7th Level Music

Wrecka Stow: Irvington Vinyl / Bookmama’s – Indianapolis, IN

Located in the Irvington area of Indianapolis, Irvington Vinyl / Bookmama’s (9 Johnson Avenue) is an impressive store on a winding side street that is easy to miss but worth your time to seek.

The place is two store fronts full of books and music. The books range from new fiction to classics, naturally, but they have plenty of collectibles and manager / owner Kathleen Angelone was knowledgable about new titles and what to read if you liked certain books. She and a customer were having a lively discussion on new fiction when I was in the store.

I was there for the music, and I had limited time, so I didn’t get to browse the books as much as I’d like. There was plenty of music to buy. The majority of it is on vinyl (go figure with a name like Irvington Vinyl), and includes collectible stuff from obscure Indiana bands.

As if all this stuff isn’t enough for you, just head down these stairs…

…and you’ll find a basement full of vinyl records, 8-track tapes, and cassettes.

It’s a crate digger’s dream. I scored a Nine Inch Nails EP, L7’s Smell the Magic, and an excellent double-CD compilation of early Indiana new wave and punk bands (review coming soon) there. Give yourself plenty of time to browse when you go there. You won’t regret it.

Keep your mind open.

[You won’t regret subscribing to us either.]

Gary Wilson to release Christmas album.

File this under: Best News You’ve Heard Today.

Avant-garde psych-lounge master Gary Wilson is releasing a Christmas album three days before Halloween. It features 14 tracks of Wilson’s take on the holiday season. The titles reflect a lot of Wilson’s favorite themes – love (“A Christmas Tree for Two”), breakups (“Santa Claus Is Coming to My Lonely Town”), desire (“A Date for New Year’s Eve”), the town of Endicott (“It’s Snowing in Endicott”), and the mysterious women he references on his albums (“Cindy Wants to Cry”).

This will probably be my go-to gift for many people on my Christmas list this year. Be sure to put it on yours.

Keep your mind open.

[Give yourself a gift by subscribing to us!]

Dizzybird Records Summer Sampler 2016

Dizzybird Records has put out a fine mix album of seven of their artists to get us through the last weeks of summer.

The Harlequins have three good, weird surf-psych tracks – “Fair Shake” opens the sampler on a good note with plenty of loud twisting sounds and trippy vocals, “Hear Me Out” is Mersey Beat garage rock with fuzzed-out vocals, and “Over a Hill” is a Kaiser Chiefs track if the Kaiser Chiefs decided to record a song after they’d just realized they’d accidentally eaten peyote jam on their morning toast.

Heaven’s Gateway Drugs, who seem to be playing everywhere all the time, also give us two tracks – the sharp “Copper Hill” with its angular guitars and echoed vocal harmonies, and “War with June” from their upcoming album Rubber Nun, which should be a fine record judging from this tune. It oozes from your sound system’s speakers. Ooooozes.

Coffin Problem reminds me of Bauhaus when they still had a punk edge to them. Their two contributions are the creepy “Child of the Sun” (dig those relentless guitars!) and the sampler’s closer – “Empty” – is so heavy that it almost becomes sludge / doom rock.

Cool Ghouls‘ offering is “Creature that I Am,” a fun classic-sounding psychedelic track with slight Americana and garage touches. They sound like a band that might’ve opened for Jefferson Airplane back in the day.

Gringo Star‘s “Long Time Gone” is full of peppy piano, what sounds like a mandolin, and reverbed, crunchy guitar. It’s an interesting mix that’s hard to describe, but please know I mean that in a good way.

Las Rosas give us an appropriately titled song as far as their name is concerned – “Sensitive Flower.” The song’s no shrinking violet, however. It’s a slightly dark track about a somewhat dysfunctional relationship.

Heaters‘ two tracks, “Lowlife” and “Solstice,” are lush and bold. “Lowlife” has room-filling guitars and a great entry by their drummer into the song. “Solstice” has great cosmic-psych guitar work throughout it that trips along a surf edge.

It’s a good compilation, and Dizzybird offers free listens on the Soundcloud page for it. Give it a spin.

Keep your mind open.

[You won’t get dizzy subscribing to us. It’s easy. Just drop your e-mail address in the box to your left. Scroll down if you don’t see it. It’s there. Really.]

Middle Waves festival announces full inaugural lineup

Fort Wayne, Indiana’s first ever Middle Waves festival has released its full lineup for 2016. The festival’s additions are heavy with Fort Wayne bands (go figure) that range from Americana (James and the Drifters) to rap (Andromeda and Sankofa) to electro (Metavari) to psychedelic (The Be Colony).

Added acts from outside Ft. Wayne include the Ike Reilly Assassination, Tanlines, and Oddisee.

Early bird prices on tickets are gone, so get your tickets before they’re gone or prices rise. They also plan to announce more bands and daily lineups soon.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe to us before you go. Please?]

Live: Seal – August 27, 2016 – New Buffalo, MI

I’ve been meaning to make it up to my wife for dragging her to see Japanese acid rockers Bo Ningen (a band she just doesn’t understand) at Levitation Austin a couple years ago, so I thought taking her to see Seal might do the trick.

He played at the Four Winds Casino Silver Creek Event Center in New Buffalo, Michigan. The “Silver Creek Event Center,” mind you, is just a big carpeted room the casino can use for everything from a Seal concert to a wedding reception. It is much smaller than the venue map on Ticketmaster’s website makes it appear. I’m happy to say that the acoustics in the place are quite good, however. The whole show sounded great.

Part of that is because Seal is a great performer. It was him, a DJ / synthesizer player, and a guitarist on stage. No drummer. No horn section. No bass player. They didn’t need any of them. Seal opened the set with “Crazy,” his biggest hit here in the U.S., and the crowd was instantly on its feet. His voice hasn’t lost any power since the song was released in 1991, and I loved the way his band turned it into a bit of a dark wave tune with the synth work. “Killer,” another early hit, followed it with even more of a dark wave feel to it with heavy synth bass.

The first track they played from Seal’s new album, 7, was “Daylight Saving,” a gorgeous love song that preceded another from the same album, “Do You Ever.” “Prayer for the Dying” was another heartbreaking cut (to the point it made my wife cry) that led into “Love’s Divine.”

A surprise was his cover of Hall & Oates‘ “Sara Smile” (with Seal on back-up guitar). “Love,” the last song on 7, led into the first verse of David Bowie‘s “Space Oddity,” and I thought my wife was going to slide off her chair.

“Deep Water” was another beautiful track, and then came another surprise – Seal’s cover of Tears for Fears‘ “Mad World,” which he dedicated to the victims of the recent earthquake in Italy. “My Vision” and “Right Life” got everyone up and moving again, and he even threw in a little bit of Chic‘s “Le Freak.” The fourth cover of the night was Prince‘s “Hot Thing,” which was one of the funkiest tunes of the night and closed out the main set to a standing ovation.

The encore consisted of “Kiss from a Rose” and then another track from 7, “Life on the Dancefloor,” which had everyone dancing and grooving and leaving on a good buzz. I saw two ladies a few rows behind us when the houselights came up, and they were dumbfounded in their chairs. They didn’t move for several minutes.

I asked my wife if the show made up for Bo Ningen.

“Almost,” she said. “Probably the Bo, but not the Ningen.”

I took that as a win. Thanks, Seal.

Keep your mind open.

Rewind Review: Baby Jesus – self-titled (2014)

Hailing from Sweden and claiming to have formed after “an intense trip to India,” Baby Jesus’ self-titled album is a wild mix of psych, garage, and surf.

“Nothing’s for Me” opens the record with a swirl of cymbals and blaring guitar before the horror movie organ kicks everything into high gear. The vocals are frantic, almost “Wooly Bully” ramblings. That means they’re a blast, by the way. “Trembling Away” continues the madness and the organ blares through everything, which is a feat considering how damn loud and bonkers the song is. “Havn’t Seen the Light” is, despite the typo in the title, sharp as a tack. The guitar is like a buzzsaw, the drums are punk, the bass is a jackhammer, and the organ is an alarm klaxon.

“Don’t Want You” could be a Stooges song if the Stooges had a keyboardist as crazy as Baby Jesus. Imagine Animal from The Muppets on a Hammond B-3 instead of a drum kit and you’ll get the idea. “Nice Walk” is a surf instrumental. Yes, after four songs of psychedelic madness, Baby Jesus drops a surf number on you that sounds like they reached through a wormhole in space-time and grabbed it from a record store in 1965.

“Cry, Cry, Cry” isn’t a cover of the Johnny Cash song (although that would be great), but it is a wild breakup song with enough cymbal crashes for an entire record. The title of “Deep Blue Delay” might refer to the delay effects pedals used on the guitars in the song, but it’s probably about something trippy that happened to the band in India. Regardless, the guitar work on it is crazy with plenty of distortion and reverb. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Theremin mixed with it. “You Make Me Fry” is another lambasting of a bad relationship, and “Vansinne” is a swanky psychedelic lounge tune with fantastic saxophone work.

“Time’s All Gone” is a fitting title for the last song on any record, and Baby Jesus makes the most of their last track by, believe it or not, scaling back the cacophony. It’s the mellowest track on the album, with echoing vocals, groovy synths, and that surf sound they do so well.

I hope these guys are working on some new material, because this full-length debut is a good omen of what’s in store for them and us. I hope they tour with Goat. That would be a mind-melting double bill.

Keep your mind open.

DJ set list for August 28, 2016

Thanks to all who listened to what might be my last show of the 2016 summer. There’s a chance I’ll be on air September 4th, but it depends on if I’m back from a trip to Chicago at a decent hour. Here’s my set list for last night:

Baby Jesus – Trembling Away
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Afro (live)
ORB – First and Last Men
The Humpers – You Drive Me Bats
The Pack A.D. – Animal
The Coathangers – Watch Your Back
Bleached – I’m All Over the Place (Mystic Mama)
House of Large Sizes – What If There’s a Fire?
The Flaming Lips – Pilot Can at the Queer of God
All Them Witches – Instrumental 2 (Welcome to the Caveman Future)
Goggs – Smoke the Wurm
Julian Cope – I’ve Got Levitation
Julian Cope – Pulsar
Clutch – The Dragonfly
Captain Ivory – Broken Light
L7 – American Society
Soundgarden – Limo Wreck
Helmet – You Borrowed
Metric – Gimme Sympathy
Betty Davis – He Was a Real Freak
Louis Jordan – How About That
Ennio Morricone – Marcetta (Marcia)
De La Soul – Eye Know
Ceu – Rapsodia Brasilis
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Hong Kong Garden
Patsy Cline – Walking Dream
Patsy Cline – A Church, a Courtroom, and then Goodbye
The Soft Moon – Total Decay
The Crystal Method – Keep Hope Alive

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe to us before you go.]

Big Grunt – In Session

Recorded on March 16, 1970 for the BBC’s legendary John Peel Show on Radio 1, Big Grunt (Dennis Cowan – bass, Roger Ruskin Spear – saxophone, Vivian Stanshall – vocals & euphonium, Ian Wallace – drums, Bubs White – guitar) emerged from the break-up of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Stanshall was a wild performance artist and psychedelic rocker, and Big Grunt combined excellent rock chops with wild costumes, robots, and enough trippy lyrics to make your head spin.

The Peel Session was only four tracks, but they’re all a neat slice of early 1970’s British psych-rock. “Blind Date” is a quirky, weird track full of Stanshall’s goofy humor about meeting a woman from a dating service. “11 Mustachioed Daughters” is probably the band’s biggest hit, and it’s easy to hear why with Wallace’s big drums, Cowan’s killer bass line, White’s near-stoner rock guitar, and Stanshall raving like a mad druid.

“The Strain” is about trying to poop as Stanshall sings from the perspective of whatever’s inside him and needs to get out and then about his grief as the phone rings and people knock on the door. White’s surf guitar is outstanding on the track. “Cyborg Signal” is a cool instrumental that shows the band weren’t just a one-trick pony that made songs about sitting on the crapper.

Mega Dodo Records has unearthed this rare recording, so don’t miss it if you’re a fan of early British psychedelia.

Keep your mind open.

[There’s no strain in subscribing to us. Just use the box to your left.]

Rewind Review: Nine Inch Nails – March of the Pigs (1994)

This five-song EP / single (depending on how you think of it, I guess) from Nine Inch Nails contains the Downward Spiral album cut of the title track, which is one of Trent Reznor’s best cuts in terms of showcasing how he can go from industrial madness to quiet goth and back again in the blink of an eye.

“Reptilian” (a remix of “Reptile” by Dave Ogilvie) might refer to the deep part of our brains, or perhaps the way the song crawls around the room like a komodo dragon with its hisses, clanks, and snarls from Reznor’s guitars and synths. “All the Pigs, All Lined Up” is a remix of “March of the Pigs” that swirls techno, drum and bass, and industrial chaos around you with Reznor belting out the lyrics as sampled screaming masses cheer behind him.

“A Violent Fluid” is a quick (barely over a minute) instrumental that’s more or less an introduction to the longer instrumental of “Underneath the Skin,” which has similar themes to other NIN songs, including the gothic synthesizers, drums that sound like garbage cans, and creepy bass.

It’s a dark, brooding EP, but that shouldn’t surprise you considering the state of mind (drugged and otherwise) Reznor was in at the time it was made. The Downward Spiral is one of the best albums of the 1990’s, and this EP is a visceral slice of it.

Keep your mind open.

[Updates will march to your e-mail inbox when you subscribe to us.]

Desert Daze festival lineup nearly complete.

The 2016 Desert Daze festival in Joshua Tree, California (Oct. 14-16) is turning out to be one of the best festivals of the year from the lineup alone.

The Sonics, Temples, Bombino, Gary Wilson, and Death Valley Girls alone are all worth the Friday admission.

As for Saturday, you get Primus, the Black Angels, Thee Oh Sees, the Raveonettes, the Coathangers, Night Beats, Ryley Walker, Vinyl Williams, and L.A. Witch.

Sunday brings you Television! Television! Add the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dead Meadow, and Deap Vally to the mix and you have a killer final day.

A three-day pass is only $165.00. That’s a steal.

Keep your mind open.

[Subscribing to us is so easy, it’s a steal. Just drop your e-mail address in the subscription box to your left. Scroll down if you don’t see it. It’s there. Really.]