White Fence: To The Boy I Jumped in Hemlock Alley

A couple of years ago, I went to a White Fence show for New Year’s Eve. They were in the middle of the bill. At the end of the show my friends and I agreed, that while the headliners were good, we would have been happy to listen to Tim Presley and friends noodle around on their guitars all night long. He is truly the king of gloriously weird psychedelia.

Here is To the Boy I Jumped in Hemlock Alley, from Cyclops Reap, White Fence’s most recent record:
 

 
You can listen to the rest here.
 


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2012: A Year In Pictures: Dec. 2011- March 2012

A series of highlights, as well as a chronological accounting.

At the beginning: shows I went to after I had completed last year’s year-end roundup but before the end of the year.

 
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Naked Fiction, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA, Dec. 30, 2011
 
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we are the Last Men On Earth, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, Dec. 30, 2011
 
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Pollux, Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, Dec. 30, 2011
 
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Wounded Lion, Brick & Mortar, San Francisco, CA, Dec. 31, 2011
 
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White Fence, Brick & Mortar, San Francisco, CA, Dec. 31, 2011
 
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Fresh & Onlys, Brick & Mortar, San Francisco, Dec. 31, 2011
 
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Thee Oh Sees, Brick & Mortar, San Francisco, Dec. 31, 2011
 
And now, 2012, starting my first show of the year at the Lakeside Lounge:
 
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Mud, Blood & Beer, Lakeside Lounge, NY, NY, January 5, 2012
 
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Crown Jewel Defense, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, February 4, 2012
 
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Foxy Shazam, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, February 4, 2012
 
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Justin Hawkins, The Darkness, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, February 4, 2012
 
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The Darkness, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, February 4, 2012
 
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Built By Stereo, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, February 17, 2012
 
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TESLA, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, February 17, 2012
 
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Iridesense, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, March 10, 2012
 
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Saw Doctors, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, March 10, 2012
 

An Evening At: The Smell, Los Angeles, with Crazy Band, The Audacity, and White Fence

A couple of weeks ago I went to Los Angeles on vacation. On my last Saturday night in town, I went out to The Smell  in downtown LA, to hear Crazy Band, The Audacity, and White Fence. Ty Segall was also playing, but as you will see I didn’t stay for their whole set, so the most I can tell you about them was that my note-to-self was “Interesting, investigate further at another time.”

But let us start at the beginning, with Crazy Band:

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They are a punk band, and they are mostly girls. The lone exception is their drummer, who sadly didn’t make it into any of my pictures. I didn’t know anything about them when I arrived, so I had no idea what to expect. Here is what I got: music that was definitely all punk and no pop, in which I detected echoes of the X-Ray Specs (here’s 39 second example) and a set that was carefully controlled chaos, as band members passed the mic between songs and the kids around me moshed amid flying pieces of crumpled magazine pages tossed out over the crowd like gigantic pieces of confetti.

This is the pit, in the middle of a song:

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This is the place afterwards:

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It was amazing. Should you find yourself in LA, you should see them. Also, check out saxophonist Jenna Thornhill’s website, which is also full of good stuff.

The Audacity was next. They are from Fullerton, CA, and their sound, while a little bit bigger and bouncier than Crazy Band, was also punk rock. The moshing continued apace, with people joining hands to spin in gleeful circles and, later, rolling around on the floor.

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They are out on tour at the moment, and as of right now they have upcoming shows in Seattle, Portland, and Oakland before they drop back down to Los Angeles. Go and hang out with them, Pacific Northwest and Northern California, you’ll have a good time.

The last band I saw was White Fence (also at Facebook), one of the many projects of Tim Presley of Darker My Love and The Strange Boys.

White Fence just put out a new record Is Growing Faith, through Woodsist Records, and are also on tour right now, with Woods, making a slow progression across the Southwest and up the East Coast. Recorded, they’re sort of groovy and psychedelic with the occasional burst of surf/garage rock; live, they’re surf rock at high punk speed. Either way, I like it a whole lot, and I look forward to seeing them again when they stop in New York in a week or so.

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This is more or less where the crowd really went nuts. Someone else got video of the craziness, but, after I wriggled my way out of the pit and flattened myself against a wall to observe the chaos from afar, I got this picture as the pit surged forward:

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Afterwards I felt a bit sweaty and squashed, and so decamped to the couches in the front of the venue for a little while – long enough to hear two Ty Segall songs – before I decided to call it an evening and head out. I will leave you with some shots of the view from the couches:

 

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