New Music

Woops haven't posted in like a year. I have more relics to upload but in the meantime here are a few current bands I've been enjoying.

Merry Christmas - Her Exceptional Kindness
I'd made a post like this before that started with Merry Christmas but just accidentally deleted it, so here they are again and now with a new album. Excellent powerpop that's sort of lo-fi and hi-fi at the same time. Excellent tone, production, and songwriting all around. For fans of Guided By Voices.
Link.

Bedhed - Sickbreaker
Bedhed began as a one man bedroom project that is just starting to expand into a live band. Bedhed is wildly prolific and his music is poetically rough with an almost confrontational honesty to it. His influences seem to range from country songwriting to the grungiest Nirvana songs, and even dark ambient, metal, and other territories. I'm very excited to see this band flourish, their first live show is tomorrow.
Link.

Nasa Space Universe - Beyond Ice EP
NSU is from Orange County and has been playing since 2007. I've been lucky enough to share the bill with this band quite a bit and they remain my favorite band to play with. They get fucking gnarly and their music is really inventive, no macho bullshit here. Seriously if you can't get down then we probably shouldn't be friends.
Link.

Doses
No full release yet, but this is already something to get excited about. Just listen to the one song.
Link.
Members of.


More soon!

Terrors - Live at the Hickey Underworld (2008)

This recording is from the first show held at the Hickey Underworld, back in early 2008. Elijah Forrest, Terrors, opened the night with this set. The Hickey Underworld gets most recognition from its punk shows but that was maybe half of what went on there, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I've seen Elijah approach this project several different ways, from this solo acoustic set to a fourtet with three part harmonies to a spacious shoegaze direction, and lately his music has taken on a full blown ambient drone. The exchange of narrative for atmosphere has given him room to experiment with surfacing his diverse interests and taste in an almost subconscious way. But this set (which I thought to record at the last second at a suggestion) proved to me the payoff in putting care into every detail of writing a song and really trying to connect with the audience. Listening to this today I'm still blown away by the sincerity and care in his delivery.

There had always been talk of this set being released in several different formats. The same night I recorded a set from Drew Pearson and a few friends and I considered releasing a split tape. There had also been talk of a vinyl release, but nothing has happened yet. So until plans go into motion here it is, unmastered with a buzz in it so if it actually gets released you'll want to buy the cleaned up version. Hah.

TRACK LIST

1. Winter Vision
2. Bottom of the Second
3. An Exercise
4. Open Your Mask
5. All Dissolve

Download here.

Wild Pack of Canaries - Why is Everyone Still Smiling? (2009)

When Wild Pack of Canaries started off it was Rudy De Anda and Drew Pearson. I’ve always been a fan of Drew’s music and I had been in a band with Rudy prior to Wild Pack forming. They both fuck with time signatures in a visceral and aggressive way, just feeling around the beat and building on it instead of playing through. They both also have interesting high pitched voices that don’t match with much but luckily match each other really well. There’s a soul presence in the melodies and a punk attitude in the delivery. Drew’s drumming is so stripped down and well written around the guitar parts that the contrasting placements of kick and snare play the melody percussively.

This demo was recorded in several spots throughout Long Beach, including the Hickey Underworld bathroom. It runs lush, beautiful guitar pieces through flat post-punk tones and experiments with a range of sounds and effects adding to the double exposure combination of beauty and dissonance. The band has since continued to grow and try on different approaches. Their lineup averages at around 7 members, and all of the room the two piece’s music has (which is a sort of prog punk charm) is filled out with a sort of indie rock noise party. Rudy has also reinvented the songs with more percussive focus and even an 11 piece with saxophone and trumpet. His eccentric taste, open mind, and enthusiasm are all accurately reflected by his music. The band has since released an album on Mountain Man Records with a few of the songs on this demo reworked with the current band.

TRACK LIST

1. The Coroner Can Wait
2. Lose That Touch
3. In Case of Hornets
4. El Tiburon
5. Gilroy/Farm Song
6. Yo Te Lo Digo
7. Electric Cow (Tipping Her Over Version)

Download.
Buy the album here.

Fever Kids - Homesick (Unreleased, 2008?)

South Bay demo from the 2000s. These kids went on to be in several popular bands, I'm not even sure I know all of them. Poppp puuunk.

TRACK LIST

1. Word Problems
2. Ode to Lace
3. Stairs
4. Cassius Clay
5. Homesick

Download.

Rock Goggle Fantasy - Society of the Spectacles (2003)

This is the first time I've actually ripped vinyl for this blog. I think it sounds pretty good. And it was easy with this six track EP that's hardly over 5 minutes.

Society of the Spectacles is, at least by name and image, modeled after Guy Debord's 1967 series of theses The Society of the Spectacle-- a Marxist book on the degradation and replacement of society and social life with its own image as a sort of drugging and distracting tactic largely on the government's behalf. Basically a really hip French book with a really cool looking cover and a now classic counter culture message.

It's a classic Los Angeles area punk band thing to do to both have an underlying reference to anti consumerism and at the same time have a great sense of humor and play fast as fuck. Another way that this 7" seems like a punk rock modern classic to me is the performance; it reminds me of X in that they've put forth the effort into writing fully developed songs with great hooks and good melodies but play with as much aggression, conviction, and attitude as any other bonehead hardcore punk band. They're creative and at the same time listenable, and on top of it all there's an excellent Minutemen cover. And a final confirmation that this is Southern California punk at its finest is the label: We're From the Beach Records (with a Manhattan Beach address).

TRACK LIST

1. Tootsie Roll Pop Art
2. Dance Marathon
3. Paranoid Chant (Minutemen)
4. Ladies Wear White
5. Kamikaze Limo
6. Tangling with the Grappler

Download.
This band is defunct. I found this for 3 dollars at a record store, keep your eyes peeled.

Brett Cutts - Beautyfull Birds (2006)

"I helped ruin punk rock music"-
RIP Brett Cutts, 1977-2006.
This one of the best albums of all time.

TRACK LIST

1. ...and Everybody Loves You (i)
2. In A Museum Basement
3. Miss Homa Gangei
4. Crawl All Over
5. ...and Everybody Loves You (iv)
6. Untitled #1
7. Rabid Teeth
8. Soon One Mornin'
9. Mercyfull
10. Beautyfull Birds
11. O.R.
12. In One Night
13. Maggie's Farm

Download.

Stephen Steinbrink - You Are Dead (2009)

The first time I heard Stephen Steinbrink's music, he was playing in my back yard while touring with his band the French Quarter. The band is from Arizona and the music has a strong folk influence. We spent the night drinking and listening to Neil Young after the show. I was so satisfied with the picture he had painted with folk music that this album, You Are Dead, took me a little getting used to. It wasn't until I saw him touring again and playing this material that I really figured out how lucky I am to see him come through and further develop this beautiful sound and try different genres through his own filter.

This album still has the familiar simple beauty of his folk music, but also has some grooves like you wouldn't expect. "A Tiny Seed"'s bass line is reminiscent of Michael Jackson and "It's Not Just Kissing" is downright sexy, but still subtle and beautiful with smart and layered guitar parts, soft drumming, and soft hushing vocals.

TRACK LIST

1. You Are Dead
2. A Tiny Seed
3. No More Night Driving
4. Growing Up Is Easy
5. It's Not Just Kissing
6. The Cops
   
7. Warning
8. Wet Cloud

Download.
Stephen's Blog, with links to music and labels to buy his other great records.

Curtains "Forced Thoughts on the Humdrum River" (2010)

Curtains' "Forced Thoughts on the Humdrum River" is another alter ego solo project from my friend Luis Gutierrez. Luis is not only wildly prolific but his music is surprisingly complex considering the large amount of material he writes. It sounds like it would take years to dream up such illuminated and imaginative music. Before this tape I had always thought of Luis as a drummer before anything, but his songwriting and widely reaching experiments with guitar have shown once again that he is full of surprises.

The album starts off with a monster jam of heavy drumming and vocal-drowned effects. There's some great heavy guitar work here and there, like "Treat You Like", and a lot of jams that blend cool atmosphere with the Residents, like "Yucca", "Up The Coast", "Stupid Bedsheets", and "Uhu". The whole album keeps this bubble of atmosphere like being in your bedroom on LSD drawing morbid pictures of people being tortured while blasting the Cure to try and drown out your sister's 80's pop bleeding through the wall. The album was released by Broccoli Tapes, a good friend of ours who has a lot of great releases already out and more to come.

TRACK LIST:

1. No Worries Ever
2. Over The World
3. Yucca
4. Treat You Like
5. Up the Coast
6. 11 Weekly Lows
7. DOWNSTAIRS
8. Coming in Third
9. Talk About Old Nows
10. Stupid Bedsheets
11. Uhu
12. Lower Strata (Internet Only)
13. I'm Ready (Internet Only)
14. Moons (Internet Only)

Download.
The Artist's Page.