Flint Eastwood: PASTE Best of What's Next

http://www.pastemagazine.com/tag/best_of_what's_next

Check out this recent article on Detroit's Flint Eastwood in Paste Magazine:Best Of What's Next! 

Strung

The High Strung site
and on Bandcamp

I know that we're in a basement, that the ceiling looms, stiflingly just six inches over my skull as I stand beside a thin beam, some uneven tile and a large, blaring amplifier. I know it's just another day. And, I know that this is only a rehearsal - but this sounds like The. Perfect. Rock. Song.
Or, at least, A perfect rock song... brought to life by a band that just knows how to do it...

Been doing it, really, for 15 years. So they oughta know... 

There's no samples to stream, yet, for the songs on The High Strung's seventh album I, Anybody, so you'll just have to imagine the aural equivalent of base rock n' roll, with its kicking back beat, waving chords and cresting choruses, lionized into a ballet, on-point, arched, twirled and taut - where the suspense inherent to a crude punk outfit fraying their strings off the neck and missing downbeats threatening to have the song fall to pieces before it can realize its beauty, is now a novelty more than a decade behind these guys. They're savvier in their song-making, sure, but it's something more mysterious - like the weird telepathy akin to brotherliness. You wanna make a song together? Let's make a song together... A song about changing, about new points of view, about being awake all night, sleeping all day and having some kind of rattling re-awakening altogether.

I, Anybody
by
The High Strung

I, Anybody will be an album that runs up to your door, flings it opens, pulls you outside and leads you by the hand, initiating, imploring, declaring with a downplayed shout, that the time is now, so can we get on with it?

Its lyrical themes and propulsive tempos, its mustering of major keys and warm tones and all its cresting crescendos suggest the charting of new course. These aren’t drums you could dance to, but you could certainly run with them, caper and pogo, even. Pianos and percussive bells bring a cheery radiance that garnish reverb-sopped guitar solos and silky bass swirls. Now, this makes I, Anybody sound as it it may be something overly exuberant, but not so much – it’s more like an assuring Eureka! An exhale...that's trundled out with feedback and bass-drums.

 At this point, they've amassed an imposing amount of chemistry that burns brightly, right off the record, with cool charisma. They’re not about to waste their time or yours making disingenuous, clichéd or perfunctory record of faux-soul-searching. They’ve got their craft, their character and their karma firmly grasped.

I, Anybody is coming...January 10th

New Fortune Records 

Release show - Ferndale's Magic Bag -with: Oscillating Fan Club, & Pewter Cub. 

Mittenfest 8

http://mittenfest.org

a Gypsy Chorus and some Cavemen

It's (almost) Saturday and you might be in need of some more celebratory noise, some punk-splashed plastic cups of egg-nog and some tumultuous tidings of good cheer...
Who better to deliver -than Caveman Woodman?

Actually, Woodman (pictured above, Left,) will be inviting his musically-gifted family members onto the stage for a more traditional, er, less primal... recital of rock tunes - with Bam Bam Moss (aka Brandon Moss of Bars of Gold) on drums. 

.....


And a few days after that... If you're in need of a destination for your New Year's Reverie, a place to push the old away and reel in the new... why not The New Way Bar, in Ferndale?
That's where George Morris & The Gypsy Chorus will be hosting an end of the year blow-out. Well, it's intended to be a blow-out... It's dependent, possibly, on you, whether it gets that exuberant enough -to warrant formal blow-out status!

Major Part(s) of the Mittenfest Experience

I write about Mittenfest every year because it brings the music community together, into Woodruff’s adhoc “living room,” to recite crackling rock tunes, folk ballads and even some hip-hop. Nestled around the fireplace, it’s an inspiring 5-day-long-moment of explosive camaraderie. But, let’s not forget, there are dynamic displays of the local talents from our fine indie-music scene.
Really, each year, I’m writing about 826 Michigan

Read more from last year's Mittenfest musing via the Ann Arbor Current 

A toast to 826Michigan and Mittenfest

Thus begins a marathon of really long days and blown out ears and one hangover supplanting another but that's a major part of the experience. --Matthew Milia (Frontier Ruckus)

Read on... The Soundtrack of 826Michigan via the Ann Arbor Current 

Friday, December 27

7:15P
TIMOTHY MONGER - Saline, MI
http://timothymonger.com/

8:00P
ILL ITCHES - Detroit, MI
http://theillitches.bandcamp.com/

8:45P
LAWLESS CARVER - Ypsilanti, MI
http://lawlesscarver.bandcamp.com/

9:30P
IN FACT - Ypsilanti, MI
https://soundcloud.com/infactsounds

10:15P
SKULLLS - Pinckney, MI
https://www.facebook.com/skulllssongs

11:00P
ALEXIS - Grand Rapids, MI
http://www.musicofalexis.com/

11:45P
BREEZEE ONE - Detroit, MI
http://www.breezeeone.com/

12:40A
CHAMPIONS OF BREAKFAST - Detroit, MI
http://championsofbreakfast.bandcamp.com/

Here

Staving off cynicism just as anyone else is at this time of year; telling myself I should be a better human being just as anyone else this time of year; thinking I could do a just as much of a better job at showing the people in my life how much they mean to me as anyone else is likely feeling this time of year; feeling lonely, maybe, just as anyone else this time of year, and then feeling utterly lucky to be alive, just as anyone else is this time of year. 

I’m typing my way towards the difference between Happiness and Joy.

Happiness is what’s on television. Happiness is sold to you, cajoling you, a false sense of you-name-it, security, confidence, esteem. There’s nothing wrong with Happiness, it’s just something that you spread more akin to the saccharine preserves from a factory-sealed, machine-stirred jar you bought from a store that was loaded off a truck and produced by a corporation.

Joy is something…brighter, warmer, fuzzier, unknowable.

Why mince words? The thesaurus will tell you that both words mean pretty much the same thing.

But why, this being the Christmas season, is everyone suddenly aware of the word Joy… Why is it in so many non-secular X-Mas songs, the ones about Jesus and what-have-you, going on and on about bringing Joy to the World? It just suddenly started driving me a bit ponderously mad – thinking, now, that that might be the most valuable thing about the whole Christmas Season. Joy. 

(And when I use that phrase “season,” I don’t mean something meteorological, I don’t mean something evocative as leaves and sunshine and snow and insects, I mean something more crass like Oscar Season, or Baseball Season…I mean something that’s more perfunctory).

Happiness is something you have, I think… And Joy is something you give.

The emphasis, though, is that Joy is something less tangible than a new pair of headphones or pre-paid tickets to the Car Wash… 

And that’s when I, just like every other Mickey-Mouse-Charlie-Brown-Yukon-Cornelius-Christmas-Special…enter the clichéd refrain of having this intangible “joy” be something you keep…I don’t know where, maybe in your heart? Let it be something that leaves a mark upon the people you know and love, like delicately carved initials into the bark of their heart or abstract paint scrawls upon the canvas of their soul… You pick your visual metaphor.

Leave your mark. Leave joy.

And leave Happiness on the shelves of the department stores. Save your money…for more meaningful causes.

“I’m not…cra-zy… It’s (almost) Christmas Eve. It’s the one night when we all act a little nicer. We….smile a little easier. We…we…share a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be…”

How in the name of whatever-sanctified-spirit-Above, did I wind up quoting a movie? That’s my own weakness, a muscle atrophied by the distraction prevailed by the digital age…Because a movie is probably playing right now on your television, telling you about happiness and joy.

The impact depends upon whether you just re-quote it or whether you try giving it out…

“Oh, by the way… here.”

Gleaners Food Bank
Forgotten Harvest
South Oakland Shelter
Capuchin Soup Kitchen
SOS Community Services

The Year in local Music Videos

First, here's a teaser of a video that'll be premiering soon, featuring The Jamaican Queens
Jamaican Queens 'Wellfleet Outro' [Trailer 2] from The Right Brothers on Vimeo.

In the meantime... Here's another video by videographer duo The Right Brothers (who are wrapping up the JamQ clip streaming above):

Mic Phelps & Britney Stoney - Burn
Mic Phelps & Britney Stoney 'Burn' Live from The Right Brothers on Vimeo.

Also, there's a new music video for the Hard Lessons' lead single of their forthcoming album Finish What You Started Stay tuned to their main site for updates on that as well as info regarding their 8th annual Post-X-Mas Concert (12/26) at St. Andrew's Hall. 

More Videos on the way in 2014 - from James Linck and Mic Write

Okay then--- Some, if maybe half, of the sensational videos that were released by Michigan-based talent.

At a time when the Facebooks and Twitters of the world have palpably wobbled our attention spans, music videos have re-risen, not just as creative outlets for bands, cinematographers and directors (not to mention enthusiastic extras), but also as a means for bands to get their songs out there, into the ominous, quaking Internet ether...It's disconcerting that the music generation coming up, out of their teens and into their 20's, now, are more attuned to a musical-intake alike to a stick of chewing gum, just streaming something once or twice and moving on... I don't know where we're headed, if that continues to be the case, but I do know that some exceptional videos were produced this year, here, in and around the city and throughout the state, by our homegrown talent.

A video is always twice as enticing as a bandcamp-stream, after all - Zap our eyes with imagery, local artists... Dazzle us, and we're sure to keep that song you wrote stuck in our heads for the rest of the day, after the embedded clip refreshes.

On with the videos:
Odd Hours - Khaleesi



The Silent Lions - Terrible Days



Carjack - 2013 Theme
CARJACK - Theme 2013 (Music Video) from Mike Rozman on Vimeo.


Eddie Logix - In The Meantime (feat. Mister & Benjamin Miles)



The Kickstand Band - Still Thinking Of You Tonight



Double Weirdo - Tame Tame



George Morris & The Gypsy Chorus - Fuck It



Clear Soul Forces - Ain't Playin



Black Milk - Sunday's Best / Monday's Worst



Jamaican Queens - Can't Say No To Annie



Frontier Ruckus - Black Holes

Eddie Logix & Doc Waffles - Painting Of Cats

Pewter Cub - King Baby

Johnny Ill Band - Used To Be Confused

Microphone Phelps - Ambitions of a Writer

And, finally...

Bars Of Gold will, at some point, be premiering a proper music video for their next single (off of Wheels) called "Blue Lightning." It sounds (and looks) like the video below.


...Wait...wait...
Two more...

Christopher Jarvis - Star Tetrahedron



Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr - If You Didn't See Me...

Cassanova by Loretta Lucas - 12/28 - WAB (Ferndale) with Violets / Laura Finlay

I listened to Loretta Lucas' 2012 performance at the annual Dally in the Alley in midtown and, walking away from that in a subtle daze, the song that stuck with me the most, haunted me the most - turns out to be the flipside of her forthcoming single: "Cassanova."

The song of which I speak, though, with its enticing melodic swirl and strutting-Spectory-back-beat, is "Interim." And I employ the tired, cliched descriptor: "haunting," only because its Lucas' signature - something like purposefully tipping framed art crooked on the wall or bringing orchid flowers under the sinister glow of neon black light bulbs, the allure of making what would otherwise be a blend of folk and early 60's pop into something more, (again, a tired, cliched descriptor:) "gothic..." It's in the graceful use of minor keys, a bent or hollow sound from the acoustic string and the minimalist percussion, or in the way her vocals loft down like a beautiful ghost at the chorus of "Interim..."
"No one can own my soul...."



But again, that's the flipside. "Cassanova" will be the lead-off. This stout, brooding bass churns with the ever-more-distorted and ever-more insistent hits upon the drums while Lucas, double-tracked, harmonizes a duet with herself to a dazzling effect, with her breathy, fluttering incantation invoking "up and away..." Up, up and away...as though the vocal melody is trying to break free and fly away from the comparatively dark, dirgey sound of the rhythms below.

Jesse Shepherd-Bates (...of many projects and passions) directed a music video for "Cassanova," which should be online by the time of the release concert:

12/28 at the W.A.B. with Laura Finlay and Violets.
22646 Woodward Ave

(Don't) Let It Go: Malkmus & The Jicks in Ferndale (in February)

I wasn't a Pavement fan for very long before they broke up... 

But, I still think I can say I was a Pavement fan before a lot of other Pavement fans. 

Then again, I can't say that I was a fan of the Fall before a lot of other higher ranked reputable fans were...

I liked Captain Beefheart before Jack Black was throwing around his record in a scene from High Fidelity or before Mark Maran worked the quirky maestro into his set as an awesome, surreal existentialist joke.

But I'm only so old, it's not like I could have been there...to see Guided By Voices on their 1994 tour or to be bring Sebadoh III CD up to the counter at the record shop to buy it in its first week of release. I started listening to the Velvet Underground the first week I could drive a car, for however much that counts.

Why is it that we get so...protective, or edgy, about losing our beloved icons to a mass of new listeners who, god forbid, didn't get to know the band in the same special way, be it in person or be it in their early stages or be it during their darkest-of-unknown-dark-horse days?

Stephen Malkmus has been with the Jicks nearly as long as he fronted the Pitchfork-deified indie-rock outfit Pavement. And with Wig Out at Jagbags coming out in a few weeks, listening to some jams like "Lariat," "Shibboleth" and "Houston Hades," with their distinctive piano phrasings, eerie bass grooves, strutting beats and embellished guitar freak-outs, I've come, fully, to terms with Malkmus now being separate from the past. The past is past. Lou Reed is gone, Sebadoh are moving on and I know that their shouldn't be a Van-Vliet-V.I.P. punch card to prove how cool I am... Malkmus should be for the masses, no matter how long they've followed him or Pavement for that matter.

But the bigger point is... "Let's go...Don't Let Go...Let go!" Mac McCaughan penned lyrics in the opener of his group Superchunk's excellent 2013 LP I Hate Music... Nostalgia should only be one very small part of the Pyramid of your music diet - If you indulge too much, you become either elitist, cynical, distracted, disillusioned or just grumpy...for the precious past that only you can understand in just this special way. Let go.

Malkmus said, in a recent press release, that influences for Wig Out include: Cologne Germany, Mark Von Schlegel, Rosemarie Trockel, Von Sparr and Jan Lankisch, Can and Gas. Imagined Weezer/Chili Peppers, SIc Alps, UVA in the late 80's, NYRB, Aroma Charlottenburg, inactivity, Jamming, Indie guys trying to sound Memphis, Flipper, Pete Townsend, Pavement, the Joggers, The NBA, home life in the 2010's…

The Jicks (Jake Morris, Mike Clark, Joanne Bolme) said they found Berlin (where they recorded this album) to evoke a strange, liberating feeling of isolation, or seclusion, despite it's size and thrumming creative energies....And, after two years, they felt as though they started "to cease to exist..." And that, coming back out of the studio was a kind of a re-birth.

Jicks reborn!

So let's not bring up Pavement. Let's not even bring up Malkmus' particularly sensational 2005 LP Face The Truth. Let's just ready ourselves for a Wig Out at Jagbags! 

Let's ready ourselves for Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks actually coming right to the veritable doorstep of my hometown - to the ever burgeoning hub of contemporary hip - The Loving Touch - on February 21st.   

Addendum to "Top 50"

This...



This came to my ears late this year. But, currently, I find it to be the most fascinating album. It is, for this week, my #1 of 2013... Emphasis on "currently," but then, double-emphasis on "fascinating."

Meticulously arranging acoustic instruments (bass, piano and drums) for a 45-minute song-cycle that mimics the mechanized, looping structure of electronic music - That's right, organic-sounding instrumentation chiming, whirring, clicking and grooving as though they were composed and played-back through a digital interface... But it's the groves that give Dysnomia its appeal.

I mean, don't get me wrong - this is certainly an acquired taste and those with metronome-aversions should probably stay away. I wouldn't call it kitschy, (not yet, anyhow...) What drew me in, aside from the hypnotic beats and eerie minor keys atop a steadily lapping bass groove, was that this spoke to me as a statement upon the technological singularity... That humans, should they assign themselves and flex their mighty abilities of focus and disciplined musicianship, can be just as (or nearly as) perfect as machines. In Greek Mythology, the word Dysnomia suggests lawlessness... Curious, then, that this trio is purposefully playing with strict limitations. How much creativity can be flexed under the clamp of computer protocol?

Dawn of Midi

What To Write (Closing Thoughts on 2013)

Mornings of solitude can bring haunting revelations. There's space and there's calm, calm enough to start hearing and seeing things as loudly and as vibrantly as they likely couldn't have appeared otherwise.

Detroit music. And all its players. All its listeners. All its singers.

Routine rumination on developments in music made in and around the area...



These quiet solo-mornings, they can be somewhat nauseating and exhilarating all at once. You're up, your brain still sifting through the granular remnants of whatever wacky or wonderful dream inside which you've spent the last 6 hours hiding. Nothing makes sense and yet all you want to do is start crafting exclamations.

But settle down a second...

There is no bus to catch. There is no one that you have to force "Hellos" to in creaky voices from an unclear throat. You're uncaffeinated-self can slowly bloom, the muscles of your face and shoulders steadily charge up and there is no one to compete with, no perfect and polite but yet unknowable stranger of a co-worker shuffling pointless papers in the cubicle beside you, no peacoat-donned business-type with kempt side-burns lunging upon you when the train lurches to its final stop, there is no coffee to spill because you are static, there is no phone to answer because you only have your own work in front of you - this beautiful and horrifying empty page.

What to say...What to write...

You think. Oh, you think until your skull throbs. But nothing comes. From behind your head's thin cranial walls, a carousel of possible points to muse upon; stories blooming that could be brought attention, if anyone is listening.  As profound to you as any hero of literature, Edmond Dantes, Sidney Carton or maybe even Bilbo... Fantastic creators creating their life's work.

You are in the center of a city among cities of sub-scenes sure to be overlooked by every other would-be big-to-do blogger out there in the cyber-otherworld who's so sure they know what's what when they can't even hear what's going on in this town, your town...your town so tacked with interesting artists defying tired, sanctified preconceptions of classical forms... You're hearing the sound of them spilling paint upon the canvas. Even if it's just Ferndale's crop of affable weirdos.

They're still plotting out and pouring out a curious little story, day to day. Song to song.

What a year.

Bands I've been following for years, six, some seven...have finally...what's the right phrasing? Not matured, not mellowed, but more like...synced into self-actualization. Finally, (actually) making their defining records... Or however cliche you'd prefer to spin it ...their, let's just say it, "best work to date." It's as though they finally found their footing upon an ever quaking, half-sunken, eruptive Internet landscape, where their survival instincts have hardened their perspectives on why one makes music in the first place, leading to the most liberated, most unique and yet most sincere works.

Former indie rockers, punk rockers, studio hermits and gear-heads who once had only half-their lives put together are now growing older, getting married, having kids, and finding a new point of view. Bands from Detroit are getting on major labels, touring as regularly as they can, teasing curiosity from other cliques, scenes and artistic enclaves over just what this place, Michigan, is all about -such as to foster such a unique blend of creative-types.

Things are ever changing around here, if you're listening close enough. Its a storm of emotions around here, (new exuberance, wilted nihilism, renewed motivation, lingering frustration, resolute optimism)...surging from a vast league of bands trying their hands at ambitiously eclectic combinations (and mutations) of genres.

What can I say? What can I write?

Depends on next year's batch of songs...