We're All Nuts (... Part One: Fallout Fest)

Fallout Fest 2013

So, where are we going with this?

A range of bands, a range of genres...distinctive estuaries all flowing into one scene's tempestuous sea... There's always healthy competition, there's always camaraderie, there's always clicques. Some festivals come around and try to work against that - at least, it's in that direction that Fallout Fest is steering.

Jesse Shepherd Bates is a local musician who writes a lot of songs, records music regularly and performs pretty steadily (-if not solo, then with a slew of side-gigs).

He also helps other bands get together and put on big shows. In fact, he's been spending likely as much time organizing mini "fests" as he has been organizing his daily life (or his own songs, for that matter). He's barely squeezing in the painting work on his new house between helping his former bandmate/Satin Peaches singer George Morris shoot a music-video whilst also sharing some thoughts, here, on the FallOut Fest scheduled for October 12th- that was first dreamed up by another local musician, John Morgan (of a band called Raptura).

"It's no secret that I'm a fan of bands, around this town," Shepherd half-sighs, half-chuckles, smiling with tired eyes. "I have this strange capacity for overwhelming myself to the edge of not breaking down."

No one's tried to do "two-stages" (with 16 bands) inside a smaller, more unassuming venue like the New Dodge Lounge in Hamtramck. Plus, this is a charming place, with a great sound guy and, if you will, modestly-priced drinks, Morgan assuages, suggesting that some have underestimated its potential for hosting a mini festival like Fall Out.

"Plus," says Shepherd-Bates, "our boating trophy is hung over the bar," suggesting that it feels like home for him. Said-trophy is designed to look like... "Wait," he pauses, working his brain, "what do you call the...steering wheel of...like, a Pirate ship or a sail-boat?" Bates wonders.

"A helm."

"Right...So our trophy's up over the bar."

But who's at the helm? Who's steering this scene? Where are we going with this? Can we find out, at Fallout fest?

Guitarist/singer Morgan, who came to Shepherd-Bates with the idea, says he knows there's a lot of Fests around here and that, yes, perhaps there's too many... Maybe Fallout can work against that, find a middle ground where it's a certainly an augmented occassion, but not blown-out to overwhelming feats.

The idea, really, was just to have an opportunity to celebrate Autumn, with music! This weekend might be the last chance to do just that, says Morgan, because once Halloween hits it's all about costumes and cover bands and stupendous showmanship - and it all quiets down after that, as the scene sets in for a bit of mellower hibernation.

"Part of this is a feeling of responsibility, though," Morgan says, "Just, being part of this scene and being thankful for this scene. There's so much talent in Detroit still to this day and there always has been - especially musically. So, doing a show like this is helping keep it alive and keep it going; I think that's a good thing."

The plan:
5:20 (Side Stage): Pool
5:50 (Main Stage): ILL ITCHES
6:20 (Side Stage): Little Animal
6:50 (Main Stage): The Vonneguts
7:20 (SideStage): Electric Corpse
7:50 (Main Stage): George Morris
8:20 (Side Stage): Silent Lions
8:50 (Main Stage): Sugar Baron
9:20 (Side Stage): Radio Burns
9:50 (Main Stage): Raptura
10:20 (Side Stage): The HandGrenades
11:00 (Main Stage): Wasabi Dream
11:30 (Side Stage): The Kickstand Band
12:00 (Main Stage): Laura Finlay
12:30 (Side Stage): Mexican Knives
1:00 (Main Stage): FLASHCLASH

"The whole fest-thing is not a new concept but I just get excited to look at a line-up like this," says Shepherd-Bates. "When is Flashclash and Wasabi Dream going to play a show together? Or Electric Corpse and Kickstand Band? All good musicians, all from around here..."

What can you say? What does it all add up to? Does a Fest have to be a Woodstock thing and say something about the collective culture that put it on? (Did Woodstock even say something, really?)

What can you say?

"We're all nuts," Shepherd-Bates chuckles.

"Anybody playing in a band, putting as much effort into their bands as they are...or any of the other 250-some-odd other great bands in town that didn't end up on this bill ...honestly anybody doing it...we're all crazy...The amount of time and money you put into your band, it's like salmon swimming up stream."

But a good crowd - that can be the difference maker. "I feel like I always play better to an energized crowd. It's like the 10th Tiger on the field or the sixth Piston on the court."

Fallout Fest - like most fests of late - is hopefully going to blend the cliques of crowds that follow each band.

And if it all works out, Morgan says, then they'll do it all again next year.

Shepherd-Bates surmises: "It's awesome around here."

More info

We're All Nuts (Part Two -coming soon)

Lee Ranaldo & The Dust

Lee Ranaldo is utilizing the time of Sonic Youth's hiatus, touring tirelessly through 2012 to support his last solo album Between The Times & The Tides and recently forming a proper backing band for his latest solo material, The Dust, to record, release and, now, tour in-support-of, this month's Last Night On Earth (Matador).

They'll be at Trinosophes on October 12th. 

Tedx Detroit

TED Talks (Ideas in Technology, Entertainment and Design that are "worth spreading") will be talked about and hopefully, from there, spread throughout the city of Detroit -on Wednesday (info here) inside Cobo Hall's newly opened Grand Ballroom -Journalists, business owners, inventors and artists will be among the numerous speakers -including Leo Gold ("Hardcore Pawn"), Kevin Krease (X-Games Detroit), Jason Hall (Co-Founder Detroit Bike City / Slow Roll Detroit), Amy Kaherl (Detroit SOUP). 

Also invited?
 Indie-rocker turned synth-dabbling, neo-new-waver George Morris (currently fleshed out with a full band of performing musicians called The Gypsy Chorus). So there's your musical (/"entertainment") portion of TEDx-Detroit (X= the locally-based independent organizers who brought this event to life).

Follow TedXDetroit on Twitter. 

Check out their YouTube page later for updated live-streams. 

And keep your ears and mind open - as these talks should be particularly referential towards the tense and extraordinary times this city is currently working its way through (i.e. declaring Bankruptcy). 

About TEDTED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. 

Keep Up: The Woggles Can Save Your Soul

The Woggles have been at it a while, but who's got time to "look back" when you keep moving forward?

The Georgia-based gentries of garage-pop and boogieable big-beat jams that sandwich scuzzy Nuggets-nicked janglers into some soul-sweetened British Invasion-type bits, blew right past their 25th anniversary without really noticing...

9/28 - The Woggles play Small's in Hamtramck with Amy Gore & Her Valentines ~ wsg Duende

Younger groups opening up for the rock outfit stop them back stage after shows and remark on how they likely couldn't keep up all that energy, especially at their age...

"And they mean this as a compliment," says singer/spark-plug Mighty Manfred (a.k.a. Professor Mighty Manfred). He chuckles warmly at this, saying: "And their wondering how we do it, how we can keep it up and keep it going. I sometimes tell 'em, 'Yeah, you're right, you probably couldn't keep up with me...'"

A year ago, if any music fan or writer wanted to take note, would have marked their 25th anniversary as a touring/recording/performing rock outfit. But they really didn't make a big to-do over it. They just went into the studio (with their guitarist Flesh Hammer at the boards) and banged out another record (The Big Beat on Wicked Cool Records).



You know how that guitar hook bends your ear, throttles your collar and kinda pulls you close for this exciting moment of romance and danger? But then the drums kick in, slewfooting you onto your ass leaving you no recourse but to get back up and rumble-boogie your way through the dancefloor? It's that kinda music - raw, rigid, celebratory...soulful, slinky, front-and-center freakouts...

"It was when I heard 'I'm A Man' by Bo Diddley," says The Professor, pinpointing a key moment when he saw the light of rock n' roll and knew he'd wind up spending his life making music. "None of the contemporary stuff I was listening to back then, I guess you'd call it 'new-wave' at that time, had the depth and the power, the vibrancy and the immediacy that Bo Diddley demonstrated. It sounded far more new and fresh to me than that more 'contemporary' stuff. That was the groundswell, for me!"

Presence...vibrancy...immediacy... That pretty much sums up the Woggles' signature style of the jam - in and out in under three minutes with plenty of snaky guitars decorously distorted and the big beat relentlessly chopping down a danceable rhythm -

There's music that grooves. And then, there's music that just hits.

When Diddley's "primeval" and "otherworldly" songs sounded new to Manfred's ears, it demonstrated to him the timelessness of music, that it isn't confined to any period of time.

Be that as it may, most blogs or zines will sling words around like "60's" or "garage" or even "revivalist," when writing up this band.

"Revival?" asks Manfred. "Well, if you're talking something like a Church Tent Revival-thing then, yeah. We're saving souls!"

Their constant touring and festival gigs brings them before a wide range of audiences, in terms of age, further communicating rock's reach across generations. Younger crowds, some not used to "cutting loose and letting abandon-take-hold" might not know how to react, initially, Manfred admits. "We're up there speaking-in-tongues, the tongues of rock n' roll - but it's okay! You can come down to the altar, you don't have to stay back in the pew."

No one in the group (including Dan Eletrxo and Buzz Hagstrom) sets out to recreate any period or live within any period except this one, says Manfred. Everything they write comes from their own perspective and own frame of reference. In other words, "it's what we dig..."

"We do count our blessings, though," Manfred says, "for how long we've been able to do this." He's not about to call them "rock stars" in the cliched conception, but acknowledges that there is an endearing fan base out there, around the country, for the Woggles style of magnificent maelstroms.

"We've always had terrific times in Detroit," Manfred says with audible reverie. They played the Gold Dollar and bowled in the Magic Stick with Ko Melina. They've partied at Johnny Hentch's house after shows and even crashed at Willy Wilson's joint when needed...

"Let's rephrase that," Manfred says soon after. "There's not a fan-base, so to say as there is an 'extended-family-base.' There's always a niche, or a nod, or a heart...out there, of long-time fans that we sort of build our relationships with over the years. The families still there. But, of course, we're always looking to include new family members."

"You're showcasing the music," says Manfred, explaining their amped-up stage shows. "It's a soul-driven music. So let's say it's a soul-driven experience and it just seems in order to properly perform it, to write songs in this vein, then there's this passion that's drawn upon. And that's the thing....If you have this love and are possessed to do it, then that's a well you gotta keep digging deep and keep drawing up the water."

The Big Beat came out in March on Lil' Steven's Wicked Cool Records.
Meanwhile, the band set their sights on Small's in Hamtramck.

Sea & Cake

Mon 10/28/13

Majestic Theatre; Detroit, MI

w/ Toro y Moi

Goodbye Summer

Hello October

& Hello Sea & Cake...

Fall

ADULT. 

In Utero @ Small's (Axis Mundi Collective)

The first "album" I bought...
I know, you've heard cliche fan anecdotes like this before...
...Yep, it was even on Cassette, too! From a record store that's long-been closed...

In Utero -by Nirvana-
The Empire Strikes Back of grunge-albums. The Pinkerton of misunderstood, subtly-genius-follow-ups to major breakthrough albums.

"Teenage angst has paid off well..." sung a band that had decimated (for better and for worse) the MTV Generation with that song about deodorant.

Oh, I could go on... But I'd rather have Axis Mundi go on...

Mary Jade (New Video)

Singer/songwriter Mary Jade - the terrific and soulful voice atop the mercurial synth storms of Lord Scrummage - 
has a new music video for her song "In The Mix"

If there aren't enough keyboards in this mix, then there's even more in the backgrounds... (After they park the bicycles, that is...)

Enjoy

Javelins (new 7") 9-20 (in Ferndale)

Javelins ....are back ? Did they ever really leave (...your hearts, your minds?) Do you remember them at all? Are you incensed that it took them this long to get the band back and going again, with a new release? Where do you land on the whole Javelins thing?

See, I could tell you that they attained renown, particularly around 08-09 and into 2010 - with their nifty, nervy stoking of post-punk's elbow-snapping, neck-whipping rhythms and space-rock's slathering of UFO-gurgled guitar effects upon subtle-and-substantial solo shreds. (The bass was pretty groovy, to boot).

But, maybe you should just listen to their new stuff - coming out this Friday on Suburban Sprawl.

9/20 @ The Loving Touch ~ with Haunted House - and Psalm9pm

Autumn now

This was Michigan.

Measure this first episode of autumn as just chunks of hours –as opposed to the systemic coordination of “days”- and it’s perceived, properly, as a neck-kinking fast period of time in which we’ve…

…been steamed by heat and humidity, showered with rain and thrummed with thunder, and now, there’s frost on my front lawn and the leaves haven’t even changed color yet! 

Let Autumn begin! 

Art by Jim Cherewick

Khaleesi: Odd Hours - 9/28 @ Loving Touch

Odd Hours started out as a trio mutating rock, post-techno and power-pop into a more calloused creature, with a snaky, sharp and enticingly sinister-sound. But now, with a new bassist (Clint Stuart) and a new drummer (Randy Hanley Jr), the founding-guitarist Tim Jagielo says they’ve gotten far from any kind of stripped-down, trashy garage rock thing and have turned into a “bigger, louder, meaner, darker, dirtier version of itself.”

Odd Hours diverges from your normal conception of “a band,” because they’re also essentially the flagship group for Gold House Media, the Detroit-based video-production house co-managed by its lead singer, Natasha Beste.

Gold House co-manager Kevin Eckert directed the video for their forthcoming single, “Khaleesi,” a royal freak-out of a gold-clawed fever dream, dressing Beste in an elegant white dress and gold stilettos upon a 7”-high throne. 

“My looks were flawless,” Beste says, complimenting the collaborative vision and design of stylist/creative-director Tunde Olaniran, with costumer Christina Tomlinson. Sculptor Tim Whitehead helped design their set, while Summerset Salon & Day Spa provided make-up for their starkly sublime aesthetic.

“Tim’s usually in his underwear when we perform,” Beste says, “but this time he had to wear a thong and be covered in make-up, head-to-toe and the whole crew just made it happen like no big deal.”

“Let's just pretend Khaleesi’s an actual word and not made up for ‘Queen’ by the creator of a popular fantasy series show,” says Beste, “becauseI didn't know it was made up when I titled the song, "Khaleesi" means "queen" and our song is about feeling powerful and confident and wanting to be in full control, then realizing that having full control is not the best thing.”

Beste says inspiration spanned: “wanting power but also wanting praise..." while also reflecting the unique relationship she shares with Jagielo, as a creative collaboration - while writing/recording and performing.

"(Tim) lets me do what I want, but is always very aware of everything and keeps me grounded. He's the structure and I'm more emotional."

There's also elements from "...the 90's punk/Americana look of the artist Ssion, the dark look of the black dance scene from the 80's movie Legend.” Lakes, fires, thrones…and homages to the 90's "Americana-punk" look. 

Should be interesting. 

Eckert directs the narrative through a lake and fire, into the "black room" and finally into the "gold room." 

Olaniran and Beste wanted wanted to create something luxurious but at the same time, cold and gothic. 

Beste says she feels spoiled with the amount of talented and professional people she's able to work with on projects like "Khaleesi."

"Tunde and I have worked on several video projects together and it always leaves us with a huge satisfied and happy feeling of accomplishment. And having Kevin be in control of everything technical allows me to just focus on the performing side. Working with them is an amazing experience, it's motivating and energizing."

Their tentative release date of the video is December 6th... Stay tuned.

In the meantime

Sept 28th at Loving Touch: Odd Hours- with Paperhaus (DC) and Lord Scrummage

Past works: