Fort Wayne was the place to be on May 10, 2022 if you were a fan of Primus, Battles, or Rush. No, Rush wasn’t playing, but Primus, apart from playing a full set of their music, played Rush’s A Farewell to Kings in its entirety as a second set.
There was a big crowd, as it was the first time Primus or Battles playing in Ft. Wayne, and it was great to see young and older fans alike there to see the show. Battles were first up and the two gentlemen put on a math rock clinic for their set. Ian Williams doubled on synths and guitars and John Stanier, one of my favorite drummers of all time from his work in Helmet, wowed the crowd, and I lost count of how many time signatures they played in during their set.
Battles dazzling everyone with more rhythms than we could almost handle.
Primus, who’d held a Q&A with VIP fans earlier, came out next and got everyone fired up right away with “Those Damned Blue Collar Tweekers.” They then ripped through a set of classics that included “The Toys Go Winding Down” and a live version of “Mr. Krinkle” that sounded so good it was like being in the studio with them. They also played their newest single, “Conspiranoia,” which is delightfully weird and psychedelic.
Primus and blue collar tweekers ruling the town.Conspiranoia!
After a brief break, they came back with the Rush set. Apart from them having to do one song as an instrumental due to frontman Les Claypool having a bit of a scratchy voice (and wanting to save it for his vocals during the encore), they pulled off A Farewell to Kings without a hitch.
A king’s crown for them and us.
As if two sets weren’t enough, Primus then came back for a four-song encore that included “My Name Is Mud” (which hits even harder than an aluminum baseball bat live) and “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver.”
It was a good show. It’s sometimes easy to get lost in Primus’ weirdness and lose sense of how good they can play. A live set by them is an instant reminder of that.
Congratulations to the young man who scored this set list. Thanks for letting me take a photo of it!VIP swag! A tumbler / thermos and a signed VIP-exclusive poster!
Photo by Erika Denis Feble Having recently toured with Yves Tumor, New Zealand-born, London-based singer & songwriter October and the Eyes has announced her new EP ‘Who Upset You?‘ is set for release June 24th via KRO Records and is sharing new single & video “When I Was Your Girl”.
Speaking about the track, October said “‘When I Was Your Girl’ ruminates on my former love and life spent in our Queen Street, Auckland flat; Dancing on our dining table, playing music too loudly, filling the room with cigarette smoke and masking the scent with our favourite Curio Noir perfume ‘Tobacco Nights’. We would always host these big parties and subject everyone to The Kinks or The Rolling Stones or Jefferson Airplane with our best mate assigned as rock n roll DJ for the night. I remember feeling angry when writing this too – I felt bruised by the whole experience. But time is a great healer, and now I’m able to find peace in its nostalgia. I guess it’s a bitter sweet meditation on a love now lost but not forgotten.”
October is no new-comer to music, the New Zealand born musician has been involved in musical pursuits since she was a child. Heralding from a musical family, the prospect of pursuing music in one form or another was almost inescapable: A classical pianist mother, fanatic music fan father, and two older multi- instrumentalist brothers who were always holding their band practices in the family playroom. October’s childhood was that of a humble upbringing; having grown up in a small rural town in New Zealand’s wine country, she turned to songwriting as a means to stave the boredom away. She taught herself how to record and produce her own music aged 12, locking herself away in her bedroom for hours on end, and hasn’t looked back since. Claiming the internet raised her, it’s clear she had her sights set on broader horizons and bigger cities.
Having moved half way across the world to her new home in East London, October has remained true to her traditional isolated writing style by holing up in her East London flat for several months and writing a small collection of songs that can be described as dizzying, darkly kaleidoscopic, and dauntless above all. October describes her musical style as ‘collage-rock’ (not the be confused with college rock). Pulling musical inspiration from the likes of Bauhaus, Bowie, Siouxsie Sioux and Suicide, she then squeezes her influences through the gauze of modernity and electronics, thus creating something entirely of her own.
With nods to acid rock, psychobilly and post-punk, October and The Eyes’ music is equal parts nostalgia-drenched as it is future forward, employing layers of ambient synth drones to anchor the crunched guitars and jagged organ parts. Delivered with a twisted theatricality, her vocals pendulum between commanding chants and soothing coo’s, proving that not only is she a versatile songwriter and producer, but a versatile vocalist too.
October released her debut EP Dogs and Gods in 2020 and will release the follow up with ‘Who Upset You?’ on June 24th via KRO Records.
If you’re looking for classic music on CD, Canterbury Records in Pasadena, California (805 East Colorado Boulevard) is the place for you. The place has a massive collection of classical works on CD, and plenty of other stuff if you’re not looking for that.
That third image is a wall of video tapes, and I couldn’t fit all of it in my camera viewer. They have another section like this that’s all concert footage and music video compilations. They even have a wall of DVD compilations of public domain films.
There are a lot of gems in here.
They have a good selection of new and used music on CD, and it was refreshing to go into a wrecka stow and find they primarily sold CDs. Don’t worry, vinyl lovers, they have plenty of that, too.
Check out those “Purple Rain” and “Goat’s Head Soup” albums!Just some of the oddities you can find here.
I walked out with a five-disc set of Astrud Gilberto albums on CD (review coming soon!) for a mere twenty bucks. There are also some good Asian food restaurants and boba tea places nearby, so don’t pass up this groovy place if you’re in Pasadena.
I’m not sure if I can relate in one blog post, or even several, how soulful and lovely When Do We Get Paidby The Staples Jr. Singers is. You’re hooked from the first notes of “Get on Board,” and the album takes you into a blissful, funky, soulful place without worry or strife
What’s even more amazing is how When Do We Get Paid has gone relatively unheard for the last four decades. Only a small number of copies were pressed in the 1970s, and this re-release is easily one of the best finds of the year. Annie, R.C., and Edward Brown took the name of their band from their love of the Staples family singers. The Staples Jr.’s toured the American south and blazed the gospel and grooves for years, and have each since gone on to their own respective music careers.
In modern speak, the album is full of bangers: “I’m Going to a City” will get you dancing in the pews and in the honky-tonks the Browns used to play. “Somebody Save Me” has sultry Alabama blues sweat all over it. I once heard someone say, more or less, “The difference between R&B and gospel is you replace ‘baby’ or ‘honey’ with ‘God’ or ‘Jesus’ in the lyrics.” “Somebody Save Me” perfectly embodies this concept.
“Trouble of the World” is a slow groove that has Annie Brown proclaiming how she’ll (and all of us) instantly forget the problems of this place of illusion once she passes beyond the veil. Indeed, she’s “Waiting for the Trumpet to Sound” on the following track, and you can’t help but start listening for it with her.
On “I Feel Good,” the Staples Jr. Singers let us know that we should all feel good in the knowledge that our sins have been forgiven. The title track has the band holding their heads high despite the racism they faced in 1970s southern U.S. (“More than three years the Staples have sung down here. All the music, here and there, sometimes trouble, sometimes heartbreak…call us everything but a child of God, but we not worrying about that…”).
“On My Journey Home” is almost a garage rock floor-stomper, and R.C.’s guitar work on “Too Close” touches the edges of psychedelic rock. The groove on “Send It on Down” is so good that it (and the whole album, really) must be inspired by the Holy Ghost, as they sing about throughout the track. The album ends with the uplifting “I Got a New Home,” which will get you out of your seat and clapping.
This album should be considered a classic. Heck, I’m surprised Moby or Fatboy Slim haven’t created an entire remix album of it. It’s a stunning work, and it deserves to be heard everywhere.
Chicago’s Riot Fest has released the full lineup for their 2022 festival, and there are some heavy-hitters this year.
My Chemical Romance and Portugal. The Man will bring in a big crowd on Friday, but the powerhouse headliner this year is Nine Inch Nails (and The Misfits are not slouches by any means). Other must-see acts include Bauhaus, Bad Religion, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sleater-Kinney, The Joy Formidable, and Lunachicks.
Tickets are already on sale, so don’t wait. Take sunscreen if you go. It was hot and sweaty there in 2021.
After releasing his self-titled debut album in 2017, Dion Lunadon (The D4, ex-A Place To Bury Strangers) is set to release his sophomore album – Beyond Everything June 10th via In The Red Records. Available forpre-orderHERE.
Today, Dion shares a second track; It’s The Truth, with a video directed by Alexander Barton. “This is one of my favorite songs on the record” says Dion. “It started with the opening drum beat and the rest came together quickly. It’s about me writing songs in my little hovel of a studio and looking forward to my wife’s return home from work. A “distance makes the heart grow fonder” kind of thing.”
Alexander Barton says; “In Dion’s live performance he has a wall of sound and noise, it’s very textural and real. About 3/4 of the way through his set, he drags a chain out of a bag like a snake wrangler presenting a cobra to the audience. It’s an exciting moment of the set where he breaks the routine of the rock formula and shares his experimental interests and the audience really laps it up. The cameras pop out and feed his exhibitionism. I make films that feel and use not only the beauty of film, but welcome the noise and error that come with the raw and naive nature of my tools. The chain as an object and material is a fully loaded symbol and historical icon which is a powerful character itself. I wanted to honor the chain for all its brilliance, referencing metal, design, rock n’ roll, violence, sculpture, industrialism, eroticism, and Jacob Marley. It’s The Truth is about material and the spectacle.”
Dion continues; “The record was written and recorded sporadically between 2017 and 2019. I probably wrote about 100 songs during this period. The first album was pretty relentless which I liked, but I wanted to make something more dynamic for the 2nd record. Something that could be more conducive to repeated listens. I’d get in my studio, come up with a song title, and start working on any ideas that I had. For example, with Elastic Diagnostic, the idea was to create a hum that evokes the sound of life coursing through your body. Everything else kind of formed around that idea.”
The lead single released last month, Living And Dying With You, was accompanied by an animated video by Mexico City animator, Julián Name.
Beyond Everything will be Dion’s first release on In The Red(an ideal match for his music), as well as his first full-length since departing A Place To Bury Strangers. Written, performed and recorded by Dion, the songs tap into a raw, palpable energy that blur the line between the music and the person. Drums on the record were played by Blaze Bateh (Bambara) and Nick Ferrante (The Black Hollies).
Dion will be touring with a full band in North America and Europe/UK throughout 2022. The US tour begins in Denver (some of the dates are supporting The Black Angels), with European and UK dates in November. All dates are listed below with more TBA. Tickets HERE.
Sat May 14 – Bethlehem, PA – National Sokols + Thur Jun 09 – Denver, CO – Ogden *Fri Jun 10 – Salt Lake City – Metro Music Hall *Sat Jun 11 – Boise, ID – Knitting Factory *Sun Jun 12 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile *Mon Jun 13 – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre Lounge Wed Jun 15 – Arcata, CA – Miniplex Thur Jun 16 – Petaluma, CA – Phoenix Theatre *Sat Jun 18 – Oakland, CA – Elbo Room Mon Jun 20 – Los Angeles, CA – Moroccan Lounge Wed Jun 22 – San Diego, CA – Music Box * Thur Nov 03 – Reignier, France – La Poulpe Fri Nov 04 – Gigors, France – Gigors Electric Sat Nov 05 – Torino, Italy – Blah Blah Sun Nov 06 – Zürich, CH – Safari Bar Mon Nov 07 – Fürth, Germany – Kunstkeller 027Wed Nov 09 – Hamburg, Germany – Hafenklang Thur Nov 10 – Berlin, Germany – 8mmFri Nov 11 – Regensburg, Germany – VOID CONCERT @ Alte Malzerai Mon Nov 14 – Bristol, UK – Crofter’s Rights Wed Nov 16 – Nottingham, UK – Chameleon Thur Nov 17 – London, UK – Shacklewell Arms Wed Nov 23 – Paris, France – Supersonic Thu Nov 24 – Rennes, France – TBA Fri Nov 25 – Nantes, France – Duchesse Sat Nov 26 – Lyon, France – Le Sonic * with The Black Angels+ with Haldol and Death Bag
The much-tipped Regressive Left return today with news of their signing to new tastemaker label Bad Vibrations, born from the revered live promoters of the same name, and that their debut EP, On the Wrong Side of History, is set for release on July 15th.
The Luton trio also share their first new material of the year with the DFA-flavoured “Bad Faith”, featuring a vocal contribution from Manchester’s experimental-pop act Mandy, Indiana – quoting French psychoanalyst Octave Mannoni’s paradoxical mechanism: “Je sais bien, mais quand même.” In other words: “I know very well, but even so…” – and picking up the ascent exactly where earlier singles left off, placing wry social commentary and dancefloor ambition right at their front and center.
Front-man Simon Tyrie says the following about the themes behind the track:
“This song essentially focuses on the idea of deliberately assuming the worst of someone or something they’ve said or done. Social media has really amplified this trend: everyone has to have a take. So we read between the lines and make wild accusations on the faintest of evidence. It’s something of an art, but one that I think is ultimately detrimental to society.”
Already chalking up a strong live reputation, the band have toured in support of BODEGA and Folly Group in 2022 already, and today announce their first ever headlining dates.
Catch Regressive Left live at:
MAY
14 Brighton – The Great Escape – Revenge 14 Brighton – The Alt Escape – The Hope & Ruin 15 Leeds – Brudenell Social Club 21 York – The Crescent 27 London – Wide Awake
The annual Psycho Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada (August 18-21st, if you count the Psycho Swim pre-party on Thursday) has released its full lineup. It features death metal, rap, psychedelic rock, and even funk freak-outs.
Get to the pool early if you’re going to Psycho Swim. It, and every chair, cabana, and table will fill up quick that day. The pool will also be packed.
Saajtak (pronounced: sahje-talk)—based in Detroit (Jonathan Barahal Taylor, Ben Willis, Simon Alexander-Adams) and Brooklyn (Alex Koi)—today announced their debut album, For the Makers, out June 3, 2022 via American Dreams.
On anthemic lead track “Big Exit,” Koi treats her words like playthings, stretching syllables past semantics, vocal lines in conversation with one another. Alexander-Adams’ electronics quiver, and Taylor’s clattering kit seems to deconstruct the rhythm it builds, before the song unspools into a lush, minimal coda just before the 4-minute mark. Watch the video for “Big Exit” here.
Saajtak makes futuristic music that synthesizes a wide range of genres—often in ways that seem to clash against each other, always in service to the song. The band has quietly made music in Detroit for the better part of a decade, collaborating with members of clipping. and sharing bills with Xiu Xiu, Ava Mendoza and Greg Fox. Koi sings and writes lyrics; Taylor plays drums, Willis bass; Alexander-Adams contributes keyboard and electronics. But to individuate their contributions does the music a disservice. Saajtak sounds, feels, like a living, breathing organism, for which recordings don’t present definitive documents as much as they reflect songs at given points in their lives. For the Makers, the band’s first album, brims with ideas, treating their shape-shifting compositions with a high depth of field.
Saajtak’s compositions are rooted in collective improvisation; their first release, spectral [ drips ], collects several free improvisations. The band was recording music live for a full-length debut when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic pressed pause on their principal way of making music. In response, the band began working on new music remotely, in increments of eight days. Every two days, members would trade songs, gradually sculpting them into final iterations. Willis recalls putting on his headphones as he began recording bass: “The layers that Alex, Simon, and Jon had begun to craft engulfed me like a wave, filling me. I was suddenly surrounded by my friends.” Over time, the music organically cohered into an album, bringing together influences as wide-ranging as Richard Davis, Meredith Monk and Melvins. Koi’s lyrics balance narrative and enigma, incorporating several perspectives within a song in an approach she calls polyphonic narrative. “I like to imagine how personas might converse in worlds with varying levels of familiarity and skewness,” she explains. “What we receive are relationships that flow between splintery and harmonious, and that contain both ecstasy and affliction. There’s a big thrill in all this, when nothing can be apathetic.”
Throughout, the album mixes the organic and synthetic. Even as motifs, images and lyrics recur, the music thrums with energy, opening into new worlds. This, perhaps, is part of the point: to illustrate an escape, to be one. To Alexander-Adams, For the Makers was “as much a healing practice as it was a means to create”; to Willis, it “feels like a year-improvisation, for which the music never stopped the whole time.” Says Taylor, “it represents our collective voice in the deepest sense: an amalgamation of our individual vulnerabilities, imaginations, ambitions, and love for each other.” The album is testament to the restless creativity powering Saajtak’s engine, and the importance of cultivating creativity, trust and community.
The irony that Blanck Mass has created the film score for Ted K, a film about Ted “The Unabomber” Kaczynski – the man responsible for multiple bombings done as a form of protest against modern technology – isn’t lost on Benjamin John Power (AKA Blanck Mass) or the film’s director, Tony Stone. Blanck Mass is known for creating bold, wild electro soundscapes that mix industrial sounds with ambient noise (or is it industrial noise with ambient sounds?) and being able to play an entire set with a laptop, a sequencer, a DAW, and a couple thumb drives. There are no wood winds on this score. There are no natural strings, drums made of scrap metal, or acoustic guitars. It’s all electronic.
It’s also all good. The main theme (“Montana”) is menacing. “Noise Destroys Something Wonderful” is surprisingly soft, while “Pesticides” creeps around you like a deadly fog. The first half of “ComTech” sounds like a kaiju approaching an oil refinery on the west coast of Japan, and the second sounds like the rolling smoke seen in its aftermath. “Greyhound” has a fuzzy edge to it that unnerves you just a bit. “Tell Me Your Heart” is a slow-dance song for tired robots.
“Dark Materials” is the soundtrack to a robot cat’s dream. “Becky’s Theme” is a song for a Montana woman who worked at a general store near the remote area where Kacyznski lived and befriended him somewhat. “Manifesto” starts out like an old single-propeller plane warming up and then becomes the sound of rising tension and smoldering rage. “Ranger Gary” is peaceful enough to enjoy while meditating next to a mountain stream, while and “At Peace / Freedom Club” starts that way but drifts into dread. By the time we get to “Skidders,” we’re into full-blown madness.
It’s another fine piece of work from Blanck Mass. I need to check out this film, which has garnered many good reviews – as should its score.
