Another one for the “things I would attend if there were not an ocean in the way” file:
The line-up draws from a variety of -rock genres, including psychadelia, stoner, shoegaze, doom, prog, and garage. Some highlights of the bill, in alphabetical order:
The “Freaking Pile o’ Links” edition (this is what happens when I don’t do one of these for a couple of weeks).
THU 3/10 – ATLANTA, GA – Masquerade*
FRI 3/11 – DURHAM, NC – Motorco Music Hall*
SUN 3/13 – DENTON, TX – 35 Conferette Festival*^
TUE 3/15 – SAN ANTONIO, TX – Korova*
WED 3/16 – AUSTIN, TX – SXSW
THU 3/17 – AUSTIN, TX – SXSW
FRI 3/18 – AUSTIN, TX – SXSW
SAT 3/19 – AUSTIN, TX – SXSW
SUN 3/20 – HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, AR – Valley of the Vapors
MON 3/21 – HOT SPRINGS NATIONAL PARK, AR – Valley of the Vapors (pedal workshop)
TUE 3/22 – OXFORD, MS – Proud Larrys*
WED 3/23 – GREENVILLE, SC – The Handlebar*
THU 3/24 – BALTIMORE, MD – Ottobar*
*with Hooray for Earth
^with Dan Deacon, !!!, How to Dress Well & Local Natives
Speaking of APTBS, they’ve treated us to a tale of hopscotch gone awry with the video for their remix of Holy Fuck’s “Red Lights”, directed by Thomas Smith as a gift to APTBS.
Holy Fuck – Red Lights (A Place to Bury Strangers Remix) from Spool on Vimeo.
10/1 – Durham, NC – Duke Coffeehouse
10/2 – Richmond, VA – Strange Matter with Ceremony & Soundpool (Killer Pimp Night)
10/3 – New York, NY – Le Poisson Rouge with Chapterhouse, Soundpool & Ulrich Schnauss
10/15 – Minneapolis, MN – Whole Music Club at University of Minnesota
10/26 – Brooklyn, NY – Death By Audio with Japandroids
10/30 – West Palm Beach, FL – Respectable Street
11/3 – New York, NY – Billboard Showcase at Gramercy
11/11 – Monterrey, Mexico – Escenica
11/13 – Mexico City, Mexico – Festival Sonorama
Leave your pansy earplugs at home.
1. Scissor
2. Proud Evolution
3. The Overachievers
4. Clear Island
5. A Visit from Drum
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79D1ifOhGb4?fs=1]
Jennifer adds:
Ah, Grog Shop, someday I’ll learn not to be fooled by your posted show times. Someday, I will learn that in Grogspeak, 8 p.m. means “sometime after 10”. But enough of my kvetching. How about some fucking rock ‘n’ roll?
HotChaCha
HotChaCha are like an answer to my prayers – or, at least, a solution to the complaint I’ve made in this blog before about all the twee girly girls in music today. Singer Jovana Batkovic is probably more manly than most of the other men who hit the stage Monday night. Taller, too. Her long-legged presence, mic-phallic gyrations, forays into the audience and rolling around on the stage bring an undeniably entertaining aspect to HotChaCha’s live show, but it’s not covering up or compensating for anything else. Her energy feeds off of and perfectly complements the punk-spirited rock churned out by this four-piece. At once at ease and energetic, HotChaCha’s vigorous show is a credit to Cleveland, to women in rock and to the spirit of rock in general.
Freedom
To be honest, I think I didn’t quite get Freedom. After hauling out enough drums, guitars, pedals and padded Kustom amps to make the Grog Shop stage look like a music showroom, it felt like Freedom never quite capitalized on all that gear. In the end, it felt like a lot of noise that never coalesced into anything other than noise.
A Place to Bury Strangers
They will tell you A Place to Bury Strangers is a loud band. They will tell you to wear earplugs. They are not to be trusted. Yes, APtBS are loud. Gloriously loud. But fuck the earplugs. APtBS should be experienced without barrier.
From the surf-rock opening of “Deadbeat” to the free-for-all ending of “Ocean”, an A Place to Bury Strangers show is about being ensconced in sound – not experiencing it from a safe distance, with you here in the audience and the music there on stage. It is about the sound waves rattling against your bones. It is about feeling your brain swim in your head. It’s about the rainbow tracers left in your peripheral vision by what may just be the APtBS light/media show but may also be the music taking control of your cortex. It’s about sounds so intense and unexpected that your heart races and your breath catches. It’s about leaving the mundane world and entering sound.
“Fucked up†is a phrase Oliver Ackermann likes to use to describe music, especially the music made by his band A Place to Bury Strangers. “Loud†is a word that critics like to use for APtBS’ music. This could drive some listeners away, but as any connoisseur of the seedier side of life can tell you, the loud and fucked up can also be beautiful.
A Place to Bury Strangers pull from a range of influence that includes, most obviously bands from the gothier end of the spectrum, like the Jesus and Mary Chain, Bauhaus and even Sisters of Mercy. But influences like the Ramones, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and ‘60s rock and pop also surface. And surfacing is an appropriate word for many aspects of APtBS’ sound as Ackermann and bandmates create an ocean of sound, often augmented via pedals created by Ackermann’s own guitar effects company Deathy by Audio, wherein bass lines and guitar riffs can seem to surface like jagged rocks on the coast.
A Place to Bury Strangers will be returning to the Grog Shop on September 27 (Freedom and rad Cleveland quartet HotChaCha will be opening), and I am looking forward to be awash in sound, happy for the throbbing in my head that will drive the rest of the world away for a while. For a taste of what you can expect from the Brooklyn-based trio, checkout this live in-studio version of the gorgeous “Ocean†that APtBS created for KEXP.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egGglMAPpVA?fs=1]
A Place to Bury Strangers Official Website
The Grog Shop
Death by Audio
They Shoot Music Don’t They talked Oliver Ackermann of A Place to Bury Strangers, tagged “the loudest band in New York”, into going acoustic for an evening stroll in Yppenplatz, Vienna. Sweet results.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG-VGMT0R8Q?fs=1]
