Located at 70 Rue Baudrière in Angers, France, Home Wax is a cool, little shop decked wall to wall with vintage concert posters and flyers, vinyl LPs, skateboard decks, and all sorts of other cool stuff.
That’s just one section of one wall in this place. They had, of course, pulled out stuff relating to the Levitation France festival happening there at the time of my visit, thus the Sonic Youth (with Kim Gordon playing there) and Snapped Ankles albums (although Snapped Ankles had to cancel their set at this year’s festival).
The place is a small heaven for collectors of groovy vinyl, including an impressive jazz section and a section just for local artists.
Jazz!Fuzz! I wish A Place to Bury Strangers would release that Fuzz Club live album in a digital format.Local bands and talent!
I mentioned skateboard decks. They had some Ramones-themed ones behind the front counter. Angers, with its many hills and parks, if probably a skateboarder’s paradise, and Home Wax is happy to cater to such folks.
Ramones skateboard decks (and a ton of other vinyl and stuff)!
Be sure to swing in there if you’re ever in town. It’s a cool shop. I’m sure I’ll return there next year for Levitation France 2023.
I hadn’t seen Failure live since 1997 – when Lollapalooza still toured. They played the second stage late in the date and put on a killer set – one of the best of the festival. I got to meet three of the (at the time) four lads – Ken Andrews, Kellii Scott, Greg Edwards, and Tory Van Leeuwen (who would later go on to join Queens of the Stone Age) – after their set, where they signed their photo in the festival program.
Fast forward twenty-five years later, and Failure were now back with three new albums of original material, a live album, four EPs, and numerous side projects. They’d also done a couple tours by now, and I missed one due to illness. I wasn’t going to miss this show at Chicago’s Bottom Lounge, and when they offered a VIP experience for a great price, I jumped on it.
There were twenty-three of us there for the VIP experience a full four and a half hours before Failure went on stage. We had early access to the merch table (and our own exclusive VIP merch), but even better – a meet and greet with the band and the opportunity to watch their three-song sound check.
Sound check. L-R: Greg Edwards, Kellii Scott, Ken Andrews
Afterward, we got to hang out with Failure for nearly two hours. They chatted with all of us, signed anything we asked them to sign (and some things they requested to sign – i.e., “Let me sign your VIP badge!”), and posed for a photo with each of us. We heard plenty of stories about the making of their new album Wild Type Droid (review coming soon), possible re-releases of side projects, and how the pandemic affected their touring schedule and everything else. They were extremely gracious and kind to everyone there. The highlight of the meet and greet for me was being able to tell each of them how much “Another Space Song” (from their 1995 masterpiece Fantastic Planet) has come to mean to me since my wife’s death in 2021. I choked up with each telling of the story, and all of them were thankful to hear how the song has become one of hope for me.
Best dressed at the VIP experience and the show. She hand-painted this, and the band loved it.Yours truly, still trying not to choke up while thanking Failure one more time.
We had time after the meet and greet to drop off our merch at our vehicles and come back for a bite and / or a drink at the Bottom Lounge’s restaurant before heading in for the main show – which was either a sell-out or a near sell-out. The place was packed.
Their opening act was a half-hour clip of the upcoming documentary about the band, which made even more eager to see it. The addition of the Ren & Stimpy episode “Space Madness” before their set was also a nice, fun touch – as a lot of the band’s music has themes of space, the cosmos, and the effects of both on one’s mind.
They came out gunning with tracks like “Submarines,” “Macaque,” and “Frogs,” spanning some of their earliest material to their newest. I’d forgotten how powerful they are live, and their sound engineers did a top-notch job. Greg Edwards’ guitar tones are like the sound of magic happening in front of you, Kellii Scott has some of the best chops of any drummer in all of rock, and Ken Andrews’ bass riffs were sometimes so heavy it sounded like Failure had become a doom metal band.
The crowd was bonkers by the time they were at “Counterfeit Sky.” The power they were generating could’ve lit up a Las Vegas casino marquee. They saved multiple tracks from Fantastic Planet for their encore – and, yes, I did cry when they played “Another Space Song.”
Greg Edwards and Ken Andrews would switch bass and lead guitar so many times that it was easy to lose count of them all.
Everyone left with a buzz pin their bodies and / or ears. This was the best show I’ve seen so far this year, and I will always be thankful to Failure for offering the VIP experience to us beforehand. Don’t miss them if they come near you.
Thanks to the kind lady who let me take this photo of the set list she scored.VIP stuff and everything Failure signed for me.
Keep your mind open.
[Thanks also to the mighty Rebecca, who ran the VIP experience and worked hard for everyone.]
Coming back after a cancelled show back in the spring, The Smithereens had an enthusiastic crowd to greet them in Fort Wayne on June 18, 2022.
Walking in with my daughter, my immediate reaction was, “That sounds like an R.E.M. cover.” Sure enough, the opening band was a local R.E.M. cover band called Driver 8 (named after the song from R.E.M.’s 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction). I didn’t know who was going to open for The Smithereens, but a cover band wasn’t among my ideas. That being said, Driver 8 were solid. It was the singer’s first gig with the band, and he showed no signs of nerves and knew how to work a crowd. Hearing a live version of “Superman” was a treat, as I hadn’t heard that song in years.
Driver 8
Thanks to someone forgetting to put a microphone on the stand for lead singer Marshall Crenshaw, The Smithereens’ Jim Babjak, Dennis Diken, and Severo Incarnacion started the show with a drum solo by Diken (who has always been one of the steadiest rock drummers of the last few decades) and a Link Wray cover while Crenshaw found a microphone backstage. The first Smithereens song they played was “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” and, despite Crenshaw forgetting some of the first verse lyrics, they were off to the races.
Jim Babjak still shreds, and it was great to hear them play a lot of tracks from the Especially for You album and to just watch them remind everyone how they’re still America’s Rock Band after forty years. They closed with a couple Beatles covers, delighting my daughter and everyone else.
They still cook, and they still have many, many hits that you love to hear.
Starting with ambient sounds of bird songs, traffic, and other things you can’t quite identify, Vapors of Morphine‘s latest, Fear and Fantasy, is at times lush, other times haunting, and other times exotic.
“Blue Dream” certainly is dream-like, combining those ambient sounds with Dana Colley‘s signature smoky saxpohones, Jerome Deupree‘s subtle drumming, and Jeremy Lyons‘ sly vocals. Colley shares vocals with Lyons on “Golden Hour,” originally a Twinemen track (another band Colley was in after the death of Morphine lead singer Mark Sandman), and VOM’s version here is somehow trippier than the original. Listening to “Irene” is like slipping into a warm bath while surrounded by sage smoke. The sound that Colley produces with his saxophone on “No Sleep” is somewhere between angry bees and horny hummingbirds. It’s layered with so much reverb and distortion that it’s hard to describe…which means it’s great. Lyons’ love and influence of Appalachian blues comes through in his guitar work and vocals on “Special Rider,” exuding both sorrow and menace.
Tom Arey takes over on drums on the second side of the album, since Deupree left the band in 2019. Arey’s work can first be heard on “Lasidan,” an instrumental flavored with Middle Eastern flair (a sound VOM explored before on A New Low). “Drop Out Mambo” continues the band having fun with sounds and styles from around the world. A new version of Treat Her Right‘s “Doreen” is a fun treat for us long-time fans of Morphine and THR. It somehow seems sweatier and sultrier than the original.
“Ostrich” is a fun track with a honky tonk swagger that has Lyons wishing he could become different animals in order to avoid having to deal with the blues. “Baba Drame” is a blend of Middle Eastern and what sounds like Celtic styles with Lyons shredding on what sounds like a mandolin with riffs that sound like a callback to “Red Apple Juice” from A New Low. VOM get psychedelic on the instrumental “Phantasos & Phobetor,” because, why shouldn’t they? The name of the track refers to the Greek gods of surreal dreams and nightmares, respectively, and also to the name of the album. The closer is “Frankie & Johnny,” a fun floor-stomper that goes back to the band’s love of blues and bluegrass, with Ayers doing a fine job snapping out beats (with brushes, I think) and some of Lyon’s best guitar work on the album.
I love how Vapors of Morphine continue to salute their past and embrace new sounds in the present. Fear and Fantasy is more fine work from them.
This fun compilation released in the US by Runt Records (and originally in Italy by Abraxas) showcases the work of Francesco De Masi, Bruno Nicolai, Lallo Gori, Mario Migliari, and Vassil Kojucharov. The first three composers make up most of the compilation, with Migliari and Kojucharov only getting one track each on the album.
The sixteen tracks span films ranging from many of the Sartana franchise including Nicolai’s gorgeous title tracks to C’e’ Sartana…Vendi la Pistola e Comprati La Bara! (There is Sartana…Sell the Pistol and Buy a Coffin!) and Buon Funerale Amigos…Paga Sartana (part 1) (Have a Good Funeral, Friends…Sartana Will Pay). “Stranger,” with its bold vocals, is a fun track.
Many of the DeMasi pieces are collaborations with famous Italian guitarist and composter Alessandro Alessandroni, whose fine guitar work is all over tracks like “Monetero’s Plan” and “Vento e Whisky” (which has a great horn section that sounds like it wandered from the set of an Italian crime thriller to play on the score for Stranger).
Migliardi’s title track for Prega il Morto e Ammazza il Vivo (Pray for the Dead and Shoot the Living) sizzles like a rattlesnake on a warm rock. Nicolai’s title track for Gil Fumavano le Colt…Lo Chiamavano Campsanto (They Call Him Cemetery) is a classic with its expert whistling, symphonic strings, hollow-body guitar work, and vocal chorus all mixing together for a perfect blend. The vocals on DeMasi’s “Gold” are so bold they’re almost over the top and ridiculous, but they hold back just enough to make them amazing in their own right. His title track for 1963’s Il Segno del Coyote (The Sign of the Coyote) could fit on practically any John Ford film.
It’s a collection that’s over too soon, even with sixteen tracks on it, and a good reminder that Ennio Morricone (God rest his soul.) wasn’t the only formidable composer of spaghetti western soundtracks.
