Blowout "Day" 3

So, how's your Blowout?

























Apologies for how inarticulate this is... -

What I saw of Pigeon: Fast, intense, potent, loud - shred-rock with melody, blurring guitars with intricate noodling.
















































































Randy (Deastro/Mirror Image) showcased songs as SX-8-Columbia - which, a quick trip here seems to denote that this is the new or alternate name for the Deastro-writing - back to his original set up of just-him-and-his-robots/computers, but darker, subdued melodies and bass-heavy synths - ...the more darkwave-leaning goth style of Chabot's recent kick - as opposed to Mirror Image's leaning towards C-86 styles.







































Caught the end of Swamp Sisters - sunny steppin' minimalist guitar-pop, well done, fine melodies - (of course, that's through a song-and-a-half).

Bars of Gold - recalls that tired refrain of pondering aloud - that you're absolutely baffled that a band this freakishly good is tucked away in the corners of Hamtramck, a grade A, prime performance exceeding typical Blowout expectations - great to see Brandon back in town, on drums.

Black Lodge - this set was what Blowout is all about..., simply because the name of the festival perfectly describes the set - a parade of guests, including Troy Gregory and Jesus Chainsaw Massacre (the latter having a complete night of contributing noise or music to every performance they attended.) While the band held it down locking in tight with freak-funk/post-punk, singer Kyle was able to put on a clinic of frontman/showmanship - spilling yelling charming flaiilng - fucking rocked it...

Hi-Speed Dubbing - 'round 1am at Kelly's (possibly one of the worst juke-boxes imaginable)
the new stuff sounds great.

Weekend's Winner so far: Black Lodge

94% photos: mike milo 2%: me 4% Lo-Fi-Bri/Carjack

Carjack's Picks for the 2nd half of Blowout

Ed. Of course, to feasibly/physically-follow this, I suggest you clone thyself thrice-over:

Lo-Fi Bri’s picks for Friday and Saturday:

“Yes Yes - The mutha fucking' Blowout is back.

13 years strong and will continue to rock longer than the frickin' Energizer bunny.

Why? Cuz this town oozes with musical talent. It always has, and always will.

That's what we do.

- Lo-Fi BRI"

FRIDAY:

9:20 - Skippers - SX-8 Columbia - Randolph Chabot's new sonic endeavor.

9:20 - Whiskey in the Jar - Space Band - Randy's other new project playing at the same time. Actually I have no idea. Just like the name & the Whiskey's always a great way to start your night -Blowout or no Blowout.

9:40 - Paychecks - Forget - a who's who of Pink Eye Red China Wildcatting alumni & then some. Start your night out with some chaos.

9:40 - Smalls - Pigeon - Saw them at DIY Fest and they killed it. Ray Oscillator, Tony Vegas, Justin with the beats & more..

10:20 - Painted Lady - Swamp Sisters - Love their song on the new Sweet Sounds of Detroit comp. Netty B!

10:20 - Belmont - Rogue Satellites - I heard their drummer's got a robotic arm.

10:40 - Smalls - Bars of Gold - So Brandon Wildcatting is flying in from D.C. for this shit. You KNOW he's gonna blow it up on DRUMS. As if he ever needed an excuse before.

11:40 - G of C Lounge - Black Lodge - All I hear is great things about this band. Can't wait too see them.

Midnight - New Dodge - The Sights - Eddie's a bad ass. And throws down every time. Looking forward to hearing the new configuration.

12:20 - Kellys - Hi Speed Dubbing - Justin Audio Skywalker's years of experimental noise basement tapes turned tightest new band in the city. This is their year.

12:40 - Paychecks - Marco Polio & the New Vaccines - Carjack's brothers in crime.

SATURDAY:

“Ok - I'm not even gonna attempt to pick just one band per slot.

Saturday is extremely top heavy with all kinds of talent.

You honestly can't lose on this night & will be torn in the process.”

9:20 - Atlas Lounge - The Mahonies - 'We're the fuck are my keeeeeeeeeeeys!!!!" Enough said. Craig's the man.

10:00 - Gates of Columbus - Secret Twins - To see why all the blogs are crushin' on them.

10:20 - Paychecks - Duende! - White light White Heat Americana Style. Tight as hell too & can out play you too.

10:20 - Bakers Streetcar- Dial 81 - Local MC with all kinds of strange beats & flows. Straight outta Clawson. The man behind Beverly Fre$h's production.

11:00 - Gates of Columbus - Child Bite - It's Child Bite for fuck sake. Just Go.

11:40 - Bakers Streetcar - Electric Fire Babies - New wave booty dance party get down. Non stop. We can't wait for this!

Midnight - Gates of Columbus - Silver Ghost - So I''ve had their cassette in my car all last year and have yet to pop it out of my cassette deck.

12: 20am- Paychecks - The Beggars - Instant party. Just add beer & sweat bands. Did I mention I opened up for them once at the Silverdome?

12: 20am- Painted Lady - Timmy's Organism - The man's a walking local damaged art punk institution at this point. Mad respect. And always delivers at Blowout too. Go see him. Watch out for flying octopi, fireworks, unidentified hot dog parts & acrylics.

1: 00am- Skippers - Oscillating Fan Club - Last year's Blowout they covered the Who's 'A Quick One While He's Away'. Definitely was one of the top highlights I saw all weekend. Can't wait to see what they got up their sleeves this year. (And just a stumble away from the G of C too)

Notes:

"The big underdog bar this year might end up being Skippers.

It's gotta bunch of bands that I've never seen and it's like 50 feet away from the Gates of Columbus. Sounds easy enough.

Also, pitch that alphabetical listing guides and group bars into geographies.

The best way to see a bunch of bands on any given night is hit up the separate neighborhoods.

You really can't lose from this point out. Hell yes!"

Blowout ("Day") 2

So, how's your Blowout?

This is what mine's looking like...

The little hipster devil that resides in the back lounge of my skull - around this time of year, enjoys hopping off of his la-z-boy recliner and shuffle his skinny-legged-self over crushed piles of ironic empty PBRs to start pulling on other synapes in my brain and deceive me into thinking that it is physically possible to see every band I want to see at Blowout Time - to delude me into thinking its some sort of requirement - a competition - a clipboard-checking scavenger hunt - ...

G'damn it... One must shrug it off at some point... (Head over to Eat This City's recap to read scrawls from a team that took in 12 different bands (however many songs it actually calculated to is another story).

But Blowout is a glorious and grinning trap - You might not want to walk away from one set yet, because to stay for one band's entire alloted slot could prove to be one of the most fulfilling performances you could find. Sometimes you get bit when you try the whole: Hey, I've never heard of these guys before, why not try them? And then again, sometimes you're rewarded.

Other times, you just lose outright. Case in point, my missing Mister at Paychecks last night - an engaging MC, able to balance charm and bite - whose CD (You Can Call Me Mister) highlights a well-versed sensibility in wax-diving sample-utilization culling from jazz, soul, gospel and r&B for a nice delivery of smooth grooves, a fine, fluent, freeverse flow - spoken-narrative at points, bouyant and head-spinning sprawls at others...never bombastic and often pepped with considerably pop-single-ready choruses.

When I walked in - each successive band following his opening 8:20 slot raved about him - likewise throughout the crowd. And I was off, somewhere else, chasing some other potential Blowout epiphany... ah well. While I can't speak for the performance, I can show you this:

So - to briefly recap:

Started with Matt Jones - gothic folkster from Ann Arbor, playing a solo, plugged-in set under some awkward lighting. Balancing a bit of the intricate, bristlying haunts from his debut, Black Path but dominatnig with new material of a sometime-in-2010-new-record...

Then cruised over to the New Dodge for a few minutes to take in the loud might of blues-grooved psyche group Blue Black Hours.

During which time I missed Mister - as well as Haley Jane, sadly. (Symptomatic of Blowout)

Ran into Jon and Carl from Blase Splee - who handed me a CD version of a 7" single - two new songs from the fractured-folk pop collective. Keep your eyes and ears peeled - they're at the Atlas Bar tonight.

Then made it to Paychecks to see FAWN. This is Christian (of Copper Thieves) on guitar/bass/vocals; Alicia (of Nice Device) on bass/guitar/vocals and Matt Rickle (of Javelins, on drums) - Indie-pop vocal melodies (see: Kiddo) over muscular and gritty rock-ready guitars (see: Nice Device) and intricate post-punk-ly erratic drums (see: Javelins) Enjoyable... to get blogger-ish on you... "...if the Pixies were more straight-pop??..." anyhow, they made believers outta the Paycheck's crowd.

Then we lead into Carjack - a tour de force of zaniness, rough-hewn punk rock, spaced-out-electro synth and danceable beats - instilling a bit of history into his set by quasi-covering "The Big 3 Killed My Baby" as an ode to that formidable single's most earliest live performances, on that same stage 11 years prior, (also, pleasingly, infusing a bit of "Nervous Breakdown" but slipping in "another Blowout" over the verse)... New jams like "Black Licorice" got the crowd going - but so did antics with a full ET head-mask, a new fleet of Robots and a dance-party at the end that featured the just-made-it-for-the-last-song entry of this red-suited freaker - (whose likely performing tonight, with another band, for a Loco Gnosis party).

Tried to hoof it over to the Whiskey in the Jar in time for Jesus Chainsaw Massacre - anticipating to be only 15 minutes late - only to find they'd already finished. More info.

Carjack's rip-roaring was followed by one of more invigorating performances of the always-precise and dynamic Zoos of Berlin - really jamming it out at the end with big grins and a flayling, stomping keyboardist, on "Juan Matus" - and debuting new songs like "Movie on August Ray" for their forthcoming follow up to Taxis. (<--which could likely see a vinyl release, soon).

Life Sucks 2 - by Kommie Kilpatrick

Kommie Kilpatrick play the Atlas Lounge - Saturday 3/6 (part of Metro Times Blowout) with The Bill Bondsmen / Johnny Ill / and The Mahonies -

Accost these gentlemen and inquire about CD (rambled about, below)

Kommie Kilpatrick’s latest 5-song release has a shorter run time than the Beatle’s “Hey Jude.” Recorded live last month, one has to admire the, ‘Wellp! Record’s Done...” ethos, they resurrect from the confrontational, empowering, impassioned charge of seminal hardcore punk: fast clattered cymbal sheered drums, roaring, slogging guitar n bass drums (sometimes burying the more distinctive surfy-twanged lead) and barking, howling, motormouth vocals, snidely sneering out scenes of depravity, nihilism and maybe a wee bit of paranoia (for the latter, see the fiery guitars following discernable hooks and pounding anthemic chorus of “Brain Stuff”). Grimy, growling dishevelment, finely capturing punk’s characteristic pithiness (and embraceable rowdiness).

Blowout ("Day") 1

...a quasi-daily-diary...for the MT/Hamtramck Blowout

It is Wednesday night and I’m sated with lentils, coughing on incense, gnawing on peppermint sugar blobs and being distracted every other three-words-typed by the television left-on six feet away from me. Comedy Central. There’s barely a hint of killjoy chill outside. It’s that perfidious ruse meticulously set by Old Man Winter – its surreal to have a warm-ish Blowout experience: as most of us suburban-set metros have gotten so use to wobbling our way over icy sidewalks, faces screwed up, chins down battling blusters with our trendy, yet cumbersome winter coats left behind on passenger seats of cars far down the block where Evaline meets Alpena, by the freakin’ railroad tracks.

I know it’s tradition and I know that we always flip the social coin between the been-there-done-that’s and the this-is-going-to-be-greats… one mind-set ends up looking like a very well-dressed, perfumed/cologned parent rolling their eyes and huffing at the kids running around screaming while the other mindset is probably close to the front of the stage, with their schedule and maps in their back-pockets, ready to jump to the next lily-pad.

Well, more likely, 90% of us will be both, ping-ponging between the two at dizzying speed and whimsicality. At the end of the day, or the end of the 4 days, this is our thing, man.

It’s our late-winter-set Halloween. We go around to all these different houses, dressed to the 8’s in thrift gear and shout and jump in enthusiasm, either at seeing our friends at the bar or seeing our friends on the stage. And there’s never time to stand still – one must always be ready to scurry down the street, bumping into and off-of other costumed revelers coming and going, to the house you just pillaged, perhaps.

Of course by house—I mean bar…only for depressed, considerably un/under-employed SE-Michiganders could I use Halloween candy and childlike revelry as a metaphor for alcohol and loud music.

...My cat, Matilda, an all-black American shorthair, has just jumped onto my lap and is traipsing over the mousepad… …and I half-consider indulging the adorable irony… either way, enough said – Here we are – let’s head out for the first night of the 13^th MT-Blowout – legitimately the largest all-local gathering of bands in one hectic area – we’ll see what happens…

~

(...Thursday morning...)

I navigated the gathering waves of smoke puffing bodies into the Majestic Café to see the last song of Mirror Twin, a new indie-pop group that I’ve yet to find an info-providing myspace site for, but can at least name drop Loretta Lucas (of The Sisters Lucas) singing lead vocals – I liked what I heard, very snappy.

Next it was upstairs to be swooned by the harmonies of Josh and Daniel from Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr – and their still quite-pleasing rendition of “God Only Knows…” – and that’s an admirably bold statement specifically for a pop group – to tackle what might be one of the best regarded “pop” songs by one of the best regarded “pop”-song-composers of the 20^th century. “Simple Girl”’s dreamy-ness is holding up – but listening to them makes me long for summer sunsets – with their preternatural vocal-chemistry and drum machine – it seems clear this is the fuzzy/sunny/poppy cousin to Silverghost’s more new-wave art/punk thing.

Next was Computer Perfection – who had one of their strongest sets – soundwise and performance-wise – opening with two new songs from what will likely be on the follow up to last year’s We Wish You Well on Your Way to Hell – Aaron’s drumming was impeccable; the harmonies were great and Steve got to play some moog!... Oh, and…they had a newspaper monster (who looked like he stole some dance moves from Dan DeMaggio) performing in front of the stage…

I ran upstairs in time to get four or five songs from what I thought was the strongest set of the night from a new personal favorite – The Sugarcoats – well-done-twang-ified-bayou-bludgeoned/indie-punk-rock – fittingly (and awesomely) covering “Electricity” by Captain Beefheart.

Day jobs would call us away before we could The Displays or F’ke Blood – but that’s a review I’m sure the JCM boys will probably cover.

All I can say is…when I walked back down to the Café after Sugarcoats – apparently I missed the Computer Perfection Monster exploding into streams of confetti… Stay on your toes – don’t blink – never underestimate…

Where I’ll be tonight… Paychecks, mostly… but, (at the Whiskey in the Jar)--I’d like to see just what the hell Jesus Chainsaw has planned… head over to the Free Press and you can see them, along with many other DC favs, listed as legitimate Blowout-bets based on “comedic” power of their band name.
~
photos: mike milo

Photo Recon Catch Up

It's been a while since I cleared the photo-reconnaissance vaults

It's probably most useful to start with the most recent and then scroll backwards through time

The Hentchmen played the Park Bar last weekend; a benefit for The Hub of Detroit - and Back Alley Bikes Youth Education programs

Also last Saturday -

Aran Ruth opened up for cool cats space rockers Silverghost and Zoos of Berlin - she has a new 7" out, collaborating with Scott Michalski - more info at Aran's Blog.

And then all the random's...

Gardens opening up for Lee Marvin Computer Arm's Loving Touch (Ferndale) show, back on 2/20 - (LMAC released a single at said-show - and are currently working on a new album).








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The High Strung (above) headlined the Majestic Cafe on 2/19 - an hibernation-damning type show to shake off the winter dust and get ready for the Spring release of their new record Dragon Dicks!

Similarly, 800-Beloved (left) gave a characteristically rare live performance (though they're starting to pop up here and there more often) in the lead up to this month's release of their 2nd LP - Everything Purple.

Keep your eyes peeled and ears bent.

~

Opening up for 800-Beloved and, subsequently, Bars of Gold (who...subsequently, will, also, have a record ready soon)...was...pictured above, the Trumbullplex-born porch-folk enthusiasts Brotown and the Beefcaves.

And, pictured (left) is Dina from the swiftly up-and-coming indie/punk/pop duo Secret Twins - recently named "Best Band You Haven't Heard" by RD Weekly - how many of you haven't heard them yet?
This shot was from their performance at the WOMEN in Art Celebration, at The Crofoot last month.








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Then, a staple in audacious performance art, Carjack, knocked over rows of chairs and tables at a recent gig with the Rogue Satellites.












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The Hounds Below have added Mick Bassett and Ben Luckett on keys and drums respectively - pictured here, Ben, Molly and Jason - the remaining original members, played a Lager House set before they all went westward for some California shows.

....and I think that's it for now.....
(94.3% of photos by mike milo)

Last Minute Travel Guides - Pigeon/Oscillating Fan Club

Hello again - welcome back to DC's Blowout coverage - er...blowout promotion - or what-have-you...

Here - Here - Here and Here - you can read four other paired packages of Detroit bands offering their "picks" for this week's gargantuan local-music-festival - in the hamlet of Hamtramck - brought you by Metro Times for the lucky-#-13th year - Mar 3 (starting at the Majestic Theatre Complex) and the next three days Mar 4/5/6 - taking over Hamtramck, schedule here.

With a few stragglers finishing their ScanTrons, putting down their # 2 pencils and finally traipsing up to the desk, we have some late returns from more bands on the way - featuring, today, Ray Thompson, guitarist/singer of both Pigeon (performing Friday, 9:40 - Small's) and The Oscillating Fan Club (performing Saturday night, 1am - at Skippers)

Here's Ray's Blownout greetings:

RT: "Is it that time already? I can't believe it! It seems as though it happened just yesterday! It's true though, the Hamtramck Binge Drinking Festival XIII is finally upon us and, apparently, this year there is live music!"

HBXIII : pros- good music, exercise, dancing with strangers
HBXIII : cons - blurry vision, slurred speech, getting into the cars of strangers

"So, (my) blowout walking tour:

WEDNESDAY:

I'm working! Tell me how Computer Perfection was...(10pm Majestic Cafe) ...still haven't seen them but i've heard good things!

THURSDAY:

8:40 - Small's - SNAKEWING - kick it off loud and angry to get the blood flowing

10:20 - Paycheck's- CARJACK - I like the future

11:20 - Paycheck's - ZOOS OF BERLIN - no brainer

FRIDAY:

9:40 - I will be incapacitated at Small's (Pigeon set). (Ed. - PS, even if Pigeon doesn't link out on the MT's schedule page - I think this link will work.)

10:40 - Small's - BARS OF GOLD - probably my pick of the blowout!

11:00 - Jean's - BEEKEEPERS - ...catch 'em after BoG

12:00 - K of C (aka G of C) - OCTOPUS -...who doesn't want to listen and look at Masha?

12:40 - Kelly's - HI-SPEED DUBBING - ...becoming a favorite!

SATURDAY:

9:20 - Paycheck's - DEVILFISH - ...Pierce beats me

10:20 - Paycheck's - DUENDE! - ...Duende! owes me money

11:20 - Jean's - PRUSSIA - ...they have aged horribly, (its quite the spectacle!)

12:00 - K of C - SILVERGHOST - ...they rock

1:00 - Skipper's - OFC - ...what the fuck is Skippers?!?!??... I'm not going to a place called Skipper's at 1:00 am in the morning!!!

More info at the MT

Mount Eerie - Wind's Dark Poem

News: Mount Eerie recently saw the re-release of an 08 EP (Black Wooden) on Southern Records.

For info on Wind's Dark Poem and more - click here.

An Aimless Essay – not quite a review…
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Everything you love with end up on the breeze

A soul-shuttering thunderstorm seems to rage over the song – as though the singer (sung here by the ever edging upon tears and ready to howl frailty mixed with a world-weary equability from a man who sounds like he’s seen the monsters) were enclosed in a humble, unstable shelter, a shack or a tent or a leaf-lain ditch while the rattling roar of the majestic and frightening wind (represented here by a masterfully manipulated feedback) crashes in and down and swirls around the soundscape in a manner confusing; you to question whether the wailing gale/feedback of the upset earth is charging up in support with Gaea’s gratitude or with intent to bring the song’s shelter down and stop it from being sung.

Thus, we get through track one of Wind's Dark Poem, one of the most monumentally-missed records of my personal repertoire of 2009, by revered atmospheric fuzz-curtained songwriter, Phil Elvrum, of (Microphones)/Mount Eerie. DC is 8 months late to writing about this album, which is sacrilege - not only in the so-instant-we-haven’t-even-finished-reading-this-sentence-world of blogs, - but also in the ravenously devoted (and enamored) fan base that follows this experimental song-sculptor from Anacortes, WA.

Elvrum (alternately Elverum, with his own label) is one of those talents that feels intimidating to write about – his lyrics are abstruse, sparse and devastating – the words (as well as the voice singing them) feel whittled by the rough unforgiving hand of the wilderness, the same wilderness he overtly references directly via interviews or indirectly via the showing influences upon his photography, poetry and illustration as, indeed, providing him inspiration: They (the songs, the works) are achingly austere, nocturnal, restless; with vivid imagery flashing through like blinking eyes on a night’s traipse through the deep dark wild woods over pallid rocks with swaying gnarled branches above, tree’s arms snaking through the moonlight…

You see what effect it has even on me? I splattered that out just from listening to the 11-minute haunted lullabye "Through The Trees."

Like downing some elixir and losing myself into some soul-dilating tumble of ecstatic appreciation for the pain and the dark and the freedom of the night – the night and nature and trees and mountains – all prominent elements, powerfully depicted, throughout the scuffed (“lo-fi”) cannon of Elvrum, from the Microphones onward, and celebrated in a sweeping summary (tinged, on this record, by/with a hard but nuanced-lean into the harsh roars of black metal, tempered through his characteristic elegiac folk and coaxing electronic textures of subtle synth howls and occasional guitar flickers).

This was an album I’d initially interpreted as the man heading out to the woods (for another of his likely many deep-inhaled hikes of pine and dirt and brisk mountain slope chills) with notebook in hand, to just stand and be massaged, beaten, hardened and consoled by the always underestimated/underappreciated power of the wind – …which, I should stop there before I, in my own inadequate ability…lean towards some “dust in the wind” cliché…but Elvrum, himself sums it up, over a groaning sonorous cymbal scrape and a throbbing synth reverberation on “Summons…” “…I can’t say it, so I’ll let the wind…come wind, destroyer of worlds…show me shapes in the swirling dust…sayer of names...make me listen into the night.”

Another way I, initially, interpreted Wind's…was an exploring of the ominous implications of those seemingly innocuous cut scenes on Twin Peaks showing 10 to 15 seconds of hemlocks swaying in an ever-building gust. “What goes on up there in the night in that dark blurry place,” he asks over the most palatably indie-rock leaning (Twin-Peaks-soundtrack-sampling) xylophone dashed ode, “Between Two Mysteries.”

To come to Mount Eerie, and Elvrum and Microphones through this record, makes me give it a power that longtime fans will only-helpfully downplay and assure that there rests this similar power in much of his work, exceedingly-so, perhaps. It leads to grandiose table-top fist pounds beside my lap top that Elvrum is perhaps an artist who should transcend the eye-rolling cliché of “like no other” and actually, earnestly, have it rightfully cast upon him – because he is taking traditional structures and shattering them into stringy pieces thus that he can expand them throughout larger, weirder, louder realms to where they feel still linked together – the similar chaotic beauty and bewitching bewilderment set on by the deepest tree-tunneled states of our dreams.

“...was it a dream where I wandered off the trail…aimlessly drawn…” (-Ancient Questions)

P.S. on a personal note – I love the fact that this album sounds infinitely, incontestably better – between headphones – car stereos will not do it justice. Get close, press it to your head (your heart) close your eyes…transcend.

more info - Mount Eerie - Daytrotter

fur. - sugarcoats - yeasayer - ginger tea - deerhunter

I'm trying to get myself closer to "Blowout" mode...

Asking a bunch of other bands about which bands they particularly want to see has gotten me thinking (and stressing, twitching, itching) about where the hell I think I'll want to end up - for whose set will I want to make sure to stumble onto, all harried and hurried, in from the cold, to hopefully catch two songs of...

All this while infusing a rotating aural lunch of cheesified no one's watching nintendoey-Alex-F-Theme-glory of disco-pop (Body Electric), mixed with Yeasayer's "Ambling Alp," where I can't help but get pumped up and misty and glitzy when I hear the wonderous wail, "Stick up for yourself...never mind what anybody else done..." I am balancing this with ginger-tea -that I really wish was stronger...have I already burned out my latest addiction?

But, all that said - I will definitely try to check out Chapstick - (on Wednesday) who, if myspace ID's are to be believed, spends half the time in Ypsilanti, Michigan and the other San Antonio TX...

But I think the real reason I'm writing this post right now is that I am smitten with a song and intrigued by a band. Which might be daily occurrences for you or me -

but....but, it's worth noting, or expressing, unabashedly, that I've listened to The Sugarcoats' "Spinning Gold" at least 4 times today, in all it's wailing/twanging punk-wrung-country-kicked glory - (they play Thursday night during the Blowout.) Listen here.

And then, without knowing/hearing or checking other blog's back-pages for references - I opened up fur.'s page - and the incorrigable love I hold for the wavy bass grooves, screechy guitars and herky-jerky rhythms - all realms of what's commonly spat out (in bar-side commentary) as post-punk/no-wave/art-rock etc etc (forgive the tired genres) - sometimes you just have to go listen....(here)

or watch below
(fur. play Thursday night also)

Metro Times Blowout 13 - Mar 3 - Mar 6 - Hamtramck
More "Band's Travel Guides" to come - featuring members of Oscillating Fan Club/Pigeon and Electric Fire Babies/Carjack..

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Oh, and another spastically splattered random thought - Deerhunter is joining Spoon at the Royal Oak theatre at the end of the month - with the commendable Strange Boys opening things up. Spoon - everybody loves Spoon. And Deerhunter, I would really like to chat-with/innerview 'em for that show - but I wouldn't be sure where to start...so abstruse, esoteric and cool..., but Strange Boys--will hopefully turn some heads when they come through - get there early. Early--and this is certainly an "early" post for a show that's more than 30 days away...

Today's aural desert is a new solo songwriting project by Lightning Love's Ben Collins - called "Ghost Stories" - but more on that, I promise... both Ben and Lightning Love.

~

How's that for a bloggy post.