noah Simblist. The reception goes from 6-10pm, and if its anything like the last one we attended, it will be a lot of fun. The few glimpses we've had at some of the art that will be on display make me think that the show could be pretty solid as well (Check the And/or website if you want to look), but we're really not sure what to expect from a lot of the artists. I'm pretty sure that free beer is involved.

Cartright | Red Monroe | George Neal (Rubber Gloves)
Cartright's CD release party. Cartright puts on an amazing live show, and I would really recommend seeing them even if the rough folk pop on their Myspace page doesn't really strike you right away. I've seen them live a handful of times and have really enjoyed it. Red Monroe's live shows have been getting better over the past few months, and I would expect them to be in top form these days.

Kettle Art (2714 Elm St.) will be hosting a benefit show and reception for formerly local artist/graffiti writer Tony Bones from 7-10pm. Tony has apparently had a little trouble with the law recently, and the gallery is trying to help him out. His childlike art reminds me of something in between Joan Miro and Keith Haring, and I dig it. I'd like to see what this is all about.

Stella Rose | Low Line Caller | Tame...Tame and Quiet | Rotary Downs (The Cavern)
This is a bill of varying quality to be sure, but you can rest assured that Tame Tame's set will be as solid as always, and you might also be interested in checking out the blurry, sugary space rock of Low Line Caller.

SUNDAY

Cannibal Corpse/Dying Fetus/Necrophagist/Unmerciful (Gypsy Tea Room)