I've been a music fan since my parents gave me a record player for Christmas when I was still in grade school. The first record I remember owning was "Sesame Street Disco." I've been a professional writer since 2004, but writing long before that. My first published work was in a middle school literary magazine and was a story about a zoo in which the animals could talk.
It’s time for a look back at my top live shows of last year. I saw 51 bands last year, some of them multiple times, and a good amount of them at the Levitation Austin and Levitation France music festivals. Here’s the start of the list…
25. The Well – Levitation Austin / Antone’s – October 29th
The Well are one of the best doom bands out there right now, and their live shows never disappoint. They were damn loud in Antone’s and walloped the place with thundering sound. They also played some new material, which bodes well for a new album from them in the future.
24. The Psychedelic Furs – Andrew J. Bird Music Center / Cincinnati – July 20th
My friend described the venue as “the Borg Cube of music venues,” but the Furs filled the place with gorgeous sound, playing a good mix of old and new material. Richard Butler sounded as good as ever and everyone on the band was clicking.
#23. The Brian Jonestown Massacre – Levitation France – June 05th
“You don’t need more drugs, sir, you need better drugs. If you had better drugs, you’d be mellowed out and not yelling.” Those words from band leader Anton Newcombe pretty much summed up the trippy feel of their set to close the 2022 Levitation France music festival.
#22. La Femme – Levitation Austin / Stubb’s – October 30th
Sexy, sweaty, sizzling, and super, this set from the French quintet had the Stubb’s crowd go from, “What is happening?” to “Wow! This is amazing!” by the end. The whole place was bouncing and even yelling back French lyrics they didn’t understand.
#21: Pelada – Levitation France – June 04th
Booked somewhat at the last minute for the 2022 Levitation France music festival, Pelada closed the Scène Elevation (Elevation Stage) one night to a gobsmacked crowd who was bowled over by their fierce industrial-tinged electro. Everyone was in their hands for the entire set, and everyone left with a crush on singer Chris Vargas.
Who makes the top 20? Come back tomorrow to find out!
Located at the corner of 7th and Hoff, Wooden Tooth Records is a cool place for vinyl, CDs, cassettes, books, and other groovy stuff in Tucson, Arizona.
I love that they have a small section of books that includes local zines and underground comics. They have a bunch of wild stuff on vinyl, too, such as these gems I spotted there.
Calling Dr. Freud.Seriously, I might need this.And this.
That’s a great, and yet small example of their eclectic wares. Krautrock, electronic, ambient, folk, and children’s records in the same area!
Proving once again that “power trio” isn’t just a descriptive handle from the distant past, but a louder-than-God 21st Century reality, New York’s Skull Practitioners release their first full-length album, Negative Stars, for In the Red Records on January 20th. The album is the second release for Los Angeles-based In the Red by the trio — guitarist Jason Victor, bassist Kenneth Levine, and drummer Alex Baker, following the band’s acclaimed EP, Death Buy, issued in 2019.
Previously, Victor had established himself as the dazzling co-lead guitarist for Steve Wynn and the Miracle Three -when Wynn revived his ‘80s L.A. Paisley Underground consortium The Dream Syndicate in 2017, Victor took the guitar chair previously occupied by Karl Precoda and PaulCutler. Levine was playing in DBCR, a three-piece unit. “We wanted to go to a five-piece, and needed a drummer and another guitar player,” he says. “We put an ad out on Craigslist and met Jason and Alex that way. Alex was just two weeks into living in New York. We played together for a while, and then it just sort of dissolved. Jason, Alex, and I actually had more of a shared, common musical perspective, and the three of us decided, ‘Let’s stick together with just us three.’”
Skull Practitioners recorded a limited cassette-only debut, st1, which they self-released in 2014. The four-song collection, on which Baker was the lone band member to take a vocal, marked the start of a long hunt for the right voice. “We kept looking for a new singer, and that person never came,” says Victor. “None of us wanted to sing at all. After a while, we had been together as a three-piece for so long that we had our thing, and it became difficult for someone to fit into it. So we pulled a Genesis! The best thing about it is that now all three of us will sing, and that takes the pressure off just one of us.” Levine adds, “Whoever writes, sings. It’s their expression, so they should say what they have to say.”
On Negative Stars, Levine performs “Dedication” and “What Now,” and Victor sings “Exit Wounds,” “Leap,” “Intruder,” and “Ventilation.” The album’s expansive instrumental tracks are “Fire Drill” and Skull Practitioners’ longtime club highlight “Nelson D,” which first appeared on st1 in a live version. You can hear a multitude of influences coming off each other in Skull Practitioners’ music, ranging from TheGun Club to Sonic Youth to Joy Division, Black Flag, and beyond. Each player brings something uniquely his own to the mix.
“Black Flag was huge for me,” says Victor. “There is that element of improv, and of aggression, that I was attracted to in that band. With our band, there’s definitely an aggressive angle there, and absolutely an improvisational one. We’re all willing to give everyone the space for contributing ideas. This band really does function as a democracy, which is nice.” Levine adds, “All of us were into different things, and there’s some kind of overlap and we kind of influence each other, and there’s stuff that we turn each other on to.”
Everything on Negative Stars coheres so seamlessly, but like with so many others, its recording was hampered, and protracted, by the COVID-19 pandemic.“The main album session was a few years ago,” Baker says. “That was when we went into the studio for a couple of days with our friend, engineer Ted Young, and we tracked the bulk of the album there. We recorded the instrumental parts first, then started vocal tracking in January of 2021. It took us so long to decide that all the instruments were done at that point. The vocals were actually done at our practice space. We just set up the mics and did that ourselves.”
Levine adds, “The record was in mid-flight, and then the pandemic hit, so we were just sitting around for six months or a year, and we said, ‘Well, we may never finish this.’ So we wound up literally sitting in a room with masks on during most of the vocal tracking. If we’d waited to go into a real studio, it would have come out even later. Alex did all the engineering on that, and we’re very appreciative of all his engineering prowess.”
With their album finally complete and the pandemic lifting, Skull Practitioners have begun to take to the stage more regularly: they have opened shows for Lydia Lunch, Hammered Hulls, Live Skull, and In the Red label mates the Wolfmanhattan Project (Kid Congo Powers, Mick Collins, and Bob Bert). They plan to get on the road in the near future.
Says Levine, “I think the band is represented at its best in a live setting. That’s where we’re in our element. Playing live, we’re out for blood.” Victor adds, “With the live thing, we just want to destroy, in the nicest, most friendly way — we’re nice people. Someone said about us, ‘These guys look like a bunch of accountants.’ People don’t really know what to expect before they hear us. I think they’re all a little surprised, maybe, and we like having that element of surprise — ‘We’re gonna blow your minds a little.’”
Greg Puciato, who has released both his critically-acclaimed debut and sophomore solo albums in the short span of two years, has set a Dec. 20 release date for his inaugural live album, 11/11/22 Los Angeles.
“You don’t get many first shows,” says Puciato of his Nov. 11 outing at Los Angeles’ Don Quixote. “Having the ability to properly document one and get high quality audio and video…I didn’t wanna regret not doing that. It’s gonna be killer to look back at this 100 or even five shows from now and see how much further along the live versions of these songs are. When I hear these recordings, I instantly feel transported to that room, that night, with my bandmates onstage and friends and everyone there in attendance. A lot of love and support and passion and hard work and talent in the room. I hope it does the same for you if you were there, and resonates as strongly for people who weren’t able to attend. I can’t wait to do more of this and see everyone again and more of you in other places down the line.”
A preview of the 11-song collection arrives today with the Jim Louvau and Tony Aguilera directed video for “Deep Set (Live)” (https://youtu.be/6U3IGUQmV1o). Puciato noted: “’Deep Set’ feels good to lead with. One of my favorite memories of the tracking of Child Soldier: Creator of God were the vocals to this song…incidentally recorded at the same time of year as this show. The song was always meant to feel loose and live; the recorded vocal was a front-to-back one-take that we did in a shed in Nick Rowe’s (producer and live guitarist) backyard…so bringing it to life onstage with him, and Chris (Hornbrook) for the first time felt like a nice, symbolic full circle.”
11/11/22 Los Angeles will be available exclusively via Bandcamp, with the album streaming on Dec. 20, and vinyl pre-orders launching the same day. The collection will arrive on additional streaming services following its vinyl release in the Spring.
Joining Puciato for the live performance, and featured in this video, are the aforementioned Nick Rowe (guitar), Chris Hornbrook (drums), James Hammontree (guitar), and Jeff “Manwolf” Geiser (bass).
Having just completed shows in the UK, Ireland, Europe and North America playing select dates and as main support to The Lemonheads, Bass Drum Of Death (John and JIm Barrett, Ian Kirkpatrick) announce a US headline tour beginning February 8th, in support of their forthcoming album, Say I Won’t, released January 27th via Fat PossumRecords.
The band have revealed three tracks/videos from the album so far; the Zeppelin-esque ‘Head Change’, the midtempo bruiser ‘Say Your Prayers‘ (a collaboration with Mike Kerr of Royal Blood) and the hi-octane ‘Find It‘ (the video features live footage from the band’s sold out New York show in June of this year). Today, to accompany the tour announcement, they share a blistering live version of ‘Head Change’, to give a taste of what to expect on the road.
Say I Won’t is the first Bass Drum of Death album written, demoed, and recorded with the touring band, instead of bandleader John Barrett doing everything on his own. He found a freedom in working with collaborators that wasn’t available to him before, opening different aspects of the songwriting. It was a process of live recording, layering on different parts and overdubs, and then stripping it all back to the bones of the song, keeping the raw wild heart of the music intact. “My first two records were made entirely by me alone with my gear, my laptop, and a Snowball USB mic,” says Barrett. “They were just made quickly, cheaply, as an excuse to tour. I wanted to take my time with this record. Make something good that I was proud of in itself.”
The band recorded the new record with Patrick Carney of The Black Keys at Audio Eagle Studios in Nashville and the result is a groove-oriented, 1970’s-indebted collection of rock songs, with tempos set for cruising and scuzzy guitars galore. There’s an energy and vitality to the music that feels in line with the best of the Bass Drum songs, but with an added boost that comes from new bandmates and a new perspective.
The albumfinds a reinvigorated Barrett firing at all cylinders, backed by his best band yet. It’s Bass Drum of Death at their loosest and scuzziest and most tuneful, a true rock record in all the right ways. It’s a throwback by way of moving forward, sporting a maturity and swagger that comes from a decade of playing music on the road and surviving to tell about it. More than anything, Say I Won’t is a blast to listen to, music built for driving with your stereo cranked.
2023 dates are below – tickets can be found on the band’s website.
