This video for Baby Likes to Rock It by The Tractors was directed by Michael Salomon and was the CMA Video of the Year in 1995. Not that I knew that at the time, because I didn’t often watch CMT; nearly 100% of my interactions with the world of country music happened via my car stereo.
This song was part of the soundtrack of many a hot afternoon spent navigating traffic jams and never, ever failed to lift my spirits.
If someone had played this song for me and told me it was a lost Johnny Cash track, I would totally have believed it. It’s not, though, it’s RT N’ the 44s. They’re from Los Angeles, California, and they play some sweet country blues. They have three records out, all of which you can listen to at (and more importantly, buy from) their bandcamp.
Plus they are playing a bunch of shows in Los Angeles this month. If you’re already there or passing through, check their listings and get down to see them.
And now without further chatter: Lost My Way, from March of the Fools (July 2011):
And now for something COMPLETELY different: The Honorable South, out of New Orleans, with Beast, from their debut record I Love My Tribe.
After my first listen to I Love My Tribe, I thought to myself They’ve found a way to bottle the spirit of New Orleans, which I know is not a musical metaphor, but is nonetheless the best description I can give you.
But to expand on that thought just a little bit: their tunes are the bone-rattling booty-shaking electric funk cure for what ails you. Click play and prepare to shake your tail feathers.
Because every time I listen to it I find something new and interesting within the layers of tones, and because it’s the exact sort of full-throttle industrial-flavored jam I need in my life in general, but even more so for the next week and a half.
It’s a free download on Soundcloud for right now; the “official” release is August 4, the same day Milan Jay (now with new drummer!) will be at Indiependence in Cork.
In The Shadows Of Footsteps (Free Download) by Milan Jay
For more music from Milan Jay, visit their bandcamp page. And if you like you can read my thoughts on some of their earlier work (spoiler: I like their tunes a lot) over here.
Alex Greenwald and Z Berg, during LAX
I’m putting this shot first mainly because it is my favorite from the evening. I’m fond of the song, too, even though at first Alex Greenwald + what seems to be a frilly love song = major cognitive dissonance.
But by his second verse – So I carved both our names into my pale white chest/Asked you to do the same/It seemed a reasonable request/I nearly lost it when you said yes. – things have taken a turn back towards familiar and deeply weird territory.
Overall feelings: It was a great show. They powered through a selection of tunes from their new record, Suicide Pact (out now!), including the title track, Heartbeat (now with super-creepy ’80s horror movie video!), Never Enough, Cleverly Disguised,Get What You Want and Square One, and also did an awesome cover of Elastica’s Connection.
They are on the road with the NYLON + Starbucks Summer Tour through the end of July, and after a few of their own shows will be headed out with the Superhumanoids in August. Check their listings and see if they’re coming near you.
Here are a few more pictures:
Z Berg and James B. Valentine
Alex Greenwald
Michael Runion
Z Berg
Alex Greenwald, Michael Runion, and Z Berg. Jason Boesel is there but hidden by his drums!
This has been a fever-dream summer, in which I have been occasionally sleepless and sometimes adrift in a sea-fog of bleepy-bloopy fuzzy distorted electronic tones.
White Arrows are sometimes fuzzy and distorted too, but they also bring a certain amount of vibrant clarity to the proceedings – the sun burning off the fog, if you will.
They are the promises of wave-jumping, beach-lounging, Ferris Wheel riding, and eating terrible food on the boards at Coney Island that hover on my distant horizons.
A sampling of their sound, starting with Get Gone, from Dry Land is Not a Myth.
NOTE: This video uses strobe-y effects! Alternate visuals here.
NTSIBers, please meet Bethany Weimers, of Oxford, England. Harpischord Row is her first record; on it, she balances folk and pop in interesting ways, and weaves complex stories through delicate melodies. Every time one of her songs floats up on shuffle I pause for a moment to greet her characters properly, as they are compelling people.
Here is a video for the title track:
And one for 30,000 Days, wherein the video picture is somewhat unusual – filmed by Improbable Blue, the YouTube notes indicate it was originally recorded both in silhouette and in darkness, so what you see here is a “salvage job” – but I like it, as an unintended special effect:
Kebu is from Finland, and To Jupiter and Back is his debut record. All of the songs on the record were made with vintage analog synthesizers and recorded using only sequencers, tape machines and analog mixers.
The results, while mechanical – it is all made on synthesizers – and somewhat bleepy-bloopy, nonetheless transcends or possibly expands the possibilities of what I had previously come to expect from non-industrial instrumental synthesizer music.
Kebu lists Vangelis as an influence – and I can hear the echoes – but his style is fresh and distinctive: conscious of form, but also shimmery, light, and playful.
This is the video for Samba Saturn, the first single:
And finally, Le Carnaval des Étoiles, another one of my favorites:
07. Le Carnaval des Étoiles by Kebu
The Magnetic Fields: because nobody else does hilarious, cranky, sweet, biting, romantic songs like Stephin Merritt (vocals/ukelele/harmonioum/keyboard) and his merry crew, aka Claudia Gonson (vocals/percussion/piano), Sam Davol (cello/flute), John Woo (banjo/guitar) and Shirley Simms (vocals/autoharp/ukelele).
For example, Andrew in Drag, from their latest record, Love at the Bottom of the Sea. It’s been stuck in my head for weeks and so now I’m going to share it with you, so I won’t be the only one singing the chorus under my breath at random and inappropriate times. (Note: contains nudity, may be unsafe for work!)
The Magnetic Fields were as delightful as ever – at one point Stephin Merritt did an amazing dramatic reading of a stray gum wrapper that had made its way to the stage, and I decided that “I would listen to him/her/them read me a gum wrapper” is going to replace “sing me the phonebook” as my personal term of ridiculous fannish devotion – and DeVotchKa, who opened for them, did an exquisite acoustic set.
DeVotchKa
The Magnetic Fields
Shelf-reading has two purposes: one, to make sure everything is in its right place; and two, to discover works you would not necessarily have though to look for, left to your own researching devices.
I decided to take purpose #2 and apply it to Bandcamp’s tagging system, generally, and the Irish music section, specifically. I then decided to use the counties of Ireland (North and South), arranged alphabetically, as a framing device for the experiment.
I begin today with County Antrim, which contains Belfast, which has large, thriving scene, so this time my selections do skew dramatically towards one geographic location.
I’ve also noticed that, as one would expect, artists from further out in the countryside have drifted Belfast-ward, which muddies the waters a bit. With one exception (David C. Clements) I’ve tried to confine myself strictly to artists who have tagged their work “County Antrim.”
Without further waffle, here is what I found that I liked, drawing both from Belfast as well as the county at large:
I last wrote about Mr. Clements back in January. Since then he has added five songs, one of which I haven’t yet extracted from Bandcamp’s clutches (a cover of Devil Town) and the other four which, together with the first two that I wrote about, I listen to on endless repeat for thirty minute stretches at least once a day.
Update Nov. 2013: He’s removed some tunes and moved others, and The Longest Day in History is now a four song ep. Here is my favorite tune:
Next up: Paulie J Fox, who describes his genre as “country experimental surf.” To me it sounds a bit Twin Peaks-y, and I mean that in the best possible way.
Less experimental and more indie-folk is Ram’s Pocket Radio, aka Peter McCauley, who is from Lisburn, just outside of Belfast.
This is his contribution to a compilation called, of all things, Small Town America (Public Service Broadcast 10), which features a totally European cast of characters, all of whom look worthy of further investigation:
This one is from Trajectories, a three EP box set of only his work:
Jumping up the coast a little bit, there’s static white sound, from Ballymoney. They’re heavier and darker, and to my ear draw from the shoegaze tradition but incorporate some of the spirit of Metal Machine Music, in the sense that you can hear them noodling and experimenting and exploring some intriguing musical thoughts.
Also they get an A++ for page design, by virtue of featuring a picture of a cat who has clearly been interrupted in the act of investigating someones pedals.
And then, finally, last but absolutely not least, there is Roysta (also here), aka Lee James. The Facebook blurb for one interview described him as a “Belfast’s mutated version of John Waters, Charles Bukowski, GG Allin and Ice-T.”
The formal name for the result is “dirtcore”; obviously I had to find out what that might sound like. Below are two tracks from Hurrmaster (translated from the broad Belfast accent: Whoremaster). As you would expect, his language is salty and his imagery can be, uh, startling, but he’s got some good beats:
If you’d like to hear more, he’s helpfully uploaded his entire back catalogue (!) to bandcamp.
Or you can explore the County Antrim tag on your own time!
