Record Time Fest

...a few random shots from my brother's camera...fromthe last weekend of Record Time in Ferndale...Duende and Carjack.

The biggest thing I took away from the story of this place closing is the withering away of community - a place for the music heads to go, a place for artists to meet up, to plan collaborations, a place to find your favorite music - all if it going by the way side...and all of these glowing electronic boxes, blogs, mp3's, they're part of the problem.
Or is it progress?
Where will we end up?

SHOWS this week + GOLD at the MOCAD

DEEP unCUTZ:


a few things to cover...
firstly, later this weekend I'll have some photos uploaded from Record Time Fest (in Ferndale) for the store's last open weekend--which featured an all day concert and a handful of great bands...,

farewell Record Time!


Also, shows this week...

Friday the 28th, at the Lager House
The Drinking Problem plays with Friendly Foes and Mas (pictured)



Also...

The Beggars (also pictured) play the Elbow Room on Friday the 28th



AND...
on the 29th Oblisk is having a CD Release Party at the Belmont in Hamtramck - with Red China

moving onto this week's Deep Cutz..., GOLD--at the MOCAD:

This Saturday, the New Wave committee at the Museum of Contemporary Art-Detroit (MOCAD), is hosting GOLD, an inaugural fundraiser “designed to share a common dedication to the arts in Detroit with new audiences.”


(photo by dawn giblin)

Found sounds, improvised film screenings, hip-hop, electronic, folk and rock music — and possibly the last time to see one of the most vibrant local rock bands of the decade — Lee Marvin Computer Arm, who will be playing live with The Sisters Lucas (pictured), Tyvek, Darkred, EsQuire, T3, The Go, Deastro, The Silent Years, DJ Frankie Bank$ and Bad Party.


Tickets are $75 for a 7:30 p.m. entrance or $15 for a 9:30 p.m. entrance. The VIP ticket receives dinner catered from local restaurants, valet and an open bar, while enjoying the collaborative performance of self-taught filmmaker Martha Colburn (NY) utilizing found footage and handmade filters with the soundtrack of the improvised “deconstructed songs and digital manipulations” of Detroit’s Ian Clark. At 9:30 p.m., the bands play individually selected and stylized pop-song covers from the last 30 years.

Either way, you really can't go wrong, but if you really do have the dough, get there early — you will not be disappointed.

Further Info:
Martha Colburn: "During her performance, she will combine hand made filters, excerpts from her animations and found footage, to create a screening that incorporates colonial history, natural disaster films and her own animations into a light/ picture show."
and
Ian Clark: "He will be performing a live soundtrack to the projections of Martha Colburn utilizing found sounds, deconstructed songs and digital manipulations."

^mocad.com

Lee Marvin Computer Arm...

...you will be missed

No, don't worry, it was a contained blast:

MY DEAR, WATSON!
YOU LOOK ADOPTED
&
THE KEWEENAWESOMEFEST

the latest Un-cut Deep Cutz:


My Dear, Watson!

My button says “Great.” Another button has a cartoonish Stephen King portrait. Another may have bubonic plague and another yet an algebra equation. I’ve known guitarist Nicholas Koenig for a while, (as bassist from the heavily-melodic indie trio, You Look Adopted, somewhat post-punk or art-rock, somewhat electro-folk) but since he moved to Ferndale I found out this ever-shifting homemade button project of his is just the tip of unobstructed forceful flow of creation from the CCS student, be it collage, music, writing or bottle-cap-buttons with pop-can tabs and safety pins.

(As we walk out of the coffee shop he stops a stranger, catching her off guard with the hurried question, ‘You wanna button?’ She takes one. She likes it. She’s got the only one like it.)

Nick’s new musical project, unhinged and amorphous, is My Dear, Watson, (including friends and band members from You Look Adopted: Eric Daniel and Eric Schmeling, the skilled guitar-whizzes to Koenig’s obsessive-self-taught-basement noodler.)

“It’s very-highly-experimental,” said Koenig, 20. “It’s hard for me to differentiate between art, music and writing; they’re all very connected.”

You Look Adopted (which is kind of floating in and out of hiatus these days) has one full length recorded with a second LP’s worth of material ready to be recorded. Daniel and Schmeling guitar workings are intricate, inventive with spacey pedal pushed tones and hooks that can be sweet one measure and jarring the next. My Dear Watson, by its most glaring contrast, lacks vocals (of Daniel) and thrives on nebulous guitar experimentation.

MDW’s EP, ‘Archaic’ is 5 instrumentals with a trio of guitars, seemingly wandering, but loosely structured. The compositions unfurl themselves at their own pace and accelerate whimsically, forming a very cerebral trip. Though each live show has had shifting line-ups, Koenig has been the constant. And, he assures, songs are never reliant to stay the same song from show to show. There are no influences. “The sound could have been anything,” said Koenig, “…which is still where I’m trying to push it…”

“You Look Adopted has ‘a sound,’” said Nick, “we’re a band and we sound like___, but when I try to explain MDW it’s like, well, I wrote a couple of songs that sound like God Speed, or a couple that sounded like Explosions in the Sky, and that’s like…that day. It’s this ambiguous genre, I listen to everything.”

Even though the music’s always different, it’ll always from the same source.

Find Nick, you’ll get a button. Scrummage University on Saturday.

Later on, toward the end of the month, the annual Keweenawesomefest, up on the highest point of the upper peninsula, near the old copper mining community, there will gather a mighty and merry indie-rock, electronic and folk festival for 2 days of non-stop musical performances.

check out here for the line up: http://www.myspace.com/keweenawesomefest

RECORD TIME FEST

To celebrate/mourn/reflect/honor one of Ferndale's great resources for music, media and an overall social crossroads for the arts community, Record Time (the second location of Mike Hime's vinyl franchise after the Roseville store) will come to an end with a 2-day festival of music: electronic, dance and rock - featuring DJ's all day on Friday, 12noon to 10pm and live bands (rock, punk and electro-pop/dance) all day on Saturday, 3pm to 12midnight.



It's your last chance to grab some wax from the Ferndale store, whose sales started to wane in the face of a crumbling economy and society's ever-increasing embrace of technological crutches. Roseville remains open and will likely hold live performances of their own at that location over the spring and summer.

But this is the last hazzah for Ferndale...and it's FREE.

FREE.




Friday:
DJ's Mike Himes; Shortround; Mathew Boynton; Patrick Russell; DJ Munk; The Cync; Andrew Thomas; Dubble; Reggie (Hot Mix) Harrell; DJ Cent; Norm Talley


Saturday: Wildcatting; Carjack; Pewter; I, Crime; Sword. Arrow. Spear; Duende; Dial81; Eagles Club; SeeD; and Champions of Breakfast

(sample some of the bands, then come check them out in store...playing amidst emptied racks and bare DVD shelves...it'll be bittersweet, but it's the only way to go - loud, fast and bizarre!)

also, check out: http://www.myspace.com/recordtime or Michael Sharbatz for more info!

see you there.

Tapes N Tapes and the need for grouchy critics

(listen)

I’ve never been sure what to do with Tapes n Tapes. Or what their music really does for me.

And it’s maddening the more I think about it. But ever since they poked their head into the stage-left entrance of the shaky, fluorescent, cacophonous auditorium known as the Internet, ever since they were pushed by stagehands out into the spotlight, lightly bewildered as they signed to XL on a June morning in 06 and then played live on the David Letterman show that very same evening, they looked around at each other, shrugging, and decided that they may not understand the motivations and invisible forces that sent them up to ‘the top,’ (and when I say ‘top,’ here, I mean being the blog headlines for enough days in a row so as to solidify consistent news-ticker-attention from Pitchfork for every time your band sneezes) but damn if they’re not going to just play their hearts out anyway and not appreciate the opportunity they’ve been given.

And that’s the maddening part—were they given anything? Did they earn it? Maybe. But how can we dig to the bottom when every news story thereafter is going to reference blogs, or the internet, or etc… http://www.musicomh.com/interviews/tapes-n-tapes_0606.htm.

It doesn’t help that a trend emerges after Tapes n Tapes ‘hit it big’ (which holds about as much significance as the addled perception of ‘the top’ referenced above); this trend being Arctic Monkeys, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, or, the latest, Vampire Weekend.

What’s maddening is that I can’t really point to Tapes n Tapes any longer as being endemic to the rashness of blog hysteria – because now its almost a genre onto itself: a blog band.

To Tapes n Tapes commendable credit – they kept a considerably low, blue-collar-band profile over the last couple years, toured modestly and never overstayed their welcome. All the while, they’re still fairly memorable debut, The Loon, has aged pretty well – if still filled with consistent Pixies and Pavement and creep-o-indie-country noise freak send ups.

And also, to their credit, Walk It Off is a solid sophomore effort – no big risks (outside of pushing the levels, fuzz-fucking feedback to the max and nearly blowing out their amps on a few particularly explosive crescendos and riffs) There’s more of a live-ness to it, more explosiveness in the drum slams and spontaneity in the herkin-jerkin-indie-jug band country freak-jaunts that they go on…, but all in all it feels like a well-linked chapter 2 to the Loon.

But that’s it.

It just kind of…is what it is, so to speak. A good record – not really exploring or experimenting but just perfectly utilizing the styles and sensibilities of the golden age of indie rock, (I guess even the Stones cribbed the blues and r&b from the ‘50’s to jumpstart their popularity.)

It comes down to questioning the role of the critic – how much looseness do we want in our artistic appreciation? Should we systematize it with values, expectations and scrutinize it with historical perspectives? Should art be judged? Should art answer to a system?

Only when outlets like blog brazenly tout and spurt and sing about new creations, new bands, new artists with an air of handed-down-from-the-mountaintops—taste-making-sermons; in the face of that there has to be someone who says, wait a minute…what is this actually saying? What is this actually worth? What does it do for me?

What does Tapes n Tapes do for you?

Lightning Love and The Nerve

http://www.realdetroitweekly.com/article_3943.shtml



Firstly, I’d recommend utilizing one of three opportunities to see the minimalist, melodic, magical indie-pop trio, Lightning Love (pictured). Hailing from the Ypsilanti-ish/Ann Arbor-esque realm of the state, they blend the new wave of British-indie, Midwest-underground-folk-pop with overt, freeform, genuine lyrics of smoking on the porch at 4 a.m. and wondering where your friends are, while a persistent, errant piano pounds beautiful melodies (and synth) and adept rhythms to ride along.

Beautifully winding, capricious melodies blended with hard driving guitar chording and the occassional high-neck acrobatics (Ben Collins) and steady minimalist drums that either keep the wheels rolling or set the pace for a waltz, (Aaron Diehl) while keyboardist/singer Leah Diehl's serenades range from breathy heartbreak, sweet-sing-speak to exertive falsetto. Strange-takes on indie-folk and a wholesome more basement band feel for chamber-pop with an ear for wavy-up-and-down-melodies, plain and poetic lyrics and simple, straight-ahead hooks.

Lightning Love plays Ypsilanti at the Elbow Room Friday (with Charlie Slick and Deastro, then at Jacoby’s on 3/21 and the Garden Bowl on 3/29.

Meanwhile, there’s this riveting quirk-pop quartet called The Nerve blending wavy organ/synth exhibitions over crazily hooked guitar riffs that conjure Talking Heads-style art-pop. The melodies are molded by strong influences of the godfathers of pop and sound craftsmanship, and the vocals are capably soaring and golden. This catchy pop errantry can also give way to solemner rhythm-heavy toe-tappers ... perfectly highlighting the faculties of each: keys, drums, bass and a fine guitar solo. See them March 15 at the Northern Lights Lounge. More info: myspace.com/lightninglove or myspace.com/boattoboblo.

Blowout Photos: Oscillating Fan Club and Pinkeye

just a few scattered shots from Paychecks, featuring the Oscillating Fan Club and Pinkeye
...but before that, what can I say? The weather was harsh and oppressive, the drink in-take blurred, and the spirits among friends were as warm and glowing as ever..., electricity is back in the air and people are feeling excited again - not just for their own vain pursuits but in the name of supporting their friends and their fellow artists.

...maybe I'll ramble out a few more thoughts later on, but for now - a satisfactory Blowout, indeed. (Still irksomely impossible to see everything one wants to see...)

Oscillating Fan Club:






Pinkeye:







(all photos by Mike Milo)

Whirled Waltzes and good-time hot-blooded habits

Another great night at the Blowout...,
but torturous, as there's always 6 bands that one wants to see always going on at the same time...(this year, 11pm seemed to be my swivel-head-indecisive-curse-time for multiple bands being scheduled.)

I don't have much to say today...,
outside of:

make sure to check out Paycheck's tonight for the second-night of LocoGnosis's showcase, featuring the inventive 60's psyche-pop-inflected surf-driving rock stylings of The Oscillating Fan Club...



then later, head over to the Knights of Columbus for the Defying The Law Bicycle Club showcase, featuring Silverghost and quasi-super-group the Drinking Problem.




below..., a few photographic details from last night, featuring:
Child Bite
Prussia
Duende
and Carjack

















(all photos by Mike Milo)

Metrotimes/Hamtramck Blowout!

Blowout time again…

Here just in time to thaw our gray-spilled souls and rickety joints from one of the more antagonistic winter brushes we’ve had in recent memory through the ceremonial opening of the humble Hamtramck area to hundreds of wrist-banded Miller Light drinkers on some kind of wink-and-a-nod, wanton tear through the city, the tight-pantsed hipsters parading about with Halloween-conjuring-take-to-the-streets-pageantry.

Rather than make you sift through my own picks for the weekend, you should just go here www.metrotimes.com/blowout/ and decide for yourself, through aid of a schedule and a map of the town.

The faceless internet dwellers, downloaders and seen-it-all-types always rip on this event – but even after seeing my own fair share of them and feeling the temptation to ‘take it easy’ this year, or ‘not get too excited’ or ‘rip on all the new bands who aren’t as good as ____ used to be’ etc…I instead find myself as excited as ever...

This is…well, I don’t know the statistics but, it’s got to be the biggest local-only music festival in the nation; your neighbors, the people you stand in line with at the coffeeshop, the people you read about in Real Detroit, the people who hate Detroit’s over-amount of one-way streets as much as you, the musicians and artists who grew up in the same shitty backyard as you did…and there’s jovial invigoration in running through the sidewalks on these 3 (4) nights of casual mischief and tightly packed hotblooded chaos, to know you have the potential, in one night, to have 4 different drinks to listen to 4 (most probably) distinctly different genres from 4 different bands…and then to know that what you’ve just experienced is only a fraction of what’s going on throughout the small town of Hamtramck at that moment.

Choose your own adventure.

thursday

Eric Dilworth - improvisational jazz and soul - musical poetry.
9:30pm Painted Lady 2930 Jacob

Misty Lyn and the Big Beautiful
10:15pm 3141 (Locker Room) 3141 Caniff

(Misty Lyn is also featured in this week's print-version of Deep Cutz, because the Big Beautiful will be playing the Elbow Room, also on the 8th.

Charlie Slick
11pm Kelly’s Bar 2403 Holbrook

The Decks
midnight, Baker’s Streetcar 9817 Joseph Campau

Friday

Child Bite - spur of the moment, herked-jerked mind rock, with thick bass, insane rhythm, brass breadth and organ/joystick ferocity, easily one of the best live bands in town.


10pm Knights of Columbus (hall) 9632 Conant


Deastro
11pm Painted Lady 2930 Jacob

or

The Terrible Twos
11pm Smalls, 10339 Conant

Tone and Niche
midnight, Whiskey in the Jar, 2741 Yemans

His Name Is Alive
1am Smalls, 10399 Conant

or

Wildcatting
1am Paychecks, 2932 Caniff

Saturday

Defying the Law Bicycle Club Talent Showcase all night at

the Knights of Columbus (Lounge)
9632 Conant

with

Electric Firebabies - bizarre, smoky, tribal electro-freestyling, with B-52's-esque art-dance guitar chording, post-punk visceral (but catchy) chanted choruses and insuppressible synth storms - making their debut at
9:15pm K of C Lounge

The Frustrations - one of your best bets for punk...
10pm Small’s, 10339 Conant

Fontanta - also phenomenal punk
11pm, Shenanigan’s 3216 Carpenter

Dead Bodies
midnight, Baker’s Streetcar, 9817 Joesph Campau

Sisters Lucas
1 am, Kelly’s Bar, 2403 Holbrook

or

The Questions
1am, Shenanigans, 3216 Carpenter

enjoy..............................................................

Prussia: "Sometimes Someone Different..."

Combining starry-night chromatic xylophone rounds with a whirled-sock-hop-slow-dance organ tapping with teen idol-esque near-falsetto vocals, Prussia perfectly capture the wondrous pop-song craftsmanship of early ‘60’s groups, mashed with raw noise-receptive indie rock and jump-the-tracks-and-hit-the-gas transitions that are managed so well, from slow and dreamy to rhythmic and grooving. Check out “Gypsy Ketamine” for the glorious mutant hybrid of Pavement and The Four Seasons, a smooth easy going melody interrupted by beastly feedback explosion-roars; with drums simultaneously dynamic and low key, with warbled, delayed vocals sounding from a basement in a very Ariel Pink-manner.


(photo by Justin Ames)

They channel a transmogrified doo-wop with minimalist organ-swaying, bass bouncing, violin-sawing poppers that build towards eruptive, slow-motion Velvet Underground noise freakouts, then falling into disarming grooves that let the feedback and beautiful “ooh”-harmonies take over. (Check “Cellophane Bag.”)
The quartet’s all in their early 20’s or younger and all play an array of instruments, with unpredictably shifting influences that feel so well-worn but simultaneously far-off. A new vision, people!
“We all play assorted instruments when we record,” said Brenton Bober, “but live, it usually follows: Ryan Spencer (guitar / vocals), Brenton (bass / organs / bells / accordion) Andrew Remdenok (various drums / sitar / melodica) Steven Wagner (various drums / percussion / singing saw.)”
Live – both Andrew and Steven play upright bass drums (“along the idea of Moe Tucker”) with various cymbals, a snare and a floor-tom. “…It’s just that when we play live, we try making it as interesting for us as it is for the crowd,” said Brenton. “Because playing bass or drums can get a little boring at times…so, why not play sitar or accordion instead?”
Here’s the rest of the un-cut interview from locals Prussia, who play the new Scrummage University location March 1st; and Record Time (Ferndale) March 7th.


How and when did the band start/come together...

Brenton: Well me, Andrew, and Ryan knew each other in high school. Ryan was a senior at the time, and Andrew and I were freshman; he was an asshole and referred to us as Frodo and other various Lord of the Rings characters. We had also seen Ryan at various shows as he was in the band “our delay” at the time. It was around this time that me and Andrew started working on music together. In our junior year of high school we started a lil’ electronic band, which ryan heard of and wanted to join. So he eventually did, and we tried to be in the likes of Kraftwerk, but I eventually left to do a different band. Then Andrew and Ryan started a folk/rock project known as Russian Spy Orchestration, and after various members, it once again, came back to Ryan, Andrew and I.

We played our first show at this loft in Pontiac called the ac rich, new years 2006. At the time we had two full kits of drums, of which Andrew and Ryan’s little brother drew played. We then recorded most of the material for our first release “artless”, then took a break for a brief time since Ryan was in Europe for a month. Then the entire band came together around October of last year when we had Steven play saw for us at the painted lady, oddly enough Steven was in the band earlier, then he left, then came back. He then became a member and soon branched out as a second drummer.


I've heard descriptions of the live show recall (not specifically the sound of, but at least the vibe of) Pavement, with a looseness and a quirkiness....would that be something close? what are some of the influences you draw on ('sometimes someone different' has a doo-wop feel, how close is that?)

Brenton: We all really love Pavement, and are really flattered to hear something like that. But it’s never occurred to us really what we are doing; we kind of just do things the way we think our music should be done. We all draw on a lot of different things that inspire us. We all love Motown and I suppose that would be the common ground in the band. But we all love certain bands or movements of music that definitely differ from each other… I suppose some people would think we are snobs.


How would you describe your live approach, and then, your songwriting approach?

Brenton: Animals in the wild. Ha. When it comes to playing live we like to make things as energetic as possible. We hand out random assorted percussion to the crowd to make everyone sort of a part of the band and the noise that creates it. As for a songwriting approach someone comes up with a melody or a chord structure that they think can transfer into something, and then we all sort of build on top of it until becomes a mess of everyone’s input. You never suggest an idea for Prussia and have it turn out the way you thought it would, because it becomes something completely different and unexpected. And I guess something like this is to be expected when you’re working with two drummers, ha.


...and can you describe the live set up

Brenton: the live set up is usually, Andrew playing a upright bass drum, much a long the idea of Moe Tucker, and a couple other assorted drums and cymbals. He tries to keep it to a minimum. Both Andrew and Stephen play the drums standing up for our live set. Steven usually has a set up of a snare, a floor tom and a cymbal. We used to bring an organ for cellophane bag but it became to much of a hassle, and sort of… broke. As for what this contributes to our sound, it’s just that when we play live, we try making it as much interesting for us, as it is for the crowd. Because playing the bass or drums can get a little boring at times… so why not play sitar or accordion instead?


What can you tell me about the LP your working on...

Brenton: well this our second LP. We are trying to branch out from the first one, but I suppose this one has more songwriting then just noises that we happened to like. But hopefully it will turnout okay, when your working on something it’s hard to decipher if it’s just overdone shit or if people will genuinely like it. As of right now, we like it, and maybe some other people will too.


...significance of the name? into early German history? ancestory roots back there?


Brenton: No. the name was Russian spy orchestration, but we figured it was a little too high school talent show? Then it was dropped to just “Russian”, but that’s just a horrible band name in itself… isn’t it? Then it became Prussia on the suggestion of a friend, but there was never any real significance behind it… and never had anything to do with the band kings of Prussia…



Myspace.com/prussiamusic
Myspace.com/scrummageuniversity
(photo cred: Justin Ames)

This Friday...

an invigorating communal gathering, another world inside the humble astro-garage-type floor space of the CAID, with DJ's R-O-Z and Carjack spinning a variety of genres that keep crowds dancing until the sun comes up...