Saturday, June 18, 2011

Thug Friends - "Titties and Carrot Cake"

So I thought I was going to be too busy to anything up today, even a stupid video. I'm trying to get something up here every day, but sometimes shit happens and you can't make time for getting philosophical about music. Thank you Todd Beneby for lacing me up with this as I restung a new guitar and chatted with my lady.



There are so many things one could say, but I think its best to let this speak for itself.

Still not down? Maybe you just need to get drunk off titty milk...



SWAG.

Friday, June 17, 2011

The Guilty Pleasure YouTube Video of the Day

So I had to do a bunch of errands today, so I didn't have a chance to write a post. But here's a sweet video to start off the weekend that you know you like but you hate to admit.



Dude's is hilarious on Community and can rap. Who knew??

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Guilty Pleasure YouTube Video of the Day IGNORANT THURSDAY SPECIAL EDITION

Every Thursday is forever to be known as Ignorant Thursday. We take time to remember nu metal, and other embarassing as fuck phenomena that our country and the world at large seems to love. Sometimes, we have a special place in our hearts for things that DEFINITELY qualify is Ignorant Thursday topics. Here is one of those jams. I'm sure I'm not alone when I saw while this band is fucking terrible, this song is fucking hard.

AAAAARRRREEEEE YYYYYOOOOUUUUUUUU RRREEEEAAAADDDDDYYYYYY????



Yeah, ADIDAS tracksuits and well-kept dreads are embarassing, but don't act like this song isn't heavy as fuck and that you weren't bro mosh/pogo slamming to this in 1996.

Deafheaven: Local Dudes Taking the K(vlt)orny Out of Black Metal

A little over a year ago, I was asked to be friends with a band called Deafheaven on Facebook. I didn't know anyone in that band, or anything about them, but they seemed nice enough, didn't SPAM the shit out of my news feed, so they remained my FB bros. Fast forward to now, after getting on some outstanding local shows and releasing a demo, they were picked up by Deathwish Inc, toured to SXSW, and found their unique brand of heavy yet dreamy black metal being well received by the masses at large. I ended up meeting the Deafheavendudes at a Lil B The Based God show in San Francisco, and after having an evening full of libations, yelling, moshing, and taking over a VIP bottle service table that as far as I know, none of us paid for (I know neither my friend Tommy, my roommate Greg, nor myself paid for it), we've remained friendly. Check em out:



I interviewed singer George LeSage for another online blog who never ran the story (which are the sort of frustrating music writer problems that lead to me starting Freelance Fiend), so I've decided to run it here. Their latest release, "Roads To Judah" is fucking killer, and available via Deathwish, from the band on tour, and probably from your nearest independent record store (unless it wilted away and died thanks to iTunes and the internet). Deafheaven are currently on the road through the end of July with Ken Mode. I'm pretty sure the final show of their tour is with Ringworm in Santa Cruz. Should be awesome. Anyway, without further ado...Deafheaven.

FF: You guys are a relatively new band. How did you guys get together and form Deafheaven?

GL: The band started as a project between our guitar player Kerry, and I. We recorded our demo with only having aspirations as having the band be a studio project. As time went along and we were met with new opportunities, it came time to find other members. We did that and now Deafheaven is a five member band who collectively make up the sounds on our new record.

FF: You guys play black metal and are associated with the hardcore scene to some degree, both being subgenres that can be incredibly resistant to change and innovation. You've shared bills with more traditional bands of both genres. Have you had trouble finding a place for yourselves in both musical contexts? Has the reception been warm, cold, or a mixed bag?

GL: We started this band as a means to play music we enjoy. A lot of people will say we're this or that, but at the end of the day, that's their opinion on our 'genre', not ours. We play with a variety of bands as well, but only because we're apt to and I enjoy it. In a musical context, I don't have any problem with finding a place for ourselves. Again, we do what we want and any genre segregation will only come from listeners. It seems as though the reception for the band has been either we're loved or hated. I don't pay much attention.

FF: Was garnering the momentum and notoriety as fast as you did expected?

GL: No, not at all. I'm still not completely certain on how much notoriety we've even encountered, but whenever we're in a new place or just talking with a new person and they ask, "So how are you dealing with all the hype around you guys lately?", I just think to myself, "...is there really THAT much hype?" That being said, I appreciate all the attention we've received over the past year. I've had a few surreal moments in the last couple of months, especially.

FF: What are some of your favorite bands to play with?

GL: Not very local, but The Funeral Pyre, Touche Amore, and Bosse de Nage. Those are my top three.

FF: Have you received any backlash in regards to how quickly you guys have come up?

GL: Actually, no. Well, none that I've encountered. Critics seem too fixated on the way I dress or comb my hair to worry about how fast we've come up.

FF: How did you guys get hooked up with Deathwish Inc?

GL: When our demo started picking up in circulation around the blogosphere, Deathwish had taken notice of it. We started playing shows and after our third or fourth one, received an email from them in regards to releasing something. It's been a pleasure since then.

FF: You guys did a number of shows at SXSW. Did you prefer playing the SXSW official events or the off the cuff house shows that bands often end up playing in Austin outside of the event itself?

GL: Both offer different things. The official events and parties lend to meeting a ton of great (mostly music industry related) people who have a genuine interest in your band and that's always fun. Plus you play with bands you've admired and have never had a chance to see until then. For us, the house shows were more of an opportunity to play to a crowd that was unfamiliar with us, as we played with bands that varied a lot from style to style. The house shows were fantastic though. You can't go wrong with house shows.

FF: What's the rest of 2011 look like for Deafheaven?

GL: Just waiting out the next couple of weeks until the new record comes out and touring from then on. Just announced our June tour with KEN Mode and our appearance at Sound and Fury in July, both of which I'm excited for. The Fall looks to be very promising as well.

FF: Any last words/shout outs/disses?

Gl: Just thank you to those who took the time to read this and for everyone's support over the last year. It's been overwhelming.

For extra measure, here's a full Deafheaven live set from a show at Vacation Vinyl in Los Angeles from March 4th, 2011. Cop their record and go to their shows because as we all can see here, they're fucking awesome.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Guilty Pleasure YouTube Video of the Day

I can give you a lengthy reason of why this is awesome. But I don't have to. The Cataracs produced it. Tell me this song doesn't make you want to party your face off. If it doesn't, check you ability to have fun.



And if you are really too cool to just have a good time, here's a mashup featuring Biggie Smalls. There's your street cred, d-bags.

Like A B.I.G.6

It's June, have some fun.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Retox: Sometimes Going Back to Where You Started is the Best Way to Beat the Curve

San Diego, California is home to pristine beaches, outstanding Mexican food, subpar National League baseball, and to the occasional "killer whale kills or mauls human" story. It has also a city that carved out a very unique place in the history of American underground music, and one person in particular has been a major driving force behind the knife San Diego used to cut the face of punk and hardcore from ear to ear, leaving behind an ugly reminder that punk isn't and shouldn't be safe from itself. Justin Pearson began what would eventually become an admirable and prolific, yet often controversial presence in punk/hardcore scene as the bassist of Struggle in 1991, and went on to form and play in Swing Kids, The Crimson Curse, and The Locust throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. These three bands in their own ways shook up punk and hardcore by highlighting new/refocusing on and challenging old ideologies, adding elements of jazz and electronic music that hadn't really been explored in the context of punk at that time, and by employing and utilizing aesthetics, be it via printed album art/flyers or on-stage costumes, or (dare I say) fashion in general within the movement. While each of these bands are incredibly unique from each other, they shook up punk at a time when punk bands were beginning their rise to becoming multi-platinum household names or wallowing in tired and played out sounds and rhetoric carried over from the late 80s, and wondering if there was a place for them amongst Green Day, the Offspring, and the Van's Warped Tour.

Pearson also founded Three One G Records, a label that not only released a lot of his own projects, but also releases by other bands that broke ground in punk and hardcore including Unbroken, The Blood Brothers, Get Hustle, as well as many other bands that put their own unique and often chaotic spin on traditional hardcore. Aside from running Three One G, the last few years saw Pearson exploring electronic oriented music via projects such as All Leather, The Leg Lifters, and collaborating with The Bloody Beetroots. He has also dabbled in radio, television, and recently published an autobiography. As far as media is concerned, Justin Pearson hasn't really left a stoned unturned.

What do you do when you've accomplished so much and already left a sizable footprint on the ass of a subculture? Apparently you start from scratch by getting some friends together and start a ruling, back to basics hardcore punk band and start gigging around Southern California and the UK like a motherfucker. Ladies, gentlemen, all of you somewhere in between ladies and gentlemen, behold....Retox:



Also featuring The Locust/Le Butcherettes drummer Gabe Serbian, as well as other members of "some grand dicksucking accomplishments" (a direct quote from the bands bio on www.threeoneg.com), Retox adopt a brutal, jagged approach (at least compared to its members' previous bands and projects) to taking on the world at large, and the result is a San Diego (read: chaotic and polyrhythmic) take on early 80s hardcore punk a la Black Flag or The Germs. Retix have an obvious air of life experience and musical know-how about them, which will impress the older crowd who were fortunate to live through punk when it was something kids were banished to versus another look that can be bought and sold at a mall, yet are aggressive and heavy enough to get fifteen year olds with skateboards and bootleg Minor Threat t shirts to kick the living shit out of each other in fits of adolescent rage. Coming from a city/scene often charged with being too high brow or cerebral for a lot of hardcore and punk rock's masses, Retox are a defiant example that intelligence and aggression are not mutually exclusive.



The band's self-titled ep was available as a free download a few months back, but has since been pulled as a free download, and is available for purchase via iTunes and Three One Records. The band is preparing to release a full-length entitled Ugly Animals this summer, and sees them touring California with 90s "electronica" troublemakers Atari Teenage Riot through the 7th and 9th of September. It's rare to find an active band in punk or hardcore that has appeal to different generations of fans with far different opinions and experiences of living in these subcultures. Retox have managed to find that multi-generational sweet spot, and are not a band to be ignored.

The Guilty Pleasure YouTube Video of the Day

Let's be honest, no one wants to just read through my ongoing babbling about my insight on whatever dumb band or record I happen to find interesting on a given day, so in addition to me trying to sound like I'm some of intellectual with the ability to make profound, academic statements on agressive music bands/records (AKA boring the living shit out of you with words), I am going to offer the world The Guilty Pleasure YouTube Video of The Day. Each day I'll pick a song that we all secretly love and can belt out every word to, regardless of how awful, corny, or lyrically/intellectually offensive it may be. My first of many offerings is a song most of us have found ourselves singing along to in the grocery store, mall, or on the radio at work without even knowing who sings it or what the song is called. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Outfield "Your Love".



I'll bet that a lot of you knew exactly what song that was, but had no idea that it was written by The Outfield, or who The Outfield even are. Don't feel, except for "Your Love" and MAYBE "Since You've Been Gone", The Outfield did nothing but crank out 80s arena rock garbage, and it is a surprise to no one that beyond writing one of the greatest choruses ever, they are doomed to thrive in obscurity and as a the answer to a question at your local bar's trivia night.

I'll go ahead and double whammy you by offering you a link to the Burn Your Wishes Myspace profile, which features a cover of "Your Love" on their mp3 player. Who are Burn Your Wishes, you wonder? Burn Your Wishes were a emo/rock side project featuring Ken Susi of Unearth and Adam Dutkiewicz of Killswitch Engage. How's that for a random fact you can bust out to look cool on your next messageboard argument?

Hostage Calm Made My Evening Everything But Calm...

I knew at an early age that music was going to be the most important thing in my life. I remember watching MTV before I was even in grade school and having songs by Prince, The Fixx, and Poison resonate with me long before I the capacity to grasp onto what rock and pop bands sang about, or what it took to play all the different instruments they utilized. By good or bad fortune, depending on how you look at it, I immersed myself in the underground worlds of punk and metal, and with that immersion came that inheritant "I know everything about music/my taste rules/your taste sucks/this band sucks for this ridiculous reason" attitude that often plagues subcultures that consider themselves "subversive" or "underground". I spent years spouting off at the mouth as to what was good or shitty, often time for stupid reasons that had little or nothing to do with the art created by the band itself, until maturity kicked in and showed me how to critique and appreciate music without being a complete and total ignoramous.

If there's one thing that's come up in my experience with music repeatedly, its that there really is a thin line between absolutely loving a band or a song, and despising every aspect or a band or song with every fiber of your being. I can think of tons of bands that immediately upon hearing, seemed to have moved me more so than anything in recent memory, only to find that after spending time with said record, my ears and brain had deceived me, and it was hardly a footnote in the ever-evolving history of recorded sound. I've also heard bands that offended all of my senses upon first exposure, only to become an all time favorite after marinating in my mind, or getting more life experience on my belt. Some of these swings in taste I can easily justify and illustrate to any person with half a grip on the English language. Other swings are as much as mystery to me as most algebra, the consumption of raw foods, or how any male cast member of MTV's The Jersey Shore gets laid (except for Vinnie, that seems like he possesses the ability to think rationally).

While I personally have moved away from a lot of newer punk/hardcore/indie/emo crossover style bands, I am fortunate enough to have a few friends who are making a run at being full time musicians in those arenas, and we often get to talking about what we're listening to when given a chance to chew the fat. Recently, a good friend of mine who spends a lot of his time in a van playing music in what he referred to as "a teenager's world" (and I envy his ability to thrive in that world without committing extreme acts of violence or nursing a heroin habit that would make Iggy Pop circa 1971 uncomfortable), turned me onto a band called Hostage Calm. He described them as updated 60-70s pop played by incredibly adept musicians who in addition to have stellar chops. I know, the description seemed odd to me too, but this particular friend has steered me right so many times in the past that I quelled my initial resistance to checking out something that seemed so risky, and decided to give their self-titled record a try. This is what I heard:



I heard how my friend came to his description of Hostage Calm from, but what I heard when I put this record on was not so easily summed up in sentence using other bands as means of comparison. I realized that I had only a few hours to bask in the glory of getting my post about Anne up for the world to read before getting a musical curve ball thrown at me that would simmer on the back burner of my mind all evening despite my best efforts at dicking around with my good friends at a DIY show/live space and a nearby bar. I was thrown instantly to that crossroads of loving or hating something I've heard for the first time, and that debate couldn't be removed from my mind for any reason last night. Some of you may have the ability to hear a band doing something unfamiliar and temporarily forget about it in order to go do other things in life. I wouldn't say I envy you, but I'm sure you have more fun when your mind isn't hijacked by guitars, drums, and vocals on a regular basis.

I listened to Hostage Calm's record three times before leaving my grandfather's office to watch The Daily Show with my grandmother and ultimately leaving their apartment and laptop behind. I thought I did myself a favor by not putting Hostage Calm on my iPhone, but their record was on my mind regardless of whether or not I had it to listen to. On one hand, I loved the band's quirky, syncopated rhythms and unconventional guitar parts. On the other hand, their vocals seemed incredibly polished over and started to venture into that territory of bubblegum pop that is too sweet for my taste and lends itself to this modern era of bands more concerned with moving units that creating art (I don't mean to sound presumptuous with that statement, and I'm not accusing the band of anything other than writing the music they do. This is just merely a reaction to a sound I heard, so everyone keep their panties untied you finish reading the entire post).

I texted my friend to "thank" him for putting my mind into a whirl over a record/band I wasn't particular interested in investigating in the first place (and even less so for this new "heavy" music blog I'm starting), and told him how I was standing on that narrow line between thinking they could be the greatest band I've heard in a long time and being an all out affront on my ears and brain. He said it was a record he had to sit with to fully love, and that he read somewhere that they cited Squeeze as a big influence on writing this record, specifically the song "Pulling Mussels From A Shell". So I took that into consideration...



Then I went back to their record...



This has been more or less going on in my head for the last twenty four hours. Since yesterday evening, I have more or less had Hostage Calm on repeat as I've showered, answered e-mails, ate lunch, wrote other pieces, and as I've started and stopped writing this post since getting home late last night. I can honestly say that the jury hasn't completely returned on this record. Hostage Calm are definitely doing their own thing, and going out on a limb that is obviously one that isn't necessarily one fortified with epically high soundscans or a heavy modern rock radio presence, but similiar to bands like Coheed and Cambria or The Blood Brothers before them, Hostage Calm are treading ground that hasn't been tread by other people of their generation yet, and are at the very least an interesting listen. I plan on catching them live this summer and perhaps wrapping up my thoughts on exactly where I stand on what this band is doing, but if you're looking for something that's pretty unconventional by today's standards, and for a band carving out their own way within an underground where even the extreme bands have a formula to follow, check Hostage Calm out. This may not be your favorite band, and maybe not even a band that's for the majority of people you know, but a fan of any sort of guitar driven rock music will definitely find this record interesting to listen to and a topic to help spark lively debate between good friends.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Anne - Keeping Shoegaze Alive and Well in the Pacific Northwest

A few months ago, two bands who happen to be friends of mine began working with A389 Records for upcoming releases, and found themselves on a free downloadable compilation with, from what I gather, are a bunch of bands A389 is either planning on working with or bands that they are currently listening to around the office. One of these friends in particular is far more into and involved with hardcore music and some of the non-musical elements that accompany it, and via a 2:00 AM instant messenger debate, started to think that my general lack of interest in hardcore (that is mostly a result of finding other genres of extreme music more fulfilling) was me taking a "been there, done that, my old days were the best" attitude regarding the current hardcore music and its bands. I am most certainly an asshole, and very picky about bands I will and will not listen to, but not the sort of asshole who acts like bands hardcore bands I saw/liked who came and went mean more than any current band does those still slugging it out in the pit. To prove to him that I wasn't being an old dude who "can't hang with the crap the new kids are putting out", I reviewed the comp for him track by track on my other blog. I did my best to review each track entirely based on what I heard, and even when it was something that wasn't my particular cup of tea, worked to keep that bias out of describing what I heard. Here is the original post with my reviews:

http://99milesofbadroad.blogspot.com/2011/03/a389-mixtape-song-by-song-review.html

I wasn't overly impressed by the comp in its entirety, but one of the featured bands completely blew me away. This band is called Anne, and on a compilation loaded heavily with aggressive punk, hardcore, and metal, their 90s throwback, heavy yet shoegazer indie rock was in stark contrast to their excessively brutal compilation-mates, and would stand out just as much on a compilation that wasn't stacked up with heavy hitters like Integrity, Ringworm, Rot In Hell, and Pulling Teeth.



Upon discovering this gem buried in the middle of this A389 comp, I pressed my friends in bands involved with the label for any info regarding Anne in terms of tours/releases/history. For the most part, my friends didn't know a whole lot about this mystery mellow band other than they were fucking awesome. Luckily, I'm a bit of a nerd and happen to have a lot of time on my hands, so it didn't take long for me to find their website (www.annepdx.com), downloaded Mixtape 1, and play the living shit out of it around my house. I forwarded their demo and their info to several friends with musical tastes ranging from heavy and aggressive all the way to 90s alternative/indie obsessed. As far as I know, there hasn't been a single person I've played for who hasn't instantly become a fan of the band.

Mixtape 1 is four songs that are melodic yet melancholy, synth heavy, and have an overall dreamy, foggy feel to them. Even their more upbeat songs like "Stripping" and "Perfect Teeth" exude dark, sorrowful undertones not unlike The Stone Roses, Hum, or My Bloody Valentine. Each song on Mixtape 1 takes on a life of its own, while still giving the four song release that feeling of each song flowing seemlessly into the next.

Due to my haphazard internet stumble, I read that Anne was to embark upon a short West Coast tour that began on Thursday, 6/9/11 in Santa Cruz and wrapped up on 6/12/11 in Oakland. I made a point to catch both the Santa Cruz and Oakland shows, and was totally blown away by the how well the band translated their unique heavy shoegaze sound as a live experience not unlike what you hear when you listen to Anne on record. One of the many pitfalls of playing effects/electronic heavy rock is being unable to recreate that music you make in the studio outside of the studio, and Anne is making this look easy at the "demo" stage of their career, which leads me to believe it will only get easier for them to branch out in the studio while staying true to their sound as their recording budgets grow. The west coast tour also featured Bay Area locals Whirl, who I am guilty of not checking out yet, so I can't comment on how Anne stacked up compared to them, but I can say with total confidence that Anne completely smoked Santa Cruz jokesters Wolf Feet who opened the 105 Pioneer St show, and elevated the psychedelic mood set by The Chaw, a Concord band who played before them at Mama Buzz in Oakland.

In addition to some sweet merch (including an awesome mock black metal design t-shirt), I grabbed Anne's Demo 2010. They were hoping to have a 7 inch version of the Mixtape 1 material with them, but alas, vinyl pressing and timeliness don't often go hand in hand, so the 7 inch is to expected from the band in the near future. Demo 2010 has five songs that are a touch more raw than the Mixtape 1 material, but still very much stay true to that melancholy, dreamy sound this fledgling band is developing. The guitars and synths sound much less blended on Demo 2010, which offers musically inclined assholes like myself to get a clearer understanding of their chops and how/what they are playing/effects they are utilizing. Demo 2010 is a touch easier on the ears for those not as rooted in the extreme side of music, but is still a far cry from being lumped in with so many uninspiring and contrived bands many would consider their peers.



Their website has links to their homemade videos on YouTube as well as links to download Mixtape 1. The band just completed a West Coast tour, which means unfortunately that they probably won't be back on the road until fall, but they are by far one of the best bands I've heard and seen in 2011, and are highly recommended if you like your music dynamic and heart-wrenching, and somewhat nodding to past greats like My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, or The Stone Roses.