***I HATE THURSDAYS ***
The Black Angels- Watch Out Boy
It seems The Black Angels are dipping their toe into the Spirtualized pool. Strings? Overwrought vocals? Heroin guitar swayings? Atypical Angels. It’s just a one-off for record store day…or is it the foreshadowing of newer artistic explorations?
The Burnt Ones- Meet the Golden One
Is it safe to declare San Francisco ground zero for the best new-old music being made right now? The vortex of garage and good time, thrashing about, pulsating through the wires and machinery of the interweb to tickle your auditory receptors with collective memories of a time long gone and never been? Hailing from that De facto Capitol, The Burnt Ones offer up this T-Rex styled clap-along boogie, for a mere $1 donation on their bandcamp. Perfect accompaniment for wasting away your Friday night, or re-enacting scenes from Dazed and Confused.
Animal Trophies- Epique
And let’s say Lyon is the evil mirror image of San Fran in the world of stellar, kick in the door garage punkage. Visual/Audio evidence A is presented above. Excited for more 1) future output from Animal Trophies 2) French bad kids to spread their catchy brand of youth worldwide via the Azbin label.
The Flying Burrito Brothers- Sin City
Gram Parsons will forever be known as the holy man who married country and rock. Born into a wealthy family of alcoholism, cheating hearts, and depression, he channeled the hard-luck down and out honky-tonking of the rural blue collar into the more suburban sensibilities of the emerging rock culture/music business. The Cosmic Cowboy was also known to team up with Keith Richards to drop acid and wander the desert searching for UFO’s. Legend says that among the decadent drug orgy known as the “Exile on Mainstreet” sessions, Gram is hidden somewhere on the tracks. Drug abuse and bad scenes aside, here is a man who saw American music in a sort of unified light that only made sense to him at the time, and then to everyone else afterwards. Covering soul songs with a country bent, rearranging old standards with a more amphetamine sheen, and taking up the mantle of a “contemporary” songwriter, his vision(s) is (are) eerie with the righteousness of the Lord and the hey daze of the late 60’s. This original number is one of disillusionment with the excesses of LA and the record industry; a vindictive, apocalyptic righting of wrongs in the form of earthquake and fire from heaven for the fat cats. The matter of fact vocal convictions, the beautiful falsetto of the pedal steel, the piano smuggled in, all add up to a truly haunting foreboding.
Bäddat För Trubbel – Snälla, Snälla
About a year ago, these guys were popping up all over the punksphere. If it slipped your notice, consider thyself now hipped. Bare-knuckled, fast and dirty rock’n’roll from Sweden. Should your band completely rip them off, we won’t complain; in fact, we’ll encourage it. Seriously, why are you goofing off with re-doing Joy Division for the trillionth time? Don’t put people to sleep; kick them in the crotch!
Words: Brad Krohe