Music Blogger

Girl from the nord country: Hilde Marie Kjersem

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HILDE MARIE KJERSEM
A Killer for That Ache
(Rune Grammofon)

By Erik Morse

Two things for which I am always a sucker – Norway’s cutting-edge Rune Grammofon label and any musician professedly indebted to David Lynch’s ambient craft. While Norwegian chanteuse Hilde Marie Kjersem has both claims to her credit, her debut, A Killer for That Ache, is a quizzical derivation of either the Rune or the Lynch sound. Far from the whizzing and sputtering grandeur of Skyphone’s recent Avellaneda (Rune Grammofon) or the soporific noir of the Lynch-produced Floating into the Night (Warner Bros., 1989), Kjersem’s debut is a mishmash of folky lullabies and thin rockers with little ambience.

Sung entirely in English with a slightly overpronounced tip of the hat to the American standard, Killer includes only a modicum of the Scandanavian mystery that has endeared US indie audiences to artists like Kim Hiorthøy and Lars Horntveth. Despite some hints of a conceptual linkage throughout Killer, any sense of sonic uniformity is absent.

The result is a long divagation into genre picking with varying degrees of success. “Mary Full of Grace” and “Midwest Country” portray an earthy blend of Joni Mitchell, Elliot Smith, and Norah Jones, while tracks like “London Bridge” and “Fantasy” attempt to resurrect the sugary dreampop of the early ’90s. “It is Easy” could very well be an Ani Difranco soapboxer were it not for the calliope and processed clarinet swarming underneath. There are moments of beauty to be found here, but the potential of a Lynchian soundalike in Kjersem’s work are only future-based.


In and out: Hilde Marie Kjersem’s “Fantasy.”

Caught up in Damien Jurado

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DAMIEN JURADO
Caught in the Trees
(Secretly Canadian)

By Todd Lavoie

If Damien Jurado ever decided to take a break from music and funnel his creative juices elsewhere – not that I’m encouraging him to – I reckon fiction-writing would be his new calling. The Seattle singer-songwriter has long been a recipient of Raymond Carver comparisons, having built a decade-plus career upon crafting taut, literate tales of quiet alienation and shattering despair that share the same spirit with that of the piercing-stared short-story master.

Having largely foregone the confessional fess-ups of, say, Elliott Smith, Cat Power, or Mark Kozelek, Jurado’s indie folk-rock (and occasionally just full-on, unhyphenated rock) tends to stick with character studies and immersions into the emotional lives of others rather than directing the pen towards the ins and outs of his own heart. Or, so I have gleaned from reading interviews with the man, anyway – ultimately, whatever ratio of storytelling-vs.-autobiography offered up in an artist’s body of work is known to him and him only. In any case, these portraits-in-miniature have not only made for gripping listening over the years – credit duly given to Jurado’s wounded, earhole-snuggling hushes – but they’ve given a solid argument for daydreaming about the possibilities of a literary career for the singer.

Jurado’s latest, Caught in the Trees, probably won’t shoo away any such reveries, either – the disc continues what is now a longstanding tradition of engrossing first-person-narrated fiction set to equally absorbing melodies. According to the press kit, it also took longer to make than any other in his catalog – one that is now nearly double-digits-deep with releases. Whether this was due to outside circumstances or the nature of the songs contained within, I am not sure, but the album does offer plenty of that trademark Jurado intensity.

Moaning for Mon Cousin Belge

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Dressy: A past Mon Cousin Belge performance

Mon Cousin Belge (with Girls, Bridez, and the Passionistas)
Aug. 28, Cafe du Nord

By Lauren Giniger

Man, that rare warm summer night we had last week really messed up my program. It took me forever to get out of the house, and it was all clothing-related indecision, and consequently I missed three groups of the fun four-band lineup at the world-famous-in-San Francisco performer Mon Cousin Belge’s record-release party.

Now it’s true, the hipsters left en masse (really, is there anything they don’t do en masse?) after Girls’ set, but that just left a very enthusiastic core of fans for Mon Cousin Belge’s turn. MCB, much like Obama, benefits from the “enthusiasm factor,” and MCB fans really, really, really love MCB. Emile is a compelling frontman, his theatrics propped on top of a set of powerful pipes, and the band’s music possesses a delicious, glammed-out sensibility.

MCB started their set with slow-burn cover of Roger Miller’s “The Crossing,” and reached a sort of rock fever pitch with “Ugly American” and “Tweaker Bitch.” Emile’s long-lost brother in botched plastic surgery sat in with some guest vocals, and both delivered drama of the hair-metal variety. So many of MCB songs are so great. They’re funny, edgy, and recognizable – who among us doesn’t know a tweaker bitch? While the guitar jangles and the keyboards hark to ’70s anthems, the drums carve out a stripped-down post-punk beat to counterpoint all that top-heavy glam.

Hipsters, next time stick around even if your friends don’t. San Francisco fags and those who love them elevate MCB to cult-band status. I don’t make history, but I dig it.

Sonic Reducer Overage: Ratatat, Brian Wilson, Lebowski Fest, Leyna Noel, and mo’

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Commando chic: Ratatat blows ’em up real good with “Mirando.”

More music than one gal can handle – o, frisky Frisco, you never disappoint! Behold the great stuff that didn’t make print – but really should have…

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Finer Things for Leyna Noel. Photo by Alissa Anderson.

LEYNA NOEL AND THE FINER THINGS
Could this be “tea metal” from the Mirah collaborator and Erase Errata drummer. With Clipd Beaks and Past Lives. Thurs/4, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. (415) 923-0923.

LEBOWSKI FEST SAN FRANCISCO
The dude abides by Extra Action Marching Band, the Dead Hensons, and Meshugga Beach Party. Fri/5, 8 p.m. doors, $20 advance. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. (415) 820-9669.

Abe-bama pops up in the ‘Loin

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The latest rainbow happening going down in the alley next to Shooting Gallery, 839 Larkin, SF: artist Ron English (who I once interviewed way back when for his billboard modifications throughout the southwest) recently installed this PhotoShop combo – based on an original painting – of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. These murals – up in LA, Seattle, and Denver as well as here – were made to coincide with the November election.

Slow burn: Facts about Funerals broods like AMC re-envisioned as a roadhouse band

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Facts and fog: Pete Colclasure. Courtesy of Facts about Funerals’ MySpace site.

FACTS ABOUT FUNERALS
Love Songs & Funeral Homes
(Evangeline)

By Todd Lavoie

Just on the off-chance the band name didn’t point you in the direction of the emotional terrain Seattle sextet Facts About Funerals are aiming to mine, the title of their recently released disc should help you out: Love Songs & Funeral Homes. See where we’re going?

The title, in fact, was borrowed from the Daniel Johnston documentary The Devil & Daniel Johnston – asked what his songs were about, those words were the singer’s reply. Evocative and eyebrow-raising, to be sure, but do they apply to Facts About Funerals as well?

Yes and no – death does cast a considerable shadow over the proceedings, but it doesn’t completely consume the album, either. And as for the love songs – well, singer-songwriter Rob Sharp tends to speak more to the uneasy feelings associated with love (obsession, loss, regret, heartache) than the wide-eyed bliss of romance.

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Everybody should know about Sharon Robinson

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SHARON ROBINSON
Everybody Knows
(Sharon Robinson Music)

By Todd Lavoie

Sharon Robinson is one smooth deceiver. On first listen, the singer-songwriter’s silken soul meditations might easily billow on overhead in drifts of nerve-soothing R&B – but pull your ears a little closer, and you’ll see that there’s much, much more at work here than merely setting up some hot-whisper mood music for kicking back with a bottle of wine and your sweet thing on the sofa. Her new release, Everybody Knows, certainly succeeds in creating such ambiance, yes, but further inspection shows enormous depth and complexity across these 10 elegantly arranged songs.

This isn’t to downplay the burning sensuality that casts an amorous glow throughout the disc – only the most puritanical of listeners could miss, or deny, the extended come-hither of Robinson’s songwriting and self-production. Still, what ultimately resonates the most profoundly is the sense of haunting, of introspection, which burrows itself firmly among the satiny synth textures and jazz-informed midnight grooves.

Such a realization shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to those already familiar with Robinson; the songwriter has been a longtime collaborator with Leonard Cohen, having co-written songs with him as well as producing his deliciously moody 2001 album, Ten New Songs (Columbia). (That’s her on the cover with him, by the way – an entirely appropriate sharing of the credit, too, given that her involvement included co-writing, arranging, electronic programming, and harmonizing throughout the recording.)

Inside Outside Lands fest: on music-loving and littering hordes and sustainable music gatherings

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Heads gather round: Radiohead. All photos by Spencer Hansen.

By Kat Renz

I was in the throes of a particularly conflicted love/hate relationship last weekend. The first Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in Golden Gate Park – so much to appreciate (the music, scenery, intention), so much to loathe (the overlapping performances, long lines, the great green marketing strategy).

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Scoping out Beck.

“We deserve a festival,” folk-rocker Matt Nathanson told journalists during a press conference on Saturday, Aug. 23, the second day of Outside Lands. And though he was being ironic, he echoed the sense of entitlement sweeping through Speedway Meadows on down to the Polo Fields, like the restless ghost of a spoiled brat. Between concert-goers tearing down fences and elbowing relentlessly (and pointlessly) through the audience, or getting so pissed they could barely make out Thom Yorke on the giant TV screens and littering like motherfuckers, the scene got pretty obnoxious.

But, duh, what else did I expect with 150,000 people?

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Hat club for men: Sean Hayes.

Let me diverge, briefly, from the rantings of my inner curmudgeon: Oakland’s bluesy outfit Howlin’ Rain struck an inaugural chord on the tiny Panhandle Stage, jamming through a half-hour set fueled by the soul rasp of front-howler Ethan Miller and Joel Robinow’s organ harmonies.

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In the swim: Rupa and the Fishes.

Outside Lands day three: Jack, Wilco, Toots, fence jumpers

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Wild and wooly Wilco. All photos by El Fotografo Clandestino.

El Fotografo Clandestino took aim at the third and last day, Sunday, Aug. 24, of the Outside Lands music fest in Golden Gate Park, SF. Here are a few of the artists, things, and people – look for more thoughts and images in this space.

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Howl: Gift of Gab of Mighty Underdogs.

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Whistle bait: Andrew Bird.

Echolalia: Lee Perry returns to the Bay Area

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By Erik Morse

“It was only four tracks on the machine, but I was picking up 20 from the extra terrestrial squad…”

Reggae producer and dub pioneer Rainford Hugh Perry, a.k.a., Lee Perry, a.k.a. Scratch, a.k.a. the Upsetter, has a professional career that now stretches over half a century with thousands of studio tracks, production and songwriting credits. From Studio One to Amalgamated Records to his own Black Ark studio and label, Perry is second only to Bob Marley for his contribution to the worldwide popularity Jamaican music.

His list of compatriots reads like a Rosetta stone of Rastafarian music – Max Romeo, the Congos, King Tubby, and Augustus Pablo. His genre-bending work in ska, rocksteady, reggae, and dub has earned him the distinctive sobriquet of mad genius. But three generations of experimental artists – born under the sign of “I Am the Upsetter” and “Long Shot” – have since taken up the echo plate, leaving Perry a largely mythic and removed patrician of all-things woozy. At 72, Perry maintains a life of sobriety, with a Grammy to his credit and a permanent residence in Zurich. The Upsetter of late is far from the raving producer who once burned down his own backyard studio in a fit of rage.

The sheer beauty of Shearwater, coming soon to Great American Music Hall

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SHEARWATER
Rook
(Matador)

By Todd Lavoie

Shipwrecks, burning bodies, scattered deaths and sweeping acts of violence – welcome to the cold troubled world of Shearwater‘s fifth release, Rook, a world in which everyone and everything seems to be classified as either predator or prey. Here, hunters lurk behind tempo changes, bigger birds feast upon the carcasses of smaller birds to the flutter of circular guitar patterns, and the mighty ocean swells in cruel crescendos, threatening to engulf us all.

Scared? Intrigued? Titillated? Well, all of the above would be perfectly appropriate – the disc works plenty of heartbeat-skipping hoodoo from its gripping whirls of hushed ambient textures, elegant orchestral-pop melodrama, and jugular-bulging rock ‘n’ roll bombast. At the center of it all is singer-songwriter Jonathan Meiburg, a mild-mannered ornithologist – or, I assume he is mild-mannered, anyway, considering his expertise in the quiet, meditative field of bird-watching – who does not write lyrics as much as composes metaphor-heavy abstract poems and sets them to intricate song structures with little interest in rote verse/chorus/verse design.

Then, of course, there is his voice: a gorgeous, enormously versatile instrument that often manages to pack years worth of conflicting emotions within a single phrase, it is without doubt the swooping, howling-falsetto focal point of Shearwater’s woodwind-and-string-laden experimental theatrics. Meiburg’s expressive abilities are such that it’s tough to imagine the idea of a casual Rook listener: his delivery, sensitive to every nuance demanded by the lyrics, tends to pull me ear-first against the other end of the microphone, eagerly awaiting the next word from his lips. Elements of Scott Walker come into focus, traces of Jeff Buckley. Here and there I hear Antony Hegarty, Thom Yorke. And lastly – but certainly not least – I pick up a lovely Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) vibe. Those who followed Talk Talk’s metamorphosis from decent electro-pop outfit to one of the chief architects of post-rock will surely squeal in delight upon discovering Shearwater’s daring forays into similarly oblique territories.

Memphis in SF: John Murry keeps it downhome with Evangeline Records

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By Sonny Smith

When I met musician John Murry, Memphis transplant, I naturally asked him about hometown. He told me: “When I first got out here I had to be told I couldn’t keep a pistol in my glove box.”

Murry has been here for four years – creating a music label, Evangeline Records; playing in a few bands; ruffling some feathers; and raising his daughter. “The thing is, people from Memphis are basically from Mississippi, or maybe Arkansas,” he said. “Memphis is the capitol of Mississippi. There is a fair share of disputes settled by knives and guns…. The scene there is kind of beautifully dysfunctional – everybody chasing after everybody’s wives and stuff.”

He’s put a lot of records out in a short time with Evangeline. “My family was intertwined with William Faulkner’s. The Murrys and the Faulkners intermarried three or four times,” he said. “My grandfather owned some property signed over by Bill, and when he died the grandkids got a little bit of money.” His friend, artist Bob Frank, also brought some money to the project.

“It’s a ridiculously fair label,” Murry continued. “I just built it the way I thought labels were supposed to be. I just don’t make anything. I don’t think artists should ever be in debt to a label. Artists are already in debt – spiritual debt. Without artistic freedom you don’t have art – there can’t be a compromise. I don’t tell the artists anything about how it should be or what would sell.”

Outside Lands day two: Petty, Lupe, Rupa, Coup, Tacuba, and more

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He won’t back down: Tom Petty. All photos by El Fotografo Clandestino.

El Fotografo Clandestino took in the second day, Saturday, Aug. 23, at the Outside Lands music fest in Golden Gate Park, SF. Here are a few of the sights – expect more in this space.

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Lupe Fiasco in your face.

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The Coup keep it real.

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Cake beneath the bowers.

Outside Lands day one: Radiohead, Lyrics Born, and Manu Chao captured

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Manu Chao go mano y mano. All photos by El Fotografo Clandestino.

El Fotografo Clandestino caught the first day, Friday, Aug. 22, of Outside Lands music fest. Here are a few images from the night – and look out for more.

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Check your head.

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Steel Pulse breaks open the beat as the first band Friday night at the Lands End main stage.

Buzzing again: Paul Weller returns with a winning ’22 Dreams’

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PAUL WELLER
22 Dreams
(Island/Yep Roc)

By Todd Lavoie

The buzz-buzz-buzz in eardrums and across the pages of blogs and music rags hither and yon is all about Paul as of late – no shock there, if you’ve had the good fortune to hear the Modfather’s expansive (and reputation-expanding) 21-track epic, 22 Dreams.

Plenty of garlanded praise and eyebrow-raising declarations have been lavished upon Weller since the album’s initial release in Britain at the beginning of June, thus piquing the curiosity of American folks like me who have always enjoyed the vocalist’s solo work but had felt a little less spark for his recent output (and were shy of paying a hefty import-only CD price tag – crossing fingers for an eventual stateside release).

There was something almost rigidly straightforward about much of 2005’s As Is Now (Yep Roc), for example – solid as it was, it offered relatively few shocks. Similar critiques had been offered now and again throughout his solo career, truth be told – surely the downside of his having set such a high standard for himself with the unimpeachable catalogs of the Jam and the Style Council prior to going at it alone. As Is Now made for a good listen, but it felt like it was missing something. Adventure? Drama? The element of surprise, perhaps?

Rock the Bells: Did the fest pull off its blend of old school and new?

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Tales from… : Tre of the Pharcyde. All photos by Mosi Reeves

By Mosi Reeves

Rock the Bells was tiring but fun. The Aug. 16 event showcased 14 acts on the main stage, as well as an additional eight on a side stage, and the only way to catch them all was to run around Shoreline Amphitheatre like a chicken with its head cut off.

The day began super-early at 10:40 a.m. with Jay Electronica. I didn’t arrive to the stadium until 11:30 a.m., just in time to catch Washington, DC, rapper Wale finish his set with “W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.,” his hit viral remix of Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.” That meant I spent an exhausting 11 hours at Shoreline. Other audience members were less committed: the venue didn’t reach capacity until around 4 p.m. Still, it was a little early in the morning for hip-hop.

“Hip-hop doesn’t really start until noon,” said Murs before launching into popular underground cuts like “Silly Girl,” “L.A.,” and “Lookin’ Fly,” a new track from his upcoming album Murs for President. The great thing about Rock the Bells is that it draws audiences that actually know who Murs is. He enthusiastically ended his set by saying how grateful he was to be on the main stage this year – last year, he headlined the “Paid Dues” side stage (named after a festival he launched in 2006) for the West Coast leg of the tour. “I get to have cereal with De La Soul. I dare y’all to enjoy yourselves more than me.”

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Live forever: Immortal Technique.

Kim Gordon gets down in Saratoga

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“C’mon and turn it up,” for sure. I really dug Kim Gordon’s last project, Free Kitten’s Inherit (Ecstatic Peace) – the resurrected Gordon, Julie Cafritz (Pussy Galore), and Yoshimi (Boredoms) collabo came out earlier this year. But what sort of feline mischief has the Sonic Youth player been up to of late? Apparently the indie-underground icon has been toiling as an artist-in-residence at the garden-green Montalvo Arts Center in otherwise-burby Saratoga – so says the press release that came over the transom recently. Sounds like Montalvo is picking up where it left off with the 2006’s noise- and art-filled Bleeding Edge Festival, which brought together Matmos and Zeena Parkins (also working with Gordon this time around), Yo La Tengo, Sunroof!, and Tim Hecker:

“On Sept. 26, Montalvo Arts Center will present the world premiere of ‘Kim Gordon Meets Phantom Orchard,’ a musical collaboration featuring internationally renowned artists at the forefront of the alternative music scene. Kim Gordon, bassist, guitarist and founding member of Sonic Youth, joins the Phantom Orchard duo of laptop artist Ikue Mori and harp innovator Zeena Parkins, plus special guests Trevor Dunn on bass and drummer Yoshimi. The artists are in development with their new project, entitled ‘The Song Project,’ as part of their Montalvo Arts Center’s Lucas Artists Programs residency.

“Kim Gordon has enjoyed a long and storied career as a musician and a visual artist. In 1981 Gordon, with future husband Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, helped found seminal alt-rock band Sonic Youth. Though they started out as a decidedly underground act, Sonic Youth emerged from the New York City music scene to become one of the most iconic and influential American rock bands, earning praise for their unique, unorthodox rock guitar style, strong studio albums (which have been included in Rolling Stone’s ‘Greatest Albums of All-Time’ list), and career stamina that has spanned over the course of nearly three decades. An established visual artist and curator, Gordon has exhibited her work across the U.S., Japan and Europe (sometimes incorporating live music in her exhibitions), written for respected art publications and has had several books published highlighting her original art.

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Flower children: Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins.

Producer/journalist Jerry Wexler remembered

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Jerry Wexler. Courtesy of popentertainment.com.

By Kandia Crazy Horse

I am in utter shock at the fact that my lifelong hero, my much-cherished Jerry “Papa Dippermouth” Wexler (Jan. 10, 1917–Aug. 15, 2008) has gone to glory. Been thinking hard not only about my friend, his youngest daughter Lisa (of the great New York State band Big Sister), and my play-uncle/mentor Stanley Booth (one of his best friends), but all the unbroken circle of folks who loved and forever appreciate the magic Wexler produced during his paradigm-shifting career as a music journalist and (likely) the last of the great record men.

I have been weeping all this interminable weekend beginning with his death on Friday morn, Aug. 15 – Black Friday to me forever after. Of course, it is not as if Papa Dip was not poised at the end of his days. And, yes, he enjoyed a long and varied career the likes of which many music geeks of my generation envied (who didn’t want to be a producer at Atlantic Records between the titanic poles of Brother Ray Charles’ and Led Zeppelin’s arc’s therein?). Still, I cannot be consoled.

He wasn’t just the hallowed man who exposed me to the riches of King Solomon Burke and sent me Dusty in Memphis for deep listening or kindly shared personal revelations about my generation’s foremost soul icon Donny Hathaway – the man born Gerald Wexler in the boogiedown Bronx was the first person I was conscious of outside my kinpeople as being essential to how my world revolved. From the age of 2 ½ at least, I read his liner notes or saw his name credited on the back of Atlantic long-players, as the label’s iconic iconography circled round-and-round, and I knew in my deepest soul who and what I wanted to be.

Getting saved by Saviours at the Rickshaw

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By Kat Renz

I kept glancing behind me during the Saviours show last Sunday, Aug. 10. Where is everyone? The Rickshaw Stop, a 4,000-square-foot venue with a worthy sound system, stayed only about a quarter filled – and sparsely at that. I was in awe: anyone reading music mags since the release of Saviours’s second album Into Abaddon (Kemado) last January has been inundated with gushing reviews of the local foursome, so WTF? The crowd’s absence was almost embarrassing, like we fell short in upholding our gracious side of the mutually beneficial performer/audience agreement.

Shame aside, it’s challenging to convey just how visceral a Saviours show is. Even through my weenie laptop speakers, their sound – dripping with reverb, soaring on dead-on harmonized guitar leads, reliant on sick scale-shreddage, equally mastered bass, and no mercy drumming – is preternaturally powerful. The live experience, transcendence times 10, is positively psychedelic.

Sunday’s show was exemplary. The band delivered a typically spirited eight-song barrage to launch their two-and-a-half month national tour (catch them again at the tour’s end Octer 23 at the Regency Center Ballroom with Iced Earth). Riding on their signature galloping riffs — the two guitarists are nothing if not relentless gallopers — they began with “Circle of Servant’s Bodies,” a Black Sabbathian decent into doom land. Title-track “Into Abaddon” felt in fast-forward, the tempo increase sort of a surprise considering the delicious brownies circulating the room. Ditto for “Narcotic Sea, on which vocalist-guitarist Austin Barber took turns dominating the fretboard with new guitarist Sonny Reinhardt, formerly of Watch Them Die and recently replacing D. Tyler “Balls” Morris.

Go, go, Music Go Music!

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By Todd Lavoie

I want to rave like a street-corner rapture-seeker about the enormous healing properties of Los Angeles’ new unashamed pop-messiahs Music Go Music, but first, a little personal exposition.

When I dare to cast a fleeting glance back in the direction of my tween years – the absolute apex of my chronic bumblinghood, that endless expanse of skinny arms and butterfingers and nervous stammers – I’m tempted to take refuge in how deep-down cool I told myself I really was despite my oversized glasses and severe bowl-haircut and startling inability to interact with the rest of the human race. I had Clash cassettes, after all – and the Fall, too, and mixes of Echo and the Bunnymen and Flipper and Dead Milkmen songs I’d taped from local college radio shows! I mean, who could step to that kind of coolness at such an age? Sure, I was scared of my own shadow, but the Misfits convinced me I was the biggest bad-ass in all of New Hampshire, pubes or no pubes. Since I couldn’t speak for myself in public, I’d simply assumed that the meticulously crafted Gang of Four and Fishbone logos I’d etched across my fifth-rate denim-blue Trapper Keeper-knockoff would do the talking for me. I knew all of the words to the Smiths’ “Reel Around the Fountain,” for Christ’s sake – why oh why didn’t any of my equally self-conscious gangly-wangly peers take notice? Or care? Why was I so alone?

Here’s the thing. This so-called coolness I’ve just described? It’s only part of the picture. See, there’s a deeper, darker secret, lurking underneath the Morrissey quotes and ballpoint-pen notebook sloganeering: I also harbored a wide-eyed fascination with Top 40 radio. Or, specifically, the stuff I’d hear in the car on the way to a swimming lesson, to summer camp, to a Little League game I’d rather avoid.

The LA anti-scene guerrillas of Rainbow Arabia make dance mayhem with Middle Eastern guitar, microtonal keys

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By Vanessa Carr

With feral vocals, shattering guitar riffs, and a collection of microtonal keyboards ordered off of a Lebanese Web site, Rainbow Arabia combines Middle Eastern beats and modes with the vibrant energy of Los Angeles’ experimental punk/dance scene. The result is a hypnotic neo-tribal, hipster-dub sound that falls somewhere in the vicinity of post-punk spiritualists Gang Gang Dance and These Are Powers. Rainbow Arabia plays at Cellspace on Aug. 16 before embarking on a cross-country tour with Gangi and Hecuba in October.

The band is composed of Danny and Tiffany Preston, both 36. The husband and wife duo were married for more than three years before they started playing music together and recording in their basement in early 2008. Before Rainbow Arabia, Danny played in punk-dub outfit Future Pigeon and Tiffany in Licorice Piglet.

“It’s definitely tested us, being in a band together. But the great thing is that when things are going really well, you get to share it together,” Tiffany told the Guardian.

Oberst, Wilco, Wrens rock for net neutrality

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
Rock the Net: Musicians for Network Neutrality
(Thirsty Ear)

By Ian Ferguson

Although Al Gore considered naming the Internet “Magic,” and it seems that way to some (black magic for John McCain), an actual energy- and bandwidth-consuming infrastructure supports our browsing habits. Once the Net broadened beyond ARPA, private companies (namely service providers like AT&T and Comcast) assumed control of its traffic lights. Service providers are huge corporations: profit machines compelled to consider little else. These companies want to charge content providers (Web sites ranging from Google to your favorite blog) a fee for more bandwith: more bandwith means the Net works faster for a given site.

The FCC hasn’t yet stepped in to regulate the practice, but is currently evaluating the available options. In a show of support for net neutrality – the principle that demands service providers keep the Net free and open and by extension an indie band’s site as fast as any multiplatinum act’s – a coalition of musicians and labels have united to make an album intent on persuading Congress and the FCC to come around to their point of view. After all, as labels suffer, the Net offers itself as an inevitable platform for whatever distribution model to come – take OK Go’s YouTube music video-fueled fame, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s blog-buzzed status, or Radiohead’s acclaimed In Rainbows digital release.

Though none of these bands appear as part of the collective of musicians supporting network neutrality on Rock the Net, the album more than makes up for their absence. Everyone knows that one of the most promising potentials the Internet offers audiophiles is ease of discovery. No longer must one buy countless so-so albums to find one gem: simply peruse Imeem, Muxtape, or MySpace for revelations. This disc provides a microcosm of that in tangible form: 15 artists – some familiar, some not so well-known – present tracks as varied as infinite cyberspace.

Scoping out Treasure Island’s ‘Treasure Trove’

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West Indian Girl at last year’s Treasure Island fest. Photo courtesy of www.treasureislandfestival.com

By Kat Renz

Apparently Noise Pop and Another Planet Productions don’t think there’s enough cool stuff to do at their upcoming second annual Treasure Island Festival. After all, there are only two days of major indie rock acts, a 60-foot-tall Ferris wheel, double-dutch lessons, and free hairstyling, among other diversions. But perhaps you need a break from dancing and shoegazing and hula hooping? This is when you become grateful to the minds behind the “Treasure Trove.”

A 2,500-square-foot tent will house pieces of art and culture representative of the Bay Area and will provide opportunities galore for local creativeness, both others’ and your own. Get cozy and catch up on your underground reading in the zine corner, hosted by none other than the SF ‘Zine Fest. Relax in a bathtub sculpture. Feeling festival-ly inspired? Compose your own music on the Octamasher, a melodic hydra of eight instruments connected to one computer brain, allowing future electronicons to sample, tweak loops, and collaborate with other participant-observers.

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