King Khan Interview on Pitchfork

So King Khan(with some help from his Shrines) rocked balls off at McCarren Pool yesterday. (I literally saw dozens of men straining to regrow their junk during Deerhunter's solid set only to have them re-rocked off by the Black Lips soon after. What a waste of balls.)

He was interviewed by the Fork today:
"King Khan: That's the secret of the whole Kukamonga Death Cult: I dress up like a homeless person wherever I tour, because it's anti-sexual. When I tour, I'm neither homosexual or heterosexual-- I'm hobo-sexual. So that basically opens yourself up to anything at all-- you could have sex with a piece of cheese and it would be totally natural."

My last Two Months in Rock!

It's been a little while... I know I should have called... It's not you it's me... There was no one else, I swear... Okay, maybe there was... I'm back now and I've got lots of Rock shows to tell you about... I know you'll never forgive my absence but please try to forgive it.

9/15/07 - Webster Hall
White Williams 61% - This band could certainly put on a decent show and there might be some good songs buried in their set but to a third full room and to my uninitiated ears it all came off as too polite, too unadventurous indie-rock with a lap-top on stage for show.

Dan Deacon 84% - Dan Deacon is one of the most captivating performers touring today. He has a singular vision and does nothing to adjust it for the size of room he's playing or the type of crowd he's playing to. Lucky for me I'm pretty feisty and managed to make it to the stage so that I could see some of Dan. Curiously though the visual aspects of the show have become less important as his popularity has grown it has become much more about the energy Deacon feeds into the crowd, that energy was on full display.

Girl Talk 94% - Girl Talk at Mercury Lounge last year is one of the best live experiences of my life. After the crowd reshuffle forced by people's being on stage for Dan Deacon I was pushed into the center of the now packed Webster Hall. I feared without full contact with Greg Gillis the show would be ruined. I was very wrong. The crowd was a pit of sweat and movement and Girl Talk has constructed a twisted wonderful world of samples including old staples and new surprises. The energy coming from the crowd on stage was huge and the entire Girl Talk set up nearly collapsed as the crowd almost pushed Greg and his lap-top off the stage. The very frustrated security guards had to help hold it up.


9/19/07 Music Hall of Williamsburg
Black Lips 95% - Of late garage rock is owning my heart. Whether the fresh gems of King Khan and the Shrines What Is?! or the well worn tracks of The Modern Lovers' self titled album this is where my head and heart are this year and no one captures that better at this moment than Georgia's Black Lips. It was a beer spilling rowdy time and I had no shame about jumping around and shouting along to every word in this amazing set (which included to bring it back around included a King Khan cover).

PS: This was my first show at "The Music Hall of Williamsburg" which might be the best (and most pretentiously named) venues in the city.

9/22/07 Bowery Ballroom
Les Savy Fav 89% - These guys have come a long way in the years between their singles comp Inches and their latest album Let's Stay Friends. With a new guitar player and a less tough edged more melodic sound this show is probably the best sounding show I've ever seen from the post-punking Brooklynites. Of course LSF shows don't get graded on music alone. Tim was in fine form running up the stairs and dangling from the balcony, dressing like a detective and rubbing his sweat forehead against mine. So why the low grade? The new music lacks a bit of the aggressive punch of the band's classics of which they played precious little. Seems strange to see a LSF show without "Tragic Monsters" or "No Sleeves". Maybe this is old fan griping, if so I'm sorry.

10/2/07 Webster Hall
Pissed Jeans 90% - Selling noise skronk-punk to a huge crowd is a bit like playing darts blind folded, it's probably not going to work but you could just make it. Pissed Jeans much to my delight seemed to sell all the Man Man fans smart enough to show up early. Their dirdges and caotic performance style wowed the audience and they managed to not over stay their welcome even with trips into the deep dark abyss like the nearly 7 minute "Don't Need Smoke To Make Myself Disappear" in their set. You like the rawk and haven't yet seen these Sub Poppers? Fix this as soon as possible.

Celebration 62% - My indifference to your band grows daily.

Man Man 91% - New material went over amazingly, old material is the same old ruckus that we fell in love with a few moons ago. Still one of the finest acts touring and now they're refining and fine tuning their circus of a stage show. This band is poised to get much bigger this year, mark my words.

10/6/07 Randall's Island

Les Savy Fav 79% - I never thought I could give Les Savy Fav a lower grade than an 80%, but having all of the same qualms with this shortened set as I did with their previously mentioned Bowery set and watching most of Tim's shenanigans on the screens on either side of the stage was strange and jarring and I think the band might agree. I will say Tim had one of his best opening lines ever to what may be one of the largest crowds these guys have ever entertained: "We're Les Savy Fav and this our first show."

Blond Redhead 82% - Am I an asshole for knowing none of these guys albums? Even now three weeks after they impressed me so much in such a huge environment I haven't so much as downloaded a song. Their set was engaging and subtle which was an odd switch up from the rest of this event. They let the music do the talking and it was loud, clear, and mostly pretty beautiful.

LCD Soundsystem 94% - James Murphy is my pick for indie icon of the decade. Something like the Larry David of indie culture Murphy has been able to expand his snooty attitude into a big tent pop act that wowed the crowd many of whom were likely Arcade Fire obsessed depressive types. Inspite of an incredibly able band Murphy makes sure that the crowd's attention is squarely on him. He's charismatic and his songs are not out of place pumping up a crowd of several thousand. Someone get this guy the cover of Time.

Arcade Fire 91% - True or False Arcade Fire are the biggest indie band in history to still be an indie band? I'm not sure but it smells that way. Production values and arena rock moves suite this band well but it's the songs and the clamoring of the nearly dozen people on stage makes them the band Modest Mouse could never be.

10/10/07 Cake Shop
Sorry Jay Reatard and Hunchback, you both sounded fine but this venue sucks.

Stand by for my CMJ related ratings...

Echk, A Few Things Are Jerking My Chain Today

The Music Hall of Williamsburg used to be Northsix. As such The Music Hall of Williamsburg was my second favorite local venue. Well that was officially rendered not the case when I went to purchase Black Lips tickets for Wednesday September 19th. As it turns out The Music Hall of Williamsburg is a Ticketmaster venue. That's right the intimacy of Bowery Ballroom with the service charges of the Garden. Thanks guys.

My New Top 5 Local Venues
5. Glasslands
4. Studio B
3. Cake Shop
2. Maxwell's
1. Bowery Ballroom

Another thing, I needed a candy bar at work today. Part of me is tempted to suggest that my employer should have a multitude of candy bar options spread out on my desk in the morning but I will choose my battles. I walked over to the candy machine and purchased a Hershey bar for the bargain price of 65 cents. The price was right, but it should have been indication that something was horribly wrong. Upon pulling the presumptively delicious chocolate out of it's suspiciously misshaped packaging I realized it was probably left over from a time when candy bars actually retailed for 65 cents.


And finally, who prosecutes Bill Murray? You're a police officer working the beat in Sweden all of a sudden a slightly innebriated Bill Murray rolls by in a golf cart. Is this A) a recipe for hilarity and an opportunity for a good story or B) high time someone put a golf cart riding hero to task for induldging in a bit of the sauce? Apparently some bobby over in England thought the later. Some people are humorless and unfriendly.

A Band I Like: Pink Reason

Several months ago I scanned over Deerhunter's MySpace page in search of bands with similar aesthetics and sound. I found no one to satisfy that craving. Instead I found the Black Lips a band that I had written off as garage rock revival-revival band. I was sure that I didn't not need or want a second coming of the Mooney Suzuki. Of course now with the Deerhunter endorsement I felt compelled to dig into these guys. As a result I discovered that I was waiting for this band to come along and they've since won my heart. I've since taken to periodic fits of trolling MySpace to fulfil my desire for musical nepotism.

The latest discovery is Times New Viking's buddies Pink Reason, another hissy lo-fi-Ohi (maybe Ohi-lo-fi works better?) band. But these guys aren't Guided By Voices part II and they don't share much in songwriting style or presentation with TNV. Instead these guys are a dark Jesus and Mary Chain style band using Lo-Fi production to display songs that could otherwise rival Interpol in statuesque grandiosity. As is the songs are given an innocent veneer and an excellent twist through their thin production. The songs have a stripped down slow moving bluesy proper rock & roll vibe and they're uniformly excellent.

I've fallen pretty in love with their Silt Breeze released album Cleaning the Mirror. In fact I'm so in love with it that I may say right here that it's weakest point is it's brevity.

Another super bit of info, is they are coming to New York! Local Dates:
8/28/07: Charlston w/ Little Claw and Golden Era
10/6/07: Cake Shop w/ Thomas Function


Pink Reason at MySpace.

Upcoming Albums You Should Like

In the Internet age we're getting a rush of albums way earlier than is to be expected. As such I have pulled the wheat from the chaff and have my recommendations and theories about some albums that will rub lovingly against your ear drums this fall.

Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil No surprise here one of my most anticipated albums of the coming months does not disappoint. Thank god. I'd spent so much time talking these guys up in the past few months that anything less than a one band new garage rock moment was going to leave me looking pretty foolish. One of the top 10 garage rock albums this decade, no question. The high light of the album is track three, "Veni Vidi Vici". Yes a modern garage rock band has used that reference again this decade. (Can these guys seem less self aware?) It's a ballad of sorts and sure to incite slow ass sing-alongs from all corners of the indie community.

M.I.A - Kala I had curbed my expectations for the follow up to an innovative rap classic coming out on a major label. This sort of skepticism has proved ludicrous and is probably bad for my over all disposition. The high light of this album is the penultimate track "Paper Planes" a smooth verse beat leads to a great hum along chorus complete with guns cocking and cash registers erm.. caching-ing.

Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover This comes as a surprise. I found Shut Up I'm Dreaming to be somewhere below the Postal Service and the Raconteurs as a side project worth paying attention to. Sure there was good songs but the middle of the album was mucky and I couldn't groove much passed the killer opener over the long haul. Not so with this one that seems bludgeon you with a boat load of melody and musical fireworks in an incredibly manageable period of time. The high light is once again the killer opener "The Mending of the Gown". It twists you in all the ways you liked about the last album but seems to do it in a punchier less obstructive way. If that makes any sense.

Albums I am currently indifferent to include Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam and The Go! Team's Proof of Youth. The albums I'm still dying for are Jens Lekman's Night Falls Over Kortedala(which has apparently leaked) and Les Savy Fav's Let's Stay Friends. As far as albums I'm excited but skeptical about Kanye West's Graduation should cause no shortage of hair pulling over the next couple of weeks.

Obituary: Siren Music Festival

Saturday's Siren music festival went the way these shows have for the better part of a decade. Bands play, people sweat, some complain, some burn, some dance, some sway semi-rythmicly, many induldge in over priced hot dogs and (assuming such a thing exists)over sized beers. Some bands were great(Twilight Sad, M.I.A., Black Lips), some boring(Dr. Dog), several were better than expected (Elvis Perkins, We Are Scientists). But all in all it was a summer high light. A day that you know a cross section of the most and least attractive people in the city will cross your eye. A day where the pain of a sunburn is offset by an afternoon buzz. Exhausting, and entirely worth the trek the Siren Festival has been one of the finest free events our city has had to offer for 7 years.

I wish I had taken more pictures and yet I know that it would have limited my ability to have fun. As is the only serviceable pictures of any bands I got were of the excellent Twilight Sad. They opened the day running late and somehow cut through the mid day sun with their bruting Scottish Post-Mope Rock. After catching smidges of Elvis Perkins and Dr. Dog I indulged in some gastric challenging Nathan's.

The rest of the day was a triple shot of excellence. Black Lips ripped through their rowdy garage rock set with flair, though less I'm told than their usual more intimate sets. We Are Scientists had energy and clearly had a hold over the (likely blogger heavy) crowd. Then there was M.I.A. who overcame mic trouble with energy but also with help from an exuberent audience. Cynicly I skipped the New York Dolls and took that time with friends lounging on the boardwalk.

All in all it ranks as over all my most positive Siren experience, too bad it will be my last.

Top 5 Siren Performances That I Have witnessed (I have been to 4 of these, all are represented):
1. Ted Leo and The Pharmacists - 2003
2. M.I.A. - 2007
3. Art Brut - 2006
4. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - 2004
5. Mission of Burma - 2004

My Siren Pick! Black Lips!

The band I'm most looking forward to this weekend when the Village Voice Siren Music Festival rolls into town has to be the Black Lips(they're on something called myspace). They've been given kudos by Deerhunter and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, everyone seems to think they're amongst the best live bands around, just today Pitchfork called their Vice Records released live album one of the Most Overlooked Albums of the Year So Far. Here's a taste:


Other than that I'm looking forward to M.I.A., the Twilight Sad, and Nathan's Hot Dogs. Plus sun-burn and swamp ass! Don't get no better than that.