First of all let’s just get out of the way that the opening guitar chords that jerkily shift up and down the fretboard sound an awful lot like (read: exactly like) those of “Bubblegum,” the Kim Fowley track that I, and I’m sure many others, came to know through the Sonic Youth cover that appeared as a bonus track on the CD version of their 1986 release, “Evol.” Well, this is a cover too. Ty & Co. are offering up “Till The End of the Day,” originally by The Kinks. Ty and crew definitely do their best to soup it up as much as possible.
I’m glad that Ty is continuing to release more stuff with Fuzz. He’s really been tearing it up lately, and I think this incarnation of his writing process is his best yet. Similar garage rock sound, but Fuzz moves more toward the stoner-ish, jammy end of the spectrum due to Charlie Moothart’s virtuosic interjections, than his solo stuff (which has been more on the sad-bastard side of things lately). “Till The End of the Day” is a two minute barn-burner blasting through your speakers at light speed and never stopping to rest.
The B-side to this limited 7″ release features the slow, enveloping sound of CCR Headcleaner. Their track “Free the Freaks” stomps through with a mix of distorted guitars with clean steel strings in equal measure; with requisite vocals buried below the surface and left to echo in the distance.
The 7″ is available for order now for $6.60, while the 2 tracks are available as a download for “name your own price.” Don’t be cheap, and here is why:
100% of the digital proceeds going to the Ariel Panero Memorial Fund at VH1 Save the Music – a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring instrumental music education in America’s public schools.
First thing’s first, I’ve got a couple tracks today from artists with albums that have just come out. The first is a video that comes to us from Jack Name, one of the guitarists currently working with (one of my personal favorites) White Fence. The album, “Light Show,” is out now on Drag City through Ty Segall’s “God?” imprint. There are samples of each of the songs over on the Drag City site, but over on Youtube there is a video for the track “Out of Sight.” The video is basically a collage of what seems to be part found footage, part Live-Leak videos and other such ephemera. The song matches the video in tone, or I suppose that it’s the other way around, but either way there is an air of darkness all over both. A monotonously repeated melodic pattern on a gritty sounding analog synth supports the entire track with a vocal that is haunting in its higher register. Everything about this track and the accompanying video is elegiac and hypnotic. For me, it called to mind the work of Paul A Rosales and Wonder Wheel. You can check out that video below.
Next up is a band from Athens, not Georgia, but the real Athens. Yuri’s Accident may not be dark in the same way that Jack Name’s tracks are, but there is an aura of 80’s dance-pop that comes off sounding a little darker. That the band has relocated to London before releasing these tunes explains them sounding a bit, maybe, like Depeche Mode with guitars, or earlier songs by The Cure; or maybe I’m picking up a little more on a post-punk/Interpol kind of vibe. Either way it’s kind of two heads from the same coin. Dark-ish, brooding guitar driven rock. This 2 track single was also released earlier this week, on January 20th and you can check it out below. There’s a video for A-side “Lights (on her eyes)” as well. The single is available for download from the Yuri’s Accident bandcamp, which can be found here.
Both albums are available now so check out the links in the post above and head over to Drag City to pick up Jack Name’s album on vinyl or as an MP3 or FLAC file. You can also head over to bandcamp to download the Yuri’s Accident tracks.
Frontman of Thee Oh Sees, John Dwyer, is releasing a solo album entitled “Hubba Bubba.” You can hear the synth heavy (more like exclusively synth) track “Eggs at Night” below.
Last month Thee Oh Sees announced from the stage that “This will be the last Oh Sees show for a long while. So dig in.” I learned about it on twitter and quickly started to feel panic set in. It was impossible for me to fathom not having a few new albums by Thee Oh Sees coming out at the steady clip that they have been for the past several years. I see them as the lynchpin that holds the San Francisco scene together. When we all heard that the band was going on a break at first we all went to the worst cast scenario, which would be that we would never hear from them again (though that seems absolutely ridiculous thinking about it now. There is no way that John Dwyer could be away from music for any length of time, let’s be honest. So even if there weren’t any Thee Oh Sees shows he would still be creating music in some form, either solo or with Ty Segall. By the way, why hasn’t that happened yet? That seems like an obvious matchup…but I digress) and then we all came to the realization that a “long while” for a band like Thee Oh Sees, that have been touring non-stop for the past 5 years, is probably only a few months.
So I’m not intending this post to be a send-off to Thee Oh Sees by any stretch. I just want to take a minute and maybe get some other people interested in the band that may only have a passing familiarity with them. Thee Oh Sees are probably the last band that I have gotten really heavily, obsessively into, after seeing them only one time I was hooked. Their live show is amazing, and I can’t even begin to imagine how tiring it must be for them to do it over and over and over again. Not just tiring from the physical standpoint, but also add to that the fact that they are typically playing a very similar set night after night. It’s become noticeable of late that the jammy extensions of songs are getting jammier, which I think might be a way for the band to try to find new ways to keep things interesting. I’m assuming that this time away is just going to result in throwing all of the old songs out of the set-list and starting over again. Clear it out and start again.
With that in mind, I’d like to give my top 10 tracks by Thee Oh Sees. Sure, some of them are in regular rotation on their (former) set-list, but I don’t think that their live show really gives an idea of the band’s range.
1. “No Spell” off of their most recent album, 2013’s “Floating Coffin.” Now, it is really hard to choose a song from this album, there are just so many great tunes. “No Spell” sits toward the middle of the album, tucked away between songs that are more typical Oh Sees fare. I think that what really does it for me is the textless “chorus.” It’s just different enough from anything that they have ever done, and just has a great emotional grab to it. It’s not the typical structure that one would come to expect either.
2. “Tidal Wave” from a 7″ b/w “Heart Sweats.” Short and sweet and right to the point. The clipped guitar style in the verse with the slap-back echo that bursts into another textless chorus with John’s yell. It’s just catchy as hell, and may go unnoticed by some because it doesn’t appear on an album….though it has probably been heard by more people than any other song of theirs thanks to it being used in Breaking Bad.
3. “Enemy Destruct” from “Help.” There are few bands that know how to open an album as well as Thee Oh Sees do. This is definitely a set-list staple, and for good reason. The guitar stomps through each beat with great intensity. Noisy throughout, and heavy.
Enemy Destruct
4. “Stinking Cloud” from “Castlemania.” This album just doesn’t fit in with any of the others. It’s experimental for them. John sings in an affected croak, saxophones and flutes appear on many of the songs, there are acoustic tracks that trot out a distinct Kinks influence. This track in particular is a bit of a slow burn, with some oddly insightful lyrics.
5. “The Dream” from “Carrion Crawler/The Dream.” This album is the one. If you need to know where to start with this band, this is it. And this song is maybe their best live. You have to imagine this songs going almost twice as fast when it’s played live. And as soon as those opening chords start to ring out in all their open-stringed glory, all hell is about to break loose and you had better hold on.
6. “Lupine Dominus” from “Putrifiers II.” This one let’s the not-quite hidden krautrock come out, sounding closer to something that Cave would release, but it still makes complete sense. Psych-krautrock.
7. “I Was Denied” from “Warm Slime.” Another anthemic live staple. How could you even go wrong with a song that has a line “I got fucked up, suffice to say. la la la la la, lalalala la, lalalala la, lalala la…” Bonus points for the brief freakout toward the middle of the song.
8. “Toe Cutter-Thumb Buster” from “Floating Coffin.” Amazing opening. The last time that I saw them live this is the track with which they opened. The piercing squeal of feedback followed by the bone-crushing low end distortion is something that can’t be beat and will never not be effective.
10. “The Coconut” from “The Master’s Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In.” I picked this one just because it is another one of those songs that show the band stretching out and trying new things. It’s moody, a bit slower, and focuses a bit more on vocal harmonies and lengthier, more legato melodies in the verses.
Supposedly, despite the hiatus (JPD insists that the band is not breaking up), there will be a new album released within the next month or two. I will definitely be covering that as soon as I can get my hands on it. Until then, enjoy these, and enjoy the solo track.
I have a few different things that I’m working on right now that are going to take some more time to write than I have right now, but luckily I have an inbox full of music that I am trying to get through. I figure that now, toward the end of the year where new releases are getting fewer and farther between that I would do some housecleaning and share with you some of the very worthwhile stuff that I have been checking out.
First up is some heavy garage rock coming from our friends at Permanent Records in Chicago and L.A. The band is Basic Cable and the release is titled “I’m Good to Drive.” Officially released just two days ago “I’m good to drive” is the 39th release on Permanent Records’ own label. The track is a lot cleaner in production than other garagey offerings coming our way from the P-rex crew, but still delivers all the noise and reckless abandon that anyone could hope for. Take a listen to the track “Blonde Ambition” below.
Next up: what kind of a week would it be if Thee Oh Sees didn’t release something. The stream of non-stop ass-kickers continues with “What You Need (The Porch Boogie Thing),” reminding us that the band has released their 3rd singles collection, available now from Castle Face, there are still a few copies of the Pepto Pink vinyl left, as well as CDs. Listen to the track below, it’s exactly what you’d expect from Thee Oh Sees, and they are never ones to disappoint. Oh, and while you are over there at Castle Face, why not pick up a copy of the new White Fence Live in San Francisco recording, and I should add that I picked up the Fuzz EP live from the San Francisco Eagle, and that record (recorded direct to tape) sounds amazing. Guitar crunch and gut punching bass for days.
And now for something completely different. The Delay in the Universal Loop is from Benevento, Italy and they just released an album this past week entitled “Disarmonia.” The track below is “Spasmodica,” a song which starts off delicately enough, but takes a few twists and turns in the course of 4 minutes. The 17 year old Dylan Luliano is responsible for every aspect of the album, playing all the instruments, singing and writing all of the songs. More information and tons of links can be found here. “Disarmonia” is available worldwide right now. And you should maybe act fast because apparently there are an extremely (30?!) limited number of physical copies available. Head to the bandcamp page to check it out.
Enjoy those, and follow the links to some of the other stuff available from the Factum Est and Permanent Records soundcloud pages. Lots of worth stuff there.
I know that I’ve at least mentioned this album in passing before during past posts, but now that I have finally had the chance to actually sit down and listen to it a few times I figure that it would be a good time to actually talk a bit about it.
Ty Segall, famous for being almost comically prolific, releasing several albums a year, usually with at least a few different bands, has released an album with his newest band Fuzz that features Ty on drums while retaining vocal duties. This, actually, isn’t the only thing that Fuzz will release by the end of the year. In addition to this self-titled debut release they’ve put out two 7″(1, 2) and then there is a live album that just came out this week, recorded in San Francisco at the Eagle, Ty’s home base, for his birthday in which Fuzz, along with Total Control, opened for Thee Oh Sees.
In that teaser one can hear Ty being barely able to contain his excitement when drumming, as the pulse ebbs and flows with each verse and chorus, but Mootheart and bassist Roland Cosio follow Ty’s lead.
And though the garage elements of Ty’s music will surely never go away, they are part of who he is, I think that Charlie Mootheart’s guitar style and tone adds a bit more of a Black Sabbath, early classic rock vibe to all of the tracks. His thick, bonecrushing, distorted guitar tone is way up front on this one. It seems that for the most part, despite Ty being center stage, that Mootheart is actually the “frontman.” His endless and effortless solo work merges seamlessly with his duties as rhythm guitarist. Sometimes, for example on the opening track “Earthen Gate,” he can take the entire song in an unexpected direction, and with a simple harmonic shift pulls the band in a completely different direction.
Though similar in certain ways to Ty’s “Slaughterhouse” album, the hard-driving energy blast that propels these songs takes them out of the territory of sludge in which many of the tracks of “Slaughterhouse” seemed to live. The energy is directed, while the overall sound is allowed to remain more or less raw. The solid guitar work is underpinned with Ty’s explosive drum fill blasts that pop up at every opportunity.
I’d say that this album falls squarely into the category of stoner rock, if that even means anything. But, seriously, nothing screams “sitting in a dimly lit basement bedroom with a group of friends surrounding a bong” than that album cover art. Steady, straight ahead, heavy garage thrash. Stoner blues as I’ve read it described elsewhere online. Songs like “Hazemaze” sound like a few dudes just jamming on 4 chords. Power chords in the verse, solo riffs in the chorus. Simple formula, but contrasting a staid verse with an unhinged chorus is something that works, just ask Thee Oh Sees. In “Hazemaze” Ty gets a chance to really stretch out and show off his drum chops, wildly filling in any and all empty spaces between sections. Another track, like a combination of “Hazemaze” and “Earthen Gate,” “Loose Sutures” takes the 4 chord jam to surprising territory in the verse, and to an honest shredding guitar solo that really allows Mootheart to let loose for a while before giving Ty another shot.
Probably my favorite of Ty’s releases to date. From the classic rock guitar stylings that are brought out more than on any of his other projects, to the more direct and punishing material like “Preacher,” this is really a bit different than anything that Ty has been involved with, though not too different. It’s not like anyone is going to listen to this album and be surprised that it’s a Ty Segall album, but if one is to listen closely it’s Ty’s music coming to us from a different angle. Worth a listen or two, which you can do with the handy youtube video below. You can also head over to Midheaven Mail Order to purchase “Fuzz.”
I find it hard to believe that I haven’t written about this album already. I’ve had it for so long that I couldn’t even remember if it came out this year or last, but how could I have forgotten that 2012 was the year of “Family Perfume Vols. 1 and 2”?
Never before has consistency felt so good. On “Cyclops Reap” we’re given 11 more tracks of maximum grit and garage-folk. Probably the best work that we’ve heard from Tim Presley to date. Every song on here would be at home on a year end mix.
I’m going to be talking about the Foxygen album that came out this year as well, soon, but for those of you that have heard that album you’d know that they share a post-modern take on indie rock. It’s definitely been mentioned on many blogs other than mine that White Fence takes its cues from The Left Banke, which is a route that I don’t think many other people have been taking lately. The fact that Presley is attached to the San Francisco scene that also includes the likes of Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees provides connections between those diverse acts in ways that are improbable, though when White Fence and Ty Segall worked together on “Hair” a few years ago, Ty injected some serious noise and energy into White Fence’s sometime lulling, folk sound.
Songs like “Beat” shamble through the speakers in an endless verse with no real beginning and no real ending. “Cyclops Reap,” like all previous material from White Fence comes off sounding like a mixtape that a friend has handed you of stuff that they have been working on at home on their 4-track tape-recorder. The only difference here being that this is worth listening to. The fragmented nature of some of the songs lends a lot to the sound. One simple idea per song, and sometimes that idea is developed a little further in the next. It’s a stream of consciousness of sorts that carries the listener through the album.
There is a lot more lead guitar action on this album than previous. Whenever there are no lyrics, there is a guitar soloing around in the background, lending an added layer that I don’t think has been explored too much on “Family Perfume” or “…Is Growing Faith.” Take “Trouble is Trouble Never Seen.” The wildly strummed acoustic guitar is doubled by a static distorted electric, and a simple 2-part melody, until the lead line comes in and the song immediately begins to fall apart. Twice. Beautifully.
Following “Trouble is Trouble Never Seen,” “Live On Genevieve” begins with several of the aforementioned fragments cutting in and out. But I think that my favorite track off of “Cyclops Reap” has to be “To the Boy I Jumped in the Hemlock Alley.” The slide guitar melody that comes in and out of play, the incessant interruptions from the overly reverb drenched organ. The whole thing ends up sounding like 60’s psych folk one second and then demented country music the next.
If you haven’t gotten on board with White Fence then start here. Or, alternatively, you could wait maybe another month or two, as I’m sure that Presley won’t be able to not release anything for very long.
Speaking of which, he has recently put out a live album on John Dwyer’s (Thee Oh Sees) Castleface Records. “White Fence Live in San Francisco” was released earlier this month (November 5, 2013) and you can pick up a copy from Midheaven mailorder here. Though I haven’t caught him/them live yet, I’m sure that when I do it is going to be one to remember.
Continuing with my trend of posting streams of gritty garage rock, now we’ve arrived at Scraper.
This is the first full length release from the San Francisco garage punks. What makes this even more exciting is that the LP has been released in a super limited run of only 500 copies, through Cut-Rate Records. Unfortunately the bandcamp page only allows us to listen to 30 or so seconds of each track, but it is more than enough to let us know what kind of jams we can expect from the album.
The singer is clearly taking some cues from Joey Ramone (not at all anything wrong with that), and the guitars are coming through loud (maybe too loud?) and clear. Everything in the mix is overdriven to the point of distortion, and I actually had to check more than once to see if it was just some coincidence that both of my speakers blew as I was listening. (They hadn’t).
For those of you paying attention, it seems like San Francisco is the place to be right now, for the music scene alone. There’s Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees throwin’ down copious amounts of punk thrash, then there is White Fence, somehow lumped into the whole mess with his retro tape-noise laden Left Banke reminiscent tunes, and then there are the even grittier, unpolished acts that make all the aforementioned sound down right radio-friendly like Terry Malts and these guys, Scraper.
Head over to the Cut-Rate Records bandcamp page to listen to the samples and then grab the super limited album. You can also find Cut-Rate Records on Facebook.
Endless Bummer are comin’ at you with 4 tracks of gritty, garage punk mayhem on their “Ripper Current EP.“
Lance and Liz, proprietors of Chicago and Los Angeles’ “Permanent Records” recorded this 4 track burner with Ty Segall and was released on In The Red Records (home to Ty’s ten million bands and some albums by Thee Oh Sees) at the end of October.
Being a fan of their podcast when it was going strong, this album delivers exactly what I expected it to. Short blasts of raw energy that sound like everything that I know they love thrown in a blender and blasted out all over the place in one cathartic heave. There’s not much more to say other than take a listen and bask in its glory. Equal parts noise and surf rock.
Check it out above or on their bandcamp page. Also, two other tracks not included on the EP are up on their soundcloud page. Head over there to listen to “B Movie” and “Runaround.”
This album is old news by now. It’s been out for several months and every music blog on the internet has already reviewed it. But I’ve been away for a while and this album is deserving of all the praise that can be heaped onto it.
Yes, we all know that the San Francisco music scene (Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, White Fence) tends to churn out several albums a year each, sometimes even collaborating on albums like Ty and White Fence’s “Hair,” a record that I adore.
Like I’ve probably mentioned before, after seeing Thee Oh Sees once I was absolutely hooked. They’ve released two albums since then, “Putrifiers II” and before the amps had even cooled down from recording that John Dwyer gives us “Floating Coffin.”
An absolute assault. Nobody does the gentle-verse-juxtaposed-with-thrashing-chorus better than JPD and Co. To me, this is one of the main reasons why all their albums have such a high replay value. The songs are always, without fail, both catchy and bristling with energy. This makes for a pretty intense live experience, and at a show a few months back in San Francisco I learned the hard way that a hometown show for Thee Oh Sees is nothing to be messed with. Easily the 2nd most insane pit since I caught a Lightning Bolt show in 2007.
From the initial buildup of “I Come From the Mountain” straight through to “Tunnel Time,” the album is a non-stop force. It’s notable that the tempo of many of these songs rates a bit higher than usual on their records. My hypothesis is that touring non-stop after the release of “Putrifiers II” and then immediately rushing back into the studio to record this helped them to keep their energy up. I remember after seeing them for the first time and bringing home “Carrion Crawler/The Dream” and wondering why all the songs on the record were so slow. “Floating Coffin” truly captures the band’s live energy. I don’t know how they do it night after night, going crazy up there, and playing brilliantly at the same time for two hours at a go.
Highlights include “Toe Cutter – Thumb Buster” with a squeal of feedback to start and a brutal instrumental chorus that is matched by an equally brutal, not to mention visually stunning, video. This is perhaps in a close tie with “No Spell” for favorite tracks on the album, which has a fairly exaggerated instance of their soft-loud-soft Pixies on crack aesthetic. Again, this song features an instrumental chorus that, to me, is pretty blissful. Sometimes you just get that perfect combination of 4 chords and that is all you need. There isn’t a reason why you have to constantly have multiple layers of guitars all over the place. Simple is better. Stripped down is better. Thee Oh Sees know this all too well and exploit it to great affect.
The album is available on the traditional black vinyl, as well as “Space Lego Green” that comes with a bonus flexi that you can purchase here.
And if that doesn’t convince you that you need to buy this album, I don’t know what will.
Web//Castleface Records//Facebook//Soundcloud//
And now, as an extra added bonus, is a video of John Dwyer beating a guy to pulp with his guitar in 2004 in Toronto while playing as a two piece called Hospitals (0:40 second mark if you are that impatient) :
