Generally speaking, I don’t like to mix business with pleasure. This is mostly because I like to give all of my attention to the task in front of me. If it’s business time, then I make sure I handle my business. Likewise, if it’s time to party, then I want to know that all of my business has been handled so that I don’t have any responsibilities holding me back when I go on a wild, booze fueled rock n roll adventure that rages on into the early morning hours.
Of course, that is generally speaking. When we are talking specifically about CMJ, the rules about the separation of business and pleasure do not apply. CMJ is a 5 day orgy of indie music, free shwag and drink specials that goes from noon to 4am every day. There is no way that I can hope to go to that many rock shows and keep a perfectly balanced composure for all 16 hours of each day. I’m not saying that I’ll be chugging bloody marys as soon as they open the doors on the first day show, but sooner or later I’m going to have to start drinking. Combine the free alcohol with a pretty awesome roster of bands, and before you know it, it’s party time.
But you’re not here for stories about drinking. You’re here for the music - which is more interesting, honestly. Because I understand this, (and because I’m a type A personality) I committed to a close study of all CMJ shows - official or otherwise - and came up with this list of recommendations and highlights. Print it out, take it with you, get your freak on.
Tuesday 8:30pm - Free Energy @ The Studio at Webster Hall A new favorite here at Tough Customer headquarters. These kids from Philly sound like the best parts of Thin Lizzy and T.Rex as mixed by the dudes at DFA. Which is basically what it is.
10:45pm - Black Taxi @ Arlene’s Grocery An intriguing combination of indie rock, surf rock and Mark Knopfler-style riffs. New stuff sounds like cross between Kings Of Leon and Cold War Kids.
11:00pm - Saint Motel @ Kenny’s Castaways Kinda like classic rock, but more modern.
1:00am - Heavy Trash @ Santos Party House Jon Spencer’s new-ish band. Everybody likes that guy.
2:00am - Ghislain Poirier @ Glasslands “Bombastic bass lines and blazing synths dripping sizzling hot dancehall rhythms.”
Wednesday
7:00pm - The Men Who Stare At Goats @ Clearview Cinema This is actually a funny, weird-looking movie about a top-secret wing of the U.S. military. Stars George Clooney and Ewan McGregor.
8:30 - Pacific Division @ DROM New golden era hip hop from the West Coast.
9:00pm - The XX @ Mercury Lounge Might as well see what all the hype is about…
11:00pm - Ninjasonik @ Le Poisson Rouge Have you seen the video for Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant? Do you need another reason? 11:30pm - Teenage Prayers @ Southpaw This is the Futures Sounds/Rumble Party. Those guys know what they’re doing, as evidenced by the fact that they tapped this snarky faux-oldies band to play their showcase.
1:00am - Boogie Boarder @ Glasslands Gallery Loud, rhythmic garage-y rock.
Thursday
8:30pm - Bottle Up & Go @ The Studio at Webster Hall “Loud, raw, perfect bluesy mess.”
11:00pm - Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers @ Pianos Haunting murder ballads. This is what I imagine Tom Waits’ wife sounds like. 12:00am - Tanya Morgan @ Southpaw Best new hip hop group of 2009. Seriously.
12:00am - Priestess @ Arlene’s Grocery This is an arena caliber rock band playing in a room the size of my basement. Something will probably explode. 1:00am - Sean Bones @ Mercury Lounge Who knew that indie rock-steady reggae pop would sound this good? Top 10 album of the year, for sure.
2:30am - Cymbals Eat Guitars @ Public Assembly Vice Mag late night party. If you’re still up and looking for something to do, this would be a good choice.
Friday 10:30pm - Red Wire Black Wire @ The Studio at Webster Hall
CD release party/homecoming/totally awesome show from Brooklyn’s best electro-pop band.
11:30pm - Yes Giantess @ The Studio at Webster Hall So smooth. Plus, you’ll already be there for the RWBW set.Might as well stay and watch these guys. 2:00am - The Postelles @ The Pure Volume House Probably the catchiest band playing at CMJ. Prepare to spend the next week humming “123 Stop” to yourself.
Saturday
5:00pm - Red Wire Black Wire @ Braur Falls In case you missed them the night before and feel bad about it.
8:00pm - Pig Destroyer @ Rocks Off Concert Cruise Bone crunching speed metal - and it’s on a boat! 9:00pm - Rumspringa @The Studio at Webster Hall Just drums and guitar, but they manage to squeeze a lot of genres into their sound.
9:45pm - Turbo Fruits @ Union Pool This is what I wished the Black Lips sounded like.
(Highly recommended shows in bold.)
Here’s a list of 18 things that are great about summer:
milkshakes
fishing
girls in bikinis
rooftop parties
bar-b-ques
fireworks
strawberries
girls in skirts
cold beer
fireflies
outdoor concerts
the beach
white nectarines
girls in tank tops
tomatoes from the garden
camp fires
short sleeves
the track “Dream City” from the Philly rock band Free Energy
This last one is probably the only item on the list that isn’t already universally recognized as one of the symbols of the summer months. The good people at Music For Robots dug up this track in honor of the warmer weather and the band’s inaugural foray into New York City. Free Energy is fronted by Paul Sprangers, formerly of Hockey Night, and their as-yet-unreleased album is produced by none other than the DFA’s James Murphy. In other words, they have pedigree out the ass.
Everything about their first single evokes a summertime make-out session wrapped in the warm embrace of a beer buzz and a mild sunburn. It’s a teenage love affair circa 1979. It’s skinny-dipping in a backyard suburban pool on a hot August night. It’s a Camaro, a blended margarita and a new tattoo all rolled into one. It’s nearly perfect.
In fact, my only objection is the smooth jazz saxophone that rears its feathered head right at the end of the song. It’s like Kenny G broke into the recording studio and held the band hostage until they agreed to let him make a cameo appearance in the last 30 seconds of the track. What’s up with that?
Maybe this is just Free Energy’s subtle nod to the small flaws of the vacation season; bug bites, traffic, sand in the sheets. Or maybe it’s just their way of acknowledging that great songs, like summer vacation, must eventually come to an end. Autumn passes us gently into winter’s frozen grip, just as Kenny G’s soprano sax riff guides us into what will probably be the fuzzed out guitar work of the album’s next track. Guess we’ll just have to wait until the album comes out to know for sure. Until then, enjoy the weather.
How dumb is Chris Brown? He fucked up sooooo bad. It’s like he not only killed the golden goose, but he also roasted it over a pile of burning baby seals and then ate it with his bare hands in front of the entire California chapter of PETA.
Seriously, until very recently his life could not have been any better. If you had stopped any random dude on the street two weeks ago and granted him a wish, he would have basically asked to be Chris Brown. “Well, it would be great to be young again. But wait, I would really like to have a fancy sports car. Although, I’d also like to have a hot R&B singer for a girlfriend. Maybe I could just be a celebrity myself…?”
Chris Brown has (had) all those things. He is 19 years old. He was dating Rihanna and he was on his way to perform at the Grammys in a brand new Lamborghini. What?! That’s like god decided to make sweet love to your life. You literally and tangibly had it better than 99.9% of the other humans on this planet. Why not just sit back and let amazing things happen to you?
Instead, Chris Brown decided to beat up a girl. There is no possible way he can justify that. I mean, what could he possibly say? She insulted him? She insulted his mother? She insulted him and his mother and his grandmother? So what? You’re Chris Brown. You’re in a $250,000 sports car with one of the most beautiful girls in the world. It should be pretty easy to keep insults like that in perspective. If I was in Chris Brown’s position I don’t think I would ever get mad. Rihanna could pee in my shoes and I’d be like, “That’s cool. I’m just gonna drive my Lamborghini over to Beverly Hills and buy a thousand new pairs of shoes. And then I’m going to have sex with, like, ten groupies at once. And then me and Justin Timberlake are gonna go catch a Laker’s game. Peace out.”
I guess it’s just a classic case of too much is never enough. This malady seems to strike a disproportionate number of celebrities - most likely because they are among the select group of people who almost always have too much. For you or me, just having the fancy car or the fancy girl or the fancy friends would probably be enough to make us feel pretty good. I’m sure plenty of people get a vicarious thrill just from imagining that they have those things. But for people like Chris Brown it probably takes more than a fast car and a hot girl to get his pulse pounding.
Unfortunately this seems to be a sad, but true fact of the human condition. The more we have, the more we want. This makes the pursuit of happiness an essentially futile task, since it will always be just out of reach. Which is a depressing thought, since I’m told that the pursuit of happiness is basically the whole point of life. Still, that’s no reason to go beating up your girlfriend. Why don’t you channel some of that anger into your art? You know, write a song about it or something.
That’s what New Villager did. The duo, which is equal parts California and New York, has composed a pensive little dance nugget called “Rich Doors.” This should have been the song they played during the meta-futuristic rave scene in The Matrix 2. The drums have a tribal pulse and the sparse lyrics have the quality of a poem spoken in the back of a long, dark cave. They seem to tell the story of someone who has it all and yet still searches for more, if only because there isn’t anything else for them to do.
If nothing else, it’s a beautiful song that is definitely celebrating something bittersweet. It could be celebrity excess or the meaningless pursuit of happiness in this lifetime. Their website leads me to believe it might also have something to do with The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, but I don’t really know what that is. So instead I will just assume it is a searing indictment of Chris Brown and domestic abuse. Listen to your fellow artists Chris. Stop the violence.
One of the more nefarious details of the current US credit meltdown is what’s happening at the top of this big, steaming pile. While thousands of people at the bottom lose their jobs and life savings, and while the government contemplates a record bail-out package, a lot of the top executives who oversaw this disaster are quietly leaving the scene. And guess what? They’re doing so with their pockets filled to overflowing.
It turns out that most of these CEOs have a so-called golden parachute that provides them with exit packages worth millions of dollars - regardless of the terms of their exit. Sure, they might lose their job when their company is sold or goes belly up, but they shouldn’t have any problem landing on their feet. Why? Because after several years of clocking six and seven figure paychecks they get an extra couple of million as their parting gift.
Ha! Here’s your “punishment” for fucking up the US economy Mr. Filthy Rich Executive! Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
Look, we all know that life is unfair and some have more than most, but this is just plainly, blatantly, insultingly wrong. You know what happens to me when I am late on a single payment for my credit card? It goes on my permanent record, archived as a poisonous little weapon that can be used against me for at least seven years whenever some financial institution wants to deny me a loan, charge me a higher interest rate, or make it difficult for me to rent an apartment.
Right now I have a huge scar on my credit report because of an unpaid hospital bill. Four years ago I spent three and a half hours in an emergency room waiting for somebody to look at my broken hand. Finally I got sick of waiting and left. Unfortunately, I had given them my name and social security number when I checked in, which later allowed them to bill me $350 for my visit. Yes, that’s right. They charged me $350 to sit, untreated, for three and a half hours in the waiting room before leaving of my own volition.
Needless to say, trying to get this problem straightened has been a nightmare of paperwork and fruitless phone calls to creditors. I’m sure every one of you knows exactly what I’m talking about, because every one of you has spent some portion of your life on the phone or in a bank or online with your credit card company arguing about some rule in the fine print that allows them to pointlessly fuck with your world. It’s par for the course these days. Everybody who works or has some small amount of money understands the delicate and tenuous nature of their credit rating and how easily it can be used to make life difficult.
So here’s what I propose: First, the above mentioned executives should not receive any sort of exit package. I know their contracts may guarantee it and all that, but so what? You broke the American economy. Entire generations are going bankrupt because of your greed. Let’s see you get a team of expensive lawyers to fight this one when you’re paying for it out of your own unemployed pockets.
Secondly, and more importantly, every single top executive who profited from and/or had a hand in the current economic crisis should have his bank account drained and his personal credit score lowered to 150. After that, it won’t matter how much cash they have stuffed in their respective mattresses. Want to start a new business? Too bad, your small business loan has been denied. Want to apply for a credit card? Sorry, we can only offer you a $250 limit with a 34.99% APR. Want to rent a house, or install cable, get a cellphone plan, buy a car or turn on your utilities? Unfortunately your credit score tells us that you are an irresponsible and untrustworthy person.
I think the country would be a very different place if the people who created this mess had to walk a mile in the shoes of the people who trudge through it every day. I think that if huge corporations and monolithic financial institutions remove the piles of money that stand between them and the people they’re profiting from, they’ll see how rotted out the system is. I think it was their own greed that brought on the fall in this case, but it was bound to happen one way or another. As the great financial analyst/record producer Alan Parsons once said, what goes up must come down.
We’re now staring into the gaping maw of the Christmas shopping season, which means the selling will soon begin in earnest. Already this week we’re seeing fruitcakes at Walgreens, egg nog at the corner store, and a nationwide increase in the consumption of spiral ham.
Speaking of holiday cheer, the Christmas season is one of the few remaining things that can still give the major labels half a boner. As such, we’re also seeing new albums from some blue chip artists being released today. You probably heard about Chinese Democracy (thanks Dr. Pepper!) and you know Kanye’s got another vanity project hitting the shelves. Oh, and in case anybody is gift shopping for their great-aunt Shirley, you’ll be happy to know that Tom Jones and Barry Manilow have new albums out this week as well.
But what should you get for the special people on your list this year? What about your little sister, who loves melancholy electro-pop? What about your jaded hipster friend who thinks he likes Fuck Buttons, but really just wants to dance? What about that cute chick with the Ratatat t-shirt at the coffee shop you’ve been meaning to talk to? What would make the holidays special for them?
The answer is simple: a copy of the new Compass EP from Brooklyn’s Red Wire Black Wire. It comes out today on Tough Customer Records. It is filled with thumping drum sounds pulled from hip hop’s back catalogue, synthesizers stolen from Brian Eno and enough guitars to please any indie rock fan. It is guaranteed to bring satisfaction to any music lover on your Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza/Grand High Climax list.
So get your hands on a copy of Red Wire Black Wire’s Compass EP today and then go forth and spread good cheer unto the world.
I really like going to movies by myself, especially in the middle of the day when there’s hardly anybody else in the theater. A lot of people think this is weird, but I don’t really understand why. If you’re sitting in the dark for two hours giving your undivided attention to a giant screen, does it really matter if there’s somebody you know in the seat next to you? I can understand if you’re on a date and looking to do some serious hand-holding, but otherwise being by yourself helps you concentrate. This in turn helps you lose yourself in the story and suspend your disbelief when necessary. The latter is especially important when watching anything from the sci-fi, action or dramatic thriller genres.
Speaking of movie dates, for some people the idea of sitting in a dark theater is inextricably linked to time spent with the opposite sex. Perhaps this is a holdover from the 50s, when not everyone had a car and a movie theater was one of the few places a horny teenager could get some time alone with his date. In some cases I think it’s just sublimated fear of homosexuality.
For example, I have a group of friends - all male - who refuse to sit next to each other in the theater. They insist on sitting at least two seats apart from each other. If we go in a large enough group or to a small enough theater, this means that we can take up a whole row with just a few of us. When I first went to a movie with these guys and I tried to sit next to one of them, I was firmly rebuked. “Dude,” I was told, “don’t sit there. Slide over one.” When I asked why it was revealed to me that sitting next to another guy at a movie is “totally gay.”
I wonder if Elizabeth Sharp ran up against this kind of resistance when she started her one-woman band Ill Ease. Did anybody look at her funny when she insisted on playing all the instruments herself? Did they label her an outcast when they heard her symphony of overdubbed tambourines and hand claps? Perhaps they declared “Jangly lo-fi bedroom pop is group activity! You can’t make songs that are catchy and broken in all the right places by yourself!”
I for one don’t think it’s weird at all. Hey - I listen to music by myself all the time. In fact, I often do so when I’m waiting for a movie to start. And if anyone can ever lower their inhibitions enough to sit next to me, I might just tell them all about this great one woman band I just discovered. That’s not so weird is it?
The other day I gave my brother a band-aid for a cut on his hand. Actually, I should say Band-Aid, with a capital “B” and a capital “A” because it was a name brand bandage. Not only was it an actual Band-Aid, but it was one of the fancy ones. They’re called “tough strips” and they stay stuck to your body until you peel them off with a putty knife. It doesn’t matter if you’re sweating, showering, or taking a long walk though a hurricane. These things do not come off.
At the end of the day as we we’re driving home, my brother was astonished to find that his Band-Aid was still firmly attached to his hand. I conjectured that bandages were one of the things that you just can’t buy generic. You’ve got to buy Band-Aids if you want them to stay on long enough for the wound they are covering to heal. This quickly got us listing other things that a smart shopper shouldn’t skimp on when trying to decide whether or not to purchase a name brand item. Not the most stimulating conversation, I know, but a fun game to play when you’re driving across the Bay Bridge and there’s nothing good on the radio.
Here’s our list: Band-Aids, packing tape, soda, home electronics, plastic wrap, ballpoint pens, candy, toothpaste, and bongos.
This has quickly developed into a fun activity that can be used to kill time waiting in airports or turned into a drinking game when beer pong gets old. Basically you just make a list that has one broadly defined, yet very specific rule. For example, things that are better in large groups: games of capture the flag, birthday parties, sex, line dancing, drum circles, the wave, opposition to oppressive government forces, and afro-funk infused retro soul rock bands.
New York’s The Phenomenal Handclap Band has clearly played this game before. For their latest string of shows, they have assembled no less than 24 band members to grace the stage, including Morgan Phalen of Diamond Nights, Quinn Luke (aka Bing Ji Ling), plus members of Antibalas and the Dap Kings. There are also two guys credited as “medicine man” and “witch doctor.” The end result is a sound that is equal parts Fela Kuti, Rare Earth, and Polyphonic Spree.
There aren’t too many other groups out there with this particular sound. In fact, I can’t really think of any, but if you can then go ahead and make a list.
These are some assumptions about the conventional path and lifespan of the average pop song:
1) It is usually heard for the first time by listeners casually tuning into their local radio station.
2) Unless it is a song by an established artist that the record company is pushing as the next single, chances are you will only hear the song in light rotation at first - maybe once in the morning and once during the evening commute.
3) If it is a hit, then people will start to request it, it will go into heavier rotation, and soon it will be all over the dial at all times of the day. At the same time DJs and music programmers, in an effort to sate their audiences’ desire for something familiar, will start playing the song in clubs, shoe stores, and high school football games.
4) The song will eventually become ubiquitous and start to annoy even the hardcore fans. Radio stations will burn out on it and slowly pull it out of rotation. It will then sit on the shelf for a few years until nostalgia for the time period in which the song was released encourages people to dust it off for a 70s/80s/90s theme party or a CD compilation sold on late night TV.
But everybody here knows that nothing is conventional about the music industry these days. The internet can break a band just as effectively as a major market radio station. Just ask Lily Allen or The Arctic Monkeys. Also, corporate radio has pretty much made its own bed and is now being forced to lie in its noisy, soulless, advertising ridden sheets. They haven’t broken a band in several years - which translates to several lifetimes in computer years.
Because of this, the life cycle of the pop song has changed. Now, a song can make an appearance in a TV show or an iPod commercial and the band singing it can go from zero to famous in the time it takes to watch one episode of Gay’s Anatomy.
This can be either a good or bad thing, depending on your perspective. On the one hand, those commercials pay pretty well (and the ensuing album sales don’t hurt either). Tiny little indie bands can be given the opportunity to quit their day jobs and make a living playing music. If one less guitar player has to spend his days licking envelopes and doing data entry, that is definitely a good thing.
On the other hand, once you hear a song in a commercial, it kind of ruins it. And once you hear a song in a commercial a million bajillion times, it totally crushes any hope you might ever have of ever enjoying that song again without automatically associating it with whatever product it is used to sell. For example, Lyrics Born’s “Callin’ Out” used to be my go-to track when I wanted to light up the dance floor at clubs and after hours parties. Then one day I threw it on and somebody came up to me and said, “Hey! It’s that song from the Diet Coke commercial.” That night the record went back on the shelf and hasn’t come out since.
So it is with mixed feelings that I present to you Brooklyn’s Hot Seconds. Right now the band sounds great to me. The rhythm section thumps like a hired killer and each song is decorated with analogue ear candy. Synths rumble under the guitars and I think I even heard a melodica thrown in for good measure. Their songs are clean, catchy, and well-produced - which means it’s only a matter of time before you hear them pumping out the jams behind a colorful montage of the new Nano.
Today was unofficial crazy day in San Francisco. Actually, almost any day in San Francisco might be considered crazy if you don’t live here and see all the weirdos on a daily basis. But even for somebody accustomed to all the fruitcakes, I’m telling you today was nuts (pun intended). In the two blocks between the train station and our office I saw the following:
- A woman staggering down the sidewalk chanting, “Snakes! Snakes are falling from the sky!”
- A man stopping traffic in the middle of street and then dry humping the bumper of one of the cars that tried to drive around him.
- And a another man just doing the generic crazy - i.e. running down the street, slobbering and wild-eyed, going, “Blah bloo wah bla arrrgh!”
Many of you who live in other cities might wonder why we let our crazy homeless people roam the streets instead of giving them shelter, medical attention, and lessons in personal hygiene. The short answer is that we are a bunch bleeding-heart liberal cupcakes whose good intentions cloud our ability to make rational decisions. Each time a new mayor gets up at city hall and lays out a plan to handle the crazy, drug addled homeless population of San Francisco, an outcry goes up among those vocal groups of people prone to outcries. They insist that the mayor has no right to infringe upon anybody’s personal freedom. Being crazy and homeless is not a crime, they contend. If crazy homeless people want help, they will seek it out. If they don’t want help, they will let you know by exposing an open sore, eating from the garbage can, and asking you for a dollar.
Perhaps the biggest tragedy in all of this is that being crazy doesn’t necessarily mean being a menace to society. In fact, crazy often equals brilliance in musicians and artists. Take, for example, Jared Falcon. From 1986 to 1988, Jared Falcon attended Petaluma Junior High in Northern California. He played baritone sax in the orchestra and did not do particularly well in school. However, he was a songwriting prodigy. Falcon wrote almost a song a day and recorded each and every one onto a Fisher Price tape recorder. This practice started in January 1987 and ended, 336 songs later, in February 1988, when Jared was institutionalized.
The tapes lay in a dusty pile in his mother’s attic for years until they were discovered by Shannon Ferguson, an old classmate of Falcon’s. Ferguson was helping Jared’s mother clean house when he found the tapes, and he knew right away that he had stumbled onto a gold mine. He returned to New York and started a band with a singular vision: Take the tapes born of Jared Falcon’s confused teenage brain and turn them into the songbook of a Brooklyn indie rock band.
And thus the band Falcon was born. Playing only reworked versions of the original songs found on those early Fisher Price recordings, Falcon has built up a repertoire of about 20 songs and has just released an EP. The songs feature soaring guitars and wander from dreamy psyche rock to rhythmic pop in a way that sort of illustrates the open freedom of a broken mind - it goes where it wants to. With these songs, Falcon shows that crazy people can sometimes lead us to beautiful places. Now if only we could lead the crazy people off the streets of San Francisco and into an institution, who knows what kind of hidden genius we might find.
Way back in 2007 we wrote an article on a plucky little New York band called Rich Girls. We even posted an MP3 of their soon-to-be classic pop hit “You & What’s His Name.” Well, now the band has gone and completed their album and they’re giving the whole damn thing away for zero dollars. Bam! That’s how things are done in 2008!
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