Hiatus Shmiatus for a Good Cause

Callum Robbins, son of J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, Channels, plus a slew of producing and engineering credits) and Janet Morgan (Channels), is in need of your help.

Desoto Records is asking for donations to help J. and Janet fund treatments for their son's life threatening diseases. You can go to Desoto Records website to learn more and help out.

http://www.desotorecords.com/cal/index.shtml

For a year that started so awfully here in Richmond, it'll feel good to do something for some musicians and their family this holiday season.

A tail of Pickles

“You will not touch my pickles!”

It had been a long day for Farmer Chockles. Earlier he was forced to assault Jermon with his pitchfork and now Clarint was trying to unlawfully steal his pickles
.
“Lay off you old Mackledam,” Clarint said as he stroked the pickle basket. “I ain’t trying to steal these pickles. I’m just going to borrow them and store them in my abdomen.”

Farmer Chockles’ temper was rising.

“You will do no such thing young man!” he exclaimed. “You think I don’t know about you? I seen how you look at my pickles. Your eyes all aglazed, hoping you can steal one to put in your pants.”

Clarint smiled a mischievous smile. “That’s right,” Farmer Chockles continued, “I know what young fellas do with pickles. But I’ll see none of that today!”

Clarint shrugged, pulled up his pants and walked off. Farmer Chockles placed the pickle back in the basket and walked back into his hut. The fire was burning inside, and the pot that sat over it was rapidly heating. Farmer Chockles pulled up a stool and started to cut pickle slices into the pot. He had spent all day out in the pickle fields and now he would have a rich reward of pickle stew. He so loved pickle stew. The secret was to use three full pickles, only four pinecones as opposed to the usual six and then add just a little bit of goat urine. Most prefer the traditional mixture of cow urine and squirrel semen, but not Farmer Chockles. All he needed was that goat urine and he was set. He was halfway through cutting the second pickle when Sabvert flew in through an open window and vomited into the pot.

“Sweet fucking mastodon!” Farmer Chockles exclaimed at the crow. “What the hell are you doing?”

Sabvert cocked his head. “Spices,” he said.

“What did you eat today?” Farmer Chockles asked suspiciously.

“ Spiders, honey, berries,” the bird said looking around the hut.

“Liar!” Farmer Chockles yelled as he threw down his knife. “ You had squirrel semen, didn’t you! Answer me!”

Sabvert flew over to the bed and began to clean his feathers. “Just a little bit” he said,” it was free. Laren the Patchy was having a spring-cleaning and he was giving it to anyone who wanted it.”

Farmer Chockles shook his head. “Well michy michy magoo,” he said. “If I offered to shit on your head for free, would you take that too?”

Sabvert stopped cleaning and looked up. “Are you offering?” he asked.

“Oh get out of here,” Farmer Chockles said as he sat back down and continued cutting.

“I ain’t leaving,” Sabvert said, “I wants some stew.”

“I thought you just ate,” Farmer Chockles said not looking up. “Isn’t your belly all full of squirrel semen?”

“Jekus, you sure are hung up on this whole squirrel semen thing aren’t you?” Sabvert said flying over to the window. “For your information, I only had a Dixie cup worth of the stuff.” And with that Sabvert flew off into the early evening sky.

Farmer Chockles continued making his stew.

Um....uh....wow

Monkey see, monkey, well, do.

yeah, so thats disgusting.

And uncalled for.

Did i mention disgusting?

Despite all of that I totally agree with Pitchfork on this one. Jet is a horrible, horrible band. Monkey pissing bad? Yes. Yes they are. Why waste words on them? Well played PFM.

Extreme Nerd Challenge

Happening right now at Viewingfork. Come see me in all my nerd glory. Honestly this is the kind of thing you can only do if you are secure in your geekness and don't mind admitting to things like you own Lord of the rings action figures, or your wife has a dress made out of a Star Wars sheet.

See if you can stump me. I doubt it.

TQT

SPECIAL BENEFIT - PLEASE READ

Please donate at www.roguewavemusic.com and read below...

On September 30th 2006, San Francisco band Rogue Wave will host a benefit concert to raise money for their drummer Pat Spurgeon, who is in desperate need of a kidney transplant.

The benefit concert will feature performances by Rogue Wave, Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie,) Matthew Caws (Nada Surf,) Ryan Miller (Guster,) John Vanderslice, and other special guests. Daniel Handler (AKA Lemony Snickett) will MC the event.

Pat was born with one kidney and it failed. He had his first transplant in 1993, which served him well until now. After 13 years, it has started to deteriorate. He has been on dialysis since April and is hoping desperately to find a donor. Some of their friends have gotten tested to see if they are a match, but Pat has yet to hear good news. Provided he finds a donor, there will be an enormous amount of costs that both Pat and his donor will incur.

In a logical world, medical insurance would cover his donor's and his expenses after the procedure, but it does not; so he and his family must carry the financial burden. The expenses can be huge. We are trying to raise money for costs like: donor's travel, care, bills, lost work wages, etc., as well as Pat's expenses, care, bills, etc. while he is in recovery.

Remember?

Remember the first time you saw Backstreet Boys on the cover of Rolling Stone and thought "they were irrelevent anyway, but this is ridicuous".

Remember when Spin started putting fakey emo-punk bands on every cover and you were left with 7 months on subsciption you should have canceled long before?

Well Pitchfork gave the new Justin Timberlake an 8.1. Why it didn't get 'Best New Music' is a question i cannot answer. The review reads even higher than an 8.1. I am gonna get slammed for being too narrow minded, but fuck it. I hate Timberlake. He is as manufactured a pop star as you can get. He was a mousekateer. He dates the vapid Cameron Diaz. His music sounds like it is made by the MJ 2000 MUSIC REPLICATOR. Why embrace this?

I am going to go listen to the new BPB to wash this taste from my mouth.

2 New Music Journal Entries...

Can be found here.

xoxo
pitch perfect

It's my blog and I will post if I want to.

Let's talk Junior Boys So This Is Goodbye.

Rumors have been piling up that this record rules. Have you heard it yet? It must be a slow year for dance music if this kind of record qualifies as one of the best of the year. Help me out people. I am hearing OMD, Pet Shop Boys, and electo-pop artists that labels Morr, Astralwerks, and Plug Research (to name just a few) having been releasing for years.

Don't mistake me, I am not hating on this record. In fact I really like "In the Morning" but in my top twenty or 30 of 2006? I don't think so. If I am going to wave the flag of best electronic record of the year in any direction, I am waving it for Clark's Body Riddle on Warp. Now that **** will blow your mind.

Anybody heard the new Squarepusher cd yet? Not that excited about that one ever but I have only really played it once so I won't give my thumbs down to it quite yet.

Mommy, Is There a Heaven for Blogs?

Why Pitchperfect, why? I am so distraught.

Ok so not really. I work with Pitchperfect so our communication will not really be effected by the untimely demise of this site. But I will miss getting to read what she thought day to day. Damn could the lady write. I am constantly astounded by how much she put into this site, and while I will miss it I think it is best for her to slow down. I guess i could just call her and ask for an audio version of the site.

I think I got involved in the site when I got an e-mail from PP saying "hey, look what I did. Wanna write something?".

Of course I did.

No one had any idea what it would become. I think we are all very proud of what we contributed. Sometimes we acted as Pitchfork Errors and Omissions, sometimes we had to pointed out lazy or inept writing and sometimes we had to praise them for recognizing great music and sharing their passion in words.

I have never been the strongest reviewer on the site, because I find it very hard to put my feelings about music into words. Hopefully I haven't messed up too much. I always enjoyed doing the concert reviews and fiction stories more than anything. But trying to do reviews gives me a respect for my fellow writers and the good ones on Pitchfork who spend a lot of time thinking about these things and expressing their thoughts in such an organized manor.

So a couple things before I go: If you have not liked my writing, then congrats! You no longer have to deal with me. If you have enjoyed it please check out Viewingfork or Crapiown for plenty more of my thoughts on film and life in general.

If you have liked the indie rock adventure tales then I have good news for you. They are being collected in zine form (with illustrations by my lovely wife) and will be ready shortly. If you would like one free of charge please e-mail me at tuningdave@hotmail.com

Thanks to all the people who commented on what we wrote. Positive or negative it was all appreciated. Except that guy Anonymous. That guy was a dick.

TQT

Ta Ta For Now

Late this past Saturday, I spent time with some friends in a very 21st century activity – sharing music on each other’s iPods. Each of us had an iPod and our host had one of those iPod boom box things. We stood around in his kitchen, drinking beer and swapping out iPods, each of us dialing up a favorite track for the others. Listening to Boris, The Cult, Clutch, Parts and Labor, Sybris and more, we stayed up way too late talking about music, which wound its way into other talk about drinking, pot and houses.

Now, I’m not pushing Apple. However, it struck me how remarkable it was that each of us had a large portion of his collection with him and we could pull songs instantly from them. In the past, I’ve been known to invite friends over for dinner, and then swap CDs or records in and out of my stereo, playing them songs while we drank. Now, we were standing around with shelves worth of music in our hands, picking out favorite songs with the ease of dialing a telephone while drinking a beer with a free hand. We were using new technology, a device less than five years old uses a file format just a little over a decade old, but still doing something that folks have done for decades – listen to and talk about music they love.

For over two decades, I’ve talked about music with friends, band mates, bartenders, fellow college radio DJs and co-workers. The best times that I’ve had talking about music have occasionally involved a drink or two, but always have been face to face – whether in a practice space, a record store, a club or in a car on the drive back from a show.

That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy reading about music and writing to other people about it. Shortly after I started using the Internet 12 years ago, I quickly found out about Usenet and the various music newsgroups. However, until Pitchperfect and I crossed paths last year, I never thought much about publishing those thoughts. I was content to be some guy talking about music to a few friends and fellow fanatics. The last few months have been nerve wracking and occasionally sleep depriving, but they’ve been something new that I’ve come to enjoy.

For all that we heckle Pitchfork Media, they’re far from devils. I’ve read them for at least four years and have many favorite records in my collection because of them. I believe that the writers who started it and most of their current writers love music. However, Pitchfork would do well to remember that more people are bypassing professional writers and going directly to other fans. That’s not to say that a journalist cannot speak to what’s great in music. However, it does mean that readers will quickly sniff out feigned ardor and faulty knowledge when it comes to music. Music fans don’t want style and attitude – they want knowledge and passion.

Like Pitch perfect, I’ll probably take a breather for a while until my paying job settles down. I’m very thankful to her for letting my words share some space alongside hers and I’m equally thankful to those of you who’ve dropped by and taken the time to read.

Over and Out

My problem with Tuning Fork is it gives the impression that Pitchfork means something to me personally when in fact if I didn’t have to pay attention to it for my work I wouldn’t read it at all. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate them now nor have I ever. The truth is I am not (ironically enough) much of a computer person and I don’t really enjoy pursuing my passion for music via the internet. What I am trying to say here is I have had my fill of full time blogging no less about Pitchfork. This isn’t exactly a good-bye, think of it more like I have much much much better things to be doing with my time and this is my official declaration of independence.

I am uncertain as to what this blog will turn into but for now it will remain up and open for any of the writers to post on. This however is a promise: I personally will not be posting reviews of Pitchfork reviews anymore

Wha happened?

I miss me. I miss my free time; the days when I was a creative person that had nothing to do with a laptop or Pitchfork. I miss listening to a record and not wondering what PFM was going to say about it, especially since their opinions never mattered to me personally in the first place. I hate the fact that I can’t listen to a record without instantly beginning to translate the experience into the words. I started making my own record two years ago and not only have I not had the time to finish it but I realized rather recently that I haven’t written any new music since the inception of this silly website. Pathetic, right?

How did I get myself into this mess anyhow?

This whole blog began as a joke among friends about a year and a half ago and I can promise you it never crossed any of our minds the site would be discovered by others. Rather accidentally Tuning Fork took on a life of its own and before I knew it I was posting every day - no less spending 2-6 hours a day to keep it going. With thousands of readers each week I felt pressured to keep the ball rolling and for a time there, I was happy to do it. I have truly enjoyed aspects of blogging but I have better things to be doing with my spare time than policing Pitchfork. It’s really an incredible compliment that anybody cared about our site no less kept reading and I don’t know what is a bigger shock to me…the fact that our idea took off or that I didn’t come to my senses and stop it sooner, ha!

I want to thank my fellow Tuning Fork writers for their brilliant contributions and again I welcome them all to continue posting here to their hearts desire.

I want to thank you kind readers for making this experience completely gratifying and my friends in bands for gracefully handling the awkward experience of me talking about the music they make to strangers in blog form.

Thank you Mr. Perfect for all your patience and support. (And for sitting through hours of music you didn’t like only to have me add insult to injury by rambling on about them as I worked on and completed my reviews)

Lastly thanks to Pitchfork for tolerating (for the most part) our scrutiny and near daily ribbing. We may play for apposing teams using different techniques but clearly we share a love for the same sport.

In closing:

The amount of power Pitchfork wields in the music industry is disturbing; bordering on obnoxious. What has helped to create this forked media monster is a massive dedicated following and I am happy to announce today that I am no longer a part of it.

Over and Out,
Pitch Perfect

PS: You can keep track of me via last.fm.com here or feel free to drop me a line at tuningforkmedia@hotmail.com

Agoraphobic Nosebleed / PCP Torpedo / AnbRX / Rating: 6.0

There are too many dumb lines in this PFM review to pick just one to quote as a hyperlink.

PFM says: “Like most revolutionary forces, Agoraphobic Nosebleed didn't last long.”

Okay so Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s impact on the reviewer’s life is what I can only assume was short lived here as A) this band has been together ever since 1994 and B) fans of extreme music still love the crap out of this band.

PFM says: “Once crowned kings of the ultra-fast sweepstakes, their grindcore made their competition extinct by breaking the genre's essential rule: They canned their drummer and turned over the bpm to a drum machine. The Locust, Charles Bronson, even Discordance Axis-- helmed by the fastest living drummer, Dave Witte-- couldn't keep up.”

Dave Witte is to blast-beat as Kevin Shields is to new-gaze; at least in this day and age of predictable music journalism. Anyhow, I didn’t really get this quote so I called up the drum master himself (Mr. Witte) to help walk me through this paragraph. We used to play in a band together years ago so really- it isn't a big deal to call the dude and ask.

Dave was never actually in A.N. It was talked about, the press ran with the rumor but it NEVER happened. Our best guess is this PFM line is a failed joke. Dave did however confirm a drum machine does indeed play faster than him but it’s okay because blast was so 1993…at least Pitchfork got that right...hehehehe. (and a new Municipal Waste record is being worked on as I type this. Fuck yeah and thanks Dave!)

PFM says: “Brainchild of Pig Destroyer's Scott Hull and the former Isis programmer J. Randall, Agoraphobic Nosebleed aren't hacks or comedians but dudes who know basic secrets like "if it's fast, it might rip," and "if we can write 17 three-second parts anytime we want, then why not put them all in the same song?"”

I love it when a writer assumes they know what a band is thinking when they write music.

PFM says: “If there is a joke here, it's how laughable the idea is of reissuing a suite of songs that are about half the total length any given song on Southern Lord.”

What the hell? Since when did Southern Lord become the metal ideal or the control in the 666 experiment? There are so many fucking metal labels out there that it is a genuine pity that Pitchfork only seems to recognize one of them. I know PFM has a hard on for all that is Southern Lord but come on. If Pitchfork is going to pretend to be a tastemaker on all levels, why be so behind the curve with metal? It’s shameful really.

PFM says: “Cue then the dubious decision by Hydra Head to include a second disc-- the drug-punning ANBRX-- of remixes of Agoraphobic originals by industrial noise types. Why bother? Agoraphobic's formal innovation, as far as they had one, was just that: mating industrial noise and pseudo-breaks played off a drum-machine with a not-so-dissimilar grind that was already getting both noisier and more techno. In effect, they were already remixing their metal tracks, just in first draft form. Why put amphetamine rock on amphetamines?”

Are you kidding me? Who does this writer think he is? A remix is just what the word implies and it applies to this genre as rightfully as any other. I don’t know what metal rule book PFM writer Zach Baron owns but it apparently is a closed book.

I would say the average of most of the reviews I read on line, including my own, works out to about a B grade. In number terms I guess that would equal a 7 but this isn’t my favorite brand of metal so while I can talk the talk and walk the walk, I am not wholly qualified to judge this kind of record.

At least I am willing to admit defeat rather than fake a review. Do yourself a favor and read these Agoraphobic Nosebleed reviews instead.

Final Fantasy / He Poos Clouds / Rating: 8.0

“Pallett's combination of pop idiom and classical practice is fluid and natural; he sounds perfectly at home here, miles from the self-conscious "conceptual" way indie acts usually take up string quartets.”

My hero.

I have to respect a man who unabashedly is who he is; a gay video game enthusiast who was so interested in the 8 schools of magic found in D&D that he decided to base his enter new record (loosely) around that theme. Plus he is Canadian lad who sounds a little something like Charlie Brown if he played the violin, sang, and scored films for Alfred Hitchcock.

This sounds unbearably pretentious on the page but I swear to you Owen Pallett has mastered the dramatic flare of Rufus Wainwright along with the dizzying darting strings of composer and arranger Bernard Herrman. This isn’t a goofy kid record spoofing on epic soundtracks and far out themes; Owen’s songwriting skill has a foundation built on genius.

It feels shameful to call this just another great indie record. Owen knows how to do things like orchestrate an entire record strictly dedicated to a string quartet and voice. I mean what band(s) do you know who can not only complete something so gorgeous and accurately rooted in classical composition but no less support it with a larger than life concept of every day living through the eyes of a Dungeons and Dragons roll player.

Yeah!

I know these artists come from two totally different worlds but I am imagine a band like The Donna’s listening to this record and melting like a scene out of the Wizard of Oz due to the shock of music minus power chord formulas and entry level lyrics.

Not to drag this Oh my god I can’t believe this guy can play classical music no less write classical music (with spastic pop elements) really well but writing for a string quartet is something that relies on nearly expert skill to execute successfully. You don’t have to like twitchy chamber pop to appreciate the endangered species level of talent displayed on He Poos Clouds - which as far as titles goes straddles the fine line between best and worst name ever.

I’ve been trying to figure out why Pitchfork ignored the fanciful details behind this record but in the end I am glad to see we nearly meet eye to eye on rating this record. PFM says 8 and I will stand that 8 on its tippy-toes to give it an 8.5. What we have here is another record to enter my top ten of 2006; I am just sorry it took me so long to get to this review.

Jason Lytle - Hotel Cafe - 8/11

The Onion recently reviewed the most recent (and last ever) Grandaddy album "Just Like the Fambly Cat and had this to say:

If ever a band begged for a greatest-hits collection, it's this one—strange, since Grandaddy albums are often marked with weird interludes and spaces that define their moods. But pack their best moments together—Fambly offers the weepy "Summer… It's Gone" and the bloopy, self-reflective "Elevate Myself" as candidates—and you'd have a stunner.

Well if you happen to catch the blink and you miss it solo Jason Lytle tour this is what you will get. I didn't even know this was happening, but thankfully I was clued in by a helpful friend. Lytle and a non Grandaddy friend pretty much did the best of Grandaddy in a stripped down, almost acoustic form. I say almost acoustic because there were some keyboards, a little drum machine action and some familiar Grandaddy effects. But it was all the "hits" in a concentrated form, and as a fan I have to say it was a delicious nerdy treat.

Everything was covered in the hour long set, from new songs (Summer it's gone) all the way back to the first EP (Levitz) to random tracks off Ep's (What Can't be Erased) and everything in between. I think Lytle knew he wouldn't be playing these songs again anytime soon, although I can't wait till the clamoring public calls for a reunion in 2023, so he cherry picked his and the audience's favorites. Listening to the songs this way made it seem for a second that the band could have been so much bigger than they ever were.

Of course Lytle has no stage presence to speak of and spent the whole set sitting in a chair, half way turned from the audience. He didn't look up and he didn't engage, but his voice sounded great and that's all I cared about. He did wear a trucker cap, but he wore one before it was cool and still has it now that it is out of style, so it was ok.

Side rant. I hate the Hotel Cafe. It is more of a bar than anything else, which isn't always a bad way to see a show, but this one is right between Sunset and Hollywood and the crowd it attracts kind of stinks. I was a hipster adrift in a sea of yuppies. Plus I haven't shaved my beard in a month so the guestlist guy looked at me like I was a crazy street person. And another thing! (I am starting to sound like my dad now): If there is a credit card minimum at the bar they need to post that info so I don't end up ordering without cash. I didn't want another beer dammit!

Ok that's enough of the grumpy old man portion. Like I said in my Grandaddy album review, I cannot be all that bummed that the band is no more, since it was more or less Lytle anyway. He will make more music for sure, but I doubt he will ever do a Grandaddy set again, so I was happy enough to have seen what was left of one of my favorites again. RIP sweet prince.

Nouvelle Vague / Bande a Part / Rating: 5.9

“For a project built on contradictions, it's only fitting that Nouvelle Vague's most lasting work stems from its most forgotten inspirations.”

My French vocabulary has been shrinking since high school but on a recent Jean-Luc Godard movie binge via Netflix I learned several things. 1) Bande à part (also the title of the record in question) is a Godard film and is also considered one of his most accessible films. 2) Bande à part translated into English means a band of outsiders 3.) Le Nouvelle Vague (also the artist in question) is the name of French film movement Godard was a founding member of and when translated means The New Wave. 4) I don’t care much for Godard films; no matter how much he has influenced modern cinema. ( Tarantino, Scorsese, Hartley, and Jarmusch to name a few)

I have spent my adult years obsessing on music not film so I had to do a bit of research to follow up on just how the band Nouvelle Vague related to the film movement. It also seemed like naming themselves after a particular film seemed like an obvious place to explore as well. Finally because I typically have zero interest in cover bands, part of me is fascinated by those artists who are drawn into the challenge of trying on another artist’s song size. The answers to these questions quite accidentally created the review of this record at the same and also covers territory that Pitchfork neglected to cover.

Your fun fact number one: Bossa Nova (a form of music NV relied heavily on for their first release) roughly also translates into new wave. New wave is a word play repeat offender here and seemingly is both the band’s main focus and purpose.

“Godard’s genius was to manipulate the tried-and-true tools of moviemaking into a fresh syntax.” and “It’s unlikely a Godard film will ever lead you to heartbreak or tears, but it will invigorate your love of movies.”

Nouvelle Vague take familiar songs and reshape them into something new and never heard before but like much like Godard’s films, the idea often outweighs the final product. Like any experiment there are also bound to be successes and failures. I could have happily lived without hearing any Billy Idol or U2 covers in my lifetime and while I don’t regret these versions exist, I (gulp) would still rather hear the originals. I thought I would be saying this about the entire cd but their renditions of "The Killing Moon", "Ever Fallen in Love", and "Human Fly" are all clever and surprisingly sophisticated.

A review of the movie on popmatters.com revealed even more parallels between the movie and band.

“Band of Outsiders is one such reinvention, a playful reworking of narrative form.”… At the same time, the movie offers a highbrow gloss on its lowbrow origins”… “With such loving images, Band of Outsiders shows that Godard's ostensible "destructiveness" is, more emphatically, a gift of creation. Its fragmentation and experimentation maintain a kind of wholeness, not by conventional linearity and causality, but by an emotional thread. In other words, Godard has made a new cinema out of pieces of the old.”

The above quotes in relation to the film sum up the idea of this record eloquently and exactly. The problem is and I repeat: this kind of deconstructive behavior does not guarantee a film or song to be greater than the concept itself.

The below quote about the theme of the record comes from founding member Marc Collin and is taken from their band bio.

“I then had the idea to set these songs in a very different dimension, namely the Caribbean between 1940 and 1970. Just as on the first album I'd imagined a young Brazilian girl singing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" on a Rio beach in the '60s, this time I envisaged a young Jamaican with his acoustic guitar singing "Heart of Glass" in his Kingston township suburb.”

This kind of cute idea worked well enough in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (Brazilian Seu Jorge taking on Bowie with just an acoustic guitar) but 14 new wave tracks whipped into fluffy reggae-lite audio meringue leaves the listener hoping for something less cotton candy and a little more rock candy AKA solid. This island vibe often gets washed away and left behind are plain old lounge versions of songs that I am certain any half way decent composer/arranger could toss together in a few days for a television commercial using any girl with the capability of singing breathy baby talk.

Okay …so how did particular grouping of material come together no less with the Jamaican flavor?

“In certain cases I dug the production idea of the original title (like the voodoo sounds and horror movie organ on Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead"). Sometimes I started a biographical anecdote (I read that an early version of Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" was essayed in a Reggae style). Others, like the Buzzcocks' cover, were introduced to the set by (singers) Melanie and Camille during our 2004 tour.

I was also thinking about the loop which was being created during the period when most of this music first appeared - the influence of Jamaican music on English post punk (manifesting in the Clash and PiL most obviously, but also in the work of the Slits, Mark Stewart and so on...). It's interesting to note how successfully these titles adapt to reggae-based rearrangements."

All of this in print form is fine until you hear the chorus on their version of "Bela Lugosi’s Dead" which distractingly features a female vocalist repeating Bela La-Goosey’s Dead. The word goose-y for me in such a dark song turns it instantly into accidental comedy and something I am sure Nouvelle Vague was not aiming for.

Admittedly, no matter how interesting all these factoids are as footnotes to the music, it is still the music that should earn a high or low rating. Concepts aside, the music is very hit or miss and for Nouvelle Vague’s sophmore release, more miss than hit. The concrete foundation of a theme never hardens into something solid and sadly by the last track the floppy structures topples into a mess of island instrumentation and voices as delicate as a lazy tropical breeze. My rating isn’t too different from PFM’s but for what it is worth, I would have opted for a slightly higher 6.5.

Envelopes to tour U.S. with Ratatat

I think I am one of about 10 people in the States who worship Envelopes but I am going to post their tour dates anyhow.


Upcoming Shows:

Sep 5 2006
8:00P
Bowery Ballroom
New York City, NY

Sep 6 2006
8:00P
The Middle East/ Downstairs
Boston, MA

Sep 7 2006
8:00P
Les Saints
montreal

Sep 8 2006
8:00P
Lee's Palace
Toronto

Sep 9 2006
8:00P
Blind Pig
ann arbor, MI

Sep 10 2006
8:00P
five star bar (RATATAT DJ SET)
chicago, IL

Sep 11 2006
8:00P
empty bottle
chicago, IL

Sep 12 2006
8:00P
7th st. entry
minneapolis, MN

Sep 15 2006
8:00P
el corazon
seattle, WA

Sep 16 2006
8:00P
berbatis pan
portland, OR

Sep 18 2006
8:00P
Great American Music Hall
San Fransisco, CA

Sep 20 2006
8:00P
Troubador
Los Angeles, CA

Sep 23 2006
8:00P
Glass House
Pomona, CA

Sep 24 2006
8:00P
Casbah
San Diego, CA

Sep 25 2006
8:00P
Rhythm Room
Phoenix, AZ

Sep 27 2006
8:00P
gypsy tea room
dallas, TX

Sep 28 2006
8:00P
emo's
austin, TX

Sep 29 2006
8:00P
TBA
Houston, TX

Sep 30 2006
8:00P
The Republic
New Orleans, LA

Oct 2 2006
8:00P
The Earl
Atlanta, GA

Oct 3 2006
8:00P
Local 506
Chapel Hill, NC

Oct 4 2006
8:00P
Black Cat
Washington D.C., DC

Oct 5 2006
8:00P
The Khyber
Philadelphia , PA

Oct 6 2006
8:00P
The Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY

Oct 7 2006
8:00P
Alfred University
Alfred, NY

Junior Boys / So This Is Goodbye / Rating: 9.0

“Just their second full-length overall, So This Is Goodbye isn't just an improbable notch above 2004's Last Exit-- it's also among the best records you'll hear all year.”

Sorry but unless you get your hands on a promo or do that naughty file sharing thing, you will have to wait until September 12, 2006 (US and UK 9/11) to decide if this is one of the best records you heard all year.

You can wait a month, can’t you?

While a 9.0 Pitchfork rating for any band or record label is the stuff indie dreams are made of, I can tell you it is considered a bum deal in the music industry to have such a rave review happen so far away for the album’s street date... no less a nearly perfect score from the world’s most popular and powerful music publication.

Positive press is great and all but it sucks (from an industry point of view) when people can’t buy the record anytime soon.

This PFM review (as far as I can tell) isn’t matching any import cd street date which has been Pitchfork’s reasoning and excuse in the past for running a review of a cd that isn’t out in the States. They have the right to jump the gun and hype a record before the rest of my music publication / blog world does but it will most certainly raise frustration levels when readers discover they have to wait a month to check it out.

Sure 4 weeks isn’t that long but think of what can happen in a month? Considering the political climate of the world right now; anything goes.

In the meantime:


DOWNLOAD: In The Morning MP3

VISIT: JuniorBoys.net

VISIT: MySpace.com/JuniorBoys

Adventures in Indie Rock: Issue 5

Stockholm Vice

Another bullet flew past Jose’s head, but he didn’t even flinch.

He had had been shot at too many times to lose his cool now.

Crouched against the filthy tenement hallway he calmly re-loaded his pistol, gave it a kiss for good luck and returned fire. He was one of the best shots in the department and sure enough one of the bullets found its target and Jose heard a body slump onto the ground. Getting up he rounded the corner and saw Paco Jones laying dead, a bullet hole in his temple. Jose laughed in a gentle sort of way.

“Serves you right Paco,” he said to the dead man. He reached into Jones’s pocket, removed his wallet and slipped it into the side of his trench coat. He kicked the corpse once for good measure.

“You don’t fuck with Jose Gonzalez,” he said walking out, middle finger extended in the air.

+++

Jose was known throughout the city for three things: An unwavering allegiance to law and order, a fiery hot tempter with an itchy trigger finger to match and of course his dreamlike melodies and masterful guitar strumming.

This evening Jose was finally one step from catching up with the elusive criminal mastermind known as ‘The King’. Paco Jones had been one of his top henchmen and now he was dead. It was the break Jose had been waiting for.

He swung the door of his coup open and hopped in.

“Dispatch,” he said into the police radio, “This is Detective Gonzalez, badge number 5445423. Put me through to Captain DeBusse.” A moment later the captain came one the line. He was angry.

“Dammit Gonzalez! Where have you been?” the voice blared through the speaker.

“I got Jones,” Jose said.”

The voice on the radio paused. “Did he give it up?”

“He said a few things before he went for his gun,” Jose said taking Paco’s wallet out of his pocket and flipping through it.

“Jesus Christ Gonzalez, you need to stop shooting people!”

Jose just smiled. “Jones was nothing,” he said, “but I think we are closer than ever.”

“What did he tell you?” the Captain was getting impatient.

“Behind the scenes they grow their schemes. Hiding intentions, revealing only fractions.”

The voice exploded out the radio. “Godammit Gonzalez! How many times have I told you to not speak to me lyrically!”

Jose didn’t even hear him. In the wallet was a business card. ‘Glambek-Boe Imports. Dock 42, Suite 19’. This was it. The final piece of the puzzle. It all made sense now: The drugs flooding the streets, the crime wave, the influx of electronic elements into traditionally staid folk music.

“Captain I gotta go,” Jose said starting the car.

"What the hell are you talking about? Go where?”

"I know who the King is and where he is.”

“Where? Tell me. You’ll need backup! Don’t go in alone. I repeat do not go in alone!”

Jose sneered. “No backup Captain. This is between me and him.”

He turned off the radio over the vocal objections of Debusse. Next stop: The docks

+++

The docks were deserted, except for a cluster of Volkswagens parked near dock 42. Gonzalez parked out of sight and then made his way in silence and shadows to the window of suite 19. Peering in he obsevered a number of men milling about.

In one part of the office was a stack of synthesizers and tons of discarded old vinyl. In the other half were giant piles of cocaine being cut by small children in lederhosen. But it was the center of the room that drew Jose’s attention. A group of broad shouldered henchmen were standing around a man Jose knew all to well: ‘The King’. He seemed to be talking fast, relating some asinine story perhaps. He was pole thin and tall, his hair the color of strawberries. To the untrained eye you would think him a quiet reserved type.

You would be dead wrong.

Jose made up his mind immediately.Bursting through the door he opened fire, and with his usual accuracy felled all the henchmen with disabling shots to the knees. The King stood alone.

“We meet at last King,” Jose said aiming his pistol at the man. “Or should I just call you Erland.”

Erland Oye looked very annoyed. “Jesus,”he said, “what is your problem?”

“I hate drugs and I hate crime,” Jose almost spat at Oye. “And I really hate people taking the music I love and added unnecessary effects. You are the problem, and I am the solution.”

“Ugh,” Erland said putting his hands to his hips. “Spare me. Your threats are as clichéd as the whispery vocals on your last album.”

“Either way this ends here, once and for all.” Jose said cocking his gun.

But all in a flash he felt the gun fly from his hands and a hand grab him from behind. Just before he lost consciousness he saw the flash of a man with a beak and heard faintly dancy music from afar. That is when it all went black.

When he awoke he was in a hospital bed, Debusse standing by the side.

“What happened?” Jose asked. “Where is Oye?”

“He got away,” Debusse said. “You may have gotten through his first line of defense, but you didn’t take into account his most dangerous assassins.” Debusse handed him a note. “We found this at the scene.

” Jose’s eyes scanned the paper. Everything was written in duplicate, as if one hand had written over the other.

JG – do not think that you can defeat us. We are powerful. We are smart. We are very popular for no discernable reason. You are warned.

-THE KNIFE

Jose crumbled the paper in his hand. “Now its personal.”

Matthew Friedberger / Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School / Rating: 5.0

“Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language, with their more narrow aims, each represent only a fraction of that whole, and as such may provide Furnaces haters with more ammunition than their defenders.”


Dear Mr. Friedberger,

I am begging you to take your one dimensional diarrhea of the mouth and creative Tourette Syndrome and defile some other industry for a year or two. Theater? Publishing? Television? Film? Talk radio? Spammer? Anything but music please. In fact until you get over your experimental ramble rock opera phase, the kind of spewed nonsense that never reaches a climax or goes anywhere, please spare us another record period.

If your music was a phone conversation I would hang up. If your music was sitting next to me on a bus I would move my seat. If your music was a car I would crash it so it could never be driven again.

We didn’t need one new record from you no less a double disc and since there are two discs I give them a total of a 2.0 rating.

Please God please make it stop.

Your friend,
Pitch Perfect

Radio Free Chicago verse Pitchfork

A kind reader (thank you sir!) passed this Radio Free Chicago link along to me today and in turn I am sharing with you all.

I give you clash of the Chi-town media titans round one.

At Last!

Two weeks later my laptop and I are reunited again...reunited and it feels so good. Not only do I have a working computer again but the true miracle is nearly all my files (music et all) have been restored.

Let the steady posting begin again! (tomorrow),
Pitchy McP

Psapp / The Only Thing I Ever Wanted / Rating: 7.0

“The drab sound is a shame considering the well-constructed songs and Galia Durant's emerging strength as a vocalist.”

PFM writer Mark Richardson spent a good half of his review energy talking about Psapp’s production value. I appreciate this angle as I am a firm believer that even the best songs in the world can be killed by a bad engineer or mixing job but what is wrong with this record in my humble opinion has nothing to do with the laptop aspect of making a record at all. In this case it is the old fashioned story of there can be too much of a good thing. The good thing being all the endless hammering of samples and children’s toys squeaking, creaking, talking, honking and plonking.

There might be “well constructed songs” buried in there somewhere but it’s impossible to tell when every single tune is buried under something that sounds like Willy Wonka running over a clown car. After sitting though al 11 tracks I wish this cd came with a bottle of ibuprofen.

The Only Thing I Ever Wanted starts innocently enough with the familiar backdrop of rhythmic plinking, this time by something that sounds like water bouncing off something made of glass. Per Psapp's norm it is all set to exotic time signatures and then decorated by feminine, often sad velvet melodies. Galia Durant's spectacular Lolita like voice is the lighthouse that leads this band towards something memorable and it is an absolute crime to have a heavy blanket of distracting sounds extinguishing her potency and charm. This noisy elf workshop attacking a songstress would be forgivable had it been a one time only situation but the elves never put down there tools for the duration of most of the record. (A brief respite from tracks 9 -11)

PFM points the finger of blame towards the “laptop pop” for their lack of dynamic range but I blame whoever thought every song needed to be bedazzled with a billion cute little sounds. Leave the computer out of it Pitchfork. This is a composer’s faux pas and a song arranger’s worst case scenario.

I get it. I really do. Especially after seeing them live a few months ago with all their adorable props and admiration for the feline species. The juxtaposition of childlike innocence performed with children’s toys tip toeing into adult themed songs played by grown ups using more tradition instruments like guitar and strings makes for an unusual and clever tit for tat.

Part woman - part child, both personalities are well represented but instead of these two sides working in harmony, the glitchy clickety clacks of God knows what turns the delicate dance that is Psapp’s songwriting into something that sounds more like a cuckoo clock wrestling a cashiers register to death. Their first record was a much more successful balance of sounds so I know it is possible for Psapp to find their balance, they just didn’t land on their feet for this one. The vocals are there but darn it the rest of it isn’t and that can’t be worth a 7.0 rating, I am going down to a 5.5.

PS: Do see Psapp live. All the dynamics and depth missing on this record are made up for when they take the stage as a full group. Fear not, all kindergarten props are present and they look pretty darn adorable when held up to the mic to perform, even if maybe it is a little creepy coming from a stage littered with adults.

Khlyst

I've been waiting for Runhild Gammelsæter (the legendary female doom singer of Thorrs Hammer) to work on music again and it looks like her new project Khlyst (and her only recording since her guest appearance on Sunno)))'s record) will be released in September or October.

Here is a taste of the upcoming record she is making with James of Khanate for Hydra Head Records. I don't think there has ever been a more sinister and challenging male/female duo than Khlyst.

And yes, that really is a woman singing/screaming/growling.

Sigur Rós Sæglópur's gain extra numbers, tilde, and letters

PFM Says:

Sigur RósS
Sæglópur EP
[The Worker's Institute; 2006]
Rating: 5.7

I have no idea how a major publication such as Pitchfork would allow this kind of text glitch to remain on their site...no les the front page... for more than a few minutes. I am not sure when they update they site, 8AM or 9AM(?) but nearly three hours later it still reads as I posted above.

Weird.

The Futureheads / News & Tributes / Rating: 7.7

“News & Tributes is a satisfying record, nooked and crannied with asymmetry and surprise detours, and marred by only one truly shitty song.”

Yes/No. (And what do you know, this also happens to be the name of the first track of the record in question.)

Ultimately I am satisfied with The Futureheads’ display of post puberty songwriting that showcases undeniable maturity and Jack and the Bean Sprout growth but while I wouldn’t call any one song strictly shit, I would have liked to see the fat of 16 tracks (50+ minutes) trimmed down quite a bit.

Playing music God in my iTunes format, my perfect News and Tributes would be 10 songs / 28+ minutes. It’s not that I have a crap attention span but songs 9-12 aren’t nearly as memorable as the other half of the record and this lull creates the façade of a second rate follow up which I will firmly say N and T is not.

I know… who the hell am I to reshape a full length by a band I am not in no less after they have clearly spent time building the track listing to something they, their producer or label consider just right but regardless of their vision, I have my own as a fan too.

My version:

1) Yes/No. This smart little intro further proves these boys really care about how their full lengths flow and their songs are strung together.
2) Cope. The sonic 4 part harmony resembles a jumbo jet’s horn, I mean if they had one)
3) Fallout. Not a favorite but this track is the Golden Gate bridge of tracks lying handsomely between and ever so importantly linking song 2 to song 4. Even bands like The Beatles have this kind of set up number.
4) Skip To The End. A fine follow up single to Area which includes a youthful energy that reminds me of a game of patty cake interpreted through snare drum rim hit clicks and grade school playground teasing reflected in their chorus of Naaa NaNaNaNaNA NaNa.
5) Burnt. I wonder if Andy Partridge appreciates a good XTC tribute as much as I do?
6) News and Tributes. This is where it is so easy to compare The Futureheads to an artist like Elvis Costello who came out of the shoot raising a punk rock ruckus in the 70’s and evolved into a complex songwriter- careening all over the musical map in the decades to follow. This is also not my favorite song but it is the title track and for trivia sake is named after a 1958 headline from a British paper when a plane carrying the Manchester United F.C. football team + journalists, fans, and staff crashed in Munich during a blizzard. "News and Tributes" pays homage to the lives lost in the plane crash.
7 ) Back to the Sea. This brings me back to the C-86 / Grebo world of bands.
8) Area. This is as good as any of the best songs off of their debut.
9) Help Us Out. This begs to be on a mix either before or after English Beat. I would suggest "Mirror in the Bathroom" though my better half says anything by Devo.
10) The Return Of The Berserker. PFM might call this names but I call it a perfect way to end with a holler and bang.

____________________________________________________________________

Give me a week on and off from Tuning Fork and I go soft. I will be honest and confess that thanks to a friend’s art opening and running into friends / the fellas from the band Doomriders, I am drunk and probably shouldn’t be posting but I need to wrap this piece up. This means my writing skills from here on out are a mess and I am not really proofreading anything. Hooray for the casual world of blogs.

Back to The Futureheads…

The Pitchfork 7.7 review is fair so there won’t be an argument from me there in the slightest and I am not just saying that because I am seeing 4 of my computer screens right now and want to go to bed.

My focus may be garbled at this late hour but the basic point is there aren’t very many new bands whose career I look forward to following. Ideally I want another two decades of music from The Futureheads because keeping track of talented people is so much more rewarding than investing your musical faith in the average. (AKA 90% of the new music out there)

All l I ask is that the band work on their lyrics and once that happens I think we have a classic/ timeless act on our hands.

Wait... is your computer spinning too?

Monday Monday

Word on the street is I will get my computer back on Monday so hopefully this means I will be able to post reviews on a more regular basis again.

Thanks for your patience and thank you TFM staff for covering so nicely for me during my time of need!

Your Pal,
P to the P

Stirring the Pot

Today PMF posted a news story about Linda Kay , an ancient ex-member of the band Lifetime (who also happens to be a topless waitress) getting charged with improper disposition of human remains....or as they put it "hoarding human remains"

Okay it is a crazy story, I will admit that but PFM reported the details in a way that doesn't really speak the truth of the story. Its more like they twisted the information to sound more severe than it actually is. Come on Pitchfork, you aren't the National Enquirer so why go for that kind of trumped up reporting.

The real story as reported ABC news is this:

"According to the police report, officers responding Friday, July 21, 2006, to a report of a suicidal person at the home of Kay discovered a large, crudely severed human hand in a glass mason jar of formaldehyde on the dresser of Kay's basement bedroom. While the subject of the initial phone call was not located in the home, authorities found six skulls in an upstairs room. "

It goes on to say:

"Friends say the hand, whom Kay nicknamed "Freddy," was a gift from a medical student who frequented the all-nude juice bar where Kay dances. Kay's mother told The Star-Ledger of Newark she believed the skulls were bought from a mail-order catalog. "

Now that doesn't sound nearly as tabloid serial killer does it? Anybody who has friends into macabre shit (goth and metal people I am looking in your direction) know that their are plenty of people in this world who collect skulls, animal bones, circus sideshow things in jars...and the likes. Sorry but that isn't really news to me.

What is more surprising to me is this "it's a felony in New Jersey to disturb, move or conceal human remains. " I know this law sounds very common sense and who would want that in their home anyhow but there are actually places on line to buy human skulls and bones on line and it's legal. It isn't my scene but I actually didn't know owning that kind of material in certain states was illegal. Items that began as science tools don't always end up in classrooms but then again, a hand in a jar is certainly a different story and it makes perfect sense that this woman in under investigation. But you have to admit, as grim as this is, the hand being dubbed "Freddy" brings black comedy to a whole new level.

I'm not trying to defend this girl. I don't know her at all and maybe she is into some horrible and possibly illegal stuff that should legitimately lead to a conviction but all I can think of is how many collectors of morbid material in N.J. are redecorating their homes right now to avoid similar charges.

An Albatross/ Blessphemy (of the Peace-Beast Feastgiver and the Bear-Warp Kumite)/5.6

when it comes to this hyperbolic spaz-metal stuff, nothing's too new or shocking


It didn’t take me half way through Moerder’s review before it began to ring false. For one thing, there are way too many pseudo-genres in the review. Spaz-metal? Spazcore? Nintendocore? I can’t find any of these on Allmusic.com. Hell, I can barely find them on Google outside of a few message boards. And the band references – Gwar, Fantomas and System of a Down – are nowhere near. There are enough recent touch points for An Albatross - Parts & Labor, Neon Blonde – as well as classic ones – The Boredoms, Naked City – that there’s no need to stretch. (System of a Down?) If there had been some better RIYL’s or even comparisons or some actual genres that didn’t include the word “spaz,” I’d be a little more sold on the review. I guess Moerder listened to the CD, but it would have been nice if the reviewer appeared at least sympathetic to Blessphemy’s musical objectives, if not a little more familiar with similar artists.

Blessphemy is twenty-seven minutes of lockstep playing that veers from progressive rock to metal to noise to hardcore channeling a combination of elation and torment through instrumental and vocal noise. However, where the ferocity of the playing gives the illusion of chaos, there is a tremendous amount of deliberation went into the CD. The individual tracks are sequenced in a steady ebb and flow of noise that keep the CD from descending into noisy monotony. The band’s playing is wickedly airtight – the “noise” they creates an endless stream of notes and snare explosions flying at the listener like a swarm of hornets.

An Albatross’s music isn’t for most listeners. Edward Geida’s vocals are particularly difficult to assimilate. However, if you listen to the songs carefully, Geida’s shrieks are another instrument on top of the rolling keyboards and Ziploc tight drums and guitars. Nonetheless, a half hour is a hefty dose of An Albatross’s onslaught. Folks who crave the aural battery of bands like Lightning Bolt will drink up Blessphemy. For fans of frantic, controlled cacophony, I’d give it a 7.0. However, Blessphemy is not for the faint of heart nor is it an ideal starting point for starting into noisier, experimental rock.

¡Forward, Russia! / Give Me a Wall / Rating: 6.2

“Give Me a Wall gives many clues but few definitive answers about where Forward Russia! are heading-- but the important thing for now is that they keep on moving.”

Oops. The actual name of this band is ¡Forward, Russia!. Pitchfork forgot the first upside down exclamation point.

Secondly this record doesn’t come out in U.S. until Sept 19th on Mute. Please take note that this is a review of the import.

Thirdly we have been through this so many times over the past year and a half. No review needs over 5 references to other bands no less 10.

New Kids On the Block (in fairness this is used as a wordplay tool not a RIYL)
Bloc Party
Orange Juice
At The Drive-In
Refused
“Heart of Glass”, - code for Blondie
Robert Smith
“Kele Okerke” – Bloc Party singer had it been spelled right.
Julian Cope
Wilderness’ James Johnson

Next - You need to correctly spell the name of the band member you are referencing. The correct spelling is Okereke. Hopefully by the time I post this, this will have been fixed on PFM. I know I fuck up all the time on TFM but I also don’t have an editor and we are just a little hobby blog.

Lastly, I was just thinking about timelines the other day. When I discovered Pavement in 1990 I don’t think I knew much about The Velvet Underground, The Fall, or Sonic Youth’s early material. To my green ears I had never heard anything like this band before and I didn’t care if they weren’t the ones who invented that sound. They were my starting point and while eventually I discovered how and where their sound fell in the bigger picture, I still don’t regret my initial worship of Pavement. We all have to start somewhere and I think as a record nerd and writer (and I use writer in the loosest sense of the word) it is easy to forget the innocence of being young and new to music. To somebody out there ¡Forward, Russia! will be their starting point and who they sound like is totally irrelevant. Especially with bands in this general genre that appeals to mostly the under 30 set, the fact that a band might sound like 20 others doesn’t mean much. Especially for hardcore / emo kids it is more about scenes and finding unknown bands before everyone else and claiming them for yourself. Sorry to stereotype but there is something about the 14-25 age group that likes to feel part of a movement. The bitter jaded thing can set in early but it usually takes a good 5 to 10 years in that kind of scene before all the “new” bands actually sound like something you have heard a 100 times before.

If I wasn’t approaching my mid 30’s and wasn’t having Shudder to Think / ATDI flashbacks I am pretty certain I would be sleeping with this record under my pillow and rating it an even 8.0. But alas I am old, admittedly jaded, and giving the record a 7.5 because while I am not impressed, I am willing to bet my 16 year old intern and all her friends will be. There is a community of kids who aren’t interested in knowing who a band may or may not be influence by and truthfully all they should care about is that they like it. I miss those innocent years so the least I can say is enjoy them while you can.

Know Thy Enemy

Hello there,

This is Pitch Perfect checking in and letting you know I am still in computers are not my friend mode and still without my usual computer. Seriously people what is the point of downloading music when A) it often sounds like crap and B) your entire collection can be wiped out in a flash by a system crash? I was just telling Ghostbeard earlier today that the music industry should be running scare tactic TV and radio campaigns reminding people that CDs and LPs are forever while mp3s are more like a hit and run. Maybe external hardrive companies could cash in on this too?

I know this isn’t a review of a PFM review but the below list is chock-full of items I think are worth checking out or waiting for. Consider this my official what’s hot list for the summer of 2006.

later skaters,
pitchy p


* If Colbert’s speech at the White House press dinner was available as a record it would be my number one hit of the year. I am building a shrine to the man in my home as we speak.

* Chantal Goya – an ep of material from Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculin Feminin. I am a French pop junkie and these tracks are top notch!

* New project for Erlend Oye - The Whitest Boy Alive

* Looking Forward to new music by Joanna Newsom in November and Yo La Tengo in September. What started as a weak year for new music took a serious turn for the better at the mid-year point.

* Final Fantasy - R-rated Charlie Brown meets Hitchcock score

* The White Birch – Come Up for Air – Glitterhouse. One of my top 5 favorite records of the year!!!!!!

* Chris Herbert – Mezzotint – Kranky. I have no idea why I like this actually. Soundscape journies usually bore me to tears but this study of white noise and static keeps me on the edge of my seat. Think jet planes humming a melody you can't quite make out over a bad phone connection to a lawn mower.

* Eye Hate God reissues - I have loved this part Melvins part Born Against band since I was in high school!

* Helen Love - Found an LP used in Chapel Hill

* Chapterhouse – Whirlpool - Classic.

* Hell Preachers Inc. – Supreme Psychedelic Underground - LP – wah wah records – I limit myself to once a month searches on Forced Exposure because I could easily spend a whole paycheck in just 10 minutes browsing time.

* Lucio Battisti – Amore E Non Amore – Water - The Caetano Veloso of Italy.

* Plocky’s Louisiana Peppa Red Beans ‘N Rice Tortilla Chips - Hot sauce + just like the name implies: Rice and Red Beans tortilla chips. Gods gift to snacks.

* The Science Of Sleep : A brand new Michel Gondry film.

* Au Revoir Simone – Versus of Comfort, Assurance, and Salvation hand screened and self released(?) cd. A darling all girl (3 to be exact) Fisher-Price version of Stereolab and I mean that as a genuine compliment. Thank you Other Music for picking this out for me!

* Darker My Love – S/T – Dangerbird records - Former Distillers and Nerve Agents members create something for Telescopes/Psychic Ills/Dedicated Records fans

* Chad VanGaalen - Skelliconnection - Sub Pop - And I thought I loved his last record. A modern day Roy Orbison with hints of Lou Barlow, this hasn't left my car stereo in a week straight. (and still counting)

* I think I might be the only person not excited about Grizzly Bear’s new record Yellow House on Warp. It sounds like a more orchestrated Animal Collective 45 played at 33 but with better harmonies. I’m not a fan but I am certain most of the indie community will name this a best of 2006 contender.

Film School Loses Drummer and Bass Player

I don't think this story has been reported on much ....taken from their MySpace blog:

"Film School status

Hi it's Krayg.

As some of you have noticed Justin (bass) and Donny (drums) have moved on. We're sad to see them go, but we also want everyone to know Film School is continuing on and is already in the process or working on the next record to be released on Beggars Banquet, date TBA.

Just to give a little history, over the years it hasn't been unusual for Film School to switch up members for each recording. Each release has had a slightly different lineup of musicians. We're excited about the upcoming record, the songs already being written and the special guest appearance from other bands.

In light of the current changes and the fact that we've been touring the world since October we've decided to move on to the next record and cancel the fall tour with Serena Maneesh. But, ... DEFINITELY GO SEE THIS BAND! This is one of my favorite bands right now and they put on a great live show. You will not be disappointed.

Thanks so much for your support and love this past year! It's been very appreciated.
Krayg

James Figurine / Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake / Rating 5.2

“Tamborello attempts to craft historically informed techno while recoiling from its unforgiving nudity, dressing it up in a variety of garish, mismatched costumes.”

Mistake 1: Oh Jimmy Strictly Ballroom DNTEL Postal Service (James) Figurine Tamborello (full name I think), shame on you for entitling a record that cruel music snobs like me could use against you in a review. Mistake X 4 is simply just asking for it.

Mistake 2: The press story might be (and as PFM retells) an ode to minimal techno but the lyrics dribbled out on most of these tracks spell out relationship troubles for the artist. These casual monologues using lingo normally shared between people who are friends really only works if the listener is a friend and well…gives a fuck. Sorry but a grown up (who I know is intelligent and clever normally) singing about cell phone pictures, text messages, charm bracelets, and driving out of town after a breakup teary eyed listening to a mixcd is something I would maybe expect from R Kelly or Kelly Clarkson but not this typically pseudo intellectual indietronic gentleman.

Mistake to the power of 4 would be a damn fine record had it been kept instrumental. The words should have been used for a good-bye letter to his ex rather than flashing us innocent bystanders via inarticulate song. Note to all artists: If you are not going to keep your personal sentiments to yourself (live journal / blog is okay too) or the person they are directed towards, at the very least try to make your thoughts a little more abstract and captivating. You know… something vaguely poetic. Anything that shows you care about lyrics and the vocals as much as you do about your meticulous electronic backdrop.

Mistake 3: I am not trying to be insensitive but it also sounds like Jimmy has been so focused on working out / flexing his glitchy electronic muscle that the talent once owned by the post hardcore emo kid who used to know how to write a good vocal pop numbers has diminished slightly. It makes sense, if you don’t practice something regularly it is very likely your skills or muscles in that area will soften.

If he wanted to write a genuine tribute to the artists on Kompakt why not focus on just that and leave the he said-she said in the dim den. (As described in the first track “5556668883”)

Mistake 4. PFM says: “Nuanced stasis proves a stretch for Tamborello's maximalist sensibility, and most of the tracks sound exactly like what they are: An apprentice's overwrought take on the stark, sublime depths of Isolée and Luomo, overloaded with guest vocals and concessions to hyperbole.”

I am not sure why Jimmy who has yet another vocal record in the works (not quite finished yet) via DNTEL decided he needed vocals on this record when clearly they didn’t need to be there...no less for the most part by a guy who doesn’t have a particularly interesting twist on the woes of dating. Sure there are well known guests who also share songwriting responsibilities and vocal duties on this record but they don’t add any new or tantalizing depth to the music itself. In fact you get so used to following the heartbreak bouncing ball it’s a tad interfering with the theme to have Erlend singing about digging holes in the yard for his Dad.

The problem with any collaborate effort is how to keep the entire record sounding cohesive and one solid unit and I am afraid James Figurine did not rise above this inherit team effort flaw.
Unlike Pitchfork I don’t have issues with the music itself. I like this bouncier pop version of streamlined micro-house and had it been vocal free I would have been willing to rate this a 7 something but with its mistakes x4 I am forced to give it rate an even 6.

PS: Besides the electronic canvas, I do like Jimmy T’s soft spoken singing/spoken voice (hence the higher rating than PFM)…just not the slang and half thought out hooks he muddies up his sentiments with.

Just Doing My Rock and Roll Duty...

Hey music fans...

It's hot where I am. I am tired. I have nothing really long and elaborate to write. But given the death of our fearless leaders laptop I feel I must keep up my end of things here. So with that... some thoughts for you to ponder over the weekend.

As the lovely Pitchy P pointed out, a lot of us got together for the first annual Tuningfork convention earlier this month. Conversation ranged from "why mistakenly making out with a girls eye in a dark room thinking it's her mouth won't get you a second date", "should we hunt down and punish the next person to refer to Loveless in a review", and most importantly "what album did you lose your virginity to?"

Actually let's make that last point interactive. All comments welcome. I'll get the ball rolling. Me = first Suicide record. You want to talk about not getting second dates... apparently girls think you're really fucked when going for it while singing along to Frankie Teardrop. "Oh yeah, baby, that's it.... Frankie put a gun to his head... yeah, baby right there...". You get the picture. Girl had a mo-hawk and Crass shirt, so I don't know what she was all uptight about. Perhaps long passionate foreplay to "Christ : The Album" was more her thing...

Speaking of Suicide. I worked with someone on an album recently who told me he got into Suicide when he was really young because he was a big Aldo Nova fan (what, he had big fans!), and someone told him Alan Vega & Aldo Nova were the same people. Awesome. I work with a guy who has a shirt that says "Life Is Just A Fantasy, Can You Live This Fantasy Life". Why does Aldo Nova keep coming up in conversation.

I was a big fan of Ted Nugent's "Wild Hunting Adventure" show on OLN a few years back. What wasn't to love? Ted takes some kids hunting and then roasts the kill while rocking out on Wang Bang Sweet Poontang on the acoustic guitar while sitting fireside. His line of beef jerky launched at the same time ruled. Without a trace of homo-erotic irony he was up on that buffalo on the packaging exclaiming "I test ride all my meat!". That leads me to recommending and endorsing the Nuge's new show "Ted Or Alive" (also on OLN) where Ted takes him some city slickers out to the ranch and runs them through the paces. Man, the Nuge. What an idiot. But so entertaining.

Anyone ever see the Styx behind the music where Ted is burning on Dennis DeYoung being to soft and then they cut to the clip of Damn Yankees "Can You Take Me Higher"? Yeah, Ted, "Babe" is for pussies, but Damn Yankees... they were tough as fuck. I mean how can anything involving members of Night Ranger not be... and can you still Rock In America? Remember in that episode when Dennis DeYoung is talking about developing light sensitivity partially due to rehearsing a musical adaptation of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame with Liza Minelli? What the fuck... did that ever happen?

Rock stars. Awesome.

SuperNova? Really? Like shit guys, how low can you go? I attended a live taping of a special on Voivod this week to launch their new record 'Katorz'. Jason Newstead... I'm sorry... Jasonic, called in for an interview. The best part of interview...'Working with Voivod was night and day to Metallica. They listened to me, they respected me, they liked my ideas, we got along great...". Geez, rough gig with Lars and the boys. But how's life with Gilby Clarke, and Tommy Lee in the mansion. I'm sorry but when I look at you all I can think is "fuck". Hands up everyone who rates that as their favorite line from "Some Kind Of Monster".

I saw Slayer a few weeks ago. They set up their Marshall stacks in 10 amp by 5 amp upside down crosses. Hot.
Children Of Bodom opened. Their singer had the best metal banter ever. An amazing grasp of all rock cliches. It led me to wonder what it would be like not growing up with English as a first language and being in some Scandinavian country with my only reference for English being on like Iron Maiden's 'Live After Death' record. And then you start a band and every night say "SCREAM FOR ME LONG BEACH" without realizing that Long Beach is a place. That's sort of how this dude came off... but it was highly entertaining. And a relief after being disappointed that Mastodon's set sounded like mud.

New Voivod album. Pretty damn good.

Getting a promo of The Best Of Cheap Trick seemed like a good way to start the day... but then the reality hit that it doesn't really rock as hard as I remembered 20 years ago.

Wouldn't it be awesome if John Carpenters "The Fog" was remade every year, but each year something different came out of the Fog. I mean shit, anything is better then Pirates... Pirates John...? 90 minutes later you give me pirates? Fucking Poltergeist was scarier dude.

Anyone else notice that new Wayans Brothers film "Little Man" is actually a plot line from a Flintstones episode.... seriously.

Okay then. How's that for 10 minutes of first thing that comes to mind writing. Wait, that's the shit that comes to my mind first. I'm feeling fear.

Hot Chip/The Warning/Rating:8.1

"The Warning is propulsion and power and punctuation rolled up into one, abandoning a lot of the graceful, delicate melodies of the debut for songs with more wallop. It was a necessary move-- a step forward-- and the results are mostly golden."

When you work retail the content of the store's cd changer is no small matter. At times it is your final defense in the lines of war with a brainless mob of American Shop-a-holic mediocrity trained somehow subliminally from birth to expect far too much and demand far more from a mere daytime/nighttime hawker of such and such a product. It's a wearying task of emotional acrobatics to pull a smile and a pleasant greeting out of your embittered shell of an existence for every mind vacuum with a mullet that makes that front door go ding just when you have finally recovered from the last stream of questions issued from the larger hole in the head of another PFC in the army of seekers with no intention to buy. In retail land the crashing wave of attack is unending and the war is never won. Morale gets low. The troops grow despondent and ineffectual. "On les aura!" starts to sound more like "screw this job, I can't wait to get home and cook up some candy in my meth lab, err.. damn I've already signed my name for one package of Sudafed this week..." It's low times like this that the parrumpapump of the little tin drummer boy squashed into the black box marked Sony becomes the necessary call to arms, the way to triumph, girding up the will and boosting the old esprit de corps where it was waning so very thin.
(True, unless of course you work corporate retail in which case you will certainly learn to hate music on the whole, having spent months of your life hearing the same volume of Verve Remixed with that endlessly plonking version of "Sinner Man" and whatever drippy Coldplay gem has oozed it's way into the hearts and minds of America via a Volkswagen commercial. Yeah in that case, you're pretty much a strip mall POW. Our hearts and prayers are with you. Learn to like the taste of rat and the thrill of Russian Roulette).
Well it was at that very moment of desperation several weeks ago that it came to my ears like an artillery barrage from allied forces. Emanating from the four stereoed corners of the store came sweetly the battle cry: "Hot Chip will break your legs, Snap off your head."
Yes, customer, yes I will do that. If only in my silent thoughts.
I'm not sure how this disc ended up in the work player but thankful, indeed, I was. I must admit that music associated with the work environment is not always met with instant approval and usually I will summarily reject new material with no further reasoning simply because it came to me while working. Hot Chip's The Warning, however, I could not discard according to this rule, no matter how hard I tried. The beats are too infectious, the silly percussive flourishes too novel, and the vocals just too darned comfy not to warrant at least a few selections entering the sanctum ipodium of the Top 25 Most Played playlist. The vast majority of the songs on this album sound like a group of underappreciated witty geeks with great record collections getting together and having some underappreciated witty geeks with great record collection fun with their guitars, pots, pans, whirly-gigs and um, microkorgs. According to the live videos I've peeked on YouTube, this isn't far from reality. It's amusing if somewhat quirky pop that, despite its numerous points of reference, actually sounds fresh and somewhat intelligent in a swelling market of wannabe tongue-in-cheeky retread dance shite that hasn't ceased to plague since Electric Six invited us all to the gay bar to start a fire or something. Haters.

Moment of Clarity: So yeah, I'm pretty much agreeing with the 'forkers here. The record is good and a well played departure from previous material. There are a few missteps but nothing quite worthy of serious admonition... wait no, the beat on "Careful" is unforgivably heinous and after the first listening finds itself permanently in the "ugh, I hate having to skip track one" club... but, yeah, otherwise good. As for numerical reviewing lets stick with a solid figure 8, shall we.

Oh the Horror. (Haaaw-rahhh for you Jersey types)

Well gang my hardrive is kappppoooootttttt and it is going to be another week before I find out for sure what, if anything, can be recovered. I will try to post when I can but it might still be a little shakey for the first half of next week.

Also would the winner of the Lovel Feathers cd please email me. In the crash I lost your mailing addy and still have this cd looking for a nice place to call home.

This also means my mixed cd is off the trade market since it was stored in my computer and at least half the tracks were things I transfered from LPs and 7"ers and only had saved in my computer. Sigh.

So it goes,
Pitch Perfect

The Pipettes/The Pipettes/Rating: 8.4

Last week I thought about posting a preemptive review that guessed what Pitchfork's rating on the Pipettes would be. I had a feeling it was going to be in the 8 range, though it's not a very strong album top to bottom and deserves something lower.

And then it came in yesterday: An 8.4.

Why would this album get such a high rating? There's nothing new about it, that's for sure. In fact, the Pipettes are decades late to the genre they've decided to take up. And they really borrow heavily from their chosen genre. Is being so unoriginal worthy of such high praise?

Oh....well this sentence explained it very well.

"It's a welcome reclamation of indie pop as the work of bright kids with more ideas than money at a time when the genre's reigning kings, Belle and Sebastian and the Decemberists, are embracing theater-sized, 1970s-aping rock."

I'm sorry, but when did the two above bands start sounding like Yes and E.L.P.? There's nothing wrong with sounding like those bands -- even though B&S and the Decemberists have nothing in common with the type of '70s rock that has got a bad reputation over the years.

Anybody who read the Sound Team review knows that certain reference points are good and some are off limits.

And why is it ripping off Yes is so bad, but ripping off the Shangri-Las is OK?

"That the Pipettes are doing Shangri-La's impersonations on stage is almost a moot point. The necessity and charm of the Pipettes could have just as easily manifested itself had they framed their approach around replicating any other dormant indie pop totem."

Oh, there it is. Because the Shangri-Las represent an acceptable "indie pop totem" and prog rock -- and that kind of bloated '70s rock thing that B&S is supposedly doing now -- does not. At least to young music critics who have been force fed a belief that any technically challenging song is to be termed "self-indulgent." Mine the correct vaults and you will be praised by Pitchfork. Mine the wrong vaults and you're a waste of time. This isn't just opinion. Any band that takes a prog route is, in Pitchfork's mind, standing on the wrong side of history.

So why they 8.4 rating? Plagenhoef puts more value on ripping off '60s girl bands than he does '70s bands. Which is a crazy premise, to say one genre of music is inherantly better than another. Then again, could you imagine if Pitchfork started giving props to Yes, or Gentle Giant? Could you imagine if they had the same hard on over Soft Machine that they do for Can? What if Pitchfork enlarged its pile of Cool Albums And Genres That Are To Be The Blueprint For All Hip New Music?

Dare to dream. But their record collections are just too small, their body of knowledge too thin, their self-awareness too high. Certain records will remain high upon their Pitchfork pedestals, and any group that imitates them will be complemented.

Then again, if Jeff Magnum says he's a big Yes fan then Pitchfork will change its tune in a heartbeat.

And you know what? If his album were released on an American major, it would have got a 5.2 because Plagenhoef would have gone into it looking for a bone to pick. The Pipettes enjoyed a Memphis Industries handicap of probably 1.5 points, I'd have to say.

Computers are stupid and lazy.

Apparently, Pitchperfect's computer ate something that it shouldn't have and is now misbehaving terribly. Things may be a little slow here at TFM until either her notebook gets fixed or our valiant cadre of contributors dive into our CD piles and scribble up something brilliant.

So in hommage to Linda Richman, "Tawk amongst yourselves… I’ll give you a topic...The Pipettes debut LP is neither 'Best' nor 'New' Music. Discuss."

Björk / Surrounded / Rating: 5.9

"It would have been faster just to burn my money."

It's true. It is all very true.

I know way too much about Björk so normally it is very hard for me to read any review and not pick it apart but Pitchfork got this one very right. In fact this is the first Björk release that actually makes me a little angry. Is it too much to ask for at least one brand new never heard before track? Something, anything fresh beyond the packaging and remastered versions?

Damn you Icelandic woman- have you gone mad? Money hungry? What is your reasoning behind all this?

I haven't read any interviews or articles explaining just why Surrounded needed to happen, no less smack in the middle of 2006 when not only is she still very much alive but certainly still making new music and miles from a serious gift giving season. I am assuming this box set will still be around for the holidays (which to me would have been a more appropriate time to release this in the first place) but this heat of the summer street date makes me wonder if the box is limited and if so, to how many. I couldn't find that info on line anywhere so maybe one of you kind readers knows the answer?

To put it mildly I am Björk fanatic and have been collecting her work obsessively since her Sugarcubes days. Once upon a time I was willing to purchase all of the hundreds of singles/dvds/ full lengths. I collected them in numerous formats and in multiple versions thanks to pressings from all over the world but a few years ago I finally got fed up and put an end to the madness. A new release a month (maybe not exactly but it certainly has felt like that) was / is plain overkill. Not only is it financially impossible for me to show that kind of support but who the hell has the time and energy to keep track of her massive ever expanding catalog?

Not only am I too broke right now to splurge on this box set but I also own this most of this material already. Oh and I also don't have Dolby 5.1. Don't get me wrong, if Santa left it under the tree this year I wouldn't complain but it is simply not in my budget any time soon nor do I expect to be upgrading my stereo system in the near future either. Besides there is already Bose 6.1 channel surround sound floating around out there so this collection is technically already outdated.

And just how many people listen to their cds in their dvd players anyhow?

It's not professional of me or very fair to rate a cd collection I don't own / have decided to boycott so I won't insult it / you with a number rating. Passing on this title as a mega-fan I think speaks louder than any rating in print form possibly could. Ultimately it is an artist's choice to do whatever the hell they want with their music but looking at the under 800 units (ouch) Surrounded has sold since its release nearly a month ago also leads me to believe that most of her public isn't buying what she is trying to sell...at least this time around.

There is surprisingly little information beyond the basic sale info about Surrounded on line but I do find these Amazon comments rather illuminating. I know I shouldn't be that surprised but it was still disturbing to discover that even this all inclusive box set varies depending on the country it comes from. (Insert wild cursing here.)

According to her MySpace site, Björk is working on a new record right now so we can expect a flurry of new titles to ponder purchasing but at least it won't be any time soon.

Be Your Own Pet/Be Your Own Pet/8.2

No, what BYOP does isn't exactly the most original thing in the world-- watch out for rampant Yeah Yeah Yeahs comparison-- but they do it with a flair and panache and enthusiasm that belies their youth.

Less Indie, more Rock.

That’s what’s crossed my mind at least a half dozen time listening to some recent CDs these past few weeks. I don’t want clever musical reference to Balkan folk music and Ian McCulloch. I don’t want analog modeled synth lines layered over a sample from a Brazilian pop record. This summer, I crave Rock – guitars, bass, drums and discontent.

Be Your Own Pet have provided me with relief for that craving so far this summer. There are no clever musical allusions, no winking nostalgia – just a singer, a bassist, a guitarist and a drummer playing straight ahead rock. Be Your Own Pet are following an old formula, as ancient and revered as Eddie Cochran, Iggy Pop, Joey Ramone and Feargal Sharkey. It’s also a formula as timeless and satisfying as the ones for bread, beer and barbeque. In terms of polish, the second half of the record has more developed songs – “We Will Vacation”, “October, First Account” and “Love Your Shotgun” show more polish than “Wildcat” or “Thresher’s Flail” earlier on the CD. Other songs like “Fuuuuun” and “Bicycle, Bicycle” survive on the band’s inexhaustible energy and youthful recklessness. I seldom say “Motherfucker” as an expression of joy – Pearl seems ecstatic blurting it out in the chorus of “Bunk Trunk Skunk.”

While there may not be much new to Be Your Own Pet’s songs, I especially liked the production on the record. The band’s exuberance come through clearly without being left too glossy. Fishing around online, I found a Popmatters interview with Be Your Own Pet where the band talked about their producer Steve McDonald of Redd Kross. BYOP spent three weeks in a Nashville studio recording with Steve McDonald (and engineer Jeremy Ferguson). According to Pearl, McDonald kept the band’s energy intact, coaxing them, encouraging them and guiding them through each song. To me, there’s something very right about Be Your Own Pet’s debut being ushered onto tape by a founding member of Redd Kross.

Redd Kross was a teen punk band before the members of Be Your Own Pet were born. On their debut LP, the main members of Redd Kross were even younger than Be Your Own Pet; Steve McDonald was only 14 and his big brother Jeff was 18. Redd Kross went on to explore various genres of garage rock and according to some critics were a predecessor of grunge. In the nineties, Steve McDonald and his brother produced the Donnas’ Get Skintight – another album of snotty, unabashed basic Rock.

If you listen to Redd Kross’s Born Innocent, there’s all the same ingredients as Be Your Own, but with rougher musicianship, more brazen lyrics and an average track length as short as Be Your Own Pet’s. “Self Respect” clocks in at seventeen seconds less than Be Your Own Pet’s “Get Sandy”. “St. Lita Ford Blues” is more raucous and cacophonous than anything on BYOP’s debut. Jeff McDonald’s songwriting is more direct that BYOP’s. However, both bands share the same energy, passion and naivete. They’re kids making Rock that captures what it’s like to feel like a teenager – not in words, but in the performance itself.

I started playing in a band late in my teens, buying a used guitar and amp the summer that I graduated from high school. Plugging in my 50-watt amp and just turning it up to three, I could make a sound loud enough to feel in my bones even when playing clean. Three friends and I spent that summer in a garage with the door up – making lousy music with only the quality of being loud; you could hear us at least three blocks away in our drummer’s subdivision. While we went our separate ways at the end of that summer, those memories of being sweaty and loud stay with me. Perspiration and volume are still cherished qualities in music to me, and bands like Redd Kross and Be Your Own Pet have them in bucketfuls.

The rating on the Pitchfork review didn't bother me too much. However, it would have been nice to see one review that didn't compare BYOP to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. There's too long a line of teens making raucous primal Rock that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs need to be the touchstone for this band. I'm not even very comfortable slapping a number on Be Your Own Pet; a band just coming out of high school doesn't need one more grade. I'll just say that I think this record is wicked rad - kkthnx.

Listening to Be Your Own Pet, you can come to one of two conclusions – they’re not doing anything new or they’re continuing a long line of teen Rock that goes back to Ritchie Valens. You don’t need to have a large record collection to find bands that have done the same thing before. However, all record fans started out with a handful of cherished albums – each one representing hours spend at some dead-end job. And I suspect that anyone whose played in any band has experienced that rush of being young and loud with your friends around you, discovering that you can make those sounds you love, sounds that you’ve heard others make, sounds coming from your own hands, fingers, throats and lips. Be Your Own Pet are still discovering the sounds they can make and it’s a wonderful thing to witness.

BTW, if you don’t know Redd Kross and want to witness them in their teenage glory, you can catch this video of them on YouTube as a starter.