Jesus FUCK, this gig was a month ago? I’m a terrible, terrible internet presence. This show was a benefit for Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and offered a choice lineup (some of which I missed) of weirdos honored to pay homage to the high priest/ess of becoming.

The Infra-Men

Deadpan, deathtrap concrete surf soundtracks. I would’ve liked this band a whole lot better if they gave they slightest indication that playing guitar was still a sexy vocation but a riff is a riff is a riff, right?

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge

Genesis is not well and that’s heartbreaking because Genesis should be forever like time and sex and joy but s/he like me, like you is doomed to suffer the wills of a body and bodies can be such pieces of shit. Still, here s/he is with her oxygen and gold teeth and cane rocking a DJ set of (once) radical liberation.

Grim Streaker

Great name. Great band. Not sure how they stack up on wax but they fucking kill it live. Four forcefully competent dudes laying out the fuzz punk racket and one ferocious fucking frontwoman who was either completely shitfaced or startlingly adept at presenting the sloppy nihilism of another whiskey midnight.

Bambara

Man, I fucking love this band and really wish they had been around when I was first learning about all the crazy shit two consenting adults could do to/with each other because, to be honest, there are only but so many times you can corpse play to “Mutiny in Heaven” before you start to get the sinking feeling that you might seriously be going to hell.

The post Bambara / Grim Streaker / Genesis Breyer P-Orridge / The Infra-Men @ Sunnyvale – 1.5.18 appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

The Minutes were supposed to play this show which is why I opted to head out into the cold despite Cupcake’s protests and the clarion call of Zak Bagans’ “BRO!” screams (I am a simpleton on Saturdays) but they didn’t.

Not sure why.

Something to do with the logistical pitfalls of trying to shore up the punk rock in Squaresville, I guess and, at first, I wished I’d known they were a no-show before I shelled out my cover but then I learned that all proceeds from tonight’s gig would be going to help LGBTQ families in Puerto Rico and there’d be a sex toy raffle which, I mean…duh and some very friendly man in a good creep Sagan get-up starting talking to me about being bummed The Minutes weren’t playing either and frontman drugs and how amazing / absurd it was that a rock and roll band with dirty songs and silly names could do…you know…good and Yvon sent me a message suggesting that even if I didn’t know a damn thing about the bands on that night, if Runny was headlining, it was gonna be a good time.

I think his name was Lemon Cookie.

Wait.

That can’t be right.

Point is, I paid and I stayed on the authority of a good friend and the smoky charms of a dirty professor and I bid on those cockrings and clitcharms and probably some butt stuff* and, in so doing got to see The Whores (not Whores…AT ALL) bash out a git/drum racket a little something like X covering Shellshag and then The Last Throes play a pitch-perfect Fat Wreck set except considerably more dignified than an empire based on dick jokes and then Nola Gras who also plays scorcher in the fried-sex thump of Bambara but as a solo (mostly, I suppose, but tonight joined by soft keys and effusive drum strokes) artist makes a gentle sweeping whisper and then Swilson who kept up some legendary with the CCR blues whip yoga party and then Trashy who started up with a song called “QUEER PUNX” and blasted out the new (well, not really, but your folks have probably heard the term “Trans” by now) body politic with a wry sense of pleasure found in three-chorded hope despite decades of confusion, frustration and pain and then there was Runny who were just a perfect mess of pleasure.

Seriously.

How the fuck have I never listened to this band?

They’re a big dumb delight, a gleefully crafted bash and crash of pan-sexual goofball heroes swill-bent on decrying the patriarchal confinements of “the scene” which, at it’s heart, is still pretty much a straight game for white men whose dads never loved them back in the right way or maybe loved them too much or maybe they were just so taken aback at the awesome responsibility of having a child they didn’t know what to do and so they freaked out but didn’t have the room for true personal upheaval and so they just assumed the role their own fathers took of the slow, simmering sunmabitch working days to provide and cherishing nights with a little cathode quiet but that’s a whole different conversation, isn’t it?

But, yeah, Runny rules.

So do all these dudes…

*And I didn’t win squat!

The post Runny / Trashy / Swilson / Nola Gras / The Last Throes / The Whores @ St. Vitus – 1.13.18 appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

Prospect Park might not be the best zoo in NYC but it is certainly the most metal. I mean, seriously, that place has fucking everything. They have a Sumatran Goth Chicken and a Chinese Fanged Deer. They’ve got an existential otter and an invasive Mallardian horde. They have a goat so fat it had to be quarantined, baboons with calloused asses for days, epic iguanas, radical fruit bats, one seriously sagacious Pallas cat, a cow named Merlin, a mob of balling mongoose (A MOB, DUDE!), enough poison dart frogs to kill Revolver’s readership three times over, snakes, dingos and three mini pigs which are just, like, the BEST! and now and again, I was assured, can be found all snuggled together snoring under their little wool blanket because sometimes everything is just so fucking right with the world.

They also have peacocks, the jerks.

And sea lions and fish and birds and cranes and another cat and simians, et al. and the reason I’m telling you all this is because I started my day at the zoo with some of my dearest because that’s how a man of a certain age spends his birthday before sauntering off with Joseph to herald in the benchmark of bleakest blackness.

Unnatural histories and all that.

But those little pigs, though…

Black Anvil

Joseph missed Black Anvil which is a sin because he would have been ALL IN for this shit. Blackened and bloodied sigilistic new rage from the concrete coven of NYC, Black Anvil kick the Necrinomicon jams with a careful balance of red-boned hate and horn-throwing exaltation. Like a black tar hemorrhage suffocating a biker dust death trip, Black Anvil bring the bad times hard with no fucks to be given.

Immolation

“I think this is actually categorized as technical death metal.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s when the music is actually insanely complex but all you can hear is some dude going ‘GGRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOUURRRGGG!'”

“Huh.”

“Yeah…and they’ve been doing it for, like, thirty years.”

“Metal is weird.”

Mayhem

I’m pretty sure it’s been twenty years since I saw Mayhem play Wetlands before a slew of seriously fucking serious dudes at least one of whom road the rails from his New Hampshire “homestead” just to hear “Pure Fucking Armageddon” live before he died and I’m pretty sure it’s been about twenty years since I’ve listened to them in earnest.

But Mayhem is legend and the last year they’ve been touring in celebration of the ludicrous perfection that is De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas (think Venom playing Twin Infinitives or vice versa) so who wouldn’t willingly genuflect at the blackest of masses?

I mean, I know I did. I soaked in the wraith. I welcomed the fog. I believed the skull hiss and wished death upon the merciful.

Joseph was less penitent and I suppose that’s understandable. Introducing someone to Mayhem at this point in their career is a challenge. The band’s history is so enormous, so storied that it invites irrational expectations but Mayhem isn’t the same band they were when churches were burning and murder made their name. They’re not a bunch of drunk punks trying to kill themselves with Venom worship and bitter, idle horror. They’re professional musicians with one hell of a light rig and a frontman unafraid to embrace the theatrical. They’re a show, plain and simple and their interpretation of the grand guignol might not send real shivers down your spine but it’s a delicious bit of escapism in a trying fucking time.

The post Mayhem / Immolation / Black Anvil @ Irving Plaza – 12.2.17 appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

“This is our first headline show in Austin!” exclaimed Bleachers frontman Jack Antonoff toward the beginning of the band’s Tuesday night show at the storied Central Texas venue. “We’ve been waiting five fuckin’ years for this!”

His exuberance wasn’t totally lost on the sprawling sea of fans, who screamed along heartily to a slew of rock anthems, most pulled from recently released sophomore album Gone Now. What those among the capacity crowd might not have realized is just how lucky they were to witness this show in such an intimate space.

Antonoff’s meteoric rise over the past few years from “the guitarist in fun.” (still owned by way of a reworked cover of hit “Carry On”) to producer and co-songwriter for Taylor Swift and Lorde has clearly added thrust to his position as this band’s frontman. Never mind that Bleachers’ sonics and stage presence already parallel those of golden-era Bruce Springsteen; the immensity of both their sound and on-stage energy during gigs this past year and especially this night – particularly during double-drumkit, soaring-sax-solo sing-alongs like “Goodmorning,” “Everybody Lost Somebody,” and “You’re Still a Mystery” – should be a beacon for arena bookers the world over.

Not just for his powerful songwriting, but also equally for a quick instinct to humbly bestow his fans with all the credit, Antonoff is a perfect candidate to lead the new-contemporary contingent of those mustering massive, rock-fueled catharsis.

“This is a full-on Austin-doesn’t-fuck-around situation!” he offered, beaming like he was born for this.

Gallery of Bleachers @ Emo’s (Sept. 19, 2017) by David Brendan Hall

Set list:
Dream of Mickey Mantle
Goodmorning
Shadow
Wild Heart
Everybody Lost Somebody
Hate That You Know Me
Wake Me
I Miss Those Days
Let’s Get Married
All My Heroes
Rollercoaster
Carry On (fun. cover)
Like a River Runs
Foreign Girls
You’re Still a Mystery
I Wanna Get Better
Don’t Take the Money

The post Bleachers @ Emo’s (Sept. 19, 2017) appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

It’s got to feel somewhat surreal playing live for Fleet Foxes on this tour. Imagine taking a six-year break after releasing two of the most compelling folk albums of the past decade (2008’s self-titled disc and 2011’s Helplessness Blues), then hearing wild cheers for those tunes – the type of hyped up response typically reserved for decades-old classics – as they pop up in the live set. Throughout Thursday night’s nearly 2-hour show at ACL Live, the second of two consecutive sold-out gigs in Austin, fans gave the Seattle outfit (and their most old-school cuts) a hero’s welcome back.

Yet, those most-loved ballads weren’t handed over cheaply. Mirroring the screenplay-inspired narrative that props up new album Crack-Up (it’s worth noting: the liner notes intriguingly contain stage directions), the set list’s backbone and bookends likewise relied on that sort of structure, with favorites like “Ragged Wood,” “He Doesn’t Know Why,” “White Winter Hymnal” and “Blue Ridge Mountians” popping up in between.

A nearly uninterrupted flow of music began with cool-to-cacophonous medley “I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar,” “Cassius, -“ and “- Naiads, Cassadies,” was marked in the middle by the trio of “Mearcstapa,” “On Another Ocean (January / June)” and “Fool’s Errand,” and concluded with the new album’s highly introspective title track. Orchestration behind those tracks – layers of two or three guitars, flawless and angelic harmonies led by Robin Pecknold’s incomparable voice, and slew of woodwind accents provided by multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson – showed the extent of the band’s development. With this lineup solidified since 2008 (minus new drummer Matt Barrick of the Walkmen, who replaced Joshua Tillman, now better known as Father John Misty), they can get weird – almost to the point of drowning the melody – but always successfully resolve into some undeniably infectious hook.

Still, the show was strongest for its subtleties. For one, Pecknold’s solo turn under one white spotlight for “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” evoked a reverent hush – as if everyone was holding their breaths for fear of marring the singer’s resonance even in the slightest – that erupted into a heartfelt standing ovation before his band mates rejoined. But perhaps most discreet yet meaningful of all was a slight lyrical tweak toward the ending of anthemic main set closer “Helplessness Blues.”

Where Pecknold would normally repeat, “If I had an orchard, I’d work till I’m sore” one last time in a hushed tone, he sang, “No time for an orchard, who knows what’s in store?,” which – for a songwriter with his reputation for intention – can’t be interpreted lightly. Perhaps it signaled the end of the dream that song imagines, one where “you would wait tables and soon run the store,” while denoting an optimistic openness to what the future might hold. Ideally, it holds much, much more marvelous music from Fleet Foxes.

Set list:

I Am All That I Need / Aroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar
Cassius, –
– Naiads, Cassadies
Grown Ocean
Ragged Wood
Your Protector
The Cascades
Mearcstapa
On Another Ocean (January/June)
Fool’s Errand
He Doesn’t Know Why
Battery Kinzie
Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (Robin solo)
Mykonos
White Winter Hymnal
Third of May / Ōdaigahara
The Shrine / An Argument
Blue Ridge Mountains
Helplessness Blues

Encore:

Oliver James (Robin solo)
Crack-Up

The post Fleet Foxes w_ Bedouine @ ACL Live (Austin, Texas, Aug. 17, 2017) appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

Sometimes, you need to get the squirrels out…

Body Stuff

I can’t tell if this band is a joke or if they are three riffs from kicking the shit out of me. I hear tell that they’re weirdos which makes sense since the one dude is all heavy-hung chug thunder and the other is riding somewhere between Lee Ving and that one dude at the karaoke bar in Matamoras who INSISTED on performing a vein-popping rendition of “Born to Run” with me and Danny. Also, a drum machine.

Austerity Program

One of the best things about Big Black is that they (he) sounded like men (a man) from word “fucked” and one of the principle reasons a skinny collegiate from the Midwest could come off like a cracked-handed killer was his good friend Roland…and, of course, his radically angular six-string, steel-scraped Americana topical hell which is kinda sorta like something the Austerity Program has been espousing for two decades or so which I should’ve been goddamn black-lung lovin’ since they first popped up at Coney Island but for some reason I thought they were Rush stoner regulators. I was wrong. They rule.

Fotocrime

Sometimes heavy crests hard and the only thing left to do with your time and axe is to go deep into the teenage wasteland and remember the inchoate merits of dead rose ownership which is pretty much where we meet Fotocrime and their smoky silhouette swagger. Somber settlements and blue-lace fists. Willful excommunication coupled with shaded exaltation, the band plays drab as morning on record but lurches into a wondrous elegy for 80s arena ennui when wrested onto a stage and I hope its not insulting to call their shadowy missives delightful but goddamn if their bygone aesthetic didn’t tickle me every shade from ink to ash.

The post Fotocrime / Austerity Program / Body Stuff @ St. Vitus – 7.3.17 appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

It’s no secret that Roger Waters hates Donald Trump – the giant inflatable pig he flew through the Desert Trip crowd last October was emblazoned with the ireful text, “Fuck Trump and his wall.” That was just before the election, and Saturday night at San Antonio’s AT&T Center – several months after Trump’s victory and nearly a third of the way through the former Pink Floyd member’s 61-date Us + Them Tour behind new album Is This the Life We Really Want? – the overarching theme was even more overtly defiant.

“RESIST” was the message filling the enormous background screen and printed on the shirts of a dozen local kids selected to march, dance and raise fists rebelliously during “Another Brick in the Wall” parts 2 and 3 to close out the show’s first set, which began with most of The Dark Side of the Moon side one and likewise featured the first four cuts off Waters’ latest album, plus a few more hits like the ever-affecting “ Wish You Were Here” (Lucius vocalists Jess Wolfe and Holly Laesig served as the show’s centerpiece duo during much of this, stirring chills and drawing widespread cheers with their backup vocals on that latter ballad, and during their operatic solos on “The Great Gig in the Sky”).

As the show’s second set began, the anti-Trump sentiment continued, dominating the visuals during “Dogs” and the 12-minute “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” which were displayed on a dazzling set of morphing screens that hung perpendicular to the stage over the floor section, creating a sort of inescapable visual feat unlike any other previously attempted in an arena. This time, the messages displayed on the pig flying overhead read, “First bank of war. Bombs come out of here” with an arrow pointing the pig’s asshole on one side, and on the other, “Welcome to the Machine. I won” next to an appropriately ugly caricature of the U.S. president with money signs for eyes.

A sequence of Trump’s most shocking (racist, sexist, greed-driven) quotes ran across the screens concurrently, juxtaposed with images of war and the children affected by it, ending with the simple kicker, “Trump is a pig.” One might’ve expected a reserved reaction from a more conservative city like San Antonio, but tens of thousands of fists and cheers rose up as that final quote ran. It was by far the gig’s most intense moment of protest, even with socio-politically charged new cut “Smell the Roses” and Floyd’s “Bring the Boys Back Home” mixed within the show-closing bookend of Dark Side’s side two.

In an era where much of commercialized music and television is designed for escapist purposes – elements of the money-machine that not-coincidently often cause people to turn a blind eye to its terrible consequences – Waters’ production serves as a necessary reality check: whether you choose to believe it or not, there is ample evidence, delivered from the man’s own mouth, that Donald Trump is a sexist, racist, bigot and wannabe warmonger, all in service of himself and an elite few, not the greater U.S. population or the free world he’s sworn to protect. Don’t get me wrong – the songs still serve the purpose of entertaining (though Waters’ voice sounds rougher in spots these days, the ace ensemble he’s enlisted helped his epic medleys sound bigger and better than ever), but the superb grooves serve to disseminate much-needed subversion. Truly, that was much of Floyd’s creative strategy all along, and because those songs’ themes are now more relevant than ever, Waters’ Us + Them Tour is perhaps the most important live music production of 2017, if not the next four years.

Set 1:
Speak to Me (Pink Floyd song)
Breathe (Pink Floyd song)
One of These Days (Pink Floyd song)
Time (Pink Floyd song)
Breathe (Reprise) (Pink Floyd song)
The Great Gig in the Sky (Pink Floyd song)
Welcome to the Machine (Pink Floyd song)
When We Were Young*
Déjà Vu*
The Last Refugee*
Picture That*
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd song)
The Happiest Days of Our Lives (Pink Floyd song)
Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 (Pink Floyd song)
Another Brick in the Wall Part 3 (Pink Floyd song)

Set 2:
Dogs (Pink Floyd song)
Pigs (Three Different Ones) (Pink Floyd song)
Money (Pink Floyd song)
Us and Them (Pink Floyd song)
Smell the Roses*
Brain Damage (Pink Floyd song)
Eclipse (Pink Floyd song)
Vera (Pink Floyd song)
Bring the Boys Back Home (Pink Floyd song)
Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd song)

The post Roger Waters @ AT&T Center (San Antonio, Texas, July 1, 2017) appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

Know any of those people who love spouting that line, “Punk rock is dead”? X’s Tuesday night performance at the Masquerade in Atlanta – a stop toward the tail-end of the first leg of the influential L.A. band’s lengthy 40^th (!) anniversary tour – was an answer to those naysayers: Punk rock lives, strongest of all in the spirits of its seminal players.

With all four original members – bassist John Doe, vocalist Exene Cervenka, drummer D.J. Bonebrake and guitarist Billy Zoom – playing as vibrantly as they did within their 75 minutes on stage, there was no argument for anything other than enduring authenticity. Sure, Zoom has slowed down somewhat, but understandably so – he was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2015, went through treatment, and has since reportedly recovered. So, though he was planted on a stool for nearly the entire show, his riffs were still riot-worthy, razor sharp and lightning quick on hardcore-anticipating quick-hits like “I’m Coming Over,” “The Once Over Twice”,” “Year 1” and their raucous, main set-closing cover of the Doors’ “Soul Kitchen.”

For his parts, Bonebrake didn’t miss a beat as he powered through punk, rockabilly and often jazzy jam-outs. Meanwhile, Cervenka’s and Doe’s co-lead vocals sounded just rough enough on the rowdiest tracks, and sublimely smooth when the band brought it down with somber waltz “Come Back to Me,” which featured Zoom’s sultriest sax solos (he let loose again later with some prog-jazz on “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts”). That early-80s-era deep cut was offered in honor of a deceased fan whose friends had requested it.

Reminding how her poetic mind has always imbued her lyrics with as much grace as gruff power, Cervenka delivered the dedication: “Life is both joyous and sorrowful … and that’s why we’re all here, I guess.”

Clearly, the quartet has opted to accentuate the former end of that sentimental spectrum: a kinetic three-song encore – relative rarity “Poor Little Girl,” plus classics “Some Other Time” and “Devil Doll” – capped off the jubilant 24-song run.

So punk is kaput? Certainly not if X is still kickin’ like this, or for that matter, the Damned, who rolled through the same venue on their own 40^th anniversary jaunt just days before. The fire underpinning their performances indicated that, more accurately, the genre is just forty years young, and its defiant yet life-affirming ethos – particularly in this socio-politically discordant era – is perhaps more relevant than ever.

Photos of X w/ Rosie Flores – the Masquerade Atlanta – May 16, 2017

X 40^th Anniversary Tour 2017 dates:

5/22 – Houston, Texas – Heights Theater

5/23 – San Antonio, Texas – Paper Tiger

5/24 – Austin, Texas – Mohawk

5/25 – Dallas, Texas – The Kessler

7/2 – Oakland, Calif. – Burger Boogaloo – Mosswood Park
8/18 – Solana Beach, Calif. – Belly Up
9/6 – Las Vegas, Nev. – The Brooklyn Bowl
9/8 – Salt Lake City, Utah – The Complex
9/9 – Denver, Colo. – The Summit
9/11 – Omaha, Neb. – The Waiting Room
9/13 – Minneapolis, Minn. – First Ave
9/14 – Milwaukee, Wis. – TBA
9/15 – Chicago, Ill. – TBA
9/16 – Detroit, Mich. – El Club
9/17 – Buffalo, N.Y. – The Town Ballroom
9/19 – Portland, Maine – The Port City Music Hall
9/20 – Boston, Mass. – Brighton Music Hall
9/21 – New York, N.Y. – Stage48
9/22 – Philadelphia, Pa. – Underground Arts
9/23 – Falls Church, Va. – The State Theatre
9/25 – Pittsburgh, Pa. – Rex Theater
9/26 – Kent, Ohio – The Kent Stage
9/27 – Columbus, Ohio – Skully’s Music Diner

The post X w/ Rosie Flores – the Masquerade Atlanta – May 16, 2017 appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

Before Monday night’s sold-out gig at Stubb’s BBQ, the Pixies hadn’t played the mainstay Austin venue for about 12 ½ years. When they took that stage the last time – Oct. 20, 2004, freshly united with original bassist Kim Deal in the mix – it was an exercise in nostalgia: song selections spanned their first four albums (1988-1991), but featured no new material, though – after their 11-year hiatus – the performance felt fresh and veritably vibrant.

The band’s return to ATX in 2014 for a stop at the now-demolished Austin Music Hall marked a baby step toward reclaiming relevancy in the present – after firing both Deal and her brief replacement, the Muffs’ Kim Shattuck, they’d enlisted all-star basswoman Paz Lenchantin (Zwan, A Perfect Circle) and begun working in tunes from soon-to-be-released 5th album, their first full-length in 13 years, Indie Cindy. While that night showed the quartet hitting a new stride, Monday’s return to Stubb’s revealed Pixies as more polished, prolific and pertinent than ever before.

Case in point: their nearly flawless push through 31 songs within 90 minutes, which saw frontman Black Francis thrashing about just slighty more than usual, as though he was reliving the visceral vibes of the band’s past performance at this venue. The bulk of those recalled both essentials and rarities from the group’s golden era – everything from “Caribou” to “Where is My Mind?” to “Ana” – and likewise served as the scaffolding propping up eight of twelve new tracks off sixth album, September 2016’s Head Carrier.

Crowd reactions to these were visibly less enthusiastic, but strategic framing among old favorites increased their impact: punk rock chugger “Um Chagga Lagga” was the righteously rowdy primer for Surfer Rosa riots “Isla De Encanta” and “Something Against You,” the prettiness of Lenchantin-led “All I Think About Now” was a necessary calm before the scream-deluge of “Debaser,” and a mid-set hat trick – “Might As Well Be Gone,” “Head Carrier” and “Talent” – meant that the show’s beginning and end favored old-school gems (“Hey” came uncustomarily early, “Gouge Away” finished off the main set, and Doolittle B-side “Into the White” served as the one-song, white-smoke-enshrouded encore).

“When I was a young man in Boston, Massachusetts, I waited from 9 a.m. until show time to see the Pixies at the Avalon,” recalled Xan Aird, lead guitarist of New York outfit Public Access T.V., who opened the gig with solid set of tunes that resounded like a peppier, country-fied version of the Velvet Underground.

Probably a safe bet that a fair amount of people in the audience were having similarly sentimental remembrances about Pixies’ previous turn at Stubb’s – good on the seminal alt-rock outfit for reveling in the abounding nostalgia without drowning in it. With the strength of their new tunes in tow – plus the concurrent boost of energy those numbers have noticeably injected into their stage presence – they’ll have their heads above water for many years to come.

Photos of Pixies – Stubb’s Austin – May 1, 2017

Set list (Pixies w/Public Access T.V. – Stubb’s Austin – May 1, 2017):

Magdalena 318
Caribou
Bel Esprit
Um Chagga Lagga
Isla de Encanta
Something Against You
Hey
Tenement Song
No. 13 Baby
Might As Well Be Gone
Head Carrier
Talent
Rock Music
U-Mass
Monkey Gone to Heaven
Classic Masher
Velouria
Havalina
Snakes
Where is My Mind?
All the Saints
Ana
Mr. Grieves
Nimrod’s Son
Vamos
Winterlong (Neil Young cover)
All I Think About Now
Debaser
Wave of Mutilation
Gouge Away

Encore:

Into the White

The post Pixies w/ Public Access T.V. – Stubb’s Austin – May 1, 2017 appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

It’s cold and I’m wet and I’m tired so I had a bodega coffee which was a mistake because now I’m shaking and bitter and really hope I don’t need to steal a shit here at Silent Barn because there’s only one can and I like this place (though I don’t come here nearly enough on account of Bushwick being nowhere near where I lay my head) and every one I’ve met so far seems perfectly friendly and undeserving of whatever sweet hell stale brown and old humus might do when processed with a ‘Gansett and a pocket cigarette.

But it’s cool. I’m cool. Another brew and Joseph arrives soon thereafter and we play a video game and talk tooths and soon enough the crowd’s rounded out so I’ve forgotten my shivers and found a rogue Tums in my bag so my digestive tract’s on lockdown and I sure hope the bands start soon because I just notice this place offers Soju.

Weeping Icon

This is the third time I’ve seen Weeping Icon this year and I’ll likely see them more and I’m just fucking fine with that. They’re a noise rock band and I like noise rock bands and you’d think that by now I’d be able to discern one blast from the next but I can’t and so their gigs remain invitingly inventive from the QWERTY thomp through the necklace slide, the metal scrape to the drummer howling incoherent hell.

Daggering

I’m beginning to worry that noise has become the nom de guerre musique of DUDES who’ve aged out of hardcore which is to say that the more I listen to and/or see it “performed” the more awkward I feel walking into an ill-lit room full of hoodies, ball caps and camo with a dick. Maybe I’m just being sensitive. Maybe I have every right to be. And all this isn’t to suggest that the weight of Daggering’s heady oscillations didn’t leave me feeling rumbled free of certain revenants. It’s just that…shit. Boys toys can SO bore me to death.

Honey

Despite what my teenage triumphant attests, there aren’t that many great rock and roll bands left. Certainly not in NYC. This town is survived by hyphenated obfuscation, cultural dysmorphia and a postmodern yen so maddeningly intent on psyhosocial diffusion that anything that’s anything isn’t ANYTHING. Ya feel me? That’s why Honey is such a vital slice in the city’s meaty canon. They play rock and roll and they play it like the Black Betty Bikers intended: dirty, druggy, drang und strumm.

Snakehole

I had this weird feeling that Snakehole were going to be jerks. More than that, I thought they were going to be a total fucking in-the-red mess. I forgot, of course (as one does laboring on the daily against goodness and love), that Wharf Cat doesn’t work with assholes and as abrasive as any of their bands could be on wax, all of them have the decency to know how to play well enough to warrant attention. Hell, some of them can even command a stage. So, yeah, Snakehole were as agitatingly radical as I should have expected had I the sense to remember what show I was walking into. They were sweet and shambolic and scorching, as fully fucking pointed in their caterwaul and distortion as they were in their casual humanity. I’d say they slayed but I don’t want to get cute (or too metal) about it so let’s say they fucking PLAYED because sometimes, that’s more than enough. Sometimes getting out there, night after night after night, despite the bullshit and worry with no fucks left to give but for your band and your tracks and the drive up from my Miami to play for those mad enough to face the Brooklyn rain to pay attention IS the rock and roll experience.

And that shit is perfect.

The post Snakehole / Honey / Daggering / Weeping Icon @ Silent Barn – 3.31.17 appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

No?

Then maybe this new Full of Hell track, “Crawling Back to God” (off Trumpeting Ecstasy, due 5.5.17 via Profound Lore) isn’t for you:

Trumpeting Ecstasy, Track Listing:
1. Deluminate
2. Branches of Yew
3. Bound Sphinx
4. The Cosmic Vein
5. Digital Prison
6. Crawling Back to God
7. Fractured Quartz
8. Gnawed Flesh
9. Ashen Mesh
10. Trumpeting Ecstasy
11. At the Cauldron’s Bottom

The post LISTEN! to Full of Hell Ruin Everything with Crawling Back to God appeared first on Pinpoint Music.

All I know coming into this show is that Cailtin’s kind of a bitch or maybe she’s sick but it sure is hard to find good leggings now that American Apparel’s closed. Been that kinda day. All out of time and place and just trying to make it by with some hops and Houellebecq (thanks Zamile) but these youngish somethings to my right are working hard to have a good time reconnecting over wheats and ales and who am I to fault them for that but with all the estranged familiarity chatter I can’t focus on the intellectual detachment of this post-ironic tome so I have to go and wait over an hour before the first band plays a goddamn note.

Decorum

Back in the days of 40s and Anthony, I used to speculate that the perfect grindcore band would be two basses and a drummer one or all of whom would screech. None of that six string masturbation nonsense. Just garbage disposal brown notes churned out blindly for maximum insufferably. Turns out that structure’s a perfect recipe for postpunks dedicated to the cloudy resonance of Joy Division’s nervous sex appeal.

Pop. 1280

I love Pop. 1280 because I will always hate myself in some capacity for not throwing my pale body furiously into the hopelessness of NYC’s scum cum shithead scene while I still had the chance to fuck up in the last gasps of its dopesick vanity. Also, they’re good. Really good. Mean and slithering and hopelessly dedicated to the nightmarish luxury of 20th Century living and I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve got my shit together enough to see them but I’m glad that, when I did, their singer took a swing at me.

Wax Idols

I went into this show expecting to see a half-naked domitrax steal the air out of the room with her raw and relentless purpose. I mean, that’s kinda what happened back in Texas before I turned the lights out. But that was Texas. This is now. And now Hether Fortune is…well, I don’t know what Ms. Fortune does these days with her sexual ownership and I’m in no place to speculate but goddamn if she doesn’t seem changed.

Happy.

I’d like to think that she was happy then (she was certainly astounding) but tonight I saw her smile often and effortlessly and I can’t remember what made it into their set all those states back but this gig was a flurry of shady delights. Head bangers and hand wringers shimmering black metallic; recalling late night Pyramid make-out movies where all the poisonous pleasures of the world succumbed to the strange wonders of post-adolescent lust.

The post Wax Idols / Pop. 1280 / Decorum @ Brooklyn Bazaar – 3.29.17 appeared first on Pinpoint Music.