Bill Lipold
Talk About the Jams! New Jams by Gotobeds, Terry, Baby in Vain, Spray Paint, and White Lung
So, a guy at Stereogum knows a guy who thinks Pittsburgh's Gotobeds are the best of the bunch in underground rock today. I don't know either guy, but I concur. Get yourself a copy of the Gotobeds should-be masterpiece, Poor People Are Revolting on 12XU, and join the chosen few who are beyond stoked for their upcoming Sub Pop debut.
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Jam On It! New Jams by Summer Cannibals, The Julie Ruin, OBN IIIS, Metz and Swami John Reis, and GOAT
If Sleater-Kinney were the female Fugazi and Summer Canniabls are the new Sleater-Kinney, that would make Summer Canniabls the new female Fugazi with one dude? I don't know man, but what I do know, is that there isn't enough metal in punk today, not enough musicians ready to plug in and aim for the arena rafters.
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Kurt Vile and Purling Hiss @ The Grog Shop 4.2.2016
Kurt Vile is chill, so fucking chill. Words crawl out of his mouth in a slacked drawl. Notes from his guitar have so much reverb they sound as if they had wobble their way through jelly on their way from the stage to your ears. Kurt Vile is so fucking chill, he inspires conversations between strangers on the amazingness that is legal weed in Colorado. The truth is, it takes a lot of work to be that chill. Vile alternates nimble finger picking with all out assaults on his guitar.
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A Jam Packed Thursday with White Lung, Nothing, and Steve Gunn
Now, this is what I call a ripper. White Lung's "Kiss Me When I Bleed" is all punky and grungy, Five Hour Energy stacked with Five Hour Energy, shredding on top of shredding, longhairs headbanging and skinny kids, well, looking disinterested. Fuck the cool kids and turn it up.
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Play Me: “Real Maths/Too Much” by The Gotobeds
2014 saw Pittsburgh's finest, The Gotobeds, release the best album of slop punk and pop junk recorded in years. It was a masterpiece of biting one-liners and unexpected ear worms. To this day, I can't set foot in The City without the line, "New York's alright if you can get your dick sucked," playing round my head on repeat. Out on Gerald Cosloy's 12XU Records, Poor People Are Revolting, may not have gotten the attention it deserved, but it caught the right ears, as their followup, Blood/Sugar/Secs/Traffic is slated for a June 10th release on the venerable indie label, Sub Pop.
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Top Jam! “Community of Hope” by PJ Harvey
Listen to closely to the lyrics of PJ Harvey's new single, "Community of Hope," and you can hear why DC politicians aren't proud about the public face of their housing project, with one even calling her the Piers Morgan of music. I'm sure civic leaders had higher hopes than one sit-down restaurant when they tore down the old high-rise housing project, the namesake of Harvey's new album, The Hope Six Demolition Project.
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Top Jam: “Sour Candy” by Bleached
If I was Little Steven, Bleached's "Sour Candy" would be the coolest song in the world. I'm not Little Steven, I'm Bill, so "Sour Candy" is a top jam that wouldn't sound out of place on Little Steven's Underground Garage. It has that vibe of that period in the '70s where the lines between punk, power pop and hard-rock were blurred and no matter which scene you identified with, you could find something to love about the lady rockers in Bleached.
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Watch Me: “Florian Saucer Attack” by Black Mountain
While this video for "Florian Saucer Attack" is not totally bat shit crazy, like Black Mountain's previous video for "Mothers of the Sun," it would also benefit from drugs.
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