Real Estate at the Funhouse, Seattle | 18 November 2009

New Jersey band Real Estate, the latest Pitchfork lottery winners, garnering a well deserved best new music ribbon on their debut self-titled album that came out this week on Woodsist were in town on Wednesday night for their debut Seattle gig. The record is often described as conjuring a surf, beach, and bonfires at sunset king of vibe.  It’s not a Beach Boys, southern California vibe, but a down under, New Zealand kink of vibe.  Think the Clean (yes, them again) and you’re half way there.  Throw in a little Byrds, Grateful Dead and Durutti Column and you’re nearly there.

It was a rainy night in Seattle, what night isn’t this time of year, but the sun was setting and the waves were crashing inside the Funhouse. Real Estate are four unassuming guys that look like they could have been a band in the college rock heyday of the 80’s.  Looking at them, they reminded me of bands like Game Theory, Galaxy 500, and Dumptruck who all had a look where if you saw them on the street you would’ve had no idea of their ability to plaster a sunset on the wall with their guitars.  Live, Real Estate don’t really have the same watery effects on their guitars that they do on record, but the interplay between singer Martin Courtney in his thrift shop cardigan and Mathew Mondanile (also of Ducktails) sporting a big ol’ anorak was every bit as effective and engaging.  Bolstered by the grooving Alex Bleeker (also of Alex Bleeker and the Freaks) on bass, and the best sound I’ve ever witnessed at the Funhouse the band created a hazy mellow good-time vibe the almost made me forget that I live in Seattle and it’s November.  Please come back soon.

mp3: Real Estate – Beach Comber (from their self titled debut, buy it from Woodsist)

Girls at Neumo’s, Seattle | 17 November 2009

“We’re back, back in denim”,  Girls (SF) front guy Christopher Owens told the audience at Neumo’s after being asked how he like Seattle.  He was referring to the fact that they were here earlier this year at the Capitol Hill Block Party, but he was also referencing Lawrence Hayward’s post Felt band Denim.  Listening to Girls’ debut Album I had this inkling that they were Felt and Denim fans.  A lot of the guitars have a spindly feel to them that reminds me of late period Felt, but really it was just a hunch.  American bands liking felt is nothing new, the Tyde come to immediate mind and a couple songs on the new Pants Yell! have a similar thing going on.  I digress, back to Girls’ Felt affectation. On hearing Owens utter the title to Lawrence’s first post-Felt album was pretty much all I needed to confirm my suspicions.

Don’t get the wrong idea.  It’s not all Felt, Denim (and Go-Kart Mozart) with Girls, the album has this watery, twangy, rockabilly sound to it that gives me this hallucination of Roy Orbison and Duane Eddy playing Santo & Johnny’s Sleepwalking in some underwater dive bar. The album also has the huge shoegaze bliss-out of Morning Light and the obvious Beach Boys/Jan & Dean reference in their song Big Bad Mean Motherfucker, and don’t forget Owens singing sounds a little like Elvis Costello.  I’m into all of the above and have been loving this record for past few months, but the overall aesthetic of the record has this Felt/Denim feel to it that seems to transcend all the other influences that color the album.

I am certainly not alone in liking the record.  Girls seem to get tons of glowing reviews for their album, but live they don’t seem to light people up.  Actually, I don’t think I’ve read anywhere that said Girls are amazing live.  I can’t really say that they were amazing, but they were really good.  Most of their songs don’t really make you want to dance, they’re mellow dark affairs that revel in the kind of atmosphere they can create and live that is what they did.  Songs like Solitude and Ghost Mouth were prime of examples of that gloomy outlook set to ethereal atmospherics.  The heart of their set cranked up the energy level a noticeable amount with the trio of songs Lust for Life, Hellhole Ratrace and Morning Light getting everybody going.  Owens seemed to be feeling it too, at times crouching down with his guitar in an almost Chuck Berry pose during some of the big guitar parts.  I especially liked how the noise freak-out they did at the end of Hellhole Ratrace overlapped seamlessly with the shoegaze miasma of Morning Light.  The rest of the set, the band settled back into a few more moody, but no less compelling songs.  For an encore Owens came back out with his acoustic guitar, donned a gold trimmed baseball hat from someone in the audience and did few songs solo, one of which he called Broken Dreams Club which you can download from Living Ears along with a few other acoustic songs they did for radio station KDHX.

Something that may also be of interest to those who think I’m off my rocker with the Felt and Denim references, the French website MagicRPM has a three part conversation between Girls’ Christopher Owens and Chet “JR” White with Lawrence of Felt/Denim/Go-Kart Mozart. Dig Lawrence’s baseball cap with tinted blue visor.

mp3: Girls – Lust for Life (not the Iggy Pop song from Album, buy it here)

The last few years records of rare and current pop from Africa have been coming out from the likes of Analog Africa, Mississippi Records and Sound Way, Sublime Frequencies and Honest Jon’s  on a weekly basis. The heightened exposure of African pop has been a boon, but if you’ve been looking stuff outside of Africa the pickings have been a bit more slim.  Say you were looking for for garage sounds from Persia you probably been coming up empty handed.  The other day I was flipping through records over at Sonic Boom in Ballard and came across this beautiful cover (above) in the new release bin.  Who knew that Iran even had a psychedelic garage scene in the 1960’s?  I sure didn’t, but there it was as plane as day, 17 Golden Garage Psych Nuggets from the Iranian 60’s Scene (released back in April of this year).  My curiosity had been piqued and I pulled the record from the bin, paid more than I probably should have for it and with a rush of excitement went home and put it on the turntable.

I’m pretty sure that the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea have little to no surf.  Lack of any big waves along the Persian coast did not seem to stop the Ventures from becoming a  pretty big influence in Iran in the 1960’s because more than a couple of the songs on this compilation have that surf, twang sound that the Tacoma band perfected.  That kind of makes sense, because the Ventures specialized in instrumental rock and thus there were no lyrics to decipher or translate just the primal stomp of the guitar, bass and drums.  It wasn’t all Ventures influence in 1960’s Iran, Ojooba Ha  get a little psychedelic Circa the Beatles‘ Revolver on one song and then go all Morricone on another, the Littles have a Mamas & the Papas thing goin’ on,  and Group Takhala La could be the Iranian Animals.  There is also some funk courtesy a strange cover of Respect from Googoosh.  Based on this record it seems like the scene in Iran at this time was both diverse and exciting.

The record has extensive liner notes that set the scene and try to explain how Iran has always been at a tug of war between religion and a Western affectation that many people in the country have.  It also tries to piece together a history of the bands on the record, but because of Iran’s closed society the task is left up to afficionatos from the Netherlands and Turkey.  The liner notes, like the record, leave you with a vague sense of the 60’s rock scene in Iran and wanting to find out more about it.  The entire thing leaves me hoping that this isn’t just a one-off release.  There is more, and if this has you curious about rock n’ roll in Iran I found a compilation that came out in 2004 of the Iranian punk scene called The Persian New Waves (Mawdj-e Naw e Farsi), but it looks to be out of print.  I haven’t found a copy (digital or otherwise) yet, but I’ll keep hunting.

mp3: Moha Jamin – Sheshwa Heshat Moho Jamin

Headlights at the Sunset Tavern, Seattle | 8 November 2009

Headlights third album Wildlife, which came out on Polyvinyl last month, is something of a departure from this Champaign, Illinois band’s previous records. For starters it’s a much more confident, relaxed, prettier and not as straightforward as the previous two records. I kind of like the fact that it’s not so obvious.  That’s not to say it doesn’t have pop songs on it, it’s just that the band seems to present them from odd perspectives. One moment embracing Chicago-style post-rock, the next they’re going for the orchestral pop jugular, and then sneaking in some fancy ethereal guitar pop effects.

That’s a lot of stuff to pack in a van and head out on the road with, but Headlights brought all of that and more to the Sunset Tavern in Ballard last night. Besides the harmonies of keyboardist Erin Fein and guitarist Tristan Wraight there was the amazing rhythm section of drummer Brett Sanderson and Nick Sanborn. Watching Sanderson own the drums was easily the highlight of the set and something I hadn’t noticed listing to their records. His drumming had this trashcan staccato sound to it that reminded me of Stephen Morris of New Order, back when he actually played drums.  The Sanderson-Sanborn rhythm section seemed to be mentally joined at the hip and their fluent playing drove the songs into a more immediate and intense directions, but didn’t overpower Fein and Wraight’s bright singing.  Now that winter has decided to set in with its dark skies, rain and general gloom I know I depend more and more on bands being able to bring that summer rush of sunshine back into my life. Sunday night the Headlights did exactly that. An hour long sun-break that provided enough vitamin D to get me through the week.

mp3: Headlights – Get Going (from Wildlife, buy it from Polyvinly)

Sometimes it takes me a while to get the message, but I like to think that after a while I smart enough to figure it out, with a little help of course.  It’s 2009, but Sourpatch sound so much like 1992 SpinArt/Slumberland that it’s kind of freaky.  Think I’m kidding?  Take a listen and tell me you don’t hear  parts Lorelei, Velocity Girl, the Swirlies and a little bit of Small Factory and Tiger Trap for good measure from this San Jose, California band.  To date they have a self-released demo, a free EP courtesy of WIAIWYA’s virtual singles series and an awesomely fun video which you can see below.  This flying below the radar thing is all of that is about to change because Athens, Georgia’s Happy Happy Birthday To Me will be releasing the band’s first album early next year.  If you take a look at you calendar, that’s not too far off.

Sometimes just blurting out what you think is more fun than actually thinking things through and formulating an opinion. I was down in the basement tonight listening to records and what follows are my stream of conscious reviews of what I listened to.

(Slumberland/Dulc-i-Tone)
Mantles - Bad Design – Cave-like rock, reverb vocals (looking forward to this trend winding down).  Nice guitar solo.  This is as poppy as Don’t Lie, the best song on their album that came out on Siltbreeze.
Mantles – Rachel – A little heavier and more warped than the A-side, but it still has that ringing guitar that lightens it up a bit.

(Art Fag)
Best Coast – Sun Was High (So Was I) - And to think I almost didn’t buy this. Wow what a great A-side. Again with the reverb vocals, but it’s not too distracting.  I hope the reverb vocal isn’t to the late aughts what the echo/synth drums was to the 80’s.
Best Coast – So Gone – Simple song that could have easily been a Shangri-La’s song 40 years ago.
Best Coast – That’s the Way Boys Are – This single is easily 3 for 3.  Love the heyyy-eyyy’s.  This record is pretty perfect and the cover of a 70’s jammed LA freeway is nice too.

(Hozac)
Girls At Dawn – Never Enough – First thought: Tiger Trap.  If you thought the Vivian Girls sounded like Tiger Trap you were wrong.  Girls at Dawn do. Very minimalist guitar strumming, a bit of organ and little girl singing. Catchy, especially for record collector geeks like myself.
Girls At Dawn – Every Night - Lots of Da Da Da’s and lyrics about dreaming about you every night…that’s why they call it a b-side.

(Damaged Goods)
Nat Johnson & The Figureheads – Wonderful Emergency – Okay, finally someone that doesn’t hide behind reverb’d vocals.  Nat has left Monkey Swallows the Universe, but is still walkin’ on sunshine.  It’s bright and poppy with a bass solo at the bridge.
Nat Johnson & The Figureheads – Don’t Worry Baby – Yes, it’s a Beach Boys cover, from Pet Sounds no less.  Not sure about it though, it’s kind of a non-event.  I think my mom would like this song, but she would prefer the original, as do I.

(Tic Tac Totally!)
Fergus & Geronimo – Blind Muslim Girl – I have no idea what this song is about but it is catchy as hell.  “Blind Muslim girl, if you like me then I will guide you around the world”.  This song is so fast paced that I thought I had it on the wrong speed.  Love the bouncy guitar parts at the bridge.
Fergus & Geronimo – Powerful Lovin’ – Blues organ and singing, not unlike the A-side to their Transparent 7″.  These guys bring it, love the soul aspect to their songs.

(Underwater Peoples)
Frat Dad – Greg the Nerd – This one’s noisy and devolves into more noise.  I like the team singing and the geeky enthusiasm.  They’re like a lower-fi Nodzzz, singing about elementary school.
Frat Dad – Freak In Nature – Much mellower b-side, well at first, then it swells into a big bombastic chorus.  I like the restraint and then the wild abandon.  B-side wins!

(Cloudberry)
Signed Papercuts – Of My Heart – Airy guitars that remind me of St. Christopher.  This song evokes wind in your face and swirling leaves in a one of those mini-tornadoes and the Icicle Works.  Big Wedding Present-ish crashing guitars at the end. Whew, I’m out of breath!
Signed Papercuts – Sound of Silence Pt. 2 – The guitars sound almost exactly the same as the a-side except the song isn’t as good and neither is the singing. The a-side is definitely what you want here.

(M’Lady’s)
Explode Into Colors – Coffins - This band is supposedly the best new band in Portland.  Will hyperbole never die?  It’s got a cool drum thing going on.  Big booms, lots of big booms. The singer has this kind of old lady southern drawl to how she sings/chants.  I like the drums.
Explode Into Colors – Sharpen the Knife – More drums and more tribal-like chanting/singing.  She’s got kind of a Siouxsie thing going on, but enough to make me really like this.

(K)
The Vibrarians – Red Light – Great guitar riff. Can’t understand a word the singer’s singing for all the reverb, but that’s not the point I don’t think. This could be an Oh Sees song, in fact you could tell people that and they might believe you. This came out a while ago but didn’t seem to get much attention, probably because Olympia isn’t cool like it was back in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
The Vibrarians – Modern Walker – These guys are all about the riff and sound. This one’s like a marching riff with vocals echoing all over the place. Did I mention they sound like Thee Oh Sees?
The Vibrarians – The Woods – I can actually make out a few lyrics here, but I still don’t care because the song just rocks in that same cave stomping style of the other two . I wonder if they take the Liz Frasier approach to lyrics?

Kids these days with their Twitters, Tumblers, secondLifes, Vimeos and YouTubes, there seems to be an endless number of time wasters or outlets depending on your point of view. Pomplamoose who are a boy-girl duo from San Francisco Bay area have decided to make YouTube their outlet of choice racking 20 plus videos for their original songs and a ton of covers as well. All the videos are of Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte in their home studio playing the songs for the camera with lots of quick cuts, split screens, and other tricks to that make the videos strangely compelling.  Although, some border on goofy and after a while even a little bit annoying, but in the end it’s the music that grabs you and keeps you hitting the replay button. I should also mention that Nataly Dawn is easy on the eyes. She has this kind of innocent deer in the headlights look as she sings into the camera that has gotta keep people coming back to watch. With over 45,000 subscribers to their channel, they seem like they are a kind of cult YouTube phenomenon.
The duo have just put out EP of eight original songs that they’re calling what else, Videosongs. Dawn sings the songs with and ennuie that belies her years, over minimal and spacious backing. Pomplamoose are kind of jazz and kind of pop and they’re not afraid to tackle songs from varying genres of music. Covers include Beyonce’s Single Ladies, the Chordettes‘ Mister Sandman, Edith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose, Earth Wind & Fire’s September and Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy.  So head on over to Pomplamoose’s YouTube channel and waste invest some time listing and watching.

mp3: Pomplamoose – Twice As Nice (from Videosongs, buy)

MySpace: You can download a few more songs for free on the band’s MySpace page.

photo from Providence Journal photo / Sandor Bodo

People are nuts.  Why would you ever want to grow a 1,725 pound pumpkin?  I suppose so that you could say that you did.  Apparently pumpkin growing is like horse breeding, you gotta get the right seed from a sire that has the right genes.  The seed for this big beauty came from a former world record holder.    The funny thing about this picture, besides the obvious, is that it came from northeast Ohio, about 30 miles from where I grew up.  In case you ever wondered what it was like growing up in sl-Ohio, I can tell you it was just slightly more exciting than this picture.  Depending on your point of view (world record pumpkin growers excepted), something a little more exiting is the new basementcast.  It weighs a whole lot less, you can fit in your pocket, and you won’t need five guys to help you with it.

download: basementcast #8 (~170 Mb)

Fergus & Geronimo – Tell It (In My Ear)
Sam Cooke – Sugar Dumpling

White Wires – Pretty Girl
Firefly Effect – Never by your side
Cosmos- Grapes Of Wrath

The Kindness Kind – Labor Day
Tap Tap – Straight To Hell
Headlights - Secrets

Beat Happening – Bewitched
Black Box Recorder – Up Town Top Ranking
Peter Tsotsi, Nashil Pichen, & The Equator Sound Band – Pole Musa

Cerys Matthews – Into The Blue
Ladytron – He Took Her To A Movie
Rose Elinor Dougall – Fallen Over

Hope Factory – The Folly Of Being Comforted
Kevin Ayers – Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes
Lofty Heights – Eye Contact

Black Whales – Young Blood
Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs – The Last Kiss
Dutchess and the Duke – Side By Side

Ganglians – Blood On The Sand
Velez Manifesto – Pop Song
Trailer Trash Tracys – Candy Girl

Bob McFadden & Dor – The Mummy

Tyvek at the Funhouse | 30 October 2009

Are Tyvek punks, geeks, or moonlighting construction workers?  They’re most certainly the first two.  Frontman Kevin Boyer is a dead ringer for Bill Haverchuck but he can rock it like Nick Andopolis, and they could very well be the third for all I know. Maybe that’s why Boyer was the only Tyvek guy I recognized from the group that recorded the excellent self-titled album released on Siltbreeze earlier this year. The rest of the band could be back in Detroit unable to get away from their jobs for this west coast tour.  Tyvek last night at the Funhouse were a band that at times acted like this was the first time they’d ever actually played a gig together.  That’s probably because it was close to the case.  Not sure what’s up with the original line-up, or if this is the west coast version of Tyvek.   At one point the second guitarist’s chord to his amp came unplugged from his guitar, but he didn’t seem to notice and kept playing, luckily Chris from the opening band Sandy City noticed and plugged it back in for him.    A few songs later it took the drummer a few minutes to figure out the beat to a song Boyer wanted to play next.

Lucky for Tyvek that first and foremost, they’re punks because even with a band that seemed brand new they were able to get their point across.   While his band seemed a bit robotic (one of them was dressed in vintage Devo yellow jumper, industrial glasses and cone top), Boyer was a bundle of awkward energy.  Like his guitar playing, he would unleash his body in spasms jumping around and pogoing around the stage.  He’s got a voice that reminds me of a stoner version of Ian Mackaye (Minor Threat/Egg Hunt/Embrace/Pailhead/Fugazi).  He keeps it cool though, never really going into  the manic screaming that Mackay tends towards. It seemed that Boyer only really required minimal backing and I think he probably could have pulled it off as a solo gig because it was his singing and playing that were front and center of the show.

The Tyvek record is cool in the way it interlaces these Joy Division sounding interludes in between melodic old school punk rock songs like Building Burning, Hey Una and Summer Things.  The songs last night didn’t really jump out at you like they do on the record.  It was almost as if they were playing with one arm tied behind their back.  They were good, but I left with the feeling that I didn’t really see the real Tyvek.  I guess I have to go to Detroit for that.

mp3: Tyvek – Hey Una (buy their album from Siltbreeze)

Seven inch records always take a lot of hits for being inferior in sound to the almighty 12″, but at my house, on my turntable they rule the roost.  Who’s got time to listen to an entire 12″ these days? For me it’s a hell of a lot more fun to throw on  a new one every three minutes or so, and a few  have been lighting up my turntable this past weekend.

Ganglians – Blood on the Sand on Captured Tracks:  This latest batch of records from Captured Tracks could their best yet with the Christmas Island, German Measles and Spectrals singles all winning time on the old record player, but my favorite of the litter is Ganglians 7 inch. Don’t tell anyone, but one of the guitar riffs on the a-side reminds me of Hershey, Pennsylvania’s Ocean Blue.  Don’t worry the Ganglians haven’t gone all navel-gazing  Brit-pop, but this is the most immediate thing this Sacramento, California have come up with yet.  Guitars seem to swoop in from all directions, the bass rumbles like it was stolen from a goth band, drums crash and it all ends in a cacophonous mess. Wow!

mp3: Ganglians – Blood on the Sand

mp3: White Wires – Pretty Girl

mp3: Lofty Heights – Eye Contact