Noise Archives — Page 74 of 108 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Genghis Tron: electrogrindcore of the gods

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October 8, 2008

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By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Imagine Zeus and Ares, up on Mount Olympus sipping cocktails when suddenly they start arguing about Ares’ old-news fling with Aphrodite. What ensues is more then expected, with lightning bolts flying into trees, morphing them into vertical charcoal, and spears being sent high into the sky as vultures descend upon the slain. The members of Genghis Tron brought a little of that mythical drama when they took the stage at Bottom of the Hill on Oct. 6. The band churns out cacophonous metal that waxes and wanes between caliginous grindcore and mellow yet still moody electronica.

Openers Religious Girls from the East Bay stepped in for Yip-Yip, which couldn’t perform due to a member’s illness. The group mirrors the point in which Zeus and Ares are still just sipping cocktails: it’s a good moment because you’re drinking, but it’s not unusual enough to order anything less original then a gin and tonic. They played with passion, pounding beats ferociously on multiple drums, with war chants and shrieks that sounded somewhere along the lines of Animal Collective’s “Native Belle” and “The Purple Bottle.” Not to say that I don’t love Animal Collective, but Religious Girls’ sound didn’t come off as entirely original.

Clipd Beaks, the onetime Oakland combo, was the lull while you’re trying to get the attention of the bartender to order another drink – hopefully the one that’ll push you from tipsy to drunk. Their sound was simple and synthy. Nic Barbein vocals were filtered with noise as he sang undecipherable lyrics into two mics, once even sticking one into his mouth. Overall, it was like being ignored by the bartender for more than 15 minutes because that more aggressive patron distracts him or her and takes all the attention.

Thrills a-plenty from New Thrill Parade, Judy Experience at Bottom of the Hill

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October 8, 2008

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Skeleton crew: New Thrill Parade. All photos by Jen Snyder.

By Jen Snyder

I like to rediscover relics from my past. Whether it’s an old sweater left to die in a storage unit, or 20 bucks that made it through the wash, the reunions are always pleasant – mostly because you know you’re encountering something that you’ll like.

Similarly I remember seeing New Thrill Parade at a house show years ago during college. I recall a gothic, schizophrenic dog-pile best paired with sweaty air. When I moved I lost track of them. But guess what? They moved, too. It’s always fun to see what happens to bands that only hold reference in your mind as photo stills: the cast had changed slightly, but the scenery was better than I remembered. At Bottom of the Hill on Sept. 30, the outfit, which is now located in San Francisco, had some pretty excellent opening acts, too.

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The new, new Strip Mall Seizures.

Kicking off the night was Strip Mall Seizures, another combo I hadn’t seen in years. I had been excited to see the klezmer-inspired punk band I had known and loved, yet as the first song ended and the second began, I began to feel like I was seeing a completely different group. I asked another listener in the crowd about my musical amnesia, and he said, “Yeah, they lost some melody but gained some power.” Then I realized that I don’t have a pair of Creepers anymore, and Strip Mall Seizures doesn’t play klezmer punk either. And you know what? I think we’re both better off.

The latest mission? Operation: Restore Maximum Freedom

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October 7, 2008

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By Brandon Bussolini

When the Guardian checked in with Operation: Restore Maximum Freedom two years ago, the quasi-annual, daylong music festival, organized by UC Davis student-run radio station KDVS, was in its fourth incarnation and ready to present one of the most ambitious lineups of its short existence.

Seventeen bands, ranging from Kid 606 to Michael Hurley, were slated to play, but just as 606 and hip-hop crew Third Sight were setting up – the bands with the biggest guarantees – Yolo County’s finest shut the proceedings down. “Some nearby residents complained about the noise level to the police,” writes Elisa Hough, co-organizer of this year’s O:RMF and a KDVS DJ, in an e-mail. “Everyone – even people who weren’t involved in the organizing – looked and felt so defeated.”

Plainfield Station, a Woodland country bar that has hosted O:RMF since its inception, is an unlikely place for this to happen: plunked down amid flat, tawny farmland, the nearest house is probably at least a mile away. But regardless of the small irony that crops up between its name and that incident, O:RMF is a provocative title in more ways than one. According to Rick Ele, a longtime KDVS DJ and veteran booking agent in Sacramento’s underground music scene, the name comes from a brainstorming session with former KDVS Events Manager Brendan Boyle and former DJ Joe Finkel.

Pics: LoveFest whirls and twirls (and sometimes hurls)

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October 6, 2008

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Photos and text by Ariel Soto

Love was in the air this Saturday as thousands of scanty and colorfully clad party people made their way down Market Street, accompanied by beats so loud it even made the side line spectators shake a few moves. As the floats went by, ranging from outer space tanks to pink elephants, the passengers threw water, confetti and even pink panties at eager voyeurs below. I swear there must not a single pair of fishnets to buy anywhere in the city since every person in the parade seemed to be wearing one or two pairs. [Ed Note — Word!] San Franciscans can’t seem to pass up an any opportunity to dress up and wear a pair of fairy wings. Remember, all we really need is love!

Catching up with ballboy’s chamber-pop poetry

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October 6, 2008

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ballboy
I Worked on the Ships
(Pony Proof)

By Todd Lavoie

I’ve never kept this a secret, but here goes: I’m a lyrics guy. Little surprise, I suppose, given my stats. I work in a bookstore. I’m a voracious reader. I’ve been known to throw words upon the page from time to time. I geek out over silly things like etymology and colloquialisms. Not only do I own several dictionaries, but I also have a shelf full of books of slang, quotations, and various other word-nerd delights.

Not to sound all Hallmark card about the whole thing, but words – well, they mean a lot to me. I am, after all, one of those saps who immediately yanks open the liner notes upon getting a new CD, scanning to see if the artist included the lyrics in the pages. As much as I love to lose myself in dense guitar washes or crunching synth riffs or blaring trumpet fanfares, ultimately I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the thrust of whatever is leaving the vocalist’s lips didn’t matter the most to me. As a lover of books who admittedly doesn’t read too much verse, I’m a sucker for lyrics probably because they’re the closest thing to poetry in my life. Hell, some might even argue that certain songwriters out there – Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, maybe even Joni Mitchell at times – are bona fide poets as well.

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say that ballboy’s Gordon McIntyre is a poet, but he does have a knack for penning engaging, lexicon-loving lyrics. Ever since arriving in a shower of wordplay in 2001 with their EP-collecting, snarkily-titled full-length Club Anthems (SL/Manifesto), the vocalist has pulled listeners close to their speakers with absorbing tales of love, sex, and the burning desire for something bigger and better.

The dobro mastery of Jerry Douglas in all its glory on ‘Glide,’ at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

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October 3, 2008

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JERRY DOUGLAS
Glide
(Koch)

By Todd Lavoie

Universally regarded as the finest dobro player in contemporary music, Jerry Douglas has long been the go-to source for the most evocative of resonator-guitar textures.

Starting off as a session musician back in the ’70s and ’80s – and having worked along the way with everyone from bluegrass pioneers David Grisman and Ricky Skaggs to country artists as varied as Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Trisha Yearwood – Douglas eventually launched a solo career which established him as one of the forerunners of the burgeoning “newgrass” movement. Proponents of the newgrass sound wanted to expand the boundaries of bluegrass by drawing from other traditional acoustic-based styles – particularly jazz – and the drive to rescue the dobro from pigeonholing was certainly understandable, given the perceived limitations many folks had up until that point.

The instrument has been frequently, almost predictably, used in film and television scores to introduce a Southern setting – often rural and run-down in nature – thanks to its ability to fashion moods from its lazy slides between notes. Sure, its “we’ll-get-there-when-we-do” slides and slow finger-pickings easily summon up images of sweltering afternoons under a merciless sun. But the dobro can do so much more – and Douglas has made it his mission to prove exactly that.

Noah and the Whale’s twee cinematic charm, in SF for the first time

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October 2, 2008

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By Chloe Schildhause

The charmingly romantic, springy UK folk band Noah and the Whale have just begun their US tour, and their San Francisco debut will happen at Amoeba Music and Popscene today, Oct. 2.

Their first album, Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down (Mercury), was just released in August, but the band has already been a big part of the summer UK festival circuit with gigs at V Festival, Summer Sundae and Glastonbury. Over the phone from the road, frontperson Charlie Fink told me: “Festivals have been cool. I sometimes find it intimidating – the big crowd and stuff. But it’s been fun.”

Fink writes Noah and the Whale’s lyrics. His personal favorite is the title track, he explained. “It says the most of what I’m trying to say on that album.” But what that is exactly is a mystery. “People are trying to get me to assess the lyrics,” said Fink. “But I find it quite difficult because what you say in a song is what you can’t express any other way.”

My, my, My Bloody Valentine at the Concourse

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October 1, 2008

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As the last hiss, groan, and shred of so many guitars in maximum overdrive faded into the comforting murmur of C&W at the Concourse – and the buzzing began in earnest in my earholes – I had to admit, those My Bloody Valentines are still fricking bloody amazing.

I remember ’em way back when, among all those hazy watercolor memories of the ’90s, at the Kennel Club, now the Independent. And back then, around the release of Loveless, I remember thinking, they’re good but they’re no Sonic Youth. No mistake, I still love me some SY. But after the last multitextured blasts of “You Made Me Realise” surged first one, then twice with delicious rock ‘n’ roll drama, inspiring a small sea of fists to shoot up at the front of the stage, I had to admit this band has been bloody well missed.

There were a lot of confused looks last night, Sept. 30, at the shed-like venue – right there on the faces of casual listeners and maybe a few older fans who viewed Loveless as the most daring entry in their CD library. Live, the band has lost none of their fury – or volume. The 20-minute-long noise finale – which kept me riveted with its groans, shrieks, and force-of-nature undulations and seismic shifts – doubtless disturbed. Still, the courage and audacity of MBV came through – even to someone who has attended her share of noise shows. Their organic suture of, er, noise aesthetics to pop song structure heaved up a strangely benevolent, animal-like sort of sound – nonhuman, rather than inhuman. Against that wall of distortion, it was nice to see the little bodies lying on the floor, cradling themselves, holding fingers to ears, and studying the stage from across the football-field-sized room, basking in radiating sound and taking in the aural waves coming off Expo Center Beach.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Deerhoof, Mos Def, Noah and the Whale

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September 30, 2008

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Perfecto: Deerhoof’s “Perfect Me.”

Are we having a ball yet? Now is your chance… an artists ball and more shows than we can shake a stick at. Best to catch them before they fade away.

Free ways: Mos Def freestyling.

ARTISTS BALL SEVEN
SF socialites just might swoon to the tunes of Mos Def, Hercules and Love Affair, and Rogue Wave at this annual benefit fete for YBCA’s New Works Fund. Fri/3, 9 p.m., $125-$150. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787.

The subtle ebb of Beach House at Swedish American Hall

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September 30, 2008

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By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Beach House’s slow melodies and ethereal lyrics are filled with mysterious, “Holy Moments,” captured in simple couplets, like “Pick apart the past, you’re not going back / So don’t you waste your time,” surrounded by atmospheric, somber, lightly strung-together pearly words that create a tone reminiscent of a short I saw on Friday, Footnotes to a House of Love, directed by Laida Lertxundi, at Artists’ Television Access.

Set in the desert of Southern California, the 16-mm color film is a collection of collaged cuts of empty dilapidated wooden rooms, loosely hanging screen doors, and parallel views of lovers caressing. The chopped scenes fuse together to create a sense of place that is more fulfilling than any individual shot, much like the sentiment that Beach House captures.

This mood is similar to the manner in which Beach House’s meditative melodies wash over their audience, as they did Sunday, Sept. 28, at the Swedish American Music Hall. If you’ve ever felt heartbroken, or any moderate pain at all, you can interpret Beach House’s abstract lyrics filled with mild images – “I’ll pour some tea for us” (“Astronaut”) – stuck somewhere in nostalgia (or maybe in the imagined future), and suit them to fit your own emotional state at the time.

ATP Day Three: My Bloody Valentine rips, Dinosaur Jr. rages, Bob Mould sweetens up, Yo La Tengo be jamming

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September 30, 2008

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Shoegazer love-a-gore-gore: My Bloody Valentine at ATP NY. All photos by Jessica Reeves.

By Todd Lavoie

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner!”

Walking around Kutsher’s Hotel in Monticello, NY, knee-deep and beyond in Catskills swank-gone-asunder, oohing and aahing and occasionally cackling in shuddered horror upon stumbling across yet another shining example of ’50s-era Borscht Belt décor in steady decline, I couldn’t help but evoke that priceless line from what is possibly the cringiest of ’80s cringefest flicks, Dirty Dancing, as I kicked off day three, Sept. 21, of All Tomorrow’s Parties NY.

As it turns out, Kutsher’s – the epicenter for all things indie for that weekend – was also apparently the inspiration for the set of Dirty Dancing. Wikipedia away – you’ll see. Everything began to make sense. Here we were, on our third day of the festival, and the talk of the town wasn’t Saturday night’s Les Savy Fav and Shellac double-whammy, or the astounding seven-places-at-once ubiquity of Kevin Shields, who seemed to pop up from every corner – someone has to be in the corner, obviously, since Baby can’t – but instead it was the irrefutable suspicion that this place held a singular role in so-bad-it’s-good moviemaking history. We indie kids love our irony, after all – and we’d all been thrust upon the motherlode.

Krautrock it with White Hills and vintage vids

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September 29, 2008

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Lord, we love ourselves some krautrock here in the Bay, don’t we? Well, expect diehards to be out in force tonight, Sept. 29, at the Knockout for the titled-like-ya-see-it Two Hours of Krautrock II screening, presented by Aquarius Records and “Klaus to the Edge” (WAR 93.7 FM). Ja, ja, we’re talking videos pulled from German TV, circa 1971 to 1979, of Can, Klaus Schulze, Tiger B Smith, Kraan, Tritonius, Epitaph, Kraftwerk (with Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother), Tangerine Dream, Holderlin, and THE SCORPIONS. Geez, do they qualify?

Anyhoo, after the screening, NY krautrock-esque psychedelicists White Hills perform. “Klaus to the Edge” DJs AC and Allan fill out the evening of free popcorn and Germanic drink specials.

TWO HOURS OF KRAUTROCK II AND WHITE HILLS
Mon/29, screening 10 p.m. and White Hills go on at midnight, $5
Knockout
3223 Mission, SF
(415) 550-6994

Rediscovering metal’s Yngwie Malmsteen

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September 29, 2008

9

By Ben Richardson

If you’re not a guitarist guitar nerd or a heavy metal aficionado, you’ve probably never heard of Yngwie Malmsteen. After seeing this picture, though, you’ve learned one thing about him: the man is a complete and total megalomaniac. Born into a musically gifted family in Sweden, Malmsteen (ne Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck) got his start as a 10-year-old guitar prodigy, honing his chops by cultivating a bizarrely retrograde obsession with virtuoso 19th-century Italian violinist and purported devil-in-disguise Niccolo Paganini.

Malmsteen arrived on the American hard rock scene in 1984, in those bygone days when neo-classical shredding was way cool. His debut with his band Rising Force was nominated for a Grammy and enjoyed considerable retail success, and he soon became convinced that he was some kind of rock star, a notion that he has apparently been unable to shake.

Marrying the ego that resulted from his impossibly fast playing to a kind of hairspray-diva complex that would put some of the ’80s most overamplified misanthropes to shame, Malmsteen indulged in all of the usual buffoonery, rashing an expensive sports car, buying lots of gold jewelry, and never, ever buttoning his shirt higher than his navel.

Getting back to Silver Jews’ David Berman: on intelli design, presidential spawn, honky-tonk poses

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September 27, 2008

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Here’s more from a recent interview with David Berman of the Silver Jews (for more, go to Sonic Reducer):

SFBG: Thanks for waiting! I forgot my tape recorder at home so I’m going to have to type and take notes as we talk.

David Berman: OK, I’ll go slow. The trade-off is I’ll give you monosyllabic answers. Silence and then two or three syllables.

Kims-met: Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon talks about ‘Phantom Orchard,’ good TV, making art, NYC

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September 26, 2008

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Kim Gordon brought much subtle insight when I spoke to her recently in conjunction with tonight’s performance at Montalvo Arts Center – more than we could fit into print. (For more, go to here.)

SFBG: How did you get involved with the “Phantom Orchard” project?

Kim Gordon: Well Zeena Parkins actually made the connection – and she and Ikue [Mori] asked me to join in and also Yoshimi. I’ve played with Ikue and Yoshimi before but never with Zeena, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Stormy weather: Kim Gordon and Ikue Mori at No Fun Fest 2004.

ATP NY Day Two: Les Savy Fav, Shellac, Fuck Buttons, Harmonia, Om, and – what? – more

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September 26, 2008

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Prickly, angular goodness: Shellac at ATP NY. All photos by Jessica Reeves.

By Todd Lavoie

Ah, the weekend was in need of a good easing-in period – nothing too strenuous, see, considering the epic scale of the Saturday night to come. So, on Sept. 20, we settled into our day by catching a couple of films at the Criterion Screening Room: Albert and David Maysles’ Gimme Shelter and David Markey’s 1991: The Year Punk Broke. The former – a chronicle of how it all went wrong at the infamous 1969 Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway, was absolutely riveting – while the latter was a bit more hit-or-miss, thanks to a nerve-grating focus on Thurston Moore as the documentary’s free-styling, wisecracking prankster. Having thoroughly relished the considerably mellower, less chatty Moore of the night before, I couldn’t cotton to the younger, ever-vibrating version I was witnessing onscreen. Still, the Sonic Youth, Nirvana, and Dinosaur Jr. performances in the film made it all worthwhile.

Next it was rush, rush, rush to the main stage: Fuck Buttons were about to bring the noise! We arrived just in time, and the Bristol, England, duo had just finished sound-check. Focusing largely on their March-released slab of epic gorgeousness, Street Horrrsing (ATP), the set was flush with all of the touchstones of the Fuck Buttons sound: steady electro-drone, pulsating sheets-of-static majesty, and floor-thumping noise-house.

A glistening sheen seemed to have been applied to the entire proceedings, thanks to scatters of night sky-seeking synth sparkles. Dance, drone out, raise arms to the heavens – the choice was ours, and the crowd was evenly split between the three activities.

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Go directly to jail: Les Savy Fav vocalist Tim Harrington in prisoner getup.

Multilingual beats, Obama love: Brazilian Girls move on with ‘New York City’

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September 26, 2008

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By Brandon Bussolini

Brazilian Girls just released an album named for a city that they’ll be leaving for a little bit. They used to tour a lot, but now vocalist Sabina Sciubba, keyboard player Didi Gutman, and drummer Aaron Johnston are leaving New York City to spend time elsewhere. This makes sense since Brazilian Girls’ music has no single place of origin or definite direction. Their new album, like its predecessors, sits across several different styles and changes from minute to minute.

It can be a fun game to chase down the kinds of music Brazilian Girls incorporate into their own, but the sound itself has very little to do with tradition or context – it’s synthetic, and at its best is good enough to stop you from wondering whether what you’re listening to is world music or not – and whether there’s even anything wrong with that.

Sciubba’s voice is the band’s most distinctive element, but the songs themselves are little intelligent machines, and they work unhurriedly and with economy. The new full-length’s first song, “St. Petersburg,” is where this clicks into place immediately, with its samba-techno rhythm and big triumphant chorus, where Sciubba’s typically arch delivery breaks with sophistication and becomes uncomplicatedly raw and moving. I had the opportunity to speak with Sciubba as the group began a short tour supporting New York City (Verve Forecast). Brazilian Girls play Mezzanine Saturday, Sept. 27.

SFBG: I read that after completing the album you took off for Paris. Was this a vacation, or something more permanent?

ATP NY Day One: Built to Spill, Meat Puppets, and ‘Shining’ glam

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September 25, 2008

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Les Savy Fav’s Tim Harrington rises above. All photos by Jessica Reeves.

By Todd Lavoie

I just flew in from New York, and boy, are my arms tired! Ba-dum-bum.

A corny opener to this humble journal of my All Tomorrow’s Parties NY experience, but entirely too apropos for my weekend of serious ear-grinning up in the Catskills. Consider the venue choice: Kutsher’s Hotel, one of the few resorts from the “Oy vey!” heyday – Oy veyday? – of the Borscht Belt still in operation.

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This place was once at the absolute dead-center of the Henny Youngman/Jackie Mason/Sid Caesar nexus of Jewish summer-resort comedy, after all, so a few yuk-yuks were more than expected by the several thousand attendees of the so-called “boutique music festival.” As it turned out, there were yuks galore – but most of them were inspired by, or directed at, Kutsher’s itself.

Clubs: MANQUAKE! pricks up Folsom eve

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September 24, 2008

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Oh, how we love our very own famed gay bathhouse disco revivalist DJ Bus Station John and his decidedly hot man-centric cruisefest parties, thrown in the steamy-smoky spirit of the early-mid ’70s and slightly beyond. (Read my 2005 interview with him here.) So how delightful that the anniversary of MANQUAKE!, his “sordidly savory SF mix of trickin’ chicken, tourist meat, & sexy senior citizens” soiree would fall on Folsom Street Fair eve!

Spirits of the disco: “Karl” and “Phillip” at MANQUAKE

Spirit of the Piers: “Bruce” at MANQUAKE
All masks loving crafted by Bus Station John

Return to the tender coal mining days of gay yore at the Gangway this Saturday night, randy boys and men, and feast your eyes upon the fair bounty lining the Gangway’s man-mask-bedecked walls and X-traordinary vintage visuals curated by der Blaue Reiter — and your ears on the impeccable vinyl selection of Bus Station John featuring “’70s/’80s lost disco, funk, and r&b classics & rarities from the glory days of pre-digital dance music. Festive attire or clothing optional? YOU decide!” Plus: a mystery go-go boy! See your loins a-plenty there.

MANQUAKE! 1-Year Anniversary (Folsom Eve)
Sat/27, 10pm-2am, $5
The Gangway
841 Larkin between Geary and O’Farrell
(415) 776-6828

After the jump — a BONUS history flashback, sent from DJ BSJ, starring Ozzy!

Sonic Reducer Overage: Calexico, SEVA, Jose Gonzalez, We Are Wolves, and so much more

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September 24, 2008

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SW a-swirl: Calexico’s “Crystal Frontier.”

San Francisco can’t stop, won’t stop – as usual there’s far too much to do, see, and hear. Here are a few worthies to check out.

THE GIRLS
Yeah, you heard me right: the Girls, man, the Girls. Meaning, the Seattle garage-wave combo whose perky song stylings have caught Spin‘s ear (much like SF’s Girls, sans “the”). Wed/24, 9 p.m., $8. Uptown Night Club, 1948 Telegraph, Oakl. (510) 451-8100.

JOSE GONZALEZ
His handsome Veneer and haunting songs – we’re smitten. Wed/24, 8 and 10 p.m., $25. Yoshi’s, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakl. (510) 238-9200.

Britpop Faves: Schooled on Stereophonics

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September 24, 2008

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By Daniel N. Alvarez

Part of a continuing series: Britpop Faves

The Stereophonics burst onto the Britpop scene with their critically acclaimed 1997 debut, Word Gets Around (V2), and their hard indie-rock sound was a breath of fresh air in a time when Britpop groups like the Verve and Oasis were scaling back the rawness of their early albums and heading for more refined pastures. The Welsh threepiece had found their niche as the un-ironic, ballsy foil to a scene that had been castrated by string arrangements and power ballads.

The band followed it up with Performance and Cocktails (V2, 1999), which shot to no. 1 on the UK charts. However, for their third album, the Phonics took a brave step forward with the bluesy, toned-down Just Enough Education to Perform (V2, 2001). They mostly shunned the rollicking hard-rock sounds of their first two releases, while incorporating an alt-country, rootsy American vibe. The British press, unsurprisingly, crucified them for this stunning show of insubordination.

JEEP, as it’s called by fans, opens with a salute to the past. The upbeat “Vegas Two Times” would seamlessly fit beside either of the Stereophonics’ two previous full-lengths, but this would be the only song could.

Clubs: Lazer Sword gets ripped, still blappy

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September 23, 2008

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Photo by Jordan Fraker

First the good news: Lazer Sword, the local loco duo of robo-crunk remix actionists that blow out my speakers rightly, have just released the mixtape of the year, in my book. It’s called Blap to the Future. Check it out and gleam dizzy (download). Srsly, my laptop is xplodin’ with this shit. Listen and believe. You can find out more about the mix on the Lazer Sword MySpace blog.

Now the bad news (read the fine print):

From Lazer Sword: SO YES FRIENDS IT’S TRUE. LANDO KAL, 1/2 OF LAZER SWORD, GOT HIS APPLE MACBOOK PRO LAPTOP STOLEN OUT OF HIS HANDS AT GUNPOINT IN FRONT OF A CLUB BEFORE A LS SET WEDNESDAY, 8/27/08.

Mum’s the word on which club — but look, we’re gonna have a party and reimburse the shit. Hit up fancy Ambassador this Thursday for an all-star lineup of glitch-hop, electro disco, and other adventurous heads, in conjunction with promoters Hoodies and Heels, for a mind-bending night that gives back.

Lazer Sword Benefit
Thurs/25, 10pm-2am, Free but donate at the door
Ambassador
673 Geary Street
More info here

PS — oh hey, speaking of White Girl Lust, there’s a ripping disco-dive brand new mix up on xlr8r that features their new label Solid Bump.

Treasure Island: No shutter shades!

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September 23, 2008

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By Marke B.

The upside of the Treasure Island Music Fest Ferris wheel.
All photos by David Schnur.

Well, I was kind of wrong, despite doth protesting too much. There was not one single neon louvered spectacle at the Treasure Island Music Festival on Saturday, for a lineup that was topped with rockin’ French duo Justice. And I’m pretty sure it’s not because everyone reads my bitchy repartee in the Guardian. It’s because San Franciscans are so way ahead of those tired Hipster Runoff hater trends!

Ravin’ with a barnacle to pop-hop DJ Mike Relm

And yes, Justice was fab — the sustained set of dance beats after a day of stage hopping dance-floor blue balls was like a huge release, although I must admit that Hunky Beau and I dashed in the middle of their glowing-cross set to beat the bus rush. (Maybe for a whole day of “dance acts” there should also be a nearby tent of continuous local DJs so people can bounce their rocks off once in a while, uninterrupted by stage patter or slow songs?). In fact the whole day, though some folks’ hands turned purple with early autumnal chill, was amazingly lovely, if the energy was a bit scattered.

Amon Tobin blows the crowd (and almost himself) away

There was a broad spectrum of dance music available, from sexy Aesop Rock’s intel-hop, to Goldfrapp’s Kate Bush/Cocteau Twins revival act to Foals’s frantic indie guitar-and-sequencer patterns (unfortunately the solar-panelled sound system crapped out on them for a spell). For every other kind of dance music except house, Latin legend Amon Tobin happily filled in the windy gaps, with an inner-ear/inner-thought blowing set that nodded not only to his super-brainy brand of ambient sway, but also lazer bass, break beats, reggae, and dub step. This was the first time I saw him using a laptop for his sets along with turntables — and, natch, he was a natural.

The Verve go ‘Forth’?

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September 23, 2008

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THE VERVE
Forth
(On Your Own/MRI/Megaforce/RED)

By Todd Lavoie

Deep down, I’d always suspected the Verve might come back. There was something so brashly epic, so cockily magisterial about their brawls-and-all band-breaker-upper Urban Hymns (Virgin), that when the Wigan, England, space-rock poppers self-detonated upon the album’s release in 1997, it was tough to fathom such a towering force receding from view, never to be seen or heard again.

Even now, more than a full decade later, Urban Hymns gives the same skin-prickling goodness in each and every one of my digits as it did on the day I brought it home from the record store – and I doubt I’m alone in that assertion, based on how deeply the recording seemed to resonate in the psyches of listeners on both sides of the Atlantic. Hit albums and singles – as ubiquitous as they feel at the time of their success – come and go, often drifting out of the public consciousness only months after striking it big. Urban Hymns was much more than a mere hit. Rather, it was a proclamation of importance, a manifesto mighty enough for instant mythology.

Lest you’ve forgotten the sheer humbling grandiosity of this thing, go fetch your copy – and trust me, if you ever drew solace and hope from music back in the ’90s, you surely have one sitting in your stacks – and let the disc’s opening string-streaked fanfare of the zeitgeist-defining “Bitter Sweet Symphony” whisk you back to the exact moment you first stopped dead in your tracks and thought, “I can’t believe how good this is.”