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L.A.’s boogie funk ambassador parties like it’s 1989

By Jesse Locke

“Rather than the boom-bip, I want funk-clap in my diet.” Damon Riddick, the Los Angeles-based DJ/selector, musician and producer known as DãM-FunK, is waxing poetic on his favourite subject: boogie-funk. It’s the tag he uses to describe his own dreamy slow jams, deep cuts and rollerskate disco, pumping new blood into a genre born in the mid-1970s before coming to a glitzy boiling point in the ‘80s. Anyone lucky enough to live in the Culver City area can catch Riddick manning the decks for his weekly Funkmosphere nights every Monday at the Carbon club, while the rest of the world will have to be content with the two hours of music making up his double CD/five LP debut, Toeachizown, released last year on Peanut Butter Wolf’s Stones Throw Records. To kick off 2010, DãM-FunK is embarking on a colossal live tour with stops in Canada, the Austin, Texas SXSW festival and then off to Europe. We reached him at his home in West L.A.

Texture: What came first, your music or Funkmosphere?

DãM-FunK: My own music was first. I’ve been making music since I was a teen, and Funkmosphere came up about four years ago, in July of 2006. We’ve been it doing it every Monday since.

T: Is it usually a party? How’s Monday as a club night in L.A.?

DF: For a Monday, you can’t beat it. We’ve got great crowds, and a mixture of mellowness too. We play a real range of stuff. You can just chill at the bar listening to the music, and you don’t have to feel forced to be out there doin’ splits on the dance floor, know what I’m sayin’? It’s back and forth. Packed nights, medium nights, but every night is fantastic.

T: When did you start collecting vintage synths and drum machines?

DF: That started when I was in school too. Instead of spending my money on video games, I would buy instruments. I don’t know if you have this in Canada, but I always checked out this magazine called The Recycler and that’s where I started looking for stuff. I bought a Linn drum machine for $200, brought it back home on my moped and started getting down back in the day. Some of that original equipment was used on Toeachizown too. It’s a real experience, not just some fake shit.

T: Is there a crown jewel of your collection?

DF: My Roland Juno 60 is the crown jewel, for sure.

T: Thinking back on when you started getting into music, can you remember one album or song specifically that made you want to make jams of your own?

DF: Ever since I can remember, my moms and pops were always playing music, so I always into it. The first recollections I have of albums are Super Fly by Curtis Mayfield, Skin Tight by the Ohio Players and Barry White’s I’ve Got So Much To Give. Even Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Those albums were always in the household, and I would take them out and listen to them all the time. But then, when I actually wanted to make my own music, it was Prince.

T: Which Prince record was it, do you remember?

DF: This was around the time of 1999, though I’d been hearing him for a long time before that, just on in the background at my neighbour’s house. Hold on one second, OK? (Puts down the phone for 30 seconds) Damn, that was Peanut Butter Wolf on the other line! I had to get that. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, the records that inspired me. Prince’s 1999, “Knee Deep” by Funkadelic — that particular song for sure — Todd Rungren… that was the stuff that inspired me to create my own sound. Those artists made me realize that I didn’t have to be exactly like the hip-hop cats that seemed to be in every single nook and cranny of existence that I was in. I could still do funk and stand out, you know what I’m sayin’? Even though I grew up in the golden age of hip-hop, listening to Marley Marl, Eric B and Rakim, all of that great stuff, I tended to lean towards funk. Still, I was affected by that stuff too.

T: Are you excited when people compare you to Prince?

DF: Oh yeah, I’m honoured and excited. That gives me a good feeling because I feel like I’m following in a tradition and an aesthetic. But I never bite Prince, that’s the key. Lots of groups outright bite him. Especially when he first came out, there were lots of groups that sounded identically like him. I just try to make a connection and a continuation. It’s not like I’m jumping on a bandwagon, and next week I’ll be doing dubstep. I’m on the funk tip, because of people like Slave, Steve Arrington, Prelude Records and D-Train. Those are the kinds of things that I like. Rather than the boom-bip, I want funk-clap in my diet of music. I like all styles, though.

T: In another interview for Pitchfork, you mentioned being a fan of Ariel Pink, which I thought was really cool because he’s so far removed from your world with a lot of his lo-fi home recordings, but there are some similarities in terms of songwriting too. What do you dig about him?

DF: I think he’s a fantastic artist. He really knows what he wants. That’s what I respect about him, and his music is fantastic. Those are the kinds of people I like to listen to, and I really like to get into new things. He’s formula-based, and I just like the way that now people are getting freer again. Rather than just straight-up punk, hip-hop or whatever, it can be a mixture of things while still standing up for a personal style or belief.

T: I think Animal Collective embodies that way of thinking perfectly, and you just remixed those guys too. How did that project come to be?

DF: That came up because I caught wind that those cats dug my stuff, and I dug their stuff, and they had decided to do a remix project and see what people could do with their stuff. When I turned in my track, I came to their gig at the Troubadour in L.A. and handed them a CD-R personally. I felt good about it because I studied them and wanted to respect the people who dug them. I didn’t want to turn a crazy remix with a bit of cheese just to say that I did it. I studied the track and tried to layer their vocals the right way, instead of just looping the hook and putting my gibberish on top. They told me later that they couldn’t stop playing it in their tour van, and I said ‘yeah yeah, I appreciate that…’ Not to say that I discounted what they said, but sometimes people just say stuff like that. Then they made it the A-side of a record, and I knew they weren’t bullshittin’! They really appreciated what I did, and that went a long way.

T: Do you have any other remix or production projects coming up?

DF: I’m doing some stuff with Joker and some collaborations with the Hyperdub label, and me and Nite Jewel are playing together on a record. There’s gonna be some pretty good things in 2010, but I’m taking my time and don’t want to spit too much talent right now, ‘cause people would expect that. The most exciting that I’m involved in, though, is an album I’m producing for one of my funk heroes: Steve Arrington from Slave. I’m doing a record with him for Stones Throw, and if you want to talk about a continuation of Modern Funk, that one’s gonna hit the streets and blow up. Wolf is a visionary, always respecting people that are really underrated in the game. You have to keep your eyes on anything he’s doing or touching.

T: How long have you been growing your hair?

DF: (laughs) Going back and forth man! I can rock a fade, go bald, but I’ve been doing that since high school — cutting it off and letting it grow again. Contrary to people’s belief, I don’t use any chemicals and it’s just a natural grade of hair. Of course we’ve all been touched by some different blood throughout our life spans on this planet, so we all have different grades of hair. People think I have a Jerry Curl or something, but that’s not what it is. I just like to do my thing, be me. It’s part of the funk.

T: I checked out the unplugged performance of “Steppin Into My Life” that you recorded for Valentine’s Day on the Stones Throw website. Can you see yourself recording more stuff stripped of electronics in the future?

DF: Sometime down the line, for sure. That was another idea from Wolf; he’s always coming up with innovative things. I’m glad it showed people that I’m not just the electric synthesizer guy and that I can play an instrument. That’s what lacking these days. We all have it in us, but people get lazy and their buddies tell them they can just program a beat. What if these cats who were just laying down beats actually learned some chords and started playing instruments again? It would be fantastic.

T: I’ve seen some laptop DJs that look like they’re onstage checking their emails. How wack is that?

DF: (laughs) It’s real wack. You don’t need to be doing backflips while you’re DJing, but I try to make show a bit more interesting because people pay money to get into the club and sometimes in Canada you even have to brave the cold to get there. People come to the show, and they don’t want to see somebody just looking mad.

DãM-FunK plays Thursday, March 4th at the Drake Hotel in Toronto, and Friday March 5 at Club Lambi in Montreal. For further tour info, go here.

Tunes from the Crypt (Bill Cosby Edition)

By Jesse Locke

Tunes from the Crypt is a new regular feature for Texture Magazine with a rotating cast of writers. Its aim is to unearth overlooked, forgotten or little-known musical artifacts, found in the dusty discount or used bins of record shops, your cool uncle’s attic, church bazaars, garage sales, so-called ‘alternative channels’ or simply hiding in plain view on the Internet.

1) Bill Cosby - Sings Hooray for the Salvation Army Band! (Warner Bros. Records, 1968)

Before digging into the hilarity of the music contained within this late ‘60s masterpiece, let’s all just pause and take note of the cover photo: Bill Cosby dressed like Fred Flintstone while sporting Groucho Marx’s mustache, glasses and cigar. Think that tobaccy was wacky, by chance?

Nonetheless, that’s nothing compared to what you’ll hear when you drop the needle, as old Bill’s vocal delivery on the opening number makes him sound much more rowdy and boozed up than just faded. Imagine “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” as performed by the drunkest guy at the karaoke bar, except instead of a cheapo synthesized musical backdrop he’s fronting a tough-as-leather funk group. As it turns out, that’s actually the Watts 103rd Street Rhythym Band, a swaggering seven-piece any heads in the know will speak of in hushed tones. Dy-no-mite!

Throughout the remainder of Sings Hooray, these cats convoy Cosby through equally goofy covers of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” Dyke and The Blazers’ “Funky Broadway” (here renamed “Funky North Philadelphia”) and the title track’s riffing on “Purple Haze.” There are a few moments of semi-soulful sincerity heard on the originals “Sunny” and “Ursulena,” but it’s really worth hearing for the silly stuff as much as the grooves, later sampled by the likes of Cypress Hill and the Ultramagnetic MCs.

2) Bill Cosby – Talks to Kids About Drugs (Uni Records, 1971)

If you’ve never actually listened to this one, it could seem like a somewhat reasonable decision for the Grammys to have awarded it ‘Best Recording for Children’ back in ‘72. That said, after you’ve heard even its first song, “Downers and Uppers”, which finds Cosby imitating the effects of the titular pills with woozy, slowed-down vocal FX and skronky sax/chipmunk bleats, respectively, it’s odd to imagine how anyone could have taken the album seriously, or even treated it as anything more than a cross-purposeful anti-drug gag of Tyrone Biggums proportions.

Yep, that’s right — this is an album of Cosby telling children that getting gone is no fun, while making it sound more fun than Saturday morning cartoons. “Dope Pusher” finds him dropping beat-poet science with lines like “now watch him walk away, ‘cause he can’t sell you his bag of agony and pain.” This is backed with On the Corner-style chicken-scratch guitar (natch) and a stupidly catchy chorus of kids’ voices belting out “I don’t need no bad drugs!”

Stranger still is “Captain Junkie”, the free-trumpet-driven tale of a dope fiend wobbling around town and dozing off in the park, coming across a little more Charlie Chaplin than Requiem for a Dream. This album is the original “Drugs Drugs Drugs”, a decade before.

3) Bill Cosby - Badfoot Brown & the Bunions Bradford Funeral Marching Band (Uni Records, 1971)

Easily the funkiest and most listenable of these three selections, Badfoot Brown & the Bunions Bradford Funeral Marching Band (a truly amazing album title if I’ve ever heard one) is Bill Cosby’s jazz odyssey. Released the same year as Talks to Kids About Drugs, it shows off a very different side of the comedian, here playing electric piano on two side-long instrumental space-outs.

With its cascading ivories, twitchy guitars and aggressive groove, side two’s 20-minute “Hybish Shybish” is definitely a banger, but it’s really all about the classic side one stunner “Martin’s Funeral” (later sampled by A Tribe Called Quest on the Midnight Marauders highlight “We Can Get Down”). Starting off slow and easy, the song soon settles into a laid back melody complete with tambourine, Art Ensemble of Chicago-style horns warbles and fleet-fingered guitar runs that make it sound not unlike the slinky workouts of Mulatu Astatke and company coming out of Ethiopia at around the same time (By the way, this might just be my favourite thing on YouTube). 40 years later, Badfoot Brown still sounds fresh.

Top 75 Davids, Davy/ies and Daves

By Jesse Locke

1. Foster Wallace

2. Lynch

3. Bowie/Byrne (tie)

4. Berman

5. Boring

6. Eggers

7. Gordon Green

8. “Gruber” Allan

9. Tibet

10. Sylvian

11. Shrigley

12. Simon

13. Sedaris

14. Teatro

15. Grubbs

16. Stubbs

17. Tudor

18. Toop

19. Larry David

20. Super Dave Osborne

21. The David

22. Cross

23. Duchovny

24. Foley

25. Mitchell

26. This one too

27. Thomas

28. Jones (the pirate)

29. Jones (the Monkee)

30. Carnie

31. The one from the Bible who beat Goliath with a slingshot and then went on to be a totally badass king

32. Suzuki

33. Fincher

34. Cronenberg

35. Mamet

36. Hasselhof

37. Wojnarowicz

38. After Dentist

39. Talbot

40. Attenborough

41. Gonzalez

42. Michaelangelo’s

43. The Star of

44. Copperfield (the novel - the magician didn’t make the cut)

45. Schwimmer/Spade (tie)

46. Lee Roth

47. Cassidy

48. Rudman

49. Hockney

50. Chapelle

51. LaChappelle (just for Rize)

52. Geffen

53. Vetter

54. Lombardo

55. Gahan

56. Grohl (Nirvana era, first two Foo Fighters albums and then up to Songs for the Deaf – nowadays he seems like he might be a couche tard)

57. Carson

58. Andreychuck

59. Beckham

60. Koresh/Berkowitz (tie)

61. Rockefeller

62. Markey

63. Letterman

64. The car

65. The Hebrew font

66. Barry

67. Banner (the Incredible Hulk)

68. Banner (the rapper)

69. Johansen

70. Lister

71. My grandpa

72. My great uncle

73. My cousin

74. My middle name

75. Hyde-Pierce

Tunes from the Crypt

By Jesse Locke

Tunes from the Crypt is a new regular feature for Texture Magazine with a rotating cast of writers. Its aim is to unearth forgotten, little-known or otherwise overlooked musical artifacts, found in the dusty discount or used bins of record shops, your cool uncle’s attic, church bazaars, garage sales, so-called ‘alternative channels’ or simply hiding in plain view on the Internet.

1. Various Artists – Rē Records Quarterly Vol. 1 No. 4 (Recommended Records, 1986)

From 1985 to 1997, Recommended Records founder, theorist and drummer Chris Cutler (member and collaborator of various weirdo music luminaries such as Henry Cow, Art Bears, News from Babel, Pere Ubu, Gong/Mothergong, The Residents, Zeena Parkins, and on and on…) published Rē Records Quarterly, a lovingly assembled LP compilation and magazine package. From Vol. 4 (1994) onwards, the LP was replaced with a CD and the publication awkwardly re-titled unFILEd: The RēR Sourcebook. As such, it is the original run until ’91 that remains the most cherished.

Besides its stylish ladybug cover art, this one primarily caught my eye in the “Exp., etc.” section at Cheap Thrills because its first side is largely devoted to Japanese ‘avant-chamber-pop’ group After Dinner, with live cuts recorded prior to the release of their classic album Paradise of Replica (1989). There’s also a song called “Раз, Два (1,2)” from Soviet New Wave band Strange Games that starts off side two with some wonky, low-rent Squeeze-style synths, cheeky poetry from Adrian Mitchell, Montreal’s Wondeur Brass and more.

The magazine is a real keeper too — live photos, lyrics and an article on the After Dinner concert sound-system, extensive features on the other artists featured on the LP, a gear-head approved article on the analogue vs. digital debate by writer Robert Mitchell, and possibly best of all, a hilariously pithy piece by the great Greil Marcus on the hypocrisy of superstar-studded charity recordings such as “We are the World.” From the design to the content (other Rē Records LPs would go on to include Robert Wyatt, This Heat and scores of others lost to time), these sets make me want to put on my grumpy old codger hat and say something like, “they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to!”

2. Chuck Lange – Jazz Wolf (North Sound, 1995)

This cassette tape was a recent blind buy from a Montreal Value Village, and I have to say, it was well worth my 50 cents. Magically enough, the music contained within is exactly what the title Jazz Wolf might lead you to expect: Red Shoe Diaries-style wallpaper Dad-jazz meanderings combined with field samples of wolf howls, chirping crickets and what sounds like caribou frolicking in a gurgling spring.

The entire concept behind this gem is so unbelievably Canadian that it makes me want to barf maple syrup, and it’s also hard to imaging just whom it might be marketed towards. Lumberjacks serenading their wives? From the liner notes: “Both wolves and jazz musicians indulge in self-expression. As you listen to the selections on Jazz Wolf, imagine a few howling wolves on one side of a stand of forest green pine trees and a couple of musicians playing saxophone and guitar on the other side. The notes of the two combos talk to one another, each pushing the other to reply with more soul…”

Is there a band called Jazz Wolf yet? If not, who wants to start it with me?

3. http://www.myspace.com/televisionenodemos

Believe it or not, MySpace can still be a pretty cool thing. On top of musicians utilizing it like a little black book to contact other artists, promoters or venues when booking a tour, it can also be used to simply listen to jams from awesome new bands like Lethbridge’s Fist City that don’t have official releases yet. Finally, there are also fan/tribute sites such as this one showcasing Brian Eno’s oft-bootlegged 1975 pre-Marquee Moon demos for legendary New York prog-punks Television.

These stripped-down run-throughs of “Venus de Milo,” “Friction” and the immortal title track (presented here in a shorter yet still hypnotic form) are all really cool to hear, but it’s this version of “Blank Generation” — featuring the snotty vocals of Richard Myers one month before he quit the band, changed his last name to Hell and became a legend in his own right — that’s a real revelation. On top of the needly guitars of dual axe-men Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, this “Blank Generation” also features the clattering fills of drummer Billy Ficca, sounding like a pair of hiking boots clunking around in a clothes dryer (in a good way).

Of course, it’s nigh-impossible to top Robert Quine’s tweaked proto-post-punk jags on the classic Voidoids version, but the early Television take is still a curio of the best kind.

Rock of Ages

My 10 favourite live music memories of the 2000s

By Jesse Locke

Before we begin: Yes, I’m well aware that the premise of this list is inherently flawed since, at age 25, I’ve only been going to shows for a few years longer than this decade anyway. And yes, seven out of these 10 took place between 2007 and today. But you know what? This is my website, so I can write about whatever I want. Hey, you, get offa my cloud, etc.

Rambling back to the business at hand, there are so many shows I could have included here but did not. For example: The Mountain Goats, Vashti Bunyan or either of the two times I’ve seen Bill Callahan. Black Dice. Black Moth Super Rainbow. Liars. Ô Paon. Evangelista. York Redoubt and Jon-Rae Fletcher in the same basement. Krang and Zebra Pulse in another. Countless sets from former and current Calgary favourites like Gaye Rage, The Ostrich, Funfuns, Thee Thems, Sharp Ends, The Sub-linguals, Women, Puberty, Braids, Azeda Booth, Free Nude Celebs, No More Shapes, Chad VanGaalen, Black Mold, Kris Ellestad, The Incandescence, Seizure Salad, Dallin Ursenbach, GreyScreen, Extra Happy Ghost, Beneath These Idle Tides, RDC and the whole 403 Noise crew, Friendo, Womb Baby and a bunch more it’d be way too long to mention.

I could have happily written about Yo La Tengo, Jamie Liddell or the Wolf Colonel singing Springsteen covers in the parking lot of the Carpenter’s Union Hall. Philip Glass with the Kronos Quartet. Hella with the Dillinger Escape Plan. Broadcast and the Jesus Lizard last month. Awesome Vancouver bands like Shearing Pinx, Twin Crystals, Modern Creatures, Ahna and Sex Negatives (never saw the Mutators before they broke up, boo hiss). Deerhoof, M.I.A. and the half set I caught from the re-formed Contortions. No nights were as wild as when Ladyhawk came to Calgary and everyone still lived there. AIDS Wolf are always brain-scrambling, and on a completely different tip, so are GOBBLE GOBBLE. Sadly, I’m still yet to see Lightning Bolt, David Bowie, Nick Cave, My Bloody Valentine, Sunn O))), Throbbing Gristle, MF Doom, Björk, Beyonce, Prince, Daft Punk, the Wu-Tang Clan or Chris Dane Owens, so they didn’t make the cut either. But enough of this blather — on with the list!

1) Boredoms - The Warehouse - Calgary, AB - June 30, 2007

Thinking back on all the shows I’ve made heroic pilgrimages to catch over the past decade, it seems somewhat odd that the best of them all took place in my former hometown. The good folks behind Sled Island will always deserve props for landing Japan’s Boredoms in the festival’s inaugural year, because this set sent me into the kind of eyes closed psychedelic hippie trance typically reserved for the other kind of warehouse ‘party’ that involves glow sticks, gobbling down pills like they were Swedish Berries and getting down with the Space Cats.

Anyway, it’s pretty tricky to try and put into words, but just one week before 77 BoaDrum, the band brought a smaller-scale but equally orgiastic event to Calgary. Packing the stage with three drums kits, Yamatsuka Eye bashing away at an insane-looking rack of guitar necks and screaming in his trademark “Acid Police” screech, Boredoms put on a clinic of stupidly complex percussion choreography that would have made even Chris Corsano’s pulse quicken. What comes after 99?

2) Joanna Newsom - Ukrainian Federation – Montreal, QC – Oct. 5, 2006

With its much-mocked love of LARPing, Montreal seemed like the perfect place to experience a performance from the high druid priestess Joanna Newsom and her epic Medieval tomes. One month before the release of Ys, the pixie-like musician floated onstage alone with her harp to perform a few of the album’s then brand-new stunners along with shorter songs from The Milk-Eyed Mender. As otherworldly as her music seems sometimes, Newsom brought herself down to earth and endeared herself to the audience even further by forgetting a few of her own lyrics, which is definitely understandable with such awe-inspiringly tongue-twisting prose. David Byrne couldn’t quite seem to make up his mind on the show, but to me it was the goosebump-inducer to end ‘em all.

3) Fun 100 - Mount Pleasant Community Centre - Vancouver, BC – Feb. 3, 2007

For the sake of full disclosure, I should mention that my former band Sudden Infant Dance Syndrome was also on this bill. However, while it’s always awesome rocking out to a community center full of sloppy drunk teenagers, the real story here started with those couche tards the Bad Amps (insert Shitty Beatles joke here) playing for far too long, resulting in the power being cut off during the first song of Fun 100’s final show thanks to a strictly enforced neighbourhood bylaw.

Fortunately, the band made the most of the situation, bashing away at their instruments despite the fact that their mics had been turned off, sparking a crazed sing-a-long with their hyper excited/pissed-off fans and finally bringing down the house with the triumphant finale of frontman Ryan Dyck smashing his keytar to pieces on the room’s rafters. All in all, it probably took less than half an hour until the cops cleared out the building, but what a way to go out.

p.s. The Dyck bros are far from tossing in their pads. Check out their new band the B-Lines and label Hockey Dad.

4) Free Noise - University of London Union - London, England - May 3, 2007

I only recognized a few names on the bill at the time, but as it turns out, the lineup was staggering. The previously mentioned Chris Corsano was originally supposed to be there as well, but had to pass up a spot on the tour to back up the previously mentioned Björk, and who could say no to that? Suffice to say, I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I headed on my lonesome to the U of L campus, but ended up forever changed.

At the gig, any interactions I made with fellow weird music enthusiasts were largely made up of wisely appreciative nods at the lunacy we were witnessing/hearing onstage during the two improvised, nearly hour-long sets. The memories that stick with me are Evan Parker’s (pictured above) seemingly unending sax skronks, C. Spencer Yeh’s harpy-pitched violin squeals and Yellow Swans’ beehive of black electronic noise. Still, wildest of all were the sounds John Edwards was conjuring by scraping the body of his double bass, never mind the strings. I’d seen Wolf Eyes at Coachella three years previously and investigated a bit of this so-called ‘Noise’ business here and there, but this night cracked my mind wide open and I’ve never looked back. If only I’d had the cash to take better advantage of the likely once in a lifetime merch table…

5) Lil Wayne - The Saddledome - Calgary, AB – Jan. 22, 2009

Let’s start this one off with some real talk: 90% of rap shows suck. I’ve caught a handful of decent to great ones over the years from the likes of Ghostface Killah, Blackalicious, NerdX and the three times I’ve seen the Clipse, but for the most part these gigs are overrun with back-up posse members crowding the stage and drowning out the main MC, or way too much banter consisting of “y’all bought the new CD?”

Lil Wayne, on the other hand, put on one of the most entertaining concerts I’ve ever seen period; an amazingly over-the-top experience that included T-Pain riding a Segway (not to mention his own stage set-up with a circus tent, cellist and little-person booty dancer named Britney Spears), Weezy F Baby rapping so close to our seats that we could make out his face tats, and a mother fuckin’ flame-thrower. That’s right, Lil Wayne spitting fire into the face of the crowd like the Backdraft ride at Universal Studios. The part where he trucked out the artists from his label for a song each was a total snooozefest, but other than that, the jams ran free. There’s another story about this night involving jazz cigarettes and a racially profiling security guard, but I won’t get into it here.

6) Thurston Moore - The Mohawk - Austin, TX - March 14, 2008

The two times I’ve seen Sonic Youth (Osheaga Music Festival, Montreal, 2006 and McCarren Park Pool, Brooklyn, 2008) were both amazing, but for whatever reason, this is the set that seems the most special. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time:

“Following the near un-listenable solo acoustic set from J. Mascis (seriously, who told him that was a good idea?), Thurston Moore took to the Mohawk stage for my favorite set of SXSW 2008. Starting off some hypnotic performances of songs from his 2007 solo album Trees Outside The Academy with a goofy ‘check, check, check-a-roonie,’ he added to the spectacle of his unique guitar playing with a range of emotive facial expressions.

With the first of two encores, Moore and his band The New Wave Bandits covered the recently unearthed (and perfectly fitting) Velvet Underground rarity “I'm Not A Young Man Anymore.” The second encore started off with the song “Staring Statues” from 1995's Psychic Hearts, and ended up with Thurston and the front row of the audience teaming up to shred, whack and rip out his guitar strings. Hard to believe he's almost 50.”

7) Jaga Jazzist - Harbourfront Centre - Toronto, ON - July 9, 2004

This summer, I was living in Toronto (well, Etobicoke, if we’re going to get down to brass tacks), working as an intern at a skate mag, and was basically broke as a joke. It’s actually a bit of a bummer to think back on, but with my average bank balance of $0.00, I had to miss out on seeing Sonic Youth for the first time and spent most of my spare time shredding the mini-ramp in the backroom of my friendly neighbourhood skate shop.

Happily, I did make it down to this free concert at the Harbourfront Centre, though I was headed there to catch headliners Manitoba (before that dick Handsome Dick made them change their name to Caribou). To put it bluntly, the opening act was a revelation. Norway’s Jaga Jazzist are normally a 10-piece, but if memory serves me correctly this night found them swelling to more than twice that number as the blasted out some of the most meticulously orchestrated psychedelic freak-outs my impressionable mind had yet experienced. Dan Snaith and his bear-mask wearing band-mates put on a killer show too, but they’d already been blown out of the water.

8) Chain and The Gang - Club Lambi - Montreal, QC – Oct. 2, 2009

Up until this magical night, I had always thought I’d have to wait until they invented time machines to travel back and catch The Make-Up of Nation or Ulysses to witness Ian Svenonius in his element. But let me tell you — the man’s still got swagger! In the small, sweaty confines of Club Lambi, Ian S. put on a church service worth of call-and-response hollers with the crowd, fiery preacher gone wild dance moves, multiple suit changes and some righteous gospel garage rock rave-ups from his red hot band. Fever Ray might have had lasers and a bangin’ sound system on her side, but this was still the best show of Pop Montreal ’09. In fact, the Homosexuals were originally supposed to headline, which would have possibly pushed things over into ‘best show ever’ territory. Instead, it was followed by a DJ set from 7-inch madman Jonathan Toubin with Svenonius joining us down on the floor, which was pretty damn fun too. What's my stance? I like to dance. And smash things up when I get a chance!

9) Boris - Richards on Richards - Vancouver, BC - July 30, 2008

After a 12 hour drive from Calgary to Vancouver listening to Tim and Eric, it’d be a bit of an understatement to say our crew was feeling a little loopy when we finally rolled up to Dicks on Dicks. First on the bill was Lair of the Minotaur; a brutish metal group with 2/3 members sporting shaved heads with sideburns. Their only intelligible lyrics seemed to revolve around minotaurs (what else?), and their t-shirts were some of funniest/most terrifying things I’ve ever seen. Next up was Torche, a group that somehow managed to mix Soundgarden-style alt-rock with the face-melting fret-work of a guitarist who looked like Machete and not sound entirely terrible. Apparently he’s not in the band anymore, so they probably aren’t as good. Oh well.

All in all, these groups barely set the stage for Japan’s doom-drone dream-team, joined on this tour by Michio Kurihara, the guitarist of equally mind-expanding psych-rockers Ghost. There’s a reason Boris titled their 2003 album Amplifier Worship, and that’s because they WORSHIP AMPS. In other words, they like to play stupidly loud. With Kurihara peeling off one superhuman solo after another, making tantric love to his axe in ways Eric Clapton or Sting could never begin to imagine, the band reacted in turn with guitarist Wata sludge-riffing away, cartoonish drummer Atsuo headbanging while banging a gong and bassist Takeshi rarely opening her eyes throughout the storm und drang. I was sent into hyperspace, so what I’m still baffled by is how one of our friends fell asleep during the set.

10) Weezer - Stampede Corral - Calgary, AB - April 24, 2002

Before they became parodies of parodies of their former selves, it was still somewhat cool to call Weezer your favourite band. Ok, maybe ‘cool’ is the wrong word, but it wasn’t like wearing a Rush back patch on your jean jacket or something like that. Anyway, this was me at age 17, and the Weez had just made their ‘comeback’ the year previous with the release of the ‘Green’ album, a flawed but endearing collection of power-pop tunes that sounds like The Exploding Hearts compared to their current dreck. It’s somewhat embarrassing even including a concert at the Corral on this list, and being there for their first Calgary stop in ‘97 on the Pinkerton tour would at least be a tad more cred-worthy. Alas, this was my first time seeing a beloved band and I loved every second of it. I’m both cringing and laughing a little as I type these words, but when they closed the set with “Only In Dreams” and dropped confetti on the crowd, I might have even shed a few tears. You can stop reading now…

Hella good

Prolific punk prog drummer Zach Hill keeps on raising the gnar bar.

By Jesse Locke

Keith Moon was a loon, but compared to Zach Hill, his drumming sounds like a Sunday walk in the park. Sacrilege? Maybe, and I’m not trying to pull a Launchpad McQuack and rewrite history, but if you’ve ever had a chance to witness the Sacramento stick-man in the flesh you’ll attest that his whirligig attack on the skins is — to use his own words — some next level stuff. While recently touring with Wavves (and completely overshadowing the simple scuzz pop tunes) and repping his latest electro-“pop” project CHLL PLL, Hill’s list of collaborations is as long as his Samson-like locks, and it continues to grow every year.

*FYI: Portions of this interview were used for a previous article in FFWD Weekly.

Texture: How old were you when you started playing the drums?

Zach Hill: I got a kit when I was 15, so it was around that time that I had the notion that I kind of understand how to play and decided it was what I ultimately wanted to do. Up until that point, I was really into visual art and skateboarding, but I just got more and more obsessed with the idea of playing drums. Prior to that, for some reason I didn’t understand the idea that anyone could make music. I don’t really know how to explain that! I was always into music and had been going to punk shows since I was 12 and all through junior high, but it wasn’t until a few years after that I started to try it myself.

I’ve read that you’re completely self-taught, is that true?

ZH: I’m self-taught in the sense that I’ve never taken a lesson or anything like that, but I consider going to shows and just being observant a form of being taught. So yeah, no, I’ve never had any direction other than just watching people play and try to understand what was happening.

That’s super cool, and I’m sure it’s what allowed you to create your style of playing. It’s a much more interesting path to take than just sitting in a room with some dude while he teaches you how to play Metallica songs.

ZH: Yeah yeah, it’s such a different kind of thing. I would go to shows and sit on the side watching the drummers super closely, then go home, listen to records, think about it and try to figure things out for myself. Then of course I started playing with friends.

That’s the best kind of education I think.

ZH: (Laughs) Yeah, for sure! I dropped out of high school right when I started playing as well, and just pretty much spent the majority of my days drumming when I wasn’t working jobs, washing dishes or something like that.

You’ve been involved in so many different projects over the last few years — everything from Marnie Stern and The Ladies to the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez stuff, Bygones, Diamond Watch Wrists and now Wavves and CHLL PLL. How do you decide which to take on, and find the time to balance it all out?

ZH: It’s not even really like I’m picking my projects necessarily, because there are just so many talented and amazing people all around the world that I just feel like it happens organically. Whenever any individual is interested in working on something collaboratively and I feel like it’ll educate me or I can add to what they’re doing, I get really excited about what things could turn out like. If I feel like it’ll challenge me or give me a different sort of energy, then I’m all up for trying it out and seeing what happens. It gets kind of blurry I guess! It’s not like I’m trying to play with every person on the planet, but I guess I’m just not afraid of playing with people outside of my element or comfort zone. A lot of people probably choose not to do that for a lot of reasons, but I think one of them is definitely fear. I just don’t have that, and I’m always excited about forming artistic relationships with a lot of different people.

You and Zach Nelson have had a lot of crisscrossing side projects over the years, but how did the idea for your newest CHLL PLL come to be? Did you go into it hoping to create something poppier or more electronic?

ZH: Musically, we didn’t have any kind of pre-conceived notions of what it would sound like. Because both of us have always been in fairly aggressive projects, we’d been joking around about just taking a chill pill. We were interested in writing fucked up pop songs about love and relationships, because that was a concept that neither of us had really gotten into before, and taking an almost Residents-inspired approach.

What was it like playing with Boredoms at ATP this September?

ZH: Oh man, amazing. Boredoms are one of my favorite bands of all time, so any chance to play with them goes beyond a musical experience, it’s pretty much next level stuff. For me, the times that I’ve played with that group have been high marks, not even just musically, but for my life and myself. It’s hard to put what those experiences are like into words; they’re just really special. We did the Solar Eclipse show this summer as well, and that was also incredible. I love them as people, and couldn’t really respect another group of people more.

I really dug your last solo album and thought it showed off a different side of your musical imagination, especially on “Necromancer,” the 30-minute duet with Marco Benevento. What do you have planned for the follow-up, Face Tat?

ZH: I’m on tour right now, but it’s in the process of being made, and I’m really excited about that too — anxious to finish it. I have a handful of things that are half-done right now, and plan on finishing the album in the beginning of next year so it can come out this time in 2010. I can’t really be specific as far as to what the sound of it will be at this point, but it’ll have the same vibe for sure. I definitely plan on doing another world tour as well, but I think this time I’ll definitely incorporate other people into whatever is being performed. I really enjoyed doing a four-month tour by myself, because it was something I’ve never done before, and I’m always into that. I learned a lot from that.

I know you’ve designed a lot of the covers for albums you’ve played on, that there was an exhibit of your art in 2006 and that you also released the book Masculine Drugs/Destroying Yourself Is Too Accessible a few years before that. Are you still making a lot of visual art these days?

ZH: When I’m at home I do for sure, but I wish I could get into it more these days. For me personally, I have this thing in my mind where I don’t feel like I can do things 110% if I’m dividing my time. I haven’t been as public with my visual art just because I don’t want to waste people’s time with something that was only half thought out. When I’m putting my full self into music, it’s hard to feel confident about my art. Sometime later in life I’d like to put a lot more effort into it, but as it goes now, I’m still obsessed and wrapped up with making sound. I just don’t have the time to give to art.

That’s fair; you’re in a million bands. There’s a new Hella album coming out next year too, right? Holy crap. Are you guys sticking to the approach of There’s No 666 In Outer Space with the larger band and Aaron Ross on vocals?

ZH: Actually no, it’ll be the first record with just Spencer [Seim] and me again for quite some time. Hella is an experimental band in the truest sense of the word. Since we started it up, we’ve had no interest in repeating ourselves and every record we’ve put out is an experiment. With every experience we’ve gained, even outside of music, we’ve come back to the table in a whole different headspace. So I don’t expect that it’ll sound like anything we’ve done before.

http://www.myspace.com/zachhillmusic

Minimum maximum

Talk Normal talk broken-down blues, the creepy theatre of Bryan Ferry and translating simplicity into barreling surges of raw mayhem.

By Jesse Locke

Following in the Frankenstein footsteps of their No Wave forefathers and mothers, New York two-piece Talk Normal deconstruct rock ‘n’ roll using its own body parts, stripping the creature’s bloated mass down to its skeletal, atonal essentials. Using the building blocks of DNA/Sonic Youth-style guitar jags, tag-team vocals ranging from monotone to banshee (not Siouxsie) and a repetitive rhythmic thrust sometimes verging on tribal, Sarah Register and Andrya Ambro have carved out their own cave in the weirdo rock underground. With their debut full-length Sugarland set for an October release — including a twisted Roxy Music reimagining featuring longtime collaborator Richard Hoffman of Sightings — they’re excited to unleash their most fleshed-out and ferocious creation to date.

Texture: I’ve read that you two have been friends for years, and can imagine you in high school, skipping gym class and taking the principal’s car for a joy ride. How long exactly have you known each other, and how did you meet?

Sarah Register: Not high school quite, but there may have been some hijinks in college. We met 1999ish at NYU; our courses of study were vaguely swirling around each other. Ultimately Andrya started working in the music technology department, where I was assistant to the guy in charge. I staked out a mission to discover who this interesting intruder was. Many years of friendship later, Talk Normal emerged.

Did you play in other bands together (or separately) before this one?

SR: Andrya played in many bands. In NYC, of note: death.pool, Glen Olden and Antonius Block. Through a series of awesome events, I (later) also joined Antonius Block. After the eventual 'perpetual rest' that AB meandered into, Andrya and I spent a bit of time refining some mutual interests and started down a new path.

You’ve been continually (and I’d say accurately) compared to artists from the original No Wave era such as Lydia Lunch and DNA. Is that something that you aspired towards, or did it surprise you when you first heard the comparisons?

SR: It wasn't an aspiration, per se, but the minimalism (at times equalizing maximalism) and fierceness, among other things, appealed to both of us. Broken down structures, broken sounds, different forms, making noises naturally yet seemingly 'inappropriate' to the source... Initially we aspired to be a take on a broken-down blues band, a la Geeshie Wiley/Jessie Mae Hemphill. Simple is always interesting, though not always the end result, and also (as it would) the 'idea' is always evolving. Too hypocritical to stay still or try to be only one thing. Of course there are many potential influences.

Following your self-released demos and the Secret Cog EP, you’re now set to drop your debut full-length, Sugarland. How would you say it compares to the past material?

SR: It's a more realized studio representation than anything we've created so far. The challenge seems to be capturing the largeness we aspire to in live settings, and attempting to give a new/different life to that via recordings. This album spreads a fairly broad spectrum over the past two years. We are very proud to be presenting it in this fashion.

What was it like recording with Nicolas Vernhes at Rare Book Room? He’s got a pretty sweet CV, having worked with bands like Black Dice, the Dirty Projectors and even the Silver Jews.

SR: He's great. Just what the doctor ordered. A cool head full of plenty of wacky ideas and an open-mindedness toward off-the-beaten-path pursuits. Also always open to listen to our (oft-stubborn) thoughts/concerns and help us translate. A real music lover/enjoyer/maker. His intimacy with his studio is a delight to witness, and a palpable presence that he injects into the recording process.

The new album includes a re-worked version of your older song “River’s Edge” from the Coldest Beer In Town compilation released by Party Store Music. Why did you decide to dust that one off and bring it back to life again?

Andrya Ambro: Well, that song is a fave of ours. We had recorded the original version from the Coldest Beer comp ourselves but it never really felt true to how we perceived it live… like a barreling surge of raw mayhem! The Sugarland version comes a little closer to the song's inner core.

You’ve also included a cover of the Roxy Music classic “In Every Dream Home A Heartache” which really surprised me at first. Are you two big fans? Why that song specifically?

AA: Totally love Roxy Music, especially the first two albums. I had been watching a lot of Roxy videos earlier this year. 1. I want to be Bryan Ferry. 2. Made me totally want to further my initial pursuit of a woodwind instrument. Richard Hoffman (who plays on the track) nudged us a bit and eventually we pushed it forward. RE: “In Every Dream Home ....” it’s so poised and theatrical… and insane! The stillness which Ferry demands at the slow burning beginning is bold. And his delivery is so creepy. It also seemed like a good song for TN to rework — so much room to create our own playful arrangement and... who doesn't like inflatable dolls?

Do you have any other covers — glam rock or otherwise — in your repertoire?

AA: Yes! Otherwise. “Grinnin' In Your Face” off the Secret Cog EP is a Son House cover. [Ed’s note: I feel kind of dumb for not knowing that. It’s also been covered by Beck and… City and Colour, shudder...]

When I saw you live at SXSW earlier this summer, I thought it was super cool how you played a guitar as a percussive instrument on your drum kit, and decided to steal the idea. Was that your own invention, or did you pick it up somewhere else?

AA: No — Jorge DoCouto, of the now resting Antonius Block and the current Changing Holes, brought that forth. Good idea right? He threw that thing on my drum set and my brain was flipped. That's some wild and functional orchestration. When TN first started we were constantly trying to find ways to create more sound between the two of us. So the guitar ended up back on my drum set. We call her “The Beater.” With four strings, a loose neck and a busted pick-up, she's still kicking it after two plus years!

Back in March of last year, you sent out the following call over the Internet: “Seeking someone who loves to generate ‘noise’ via non-traditional machines or using traditional machines in a non-traditional manner. Props and odd objects acceptable. Good rhythm is a must. Ability to engage in the minimal is a must. Playing a woodwind instrument in an avant fashion is appreciated...or rather the desire to play a woodwind instrument in an avant fashion is more important :)” What came of that? Any interesting auditions?

AA: So many interesting “auditions,” or rather jams, with a slew of wonderful people. TN still remains Sarah and myself. However, people do occasionally join us on stage and recordings to break the routine, i.e. Richard Hoffman (bass), Vanessa Roworth (sax) and Dave Kadden (oboe). We are self-sufficient but do aspire to create in new ways, be they with other people or discovering a different process between the two of us.

http://www.myspace.com/talknormaltalknormal

Candy kid rave on the scorched earth after the bomb drops

Edmonton’s Cecil Frena conjures the ghosts of the Neon Graveyard with bizarre-o pop solo project GOBBLE GOBBLE.

By Jesse Locke

Photo by Landon Speers

In everything he does, Cecil Frena chooses a decidedly off-kilter approach. To date, his musical CV includes a hyperactive buzz of activity with arty, agressive hardcore acts such as snic and Gift Eaters, alongside founding The Hydeaway All Ages Art Space, and stoking the fires of the local show-going community with his promotions collective Push Pins.

Now, the 25-year-old alchemist of awesome has revealed his latest project GOBBLE GOBBLE, a skewed and eerily emotional amalgam of video game bleeps, dreamy guitars, lo-fi noise, lush arrangements and otherworldly vocals (he calls it “flu pop”). Hitting the ground running, Frena has not only dropped his debut album Neon Graveyard — released on cassette tape through Red Deer’s Bart Records or available as a download — but is also embarking on a jam-packed cross-Canada tour this summer, bringing his bizarre-o dance party to a town near you. I tracked him down for a hard-hitting Q ‘n’ A.

Texture: Musically, you're probably best known for playing with more aggressive acts like Snic and Gift Eaters. Do you think GOBBLE GOBBLE will throw people for a loop?

Cecil Frena: I’m kind of aiming for this to be like riding the Ring of Fire at your local carnival, and the carny who is operating the machine is wearing sweatpants and has an erection that keeps brushing up against the machine’s knobs as he’s dancing to the ambient carnival music. So you keep spinning faster and faster, and you just start projectile vomiting, and you can’t stop.

How long have you been making weirdo pop music like this on your own? And when did you decide to assemble it together into the album, Neon Graveyard?

CF: The music arose pretty naturally out of the place I was living in downtown Edmonton, which is called the City Market Apartments. It is a government-subsidized artist living-space that falls right on the faultline between the most polished, monolithic skyrises and total, abject, apocalyptic urban devastation. My front door led to the endless bustle of business people, while my bedroom window faced the wasteland. I think I started making these songs about eight months ago... composing and producing them when I had spare time between shows, jobs, bands, etc. and was just sitting, looking out my window. The songs were all coming from the same place so it made sense to treat them as a single unit that was gradually being birthed.

You've also been working for the last little while at The Hydeaway all ages art space and running Push Pins, which puts on all ages indie, experimental and punk shows. How do you think this hands-on involvement in the Edmonton and Alberta music community may have affected or influenced your music making?

CF: Being a part of the collective that founds a venue, writing a song, producing a record, publishing a zine, putting out tapes, writing for arts weeklies, or putting on all ages shows are all just different sides of the same coin: if you want things to happen, you have to make it so. I understand in some places of the world it is chic to be DIY. In Edmonton, it’s mandatory. But it’s still a badge we wear with a certain measure of pride.

From my perspective, there is very little that can compare to the kind of catharsis that tiny all ages shows at their best can provide. Watching my incredibly talented friends from Edmonton and across Canada perform is endlessly inspiring. In terms of direct musical influence, I can’t say I’ve gleaned much from the acts I’ve worked with, but in terms of passion, community, and the drive to create, nothing can compare.

Do you have any other influences you’d care to mention, musical or otherwise?

CF: Moliere is a guiding influence for me – I learned from him that it is always important not to take yourself too seriously when saying something very serious. I am fortunate enough to share a birthday with J.L. Borges – the man of mazes and a definite influence. I think he and Alejandro Jodorowsky are deeply connected in their work, only Borges is the systematic architect – the librarian – while Jodorowsky is the mystical conjurer - the tarot card reader. Musically, I would have to say Carsten Nicolai – the man absolutely soars between extremes of minimalism and maximalism, and watching him perform is the closest I have ever been to an actual exorcism. He was practically ejaculating demons.

What exactly does “flu pop” mean?

CF: Flu pop just expresses anxious celebration: having a full-on candy kid rave on the scorched earth after the bomb drops. A plague is a time when everyone is united in the contemplation of their death. In the course of this process, people systematically isolate themselves from each other, but since they are all doing the same thing they are actually sharing something strange. Consider the queer homogeneity of the gas mask: everybody alone together. And of course the term has a few other valences that I really like too. Musicians love to make up descriptors for their music, but they usually don’t stick anyway, so enjoy “flu pop” while you can.

Your lyrics are quite evocative and abstract in places – mentioning things like pregnant ghosts, sacred dandruff and a sunburned heart. How do you approach writing things like this, and do you hope for people to try and uncover hidden metaphors and/or meanings?

CF: North American lyrical hardcore and its offshoots has shaped how I understand the place of lyrics: I think it’s exciting to be baffled by a lyric that is obfuscated by a scream or a texture or a tempo, and then to uncover it later, with or without the assistance of a lyric sheet, only to discover that it is a labyrinth all its own. That is at least one major difference between my approach and a lot of current “lo-fi” – while I enjoy the textures of noise for what they are, I’m also specifically interested in wrapping presents in fuzz.

There’s also an emotional undercurrent to your music despite the crazily upbeat nature of the songs and instrumentation, and you seem to return to the themes of death and dying throughout the album (making Neon Graveyard a really apt title). So… just how personally are the meanings behind these songs, and do you hope for people to feel something tugging at their heartstrings along with their hips?

CF: My whole life, I have had a fantasy where I dictate the events of my funeral, and transform it suddenly from a time of solemnity and mourning into a kind of celebratory, absurdist theater that forces laughter. Nietzsche talks about dancing on the void – Nichol would tell you to piss in the abyss. I hope more than anything that this record will be awkward and emotionally dissonant for people – in a good way, a cathartic dissonance.

So it is a conceptual record of sorts, though I hope it at least in part manages to avoid the usual pretension of that tradition. I know a bit inevitably creeps in – I mean, I just namechecked Nietzsche. But maybe imagine him wearing assless chaps.

On the topic of instrumentation, you’ve described your live setup as follows: “a stolen harmonica mic through a guitar amp, sidechaining, game boys, garbage percussion, circuit bent kids toys, live remixing, homemade instruments.” How will this all work live, and how much stuff will you be bringing on tour? How do you expect this music to be received in the smaller towns of Canada and the U.S.?

CF: Live, we try to do something very different from what I did on the record: bizarre-o dance party. Exuberance is the founding principle of the GOBBLE GOBBLE live set. For this tour, I will have a live band, and we’ve been carefully building our implements. A tree of garbage, a toy chest of circuit bent and monstrous toys, multi-generational Gameboys, hand-soldered monosynths, homemade noise makers, and I’ll be cutting things up and remixing live. We’re bringing the total spectacle out on the road with us. I think in small towns, this half-ton of kitsch will make even more sense.

Why have you decided not to release the album on CD, going with cassette and download only? Will there also be vinyl down the road?

CF: Pete Lyman mastered Neon Graveyard, and he contributed to it by running his tape machine into the red and adding his own distortion. Similarly, each individual tape will also contribute its own hiss and clip to the record. So I really just like the idea of the tape as an individualized, handmade relic, and I think it’s something worth having, while a CD is merely for ripping and tossing. I’m definitely looking to do vinyl down the road.

What other plans do you have for the future of GOBBLE GOBBLE?

CF: Stylish and decadent disease — in a word, consumption.

www.myspace.com/leatherjowels

SXSWeird

Top 12 oddball acts at the 2009 Austin, Texas fest

by Jesse Locke

Photos by Marki Sveen

1. Sun Araw

In his stunning set at the Not Not Fun showcase, Sun Araw’s mustachioed main-man Cameron Stallones (also a member of heavy psych worshippers Magic Lantern) offered forth three extended tropical drone bliss-outs. Bathed in Sunn O))) amp reverb and Farfisa organ warble, he magically froze time like Hiro Nakamura.

http://www.notnotfun.com/sunaraw/main.html

2. Mi Ami

Back in the ‘90s, Dischord-signed double bass guitar/drum-kit sporting, free-jazz loving quintet Black Eyes were one of the baddest-assed bands around. These days, members Jacob Long and Daniel Martin-McCormick have regrouped as two-thirds of the hyperactive, banshee squealing trio Mi Ami, and guess what? Almost equal bad assery, bah gawd. As one of the last acts signed to the sadly defunct Touch & Go, their debut LP Watersports is one of this year's early stand-outs.

http://www.myspace.com/miamiamiami

3. Woods

Imagine Neil Young and Crazy Horse reborn as a group of guitar freak-out and psych-folk loving early 20-somethings with some of the catchiest campfire holler-a-longs this side of circa now Devendra, and you might have some idea of what to expect with Woods. Or maybe just Wooden Shjips with twang and falsetto? Either way, these shaggily-sideburned Californian wunderkinds are so damn winning it’s almost unfair.

http://www.fuckittapes.com/woods.htm

4. Daniel Francis Doyle

Photo courtesy of Ben Aqua

The formula for this Texas-based one-man freak show savant is simple on paper, but jaw-droppingly impressive in execution. Step 1: Whip off some blistering riffage on electric guitar. Step 2: Snag said riffs on Line 6 delay pedal and allow to ring out. Step 3: Jump onto drum kit and make like Zach Hill. Step 4: Somehow miraculously manage to sing monotone motivational Gang Of Four-style slogans into a head-attached mic while still flailing like a whirligig, all while foot-tapping the delay pedal like another percussive instrument. Step 5: Splatter audience brains across floor and walls.

http://www.myspace.com/danielfrancisdoyle

5. These Are Powers

Like M.I.A, Low and "I Feel Love" before them, Chicago/Brooklyn three-piece These Are Powers (featuring former Liars and n0 things member Pat Noecker on possibly the weirdest sounding bass guitar ever) offer a taste of the future. Describing their synth-drum and sample driven, mutant electro hip-hop hybrid is difficult in words that currently exist, so try these: GRAXX DRAZZLY WYBBB QUUUUVVV.

http://www.myspace.com/thesearepowers

6/7. Azeda Booth/Women

This pair aren’t linked up because of stylistic similarities—both play guitars, that’s about all they share—but because they’re both from Calgary, and seriously slayed at this year’s SXSW. At the annual Friend Island day party, the Azeda boys performed cuts spanning their back catalog and brand spankin’ new Tubtrek EP. Stranger and more exciting still, front man Jordon Hossack traded in his trademark falsetto for some bona-fide croons, while fellow band members Morgan Greenwood and Marc Rimmer provided the shimmering soundscapes underneath.

Women, on the other hand, were one of the most hyped acts at this year’s fest, and for good reason. Following their non-stop tour action of the last few years, the quartet have now honed themselves into crystalline panthers of post-punk destruction. With newer tracks like “Diamond Boy” and their cover of Devo’s "Blockhead", they easily outshone the now tragically past their prime flowerpot-hatted fogies they paid tribute to.

http://www.azedabooth.com

http://www.flemisheye.com/artists/women

8. Ponytail

Everyone and their dog has been barking about these Baltimoreans since the release of last year’s Ice Cream Spiritual, but hey, it’s basically impossible (and pointless) to find a fault in their stupidly fun sound. If you can’t get down with cascades of guitar, spasticus drumming and a cherub-like lead singer hopped up on Pixie Stix while spitting nonsense sound effects, then basically you don’t like music. Live, they make even more or possibly even less sense, depending on how you grok it.

http://www.myspace.com/ponytailtunes

9/10. Micachu/The Dirty Projectors

It would be impressive enough just to know that she’s been a musician since age four, has mastered multiple instruments such as the violin and viola in post-secondary, composed a classical epic for the London Philharmonic Orchestra and invented her own kind of guitar (“The Chu” - see photo above). However, the fact that 21-year-old cutie-pie Mica Levi takes these skills and cranks out stupidly catchy and undeniably British bizarre-o pop songs makes you want to pick her up, put her in your backpack and buy her some candy (or a pint). Performing at Emo’s Annex, Levi and her band The Shapes opened for Dave Longstreth's Dirty Projectors, who also ruled it with their fourth world weirdness and Mariah Carey impressions.

http://www.myspace.com/micayomusic

http://www.myspace.com/dirtyprojectors

11. Talk Normal

With their awesome atonality, bored vox and guitar squawks, Brooklyn grrly girl No Wave duo Talk Normal conjure up the ghosts of James Chance, Lydia Lunch and Arto Lindsay, even though all three of them are still alive. Stick their Secret Cog EP in yr ear, it’s a real brainstormer.

http://www.myspace.com/talknormaltalknormal

12. Thee Oh Sees

Photo courtesy of Tomlab

Johnny Dwyer and Crispin Glover must share a few chromosomes, because they both get the exact same look of fired up insanity in their eyes and faces when they’re at the height of excitement. On album, Thee Oh Sees are a real cool time, but they still can't quite pound the nails into the coffin the same way Dwyer’s past projects Coachwhips and Pink and Brown used to. Live, however, it’s another story altogether. One about sloppy guitar shredding, spazzy rock ‘n’ roll and you leaving their show feeling like you just saw Thin Lizzy obliterate a backyard BBQ.

http://www.myspace.com/ohsees

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