Superfly’s Lone Star Music Emporiumis a fine wrecka stow in San Marcos, Texas. My wife and I discovered it when we went to San Marcos for MR Festduring the cancelled Levitationfestival in Austin. Superfly’s was hosting live music that day, so we got to see Sloe Your Roll there (who put on a great blues-rock set).
Sloe Your Roll
The place is decorated by people with a sense of humor. The restrooms are lined with LP covers.
Men’s roomWomen’s room
The men’s room had this over the toilet…
…and this next to the sink.
The selection at Superfly’s is great. It’s about half LP’s and half CD’s. They had a great selection of Record Store Day material there when we visited.
The LP selection was particularly good, with a lot of different genres available.
It’s a fine place and well worth the stop if you’re in the Austin – San Marcos area.
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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Kaiser Chiefs are offering their upcoming album, Stay Together, for pre-order on PledgeMusic. They’re also offering some nice merchandise for additional prices. The perks range from a CD and digital download to a big bundle of stuff including a T-shirt, signed lithograph of the album cover, and and a double-LP.
A good EP should leave you craving a full-length album, and that’s exactly what Ron Gallo’s RG3 EP does. It’s only three tracks, but they are all scorching rockers that portend great things to come from this psych-fuzz wunderkind.
“Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me” starts off like a forgotten Byrds classic but then bursts with a great bass groove by Joe Bisirri and Gallo’s tripped-out rock guitar as he sings about wanting to move in with a lady and her twelve cats, but he’s not sure the crazy sex is worth all the other stuff that comes with it. He rips into a brief solo immediately after name-dropping the Kensington Strangler. That alone should let you know he means business.
“Put the Kids to Bed” is a psychedelic “let’s get it on” song with a little bit of a surf feel to it in the chorus as Gallo sings about crazy sex some more and feeling the panic of a long-term relationship that’s growing cold.
“Kill the Medicine Man” is a neat mix of psychedelia, horror movie film score, and blues fuzz. Gallo’s reverbed vocals go for broke and are nicely backed with some lady chanters and his killer rhythm section (with Dylan Sevey on drums). The song seems to be a plea for us to cut through dogma and see what’s right in front of us. It’s over far too soon.
The EP is over far too soon, really. It’s just ten minutes, but it’s a glorious ten minutes. Mr. Gallo, I look forward to what you have in store for us.
Keep your mind open.
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Riot Fest Chicagohas released its full daily lineup schedule for 2016. Great additions include the Flaming Lips and Sleater-Kinney. Both of them are worth the price of admission. Don’t miss your chance to see them or Julian Marley performing Exodus and all the other great bands there.
Recorded at Chicago’s Hideout January 30-31, 2014, Live at the Hideout is essential for any fan of Screaming Females, rock, or quality live recordings. Steve Albini did a great job capturing the fury and power of a live Screaming Females show, and the band (“King” Mike Abbate – bass, Jarrett Dougherty – drums, Marissa Paternoster – guitar and vocals) played not only for the lucky Hideout crowd, but also apparently for everyone on the international space station to hear.
“Leave It All Up to Me” gets the album off to a fine start, showcasing Paternoster’s now-trademark shredding. “Foul Mouth” temporarily downshifts the show, with Abbate’s bass groove planting deep roots before he and his band mates take off like a nitro-burning funny car from the starting line. The band takes that nitro and uses it to almost burn the Hideout stage to the ground on “Buried in the Nude” – which is a blistering punk rock screamfest.
“Extinction” keeps the punk pumping, with Paternoster’s vocals evoking Poly Styrene. “A New Kid” has one of her best solos on the record. It moves back and forth between metal, psychedelia, grunge, and even a bit of shoegaze. “Lights Out” is one of the best metal tunes you’ve heard in a long while, and Paternoster’s solo might make you hang up your guitar.
“Sheep,” a gut punch of a song about a cheating lover, hits even harder live. “It All Means Nothing” is one of their biggest hits, and one of their best live tracks. Paternoster sizzles throughout it and Dougherty’s pulsing beat is a great foundation. His wicked beats continue on “Starve the Beat,” which has some of Paternoster’s most masterful guitar work and Dougherty and Abbate’s best clicking rhythms.
“Little Anne” is a strangely hypnotic short song that’s almost an introduction to “Pretty Okay,” which brings out Buzzcocks-like frenetic energy from the whole band. “Baby Jesus” reminds me of a spinning dynamo. It’s fiery energy that seems barely contained and could overwhelm you at any moment. Paternoster’s solo rises into psychedelic realms halfway through it and then tears into something you’d hear in a crazy anime film about starship pilots fighting Cthulu on the edge of a black hole.
The album ends with “Boyfriend,” in which the band not only topples over the edge from metal into punk rock madness, but also pulls the whole Hideout audience and anyone listening to this record with them. Paternoster screams to the rafters, Dougherty thumps on his kit harder than Chuck Norris beating up thugs in Good Guys WearBlack, and Abbate pounds on his bass with a drumstick at one point. I don’t know what will convince you that this band is a force of nature if this song doesn’t.
It’s a great live record, not only for the song selection but also for catching the power of a Screaming Females performance. If you can’t see them live, at least pick up this record. It will only make you want to see them live more or see them live again again, but that’s a good thing.
I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of good shows this year, and the year is only halfway finished. I already have two more shows planned for the next couple months (John Carpenter and L7), and might be able to wrangle up a couple more before summer’s end.
Clutch’s (Neil Fallon – Guitar and vocals, Jean-Paul Gaster – drums, Dan Maines – bass, Tim Sult – guitar) 2005 album Robot Hive / Exodus was the rock record you needed in 2005, and is still the rock record you need right now.
“The Incomparable Mr. Flannery” is pretty much a salute to their metalhead fans, as Fallon gives shout-outs to Dokken, Boston, Kansas, REO Speedwagon, and George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers.
“Burning Beard” was the big single for the album. It’s about a man losing his mind as CNN, “the power of the Holy Ghost,” and the “same three dogs looking back” at him conspire to drive him nuts (although he was probably already there). Sult shreds particularly hard on this track, giving us some of his wildest guitar work on any Clutch record.
“Gullah” seems to be about a man coming to terms with his impending doom. “Ain’t no doubt Jesus sees us acting foolishly on American Bandstand,” Fallon sings. “Ain’t no doubt Vishnu missed you, then Kali kissed you. Better get busy. Days get shorter, air get colder…” Heavy stuff with slightly reverbed space-rock guitar and a wicked beat.
The robot hive mentioned in the album’s title is entered in “Mice and Gods.” It mentions “silver women on the OMNI magazine” and calls to “engineer the future now. Damn tomorrow, future now!” The guitar work on runs between the border of stoner rock and prog rock, which is to say it’s quite good.
“Pulaski Skyway” seems particularly relevant in 2016 as it mentions “real estate moguls, Chump Towers.” Maines and Gaster team up for a killer groove on it, as Fallon pleads that we must find salvation in trying times or lose our minds to the robot hive building up around us. “Never Be Moved” is, by its title alone, another exploration of religion. “Woe be the architect in his slumber, for the Watcher never sleeps,” Fallon sings, and almost raps the second verse. The use of organ (by guest Mick Schauer) in the song is also a nice touch, giving it a southern Baptist church call-and-response feel.
“10001110101” reminds us that we are in a robot hive, but we can have an exodus from it if we choose. “The shackles of automata will shatter like their bones,” Fallon sings, and who else but Clutch could pull off a song with a title and chorus in binary? “Circus Maximus” once again reveals the band’s love of monsters and oddities, mentioning manticores, Cthulu, dopplegangers, and even a “seven-legged sow.”
“10,000 Witnesses” is another call to escape the drudgery of the robotic world we’ve created by looking inward and outward for the spiritual. “Land of the Pleasant Living” has clever lyrics about Russian cosmonauts wondering what life is like below them in the U.S.
“Gravel Road” is floor-stomping, sweaty, honkytonk country blues…if that honkytonk was lit on fire by a dropped match and spilled bourbon. I love it when Clutch embraces their love of blues and rockabilly, and the whole band cooks on this track. “Who’s Been Talking?” is another salute to their blues influences, in particular Howlin’ Wolf, and they do him justice.
To make this album even better, they included a DVD of them performing most of the songs from Robot Hive / Exodus in Sayreville, New Jersey on July 13, 2005. You can’t miss.
Not ones to rest on their laurels during their triumphant return, LCD Soundsystem have created the Beach Vibesmusic festival in Riviera Maya, Mexico. Tickets go on sale to the general public July 11th, but you can get early sales on July 8th if you register for their mailing list. A word of caution for your wallet: The only way to attend is to buy a three-day package at one of the host resorts, and packages for even one person cost upward of three grand. You can put 30% down on a package and then pay it off over five months to make it a little easier.
Some of the resorts are all-inclusive, however, so that helps a bit. Airfare is not included in your price, but cheap airfare to Mexico from the U.S. isn’t hard to find.
LCD Soundsystem have announced they will headline two nights of the festival, and the lineup is already good. Hot Chip, Holy Ghost!, Juan MacLean, and Shit Robot are personal favorites, and more are to be announced.
Start planning now. This would be a great winter getaway.
Keep your mind open.
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