Last year London based electronic duo Death Rattle beguiled us with their debut EP “HE&l.” The EP was a revelation, bringing a darker element to the genre as a wave of electro-indie guitar bands have made their assault on the scene in the last few years.
“The Blows” is the latest free download single from the band and it displays a willingness to evolve. Where the tracks on “HE&l” where dark and twisted, they’ve opened up their sound to becoming bigger, more open—and epic even. Helen Hamilton’s signature hypnotic vocals throughout the verse are what bind it all together as the drums pound in tandem. There’s also something about the chorus that’s reminiscent of Kate Bush, as Helen’s voice calls out over the beat.
It’s very exciting to hear the sound of a band evolving into something special and Death Rattle are going to be very special indeed. “The Blows” is powerful, tribal, and utterly addictive—and this is only the tip of the iceberg.
“It’s a bit of a shame that records come and go so quickly sometimes. I still believe they can be beautiful things.”
—Johnny Marr
From The Smiths to Modest Mouse and The Cribs, Johnny Marr has made his mark as one of the most celebrated guitarists in the history of contemporary history. But it’s Marr’s turn in the spotlight with the debut of his solo album The Messenger, which will hit stores on Tuesday, February 26, via Warner Bros. Records/Sire Records. Filled with songs and beats reminiscent from his days with The Smiths, Marr’s new record will not leave fans disappointed, and we’ve got your opportunity to win a limited test pressing of The Messenger.
Marr’s ingenious and dynamic talent with the guitar has been evident since the 1980s when he co-founded The Smiths alongside Morrissey. The duo challenged pop conventions with their chart-topping hits during their five year collaboration. Marr continued to morph the face of rock-n-roll as a member in The Pretenders, The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse, and The Cribs. Even though his role was principally “the guitar player,” he undeniably led these groups onto center stage with his skill and talent.
Following last summer’s 7″, “Serious Radical Girls,” yesterday marked the release of Panda Riot‘s latest LP, Northern Automatic Music. Out on Saint Marie Records, the album, which includes the previously released song, is eleven tracks of non-stop pop rock that come together more like the soundtrack to a dream than a traditional rock record.
From the album’s lead track, “Amanda in the Clouds,” you are introduced to the vibe of Northern Automatic Music. The airy and almost haunting layered vocals of keyboardist Rebecca Scott lead you through the album over guitarist Brian Cook’s calculated drum machine work. Currently available on CD, you can pick up the album through Saint Marie’s website for $11.99.
Panda Riot will be celebrating the release of Northern Automatic Music at the Hideout (1354 W Wabansia) this Friday, 2/22. The 21+ show kicks off at 10:00 PM with Light Foils and Big Colour. Tickets are just $8.00 and can be picked up online or at the door before the show. You can RSVP to the event on Facebook here.
The Maple Leaf Bar has been hosting regular monthly residencies on Wednesday nights for a while now. This month, Nigel Hall, a keyboardist and vocalist who has performed with a wide array of musicians including members of Soulive, holds down the spot.
Hall will be joined by Alvin Ford (Bonerama) on drums, Kyle Roussel on keys (Dirty Dozen Brass Band), and Joshua Connelly (Big Sam’s Funky Nation) on guitar.
Nigel Hall is an honest, humble guardian of soul music. When asked about himself, Nigel reflects, “I’m just someone who lives, eats, drinks music.” This ethic becomes clear when Nigel takes the stage. Read More »
Appalachian old-time specialists the Black Twig Pickers have a new recording in the racks. Not only does Rough Carpenters amply display their impressive growth as a vibrant vessel of the string-band tradition, it also presents a succinct portrait of one of the best groups in the whole contemporary scene, and it’s their best album yet.
There are always dangers when attempting to preserve through performance any aged artistic tradition that has fallen outside of the mainstream yet still commands a fervent following. One potential problem is the tendency to fall into an overly polite or reverent mode, a trap that will certainly satisfy a receivership seeking a mild-mannered and highly respectful experience, but will reliably miss capturing the creative spark that made the form being reproduced so interesting in the first place.
Attempting to retain that spark brings up another thorny issue, that being the attempt at preservation through modernization. Sometimes this approach actually works, but far more frequently it simply weakens the tradition with gestures toward present-day relevance, attitudes that are well meaning but ultimately wrongheaded.
And these dangers flare up quite often when the form being reproduced is a musical one. Part of the issue is due to the expectations of those desiring to hear it; some want the aural equivalent of an antique and others demand a connection to the sounds being made right now.
In celebration of the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s opening of the exhibit Pump Me Up, The D.C. Subculture of the 1980s, the ultimate DC hardcore and Go-Go blow out will happen at the 9:30 Club on this Sunday, February 24.
The DC Funk-Punk Throwback Jam will feature pioneering go-go acts such as Trouble Funk, Junkyard and DJ Kool, along with the pivotal DC hardcore bands Worlds Collide, Black Market Baby, Youth Brigade, and more. The entire event is hosted by none other than Henry Rollins, who is also DJing the Corcoran gallery opening.
The Corcoran’s Pump Me Up “traces the history of graffiti in Washington while emphasizing its inextricable ties to the burgeoning forms of local music.” The 9:30 Club will showcase some of the top-billing bands that appeared on go-go posters that lined the city in the 1980s. The exhibition includes sections on the work of “COOL ‘DISCO’ DAN, the DC punk, hardcore, and Go-Go scenes, concert posters…and other visual culture.”
Back in the late seventies, I broke my jaw in a car accident. It wasn’t my fault–a telephone pole ran out in front of me–but the next thing I knew a physician was wiring my mouth shut, leaving me to mumble like the elderly Don Corleone and forcing me to spend the next six weeks sucking my meals through a straw.
As if that weren’t torture enough, there was my housemate Steds, who sadistically insisted upon consuming colossal Dagwood sandwiches in my presence when my entire diet consisted of cheese soup and vile vanilla protein shakes. This infernal torment went on for five interminable weeks before Steds, dead drunk, fell flat on his face in a Virginia Beach McDonald’s bathroom, and you guessed it–broke his jaw.
Karma, friends, can be a bitch.
That’s a lesson my friend Steds learned back in 1979. It seems that former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra still hasn’t learned it. After all, more than a decade has passed since a jury found Biafra liable for malice and fraud and ordered him to pay $200,000 to his former bandmates following the discovery of inconsistencies in their royalties from Biafra’s record label, Alternative Tentacles, after which they took some karmic revenge of their own by returning to touring under the Dead Kennedys name, hiring a succession of ringers to fill Biafra’s “Fuck the Draft” t-shirt.
Glasgow’s Three Blind Wolves hit our radar last year when they released their single “Parade” via Instinctive Racoon. It wasn’t long before word hit and national radio in the UK picked up these guys as the next ones to watch.
Their sound wavers between My Morning Jacket and Bright Eyes, but it’s the fact that they write such beautiful Americana-tinged tunes with a snarling, raw melancholy that make them truly special. They definitely don’t sound Scottish, but this is what may work in their favour as they steer away from singing in their accents to concentrate on decent, translatable songs.
Having just bagged the northern leg of the Frightened Rabbit tour in February, Three Blind Wolves are an absolute must on our 2013 ones to watch list—these guys have something special.
Ask anyone these days what comes to mind when you say “The Scorpions,” and your average music fan is going to answer with something along the lines of “Rock You Like a Hurricane” or “No One Like You.” For a number of die-hard fans, they will say “Go back to 1973…you’ll hear something very different.”
Those were the days when The Scorpions were a young, eager rock band from Germany, with burgeoning hits like “Speedy’s Coming” and “Steamrock Fever.” At the center of it all was guitar wizard Uli Jon Roth, a Hendrix-inspired, new breed of rock guitarist. After leaving the Scorpions of his own accord in 1978 (an amicable split due to artistic differences), Uli has carved his own unique path on his musical journey from seamlessly fusing rock and classical together, to creating his own unique brand of guitar, all while honing his craft to a master level.
We caught up with Uli Jon Roth during his stop at Sully’s in Chantilly, VA in February and what followed was an enlightening conversation about music, technology, and a bit of rock history.
Tell us about the current tour, and what you’ve been up to lately.
I’ve been up to quite a few things. The current tour has got one main theme, and that is my 40th anniversary with the Scorpions, meaning that I joined that band in 1973. In fact, it was not a band anymore. We reformed the band, it was only Rudolf [Schenker] left.
Really?
Yeah, the band had broken apart, and Rudolph was left, but there was still a record contract in existence. Somehow, we joined bands. My band, which was Dawn Road, and Rudolph became the new Scorpions. Then a little while later, Klaus joined again, because Klaus had kind of retired, withdrawn from the business all together. He became a little disillusioned with it I guess, but he came to the rehearsals and he really liked it, so then we were the new Scorpions. It was 1973, it was 40 years ago.
Copenhagen, Denmark’s Iceage kicked up a bit of a stir back in 2011 with their first LP New Brigade. Along with their debut 4-song, 7-inch, that album offered a dozen blasts of post-punk action delivered with the sort of power normally associated with hardcore. Those efforts formed a fine opening statement, but their sophomore record You’re Nothing brings some definite changes to the table. Overall, the band’s growth somewhat lessens their effectiveness through normalization, but after time spent it’s clear that, at least for the moment anyway, Iceage remain a band to watch.
Iceage were late-teens at the time of New Brigade’s appearance. That record was drenched in an abundance of energy and a lack of self-conscious restraint that can really only come from a bunch of amped-up kids seeking a creative outlet while coping with the unavoidable pangs of growing up. And it’s not just that Iceage played loud, hard, and fast; anybody can do that. Instead, the testament to the group’s youth really shined through the lack of anxiety they displayed over their general lack of originality while also avoiding any sort of pride or even calculation in their influences.
Iceage didn’t connect like they devoted very much time to studying the records that impacted their musical direction. No, they seemed like a bunch of youngsters who took those initial doses of inspiration and then quickly came up with their own raggedy and intense thing. They also weren’t worried about distancing themselves from their sources and they also didn’t streamline what they were doing to fit into the parameters of any well-established scene.
Overall, that’s not a particularly big deal. In fact, that’s how most musicians get the ball rolling. The reason Iceage stood out relates to quality. Not to step on anyone’s feelings, but most bands featuring such a lack of life experience aren’t very good. I plain fact they’re often quite bad. This isn’t any startling revelation; ask veteran players about their early exploits and you’ll commonly get stories detailing any number of unrecorded endeavors, activities that frequently inspire ambivalence or even embarrassment on the part of the tellers.
Press Play is our Monday morning recap of the new tracks received last week—provided here to inform your future vinyl purchases. (Yes, on Tuesday this week.) We post, you right-click.
Last night was a dreamy Valentine’s evening in the canyon. My goal was to rip a quick and fast Idelic set so I could jump back into a romantic evening with my beautiful wife, Susan.
One of the things I love about Susan is her patience and understanding given my obsession with music. Growing up in Seattle and attending weekend shows at The Gorilla Gardens, Susan like no other understands her man’s love for punk rock.
Like many of my old friends in Hollywood, let’s call them, “homies,” I lean toward punk that was recorded in late 1976 to 1977. Many of the records in this set I purchased as a teenager on 45 the very week they came out. I bought many from Bleeker Bob’s in his shop on McDougal Street. In the case of Eddie and The Hot Rods or The Pistols “EMI” seven-inch, it was Discophile on 8th Street. And there were a few at Discomat uptown where Bryan Gregory from the Cramps ran the import section.
I love listening to vinyl—it really does sound better—but the worst part? All the physical labor!
If only one would be able to listen to vinyl and never have to move, that would be perfect. What’s that, you agree? Well, it happens there will be an all-vinyl DJ night in town, so if you’re too lazy to move a needle but motivated enough to get in your car, you’ve got no excuse!
Tastemaker and turntablist extraordinaire Eddie C returns to DC tomorrow night, Saturday, February 16, to celebrate Valentine’s Day for a couple extra days with the 3rd installment of the Forward Winter Sessions, Forward Winter Sessions 003: Lover’s Ball. Eddie C is joined by some great local talent, all spinning soulful jams that’ll release love into the ear.
To all the singles out there, congratulations on surviving the horrendous Hallmark-created holiday, Valentine’s Day. Now get out there and celebrate with some debauchery this weekend, and if you make it to Sunday, check out the swoon-worthy music of female artist, ZZ Ward and female-fronted group, Delta Rae at The Crocodile.
ZZ Ward has proven that she has the ability to use her raspy voice to create music that is at once soulful, bluesy, and with a hip hop edge. Having written the majority of the tracks on her debut album, Til The Casket Drops, Zsuzanna Eva Ward (aka ZZ Ward), is setting herself apart from her contemporaries with her unique genre interplay.
Not only does her sound stand out, but her voice and emotion linger long after you take your headphones off. Just listen to “Put The Gun Down” and you can almost see the barrel staring you down.
If you’re not instantly swooning, the equally talented and buzzed about, Delta Rae will be opening for ZZ. Catch the show at Belltown venue, The Crocodile this Sunday at 7PM. Tickets are $12 advance and doors are at 7PM.
Here’s what else is going on around Seattle to keep you occupied this weekend:
Last year London based electronic duo Death Rattle beguiled us with their debut EP “HE&l.” The EP was a revelation, bringing a darker element to the genre as a wave of electro-indie guitar bands have made their assault on the scene in the last few years.
