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.
Chicago’s Rayvn Lenaeis a teenaged R&B artist who is talented beyond her young years. Her blend of soul and electro is so smooth that you could practically ice skate on it. She’ll be playing the Beach Stage at Mamby on the BeachJune 24th. I have a feeling her show will be one many will be talking about over the weekend and for years when she explodes into the mainstream.
Keep your mind open.
[Not only is Miss Lenae’s room free, but so are our updates! Just subscribe to have them sent to your e-mail inbox.]
Will Clarkeis a DJ from Bristol, England who puts down floor-shaking club beats with titles like “Booty Percolatin’.” I love how a lot of his stuff sounds like mid-1990’s rave material. He’ll be playing the Mixmag tent at Mamby on the Beachon June 24th in a midday set that I’m sure will be killer.
Keep your mind open.
[I’ll be in your house every day if you subscribe.]
French DJ Tchamiis the pioneer of music he calls “future house.” It’s not a bad description at all because he seems to mix stuff you’d hear in a disco with stuff you’d hear in the world of Tron. He’ll be closing the Mixmag tent at Mamby on the Beachon June 24th at 8:30pm.
NEW ALBUM ORC, OUT AUG. 25TH ON CASTLE FACE; LISTEN TO “THE STATIC GOD“
OH SEES CELEBRATE 20 YEARS OF UNFETTERED EXISTENCE WITH 19TH ALBUM
Oh Sees are the latest incarnation of songwriter, singer, guitarist (and Castle Face fearless leader) John Dwyer’s ever-evolving rock-pop-folk psychedelic group. Dwyer has been active since the late ’90s, working with several bands, including the Coachwhips, Pink & Brown, Yikes, Up Its Alive, and Swords & Sandals, among others, and he formed OCS (which is an acronym for Orinoka Crash Suite, Orange County Sound, or whatever Dwyer decided it was on any given day) initially as a vehicle for the experimental instrumentals he was producing in his home studio. The project entered its 20th year of existence in 2017.
In time OCS morphed into an actual band, and worked under the usual flurry of names, most notably as The Oh Sees or The Ohsees, and eventually as Thee Oh Sees. The band’s lineup has spawned and re-spawned a few times before reaching their current incarnation featuring Tim Hellman on bass, Dan Rincon and Paul Quattrone on drums.
And now, the newly shorn Oh Sees waste no time in racing headlong into nightmarish battle with their mighty new record Orc (Dwyer’s 19th album as OCS/Thee Oh Sees/Oh Sees, etc.), and wouldn’t ya know it, they’ve clawed even farther up the ghastly peak last year’s A Weird Exits stormed so satisfyingly. The band is in tour-greased, anvil on a balance beam, gut-pleasingly heavy form, nimbly braining with equal dashes of abandon and menace on this fresh batch of bruisers and brooders, hypnotically stirred into to the cauldron of chaos you’ve come to expect from, ahem, Oh Sees. Quattrone and Dan Rincon form a phalanx of interlocking double drums, alternately propelling and fleet footing shifting ground to pinion Dwyer’s cliff-face guitars to the boogie. Tim Hellman keeps it swinging like a battle-axe to the eyebrows. More evil….more complex, more narcotic, more screech, more roar, more whisper, there’s even more Brigid Dawson. Less “Thee”, but more of everything else, Orc isout on Castle Face Records August 25th. Listen to the blistering first track “The Static God.” LISTEN TO “THE STATIC GOD” http://bit.ly/2s27Yix
ORC TRACKLISTING
1. The Static God
2. Nite Expo
3. Animated Violence
4. Keys To The Castle
5. Jettison
6. Cadaver Dog
7. Paranoise
8. Cooling Tower
9. Drowned Beast
10. Raw Optics
OH SEES TOUR DATES
Thu. June 7 – Milano, IT @ Magnolia
Fri. June 8 – Ravenna, IT @ Beaches Brew Sat. June 9 – Dudingen, CH @ Bad Bonn Sun. June 10 – Nimes, FR @ This Is Not A Love Song Mon. June 11 – Bordeaux, FR @ le block Tue. June 12 – Tours, FR @ le temps machine Thu. June 14 – Manchester University, UK @ Transformers Sat. June 17 – San Francisco, CA @ Phono Del Sol Festival Sat. July 22 – Sun. July 23 – Los Angeles, CA @ FYF Sun. Aug. 6 – Katowice, PL @ OFF Festival Tue. Aug. 8 – Hamburg, DE @ Molotow Thu. Aug. 10 – Oslo, NO @ Oya Festival Fri. Aug. 11 – Gothenburg, DW @ Way Out West Festival Sat. Aug. 12 – Copenhagen, DK @ Pumpehuset Fri. Aug. 18 – Saint Malo, FR @ La Route du Rock Sat. Aug. 19 – Brecon Beacons, UK @ Green Man Festival Fri. Sept. 1 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom Sat. Sept. 2 – Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar Mon. Sept. 4 – Austin, TX @ Hotel Vegas Outside Tue. Sept. 5 – New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jack’s Wed. Sept. 6 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse Fri. Sept. 8 – Philadelphia, PA @ Trocadero Theater Sun. Sept. 10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw Wed. Sept. 13 – Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair Thu. Sept. 14 – Montreal, QC @ La Tulipe I Le National Fri. Sept. 15 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Theater Sat. Sept. 16 – Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom Sun. Sept. 17 – Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall Tue. Sept. 19 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Fri. Sept. 22 – Missoula, MT @ Monk’s Sat. Sept. 23 – Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s Sun. Sept. 24 – Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom Mon. Sept. 25 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
Chicago’s Fancy Fuxwill be playing a 2:00pm set on the first day of Mamby on the Beach. They play a fun blend of house, hip hop, and dub. Their first big single, “Stripper,” is outstanding, and clips of their live sets look like a good time. They should be a fun start to the festival. Tickets are still available, by the way.
Keep your mind open.
[No tease here, just updates sent to your inbox when you subscribe.]
Nine Inch Nails recently announced they’ll be releasing two EPs in the next seven to nine months. The two EPs follow the December 2016 EP Not the Actual Events, and the band says the three EPs are linked (but they haven’t revealed how they are). The first is scheduled before the start of their summer tour in July, and the next will be released “6 to 8 months” after that.
One of the best albums of 2017 is a full-length debut by a band that broke up before it was released.
No one seems to know, or is telling, why New York post-punks WALL (Vanessa Gomez – drums, Vince McClelland – guitar, Elizabeth Skadden – bass, Samantha York – lead vocals, guitar) broke up after releasing one critically acclaimed EP (WALL), wowing crowds at the 2016 South by Southwest festival, and recording what appears will be their only full-length record – Untitled. Perhaps they felt they’d said all they wanted to say. Perhaps they found out the music businesses wasn’t what they wanted after all. Perhaps it was the classic “artistic differences.” I’m not sure we’ll ever know, but there are hints on Untitled – a scorching post-punk testament to desperate times and desperate measures.
The first lyrics on Untitled are “Everyone looking ‘round, looking to get high. I was looking ‘round, looking to get high.” on “High Ratings.” The band drills out the jagged punk angles they had mastered so early around a song about people looking for validation in a world in which others are easily obscured by our narcissism.
“Shimmer of Fact” unveils WALL’s love for Joy Division. The reverbed vocals about a relationship gone wrong after moving from the friend zone to the lover zone include “Something went wrong.” and “We crossed those lines.” The song “Save Me” has shared male and female vocals (“You wanna walk away, now that’s it over?” / “Save me from myself.”) and powerful riffs that underline the frantic lyrics about danger and the thrills it can bring.
“(Sacred) Circus” continues the Joy Divison-like bass, but the guitars float into shoegaze glory, and then crash into punk rock, as they sing about love, lust, and jealousy. Part of the chorus is “Nothing in this life is sacred.” That includes, by the way, our expectations of WALL and what they had planned for their musical career. “Wounded at War,” with its guitars that sound like they’re melting in the sun, is both a salute to homeless veterans and a punch in the gut to the institutions that trained them. “Go home, soldier. Back to the war that bred you, soldier,” they sing.
“Everything In Between” sounds like it belongs in a rare 1980’s VHS vampire movie. Trust me, you’ll understand when you hear the heavy bass, racing pulse beat, and distorted guitars. “Charmed Life” (a Half Japanese cover) has a great saxophone riff throughout it. “Watch everything you do and everything you say,” they sing as they mix surf rock, post-punk, no wave, and 50’s love songs. The song ends with an abrupt stop by the band and York saying, “I guess I’m leavin’.”
On “Weekend,” she sings, “The weekend, the weaker I am.” Partying has become too much of a chore. “I can’t live this way,” she sings while the band (who sizzle for the whole track) agrees to go with her and “skip town.” “Turn Around” has York telling an admirer to “pull yourself together” and forget about even trying to chat her up or risk death.
The album ends with “River Mansion,” a gorgeous piece of post-punk shoegaze that has the band wishing for good things ahead but knowing they might end up not getting them. “We built this dream on a hill…A storm is brewing. I’m safe in the house, locked in a dream.” Perhaps WALL realized they’d already achieved the dream of expressing their art (and getting critical success for it) and knew it was time to leave the mansion they’d created before success flooded and drowned them (“I’m laying in the river and the rain is getting thicker,” York sings). Maybe WALL sensed that success wasn’t going to be good for them. Maybe there was infighting (“When our eyes meet, and you’re lying through your teeth. When our eyes meet, and I’m lying through my teeth.”). Maybe they knew going out on top was going to be the best, safest option.
Or maybe it’s all a lark. We won’t know until they or their label decide to tell us, if they ever do. Until then, we have Untitled to give us clues and questions without answers. Sometimes the mystery is more exciting than the solution, and perhaps that was WALL’s message the whole time.
Keep your mind open.
[Discover your new favorite band before they split up by subscribing to us. You’ll get updates sent straight to your e-mail inbox.]
QUOTES “Featuring a slight stoner vibe — a perfect companion to the laid-back guitar jangling of the tune.”
– The 405
Toronto’s Goodbye Honolulu may fall into the “slacker rock” category, but they’re hard workers when it comes to churning out new tunes.
– Exclaim!
Announcing No Honey EP out September 01, 2017 via Fried Records, produced by Mike Turner (Our Lady Peace).
RIYL – The Black Lips, Ty Segall, New Swears, Cage the Elephant, Beck
We all know how these band biographies go, right? Friends meet in high school, start jamming, form band in parents’ garage and everyone lives happily ever after.
Well Goodbye Honolulu DID meet in high school but they didn’t just form one band. They formed 5 individual projects and started their own record label while still in school, the 100% local Toronto label Fried Records. While other kids were cramming for exams or wasting away playing video games, the Goodbye Honolulu boys were busy playing in bars (attempting to sneak their underage friends in), honing their live skills, writing songs and self releasing multiple albums a year.
These teenage years were laying the foundations and as they hit their 20s Emmett, Jacob, Fox and Max decided to join forces and focus their song-writing and energy to one project, say “hello” to Goodbye Honolulu.
Goodbye Honolulu, evoke a 90s slacker vibe mixing vintage garage rock n roll history with modern elements, it’s not exactly pop and it’s not exactly punk.
Goodbye Honolulu is best known for their live shows and in best form when every member is screaming their heads off with shout along choruses. Whether it’s Emmett’s fuzz-layered guitar, Jacob’s gnarly vocals, Fox’s Bowie-inspired vocal inflections or Max beating his drum kit to death, Goodbye Honolulu make their audience the VIP guests to their rock n roll party.
Highlights of Goodbye Honolulu’s ride so far include a USA tour supporting their pals Hinds and releasing their debut album Heavy Gold in 2016.
Goodbye Honolulu
Emmett Webb (Guitar/Bass/Vocals)
Fox Martindale (Guitar/Vocals)
Jacob Switzer (Guitar/Bass/Vocals)
Max Bornstein (Drums)
Tour Dates: June 21 – Divan Orange, Montreal QC July 15 – Lee’s Palace, Toronto ON w/ New Swears
Riot Fest Chicago has announced its full lineup for 2017. As usual, it’s killer and far better than Lollapalooza.
They’ve added several bands, including At the Drive In, Best Coast, Black Pistol Fire, Cockney Rejects, Skating Polly, the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, and many more.
You can still get tickets to this festival, so don’t wait too long. It will sell out.
