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Author: Nik Havert
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.
Thank you, Pat DiNizio and Grant Hart.
I first heard the Smithereens on a local radio station in the mid-1980’s. I called the station to request the song on a later date and the DJ told me, “You have good taste, my friend.” The Smithereens were the first band that let me come backstage and meet them when Mandy and I saw them play at the University of Notre Dame. It was a great show that will forever remain in my memory. We became lifelong fans. I even proposed to Mandy at a Smithereens concert.
The death of Pat DiNizio, the Smithereens’ lead singer and songwriter, is a tough blow for Mandy and I. The Smithereens’ music has been a soundtrack to most of our life together. DiNizio was a talented songwriter who could write power pop and tender ballads like few others. He was also an accomplished guitarist and fellow lover of baseball and comic books, so that made him extra cool to me. He’ll be missed.
I also know I’m late to the party on this, but I wanted to pay tribute to the late Grant Hart, drummer of Husker Du, who died back in September of cancer. I was remiss to not write about his passing due to a lot of stuff that’s been going on here since then. Grant Hart and his bandmates were part of the soundtrack to my teenage years. Few bands could grab your attention like Husker Du, and Hart’s fierce drumming was almost holy to me. It also provided some of the best music for skateboarding I’d ever heard. He, too, will be missed.
I leave you with the first Smithereens song I ever heard. It’s a great example of DiNizio’s craftsmanship. It also rocks.
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Caroline Rose’s new album out February 23, 2018, but her new single, “Money,” is out now.
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Levitation 2018 first lineup announced.
The first wave of lineup announcements for Levitation Austin 2018 has been released, and (as usual) it’s great.
The festival is no longer being held at the Carson Creek Ranch, but rather at multiple venues in downtown Austin like Stubb’s BBQ, Empire, Barracuda, and more. You can buy tickets for the individual shows, which vary in price. They offered full weekend passes for all shows for $400.00 (quite a price jump from previous years), but they sold out in minutes. Screw you, ticket buying robots!
Regardless, the first lineup already has many great artists on it. Rishi Dhir of Elephant Stone will be performing solo and with a new venture he has called Mien. Dead Meadow, Thee Oh Sees, Slowdive, the Black Angels, Electric Wizard, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Ministry, Chelsea Wolfe, Ty Segall, Golden Dawn Arkestra, Imarhan, the Men, and Al Lover are all stand-outs.
Don’t wait too long to get tickets. Tickets to individual shows at the 2016 festival sold out quick and many tickets went to scalpers who flipped them at outrageous prices. More announcements are due in the early part of 2018, and that will only cause tickets to sell faster.
Keep your mind open.
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Zombie Zombie – Livity
French synth wave / electro trio Zombie Zombie (Etienne Jaumet – synths and saxophone, Cosmic Neman – drums, vocals, and effects, and Dr. Schonberg – percussion, electronics, and trumpet) didn’t want us to walk out of 2017 without dancing, so they’ve brought a new album full of vintage analog synth dance grooves and mood-changing tracks on their new album Livity.
The title track alone is worth the purchase price. The title refers to a Rastafarian term for “life force.” It’s almost nine minutes of head-bopping beats, haunting synth bass, and synths that are straight out of your 1980’s dreams. Put this in your earbuds and your perception of the world around you will shift. “Ils Existent” moves along with hypnotizing sci-fi synth loops until Neman’s wicked drum licks almost turn the song into an action movie theme. The percussion on “Hippocampe” is so damn good it might make you lose your mind. Jaumet’s synths build and build to wind you up and the whole song morphs into a cosmic journey around the 2:40 mark.
Zombie Zombie were the highlight of Levitation Austin 2015 for my wife and I, and the funky, acid jazzy “Looose” is an example of why that was the case. “When you have nothing to lose, it gets groovier,” Neman sings as his drums seem to fall off their kit in the chaos of the song. “Acera” gets us back to the sci-fi themes of the album with spaceship dance club beats and alien menace buzzes and bleeps.
“Heavy Meditation” would’ve fit in perfectly on the Blade Runner 2049 score. It’s perfect for scoring some soba noodle soup in a rainy downtown future L.A. while flirting with a replicant prostitute. The closer “Lune Noire” is a dark, simulated rainy night on a lonely space station near a fading super nova encapsulated into a 4:52 song.
Livity is one of the best electro albums of the year. It’s especially impressive when you consider the seven tracks were recorded live in just seven days. Zombie Zombie continues to explore new ground in the synth world an experiment with sounds you don’t seem to have heard before now. Get into this groove and live.
Keep your mind open.
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Earthless announces March 2018 North American tour dates.
Clear up your calendar for March 2018, because stoner metal giants Earthless will be touring North America. They’re also bringing legendary psychedelic band Kikagaku Moyo and psych-rockers Jjuujjuu with them. This is a great triple bill, so don’t miss it. I’m sure tickets will sell fast once they’re available. I plan to see them at their Chicago stop in late March 2018 at the Empty Bottle. I saw them there last year and it was a great show.
Keep your mind open.
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Oh Sees – Orc
John Dwyer is one of the busiest guys in rock. He has so many variations of his band Thee Oh Sees that it can be difficult to keep track of them all. One of the latest, which he’s just calling Oh Sees, has put out a fine record of psychedelic art-punk called Orc.
The album opens with the crazy, frantic “The Static God” – which appears to be a song about the whirlwind nature of battlefield combat. Dwyer’s guitar is all over the place, but the chorus’ vocal hook has a wonderful pop twinge to it. “Nite Expo” has 1980’s video game synths leading it before Dwyer’s guitar kicks open the door and catches you by surprise. “Animated Violence” hits as hard as any metal track you’ve heard all year, both in the instrumentation (i.e., buzzsaw guitars and thunderous drums) and vocals and lyrics (revealing Dwyer’s love of Motorhead).
The longest track on the record (at 8:10), “Keys to the Castle,” is (on its surface, at least) about a bloody siege in a medieval fantasy kingdom. I’m sure it’s probably a metaphor about how we’re actually destroying ourselves in these castles of loneliness and disconnection we’ve built thanks to the internet, but maybe I’m overreaching and should just enough the fun freak-out of a tune that it is (especially when the violin and organ creep into it).
“Jettison,” with its early Mick Ronson-like guitar work, is one of the grooviest songs about death in a long while (“Who likes sugar in their coffin? The underground is twice as nice.”). “Cadaver Dog” encourages the generation behind Dwyer to be leaders and not followers and be self-reliant instead of clinging to potentially deadly illusions. “Drowned Beast” is a fuzzy salute to deepwater beast warriors who slay and eat everything in sight. Three fun instrumentals, “Paranoise,” “Cooling Tower,” and “Raw Optics” are included. The first has some subtle synths that might make you paranoid, the second is something you’d hear drifting out of a Mothers of Invention studio session, and the third (which closes the album) is a snappy blast of post-punk with a drum solo to boot.
Orc is a quirky, wild record, but you’d expect no less from Mr. Dwyer. He excels at making quirky, wild rock that can melt your face one moment and intrigue you the next.
Keep your mind open.
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Ty Segall’s new album, “Freedom’s Goblin,” due January 26th.
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Partner announce tour dates for 2018.
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Tom Rogerson collaborates with Brian Eno for debut album.
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