Old Punch Card (Prekop Interview)

Lead singer/guitarist/artist/photographer Sam Prekop has just released his tripped-out, mind-meltin' Moog masterpiece: Old Punch Card via Thrill Jockey.

Listen to "Silhouettes" via Stereogum
and read an interview with Prekop, here, via Tiny Mix Tapes.

detroit: now - (find, read, view and listen)

Here's a link to the Craig Fahle Show's Wednesday broadcast, featuring an interview (just before the halfway mark) with Trever Long (and I). Or, head over here to listen just-to our segment's rambled part.

Find the book of Trever's Photography (featuring 18 Detroit artists, musicians and performers) HERE. (preview below)

Detroit : Now by Trever Long (images) and Jeff Milo (words) Make Your Own Book

more info - trever long photography

Thurs - Fri - Sat

If you've got an Autumn mix burned (or a mix-tape cut together), then find me and I'll try my best to trade ya...

THURSDAY--

Tonight - at the Whitney - Garden Party

-

Timothy Monger State Park

Electric Fire Babies

Later on, (tonight) - at Small's in Hamtramck

Bars of Gold release their debut full length

more info from Friction Records

Read a review HERE!

FRIDAY
Then, Friday evening - at the New Center Park Stage - Oscillating Fan Club come out of the woodwork after recording a forthcoming LP!!! to perform alongside Duende and Macrame Tiger. The third of above-mentioned bands performed much earlier in the summer when these string of park shows were just getting started. It's fitting that they help wind it down. Here's some visuals.

Sparklewood Friendship Society Club from Macrame Tiger on Vimeo.

Macrame Tiger - Lucy Sue from Macrame Tiger on Vimeo.

SATURDAY

Then....

It's Dally again!!!

Saturday afternoon into the evening.

Get a full schedule here!

Local Art and Music Fusion Festival - Crofoot Ballroom - Saturday

Take a listen (below) to my friend Mister - and hear his album on his bandcamp.

Interview: Fur - - @Dally in the Alley + DIY Street Fair

photo: Julia Stephenson

In all those guitar-gored, echo-pulsing, feedback roars, one never loses the clear clap of the beat or the coaxing coil of the melody.

Fur’s defies the lo-fi, gloomy, washed out aesthetic of shoegaze rock and also the freaked-up-firestorm, trippy aesthetic of psychedelic. Pedal-wrung, winding guitar roars and big booming bass may be intrinsic to their dark, aggressive rock, but the group (singer/guitarist Ryan O’Rourke, bassist Michael O’Connor, drummer Zach Pliska, keyboardist Johanna Champagne), come from humble beginnings: basement writings between O’Rourke and O’Connor where “we didn’t even have amps; we had no idea about guitar toning or about pedals…”

They’d met at Champagne family gatherings (as both dated respective sisters, Johanna and Jennifer) and wound up “learning to play our instruments” together, “meeting at Radiohead,” and enduring “a series of craigslist misadventures (to find a drummer)” as they pieced together what would become Fur, a propulsive, staticy-shadowed synth-dressed rock that culls melodic sensibilities from new-wave and post-punk but an edge a more metallic, industrial rock provocations.

“At that point,” said O’Rourke of mid 07, “it even still felt strange for me to play a guitar with a strap.” O’Connor said he and O’Rourke had both played for a while, but had never joined bands. “Finally, we found Zach, that’s when things really started to take off,” said O’Connor. “We were still bad though,” quips O’Rourke, “Zach was good, but Zach’s always been good.” Pliska came with experience playing hard rock, grunge and hip/hop, and had equipment that could accommodate needed demoing at practices.

“Stiff, uncomfortable, rigid,” are words thrown out to describe the trio-completed practices and their autumn 08 debut. The three were essentially getting to know one another through their instruments.

“For some reason I was under the impression that Detroit was a very sort of blues-based, garage-rock, guitar-bass-drums kinda outlet,” O’Rourke said. “So, for the longest time I was avoiding making aggressive, darker music.” Through high school and college, O’Rourke wrote/composed constantly, “a lot of sounds and textures” onto his computer. “I listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails and I think it was sort of returning to that influence and finally coming to terms with it as what I do, and what I like, it was not being afraid…”

With Champagne on synth, O’Connor said, “it gives us a different feel. You have this darker, more cluttered sound then you’ve got this nice, clean synth on top of it.” The synth is key to Fur’s enduring melodic sense, conjuring “those great 80’s groups.” O’Connor and O’Rourke talk about their earlier musical discussions, which Cure album’s better, Disintegration or Pornography, or the charm of Modern English records, the elegance of, yes, even the Carpenter’s…John Denver even.

~

photo: mike milo

O'Rourke, Pliska and O'Connor recorded a debut 3-song EP at Tempermill. Before and after their studio time, they’d had some personnel shifts. The pedals started blooming at O’Rourke’s feet after it became apparent that they’d forge on as a trio – what started as a means to fill space (as one guitarist) evolved into a characteristic sonic aesthetic. Perhaps a particularly “pissed off show” in December 09, where each carried a bit of fleeting irritability, they shared a musical exorcism that seemed to galvanize the dark aggressive edge they’d been seeking…with O’Rourke nearly breaking his guitar on the stage, Champage watched, wide-eyed and impressed. She would later join the band, first as practicing for a one song cameo contribution, then to three songs…then to becoming a full collaborator in shaping songs at practices.

The trio recorded a 3-song EP at Tempermil with Jim Kissling. Before and after studio time, they’d had some personnel shifts.

The first EP is clearer than the follow up. A taut sound only lightly haunted by synths or scorched with feedback – was layered with a rougher, edgy hew for their latest: Devestate the Details EP.

Thus was the sound they brought to this year’s Hamtramck Blowout – what O’Connor calls “our first non-friends-and-family show. Blowout was the kickoff for everything that’s happened for us in the last 6 months, from EchoFest to Fucking Awesome Fest, to Dally…”

“We’ve been meeting a lot of cool people,” Champage said, as they rattle off newly friended bands, Marco Polio & the New Vaccines, Rogue Satellites, Pewter Cub and more.

After they play the DIY STREET FAIR – they’ll pull back, and return to the basement, the place where the three men originally honed their sound through 09, and “get back to the music,” as Pliska put it. “That’s what we’re trying to do now,” O’Connor continued, “sit down and try to get back to the mindset of before anyone really knew who we were…”

“I don’t think anyone really knows who we are though,” O’Rourke quips.

~

Dally In The Alley Sat, Sep 11 Detroit, MI

DIY Street Fair Fri, Sep 17 Ferndale, MI

FUR - myspace - facebook - online

Head Start: A Back 2 School mix

We never lose that Fall feeling...

A special mix for you prepared by Thomas Matich.

Head Start (Back 2 School mix) by Dr. Sweet

Ex-Norwegian 9-3 - Lager House

For what it's worth - I'm, like, one-fifth Norwegian + Newsweek just ranked it as the 6th "best country" averaged by a range of nuanced categories, economically, governmentally and sociologically.

Get an aural and visual taste of Ex Norwegian



Ex-Norwegian brings their aggressive yet easy-going, hard, hooking indie-rock to the Lager House, sliding in along side the psychedelic sunbeam swirls of Electric Lions Soundwave Experiment (for whom this is an EP release show!) and the mad space punk of Carjack. Weird mix. Sprinkle some spices, let it simmer and see how it goes after you stir it straight outta the oven. Have a spoonful.

It's one option...if one would rather avoid the potential beer-downing gun-toters sauntering their way betwixt moms with baby carriages and old folks with walkers. (Don't let that stop you from Arts Beats & Eats, though, there's some great bands playing, and the only weapons they carry are feedback and broken drum sticks.)

800

"No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful..."

-Kurt Vonnegut
(A Man Without A Country)

It's more fun to Compute

....

I was originally going to make this rant about journalism.


How journalism itself has been twisted into some kind of Frankenstein..., wrung by technological advancements, hung, stretched, disemboweled, drawn and quartered and, then,... put together. It was, back in the early 2000's "crowd sourcing boom," electrified by the amateur blogger power-to-the-people-type 4th estate movement. But now, things seem to be changing again.

Newsweek has two new articles that have stirred existential questions in me: Daniel Lyons has an article on the new Flipboard app for iPad that allows users to arrange the otherwise “clunky” news feed links they get on twitter into their own personal magazine.
-While Tony Dokoupil/Angela Wu’s Take This Blog and Shove It communicated to me the gravity of the, on some level, futility, of shouting one’s voice out into this hellish ether called the Internet. It discusses Wikipedia needing recruiters to keep its e-volunteers (now, likely to be students) to continue “updating” their articles, and about how majority of personal blogs (like this one) have started dying off like dinosaurs and that we now, ever more concretely, live in a micro-blogging world of 140-character tweets or four square updates or blisteringly brief iPhone flip-through’s where we maybe glance a news link posted by one of our facebook friends or we make a snarky comment on Huffingtonpost.

So. Much. Fucking. Access. Journalism is far from dead. As a calling, as a public service, its probably more galvanized than in human history. Because if you iPadders wanna “arrange” your own magazine via Flipboard, you’re going to need the reporters to do their job and write/ post the fuel for your personal cache.


It’s just all internet all the time.

That I take 29 minutes of my day to sit at my breakfast nook and read a newspaper, (emphasis on the palpable paper) makes me feel like an old man.


Find your audience(?)

Audiences are now limited resources. And that goes for everybody. Barnaby in Brooklyn or Floyd in Flint may be putting the most obscure links all over their own freshly bought iPad gizmos, from the scads of alternative news sites out there, from the unabashedly agenda-bent polito-blogs to the muckraking anti-establishment forums to wherever else you can go on the internet.

You, for example, are here. And what’s this blog mean in the long run?


There is no more long run anymore. It’s like climbing a tree now, and we only stay on one branch for so long. Newsweek would suggest that we’ve started climbing past the amateur blog and wikipedia-enthusiastic-updating branch.

Are you looking for news? Perhaps you can go onto Huffingtonpost, read up on the blitz of links and maybe post your humble comment in amongst the white noise of the other daily plod of 10,000 or so.

Are you looking for music? How about Pandora? Playlist? Apple? Last FM?


Shit...Bandcamp - or, you can use Hype Machine to find out which bands are the most "blogged" about.

Writer or reader? Looking for Books? Goodreads? HarperCollins? Publishers Weekly?


Searching....Finding...

We're befuddled by a blur of choices. At least, as audience members.

Which makes those on the other end: “journalists” “artists” “musicians” “writers”... have to reach otherworldly levels of dynamism in display and creativity via publicity stunt-type stuff... or otherwise fall into the rushing current left to either disappear into net blipped obscurity or hang onto slippery root weeds along the shore and be hailed as a niche voice on the internet for the Barnaby’s and Floyd’s to then “arrange” you into their preferences.

To at least know that someone, somewhere, is listening to you, reading you, hearing your music. Do we really need the reassurance?

Because if we do, we’re going to have to sell ourselves. Bedazzle ourselves, gird ourselves with absolute coverage, compatibility and net-adaptability to thus compete with the still-comparable big dogs of the internet.

How do you find your voice with these computers? Blogs once were the answer. Are they still? Aspiring writers/novelists could connect with their readers via blogs. Bands could start their own blogs or hopefully get picked up by one of the other veritable “big dog” music blogs be it an Aquarium Drunkard, Brooklyn Vegan or a Stereogum. But how long will we stay on that branch? How long will we use the Last FM branch?

Until we climb up and we all have to readjust again.

We’ve had to do a lot of readjusting – from the decline of books and newspapers, to the decline of letter writing and now, even the decline of fucking phone calls? (The latter being surpassed for either email, but, predominantly, texting!).

The old man in me, the one who reads the newspaper, thinks its just a wee bit too fast. Though, I am heartened by what I truly believe to be a sign of strength in “the calling” of journalism, via the various sources that exist out there for potential watch-dog-ism (whether they deliver or not), I have to say, so much of what I merely romanticize (printed paper, old tradition) has been ghost-ified.


Computer Voices

How do you find your voice without these computers? How do you keep it? In a music world where you can synthesize bass lines, where you can have computers be your drummer, where you can auto-tune your vocals, and you can now read your books and newspapers off of tablets, you can have computers tell you when to turn and how to get to the next stop by car.

And yet, the five basic modes of artistic expression: -the pen for the poet’s writing, -the acoustic wood instrument for the troubadour or orchestral performer, -the marble for the sculptor, -the paint and canvas for the painter, -and the stage/performing theatre for the thespian, all still survive to this day.

And yet, the poet can blog. The acoustic strummer can electrify even a violin. The sculptor could, if he/she wants, use a laser, perhaps? (Maybe not, I’m talking crazy, right?) But the painter has photoshop. And the thespian hasn’t gone electric yet. But still, in terms of performance, you have Daft Punk making themselves into robots.

I don’t know.


Stopping to Look at Squirrels

It only seems like it’s going fast when you stop for a minute. If we’re all swimming with the current, we don’t feel the monstrous shunt of the wave behind us unless we stop and try to stand up in the middle of the river.

I did that today. I stopped. On a sidewalk, on a sunny day, in suburbia. A squirrel pittered and pattered along the edge of the cyclone fencing beside me. He was a mere two feet away from me and had the gull or the nonchalance to stop right beside me, barely even acknowledging me and certainly not showing any prey-like quiver of fear.

That’s it, I thought. After decades of suburban sprawl, these fuzzy rodents have probably, by now, had generations of lil squirrel families adapt to us. Further and further squirrel-adaptation where the passing generation raises their lil fuzz tailed rattys in a world where the big, cloth-covered bipeds stomp about with their lawn mowers and their automobiles. They know the drill. Try not to get run over when you cross the street. And gather ye acorns while ye may before they turn the sprinklers on…’cuz otherwise those big lightly-haired creatures will leave you alone.

If they keep evolving like that, increasingly downplaying our potential power over them, will there ever be a Conquest of the Planet of the Apes type day where they organize and rise up? I’m sure there could be – but not for a while...they’re only evolving at a quasi-unnatural rate, whereas we keep climbing up this damned digitized tree.


What’s at the top? Cyber squirrels?

Anyway, we’ll use the sculptor’s laser beams to fight them off.

Bars of Gold - album release - 9/9 - Small's (Hamtramck)

Bars 0f Gold - Of Gold - The debut full length, out now, on Friction Records.

Graceful, gritty, valiant – Bars of Gold master a balance between soft-n-smooth to the rolling-n-thunderous –

Their first proper full length is a fibrous, bawl blasted post-punk production that’s wiry enough to throw some hard juking knees and elbows into any fray but glossed with an endearment of quieter croons and tight, spiny guitar sunrays that dance down over muscular, jazz-jolted drum barrages. It spans varying moods of grungy grandeur, noise-rock peekaboo cartwheels to barely-held in-place post-hardcore transmogrifications, all flexed into an initially bewilderingly, anthemic hurrah.

See: - the deliciously panoramic, up and down, dreamy rock ballad "…" (actual title, or "Civil War") with its patient, pensive guitars waving up and diving down over an about-to-trip-over-itself marching drum surge, until it breaks away for muted handclaps and off-mic acapella in low burly flannelled voices from all five men. Next, a banjo starts beautifully flitting around the space under a precious moment where vocals show off a melodiousness and are not belted in a bark to compete with the storming guitars, bending bass and occasional synths.

The intertwining guitars and seizing rhythms are key; the sound was honed while the four instrumentalists worked in Detroit as Wildcatting, 'till now, burgeoning with the tornado whirled, belt and bravado of Bear Vs Shark’s former frontman on vocals.

Mandolins waveringly wail in a blur over the most single-ready anthem "Birds" while the banjos set a groove over a devastating drum stomp on the epic "the Hustle"; throaty vocals span anti-consumerism, to avian enthusiasts to the show-stopping, slow-building, album closing ballad of being born "Cannibals."

Formula: The singer of Bear Vs. Shark + the guitars and bass of Wildcatting and the drummer of Wildcatting/Bear Vs. Shark.

Drunken Barn Dance - album release - 8/27 - Savoy (Ypsilanti)

Michigan’s New York son, singer/songwriter Scott Sellwood revels in a resonant, atmospheric-rock scoped, slight-country-twanged folk style. His strummy skeletal songs are bolstered into rich, reverb-heavy sagas by a quartet of Arbor/Ypsi musicians with commendable resumes: bassist Jim Roll (renowned producer/collaborator), guitarist Greg McIntosh (Great Lakes Mytho Society), guitarist Scott DeRoche (Saturday Looks Good To Me) and Ryan Howard (City Center). What begins as a jangly toe-tapping modest anthem ("Leaving Las Vegas, Reno, Laughlin") gets molded by these psychedelic scraping guitar roars bending and swaying over each other until a caustic feedback underpinning starts simmering underneath.

Drunken Barn Dance songs often start in realms resembling neo-folk ("Ain’t No Weather Fouler") or alt-country ("The Guest List") soon disarm the twang-expectation and stretch into indulgences for maybe a hard-boiled murder ballad or whirlpoolish tear into shimmering shoegaze. Songs may conjure a few indie/arty mid-90’s inclinations be it a dark-ish but rousing acoustic spurred dream-rock (ala maybe a Neutral Milk Hotel) or a spindly, quick tumbling, nasally Beatles-pop narrative (ala maybe, an Olivia Tremor Control) to soaring guitars singing the shuffling of a more pensive, woodsy wandering dirge (ala, maybe, a Neil Young). Each entry was captured within just a few takes, after an indeterminate (but considerable) amount of beers, in a whirlwind 8-hour recording span, laid down live.

More info