It seems like everyone these days is just waiting for The Walkmen’s sixth studio album to drop! No name. No release date. A tour of England with the Black Keys? That is something that is known. The dates are known, too.
Check around their official site for news and other stuff: http://www.marcata.net/walkmen/
June 21 – Black Lips
Consequence of Sound – Starting May 17th, Adult Swim will host a new single weekly until July 12th. Kicking off the series will be Superwolf (Will Oldham and Matt Sweeney). From then on, it’s Madvillain, Killer Mike, Washed Out (featuring Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek), High on Fire, Black Lips, LCD Soundsystem, Cults, and Freddie Gibbs. Just an FYI, LCD Soundsystem’s contribution is the previously released Holy Ghost remix of “Drunk Girls”, along with a video. And if that weren’t enough, the Cults will also have a video premiere. That and television featuring stop-motion animation; what a company.
Band: Ty Segall
Release: 5/2010
Label: Goner Records
1. “Finger” – A
2. “Caesar” – A
3. “Girlfriend” – A
4. “Sad Fuzz” – A
5. “Melted” – A-
6. “Mike D’s Coke” – B-
7. “Imaginary Person” – A
8. “My Sunshine” – A+
9. “Bees” – A-
10. “Mrs.” – A-
11. “Alone” – A-
Comments: With such a soft beginning, I’m sure you got a little bored with “Finger” at first. Next thing you know, the song becomes a noisy medley of effects and distortion. “Caesar” stuck out in my mind as a top-shelf single and my thoughts on the song haven’t changed much as I’ve been listening to it on a fairly regular basis. “Sad Fuzz” is this album’s most overt attempt at a ’60s psychedelic-pop retrospective. It’s a success. “Melted” ends rather abruptly…aka the point that I was about to get into it. “Mike D’s Coke” seems a bit unnecessary and…filler. Filler alert. Segall’s best attempt at trying to sound like Jay Reatard — songwriting and actual voice/instrumentation — comes on “Imaginary Person.” Of course, Segall is a great songwriter himself, so he adds in a few solid touches of his own. The four chord dirty sound of “My Sunshine” is engaging. I really love the wet lead guitar riffs. This “sound,” if you will, continues onto the next track and, of course, folks, that means we have a great song on our hands. When the Strange Boys esque (minus the vocals) “Alone” speeds up…damn! Awesome. Besides a few bumps in the road, this LP contains plenty of exciting tracks. Listen!
Grade: A- (92)
I first heard about this band and song and music video from the Pop Jew. The Pop Jew has solid taste in music and recognized me on her blog for my cunning computer room performance of “I Am A Girlfriend.”
Never mind that, though. Check out this band PUJOL. Not like Albert Poo-Hole, but rather like Daniel Poo-Joe. They are from Nashville, Tennessee and they play fun power pop-ish punx and his junx kind of music. So definitely give a check out to this video, which is pretty new. Then, if you are impressed, head over to their MySpace and listen to more of their tunes.
Here’s some great links involving this band:
– Daniel Pujol on Vinyl
– PUJOL “Mission From God” Video
– PUJOL Myspace Page
Band: Disappears
Release: 4/2010
Label: Kranky Records
1. “Gone Completely” – A-
2. “Magics” – B+
3. “Pearly Gates” – A-
4. “Marigold” – B
5. “Not Nothing” – B+
6. “Lux” – B+
7. “Old Friend” – B+
8. “Little Ghost” – B+
9. “New Cross” – B
10. “No Other” – A
Comments: Disappears is a band to keep your eyes on. It’s cool to see they are signed to Kranky Records, which has put out great discs by the likes of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound. I’d compare them to the former due to their light proto-punk sound and lo-fi prowess. The first few songs really caught my attention and the basis for such a comparison grew as one song switched to the next. Consider the jam-out on “Pearly Gates.” Not as epic as Deerhunter’s “Nothing Ever Happened,” but fun as fuck. These kind of jam-outs are more common on here than I anticipated. The only aspect of the record that I think could be improved upon would be vocal volume. Another thing I like about this band is that they portray a real sense of confidence. This sort of goes with what I said before. They don’t seem afraid to just rock out. And it’s not like they are rocking out with no sense of direction. “Old Friend” has some shouts that recall Thee Oh Sees. (A positive). The last song, “No Other,” is a winner. Good line: “when’s this gonna end? How’s it gonna be? Immediate death or slow and painfully?” OK so: while this album doesn’t necessarily stick out in the grand scheme of CD Reviews, I’m glad I ran into it.
Grade: B+ (88)
This is a really really really really high quality video for a new series called “For No One.” I recommend watching it in full screen, by the way.
Harlem plays “Be Your Baby,” and “Someday Soon.”
“We drove fourteen hours to be here and now we’re going to play IT’S SO FUCKING EASY.”
I always loved Jay’s sense of humor.
But it is okay thanks to bail!
And because Nobunny is the man!
Harlem, you know that really awesome band from Texas who Chris and I saw at Great Scott just short of a month ago, will be back in these parts in a couple of months. July 14, to be exact, at the House of Blues. No, no, no. I know what you are thinking. They couldn’t even draw a sold-out GS crowd, so any chance of them headlining a 1,000 capacity venue seems moot, don’t you think? Right. They will be opening for the perfectly average hard-rock/blues outfit Dead Weather. Fellow KLYAMer Matt will be presumably in attendance and he’ll be in for a treat. In a summer void of great concerts, I’d probably go to this one. BUT it’s $29 bucks and $29 for a quickie set from Harlem (fuck they only played 25 minutes at GS as headliner) is a bit much.
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 