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^^ The Black Keys ^^
The folks behind the annual Southern Comfort Music Experience, to be held in the Ace Parking Lot at the corner of Imperial and Park this Saturday, have finally seen fit to declassify its set times. A five dollar “donation” grants you access to the event and its eleven musical acts.
2008, Single Screen Records
The debut record from power-pop band The Powerchords has been a long time coming.
The band released their demo back in 2005, a seven song EP of finely crafted songs that immediately brought them to the forefront of San Diego’s music scene. But despite a rabid following and a reputation for excellent, charming live performances, the subsequent years saw only one Powerchords release—the Unattached Strings/Dream Girl 7-inch. Now, at long last, we have …Think I’m Gonna, a proper fourteen song collection of propellant punk and pop that will satisfy old fans and recruit new ones.
As a token of our undying love* and appreciation, we scholarly gentlemen at Owl&Bear are offering free passes to an advanced screening of Focus Features’ Hamlet 2 at the AMC La Jolla at 7:00 PM on Thursday, August 21st.
Continue reading ‘San Diegans: See Hamlet 2! For Free! On Us! (AMC La Jolla)’
Kristen Gundred of Grand Ole Party fame has started her own record label, to be known as Zoo Music. Gundred has signed one band so far, San Diego’s own Crocodiles, with the band’s Neon Jesus/Neon Autobahn 7-inch set to be the label’s maiden release.
If you’re wondering what the label’s second release is going to be, well it just might be by your band. Gundred is inviting musicians to send their “crap” to her for consideration, so polish off those demos and rush on down to the post office. Submissions can be sent to the following address:
Continue reading ‘Grand Ole Party’s Gundred Starts Record Label’
^^ The Muslims ^^
THURSDAY:
It’s the first Thursday of the month, which means it’s time for TNT, the downtown Museum of Contemporary Art’s bi-fortnightly event that features everything from DJ lessons to poetry readings to artists talking about why they do all those artistic things that they do. This month’s TNT is called Optimal Illusion and it’s got photographic and video works from actual lady artists. Kelly and Maren from Wild Weekend will also be on hand to spin some 60’s girl group and 70’s girl punk. Guys, here’s your chance to impress the fairer sex by appearing to be sensitive and cultured, as well as to practice pronouncing the word weltanschauung.
Continue reading ‘Weekend Concert Lineup: August 7th - 10th’
^^ Bunky ^^
North By North Park is a strange and maddening beast. Boasting over a hundred musical acts spread across fourteen different venues in just over five hours, it is a bold attempt to showcase local music, but it sags and ultimately collapses under the weight of its own bloated excess.
As the event’s name implies, most of the bars and cafes that take part in the festivities are in North Park, though venues in other neighborhoods like South Park, Normal Heights, and Kensington are also included. To help concertgoers move between venues without tempting the DUI gods, shuttle service is included in the price of admission, but exactly where or how often these shuttles can be expected to show up is apparently closely guarded information.
Continue reading ‘Review: North By North Park; Lanterns, The Glossines, & Bunky; August 2, 2008′
^^ Jason Reeves ^^
THURSDAY:
For those of you who like your punk fast and dirty like grandma used to make, Jay Reatard is playing at the Casbah tonight. Helping blow the roof off the place will be fellow punkers Cheap Time, as well as San Diego’s very own The Sess, who are part of Single Screen Records’ batting-a-thousand roster of awesome local bands.
Those cut from a more sensitive cloth can go check out Jason Reeves at Soma tonight, who will happily help you relive the painful memory of every girl who, for one reason or another, just didn’t feel like dating you anymore. Jon McLauglin will be opening.
Continue reading ‘Weekend Concert Lineup: July 31st - August 2nd’
It was Sunday night at Canes and indie rock heroes Wolf Parade were about to perform, yet the crowd didn’t seem excited at all. The stripped down guitar and tribal trashcan percussion of opening duo Listening Party had been received with polite but moderate enthusiasm by an audience where those wearing backwards hats and polo shirts vastly outnumbered the people with the tight jeans and flat-ironed hair. As the crowd quietly milled about the venue between sets, it seemed as though Wolf Parade could expect a similarly tepid reaction. But when the Montreal quintet finally took the stage and the first notes rang out from the amps, they were met with a fanatical and frenzied reception that was anything but lukewarm.
Beginning their set with “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son” and “Soldier’s Grin”, the opening tracks off 2005’s Apologies To The Queen Mary and 2008’s At Mount Zoomer, respectively, Wolf Parade were a well-oiled machine, nimbly maneuvering their songs’ wild mood swings and ever-changing time signatures without missing a beat.
Continue reading ‘Review: Wolf Parade; July 20, 2008 at Canes; San Diego’
Saturday’s “Hipsters Revisited” at Bar Pink Elephant was a ‘60s themed event that promised music of the garage, psychedelic, and freakbeat varieties, all while making assurances that there would be “no weird shit or flutes”. They made good on these promises with some trippy mood-lighting and an assortment of DJs spinning appropriately obscure tracks from the period, but the real draw was a live performance by local retro-rock band The Loons.
Long blond hair hanging in his face, Loons lead singer Mike Stax commanded the stage with all the raw power of an anachronistic Iggy Pop as the band blazed through a set that recalled garage acts Love, The Sonics, and The Thirteenth Floor Elevators. After grabbing everyone’s attention with “Red Dissolving Rays”, Stax joked that, in honor of Gay Pride week, he was dedicating the song “My Time” to Texas, “the gayest state of all”.
Continue reading ‘Review: The Loons; July 19, 2008 at Bar Pink; San Diego’
2008, Columbia Records
The trumpets heralding the release of Black Kids’ debut began blowing a year ago, when the Jacksonville band made their demo EP, Wizard Of Ahhhs, available for free download.
The EP was a rollicking good time - the perfect soundtrack to every out-of-hand house party or ill-advised hookup you’re looking forward to regretting - and they instantly became one of indie rock’s greatest Internet success stories, but it remained to be seen whether Black Kids could maintain their danceable intensity for more than four songs at a time. How well the band’s scrappy energy would be conveyed in a professional recording was also unknown, so it is under no shortage of pressure that Partie Traumatic arrives, the rare case of a debut album trying to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.
2008, Red Ink
Apparently left restless by the extended vacation taken by his regular band, Strokes rhythm guitarist Albert Hammond decided to go solo. His debut, last year’s Yours To Keep, was a refreshing and superb collection of breezy, perfect pop, free of all the self-consciousness that had plagued the Strokes’ last two albums.
Hammond has never seemed bothered that the spotlight is usually fixed on bandmate Julian Casablancas, and his decision to become a solo artist has never felt like an attention-grab. The songs on Yours To Keep were casual and unpretentious, as if written by accident: the Strokes re-imagined as West Coast beach bums instead of East Coast bohemians. Little more than a year has passed since that record was released, but Hammond is already back with ¿Cómo Te Llama?, an album that attempts to perform the balancing act of increasing the depth of emotion without losing the laid-back vibe.
One of the things one does not expect to hear when putting on a Dead Heart Bloom album is Built To Spill. Yet this is exactly what happens in the opening moments of Fall In, the new EP that finds the band throwing everything they can at the wall and seeing what sticks.
This shotgun-approach to style is almost always a recipe for disaster (I’m looking at you, My Morning Jacket), and it’s all the more egregious when the band in question has already settled into a winning formula. Dead Heart Bloom’s previous release, Chelsea Diaries [All of their albums are available for free on their site —Ed], was an intimate, string-heavy collection of acoustic songs that showcased Boris Skalsky’s beautiful vocals, all while tugging gently at the heartstrings.
2008, Singleton Records
For a band whose live performances are marked by their theatricality and infectious intensity, The Silent Comedy’s recordings can be surprisingly intimate affairs. Their debut full-length, Sunset Stables, emphasized narrative and restraint over whiskey-drinking and foot-stomping, and now, on their self-titled EP, they pick up where that record left off.
From the opening moments of maudlin country ballad “Daisy”, The Silent Comedy draws you into a rich world of broken bottles and shattered hearts. The song nimbly swells, retreats, and swells again, a ribcage barely containing the heart within. J. John’s vocals intertwine in a tender duet with I. Forbes’ gorgeous violin, and when he begs, “Break me, Daisy”, it’s hard to believe that she hasn’t done so already.
