Category Archives: Entertainment

CD Review: Warm Slime

Band: Thee Oh Sees
Release: 5/2010
Label: In The Red

1. “Warm Slime” – B-
2. “I Was Denied” – A-
3. “Everything Went Black” – B+
4. “Castiatic Tackle” – A
5. “Flash Bats” – B-
6. “Mega-feast” – B+
7. “MT Work” – B

Comments: Prolific in both quantity and quality, Thee Oh Sees have been kicking out jams for years at the rate of two or three albums a year. Maybe more. Damn, the phrasing in that first sentence is a little redundant, but it sounds good. Speaking of redundant, how about a 13 minute opener? That’s more than twice the length of Mark Sultan’s $ premier number “Icicles.” Damn, I hope Pitchfork doesn’t give Stephen Deusner the call-to-the-mound, so to speak, to review this album. That hater will just hate. So, anyway, if I am going to pitch in my two cents, I might as well do that at this time. It’s only appropriate. Around the 5:00 mark things slow down from consistent beats to an A Capella (but not really) repetition of some sentence that is not comprehensible to me. A speed up, of course, follows and is actually kind of awesome. The drums remind me of when I try recording myself playing drums on the computer. It’s just a sequence of loud bass drum bangs that sort of take center stage and make everything else… off-center-stage. That makes no sense. But I continue. Let’s be real here. In the age of the information superhighway and not of the vinyl long-player, this opener is hella skippable. Listen up, though. I could see if I was reading a book or something and popped this on the record player. Yeah, that’d be fun. But fucking eh! “I Was Denied” is a loud noise club bang her with a very simple progression and an irresistibly in your face chorus. “Everything Went Black” has another classic Oh Sees drum scheme. These drum schemes work to some degree, but don’t get me into some kind of frenzy. “Castiatic Tackle” is the shit! Hot shit! That’s the way I like it, dudes. To borrow a phrase from the great Cole Alexander (and thousands of others…thanks Google search), this shit is “psychedelic as fuck!” “Flash Bats” doesn’t keep pace with the one before it, but is very good. “Mega-feast” has a cool hook and all. What a fun closer “MT Work” is.

Grade: B (86)

Mark Sultan To Music Reviewers:

I DONT GIVE A FUCK”

“People are always going to rag on me and my music, but I believe in it and don’t give a f—,” he says. “Take my [recent] Pitchfork review for example, aside from an incredible lack of research and knowledge, it’s all a big joke. Had I made an album full of shorter tracks, the same reviewer would have asked for something else.”

Sultan might be unfazed by criticism, but he wishes music journalists weren’t so eager to tack the garage rock tag onto his latest batch of songs.

“I still love rock ‘n’ roll and garage and all of that, for sure, but I think this is easily something else,” he says. “People are lazy; I hardly think they actually listen [to my music]. The average knowledge of one of these f–king music dudes is like 1981 and up.”

God bless Mark for being the man.
——————–

Side note: Sultan is a big hit at college radio. $ got an impressive #3 spot on the Chart Attack top 50 last week.

Black Lips Feud W/ Beethoven

Yo, Beethoven, less time in front of the mirror…more time on the piano.

Favorite band of at least two KLYAM writers, Black Lips don’t actually hate Beethoven, even if they say they do. It’s all good.

Spinner Talks W/ Jared + Cole: http://www.spinner.com/2010/04/28/black-lips-beef-wavves-ryan-seacrest/

Also, on a related note, check out this interview from about three years ago with Spinner: http://www.spinner.com/interface/black-lips. It includes three performances of tracks off Good Bad Not Evil and then a humorous Interface that has Joe asking Cole questions.

Randy Hustles Up!

Advice To Wanna-Be Hustlers: Just keep making music as much as possible. Finish every idea you have or at least run the numbers on an idea to see if whatever cash you currently have will be enough to help you accomplish what you wanna do. Don’t wait for someone to give you what you want, just go out and take it. Don’t be afraid to beg, borrow or steal whatever you need to get the job done. At the end of the day, no one will hear your almost-finished demo. You need to have something completed, no matter how good you think the finished product it. You can always take what you learned from making the first song/record/project and apply those new ideas to the next song/record/project. People don’t expect you to be perfect right out of the gate, so you shouldn’t expect perfection either. Having room to grow is what being a full-time artist/hustler is all about. If your first thing kills it, people will only be expecting bigger and better things from you, which is rad. You always wanna have the next bigger better idea brewing in your head, no matter how crazy it might sound to you right now. Stretching your comfort zones will only mean that you are growing. Don’t be afraid to fuck up or fail. Nobody ever got what they wanted by sitting on the sidelines. You gotta get your hands dirty and make mistakes to know where you need to improve and get stronger.

Check Out The Complete Feature: http://hustleup.wordpress.com/