Local Commotion: (Alternative)

Showing posts with label (Alternative). Show all posts

APRIL 12. Redscroll Records Opens. Mark it on Your Calendars.

Redscroll will be to Wallyworld what Metropolis is to the Northwaste Corner -- which is to say, the hub. The center. The everything.

CD CONTEST!

That's right -- it's going down!

The wonderful folks at The Space have recently put out an AMAZING CD compilation featuring 20 (!!!) local bands who have crushed their stage. Among the many bands features are Local Motion favorites Call it Arson, Welcome, Shadowgraphs (ex-Eschellon), and Mile Marker Zero. The great thing about the comp is that it has so many different genres of music, you're bound to discover a band you like (even if you haven't heard of them before).

HERE'S THE DEAL. I have THREE copies of this disc to giveaway. To enter, all you have to do is post a comment on this blog entry (see link below) telling us about the best concert you ever saw at The Space. Haven't seen a show at The Space? That's fine -- tell us who you'd like to see play there and why. (And yes, I'll know if you're promoting your own band, so don't bother.) The best entries get the goods!

A quick note: you don't have to sign up to Blogger to post comments (there's an "Anonymous" option), but if you go that route, please sign with your e-mail address so I have a way to contact you if you're a winner.

Hehe, "if you're a winner."

GOOD LUCK!

More Glam Than You Can Shake A Golden Guitar At

PHOTOSHOOT WITH KITTY KITTY BANG BANG!

Holy Shit, Sugarfist!

HUGE and bittersweet news from the Sugarfist camp. Jenn Jacobs has parted ways with the 'Fist! She's been around since the beginning, and to many of us her awesome voice has come to represent the band just as much as the goofy stage antics and the jambalaya clusterfuck songwriting. Meanwhile, they've already found a replacement!

Here's the announcement from the band:

"We would like to take this opportunity to extend a gracious and sad farewell to one of Sugarfist's own- Jenn Jacobs. Beginning in 1999 and one of our founding and core members, Jenn has decided to depart from the band. She has been a part of the Sugarfist family for many many years and we all wish her the very best in her future creative endeavors to come. Her last performance with us can be seen at a free show this Saturday September 9th at The Haddam River Days Festival in Haddam, CT.

We would like to give a new toasty welcome to the always entertaining and extravagant...Krizta Moon!!!! Joining the band now on vocals!!! Krizta will perform our last song of the evening on Saturday night and can be seen with us thereafter at the following locations of mass media cronyism..

FRIDAY October 6th The Beanery Old Dam Road Fairfield, CT ALL AGES
SATURDAY October 21st The Colony Woodstock, NY"

Cute. Ridiculous. Awesome.

Have you seen the video for Welcome's new song "Dead Weight"?

Pencilgrass is Breaking Up, Too?

AAAGH! SUMMER OF TOTAL ULTIMATE SADNESS! KITE-EATING TREE OF ROCK AND ROLL!

At least the Deftones haven't successfully murdered each other yet.

As per that indubitible bastion of news, the MySpace Bulletin Board (TM):

we are not quitting music.
but pencilgrass is exiting your reality forever.
the members will forever make music in one form or another .
with one instrument or another.
with one band or another.

but for now yall.

we are going into a cocoon.
so that we can become beautiful butterflies.
do you understand?

DB Attempted Translation from rock-star-ese into English:

We hate each other.
Actually, some of us like each other, but the loud band members and dudes who would be hard to replace (like the drummer) hate each other.
We're not making enough money.
You haven't been coming to our shows.
You ate all our bean dip.
My heart will live on.

The Realm's Swan Song May Just Be The Band Slam!

Those who know me well by now know that I don't toot a horn not worth tooting.

Well, The Realm is an amazing band -- four dudes who are skilled musicians and sweet guys. And after 10+ years, they're finally calling it quits -- and the last show will be the Band Slam. (If they play it.)

Check out their e-mail below for an explanation -- and follow up. Let's hope it goes through and everything works out. If it does, it's gonna be one set you're not gonna wanna miss this Thursday!

We're honored once again the accept the award for Best Fusion from the Hartford Advocate for Grand Band Slam 2006. Thanks to everyone who nominated us and voted for us to help make this happen. Grand Band Slam occurs in downtown Hartford this coming Thursday, August 3, 2006. Details at www.HartfordAdvocate.com

Regretfully however Band Slam 06 will be the last performance of The Realm. Lots of reasons for this but in short - after doing this for more than a decade - we've decided that the winds in front of us are stronger than the winds behind us and it's time for us to move on to other things. Our website will remain up indefinately at www.TheRealm101.com and in the time to come will be further populated and chok full of photos, goodies, and as much music as we can possibly cram into it.

As far as our last performance at Band Slam goes, there is still some question as to whether or not it will occur. We are having some difficulty with the powers that be over whether or not we will be able to perform using our own equipment - or whether we would be forced to use common drums and amps in order to save time and space. We are definately against using anything other than our own drums, guitar and bass amps for obvious reasons. No band can perform at their best without being able to use their own equipment; equpiment that they have spent thousands on, are comfortable with and have spent years tweaking and dialing to their own unique needs.

We've been trying all last week to work out the issue with those powers that be and it's looking like things will probably be OK. We're hoping to have the chance to go out with blazing progressive music rather than with a whimper and a sigh. However unless we can get assurances that we will be able to use our own gear at Band Slam, we will be forced to regretfully decline to perform at the show. More on this situation can be found on the Inner Circle section of our website.

As it stands now, we should be able to perform, and will do so at Black Eye Sally's on Thursday August 3rd. Our set time is still in question but we will likely either be the first band at roughly 9pm or the last band at roughly midnight. Either way we will keep you posted by email and likely the next issue of The Advocate will have an updated schedule. Our website at www.TheRealm101.com will also be updated with the latest information as it comes out.

We're certainly hoping for a chance to kick this mother one last time before we all go home. If the show happens, it's sure to be one not to miss. Stay tuned.

regards,

yer friends at The Realm

New Mima Track!

This shit is the sex! The girl can do no wrong.

http://www.myspace.com/mimamusica

Sparrows Swarm and Sing: Upcoming Album, Ambitious Tour!

CT/MA post-rockers Sparrows Swarm and Sing (who I reviewed, um, ages ago in this article) are in the midst of a gigantic national tour right now. They're gearing up for the release of their first LP on Magic Bullet Records, titled 'O Shenandoah Mighty Death Will Find Me.

You want MP3 clips? Peep clips.

Across Canyons/Canons Part iii (CLIP)
Warm Blood Within (CLIP)

I am a sucker for quality album packaging and art. I think it's something that gets overlooked too often. These days, when everyone (including me) is downloading almost everything, there's such a high premium on being able to enjoy music with your hands and eyes as well. And I can honestly say that the Sparrows releases I own (which include two radically different copies of their first untitled CD and a 12" record of their second untitled release) are some of the most beautiful, thoughtful, and fun recordings I've ever come across.

That said: check out this fucking AMAZING album art, which is by their drummer, no less. (Click for detail.)

The final kicker? Pre-order copies supposedly come in a handmade buckskin pouch! Very not vegan; very damn cool!

Farewood -- Alive and Kickin'!

Just got some great news in from Leah of Farewood, one of CT's best on-again-off-again alternative rock bands. (Adam G of Hatestick once described them as Dinosaur Jr. something something Bjork something lots of drugs. Fuck. I wish I could remember his exact quote.)

Anyway. Check this shit out.

----

Farewood, the indie-rock/soul band out of Meriden CT, will be hosting a show at Cherry Street Station in Wallingford on Friday, July 14th. The band has just completed a video which they will premiere that night. The video was filmed in Meriden and is a bit of a tribute to the city's local spots and it's people, both of which have shaped the band's sound and influenced their music. Parts of Meriden, including the abandoned and semi-desolate cityscapes and it's colorful cast of local characters, have prompted songs about despair and the idea that hope can lie in what may seem like a dismal scene. The video, "King John" which is based on a Meriden local, pays homage to the band's hometown and so will their third album "Figures In Shadows" which will be released in the Fall.

Join Farewood and other locals, including Chrispy, Ben N, the Carlos Projeckt and Florida Equals Death at Cherry Street Station in Wallingford on Friday 07/14/06. Doors open at 8:30pm. Admission is $5.

Quark news

Local indie psych-rockers Quark have been laying low for a while -- partially because bassist Pat Lamothe has had his hands full with his other band, Kiss Kiss. John Cipriano (keys) wrote in with an update:

"We're in the studio right nowrecording a demo/ep of sorts, and it's coming along pretty nicely. We'll probablybe done with it by the 20th. It's pretty exciting... I moved my rhodes and my piano down to Shelton (Dan Franko's doing it, if you know him, I hope I spelled his name right). Plus we've got some friends of ours to play violin, cello, and trumpet.

"I was very sad to hear that Jackie McLean passed, especially since I went to the Hartt School for a while. It was nice that you mentioned him. I was also a big Silent Groove fan... all things must pass, I suppose. I sort of wish I'd stayed on in Hartford, the variety of music is pretty amazing (although I don't need to tell *you* that)."

I'm really looking forward to the e.p. -- check out their website for updates. If you're new to Quark, you can check out their tunes on their website, too.

The Team is Back in Play

Queercore fans, rejoice -- our leaders, Team Dresch, have reunited and are touring intermittently. They just finished a brief stint in Washington and NYC, but be on the lookout for more dates in the future.

What the fuck is queercore, you ask?

Well, my fellow fans of punk and hardcore: if you've never heard of Team Dresch, you're not just missing out on one of the first bands to herald the mid-90's hardcore/punk blend that Propagandhi and Glassjaw would go on to popularize. You're also missing out on the band that single-handedly made "queercore" a national underground movement. While Bikini Kill spearheaded the riot grrrl movement (and have no doubt that the two movements had MUCHO in common), Team Dresch was opening doors for queer kids who wanted to rock all across the nation.

These dykes make Pansy Division look like the shit band they really are.

New Smashing Pumpkins On The Way?

I'm back from the convention, and more deranged than ever!

Peep: http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/

New SP, huh? I have mixed feelings; Billy is clearly flailing about without other musicians to indulge his increasingly shitty compositions. First Zwan nosedived -- to be honest, I never even understood what people liked about them -- and then didn't he release some atrocious solo album? And meanwhile Jimmy Chamberlin, all cleaned up and totally high on life, released this AMAZING solo jazz-rock album just filled with crackling, explosive drumming. And James went on to work with A Perfect Circle, which somehow seems so appropriate for him (I would still love to see more of his dark side). And D'arcy was supposed to be just chilling on her farm with her weirdo P-USA husband. So when I hear they're together again after the hot-and-cold crapshoot that was Machina (and the wonderfully rebellious but low-quality Machina II) I get scared: namely because their old material has such intense personal relevance to me, and every crappy song they write since then is just, like, a puppykick.

But you know what? I like the nervous tension of not knowing what's going to happen. It's one of my favorite feelings, whether I get it from flirting, watching movies, or following bands.

Undead Review: Annie

I'm gonna be away for a much-needed break this weekend (yes, this music reviewer is secretly an anime nerd). Which means that instead of the usual live reviews, on the 31st you can look forward to a CD review column including new releases by Deb Hornblow, End-Time Illusion, Omega Vague, and others. In the meantime, here's my last living-dead CD review (i.e. one that fell on the cutting room floor somewhere along the way!). Hope you enjoy it -- have a good weekend.

Annie
Anniemal
Big Beat/Atlantic, 2005
http://www.anniemusic.co.uk/

What, Lassie? Pop’s been kidnapped?

Let’s be straightforward: Annie’s not going to save it, but she occasionally succeeds at transforming it into something enjoyable once again. Her debut, Anniemal, makes blissfully few concessions to the media, and the hype surrounding her release is largely grassroots. For starters, unlike Kylie (to whose voice Annie’s bears more than a passing resemblance), Annie puts on no airs about being one of the “beautiful people.” There’s no glitz or self-absorption; her persona on Anniemal seems the type you could meet in a bar or a class. And while her lyrics are hardly deep, they’re not vacuous, either. They actually tell stories rather than seduce that same old faceless, hypersexualized “you.” Like The Cardigans and Vanessa Carlton, there’s some substance mixed in with all the sweet.

Song-wise, Anniemal is hit-and-miss. The single “My Heartbeat” is catchy, understated retro, and “No Easy Love” rides an infectious bumpty-bump groove. Then again, “Come Together” takes seven minutes to go all of nowhere, and if the premise of a pop song called “Chewing Gum” doesn’t piss you off right from the title, the chew-boys-up-and-spit-‘em-out lyrics will. Please, ignore the reviewers who would make such songs into witty feminist reversals of male sexual privilege. They’re not. Anniemal is not dissertation material. Unlike M.I.A., whose (more danceable) 2005 release Arular also snuck its way into the hipster cachet, Annie is expressly apolitical. She wants to party, have sex, and sell records, and these themes carry the album.

Dance music is working its way back into the subcultures that expelled it as corporate tripe. Hey, if you’re too skinny to mosh, and too uncomfortable standing with your arms crossed for twenty-minute Explosions in the Sky songs, you gotta move to something, right? And between 2005’s surge in dance-punk and the cash cow known as The Postal Service, radical, indie-minded people are finally starting to feel less guilty about shaking their brilliant asses. Annie won’t herd pop skeptics off to the dance floor—but she might just inspire them to sing her songs into a broomhandle while sweeping. And that’s a step toward getting those “guilty pleasure” types to believe that there’s good pop out there—which there is, in spite of mass media messages to the contrary.

Undead Review: Stamen & Pistils

Stamen & Pistils
End of the Sweet Parade
Echelon Productions
www.echelonproductions.com

Perhaps the biggest surprise on the soundtrack for 2004’s Garden State was Iron and Wine’s cover of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights.” Well, let’s be specific: the surprise wasn’t the covering so much as the fact that The Postal Service’s techno-ey glitchpop translated wonderfully into a whispery acoustic arrangement. If the two acts were to jam together, they might sound like Stamen & Pistils. The D.C.-area group melds acoustic guitars and hushed voices with foamy, purring computers. The vocals and lyrics are introverted, while the electronic noise is talkative, at times deafening.

Occasionally The Sweet Parade’s concept exceeds its execution: the singing is gawky and untrained, and S&P prioritize fiddling with ambient textures over articulate songwriting. But on the whole, Stamen & Pistils break such imaginative ground that one is left counting possibilities rather than annoyances. By casting their electronics as warm and charming narrators, these musicians’ voices and instruments become cold, uncompromising antagonists. It’s the complete opposite of the typical folk-pop arrangement—which may not drive you back for repeat listens, but it’s certainly reason enough to watch what happens next.

New Pencilgrass Tune!

Shake your ass on over to http://www.myspace.com/pencilgrassmusic

New tunes from Apse

This comes via Apse on MySpace:

We have posted two tracks, entitled Demos - Parts 1 and 2.

They consist of various, spliced-together working/referential recordings the band had originally made for itself, from October 2005 to March, 2006. They include demos that were written and recorded apart from the band - working versions of songs at practices, as well as bits of different live performances. All of the material has been created in preparation for our forthcoming album Spirit - to be released this summer on Spanish label Acuarela Discos. A European tour is to follow in the fall.

Not all of the music presented here, will necessarily appear on Spirit. However, many of the sections are in fact, early/demo/live versions of songs that will indeed appear on the album. We are well into making it - and as always, recording and fully producing it ourselves.

Again, nothing posted here is in its final form - there are no cuts from the album. In 1-2 months, we will be replacing these demos with a pair of tracks that appear on the final release.

Look for Spirit, available in stores, through the internet, and on Itunes this summer.

http://www.myspace.com/apse

This may be the most twisted piece of news I've ever announced.

Ok. So you take these two bands. First we've got Welcome. They're like the wonderful people you see on the street every day and you wave to them and chat about small but somewhat meaningful things... AND THEN THEY GO HOME AND UNLEASH THE ROCK MONSTER WITHIN THROUGH A STRANGE MIX OF SYNTHESIZERS AND LIKE 10,000 BONE RATTLING DRUMS. But as soon as they get off stage they're normal again. And they kind of make you want to go, "um, wait a second... weren't you just..." But you know that if you did, you'd totally be the weird one.

And then you take the Smooth Hands. They're what happens when you give computer nerds musical instruments and go, "ok, I want you to talk about your sex life into this microphone." Except the microphone is secretly going to the Pentagon, who are recording everything because they think the Smooth Hands are terrorists. But the more they talk, the more the Pentagon realizes they're not terrorists -- but that they are total fucking lunatics. So they take the sound bites of the Smooth Hands' musical sexual confessions, and start e-mailing them to each other as inter-office jokes.

Ok. So you've got these two bands. What happens if they jam together? Obviously it's got to be the MOST FUCKING DEMENTED AWESOME THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED IN CONNECTICUT.

So, now you totally have to click here.

www.myspace.com/taterno

Porto is kicking ass and taking names at Emergenza!

They've already destroyed two rounds of brutal, limb-mangling competition; now it's time for round three!

Quoth the Porto:

Only ONE of 8 bands moves onto the Regional Finals at Webster Hall! Help us kick some ass!

Knitting Factory 74 Leonard St, NYC / May 6th / 8pm / $12 / All Ages

Getcha tix at:

http://www.portomusic.com/tix_buy.html

Tuesday Nights, Transformed (New Hartford Open Mics)

Tuesdays.

Suckiest night of the week.

For real! You can't gripe about it being Monday, but the better part of the week is still ahead of you. And if you go out on a Tuesday, you automatically feel like an alcoholic party animal with no sense of duty to society.

Which you basically are anyway, you scumbag. So seeing as there's really no hope for your moral growth and development, why not go out?

If you feel like hip hop,
Filthy Kleen is starting a new open mic at MiBar (1995 Park St.) that will carry on the legacy of their old Tuesday night hip hop open mic at Sully's.

If you feel like rocking out,
Andre Balazs (ringleader of the band of vagrants known as Bipolar Jukebox) is starting a new open mic at Sweet Jane's (88 Pratt St.). He says the audio there is sweeeet. They also plan on incorporating a "featured artist" spot into the set.

With hosts that good, you better believe both of these spots are going to blow up. You read it here first.

Local Commotion