Fort Wayne’s first “destination” music festival, Middle Waves, was last weekend and a big hit with the crowd. Future festivals will only be better judging by how well the first one went.
I knew it was going to be at least an interesting festival when I walked into “The Village” area (where all the vendors were) looking for my press pass and saw this.
Deep fried chicken on a stick. I didn’t eat there. For my money, the best deal and food there was from the Vietnummy food truck. A bahn mi lemongrass chicken slider for only five bucks? I’m in. I’m in all day long.
Bahn mi slider in hand and press pass around my neck, I went to check out my first band of the festival – Nashville’s Bully. I’d only heard a couple tracks, and I liked their mix of heavy rock and post-punk.
Bully
They killed the Maumee Stage with a fierce performance that won over the crowd within minutes. Seeing them might be the closest I get to seeing X-Ray Spex in concert. It was full of wild guitar and drums, Cure-like bass, and frantic vocals. People were still talking about them the next day.
I finished Friday night like many others – by seeing Best Coaston the main (St. Mary’s) stage. I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard a lot of their material before this, but there were many in the crowd who sang to everything they played. I liked the blend of surf-psych with dream pop. The gay man going nuts next to me when they played “Boyfriend” was one of the highlights of the crowd for me.
Best Coast
Heavy rain hit the area overnight and through most of Saturday morning. I hoped it wouldn’t keep the crowds away, and I’m sure the Middle Waves staff was watching local weather radar like a hawk the entire day. One band was playing on a makeshift stage in the covered food vendor area when I got there due to the Maumee Stage being rained out that morning.
Luckily for all, however, the rain cleared around 3:00 and the sun came out bright and happy. The St. Mary’s stage field had straw scattered all over it to prevent massive mud pits from forming, so it soon smelled like a wet barn out there. You didn’t notice the smell once Jeff the Brotherhoodbegan playing, because their sonic assault almost knocked us flat.
Jeff the Brotherhood
They played several tracks from their new album, Zone, which I need to get soon. A lot of it has a great stoner rock vibe that borders a bit on doom metal. It seems heavier than some of their previous stuff, which is fine by me.
I took a break after their set to drive down to Neat Neat Neat Records(profile coming soon), and they were playing Bully. The clerk and I raved about their set and I was soon walking out with three used CDs. I made it back in time to see Ft. Wayne’s hometown psychedelic heroes – Heaven’s Gateway Drugs. They put on a fine set of their sun-soaked psych on the bank of the Maumee River to a welcoming crowd. I hadn’t realized until this set how some of their stuff sounds like early New Pornographers (which is a good thing).
Heaven’s Gateway Drugs
I took an extra long break to get in a full meal (Smoked pulled chicken, cole slaw, and potato chips for eight bucks? Sold!) before seeing The Flaming Lips. People had been camped out all day to claim spots for the show. My favorite ones were these two.
I thought, “That’s my wife and I in twenty years.”
The Flaming Lips didn’t disappoint. It was a party from the very first song.
The confetti came from cannons, but I still don’t know from where the giant balloons emerged.
The crowd was jumping, singing, smacking around balloons, and cheering for lizards in yellow suits and boat captain catfish.
That’s an inflatable Santa Claus in the background.
Their light / stage show is something you have to see to fully appreciate. Strings of lights, kaleidoscopic gongs, confetti cannons, and glitter are all thrown into the mix.
Everyone loved the rainbow. Who wouldn’t?
Lead singer Wayne Coyne kept the crowd cheering and moving, especially when he came out in a giant bubble during the band’s cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
It was a great performance under a full moon, and a good omen for future festivals. The early afternoon rain was the only thing keeping the first Middle Waves festival from being an out-of-the-park home run, but that’s nothing the promoters and staff could control.
I’m sure the number of national touring acts will grow in the future, as all of the ones there this year praised the festival and the crowds. A master stroke by the festival is having two free stages. The Maumee and St. Joseph stages were free for everyone. The St. Mary’s main stage was the only one with paid admission. Anyone could’ve come to the festival with no money and still have seen twenty bands (including that jaw-dropping set by Bully, mind you).
Here’s to the future, Middle Waves. It looks good for you.
Keep your mind open.
[Many thanks to the Middle Waves staff and crew, and especially to Emma and Maggie for setting up my press credentials for the festival.]
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Beck‘s new album still doesn’t have an official title, but it does have a release date – October 21st. Beck has said in interviews that the new record is inspired by some of his recent live performances, and two of the first tracks released, “Wow” and “Dreams,” are lively cuts that portend a return to Beck’s upbeat funk records like Midnite Vultures and Odelay.
Does the current political landscape have you bummed? Has work turned into rote activity you’d rather turn over to a highly intelligent simian? Are you sick of TV and big budget blockbuster flops at the box office? Are you in need of a jolt to break you out of a summer funk? Why not save the money you’d spend on a couple fancy schmancy frozen coffee drinks and pick up Welcome the Worms by Bleached instead? This pop-punk album will make you far happier than any overpriced, super sweet, high fat drink you’ll regret when the sugar coma it provides makes you fall asleep at the wheel.
Bleached are sisters Jennifer and Jessica Clavin (lead vocals and guitar, respectively), Micayla Grace (bass), and Nick Pilot (drums). Welcome the Worms is a middle finger to living in L.A. when you’re not a movie star, bad relationships, and those who turn their backs on people who live on the fringe.
“Keep On Keepin’ On” bursts off the line with a cool psychedelic sound mixed with Sleater-Kinney anger. Jennifer Clavin throws down fierce vocals while Grace seems to be playing slap bass on a bass guitar. Jessica Clavin’s guitar sounds a bit like a warning siren at times, and Pilot kills it on the first song.
“Trying to Lose Myself Again” is about wanting to disappear in the chaos that is Los Angeles. “I’ve been hanging around this ugly town trying to find myself again…I’ve been getting high every night trying to lose myself again,” Jennifer Clavin sings. The glamour of L.A. hides misery for many, but Jessica Clavin’s guitar work is anything but miserable. It’s scorching.
“Sleepwalking” is a perfect metaphor for most of us shuffling around big cities in the daily grind. Jessica Clavin again shreds while Grace and Pilot seem to be racing each other throughout the track. “Wednesday Night Melody” is a great power-pop track that Weezer and Metric wish they could still produce.
“Wasted on You” is about the perils of dating musicians and has some of the snappiest beats from Pilot. “Chemical Air” reminds me of early New Pornographers with its bold vocals and big sound (especially Jessica Clavin’s cosmic guitar work). “Sour Candy” is reminiscent of early “bad girl” rock from the 1950’s in Jennifer Clavin’s vocals.
“Desolate Town” has appropriately desolate bass from Grace and slightly distorted vocals as Jennifer Clavin sings about the wasteland L.A. can be for those working in the non-glamorous jobs there. “I’m All Over the Place (Mystic Mama)” is part-trippy psych and part-post punk as Jennifer Clavin mourns a break-up (“I’m all over the place without you…”). It sounds like a rare Fuzzbox single.
“Hollywood, We Did It All Wrong” is the closer, and I’m not sure if Bleached thinks they screwed up living in Hollywood, or if they mean the whole town screwed up what could’ve been a cool thing. It’s a fun track either way.
It’s a fun record, too, even with some of the dark subject matter. The title comes from a weird religious pamphlet the band picked up in L.A. The title might refer to impending death, but at least Bleached is exorcising demons and having fun before they check out of here.
Keep your mind open.
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Captain Ivory (Robbie Bolog – guitar and lap steel, Seth Maschari – drums and vibes, Brett Smith – bass, Jayson Trayer – vocals and guitar, Steve Zwilling – piano and organ) describe their sound on the cover of their new album, No Vacancy, as “greasy rock ‘n’ roll.” I can’t do much better than that. The whole album is full of power pop, swamp rock, and blues rock grooves that are so greasy you could fry a donut in them.
“Broken Light” introduces you to Trayer’s fine vocal style, which is somewhere between Kings of Leon, Howlin’ Wolf, and Jethro Tull. Maschari’s vibraphone work on the title track takes the song to a level above garage rock that other bands are still trying to reach. Zwilling’s keys take us into psychedelic territory on “Skinning the Hand,” and the rest of the band puts down a great blues groove while Trayer sings a fun song about a desperate man in a desperate card game that could put him on Easy Street or kill him.
“Cascades of Spain” is a lovely song about a man’s journey through old Europe. “Paper Towns” has excellent guitar work throughout it. “Hello Love Goodbye Fear” is a vicious attack on the current political landscape. “Every time I think about the western dream I let loose ‘cause I know it’s a lie,” Trayer sings. Zwilling’s keyboard work is jaunty, despite Trayer’s angry lyrics, and those stadium rock riffs are great. “Never Mind” is a classic rock song about heartbreak, and the breakdown in the last minute is outstanding. I love the way “Come Down” switches from a rock ballad to a sweaty, gritty blues-powered rock cut. The closer is, fittingly, “Epitaph,” which brings in some delightful soul touches.
I discovered these guys when my wife and I saw them play at a street festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan earlier this year. They are a crackerjack live band and worth your time if you enjoy greasy rock ‘n’ roll.
File this one under: Bands I Like Who Slipped Through the Cracks. I’d heard a few tracks from Royal Blood’s self-titled debut album two years ago on the Out of the Black EP, but kept forgetting to buy the full record. I finally found it at a Target two months ago.
It’s one of the best rock records to come along in recent memory. Royal Blood is Mike Kerr on bass and vocals and Ben Thatcher on drums. That’s right, no guitar. They bring new meaning to the term “drum and bass,” because that’s all there is (apart from vocals). It’s all bass – wonderful, cranked-up, fuzzed-out, wall-flattening bass – and drums – excellent armies of Mordor-marching, Jason Bonham-honoring, avalanche-producing drums.
“Out of the Black” was their first big hit, and rightly so, as they belt out a rocker about an angry break-up. It’s a common theme on the record. The lads are angry, lonely, and frisky, but there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it except pour it all out on this record. The follow-up to the “I’m so pissed I could kill you” anthem of “Out of the Black” is “Come On Over,” in which Kerr has dropped belief in God (“I went to church and stopped believing.”) and thus the religious dogma that held him back from engaging in naughty sinful behavior. We go from bad break-up to sinful sex in the span of two songs.
“Figure It Out” has a wicked drum groove that barely touches on pop-punk as Kerr struggles to determine why his girl won’t talk about what went wrong in their relationship (“I said I’d go, ‘cause I won’t see you later and we’re not allowed to figure it out.”). It makes sense that the next song is “You Can Be So Cruel,” which has Kerr standing outside his lady’s door thinking of her (in his stalker-like eyes) loneliness and his depression.
His lady’s continued distance from him leads to more anger on “Blood Hands.” “I’ll curse the ground where you kneel till I grow my hair to my heels. Spike your water, your wine while you waste my precious time.” Kerr’s bass work on it sounds like he’s playing two guitars at once.
Kerr tries to move on to another romantic conquest on “Little Monster,” but still borders on creepy as he sings, “I’m gonna love you no matter what you say.” and “I say run little monster before you know who I am.” The song was another big hit for them, and it couldn’t miss. Thatcher’s drums are like something from a Mad Max movie and Kerr’s bass work on it is pure stoner metal.
The subject of “Little Monster” must have taken Kerr’s advice of running away, because Kerr sings about “Shouting through your letter hole like there’s nobody home.” and referring to her as an “ice queen licking on a guillotine” in “Loose Change,” which has Thatcher putting down a groove so nasty it should be twiddling its moustache.
Kerr admits he’s screwed up everything on “Careless.” “I wish I could care less, but I’m afraid I don’t. You couldn’t care less, so I guess you won’t change your mind again.” In “Ten Tonne Skeleton,” he knows his ex-girlfriend has moved on, and now he regrets the way he screwed up his chance.
The final cut is “Better Strangers,” and Kerr realizes he has to get far away from this woman before he gets flattened again (“I’m a thousand miles from danger if I make a better stranger of you.”). He repeats the word “hollow” to echo the empty feeling in his gut, but he fills it with scorching bass work.
This easily would’ve been in my top 5 records of 2014 if I’d kept track of such things then. Royal Blood were in the process of writing a new album when they toured with Foo Fighters in 2015. I hope they release it soon.
Keep your mind open.
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The closest I came to seeing L7 in their first heyday was when they were on the 1994 when they were on the Lollapalooza tour. We got to what was then known as Deer Creek Music Center (and is now know as Klipsch Music Center) in Noblesville, Indian a bit late and we could hear L7 wrapping up their set with “Pretend We’re Dead” from the parking lot.
I wouldn’t have the chance to see them again for another 22 years. They played a sold out show at Chicago’s Metro (one of my top favorite venues in the city) on August 06, 2016, and it was definitely worth the wait.
Punk trio Radkeyopened the show with a damn fine (and prompt – 8pm sharp) set that sounded like a combination of the Damned and the Misfits. The crowd was appreciative and they got everyone geared up for more heavy rock.
Radkey
L7 came out to a packed house of punks, Gen X’ers, MILFs, DILFs, gays, straights, and at least one woman in her 70’s I saw heading up to the balcony to watch the show. They opened with “Deathwish,” and immediately proved they haven’t lost a thing since that Lollapalooza gig.
“Deathwish” – Charles Bronson would’ve been proud.
Donita Sparks belted out the “Deathwish” lyrics and everyone in the packed, hot crowd was in the band’s hands within seconds. Suzi Gardner then bellowed “Andres” and Jennifer Finch knocked out “Everglade.” They came out swinging with three hard rockers and everyone was on their heels with joy and dizziness.
“Monster” (with Dee Plakas‘ much-beloved cowbell in full effect) and “Scrap” had everyone grinning. “Fuel My Fire” had everyone jumping, and it’s easy to forget how heavy “One More Thing,” “I Need,” and “Slide” are until you hear them live.
“I Need”…more L7 shows.
There’s no mistaking “Crackpot Baby” for anything but a fist to the face, especially with Sparks singing so loud that I’m sure people in the SmartBar downstairs could hear her. Two cuts from The Beauty Process: Triple Platinum followed – “Must Have More” and the always-excellent “Drama.”
The rest of the crowd and I were happy to chant and pump our fists to “Shove,” and “Freak Magnet” was a nice lead-in to my favorite surprise of the night – Finch (rocking age 50 and a Misfits-logo bass) and crew performing her song “Shirley” (a great tune off Hungry for Stink about NHRA drag racing champ Shirley “Cha-Cha” Muldowney).
Don’t you dare pinch her ass. Suzi Gardner knocking out “Shove.”
They closed with, of course, “Shitlist,” which had everyone completely batshit by this point.
The encore was “American Society” (another great rare cut), “Pretend We’re Dead,” and the (finally!) mosh pit-inducing “Fast and Frightening” (which, if you didn’t know, has perhaps the most rock lyric of all time).
So much clit they don’t need no balls.
It was a great show with a great crowd. The Metro blasted Dee-Lite’s “Groove Is in the Heart” after the encore and nearly everyone was dancing on top of crushed plastic cups and spilled beer (myself included).
Thanks, L7, for reuniting and giving us these shows. We needed them, and I hope it won’t take me another two decades to see you again.
Keep your mind open.
[Thanks to Robert Fagan for getting me a press pass to the show, the lady working the press table at the Metro for being so helpful, and to Hannah – my +1 for the night. I’m glad to have met you and that you had a good time.]
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7th Level Music: Is this your first time in Fort Wayne?
Jarrett Dougherty (drums): Yeah.
7LM: You’ve got one more gig to go before the end of the tour. How’s it been?
Mike Abbatte (bass): Pretty good.
Marissa Paternoster (vocals, guitar): Smooth.
JD: Yeah, it’s been pretty easy. We did three weeks, and then the two weeks off, and then this is the end of another two weeks after that. We went down to Florida and then back up the coast over the three weeks, so the drives were really easy, and then we just went through Canada for a few days, and then Michigan, Wisconsin, and Chicago, and now we’re here. It’s all been pretty easy.
7LM: If you can get to the Warhol Museum there, it’s amazing.
MP: We got a tour of it the last time we were there from…Andy’s nephew?
7LM: Oh, right on.
JD: Yeah, Donald Warholia.
MA: Warhola.
JD: Warhola.
MP: It was awesome. There was so much stuff to look at, it was overwhelming.
7LM: Weren’t you in Australia earlier this year, or maybe last fall?
JD: We’re going for the first time. It’s at the end of our summer, so it’s the end of their winter.
7LM: You get there in time for the good weather, then.
JD: Yeah, they said it’ll be a little cold when we first get there, but by the end of the trip spring will be kicking in.
7LM: I imagine that’s hard to change your logistics of planning for packing and moving all your gear.
MA: I have not thought about packing.
MP: Yeah, I haven’t thought about it.
MA: This is the first I’m thinking about it.
7LM: Oh, I’m sorry to plant that seed of panic in your head.
JD: Mainly the panic’s been about how long the plane ride is to get there. Marissa doesn’t really like planes, Mike doesn’t like that he has trouble fitting in the seats, and then I just get really bored, but that’s not nearly as bad as compared to what they’re going through…but at the same time I don’t want to be bored.
MA: I’m a giant so I’ll end up sitting like this (turns sideways in the driver’s seat of the van).
MP: And I’m crazy, so I’ll be having a nervous breakdown.
7LM: Have there been any countries where you were surprised to discover how popular you are? Have you ever heard from fans from some place where you never imagined we’d get played there?
MA: Florida.
MP: (laughing) I wish it was another country.
JD: Well, yeah, other than Miami, already for the Australia stuff, it’s pretty amazing. We’ve already been getting all these e-mails from people who are like, “I can’t believe you guys are coming here.” We’ve done a number of tours in Europe, and there we have really good experiences and a lot of the shows are really good, but it’s a lot of promoters who are just good at having people that come out to shows regardless if they know the bands or not because the promoter’s like, “Everybody should show up for this one.” But, already for Australia it seems like there are people who are excited about us getting there. We did a bunch of interviews the other day for Australian things, and people were like, “Oh, yeah, I saw your band at South by Southwest one time. I’ve been waiting for you guys to get here for years.”
7LM: That’s fantastic.
JD: Yeah, so that’s pretty exciting already. I feel like the number of people who said they were excited about our band is equal to all the people in Europe who know who we are.
7LM: I was wondering about your songwriting process. Grooves first or lyrics first? Or does it depend on the song?
JD: Always grooves first. Yeah, for sure.
(Marissa and Mike bump fists.)
JD: Occasionally, Marissa will come in with a song that’s pretty formed already, lyrically. For the songs we’re working on coming up, eventually it will be a new album, but we’re just writing the songs right now, Mike brought in a song like that as well. But the vast majority of stuff is us getting together and just playing music together.
7LM: One of the things I love so much about the stuff you guys play is how you’ll sometimes go from a song that’s quiet and just heartbreaking and then you’ll make this right turn and it’s like a punch in the gut and you’re hitting so hard and knocking walls down. I wondered if there were songs on the new record or ones you can think of where you came in thinking, “Okay, this is going to be kind of a mellow heartbreaker,” but then one of you thought, “You know what? This just needs to be like a kick in the junk, or vice versa.”
MA: (laughing) With the new stuff that we’re currently writing, it all has just come together naturally.
MP: Yeah.
MA: There hasn’t been a song where we went into it thinking one thing and then it turned out completely different – that I can think of.
JD: The one I can think of that most dramatically represents that is on Ugly. The song is “Expire.” When Marissa first made a demo of that, it had this very…
MP: (chuckling) It was like a merengue.
JD: Yeah, it had a very arpeggiated Latin acoustic guitar feel, and then it turned into something entirely different by the time we were done.
MP: (laughing) That’s probably a good thing.
MA: I don’t remember that at all. “Hopeless” (from RoseMountain)had a bit more of an Americana vibe to it and then we took that and made it more straight-ahead. We turned it into like a Weezer song.
JD: We had a couple ideas about that one, too, that included thinking about the beginning of Stop Making Sense. David Byrne comes out to do “Psycho Killer” with just the boom box and that idea stuck in my head, that you could do a song in that fashion. So when we were working out “Hopeless,” I was thinking about playing very robotically, like a drum machine. We even tried to drop a drum machine in on that first part of that track to see if it would work, but we couldn’t get one work that mixed with the vibes of the instruments. So we left the drums, but I was trying to play like a drum machine.
7LM: Nice. I know on Chalk Tape you three basically wrote the stuff out on a chalkboard and kind of went with “First thought, best thought,” kind of thing?
JD: Absolutely.
7LM: Did any of that carry over into Rose Mountain at all on any of the tracks?
MP: Chalk Tape was like a vacation away from overthinking things, and then we revisited overthinking everything when we got to Rose Mountain – which is not something we necessarily dislike doing, I think.
MA: Wait, Chalk Tape was before Rose Mountain?
Everyone else: Yeah.
(Laughter fills the van.)
MP: Because Ugly was such a big project and there were so many songs, and we demoed everything five thousand times. We demoed songs at different speeds. We like doing stuff like that.
MA: It’s true.
MP: I mean, I do. It’s fun for me. So Chalk Tape was like a little bit break from that and we threw caution to the wind and just had fun. Demoing stuff is fun for me. With Rose Mountain we definitely were very focused on melodies and songwriting and analyzing our demos and getting rid of things that we were like, “This is extraneous, and that’s unnecessary. It doesn’t benefit the song in any way.”
7LM: What are your favorite misheard lyrics? Do you have any that just crack you up?
MA: We have a couple.
MP: One I can’t say.
7LM: No, you can say it.
JD: About our band?(Looking at Marissa) You like those misheard lyrics about the Fall Out Boy video.
MP: Yeah, it’s just “don-don-don-loora-loora.”
MA: Yeah, it’s like “Ooo-lee-ooo-rah.”
JD: We watch that video a lot because they attempt to animate what they think these nonsense words mean and it’s really, really good.
MP: Misheard lyrics from other songs?
7LM: Or from yours.
MP: There’s this one song we have called “Pretty Okay,” and I say, “You make me feel so enlightened,” and our friends in a posthumous band called Full of Fancy thought I said, “You make me feel like Steve Martin,” which I think is a better lyric.
MA: The next line is “A lady found God in her purse,” and another friend of ours said it sounded like “A lady found God in her puss.”
MP: It’s a little risqué.
JD: We didn’t say it! They just thought we said it.
MA: I just said it. It just came out of my mouth.
MP: I think Full of Fancy did that, too. It was always them.
MA: No, it was probably (producer Steve) Albini.
7LM: It wouldn’t surprise me. Are there any bands that have inspired you that you fans might be surprised by?
MA: (no hesitation) Fall Out Boy. We love Fall Out Boy.
MP: (laughing) Yeah, we love Fall Out Boy.
JP: Just the one album, though.
MP: I celebrate two albums.
JD: I mean, collectively, we like the one album.
MP: Yeah, that’s true.
JD: I love a lot of hip hop. I don’t know if people think that’s weird, but it definitely doesn’t seem like it’s attached to Screaming Females. In high school I listened to a lot of world music and jazz and stuff, but I think a lot of that comes out in my playing, and I think people who are familiar with music like Fela Kuti and Gangstarr, could hear that I play drums more like what those artists think of rhythms like instead a punk band.
7LM: Are there any bands you’ve played with on this tour that you think your fans should hear more of?
MP: The first night of tour we played with two of the coolest bands I’d seen in a long time.
MA: Chipped Nails. They were cool as hell.
MP: Chipped Nails from Montreal. It was like their second show ever. They were so good, I wanted them to play forever. They played for, like, ten minutes.
JD: They played this really hypnotically repetitive, slightly funky groovin’ music that was completely atonal and nonsensical, and it was amazing.
MP: They were really good.
7LM: I’m all over that.
MP: They don’t have any Internet presence yet.
MA: They have no music. It was their second show.
JD: Everybody in the crowd, their jaws dropped like, “I don’t know what I’m witnessing.” They were bopping their heads. It was the grooviest show of all time.
MA: We did a couple shows with our friends in this band called Vacation who are really, really good.
JD: Yeah, they’re from Ohio.
7LM: I’ve heard of them somewhere.
JD: Yeah, they’re on Don Giovanni, which is the same label that has been putting out stuff for a long time. They’re from Cincinnati and Columbus and have been playing shows for years and years.
7LM: I go to Columbus a lot, so that’s probably where I heard of them.
JD: Okay, it’s a cool venue there. Our friend, Evan, who plays in Vacation is usually working the door. So, if you ever end up there, you’ll probably meet Evan.
7LM: Finally, I thought this would be fun to ask you – Who are your favorite scream queens?
MA: What?
7LM: Your favorite Hollywood scream queens.
MA: What’s that?
7LM: Horror movie stars. Screaming females, literally.
JD: Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween is the classic.
7LM: Oh yeah, of course.
MA: I don’t do movies. I can’t sit still that long.
JD: (looking at Marissa) Green Room?
MA: Maeby from Arrested Development? I don’t even know what her name is.
MP: Yeah, me either (Alia Shawkat). I’m not much of a movie buff. I don’t know too much. I like Hellraiser, that’s a movie I enjoy. There’s two female characters in there. I don’t know either of their names. The woman who’s seducing the men and bringing them to the guy’s room so he can reanimate them. She’s cool. I don’t know what her name is (Julia – played by Claire Higgins), but I like her style. She’s ruthless. She doesn’t give a good damn. Yeah, I think that might be my favorite horror movie. I haven’t seen the others, but I do really like the first Hellraiser.
7LM: Once I was at a horror movie convention and saw Doug Bradley, who plays Pinhead, and Robert England, who plays Freddy Krueger having lunch together.
JP: Whoa!
MP: My girlfriend at the time really wanted to get into the franchise, and I think we got up to the third one and I was like, “I can’t watch these, they’re so bad.”
7LM: They get progressively worse.
MP: The first one’s so cool, and the second one was okay, and by the third one I was like, “What’s happening?” But my friend, Mark Bronzino, who plays in this metal band called Iron Reagan, he was like, “Yo, Marissa, Hellraiser 14 is pretty good, you should go see it.” And I was like, “I’m not gonna see it.”
7LM: Well, they’re remaking it.
MP: The first one?
JD: The fourteenth one.
7LM: They probably are.
MP: I don’t know, apparently it’s pretty good.
7LM: Thanks again. Is there anything you want fans to look up, or anything you want to plug?
JD: Screamingfemales.com is the easiest place to find our real tour dates, because now there are tour date aggregators out there all over the Internet that put up tour dates from five years ago. That’s the best place to find information about us, but we’re pretty easy to get in touch with. You can literally e-mail us and one of us will probably answer you.
Pixies‘ new album, Head Carrier, is due out September 30, 2016. You can pre-order it and a lot of fun extras through their PledgeMusic page for the album. You can order it on CD, LP, or digital download, of course, but why not add a T-shirt, limited posters, and artwork book, too?
People are already buzzing about the first single, “Um Chagga Lagga,” (which is great punk-fuzz) and how one song on the album is about the band’s former bass player, Kim Deal, sung by their new bass player, Paz Lenchantin.
Don’t miss out on fun stuff offered by a band who can do whatever they want whenever they want it.
Keep your mind open.
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I’d wanted to see Wolfmotherlive for many years, but their U.S. dates were few and far between for me. A friend of mine had seen them on their first tour and described their live show as “orgasmic.”
Lo and behold, I was in Chicago on the same weekend they were playing at the Double Door. I managed to score a ticket and get there in time to meet my friend and catch the last half of the opening set from The Living Statues – a local pop-punk band with hints of Buzzcocks, Beatles, and the Killers. They had a lot of hometown fans there and put on a good show.
The Living Statues
The place was packed by the time Wolfmother took the stage. We got a nice spot along the bar and near the stage right corner. Wolfmother came out gunning by playing “Dimension” right away. The crowd was singing and jamming within seconds. They followed up with “New Moon Rising” and then the first single off their new record, Victorious, “Gypsy Caravan.”
Wolfmother start strong with “Dimension.”
The crowd was bonkers by the time they reached “Apple Tree,” “California Queen,” “Victorious,” and “White Unicorn.”
Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother
They ended with the lead track off Victorious – “The Love that You Give” and then “Mind’s Eye,” both songs calling for compassion and looking past the illusions we create. The encore was “The Joker and the Thief,” which sent everyone over the edge into stoner / psych-rock madness.
Wolfmother flattening walls during “The Joker and the Thief.”
It was well worth the wait. My friend sent me a text message two days later that read, “I’m still high on Wolfmother.” I too had been humming the songs for two days. I’m sure the rest of the crowd was still buzzing, because Wolfmother shook the rafters.
The Blind Owls (Joshua De Leon – guitar, Jesse De Los Santos – guitar, Carlos Garcia – bass, Dylan Romel – drums) return from the sunny beaches of Corpus Christi with their second full-length album All Day and Night just in time for the second half of summer. It’s full of catchy power pop hooks, rockabilly beats, and dashes of punk.
The title track opens the record, and it has everything the Blind Owls do so well – a slick bass line, good vocal harmonies, jangly rock guitars, and clockwork drumming. I like the way “Good Time” starts with a crunchy little guitar riff that becomes a fun rockabilly song with a rough edge. “Sweet Baby” reveals the band’s love of Jerry Lee Lewis, as evidenced by the pounded piano, bonkers guitar work, handclaps, and frantic vocals. It’s a barnburner.
“Nobody Else” has a great walking bass line from Garcia that you might miss if you’re too busy tapping your toes to Romel’s beats, so be sure to listen for it. “Home” is really a blues tune hidden in a bop song about a cheating girlfriend. “Better” has a bit of a Bob Dylan flair, if Bob Dylan were a bit more light-hearted when singing about love.
“Out of My Mind” drops the album into full-blown psychedelic material, which is a great switch from the power-pop. The Blind Owls switch gears on us just when we think we’ve figured out their game. “Fever” keeps up the psych-rock somewhat as it keeps a nice balance between psychedelia and 60’s garage rock. The track also makes me wonder if Dylan Romel is actually a robot, because his snare work seems to obey Asimov’s laws.
“Good to Me” is sharp bop-rock that will get you moving. “Searching For” is a fast, sweet love song, as is “If They Say.” “The Way” is another song about how great the singer’s girl is, and it has a nice early Kinks sound to it that hardly anyone is attempting anymore. “Mystery Man” is full of great rock swagger (and the organ in it is a nice touch). The closer is “Doctor,” which is a cool garage rock song that melds Buzzcocks with Black Angels.
It’s a fine record, especially if you like early 1960’s garage rock (and why wouldn’t you?). Get on the Blind Owls bandwagon. They’re going places, and you should join the trip before everyone else eventually will.
Keep your mind open.
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It was a great performance under a full moon, and a good omen for future festivals. The early afternoon rain was the only thing keeping the first Middle Waves festival from being an out-of-the-park home run, but that’s nothing the promoters and staff could control.
