Filed In: Events By Bill Lipold
Since Robert Pollard began taking the classic Guided by Voices out on the road, the Dayton band have hit Cincinnati, Columbus, Oberlin, Nelsoville (this weekend), but still haven’t come back to Cleveland. That’s going to change. On Friday, September 14th Uncle Bob, Mitch, Tobin, Kevin and Greg will be at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights. There will be beers — Lots of beers and boooze, too. There will be rock kicks from the still spry Uncle Bob. There will be windmills from the smoking like a choo-choo train Mitch Mitchell. And, just to prove it’s not all about idol worship and getting wasted with your idol, there will here some of the finest rock and pop songs the indie rock world has even known. Can you tell I’m stoked? I’m stoked and typing on a tummy of Gennessee. Full tour dates below:
Friday, May 18 – Nelsonville Music Fest – Nelsonville, OH
Friday, July 6 – Trocadero – Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, July 7 – CBGB Fest (Summerstage) – New York, NY
Sunday, July 15 – Bunbury Music Festival – Cincinnati, OH
Saturday, September 8 – Downtown Revival – Dayton, OH
Friday, September 14 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
Tuesday, September 18 – 40 Watt Club – Athens, GA
Wednesday, September 19 – Beacham – Orlando, FL
Friday, September 21 – DeLuna Festival – Pensacola Beach, FL
Saturday, September 22 – One Eyed Jacks – New Orleans, LA
Monday, September 24 – Warehouse Live – Houston, TX
Tuesday, September 25 – Emo’s East – Austin, TX
Thursday, September 27 – Blue Note – Columbia, MO
Friday, September 28 – Granada – Lawrence, KS
Saturday, September 29 – Plush – St Louis, MO
And now for something completely different from Nashville’s Jeff the Brotherhood. Well, maybe not completely different, but certainly different than that extended, freaked out cover of Hawkwind which anchored the Orrall brothers’ last release, an Upstairs at United Session released for Record Store Day. In contrast, “Sixpack,” hearkens back to some of the finer power pop moments found on their 2011 release, We Are the Champions, where in between heaping samplings of stoner rock and other heavy grooves they laid down some of the best Weezer these ears have heard in years. “Sixpack” is like that, and more some, as the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach was able to coax even more guitar crunch out of the brothers during their time in the studio. Now granted, it’s a safe play for a band like the Jeff Bros, a band who can seemingly crank out any jam in the rock canon, but when every jam is a quality jam, it’s really hard to complain. Tapping along seems the much better option.
The Hypnotic Knights EP will be available digitally on May 22nd on Warner Bros/Infinity Cat Records. A full length will follow later this year.
PS I Love You
Death Dreams
Paper Bag Records
I’m going through my notebook, the one I use when preparing reviews, a little black Moleskine with a tattered I Rock Cleveland sticker on the cover, and scribbled on those unlined pages under the heading PS I Love You – Death Dream, are the names of some of the greatest guitarists Rock ‘N’ Roll has ever known. There’s indie rock icons like Bernard Sumner of Joy Division and New Order, and Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine. A little further down the page, I’ve written the names of classic rockers, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Eddie van Halen, and Alex Lifeson of Rush. And, just to make sure your expectations are even more unrealistic than they already are, I also included The Edge (U2) and Kurt Cobain (Nirvana).
This is not to say Paul Saulnier of the Canadian duo, PS I Love You, is deserving of such lofty company, or deserving of such honors as being included in Spin’s list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time (Personally, I would have ranked him higher than 99). But, at one point or another during the playing of Death Dreams, Saulnier’s guitar work reminded me of each and every one of those greats.
In addition to his unique tone, like a church organ sloppily rigged to pipe through a very large array of Marshall amps, blight and powerful, damaged and ecstatic, Saulnier’s other main strength is his instinctual and fearless style. He’s either unconcerned or unaware that he shouldn’t be adding quickly picked, progressive rock show-offs against an otherwise blurry, shoegaze background; that Rush fans and Nirvana fans don’t necessarily overlap; and that many find U2 to be a bunch of pompous asses these days. This is a man who is unafraid of the feel good guitar solo of the ’80s and can rip one without sounding obvious, cheesy, or obviously cheesy.
More impressively, all of these disparate influences are fitted within the framework of the standard three-to-four minute power pop song. Death Dreams has songs about relationships, songs about relationships that don’t work (made abundantly clear during the chorus of “Sentimental Dishes” and its lines “I don’t wanna do the dishes/You don’t wanna do the dishes,”) and songs about, ahem, death. And if your turned off by Saulnier’s voice — it’s high, whiny, and an acquired taste in the fullest sense, or his sometimes simple observations, you’ve got a friend in the production. This is a murky mix with the guitars blasted to the front, often at the expense of everything else. It’s a style that suits PS I Love You to a tee. Here’s one of the world’s least likely guitar heroes from the town of Kingston, Ontario; a man with a generous build, unfancy glasses, and full beard; a man who looks more like a record collector than someone whose records you’d want to be collecting, nonchalantly making a power play to be noticed. People are taking notice. 8 out of 10 on The Rockometer.
STREAM: PS I Love You – Don’t Go via Soundcloud
My fellow Guided by Voices historians may recognize “Class Clown Spots a UFO,” from its previous incarnation as “Crocker’s Favorite Song,” a b-side dating from the early ’90s which appeared on the album King Shit and The Golden Boys and the expanded, director’s cut edition of Bee Thousand. It’s been re-worked here with a more active tempo, electric guitars, and a new coda. And it’s that new coda where it really delivers on its promise of summertime pop as Robert Pollard exercises his classic pop influences of the Beatles and Beach Boys. This is one case of the remake actually being better than the original.
MP3: Guided by Voices – Class Clown Spots a UFO via Rolling Stone
Class Clown Spots a UFO will be out June 12th on GBV/Rockathon Records. Additionally, Guided by Voices will be in Ohio next weekend, performing Friday, May 18th at the Nelsonville Music Festival.
Heavy Blanket
Heavy Blanket
Outer Battery Records
Maybe you were listening to an old Dinosaur, Jr jam like “Sludgefeast,” “The Wagon,” or “Out There” and you thought to yourself, “Man, J Mascis is the greatest shredder ever. What if he put out an album of just guitar solos?” Well, with Heavy Blanket, you get that album of all J Mascis all the time, plus a little bass and drums. And yes, it is some magnificent shredding, and you can pick your favorite comparison from the following:
* A six stack of Marshall Amps like a gas guzzling, American muscle car climbing and swerving through the hills of the PA turnpike
* Field recordings of jumbo jets, remixed
* Chainsaws and wood chippers chipping chainsaws
* Lions eating lions for dinner
* Neil Young
* Grunge
But, you know what all these songs that sound like lions eating lions for dinner could use? A song. For as mighty as J Mascis is with a six-string in hand, the power of those riffs like field recordings of jumbo jets, remixed, is lost when that’s all you get. His sound is simply too huge, too overwhelming, for an album blasted out of the blues jam mold to hold. 5 out of 10 on The Rockometer
Is King Tuff an offshoot of Happy Birthday, or is it the other way around? In 2010, Kyle Thomas, aka, King Tuff teamed up with Ruth Garbus and Chris Weisma and released an album under the name Happy Birthday name for Sub Pop. It was a gem of a power pop album with abundant hooks and abundant quirks. Two years later, he’s got a King Tuff album on the way for the same label, and if the first two tracks released from this effort are any indication, he has another gem of a power pop album on his hands. ”Keep on Movin’” and “Bad Thing” are full of hand claps and teasing sing-songs, driving guitars and the occasional shout. And really, as long as Thomas continues to combine that offbeat, immature attitude of his with those keen pop leanings he can call himself Priscilla Queen of the Desert on his next album and I’ll still tune in. The name is not important here. It’s the jams that matter.
MP3: King Tuff – Keep on Movin’
MP3: King Tuff – Bad Thing
King Tuff’s self-titled album, his first for Sub Pop under the King Tuff name will be released May 29th.
Filed In: Events By Bill Lipold
Tuesday, May 8th: Grandmothers of Invention (Members of Frank Zappa’s band) @ Beachland Ballroom. Weird Al Yankovic @ Akron Civic Theatre.
Thursday, May 10th: R. Ring feat. Kelley Deal (The Breeders) and Mike Montgomery (Ampline), Night Sweats, Voxcaster @ Beachland Tavern. Horrible Fest Day 1 @ Now That’s Class feat. The Hookers, Easy Action, The Plain Dealers, Gluttons, Wetbrain, Mr California. More information about Horrible Fest can be found here.
Friday, May 11th: Herzog, Prisoners, Village Bicycle @ Happy Dog. Horrible Fest Day 2 @ Now That’s Class feat. Cheater Slicks, Quintron & Miss Pussycat, Gary Wrong Group, ET Habit, Puffy Areolas, Pleasure Leftists.
Saturday, May 12th: Royal Bangs, Filmstrip, The May Company, Bafflegab @ Grog Shop. Horrible Fest Bowling and Punk Rock Matinee @ Mahal’s SQRM, White Load, Bad Noids, Brown Sugar, Obnox, Ratface, Brainwashed Youth. Horrible Fest Day 3 @ Now That’s Class feat. Live Fast Die, Liquor Store, Watery Love, Homostupids, Darvocets, Terrible Two, Claw Toe. Avett Brothers @ Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica.
Sunday, May 13th: Wedding Bands: The Marriage of Lyz Bly & R.A. Washington with performances by HotChaCha, Obnox, R.A. Washington & The Family Dollar, Tin Pan Alley @ Beachland Ballroom.
Monday, May 14th: Mayer Hawthorne & The County, The Stepkids @ House of Blues.
Wednesday, May 16th: Gentleman Jesse and His Men, Barreracudas, Prisoners @ Now That’s Class.
Thursday, May 17th: Reggie Watts @ Grog Shop.
Friday, May 18th: True Widow, Eye, Fangs Out @ Happy Dog. Nelsonville Music Festival with Iron and Wine, Guided By Voices, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Kurt Vile & The Violators, Those Darlins, Black Bananas and more. For more information on the Nelsonville Music Festival, go here.
Saturday, May 19th: Memoryhouse, Races, Village Bicycle, Summerays @ Beachland Tavern. Nelsonville Music Festival with Andrew Bird, Roky Erickson, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Jessica Lea Mayfield and more.
Sunday, May 20th: Nelsonville Music Festival with M. Ward, Dawes, Horse Feathers, Lee Ranaldo Band and more.
Monday, May 21st: Mariachi El Bronx, Two Gallants @ Beachland Ballroom.
Friday, May 25th: B-52s @ Jacobs Pavilion.
Saturday, May 26th: Todd Rundgren @ Jacobs Pavilion.
Wednesday, May 30th: Plants and Animals, Nights, Bethesda @ Beachland Tavern. Talib Kweli Prisoner of Conscious Tour w/ special guest J.Pinder, The Famous Mr. Nobodies, Muamin Collective @ Grog Shop.
Lower Dens
Nootropics
Ribbon Music
Have you heard this one? Two librarians, two IT workers, and a very serious German dude walk into a bar and tell the bartender, “Hi, we’re the band.” The bartender looks at the two librarians, two IT workers, and the very serious German dude and looks at his schedule and sees that yes, there is a band called Lower Dens playing tonight, and then takes another look at the two librarians, two IT workers and the very serious German dude, pours himself a beer from the tap and says, “I’m sorry, it seems as if we’re all out of beer. You’ll have to come back another night.”
The band is obviously flummoxed. If they don’t play the show and don’t get anything from the door, they may not have enough money to fuel their tour van and they’ll be stuck in Akron, Ohio.
Suddenly, the very serious German dude has an idea. Scanning the room, he sees a promo poster announcing tonight’s show and there they are, all five of them standing emotionless, buttoned up and proper, the short people in front and the tall people in back, like a photo announcing the latest additions to the University’s Computer Science Graduate program. “That’s us, on your wall!” the very serious German dude exclaims.
Unimpressed, the bartender takes a sip from his pint, walks to a corner behind the bar, grabs his keys and turns off all the lights. “Sorry, kids. Looks like we don’t have any power tonight, either.”
In the annals of indie rock photography this promo shot for Baltimore’s Lower Dens has to make the Top 10 of truly horrible photos, maybe the top spot of the Top 10. Really, it’s a stretch to call it a promo. It’s more of a reverse promo as it reinforces everything people hate about indie rock — The elevated sense of worth, seriousness and bookishness, forced quirkiness brought on by intentionally bad style, a general lack of enthusiasm for making music, and a safe for NPR rating. No, it’s more than a reverse promo. It’s an image meme of the world’s least interesting band waiting for its white text. We don’t always play at bars, but when we do, we wear long sleeves and bring extra hand sanitizer.
“Unfair!” You say. “You’re not even talking about the music!”
“You’re right,” I’ll reply.
Now that this picture is loose on the internet I won’t be able to recommend Lower Dens without caveats: “Pay no attention to any pictures you see of the band. They’re not the insufferable bores you imagine them to be. Sure, they may look like two librarians, two IT workers, and a very serious German dude, but they have these slick krautrock influences like Can and Kraftwerk and they’ve taken in a lot of Eno’s ambient work, too. Plus, lead singer, Jana Hunter has this sly and soulful voice, both sedate and sexy, like a survivor from the ’90s shoegazer scene. And,” And, who am I kidding? What you see is a picture of the world’s least interesting band. 7 out of 10 on The Rockometer
VIDEO: Lower Dens – Brains
VIDEO: Lower Dens – Propagation
Photo of the world’s least interesting band by Shawn Brackbill
Jack White
Blunderbuss
Third Man
In some ways Jack White’s Blunderbuss, the first solo offering by the one-time White Stripes frontman, is exactly what one would expect. The songs, sometimes ferocious and rowdy, but often times quieter and more contemplative, are solidly based in the blues, American roots, and garage rock. There’s guitar wail and guitar squawk, especially on songs like “Sixteen Saltines” and “Freedom at 21″ where that squawk is live-wire, touch it and get yourself fried, electric, similar to the sound of an old White Stripes track like “Blue Orchid.”
Still, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Blunderbuss is missing something, and we’re not talking about the absence of his long-time collaborator Meg White who kept time behind the kit for the White Stripes all those years. No, Bluderbuss is missing a signature song and a signature riff, and to be honest, it could use a big shot of spirit and some of that old stomp, too. One would think, now that Jack is no longer confined inside of a two man band, garage rockers like “I’m Shakin” and “Trash Tongue Talker” would have some extra lift. There is no lift, or oomph, or thump. There is polish.
You see, the adventurous Jack White, the one who owns the record store, record label, and record store van; the one who drops vinyl from helium balloons and who puts out records by Carl Sagan and Stephen Colbert; the one who collaborates with Insane Clown Posse, is all but absent on this record. Instead, we get a Jack White who is still in the process of figuring out exactly what he wants to do as a solo artist.
Sure, the arrangement of “Love Interruption,” with its clarinet and bass clarinet is a pleasant enough turn. And, “Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy” and “I Guess I Should Go to Sleep,” both do a fine job transforming what would have otherwise been barren White Stripes songs of singular strums and occasional bumps into the type of working-class, down home jams The Kinks did so well on their classic albums Muswell Hillbillies and The Village Green Preservation Society. Unfortunately for White, a man who had an extraordinary seven album run with the White Stripes, it’s going to take more than one album of pleasant, fine, and good enough to make anyone forget about that other band any time soon. 6 out of 10 on The Rockometer.
VIDEO: Jack White – Love Interruption
VIDEO: Jack White – Sixteen Saltines
Death Grips
Money Store
Epic
Death Grips are angry. Even a cursory listen to Money Store, the Sacramento trio’s first album for Epic Records, reveals an uncompromising sonic landscape of punk, hip-hop and noise steaming with rage and paranoia. Trying to determine where vocalist Stefan Burnett is directing all of that pent-up emotion, however, is another thing. The man spits militant lines, not necessarily rhymes, like his ticker is running double time and his cheeks are bulging with shards of broken glass.
Neither does the production team of Zach Hill and Andy Morin do the listener any favors. Found sounds are deconstructed and regurgitated and rhythms rarely stick to a recognizable pattern, freely alternating between pitched up, drum and bass and more plodding patterns. Do you hear the ring of grandma’s doorbell? Or, the banging of pots and pans? Or, the sound of a racing game on a vintage console? Maybe that really was the doorbell of someone’s grams. With the highly processed and ragged nature of these samples it’s really hard to tell what really is a sample of an everyday sound and what could be a more traditional instrument given a similarly brutal treatment in the studio.
The end result is a suite of songs that are uncompromising, uncomfortable, and hard to ignore. Even at their most pop, as on “I’ve Seen Footage,” it’s hard to escape those feelings of claustrophobia and anxiety. Here, the ramblings of a street-corner philosopher are spliced with an old skool, hip-hop beat and sirens and guitars that sound like sirens or more sirens. It’s like watching a split screen of Cops with a mad man raving in the back seat and an old episode of Yo! MTV Raps showcasing the latest jam from Tone Loc. Or, Public Enemy remixed for the 21st Century. Or, the end of the world being broadcast right before your eyes, ultra violence and desperation, broken windows and fire fights. With Death Grips, the specifics may be be elusive, and the music may be hard to pin down, but the impact of their message is clear — Shit is not right here and this is the soundtrack. 8 out of 10 on The Rockometer.
VIDEO: Death Grips – Get Got
VIDEO: Death Grips – I’ve Seen Footage
VIDEO: Death Grips – The Fever (Aye Aye)
