London-based musical collective, Savages are preparing to unleash Adore Life, their follow up to their critically acclaimed (rightfully so) debut, Silence Yourself.
Seeing them this summer at the Casbah was like a gift. Their urgency and musicianship are transformative. Presence, immediate. I can’t help but fall madly in love with their magnetic and dynamic energy.
The manifestos of the past become the vapor ware in the fight for the present.
This new two song release by LA punk band, Generacion Suicida is stellar. I love how clean it is. In the spirit of The Zeros with a nod to “Night Time” era Killing Joke — mostly the chorused guitar effect — and the immediacy of Los Crudos. Their full-length, “Con La Muerte a Tu Lado,” released a year ago, is also available at their bandcamp page. There is a significant evolution in the execution and production of the songs on their full length and their latest effort. You can hear the band growing as song writers. Hope they come down to San Diego soon.
16 Horsepower was a mythical band when I lived on Capitol Hill in Denver, CO. Story goes, they lived in Leadville, an old mining town, just on the other side of the ski resort, Copper Mountain. They lived in a house on a few acres, made their own whiskey, brewed their own beer. Hunted game. Deer and fowl. They made the kind of music that wasn’t easily identifable, except to say it was uniquely Rocky Mountain or “Colorado” with the constant being the voice of principal songwriter, guitarist-vocalist and arranger, David Eugene Edwards.
Two decades later, Edwards and his now-established musical incarnation, Wovenhand has released their seventh studio record, Refractory Obdurate, on Deathwish Inc (home of Converge, Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, etc). Former members Chuck French and Neil Keener of the post-hardcore band, Planes Mistaken for Stars, are now part of Wovenhand with Neil on bass and Chuck on guitar.
If someone told me there’d be a band that slightly resembles the conceptual (musical) DNA of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and hauntingly reflects the ghost town’s of the rocky mountains, I’d call that man a liar and fill him with lead–then I’d hang my head in shame as I dropped the needle on the latest from Wovenhand.
The Fraternal Auditory Illumination Society convened for what would be our inaugural coterie in January at Maier’s Laier. We toasted frosted brews and played many tunes.
Brother Muu brought two tasty growlers from local hops specialists, Societe Brewery.
On glass that night was Harlot and another, mystery brew.
Brother Dan offered his audiophile rig (Music Hall mmf 7, Outlaw RR2150 and Ascend Acoustics Sierra 1s) and it sounded in-crediballs!
We recorded audio for a potential future Podcast but need to work through some kinks before we unleash it on an unsuspecting public who probably don’t want another (or care for) podcast about music from music nerds.
(Spitballing in the digital void here) It’d be pretty rad to do something similar at the Whistle Stop once a month and have it curated by folks like JP, Tim Mays, M Theory, Off the Record, folks from Casbah, Soda Bar and Tin Can. It’d be like a Vinyl Social.
The only rule would be “vinyl only.”
No genre limitations. The more eclectic the better.
I gave Brother Dan the download from my vinyl edition of Women’s Public Strain.
Happy to report he loves it nearly as much as I do.
(RIP Christopher Reimer, you were gone too soon but what you left was magical. Friends/readers you can donate to the CR Fund at http://christopherjohnjosephreimer.com/)
Check out Women “Eyesore” live. Wish I could have seen them live.
Here are the tracks we played:
Seaweed “Service Deck”
Savages “City’s Full” and “She Will”
Chelsea Wolfe “Pale on Pale”
Fear “New York’s Alright”
Buy Contortions “Designed to Kill”
Women “China steps” “Venice Lockjaw”
Jawbox “reel”
Beefeater “Trash Funk” and “Reagonomix”
Bl’ast “Only Time Will Tell”
Abused “Drug Free Youth”
Mose Allison “New Parchman”
Hailu Mergia “Anchin Alay Alegn”
Pharaoh Sanders “Karma” b side
Goat “Run to Your Mama”
Peter Tosh “Get up Stand up” “Stepping Razor”
Polica “Very Cruel”
Wrestling worms “Intaglio”
Syracuse punk outfit, Perfect Pussy are playing Soda Bar this Thursday.
If you close your eyes and pretend you’re in a cramped basement, it may be the the most exhilarating show you’ve seen in a few whatevers.
Some things to remember while attending (this goes for other locally run venues):
Tip your bar tender, they notice that shit and the folks at Soda Bar are deserving souls.
I know you want to cross your arms. Its a stance. A fashion statement. Fuck fashion. Put your hands in your pockets, in the air, like you may or may not care or stay home and watch Downtown Abbey with the volume low.
Watch the opening bands. Give them a chance.
Piss in the bowl/urinal. This goes mostly for dudes but some girls have wild, Venkman-like streams when they hover.
People have to clean the place after you stumble out, navigate your way down El Cajon to your vehicle and white knuckle your way home. You may not remember being a butthole to the doorman but they’ll remember you next time and that debit card you left in a drunken escape may just never turn up.
These are the people in your neighborhood, don’t be a bad neighbor.
I picked up the digital cassette I Have Lost All Desire for Feeling and while it’s no ground breaking piece music, the 4 songs are melodic aggressive punk with indecipherable vocals, well-executed and performed with a nod to a lot of the music I cut my teeth on.
What does that say about my taste? Well, I enjoy vaguely impressionistic painting, abstraction, between space. Their music is movement. Inhabits immediacy. Youth.
Here’s some Perfect Pussy video for your Wednesday to prep for your Thursday.
On Silence Yourselfe, the band channels Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Stooges.
It’s not so much what they are playing but how they are playing it. Those spaces between are coiled and taut.
I didn’t know I would fall in love with them. Their explosive aesthetic.
When I hear people, cloistered, terrified and bitter people make grand pronouncements stating that rock is a bloated corpse and punk has been appropriated by genre fetishists, I take my fingers and plug my ears.
My alternative response: play this fucking record, Silence Yourself, loudly, in the foreground, till the ears begin to bleed a bit.
Savages don’t ask permission but I’ll grant them all they need.
Here, they liquify viewers with a performance on KEXP.
Look, if this doesn’t make you excited about making music, listening to music, talking about music, writing about music, looking at new instruments or figuring out that the one thing that makes all the other things disappear into the background, your hell on earth must be a lonely place.
A Coat of Red Paint In Hell 