Monthly Archives: April 2017

Graded on a Curve:
Black Lips,
Los Valientes del
Mundo Nuevo

When it comes to snot-nosed punks cracking wise, the Black Lips are right up there with the immortals—The Dictators, the Angry Samoans, Kix, the Dead Milkmen, the Beastie Boys even. Since their formation in 1999 the outré garage rockers from Atlanta, Georgia have been turning out irreverent anthems—“Bad Kids” and “Juvenile” being amongst the best of them—for fellow delinquents the world over. Their music is a deliriously funny salute to the proposition that stages are meant to be pissed from, and the best example of this is 2007’s “maybe” live LP, Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo.

Purportedly recorded at a club in Tijuana, Mexico, Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo is one of the most riotous live albums I’ve ever heard, and in the end it doesn’t much matter if it was recorded in the tequila-reek of a dissolute cantina in the Gateway to Mexico or in a studio in Kalamazoo. (The dispute over the recording’s actual provenance is likely to be waged forever, from YouTube—on which you can find what looks to me like some convincing film footage—to your house.) People sing sea shanties and howl in Spanish, a mariachi trumpet gets played, glass gets broken, songs stop halfway through, and there’s a lot of alarming electrical crackle. And if you listen real hard you can hear the Black Lips crank out one great acid-tinged garage rock tune after another. But don’t sweat the lo-fi sound quality—it’s every bit as good as that on their studio albums!

Both Cole Alexander and Jared Swilley—high school pals who got tossed out their senior year in the wake of the Columbine Massacre for posing a quote subculture danger unquote—have nasal voices that remind me of the Dead Milkmen’s Joe Genaro, and when they sing together, which is often, it’s a treat. And not only do the lads in Black Lips have a knack for crafting simple but catchy garage rock songs with zip, they have the swagger and just enough chops to fill them out. Which is more than I can say for most of the Dead Milkmen’s oeuvre.

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Play Something Good with John Foster

The Vinyl District’s Play Something Good is a weekly radio show broadcast from Washington, DC.

Featuring a mix of songs from today to the 00s/90s/80s/70s/60s and giving you liberal doses of indie, psych, dub, post punk, americana, shoegaze, and a few genres we haven’t even thought up clever names for just yet. The only rule is that the music has to be good. Pretty simple.

Hosted by John Foster, world-renowned designer and author (and occasional record label A+R man), don’t be surprised to hear quick excursions and interviews on album packaging, food, books, and general nonsense about the music industry, as he gets you from Jamie xx to Liquid Liquid and from Courtney Barnett to The Replacements. The only thing you can be sure of is that he will never ever play Mac DeMarco. Never. Ever.

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Graded on a Curve:
Tom Armstrong,
The Sky is an Empty Eye

Those who purchased a copy of Imaginational Anthem Vol. 8 are likely familiar with the name Tom Armstrong. Most everybody else…probably not so much, for the latest installment in the long-running series of instrumental guitar compilations is focused upon private press releases. In a positive development, Tompkins Square is reissuing Armstrong’s sole LP as the first of several full albums from artists included on IA8. If post-Fahey fingerpicking springs to mind, wipe that noodle clean, for the The Sky is an Empty Eye plugs in, gets much nearer to a psychedelic disposition, and even dishes a bit of vocals. It’s out on vinyl, compact disc, and digital April 28.

Armstrong’s comes closest to the American Primitive guitar approach right away on The Sky is an Empty Eye, the structural framework and mood of opening track “White Pines” somewhat reminiscent of Takoma-era Fahey, though it’s a similarity immediately offset by the guitarist’s deft tempo changes and a distinctive use of harmonics.

Those bell-like tones subside roughly halfway through the piece as the folky inclination redirects toward searching yet unperturbed and mildly psych-oriented progressions. This shift is ultimately helpful in situating Armstrong even further afield from the American Primitive fingerpicking tradition; it’s a style that’s played a significant role in shaping subsequent solo guitar activities, and nowhere more so than the Imaginational Anthem series mentioned above.

“White Pines” was Tompkins Square’s pick for Vol. 8, an entry collecting tracks from assorted self-recorded and released discoveries from the ’60s to the ’90s. The Sky is an Empty Eye was issued on Armstrong’s Dharma Bum Records, the Kerouac-inspired name deepening a spiritual undercurrent as the album’s largely non-vocal nature helps keep the contents from becoming too spaced-out or insubstantial.

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In rotation: 4/26/17

Vinyl predicted to become billion dollar industry for first time this millennium: For the first time this millennium, vinyl is predicted to become a billion dollar industry, according to consulting firm Deloitte. This year, Deloitte expects about 40 million vinyl records to be sold, which comes out to about 900 million dollars in sales. Record players and other accessories bring the business of vinyl to the billion dollar mark, which experts say was unthinkable ten years ago. Companies like Disney and Fischer Price are jumping on the vinyl train and releasing records aimed at kids.

Vinyl fantasy: Is the record boom bad for new music? From ham-fisted placement in nostalgic movies to adding hip kudos to unrelated product advertising, vinyl records are ubiquitous in these retro-fetishistic times. Sales are the highest they’ve been for 25 years, and we’re told that “vinyl is set to become a billion dollar industry,” but in the face of reissue hype and 12” sleeves as mantelpiece decoration, new independent music is suffering. When a label as stoutly vinyl-focused as long-running Detroit techno outpost Underground Resistance is publicly lamenting the struggle to maintain the format in view of pressing plant delays and tricky payment terms, can the vinyl boom really be benefiting the music that kept the format alive all these years?

The vinyl resurgence is real, but it won’t save the record industry, Vinyl is an easy savior figure for an embattled industry. But it’s more complicated than that: Because the secondhand market is untraceable and doesn’t really make any money for the greater industry, almost all of the focus (both in vinyl-as-savior narratives and in doomsday narratives) is on how well new vinyl is selling. And while it’s selling better than CDs and digital albums, it might not be sustainable for the larger industry. The discussions around peak vinyl and whether or not vinyl will continue to boom often circle around a deeper, greater fear: that the music industry is broken in a way that cannot be fixed.

Maidstone record store shuts suddenly: Maidstone’s biggest independent record shop has been closed and chained shut just days before Record Store Day. AEA Sound, situated in the Royal Star Arcade, closed on April 6 when a notice was placed in the shop window. An A4 sheet of paper stated the unit had been repossessed by its owner in accordance with its lease. Chains keeping the entrance doors shut are visible through the glass front and records are strewn across the floor. Piles of discarded vinyl remain inside the shop and the notice warned any attempt by any person to enter the store without permission can be prosecuted…The closure came just days before Record Store Day.

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TVD Live: Amiee Mann and Jonathan Coulton at the Lincoln Theare, 4/20

PHOTOS: RICHIE DOWNS | Aimee Mann thinks her songs are sadder than they really are; that there’s so much psychosis on her latest album that she had to called it Mental Illness. It was as if a night of her music might result in a jump off a bridge.

“Settle in,” she warned, on the first night of her Mental Illness tour at Washington, DC’s Lincoln Theatre. But she needn’t have worried. As she was joined, song by song, by members of her backing trio, it was clear that Mann’s songs of droll observation have a lift in not just how they’re sung but by the soft punch of their assembly.

While her new album looks at different characters or situations, it does so in a harmonic way that makes whatever may be melancholy sound sweet. Its songs are built around acoustic guitar, with a slight wash of keyboards or strings, replicated on tour on synths by Jamie Edwards. Paul Bryan is a constant on bass, but drummer Matt Mayhall often seems less than fully employed.

But this is hardly mournful territory. Even when the message is blunt as it is on “You Never Loved Me,” there is a catchy melody and clever observations and turns of phrase. The largely acoustic allows her elegant songs to breathe. And it’s a good fit for a lot of the other songs from nearly a quarter century of solo recordings, from “4th of July” that began the show to “Long Shot,” the inevitable brush with success of “Save Me,” and one she said she hadn’t played for a while, “Humpty Dumpty” from 2002’s Lost in Space.

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TVD Live: Desert Generator at Pappy
and Harriet’s, 4/8

It is widely believed by fans of stoner rock that the Mojave Desert in Eastern California is exceptional. Underground bands like Kyuss, Fatso Jetson, Yawning Man and more put the desert on the map and turned stories of generator parties in the middle of nowhere into urban mythology. At the perfectly out-of-the-way Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown, Desert Generator was the ideal crossroads of looking back at the past was while celebrating present and looking to the future of stoner rock.

Desert Generator is the brainchild of Brant Bjork, former drummer of stoner rock legends Kyuss and Fu Manchu, and an accomplished solo artist in his own right. It’s a weekend to harken back to the golden years—good vibes, good tunes, a good buzz, and people showing off their bitchin’ custom vans.

The weekend kicked off on Friday, with a special show called “Stoned & Dusted,” which, in some ways, was a way for people in 2017 to experience the true generator parties of the past. A limited number of tickets were sold to keep the crowd size down, and attendees were bussed to an undisclosed location to experience Nick Oliveri, Yawning Man, Brant Bjork, and Fu Manchu in an open-air, intimate setting.

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Fire in the Radio,
The TVD First Date

“My introduction to music was listening to my parents’ records; the Beach Boys, Elton John, and Jim Croce were regular staples. Ever since then, vinyl has been my favorite way to experience music. There’s an intimate interaction that comes from cracking open a new record and analyzing every inch of the cover before placing the needle in the groove.”

“I discovered my parents copy of Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy when I was a young kid. The artwork on that album is burned into my memory. That Heironomous Bosch style imagery was dangerous, psychedelic, and naughty. My six-year-old brain was incapable of taking it all in, but I knew that I liked it. I’ve always felt like the artwork on larger formats like vinyl brings so much more to the music.

I am a visual artist, so having a substantial visual element to accompany the musical content is especially appealing to me. Before vinyl started making its current comeback, I began making these sculptures that referenced nostalgic objects like record players, headphones, and rotary telephones. I’ve always romanticized the physical interaction with analog technology that existed before the digital age.

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UK Artist of the Week: The Nickajack Men

Mainstream alt-country artists such as Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, and even Alabama Shakes have been paving the way for a new generation of musicians to embrace the genre with open arms. Scottish four-piece The Nickajack Men are some of these said musicians—and they’re our Artist of The Week.

These four young lads are pushing all the boundaries with their debut EP “Wasting Away,” a record filled with sonically alluring twists and turns from the outset. The first single from the EP, “Running” is a feel-good blend of good old-fashioned indie rock tinged with appropriately placed snippets of Americana. Lead singer Lewis White’s vocal carries the song effortlessly, sounding quite akin to The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach.

The Nickajack Men have also recently shared free download song “Marilyn,” an infectiously catchy track which offers insight into what Oasis might have sounded like were they to go country. Needless to say, these guys are ones to watch—they’ve become regulars on the Scottish live circuit and are now ready to take their sound down south and beyond.

“Wasting Away” by The Nickajack Men is out on May 26th, 2017.

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Graded on a Curve:
Mark Mulcahy,
The Possum in the Driveway

Mark Mulcahy was once primarily recognized as a founding member of Miracle Legion, but in the current century he’s equally known for a solo career. Ambitious yet welcoming as a singer-songwriter, Mulcahy’s work can be emotionally powerful without hardening into severity. His latest is less guitar-focused and more orchestrated, but the artist hasn’t gotten lost in the transition. The Possum in the Driveway came out as a limited gold-vinyl edition for Record Store Day, and the standard LP, CD, and digital release follows on April 28 through the Mezzotint label.

Alongside the recently reactivated Miracle Legion, which released a slew of college-radio and indie staples from ’83-’96 (surviving the initial bankruptcy of Rough Trade in the process), Mark Mulcahy was in Polaris (of “Hey Sandy” and The Adventures of Pete & Pete fame) and has additionally collaborated on five operas with the cartoonist Ben Katchor (noted for the long-running weekly strip Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer). As mentioned above, Mulcahy also has an extensive solo discography that’s capped with 2013’s terrific Dear Mark J Mulcahy I Love You.

Too frequently when solo artists elect to swap out their guitar-based approach for some combination of electronica, horns, and orchestration, the results can radiate like a poorly executed attempt at cinematic greenscreen. Occasionally the disjointedness succeeds, but more often it pits the familiar realness of the musician and their songs against a grafted backdrop, with the resulting artificiality (or fakery, to be less kind) either unintentionally alienating or deliberately jarring.

In striving for fresh sonic territory, The Possum in the Driveway avoids this problem. Instead, “Stuck on Something Else” begins with a mixture of boldness and intimacy, the spare instrumentation offering a music box quality as Mulcahy’s vocal sparks a more productive friction, sounding like it might be emanating from a sparsely populated booze-den at right around closing time.

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In rotation: 4/25/17

Photos: The faces of Record Store Day 2017: The annual Record Store Day served a dual purpose this year. It landed near the 1st anniversary of the passing of Prince, so fans celebrated his life in addition to the normal vinyl-related festivities. Donuts kept record buyers fueled up for a day full of live performances, exclusive releases, and block parties around the Twin Cities.

Queues began at 3am outside Sound Knowledge for Record Store Day: Hundreds lined outside the record store, just off the High Street, in the hope of grabbing rare editions of records and other music merchandise before the shop finally did open at 8am. After having a hugely successful day for Sound Knowledge, guests were treated to a 30-minute set from BBC Music Introducing Award-winner Izzy Bizu, who was chosen as an official champion for Record Store Day, when she sang at Cafe Thirty8 at around 4.30pm, followed by a signing session.

‘I’ll never regret buying Toto!’: your best Record Store Day stories: Saturday started with me being more excited than on Christmas Day as a kid, so it was down to our local shop in Salisbury. Unfortunately, the record I was searching out was not there. It was time for some second hand crate digging in Wilton. LSD Records is one of the best shops around and, although I’m reluctant to shout about them, they deserve props. Here I picked up the Happy Mondays’ Pills Thrills ’n’ Bellyaches, Are We Not Men> We Are Devo! and X-Ray Spex’s single Oh Bondage! Up Yours! I had fun chatting to people about why anyone would pay £30 for the Diana Ross charity shop special to hearing about the early morning queuing.

Music lovers flock to record store for annual day of vinyl appreciation: Music lovers celebrated their love of vinyl in style at Raves From The Graves on Saturday. The record store in Weymouth Street, Warminster, ordered in a wide selection of limited edition vinyl releases ahead of the nationwide Record Store Day and people flocked to it in their droves. By 9am, when the store opened, a queue of discerning music fans had formed with around 40 people eager to get their hands on some long sought after wax. Shop manager Melia Pereira said: “It was a really successful day and great to see such a big queue outside before we opened.

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TVD Live Shots: You Me at Six, Tonight Alive,
and Black Foxxes at the Alexandra Palace, 4/15

English rockers You Me at Six are one of those bands that has been on my radar for several years, but I’ve somehow managed to miss them every time they toured the States (back when I lived there). So when I saw that the band was playing at London’s famed Alexandra Palace and the buzz seemed to be at an all-time high, it was the perfect storm for me to grab my gear and check this one out. Throw in the opening band Black Foxxes who’ve just released one of my favorite records of the year so far and things could get very interesting.

To say that You Me at Six are huge in the UK is an understatement—numerous Kerrang awards and several gold records all-leading up to a new album called Night People that just debuted at number 3 on the UK charts. Having lived in London for less than a year as an expat from San Francisco, it continues to blow my mind how different the levels of popularity there are between bands in the US versus the UK. You Me at Six have a respectable fan base in the US, but in the UK they are bona fide superstars.

With a sound falling somewhere between Taking Back Sunday and Royal Blood, these guys continue to make solid records. It’s a step above the cookie cutter bands of the current movement and these guys have the songs in place on the new record to break them worldwide. It will be interesting to see how the States embrace the upcoming tour along with radio and all the other essential elements to break a band these days. I’d say they have the UK conquered at the moment.

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TVD Radar: 40th Anniversary of Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Exodus vinyl reissues
in stores in June

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ziggy Marley-curated “Restatement” Exodus 40 – The Movement Continues, gold-colored vinyl of original release and live album set for June 2, 4-LP Super Deluxe Version available in stores June 30.

Bob Marley & the Wailers’ classic Exodus album, the ninth studio album of the band, was released on June 3, 1977, featuring a new backing band including brothers Carlton and Aston “Family Man” Barrett on drums and bass, Tyrone Downie on keyboards, Alvin “Seeco” Patterson on percussion, and the I Threes, Judy Mowatt, Marcia Griffiths, and Rita Marley on backing vocals, and newest member Julian “Junior Marvin” on guitar. The album was released on June 3, 1977, just six months after an assassination attempt was made on Bob Marley’s life in Jamaica in December, forcing him to flee to London, where Exodus was recorded.

This June, The Marley Family, Island Records, and UMe will mark the 40th anniversary of Exodus—named the “Best Album of the 20th Century” by Time magazine in 1999—with a series of four separate reissues, three of which will feature Exodus 40 – The Movement Continues, son Ziggy Marley’s newly curated “restatement” of the original album.

As part of the celebration, Ziggy Marley has intimately revisited the original session recordings, uncovering unused and never-before-heard vocals, lyric phrasing, and instrumentation, incorporating and transforming these various elements into brand-new session takes.

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The Steel Wheels,
The TVD First Date

“The first music I heard was on vinyl. But I don’t really remember my parents playing the Mamas and the Papas or Peter, Paul, and Mary records that were in their collection. The earliest records I listened to were the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas and a comedy record from the Smothers Brothers. That Chipmunks’ record is really dreadful to listen to, so I guess my family had a lot of tolerance for children doing their thing, but I can’t claim an early bonding with the vinyl medium for its warm tone and a cosmic centering over great music early on.”

“Of course I moved through tapes and CDs and into the digital age with the consumers’ ease of a baby bird. “I’ll take whatever you give me, mass media Mommy.” It wasn’t until I started touring and making music of my own that I really listened to and got interested in vinyl.

I remember playing Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion in 2008 or 2009 and seeing Dr. Dog for the first time. I was blown away by their performance and went directly over to the merchandise to find something to take home with me. And it just clicked. They had CDs and vinyl, but I was going to buy their record.

Now, I had an old record player and a collection of thrift store vinyl up until that time which I had curated to some success. Living in Virginia, you could find Doc Watson or Norman Blake records for some fine early flatpicking guitar. There was the “borrowed” stash of Beatles’ records from somebody’s dad’s collection that I’d spin with some frequency. Aretha, Dylan, John Denver, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder. Classics. Important music.

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Graded on a Curve: Frankie Avalon,
“Beach Party” b/w
“Don’t Stop Now”

It’s easy to say snide things about Frankie Avalon. I myself have called the teen idol who first made his name as a trumpet player, then as a singer, and finally as the star of such immortal motion pictures as 1963’s Beach Party (with Annette Funicello, natch) and 1965’s Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (with Vincent Price) the worst thing to happen to rock’n’roll this side of the extended drum solo.

I’m being unfair of course. Avalon was just a good Italian kid from Philly who specialized in froth, didn’t have a rebellious bone in his body, and never pretended otherwise. An earnest and wholesome boy as never got hooked on heroin or attempted to reinvent himself as a pinwheel-eyed avatar of the hallucinogenic sixties, was our Frankie. But say what you will about his escapist product, Avalon has always been and will always be true to himself.

As anybody who has ever listened to “Venus” or “Why,” Avalon was a crooner whose saccharine songs sound inconceivable as teen product to anyone reared in the rock’n’roll era. Lush orchestral arrangements, choirs, you name it—Frankie’s producers liked to lard it on, and on, and on. Ah, but once, just once—and it is as glorious a moment as any in the annals of rock—Avalon said to hell with it and got down with his bad self, garage rock style.

I have no idea why. Perhaps he ate an extra-large helping of some rich Italian dessert with a touch too much sweet liqueur, say amaretto, in it. Or drank one too many (as in two) glasses of red wine. Whatever the reason, on one lost day in 1963 a real, real gone Avalon swaggered into the studio, flicked a half-smoked cigarette at some studio hack, and snapped, “Fuck the strings, Johnny, and ditch the backing singers. This is Jungleland.” And proceeded to throw his everything behind as mean as guitar as he could get his goomba (no offense meant) mitts on.

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TVD’s Press Play

Press Play is our Monday recap of the new and FREE tracks received last week to inform the next trip to your local indie record store.

Granfalloon – Look Who’s Sorry Now
Scott Fab – Leave My Friends
Treehouse Sanctum – Chacala
Hnry Flwr – Down, In Carolina
Trixerin – Walk You Nowhere
Screamfeeder – All Over It Again

TVD SINGLE OF THE WEEK:
Fat Goth – Thoroughbred

Threefifty – Crossing State Lines
the black watch – Whence
BNNY RBBT – Bombs
That One Eyed Kid – Burn Out Right
Domino Gold – Free Is Free
Flume – Wall Fuck (Gramatik & Ramzoid Remix)
Phil N Good – Juana (feat. Jus D)

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  • SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL INDIE SHOPS SINCE 2007


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