Well the new year is almost upon on and with that comes our annual Christmas show with some mirth. Really mostly rock but in Show #24 Some Holiday Cheer we got covered with new tunes by No Age, Trail of Dead, Young Widows. Plus local NJ music by an old band from Westfield called Animation. Buzzkill New Brunswick, New stuff by the Eastern Anchors and Transilvia. Add to that a bunch of Xmas stuff mixed in.
Hey so Eastern Anchors are about to drop anchors on our shores as they dock up at Trax East and begin the mastering process for the full length debut. The sirens are talking and it may include LP version. If you like trail of dead, sonic youth, hot snakes, hum or poster children chances are these mates are right up your alley. For a few ale swilling downloads grab some free tracks from last.fm. The album has been a long time coming.
Nothing better to raise the holiday spirits than getting a memo from the touch and go folks letting me know that The Jesus Lizard is going to get back together to make some lute on tour from us middle aged punx. As part of the conspiracy T&G is going to re-release Head, Goat, Liar, and Down. Four alternative rock classics from the 90's. To make the audio attack believable Albini and Weston will be involved in the mastering process. The original line-up of the Howling David Yow, the Denison metalic guitar sounds backed with their back-beat section driving the band with Wm. Sims on bass and McNeilly's mechanic like drums in this endeavor. If you've ever been to a show where it was one big fun swirling mess alla "boilermaker" or "7 vs 8", you are in for a swell treat. We might break skull or pull a muscle but it's gonna be fuckin' fun as all hell.
Get some sample music: The Jesus Lizard on hype non standard | T&G Band site |
Photo by: derek vonessen
The time has come to order the Flaming Lips Christmas on Mars DVD is now available. In true Wayne Wonka Coyne style there are 10 golden tickets inside the popcorn box that gets you into their new years eve party in Oklahoma City this year. Sorry no boobie lady comes with the popcorn made by all super heroes and animals in Flaming Lips factory but you do get a bumper sticker and T-shirt. I am excited and can't wait to enjoy this flick that is 7 years in the making. Scene stealer interview >>
Dear Bazillionaires, With all money to burn in this economy i think it would be prudent that you bought me a gift with your winnings at the AIG Las Vegas get-away. Neiman Marcus has an exclusive set of 7" forty-fives from Billboard Top 100® Rock and Pop charts from Jan. 1, 1955, through Dec. 31, 1990 for sale for this holiday season as part of their crazy holiday gifts ideas bag. Since I am paying for this anyway with my taxes, i figure i might as well get a little something something from you this year in the form of collectables. It will take us a while to listen to these so we might have to go on a sky trip or something where can throw a dance party by the fire listening to Jimi, Janis and Smokey Robinson. There are some 18,400 records total and some are even autographed by the Artists. I will supply the turn-tables! Thanks.
Sir Ben Kingsley STOMPS into the shoes of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye from Mean Magazine on Vimeo. You know an actor has class when he has no problem trying to act like he is 16 all over again. Funny idea for a Mean Mag promo video. Get some Minor Threat music and mosh or whatever it is the kids are doing these days: Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White | I Don't want to hear it | Think Again | Filler
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New Jersey has been producing great music for some time. In fact we will grandstand here and say all the fools who move to newborklyn or la to "make it" or be entertained are retards. Stuyvesant is all parts equipped with punk veterans and can keep the attention of any special needs kids who needs to be spoon fed their music. Sometimes sounding like the west coast and other times packing that NJ edge makes Stuyvesant's latest tasty album release on Manual Phono unlike the acquired taste of a Fishmilk shake. I kid them because I think I've known a couple of them for more than 10 years (Yikes! we're fuckin old) so it is hard to be an ass and be constructive at the same time so I can only tell it like it is my brothers. So lets start with Linden Callings artwork shall we? I love it, nobody takes the time anymore to make stuff look cool, as if were handled with care, in particular if you are comic book fan the Boy Howdy tv illustration is killer(which you can get from their site stuyvesantrock.com i think). The lyrics here won't win a Pulitzer but if there were a rock lyrics award Ralph Malanga (formerly of Footstone) would be in the running for story telling and fitting large amounts of syllables in 3 minute pop-punk marvels that don't need to studio pro-tool polish most bands hide behind these days. Plus,there are only three chords required to rock and this records proves the point. Their music shows their fan dome for the likes of Social D, Ted Leo, Mats and the Decendents ,etc,etc, blah, blah. Hats off to some of the song names but these are the stand-out tracks: "Liars Poker", "Tape Hiss", "forgotten two" and "Salieri". Enjoy.
While this has been a busy summer full of local festivals; it is sad to say that the spoils of summer have not been as plentiful as recent memory serves. Show #23 has been changed several times and then there was the Peecee blow out where the most recent playlists were lost to the ether. Now Fall is upon me like the doom of winter and I have to get it in gear. To abide by my self-imposed deadline here is a quick playlist with some mp3 links to said tunes (ethical or not). Enjoy:
1) The Young Knifes of Superabundance with "Turn Tail" - I stumbled on this and if said hey radiohead what would your music sound like if you were 20 years younger when you made the Bends. This is what it would sound like.
2) Idaho from the Forbidden EP "The Thick and the Thin" (mp3via sneakmove)- I am late comer to Jeff Martin's music, so it is all new to me. Very ethereal soundscape material no wonder he mostly does soundtracks for movies.
3) British Sea Power from Do You Like Rock Music? brought "Waving Flags" - Trance guitars and shoe gazers geeks who apparently speak their own language. Subscribe to their newsletter and you will see what I mean.
4) Bruce Springsteen's "Girls in their summer clothes" - Probably the best song from this past year. Really captures the essence of the title and reminds of the jersey shore hook line and sinker.
5) Cloud Cult "Everybody Here Is A Cloud" via their album Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)
(from Fuel Friends) Has this new pornographer/arcade fire, shins vibe that I dig.
6) The Roadside Graves brought me the best title for a song called "Lot Lizards Ain't Lip Kissers" via Pop Headwound from a Sort of Dylanesque vocals; totally alt country with a hippie lemon-lime twist. Also check out the shit kicking drum dirge "Ruby". Good stuff fellers. You make Jersey proud.
Update: Summer 2009 playlist go here!
This years Music fest in Cranford NJ put on by the County Freeholders and sponsored by a myriad of corporate sponsors including the love hope and strength cancer foundation was a very ambitious undertaking. Complete with two nights and three stages. Day 2 suffered from lots of excess rain from the hurricanes. I could not got go to day 1 because I was working and totally tired on Friday night but did manage to catch the first half of Day 2 before the torrents of water. We made sure to get there right after nap time first to catch Dan Zanes & Friends along with every other cool parent in the area. Former Del Fuegos guitarist has morphed into this folk rock niche without being too corny that with his real target audience being me. He played a bunch of tracks from his new album Neuvo York with lots spanish versed songs. All good btw. If you have kids and they remotely like music this performer is for you. Their set time worked out perfectly at 11 AM and then the clouds started to hint of what was to come even though Zanes tried to make it go away with some voodoo. Next up on the 3rd stage was New Brunswick's Roadside Graves who performed after some BMX'ers. Yes, dudes doing these flips on their bikes over a large ramp. Quite impressive I must admit but sadly the crowd of kids dispersed before RG's set. Not sure if it was their crowd and it was kind of wierd having a rock stage tucked away by bathrooms. The bands best moment was at the end when they sounded more like the Stones and less like this washed out version of Jack Johnson if there could be such a thing. I've seen them play better at the court tavern but alas not easy to command a festival crowd.
The highlight was Mike Peters from the Alarm playing with the NJ symphony Orchestra. Every classic Alarm song was smooth and reached a couple moving points when Mike referenced his own fight with cancer and 20 years of marriage to his wife. His voiced sounded as good as it ever has and it was great to see him perform in front of tons of dedicated old school fans in the spirit of 76'. Can't wait till next year and hope there is no rain to spoil the show.
The strict state of rock is always trying to re-invent the storyline where the county lines have been defined for quite some time. To get your six string on and give it something new is as hard as making new octave chords out of the three that exist. The first three tracks on this record totally sound like the timber of Springsteen and music of some Southern Californian band holed up in the same apartment for a few years. The advantage for new bands is there are so many recent tenets who have come before in literature or Music who are the hometown mayors and pioneers as Bruce is to Asbury, as alliteration is to Tom Robbins and well punk is to the power chord. The good news is there are plenty of people to borrow from and bads news it just hard to be truly original. When you boil it down; the references are easy to hear if your record collection goes deep down to the marrow. Making the twists and turns your own from the scene around you is the trick and this is what they seem to do. The 59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem is transparent and derivative for somebody like me but brand new for the next generation of music lovers. For execution style and in the singing at audience dept they deliver on just about the same plain as classic rock of The Hold Steady and best that Jersey has to offer these days. Real stuff exists in these lyrics and only gets into trouble from my pov when they try to be too accessible and take the first exit off the turnpike. They don't break too many rock rules too much; borrowing from pop-culture but hey who am I to complain. I keep playing the record and listening so they are doing their job right. I am not bored and enjoy catching the bits and pieces of other songs I like so all is good here fellers. Fallon's band rocks. 3+ thumbs up. Check them out on Emusic | Download The Backseat | The '59 Sound
Other great New Jersey Bands you should be aware of:
Aviso'Hara - Sonic youth and flaming lips inspired - Last.fm | Emusic
Boss Jim Gettys - Big rock alla Nirvana and Green Day but snazzier - Zoommoozik
Eastern Anchors - Trail of dead with Hum peppered inside - Last.fm
The Slow Wire - Pixies mixed with some GBV goes along way - Last.Fm
There are a lot more.
Pretty good interview with Craig Finn from The Hold Steady interview from mog.com talks candidly about the first records he bought, seeing the replacements and growing up. Their new album Stay Postive is out now and pretty good. See them on tour now.
The mighty Ff from Brooklyn, Stuyvesant, No Pasaran! and the Eastern Anchors are going to grace Maxwells with their presence on Sat Aug 30th for FREE!
