- Aqualaygualry in arcade fire - black wave/bad vibrations Today i watching overlay from here. this is wondeful film. Who are watching this?
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- Peggus-interruptus in The Temper Trap Lovin’ The Temper Trap!
This just in: my favorite record of the ’80s revival that’s been ongoing since the early ’00s and now seems to be (maybe) coming to a close is now official. It’s not by The Killers, or The Bravery, or The Faint, or Interpol, or (insert the name of a trendy or once-trendy band here). No, it’s by a waifish Soviet émigré who insists on wearing stubby faux-antlers in her promo photos and isn’t signed to any label at all. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Doe Deere, and her five-song EP Supernatural.
The amazing thing isn’t the degree of accuracy with which Ms. Deere channels the early-Madonna/Cyndi Lauper/T’Pau sound. Rather, it’s the utterly infectious songwriting; I guarantee that if “One Touch” or the saucy come-on “What U Like” had been released in 1985, we’d still be hearing them every time that Time-Life tried to sell another “Best Hits of the ’80s” collection. Even now, in a just world, this music would be all over the radio, or your radio-substitute of choice. It’s hooky, hummable, and most of all, fun.
This is not really intellectual music; it’s not in the mode of ABC or even Echo and the Bunnymen. But it’s some of the best party music recorded in this decade or any other, and it’s definitely worth seeking out.
Release date: April 21, 2008
Label: None
Rating: Awesome/10
Has it already been fifteen years? Frankly, I didn’t take too much notice then, nor do I now (just not my thing, eh?), but It’s a Shame About Ray has been out for almost as long as it takes a person to go from birth to driving age. And they’re celebrating at the Abbey Pub, but what’s really happening is…
The Ladies & Gentlemen, a highly reputable local outfit, opens for the Lemonheads. You’ve seen their name a million times before, and said to yourself, “These guys are always at the Double Door/Reggie’s/Martyrs, maybe someday I’ll check ‘em out.” Say ‘yes’ to a Brit-ish, power pop, new wave fix. The songs are catchy as hell, and tailored to the ADD demographic, but if that’s not your thing… there’s a bar in the other room where you can state into your beer in peace.
TLAG is building up steam, and if you’re already in for the Lemonheads, get there in time for the opening act (which also includes Canasta). Maybe not headlining at the Sears Center any time soon, but get a look at these guys as their base continues to grow (which is, amusingly, directly proportional to the rate at which the band’s hairline recedes. 80’s kids on instruments in the 21st Century…).
Can you imagine how excited i was to hear that Rick Froberg, one half of the creative force behind one of my favorite now-departed bands, Hot Snakes, recently played his first show with his new band, Obits, at New York City’s Cake Shop? Can you really?
How about the excitement of hearing word on the internets that this new band, these Obits, sounds like a cross between CCR and another Froberg joint, the venerable Drive Like Jehu?
If the words “mind blown” and “enormous boner” spring to mind, you’re pretty close to accurate.
Now, take that knowledge and add, as the cherry on the top of DJ’s orgasmo-rock sundae, the discovery that the first-ever Obits show was bootlegged and posted online, and, well, this blog post could take a downright awkward and uncomfortable turn for the rest of you.
I’ll be in my bunk.
[two minutes later]
As of right now, the sendspace link for the show is still good, so download it while you can. If you’re a fan of Jehu and Hot Snakes, be assured that Obits bring the rock and bring it hard, in a more straightforward, slightly more classic rock, but still blistering Froberg style. I cannot wait for the album.
Oh, and by the way, Froberg’s longtime running buddy, Hot Snakes and Rocket From the Crypt alum John Reis, has started playing out with his new outfit Night Marchers, and like Obits, it’s everything you could hope from ol’ Speedo. Check out their MySpace and groove to some farfisa-flavored RFTC-style garage-punk. Scream, Dracula, scream!
Flushing together a confounding mix of metal, prog, salsa, and you-name-it is not the recipe for distinctness a lot of bands expect it to be. “We don’t really sound like anything else out there,” is, 9 times out of 10, a blatant lie from bands who cite belligerently divergent influences; a harbinger of indecisiveness more than breadth.
No so with Ideamen. Far better than jerking themselves off with what they have Frankenstein’d from across the rock spectrum, each song is another, “Why didn’t I think of that first?” moment for songwriters listening in. Catchy as hell too, even when they’re shredding balloons with a wood chipper. ‘Know the Dance’, for example, makes you wonder why salsa and shred-metal haven’t been partnered before as a matter of course.
The Ideamen ep Progress, from the folks that also brought you Soulvasq and the Gwen Mitchell Experiment, collects five tracks too accessible to go unnoticed, and too urgent to be disregarded. The juxtaposition of styles and frequent dynamic shifts court being a little too abrupt, but maintain a giddy arc that neither burns slow, nor too hot. The Chicago-based quintet could have made simpler songs to effectively convey its lyrical message, but the energy of Dave Solar’s vocals (surpassed only by his rubbery, comfortably awkward stage presence), and the piano and synth-heavy arrangements do the perfect job of conveying the feeling of watching priests and politicians hurl poo at each other. ‘Cavity’ is especially effective at creating a cartoony space that’s far from goofy, and mixing kazoos and stoner-rock riffs don’t sully the keen lyrics, but give phrases like, “You’re either with us or against us,” the appropriate absurdity they deserve for being spoken earnestly by humorless pundits.
A few jaded listeners might not like how accessible AND good are Ideamen, because a band with such a penchant for the complex should be spending their time bending minds and to hell with tapping toes, right? Well, who better to rattle a few cages than an aggressive dance band from somewhere between hell and Wally World?
Ideamen plays the Double Door on Wednesday, October 3, doors open at 8 PM.
Montana is big and wide, it’s why it’s called Big Sky Country. It’s also home to Wantage USA one hell of a rock label that puts out some amazing stuff (think: Fucking Champs, The Whip, Big Business, Federation-X), etc. Although we had only been to Missoula once, almost 5 years ago, we had a great time and were excited to return there.
Kum and Go!
a real chain of convienence stores/gas stations
After spending the better part of the day travelling through Montana, which again is very pretty, but also FREAKING HUGE, we finally roll into Missoula, where we stop by a local coffee shop for liquid libations for the caff-heads in the band, and delicious crepes for all. The numbers taken for orders were actually different countries, which led to endless jokes about Italy sitting with the German delegation, and France being lowest on the totem pole for food imports.
We also briefly stopped by the local army surplus store, looking at the paintball guns and butterfly knives, good times!
Missoula is a cool little town, I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly makes it different, but it is unique. It has a combination of college town, plus working class mentality and…Montana. It somehow seems to work in a way that it never has for me in say, Olympia. Everybody is very friendly and helpful and cool and the vibe is just pretty cool. I’m sure it has it’s dark side like everywhere else, but it just seems like a nice place to me.
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Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
Wow, i’m really, really behind here… sorry folks.
Detroit at Small’s was a fun show, if you take away the combative relationship we had with the very moody soundguy.
Chris GoGoing to Ifihadahifi
For some reason we have bad luck with sound people, but not as bad luck as the dude who was apparantly shot down the street (!)
Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
There are no two ways about it, by the time we had reached Boston we were pretty spent, emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted with a series of shows that, while featuring good performances and some great people, were definitely less then stellar. Morale was low and our cash flow situation even lower.
Luckily, our time in Boston was JUST what we needed, a chance to recharge the mental and emotional batteries with a day off in a kick ass city, and a well and truly wicked awesome show!
And indeed, Replicator had a wicked awesome time.
Conan telling it like it is at the show…
Replicator posing all crazy go nuts like.
But first we stayed at this place:
Our crappy hotel, which Todd dubbed “the Moneyshot motor lodge”
Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
I dreamed that there was a gigantic alien spaceship destroying the planet, giant destructive beams levelling cities, forests, townships, mini-malls, everything. Whenever another city would explode in shattering glass and fire, I would stir a little bit, until finally I woke up and realized that there was a garbage truck right next to my head and that dudes were emptying cans into it. Tour had invaded even the deepest part of my distopian dreams. This wasn’t half as good as looking around bleary eyed from the bench seat of the Supernaut to see a well dressed man in a suit and tie with a briefcase giving me a horrified and disgusted look at the realization that the van near his place had held a sleeping rock and roll type person with colored hair. Ahh yes, good times.
This, folks… is the rock and roll lifestyle.
We were ready to leave DC almost immediately. I really didn’t want to miss seeing ANYTHING in DC for the second time in a row, but it was starting to look like that was going to be the case. We had to get the new t-shirt design out to Chris from hifi so that we can have a new set of tshirts in time for the leg of the tour with them. Soooo… again it looked like I was going to be in our nations capital and not able to actually see anything. Total drag, but that’s the thing with tour. A lot of people, non band people anyway, always say: “oh cool! you’re going on a vacation/roadtrip”, yes, but the thing is on vacations and roadtrips you generally get to see the city instead of the venue, where ever you are staying and where you eat. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great, but it’s not a vacation, not at all.
Anyway, we did at least get to drive by the Washington Monument, Capital building, and the Asshole in Chief’s pad , which is more then I had seen before… so there you go.
We drove for awhile through Maryland, and up the Jersey turnpike, which… incidentally is very recognizable from the Sopranos, then into New York City. One of the best and at the same time overrated cities in the world.
check out below the fold for an explanation of that statement.
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Waking up well rested, with a good nights sleep under your belt is a godsend, even to a stone cold atheist such as myself. Having the equivalent of a 5 star breakfast waiting for you when you finally do awaken may possibly be the best thing ever.
We devoured the breakfast goodies that Ben’s mother prepared for us as if we were starving refugees who had just emerged from a desert island into civilization.
Laundry! beds! non-fast food!
heavenly.
Ben’s mom’s wireless network has never worked, so basically ripped it apart and completely reconfigured it from scratch. It took awhlie, but I got it humming pretty good, hey, it’s the least I can do since she’s always so nice to us on tour.
We ended up paying a visit to Ben’s paternal grandparents, really nice older folks. His grandpa worked at the Ford plant for 30-40 years or so, so he’s very excited to hear how much we love the Supernaut, our 2006 Ford Econoline van.
After retelling some of our tour stories to a rapt audience, Ben’s granddad mentioned something about “hitting the big time”
“This IS the big time.” Ben said.
Everybody laughed, but in a way, it’s true… we don’t want to be pop stars, we like making the fiercely uncomprimising music we love to make. Would we be bummed to be really popular? Of course not! duh. But it’s not the end goal.
Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
Freedom Tickler, “tickle her fancy with the REAL thing, it’s the patriotic thing to do.”
Hilarious condom available at a rural gas station.
We left Robert’s house pretty early, after making sure to hook him up with as many Replicator buttons and stickers as he could handle. Thanks guys! I had a total scare when I thought I had left my brand new perscription sunglasses (or “perscription stunnaz” if you prefer), at his place, and I realized we didn’t have his number. I basically had a couple of kittens freaking out, since I used to be photoallergenic and am still really, really sensitive to bright light.
Luckilly I had stowed it away in a compartment in my sidebag… whew!
one of the things I really wanted to do before we left Memphis is visit Sun Studios, home of Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, etc. It’s still an active recording studio, but it’s the only recording studio that’s a national landmark. Awesome.
I was worried about having enough money to actually pay for the tour, when the really nice girl at the register informed us that since we were a band we all got free admission for the price of a cd. BAD-ASS!
