Hold A Second (or Third) Time: The Walking Beat

Blowout is, well, essentially... upon us. For some bands, this is their first Blowout...for others, their 12th...but for others, yet, still...it's their first show ever...

Like, for The Walking Beat... -first show as-a-band, rather.

Singer/songwriter Steve McCauley whirled his way through a year's worth of collaborative experiments in the wake of his main project, Scarlet Oaks' dismantling after three solid years...and two EPs...and three bassists...and two guitarists...and... Before that, he was playing with his brother Patrick in Fifth Period Fever.

"This time," says McCauley, "I feel like this...might be my last real band."

I raise an eyebrow and take an inquisitive drawn out sip from the coffee mug, waiting...

"Eventually you gotta grow up, right?"

McCauley will always put music first. He's continued to write songs through the years, splitting time between special acoustic engagements (paired with guitarist James Anthony) and the sporadic recordings and performances of space-pop quintet Computer Perfection.

Here's one now...

...which gave birth to this new band, called The Walking Beat - featuring his longtime friend and drummer Daniel Kanka on drums, Jesse Paris Smith (of Belle Ghoul) on keys and Matt Van on drums. 

It took McCauley this long to get another proper band to back his own songs because he was searching for that right mixture of people who were putting music first in their lives... A specific blend of folks that never settled together in Scarlet Oaks. 

"If it's my last band, I wanted to do it right..." And that includes staid strings of rehearsing and focusing on recording some songs before jumping into the live-show carousel (another somewhat regret of his, back when he first sparked Scarlet back in 2007). 

"My worst quality is impatience..." Or at least, it has been. Over coffee and tea, on a chilly gray morning, just three weeks before Blowout, McCauley is sounding more sure than he ever has - perhaps he's gotten some soul searching done over this past year of recording (Computer Perfection in his home studio) and the occasional guitar-slung stool strumming set at joints like Steak Hut.

The rehearsals and song development have had a nice flow, each member is respectful but not afraid to offer constructive criticism. "So far there's a good dynamic, no one gets offended..."

Cuz you're all adults?

"...hopefully. -All real musicians, at least. In Scarlet Oaks it wasn't about being prolific, there were great dynamics in it, too. I've always liked music to be simple--who wants to hear a drummer just doing a solo? I've always had more of a punk rock take, -simple, stripped down; that's how it was in ScOk, except for James, who could play circles around me, but he didn't...which was really nice." 

Everyone in this band "has always put music first in their lives." From every aspect, whether that's diligent rehearsals, impassioned songwriting, or amassing (and, sometimes selling-off-for-scratch) stacks of audio equipment. 

And that lifestyle, "that's hard to do...you have to sacrifice a lot in terms of comfort and wealth..."

"...there's no wealth in music."


Whereas Scarlet dabbled in a dusky Americana sound and whereas he's been jamming on more of a traditional country-twang thing with James at the Steak Hut sets, McCauley says that the Walking Beat's been taking him more into the realm of rock n' roll. That...and it's just great to have a piano, particularly the talents of Smith, intertwining with the rhythmic sensibilities of Van and Kanka.

"I'm actually like the worst musician among the band," McCauley lets an easy, self-deprecating chuckle tumble out. "Everyone in this group is a real musician and it's been amazing playing with people like that..."


--So you're technically the lead guitarist?

"I know...hehe...it's terrible. But, I've been practicing. I never wanted a guitar-heavy band, I wanted it to be -rock- but not super heavy electric."

How do you not wind up with a traditional rock n' roll vibe when you're name is somewhat inspired by a Bill Haley (and his Comets)'s tune?  

"I find it hard to write straight kinda' songs, straight mid-tempo songs; but I gravitate toward that sort of walking-tempo, that slow-swing, it seems to be where I write best. Though I've been trying to defy that; one has his own conventions and you want to defy those with every new song you write, you have to learn new tricks, but not get too away from yourself. That's the trick. You have to constantly evolve but not sound like you're pandering... I don't even know what's hip, I'm still stuck in the 60's or something, I guess..."

Oh, Steve, what's hip anymore? Everything and nothing all at once is all hip now...

"It does seem that way. I see young kids dressed in flannels with long hair and laugh, thinking that's weird, that went out of style when I was in high school... Everything's just a sub-genre, broken up into tinier pieces, tinier stuff."

All of it spread out across this city...

"Yeah, a lot of different things, all going on at once around here. I don't know where (The Walking Beat) fits, though..."

But again - if this is your last band, then do it right...

So a 7" single will be out in time for their Blowout performance (Wednesday, February 28th, at the Magic Stick, early). And then, whilst keeping an eye to getting out onto the road, they'll set down to recording their first proper album...

Belle Ghoul will perform that same evening (2/29) part of the Blowout Launch Party (more info here)
take a listen:

We're All Here - Thoughts from Blaksmith

"I've never heard/seen anything like that before...."


Brent Smith (a.k.a. "Blaksmith") hear's this line at the end of many a' weekend's night - around 2 a.m., when he's stepping off a stage inside a local venue, sweat-speckled and breathless, having just rapped his head off via one of his two main performance outlets - Passalacqua or Cold Men Young. 

And that's something the stalwart writer (and supporter of the scene) extends to many other local groups, including: Illy Mack, Sheefy McFly, The Ashleys, / Doc Waffles, / Ferndale Acid Scene, / Clear Soul Forces, / Pink Lightning, / Detroit CYDI


and...House Phone (formally known as James And The Rainbros).

When he got to that last band name, it triggered a poignant memory for Smith, who wrote to me earlier this morning, a bit from some of these bands/artists' backstory:


Blaksmith: "James (Link, singer--House Phone) and I met at a house party in Woodbridge in 2008...
One of those Democratic Society-Red Cup extravaganzas hosted by Michael Shallal, Katie Nolde and Aaron Petkov (now leading Occupy Detroit organizers). The basement was packed and the ceiling was low. James Linck, Ben Sturley on bass (Jessica Hernandez), Steve Kenzo on guitar (illy mack) and Dave Kenzo on drums...

Hear: James & the Rainbros - "Chase You" 

...followed by a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" stunned me. Reggae, soul, a brazilian afro, white kids giggin' to Stevie Wonder like it was a black family reunion...a cultural explosion! I had never seen anything like this before.

On a side note... Noman also played that night. It was Ernie's first time on bass with the band..."

Ernie (Erno the Inferno) Guerra...current DJ (and recording collaborator) of Passalacqua.

Smith, at this time, was promoting monthly variety shows at 1515 Broadway. Newly inspired from the Rainbros set, he set to organizing Hoodstock '09 at the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit "a musical melting pot to unite fans of all genres, with performers coming from cities ranging from Rochester to Riverview..." realized as an eight-hour long show/fundraiser promoting "the many sounds of Detroit."

Smith says that "...Sectarian discourse with other organizers of the show prevented it from happening again" in 2010. "That's when I became more focused with Cold Men Young and later Passalacqua- both groups strving off of a new overture...brand marketing expert Steve Stout calls it "The Tanning Of America".

Our dialogue was inspired, firstly, by the Mardis Gras celebration, coming Saturday Feb 11th to PJ's Lager House, spearheaded by the Detroit Party Marching Band... Smith was, at the end of the day, reflecting upon the need for promotion and further unification (in/throughout the scene) in that regard.



Preparing for a show like Saturday's, one that is inspired by the DPMB's ethos of expanding the special inspiration of spontaneous music, is, Smith said, always exciting.

Seeing/experiencing the explosive rock-n-roll-tinged marchers can be a unique experience. Co-founder John Notarianni spoke of breaking down barriers tied to how we typically perceive a live show. "There's the visual barrier...a band on the stage and an audience down on the floor..." which is broken down by DPMB's inherent tendency to roam the entire space, take it over, spill outside and going down to "crash" another venue. "Then there's the auditory barrier...the music goes through wires into amplifiers and out of PA's...but, with DPMB, having the music actually happening right in your face," (with a trumpet, a french horn, or sousaphone), "how that sound feels, right up at you, is very powerful. Sometimes people will be watching this as a passive audience, and you get right up to them, push through them even, while you're playing..."

People respond to this kind of energy... which includes the energy of the likes of Charlie Slick, Patrick Elkins, Run Jit...and Passalacqua (among many others)...

"I will walk away inspired," Smith exclaimed. "Bryan (aka Mister, of Passalacqua) will walk away inspired. More importantly, the people that Passalacqua'll bring out will see that in this scene there's an inclusive process..."

"...We're all here."

~

More notes on that Mardis Gras celebration (click here...) - there might be a fortune teller...there might also be burlesque... and there's definitely going to be free gumbo and jambalaya (at least when the doors open... - 9pm at PJ's Lager House - 2/11).

Split Infinitives - Shadow Puppets and Marching Band Masquerades - Feb 11

This Saturday, Detroit's notorious Party Marching Band will curate their own Mardis Gras in Corktown (cramming, with all their cacophonous glory, into PJ's Lager House, 2/11)...

Scan the freep this week for a, (hopefully), printed-out feature and brief interview with one of the group's co-founders, John Notarianni (a Q&A, I'll disclose, conducted over fancy, syrup-swirled tequila and magnificently mean gin-concoctions, from his day job at the Sugar House).

I first "met" the DPMB when they burst their way into the Belmont, during one of the nights of the Metro Times Blowout, 2010... Somehow, I became swept up in their mad, punk-brass riffing clamor, and began traipsing slowly behind them - as they, decked in their Craigs-list-catered uniforms (a present from a Tri-Cities IO high school) emblazened with gold olde English D's, trounced in, blurted, blared and musically-inhabited venue-after-venue-after-venue.

That's their thing - communicating the power of spontaneous music. More on that later...

What you need to know is: their Mardis Gras celebration involves a range of performers who embrace similarly provocative approaches to live performance - each on their own mission to shake things up for what traditional audiences might traditionally expect from a traditional ol' music bar...

One of them includes Ypsi/Arbor area conceptual performance artist Patrick Elkins - a blender of music and shadow puppetry whose written, assembled and performed a series of original shows as well as been integral in organizing that area's Totally Awesome Fest.

DPMB has played the Totally Awesome Fest in the past (this coming March effectively marks the 30+-member crew's third year anniversary) and Elkins took reverent note of their ability to conjure "amazing party vibrations." When DPMB co-founder/trumpeter John Notarianni asked Elkins to bring his quirky hybrid of surrealist puppetry and music to the Mardis Gras party, it was an instant yes. Making it even easier to say yes was that the line-up included Elkins' comrade (and former touring partner) Charlie Slick (with his funk-flared backing group Thunda Clap).

Elkins, noted not just for his songwriting (currently playing in Ypsi's Rainbow Vomit Family Band), but also for his creative puppet-characters and dark, dreamy, dazzling productions (some of which have gone on for 24-hours at a time), said that, for him, events that combine various mediums (DPMB's Mardis Gras will also have a fortune teller and burlesque) -have always appealed to him because they offer audiences the opportunity to experience things they don't normally get to see every day.

"I find," he said, "that audiences (and performers) seem to be more engaged throughout the event when they aren't watching the same type of performance the entire time. I think that variety and mystery are important elements in offering engaging public events...."

There's that, but also, Elkins said, "I tend to get bored with doing the same thing for too long. I'm always seeking out new spaces to perform in and ways to challenge myself through performance (i.e. such as the 24-hour puppet shows, organizing free all-ages events like the Totally Awesome Fest, Greyhound bus tours, etc.)..."

Elkins been in Michigan for most of his life, but he spent some of the early 00's in Olympia WA, and then, later, 10 months in Indonesia, both experiences having drastically impacted the way he thinks about live performance. Olympia brought him into contact with active artists organizing secret cafe shows, house shows and/or D.I.Y. benefits, while in Indonesia, he met native incredible native puppeteers, musicians and dancers ("as well as performance artists from all over the world who were there studying or conducting research in their respective fields..." all of whom "really broadened my ideas about the possibilities for creative expression and performance." He also, while there, wound up creating a form of puppetry.

Those two odysses, combined with his experience in Michigan's art scene and traveling the U.S., have informed his current fascination with shadow puppets. It also communicated "the potential for my participation with this medium. My goal with performing live, regardless of medium, is to offer people a unique and entertaining show that they won't experience anywhere else from anyone...."

"As I am interested in stimulating, entertaining, and engaging people, it always seemed like a safer bet to err on the side of the outrageous rather than the mundane when it comes to performing live." In this regard, he finds many, many brothers-and-sisters-in-arms, via the DPMB.

Elkins will be presenting a piece called "Split Infinitive(s)... an outer space/graveyard/ocean-themed story about a monster and a wandering star..."



Elkins recently toured the final chapter/installation of his puppetry/musical narrative exploration "Patrick's Weird Beard Goes Wandering," aided by puppeteer/voice actor/recording engineer Jason Voss. In the meantime, he's been preparing a new shadow puppet show: "Escape from the Return of the Night of Disappearing Pants", to be recorded for a forthcoming VHS-release.

Kit Oh Nine / Fri-Det & Fri-A2 / A Whole Buncha Rap

Some thing I'm digging through, Internet-wise, this weekend....

Former metro-area musician Ryan Milligan, from locals like the Hotwalls and early incarnations of Duende, alligned with Graham Pawluk of Ancourage and Nathan Lelandais-Miller (also of the Hotwalls) to develop a batch of his songs that strayed a bit further into feedback heavy noise-pop - the result of which: KON! LP -an album title acting as acronym for the trio's new group Kit Oh Nein - recorded wtih  Eric Hoegemeyer at Rust Belt studios in Royal Oak.

These songs are up and highly charged, most of them in and out in two minutes or less; dazzling statcy-snow-sprays of distortion, weaving toe-tapping, strummy indie-pop songs out of strands of dissonant yarn. There's hints of ambient-space-rock simmering at the sides, spilling in during the drifty/droney b-section of their quasi-theme-song ("Cloud Nein"), where the vocals intertwine with the humming synth and guitar-reverb, the delay pedals affecting their best dreamy disorientation. We can hear splashes of strutting glam-rock here and there, but things are never far from keying-back up to a rattling rock n roll kick...

I find this track particularly exemplary and highly sample-able:



But this is the particular personal favorite:



Milligan might be calling NYC home these days, but that hasn't kept him from continuing his work with the Hotwalls...so hopefully locals can see a live version of these songs some day/time soon... Find more songs here - (cassette, vinyl and CD versions are out there, though...or, at least, on the way)
 
~

Make sure you're Friday's are properly planned, whether you're in Detroit, or Ann Arbor,
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
But...two weeks from now, there's what's been dubbed "A Whole Buncha' Rap..." ...happening at the Old Miami (Feb 18) - And, indeed, the line up's packed - DC-fav's Ben Miles and Eddie Logix will do a set, as will notables like Magnum Opus and Hugo Biggs / Chozen Few /  and Scav D facilitating the wheels of steel.
 
MC Warren Peace rounds out this line up - a rapper distinguished by his conscious-heavy, world-weary raps that delicately toe the line of social commentary and dazzle with their literate word play (the dude's also an 8th-grade spanish teacher). He's got a new album coming eventually -a follow-up to his debut EP From Detroit to Darabougou - but this writer was asked not to stream any of the newness, as of yet - Instead, familiarize yourself with this track, as it'll likely be made into a video fairly soon.
 
Bolstered by the beats of Mr. Eddie Logix.

Ears are anvils (and I'll pound yours to scrap)

"You invite people to every show you have, but you never expect them all to actually show up..."

Ypsi singer/songwriter Matt Jones had a secret show last night inside Jim Roll's Backseat Studios... I was there with my sad-yet-noble digital recorder...but I won't have you suffer through its humble/shitty playback quality...



Flanked by the vibrant voice of Misty Lyn and the dynamic rhythm-saws and neck-taps of cellist Colette Alexander, Mr. Jones sung and strummed out a set that can only, quite unavoidably, be described as 'intimate...' what with its dangling christmas lights and the added air that we were witnessing some kind of steady unfurling, a blooming, an artist whose come to some profound re-realization, some rejuvenated muse...

The guy's falling in love with his songs again and he's putting out an album on March 1st -free, online - which will feature the full concert film produced/directed by Scott Allen, with Martin Thoburn, Adam Nelson and Doug Coombe...

Between self-deprecating banter suggesting that he'd already peaked on some fateful day back in 2007 when he wrote this song, this song and this song...all in one day, he charmed us with his cherubic chuckles and brow-drying head shakes that every song had some kind of mistake sutured somewhere between its spindly guitar plucks...

They even managed a cover of The High Strung song "Guilt Is How I'm Built," which was nice. But the most poignant moment came when he previewed the title track of his forthcoming album, airing the melodic confession:
"...there's something wrong in my mind / half-poison / half-pure... but not quite..."

"I know I should be having fun..." he sighs and chuckles after the third song... "and I'm so close..."
Slowly he started loosening up through the set...
"I definitely am (having fun) but it is very strange...but I'm liking it, I'm liking this a lot...

...and okay, moving on, this next song is called Jugulars, Bones & Blisters..."

Four Years

This Blog's four years old now... and maybe that feels weird to think about, maybe it doesn't...

I've never really given this thing much thought beyond it being some fervent playground with lucid boundaries, upon-and-throughout-which I could bounce my over-thinking brain, with no tether... hopefully rolling towards some final, profound, destination of cracked insight.

The week I started this blog... I went to see a then-new-ish band called Prussia play inside the Crofoot's Vernors Room, February-something-or-other, two-thousand-and-eight.

Through 09 and 10, they were actually the top answer for me, whenever asked that yer-favorite-local-band question...

And now they're apparently breaking up.

What am I going to tell my mom...

It's weird feeling these passages... (so why linger?)

Still, this band's responsible for some of my favorite live-show/performance memories...

One still stands out - a stuffy, spilled-out show upstairs in the AC Rich loft, across from the Crofoot, with Prussia and The Silent Years. We escaped up there, sliding off of the smog-stricken main drag during the chrome-glistened mess of the Woodward Dream Cruise, back in August 2008...

And now one of those bands is broken up and the other...? Well... the lead singer (Josh Epstein) of the Silent Years was on national televsion yesterday and I'm sure most of us tuned in - watching his new band Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr (with Daniel Zott on guitar/vocals and Mike Higgins on drums) perform on Conan.

Cool feeling, right? Or...giddy/dorky feeling? Jealous feeling? Weird? Awesome? Proud?

It's all a swirl when you see the dudes who used to sit at your local watering hole up there on your tiny tube, glowing under expensive lighting and crooning through impressive sound systems... There they were... still singing through that same telephone receiver used in the very same AC Rich show... Only now glowing with the hysterical sanctity still provided by televised events! 

<--... And shaking hands with this guy...
...stream it here.

(pictured, the work of Glass Action)



I think at the end of the day... writing about local arts / local music during a time like that, you feel what Sports Journalists must feel when they're home team is winning, or heading towards some potential championship trophy...

By writing about what's being created here, being seen and heard here...on a weekly basis, by everyone who lives here... you start feeling like you're ...I dunno... rooting for something?

But certain ideals, values and strange emotions always come into it... Who's the best? Who should get spotlights? Which bands should stay together forever and get more attention? The most attention?

Why do I love all these songs by all these people...

Oh, hell...

Last Show(?) - Fri, Feb 3 - inside the Crofoot's Pike Room - "PRUSSIA was born at the AC Rich. They are influenced by Motown, psychedelic rock, and 60’s girl pop..." -with: Dinosaur Bones / Joe Hertler / Seven Birds One Stone... 

Anyways...


Had a recent chat with Josh Malerman of the High Strung...inside the Penguinarium at the Detroit Zoo...
(the meaty, mad words of which will be churned out in a forthcoming feature). We were talking about writing, the weighty non-stop-pedness of it all...and he wondered aloud: "haven't I written e-nough songs?"... to which I admitted that I often felt as though I could end this blog every day and any day and just walk away...

"But then..." he says. "Something happens again and you're back..."

And is it something as cliched as some perfect/memorable live show, or even just deep conversation shared on icy pavement beside an enclosure full of smelly alpacas and snooty flamingos... is it always going to be something as easy and cheesy as that?

Taking a break, here, for a week... to find out.

Perhaps I'll find it here...
in Ferndale, on Saturday night.

Or maybe I'll find it here...

***Or maybe I'll consider writing about the new Jack White material, a single is streaming here from his forthcoming solo LP, which he claims was some sort of accident, if not, some kind of blunder...

But that's already old-news by the time you've read this... Internet world spins much faster than it did back when I started this "blog..."

How about this? There's a new documentary about Detroit's reclusive psyche-folk singer/songwriter Rodriguez and it's won an award at Sundance...

We'll leave it there for now...

"A Magnet for Curious Souls" - Bardo / Strung - 2/3 - Library

Those familiar with Detroit rock quartet The Questions' style will find a refreshing re-imagining of their characteristically dusky, rampant psyche/blues bellows when the groups lead singer Drew Bardo lets "these songs breath in a different atmosphere..."

...That atmosphere being: the Ferndale Public Library (for an early evening show, 7pm, Friday, Feb 3), joining the High Strung.

That evening, with his bassist Pookie Grech taking some time down in Brazil, Bardo will perform an acoustic set geared away from the "electric chariot" that the Questions have harnessed over the last several years. Bardo sounds like he's reveling in the bit of fleeting free time he's found, with Grech away, to excavate some of the hundred or so songs (from more of his "storytelling-"-angled catalog) that his band mates haven't even heard yet.

This is more purely Bardo's voice and personality, where as his full-band/electric side is molded more to the collective personality of the band (which includes drummer Will Linna and guitarist Chris Kreczkowski). Both sets of material can start the same way, an acoustic guitar and a notebook, but with the full band, Bardo said, "it's refined and surgically altered over time--- but here, I am just laying out material exactly as it sounds as I compose it. A naked honesty that many of the songs I write cannot do without. Some tunes don't work well at all when you attempt to plug them in-- so this show is a good opportunity for me to work some of these idea's out a bit to see what sticks."

Picture it akin to just sitting around a campfire, Bardo said, or a coffee shop for for close family members.

"For me, that's where all of it began. It's exactly what I've been doing since I was 14 years old, so that being said, it's business as usual. The first few years that I ever played music live was just me and an acoustic guitar. That's how I started, in coffee houses and house parties. That's how I met everyone in the early days that eventually became my inspiration to start the bands I've been in. So it's kind of getting back to basics for me-- Or going back home to a familiar place...."

The songs on display at the Library, this Friday, is a sonic outcropping of Bardo's materializing plans to develop a solo album to accompany his current book, hopefully to be published -late 2012.

"Some idea's are much stronger in the context of music-- and when I begin forcing them into my literary work out of fear of losing them altogether, that's when I know it's time to get artistically organized. With Pookie being in Brazil for a month- Will no longer able to play drums, and Chris & I eyeball deep in filming video's to promote "Chasing The Light", it's just a perfect storm for me to birth some of these songs that are emerging...."

So this former slam-poetry-circuit performer is coming to the library to help him take mental/spiritual/creative inventory... that sounds like it could result in quite an intriguing set.

It also helps me take inventory for The Questions as well- going through piles of idea's and figuring out which ones make sense in which particular projects-- it's a bit of a puzzle, but an exciting one at that.
The Questions are also planning to go into the recording studio and punch out the follow up album this late winter, Bardo said.

"I'm not getting any younger, and the world is not getting any more sane, so I guess I'm feeling the crunch to get as much material out as possible. Life is unpredictable and one ever knows when it is going to end, so when I sit here and stare at all these silent songs, I feel it necessary to give them a chance at life before it's all over for me. I'm really digging the chemistry of this project as well- it's really organic. Right now it's acoustic guitars, Violin, Mandolin, and vocals. Very simple. Very honest...."


...and on the subject of libraries ...in general...

"I'm all about the Library. I've been a regular at my local since I was a small child-- I feel they are the last great social institution. They are a mixing bowl for people who choose to be cultured. A magnet for curious souls, young and old. What's not to love?"

This is part of the Library's First Stop Fridays series
Find more info from the 780's and hear some High Strung songs here.

Oh Sees Hear Now

I'm feeling it now... My hands want to come down on the keyboard like drum sticks... the ellipses ...necessarily...allow for me to pull away, to swivel around in this abominable office chair, cruel, cotton-upholstered maiden that it is...allowing me to jolt, to jitter to the beats...

Bouncing and scraping off of bricks and chipped drywall, sommersaulting down puddled alleyways and into dank venues given waning iridescence from the red and yellow bulbs strung to the ceilings, those guitars like malignant motorboat-blades humming and churning, majestic and horrible, a metallic banshee's moan while the delirious clatter of the drums, the clenching, cardio-kicked hits, the splintered hickory...keep you juking, jolting, jittering...wanting to just bring meaty fists down onto the thin plastic rectangle in front of you....

And you find that point... Asdf Jfkl ...where the effect of music becomes inexpressible.

Man...

Today's sonic lunch is a sandwich of strange bedfellows...
it includes switching headphone-dips between what everyone in the indie-music world seemed all a flutter-for over the last month... i.e. Lana Del Rey (and her new album Born To Die) and what this humble music writer would offer in its place, for everyone in the indie-music world to go all a flutter-for, in the coming month... i.e. Thee Oh Sees (and their new album Carrion Crawler / The Dream...)

It was over before it began. I'm biased as I have a history with Thee Oh Sees, having started in on this San Fran collective's 15-year-canon about 5-ish years ago; Carrion/Dream is their 13th full length (flanked with more than a dozen EPs and 7" singles).

Rey, meanwhile, is little more to me than the bearer of the voice, a very beautiful voice, that has bewitched my friends with her grandiose/understated, elegant/everyday ballads about video games and mountain dew. I'm only slowly getting into her songs, orchestral and grand... symphonic strings and samples of fireworks opening into deep booming bass and sequenced drums setting their stylish slow-dance electronica groove and this not so girlish but not so womanly voice kisses and coos but also cuts and croons about new anti-excess anthems... It's dazzling, no doubt. But, at the end of the day, over-hyped?

For me, so far, this feels like a forced dress up, the eccentric indie-songstress framed by musical aesthetics most befitting an opera house, while still maintaining the hints of electro-pulsed, dark-ambient pop; not that it couldn't work, or grow into working, for me...but for now it's not sweeping me away. (That said, "Off To The Races," if a bit awkward in its first few spins, starts to grow on me as precosiu

Then again, reread the frantic and abstruse ramblings of the first two paragraphs and you can see what listening to Carrion has done to me, in just the first two spins... It's been a treat to see this band pinball its way through a bodacious haunted mansion's worth of rock n roll sensibilities, to gothic-psyche-folk, drone-drowned Brit-pop mutations, garage-torching indie-ballads...gangly, gnarly, weirdly valiant...

While Rey sings with an ever present heaviness, love "till the end of time" and "sleeping through the tears" and heart "breaks" with every step she "takes..." Thee Oh Sees main man John Dwyer caws out alluring and nightmarish imagery, that is, if you're able to decipher his heavily-echo-fuzzed vocals; in fact, he's often more inclined to just treat his voice like an instrument, an instrument he seems to take about as much care of as his guitar, erratically swerving it up into falsetto "whoops" and riffing it out for wordless "ah-ah ah, ah-ah ah," choruses, as though his buzzy bleat is just a throat-housed second guitar.

It wasn't a fair match up to begin with...

In any case...both of their respective albums are out this week and I advise you to listen to both.

This post really never had a point...

But here's a point I wanted to get to... ...being curious about Chit Chat


An Ypsi-based band that I can't find a myspace or bandcamp link for... can you imagine? And the song someone sent me is an a file that doesn't agree with my dinosaur-desktop's Windows Media Player, so I have to wait for my lap-top to be rescued...

And so, yes, for those who want to sample from their desktops, their laptops or smart iDevices, you'll have to settle for this video from last week at Ann Arbor's Name Brand Tattoo parlor. The band put out their debut a little more than a month ago and it can be found via Cafe Ollie's Ypsi Music Shelf, among a few other endemically obscure outlets, as well, I'm sure.

More from Ypsi's Music Shelf?

Have a good week, now...

Just So You Know

I've heard a lot of things, but one morsel that I was never told

Is the apple of your eye will eventually mold...

And I find it kind of strange

That the writer and advice-giver are one in the same, but now I......

Mister's proven to be, in my tweaked eyes, one of the more singularly inspiring (and curiously unifying) artists in the metro/Michigan music community. Or, hey, I dunno, maybe things are all just pushing themselves forward organically? Something in the air or the water... Anyway, at lleast that was the idea behind his raps, his stage show, and his work with Passalacqua...breaking down the cliquey barriers of genres...


Whatever it is - I've felt a different energy these last two years since he turned some rock scene heads a couple Blowouts ago.


I excavated interview notes from a chat we had back in November-2010:


"...I think, ya know, not to get too far off, but,...I think it's interesting that there's this massive Detroit Rock scene and this massive Detroit Hip-Hop scene...and there's such a tiny overlap...or not much at all."

...What a difference 18 months makes? Now we've got Passalacqua mingling with the Ashleys... House Phone backing Cold Men Young... Sheefy McFly & the Delorean... and then Mister is going to be rapping over some Duende recordings soon.

His Just So You Know EP drops Tuesday -1-31-12
Backing up Mister's mid-low/midwest rumbled croon and word-splurged articulations are warm, woozy brass, swaying this way and that, with steady strutting beats, and the subtle spry charms of vibes chiming over whooshed/whizzled vinyl scratches. A mostly chill, characteristically introspective aesthetic...


Mister (a.k.a. Bryan Lackner) clears the vaults of raps he's been sitting on for a few years, now, via Just So You Know... Elegant post-bop jazz grooves, and dazzling/smooth piano pours are cut-up by more eccentric bytes like on "Relationship Blues" (with Elemental), where the cold, uncaring voice that tells you your heart-wrenching cell phone messages are deleted or you're jarred by raspy riled up dialogue-tracks from 90's slacker/indie films. 


Mister aims to take you out of the box, here and there, making sure you don't get too lost in the shuffling beats and unfolding the sleeve of his three-piece suit, little by little, to show you that initial heavy, contemplative heart that heaped him forward into his hip hop journey. 

More info from Dr. B productions. 

Magnificent Wails

I'm still computer-less... lily-pad-leaping to a range of temporary devices, even potentially highjacking my friend's laptop while she's down in Kentucky... ...that doesn't mean I can't settle in and take in some music and then ramble about it...
~

Like, say, the gravelly guitars and spilled-about percussion of alt-rock revivalists Bobby Electric...

Low, raspy vocals croon out a breathy growl over intricate guitars that dance and dash from a pensive, tinny twang to all out fire-storm flare, while the cymbal-rattled drum slams and wavy bass lines bring it back to those post-hardcore days of deeply tilling percussion, that dark, cloudy and cathartic aesthetic of howly-ballads, slicing into ya with low, burly-fuzz grooves and tight snare punches... This northern-metro-area rock outfit have their debut album coming out tomorrow...and it's a fine survey of hard-rock sensibilities, if a little weighty at points, shunting forth past the five minute mark more than a few times...but they make it worth it those subtle shades of dreamier space-rock ambiance, like the closing drifts of "I Hate Echoes."

Their release show is Jan 28th in the Crofoot's Vernor's Room. Take a listen:

They're backed by Crappy Future and My Pal Val. 

~~...and, since, who knows when I'll be back to posting regularly...I think I'll plaster a few more digi-fliers of noteworthy shows below...~~

The first being this fundraiser for the Michigan Humane Society (hosted by MotorCityBlog and Most People Are DJs...the former is an assiduous local culture blog and the latter is, yes, also kind of a blog and culture reporting entity, but distinguished by its podcaster/videographer/documentarian Mikel O.D., who filmed the video of FUR -streaming below... FUR being one of the featured bands on this bill. (Others: Phantom Cats / Satori Circus and his Cirquettes / I Love Lightning Bugs / Legendary Creatures... 

...

And then there's this show, which I already technically wrote about here. 

In The Shop

My lap top's in the shop... ...like a race-car driver without wheels over here... So, posts might be fewer-ish and further-between--ish...

But, in the meantime, dig this new video from a DC favorite, War On Drugs (for a song from their latest, Slave Ambient, off Secretly Canadian).

The War on Drugs - Brothers from Secretly Jag on Vimeo.

They're still out their touring, but no Detroit dates on the horizon...

While I'm away...and stressing out...
consider marking your calendars...
Groundhog Day - ...Pupils...Crappy Future...Estuaries...Robin Goodfellow...
Feb 3rd - ...Drew Bardo (solo set)...The High Strung
Feb 4th - ...DJ Ice Cold Crissy...Robin Goodfellow (again)...Phantom Cats...GLOSSIES