GroovyStylie

WE'VE MOVED!!

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:10:00 +0000

We've finally got the blog rolling on our server so CLICKY HERE to get the GroovyStylie scoop. You'll find a couple of new posts that never made it to blogspot and we'll no longer be posting here in the future so don't miss out!

So. Yeah. Click here and it will bring to the permanent home of GroovyStylie.com. Then get yer RSS feed rolling so you won't miss a thing!

Rock on, rockers

Wet messy smooches,
smacca
oxox

Pirate Radio Tucson!

noreply@blogger.com (Ms Magma) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:12:00 +0000

I just found out about Free Radio Chuckshon, a local, streaming site (and broadcasting a pirate station at 90.9 FM, which you seem to be able to get clearly around the downtown area with a decent antenna). At this point, the station seems to run mostly on auto-pilot, giving us a wonderfully bizarre and eclectic mix of music, heavy on the low-fi punk. Among the few things I heard in my scattered moments listening that weren't completely (and wonderfully) obscure, included some Pixies, John Lennon, and Elvis Costello. They have a few scheduled shows, which might be a little irregular yet in their reliability (especially, it seems, with frequent dead air and no-show DJs), but the on-line playlists from past shows seem promising, and the fun of pirate radio is the unpredictability of it and the shows filled with technical glitches, right?

As I'm writing, I'm streaming Butt Pirate Radio, which describes itself as a "bi-weekly show where we talk about queer issues, both social and political and spin queer and queer friendly artists." This episode is a cover show, I'm guessing inspired by the upcoming Great Cover Up (at Congress this Thurs-Saturday, benefiting Tucson Artists and Musicians Health Alliance. This is one of the great events of the year, where local Tucson acts,who normally play their own original material, pull out all the stops--usually costumes and/or other flair is involved--to cover an artist's or band's material). So far, the covers have included one's done by Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, Grace Jones, Smashing Pumpkins and Goldfrapp. A little more well-known fare than the randomized obscurities of the autopilot, but still, some quality stuff.

There are times when KXCI just doesn't do it for me, and this could be a good place to go as an alternative. See if you can get it at 90.9 FM, or stream it at http://freeradiochukshon.org

Stefan George @ Plush, Tucson, December 2, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:10:00 +0000

This bluesy-folky-standards singer guitarist made his way around his

guitar and into the hearts of the unusually full crowd at Plush.
Stefan George:

Clare & The Reasons, The Complainiacs, The Fisters and Chango Malo November 29, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:38:00 +0000

I got to Solar Culture a bit late. Camera in hand I make my way through the crowd in the back and as I get closer to the front, people were sitting on the floor so I slip to the side. Clare and the Reasons are onstage, though it appears they have just started their set. On stage, the band is dressed all in red with Clare playing guitar along side Olivier Manchon, her husband playing violin and various other instruments and a cellist. Clare has a voice like a song bird and a playful style that is a cross between jazz, classical, forty's pop and Disney princess music (think Snow White or Cinderella singing with blue birds flying around their heads). Lest we think she is sophisticated beyond her years, she reminds us that she's just like everyone else living in Brooklyn, NY when she sings, Can Your Car Do That? (I Don't Think So) where she tells the tale of an old but lovable car that leaks and whose doors don't open.

From there, I head around the corner to Vaudeville to hit the other end of the musical spectrum. I walk into a virtually empty bar where The Complainiacs are onstage with the volume up to 11. I order a beer and insert my earplugs. The guitarist says to the sound guy, "Just to let you know, I'm going to turn the volume up on the amp even higher. Well, because I can!" The handful of people (mostly members of the other bands playing and the bar employees) are congregating at the back of the bar as far away from the band onstage as possible. Suddenly the band seems to care about the audience and tells them to come up front because they're just a rock band and they won't hurt us, which is when the sound guy heads to the stage and tells them they're done. If they want people to stick around and listen, well then they don't need to be assholes and turn up the sound so loud it drives the beer drinking patrons away. You'd think it was their first gig. It was probably the last at Vaudeville. Gotta love punk rock.

Next up The Fisters take the stage and show us what real punk rock is all about. Tim Fister and Joy Fister bicker like brother and sister. Joy complaining that they're all playing too fast. Tim complaining that she's playing too slow. Joy gives him the finger, grabs her crotch and gives him the handjob gesture more times than I can count. Tim disses her white pant suit. Joy shouts out to the crowd, "I want at least two people to get naked...so I can make fun of you!"

Solid 2 minutes songs. Loud. Hard. Fast. Pure punk rock.

The night is wrapping up so I make my way to Plush where Chango Malo is getting ready to hit the stage. They get set up with feedback blaring and chaotic noise getting louder before slipping into the first song. Chango Malo have been a staple in Tucson for years. Their high energy, hard rockingness, endearing personalities and the offkey vocals of the lead singer are what make the crowd love them.

Four bands. Three venues. One amazing night.

Clare & The Reasons:

The Complainiacs:

The Fisters:

Chango Malo:

The Rosebuds with Tracy Shedd @ Solar Culture, Wednesday, November 26, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:07:00 +0000

Start the holiday off right Wednesday night at Solar Culture where The Rosebuds will be performing for the turkey and Tofurkey lovers alike. North Carolinians Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp will be back in our fair city to promote their newest CD release, Life Like, which came out at the beginning of October. The Rosebuds epitomize indie rock with everything from shoegazer to pop so there's something for everyone.

Opening up for The Rosebuds is local favorite, Tracy Shedd.

Where: Solar Culture Gallery, 201 N. Toole, Tucson, AZ
When: Wednesday, November 26, 2008, doors at 9PM
How much: $7

Dirty Me with No Fucking Bueno @ The Hut, Tucson, AZ November 21, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:28:00 +0000

Dirty Me:

No Fucking Bueno:

Gang Gang Dance, Rainbow Arabia @ Plush, Tucson, AZ November 17, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:45:00 +0000

Gang Gang Dance:

Rainbow Arabia:

Crooked Fingers, Port O'Brien, Sarah Jaffe @ Plush, Tucson, AZ November 14, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:53:00 +0000

Crooked Fingers:

Port O'Brien:

Sarah Jaffe:

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals @ Club Congress, Tucson, AZ November 11, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:50:00 +0000

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals:

Apollo Sunshine @ Plush Tucson, AZ November 11, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:00:00 +0000

Apollo Sunshine:

Garboski @ Plush, Tucson, AZ November 9, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:40:00 +0000

Garboski:

Parts & Labor @ Solar Culture, November 5, 2008 A review by KDD

noreply@blogger.com (smacca) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:22:00 +0000

Well I got my KDD ass out of the house on Wednesday night to go to a concert. When I say “concert,” that’s not really true to what the event was. It was more like performance art or a "happening." I went to see Parts & Labor perform at Solar Culture. Solar Culture is a tiny warehouse, stacked to the rafters with art from the community. The train tracks run behind the building, and frequently trains disrupt the sound of the show. There is no bar, no kitchen.
People bring their own beer to drink if they are so inclined. The entire space is probably about fifteen feet wide and fifty feet long. And the shows are dirt cheap (7 bucks for P&L) and end early (which is good for me since I never go out late). It makes sense that Parts & Labor would play at Solar Culture because they are of that the only musical genre that inspires me to get out of the house and experience live – Art Rock.

Parts & Labor deliver the great pummeling tightly orchestrated Wall of Noise I love to experience live. I enjoy the art of pummeling, and I wanted to see Parts & Labor because I wanted to be pummeled. Since the show was on Wednesday night, one day after the election, I knew that it was either going to be a Pummel of Despair or a Pummel of Hope. I could say that I am glad that it ended up being the Pummel of Hope, except for one thing. As soon as they tore into the opening song "Fractured Skies" (one of my all time favorite Parts & Labor songs), I realized that the ideas of Hope and Despair didn’t matter anymore because I was lost in the giant blissful wave of sound. I like to experience Noise Rock because it frees my body and mind from the trap of binary thinking (hope/despair, good/evil, republican/democrat), and turns me into a field of sensation almost without body. The first thrust of the drums, scream of guitar, and piercing whine of electronics shot right through me and reminded me why it is I really like to get pummeled. To disappear. And indeed, I did disappear for forty-five minutes while Parts & Labor went through a set of songs that that built into towering levels of sound only to dismantle themselves into white noise then start the process all over again. It was divine.

The thing about Parts & Labor is that every single musician plays the fuck out of his/her instrument. What makes the music such a gorgeous cacophony of kaleidoscopic sound is that no one holds back. Certainly Joseph Wong’s pummeling of the drums notoriously provides the first tear into the song, but he just rips open the sound space so the storm of bass, guitar and electronics can burst into the room. The sound is demanding, immediate, and all consuming with Friel’s vocals pulsing with in a desperately urgent cry to be FUCKING HEARD. I heard him and I heard every single fraction of sound that those artists pulled out of their instruments.

Parts & Labor:

BJ Warshaw. He rips up on the bass. I particularly like when he held his instrument high in the air, and he violently but precisely pulled streams of sublimely heart ripping thrums out of it. His entire body seemed to be part of the bass and the bass part of his body. Like the pulsing sounds are the beat of his own heart or another avenue for his voice, and this pounding pulsing beauty was all coming from one being. He’s also a really nice guy. I talked to him after the show and told him that I only go to concerts that are also art. Like the guys from the Liars and Oneida, Warshaw was pleased that I see Parts & Labor as artists first. They are artists who use sound (noise and music) as their medium. I told him that my favorite songs are the ones that rip open into long jams of noise that build and build and build, layer upon layer of sound, and then explode orgasmically and subside into disintegrated sound. He said, “Oh, that would be every song.” Insert KDD smile.

Dan Friel. Friel is the master of electronic sound and really helps give Parts & Labor their distinct sound, moving them from just another post-punk guitar band to sound construction artists. Tweaking keyboards, tape players, and all variety of tubes, amps, buttons, and gizmos, Friel’s electronic sound weaves through the music like some kind of industrial ghost. It is the voice of machinery, media, and the electric grid that wires the sound into the 21st century. It thrums with interference, noise, church organs gone awry, the possessed voice of answering machines, and the distant call of radio broadcasts. It is these sounds that help the music transcend into a new kind of space but also keep the music firmly grounded in a self-reflexive relation to its place an electronic media driven world. Friel’s electronic orchestrations jar us into remembering that we are listening to a sound construction by breaking up the space of the songs with the intrusion of “non-music.” These disruptions force us to listen to the “parts and labor” that create the whole of the music. And that makes sense, since many of the songs, following the punk tradition, are indeed laced with politics about labor and disenfranchisement.

Sarah Lipstate. Lipstate is a new member to the band. I’m always a sucker for a girl guitarist, and Lipstate's ghostly, tinny, melodic sound laces the music with a kind of beauty that makes the bludgeoning noise of the bass and drums even more sublime. I talked for her a good while, mostly about the gay marriage issue. She was so nice that I decided to buy the new CD Receivers because she is on it. I also got Mapmaker. It’s good to support artists, and they get a lot more of the proceeds from their sales when you buy their albums from the artists themselves. And by the way, the new album is absolutely amazing. There are so many moments of greatness on it that I can’t even begin to tell you. But FUCK YEAH, it is full of awesome.

Lisa didn’t get a photo of the drummer Joseph Wong, but let me just say right here that there is no way Parts & Labor could be Parts & Labor without absolutely relentless fierce drumming. The drumming refuses to allow you escape. It grabs you buy the neck, thrusts you headfirst into the music, and doesn’t let up. And I like it that way.

This morning it was such a beautiful crisp morning that I decided to ride my bike along the Rillito and listen to my new Parts & Labor albums. What a great way to start my day. Pedaling and pummeling. The one thing that struck me this morning is how much Hüsker Dü must have influenced their sounds. Seriously, I could really hear the punk undercurrent and it sounded great, that kind of forceful “we will not relent” sound that is both fierce and heart splitting, emotionally intense yet consciously avant-garde and political, just like Bob Mould and Hüsker Dü. I also realized they share much of the sentiment and sound of Billy Bragg. Well, nothing wrong with that.

Here are a couple of my favorite songs from the show:

Fractured Skies (MP3)

Satellites (MP3)