Golden Animals | Violent Squid (Rubber Gloves) Golden Animals is a California duo that plays 60's Garage inspired rock, and much like bands from that era, their really dirty, hyper-reverb material tends to work best; the cleaner, laid back blues numbers sound stiff and forced. Thankfully, the former will probably be what is showcased live. There is almost no point in trying to describe what Violent Squid will do, but it tends to be almost always primarily instrumental more than anything else, with an ever-rotating lineup.
Trifle Tower | Dark Forces | Back Stabbath | Geistheistler (J&J's Pizza) This is the beginning of a tour up to the East Coast for Trifle Tower and Dark Forces, and it will be one of Trifle's Tower's last DFW shows for some time, since their guitarist is going to attend school out-of-state. It will also be a good opportunity to catch a hardcore lineup like this at J&J's; shows of this nature don't seem to be as common here anymore.
Our friends at the House of Blues were kind enough to hook us up with three pairs of tickets to Sonic Youth's performance with Awesome Color next Wednesday, July 15th in the House of Blues Main Room. If you want to win them, email weshotjrtix@yahoo.com any time between now and Thursday at noon with your full name in the body and "Sonic Youth" as the email subject. We'll choose three winners at random. Good luck!
Do you guys like house parties? Do you like house shows? Are you down with DIY? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you'll probably be totally down with this year's Dallas Observer Music Awards. You know the Dallas Observer, right? Under the direction of music editor Pete Freedman, the local "indie weekly" has really become involved in supporting and nurturing the local DIY/house party circuit in recent months, and we're happy that they've had the guts to really dig deep and expose some of the unsung heroes of local music. And we know they aren't doing it because they're trying to milk the aesthetic for cool points, either, ok? They really "get" what's going on in the local underground right now, and they want to show their strong allegiance to the scene with a HOUSE PARTY THEME for this year's Observer Awards. I guess that's pretty good news for the local music community, isn't it?
But let me guess, Mr. or Mrs. Elitist, you're skeptical, right? I bet you're wondering, for example, whether this sudden embrace is a tad hypocritical considering that the Observer's music editor feels like his voice is just too large and important to cover house shows without the Police getting wind of them and shutting them down, right? And hmmm, I bet you're also dying to know why the Observer would want to get involved in the house show circuit when their editor wrote the following scornful comment in response to this discussion about why they won't cover house shows:
But, to respond: We're not gonna cover a band that pretty much exclusively plays this scene. We won't preview a gig and let our 100,000+ (at least) weekly readers know about an illegal house show just because that's the only chance they'll have to see a certain band.
Doing so is unfair to everyone: to the band, to the house venue's owners, to our readers, to the people who aren't friends with the party-throwers, to the musicians who aren't friends with the party throwers and won't get booked, etc. I could go on. Plus, how many people can actually attend these shows? Only so many.
Point is, if a house/DIY venue is doing something really cool and WANTS our support, we'll consider it. But we're not gonna go out of our way and pander to show with an attendance of a couple dozen people. Doesn't make sense on any level. At least, not to me. Or to our thousands of readers who, a) aren't at this show, and b) almost certainly aren't invited.
Well don't worry about it, bro, because although the Observer will be embracing the look and feel of "house parties" at their awards ceremony this year, they won't really be stooping low enough to actually host any kind of real house show or DIY event themselves, ok? You see, tomorrow night the paper will be hosting a party that is literally at a house in Dallas (which we won't name in the spirit of fairness), but instead of actually having some sort of substantive event there, they'll be using the house as a backdrop for a photo op-- the Observer gang has invited all of the Observer Awards nominees to come over so that they can "snap candid and posed party shots" (quotes from the invitation) of local bands at a "house party" that isn't really a party but rather a photo shoot for a corporate owned newspaper. I guess you could kind of call it, well, a fake house party. But as negative as this label might sound at first, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it-- this way, their photographers can get pics of everyone 'fuckin chillin' at a kewl house partie without having to worry about its "illegality" or a pathetically small audience of "a dozen" showing up or even about booking bands or creating something that anyone other than a PR agent will truly give a shit about. It's the best of all worlds, really, and its refreshing to see that the Observer has finally decided to take a short break from posts about St. Vincent and Erykah Badu in order to embrace the thriving house show culture that they seemed to so adamantly oppose up until quite recently. The local underground has been waiting to become "legitimate" in the eyes of the dallas music critic community for some time, and this might be the first important step towards finally making that dream a reality.
Bad Ass Jazz (Amsterdam) I wish they would change the name of this thing because it's a fun, quality jazz night that often features some great performers and I'd really like to be able to take it more seriously.
Hey friends, we decided to take this weekend off to celebrate the 4th of July, but we kinda forgot to tell you until now. Sorry about that. Of course, we'd like to remind you of the huge party we're co-sponsoring at Hailey's tomorrow night (click on the image for line up and start times, etc), and as far as anything else going on around town, feel free to tell everyone about it in the comments section, but only if its kewl. We'll be back Monday with various kinds of hangovers, a series of probable regrets and possibly a shitty attitude. JK! Have a good holiday, rock n rollers.
Bone Awl | Ashdautas | Volhan | Lychgate | Ashes (House Of Tinnitus) Novato, California's Bone Awl, a group that has received tons of praise from black metal purists and casual observers alike, is stopping at House Of Tinnitus tonight on their first ever tour, and I was pleasantly surprised when I first heard about the choice of "venue." I knew something was up when my boss's daughter, who listens exclusively to black metal, excitedly told me that Bone Awl was playing "some weird place in Denton I've never heard of." This should work out well for H.O.T., not to mention the bands and the audience, and I'm curious as to whether there will be a good part of the crowd that's previously never been to a show there.
After numerous analog-only releases on the group's very own Klaxon Records, the mystery surrounding the band has cultivated a lot of interest for an underground American black metal outfit that's never toured, even landing them a show review in Time Out New York after a recent set in Manhattan. More importantly than that of course, is the group's sound, an intense take on the genre that is embedded with a brutal simplicity that makes the music itself very similar to 80's American hardcore, though the aesthetic (as well as the screaming) is certainly different. Two other Klaxon acts, Volhan and Ashdautas, will also perform. The bill is harshly rounded out by two non-metal, noise-oriented acts, Lychgate and Ashes. Oh, and please donate accordingly.
Peter Hook DJ Set (Lizard Lounge) What does one of the most influential bassists of all time spin when he goes on a DJ tour? I'm not sure exactly, and I've definitely heard mixed first-hand accounts, but let's hope it's not any of the mostly jokey tracks featured on Hooky's Myspace page.
July 2 also happens to be the First Thursday of the month, so all the galleries on Dragon Street are staying open until 8:00 PM. Somehow they equate that with "late". I guess it is if you're old enough to afford artwork...
Darlene Wall & Cuban Collective Pan American Projects "Pan American presents work by native Texan Darlene Wall, as well as a collective exhibition of contemporary Cuban artists Gustavo Acosta, Agustin Bejarano, Kcho, Jorge Lopez Pardo, and Diego Torres."
Michael O'Brien: The Face of Texas Don Schol: Vietnam Remembrances Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery "In a bold decision to show work other than photography, PDNB is exhibiting longtime UNT faculty member Don Schol's recent woodblock suite titled Vietnam Remembrances."
Not a lot going on today, but we've just added a Not New Music Tuesday post below this one, so there's that. More to come....
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker Screening (House of Dang) I know I saw this movie when it came out, but other than the sequence that made up the "Smooth Criminal" video, I'm having a hard time recalling exactly what it consists of. What? You want me to research it on the world wide web? Fine-- you can check out the first part of the movie here, where the filmmakers apparently compare Jackson to both Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi. And JFK. Or maybe those are just the themes to "Man in the Mirror," since all the aforementioned figures wanted to make the world a better place, took a look at themselves and made that change. You can also watch this part here, which I like a lot better (especially the video for "Human Nature," which has become one of my favorite MJ songs over the past week). Anyway, this will be a lot of fun to watch at House of Dang, and it starts at 8pm if you're interested. Its' free of course, and BYOB.
I'd been planning to do a Blue Cheer record for the past few weeks; this fucking heat always makes me think of 'Summertime Blues.' After seeing the Monday Morning Rock video this week I'm guessing the weather has the same effect on Stonedranger, but they say that great minds think alike.
Blue Cheer was uncharacteristically heavy for a late 60s San Francisco band, often drawing inevitable comparisons to other 'power trios' (I HATE that term) like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. While I'm all down for groups not sounding like the Dead or Jefferson fucking Airplane, I really wish they didn't have a color in the name of the band. I know everyone was on acid or whatever, but was all that 'everything's colorful' shit really necessary? Did hippies really not understand why people hated them?
Both Outsideinside and their debut, 1968's Vincebus Eruptum, are fabulous records and there is rarely a month that goes by that I don't listen to one or both of them. I am unfamiliar with their later records that were released after the departure of guitarist Leigh Stephens, but I can say that I'm not a huge fan of his replacement Randy Holden's mega rare 1969 album Population II.
