The Sleepover Disaster, The Fay Wrays | The Knockout | San Francisco, CA | June 24, 2009

For most, “turning the amps to eleven” is just a figure of speech. For these bands, it’s the Holy Grail: the ever-elusive combination of loud and heavy that makes walls shake and ears bleed. In the wrong hands – think high school buddy’s hardcore band or the greedy sap in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – volume oppresses, turning auditory nerves to mush, peeling flesh from bone (or was that a different Indiana?). In any event, crudely-raw noise troupe The Fay Wrays and their self-described “brothers in arms,” The Sleepover Disaster, have the right hands – capable of melding paint-peeling discord with honest-to-goodness hooks.

“This song’s about brotherly love, and what you believe in,” Fay Wrays lead crazy man Ben McEntee yelled at the mic, propelling drummer Eli Reyes into a cyclonic limb-storm of flailing arms and fire-squad worthy fills. A sloshed dilution of At the Drive-In, Fugazi and alcohol (hey, straight edge isn’t for everyone), the Fresno battering ram – on this night, stripped down to a potent two-piece – mowed through jagged screamo-punk tunes made more than palatable by McEntee’s possessed riffing. The guitarist put this particular Epiphone through the ringer, but it was thundering skins that gave heft to epics like the brooding soft-to-loud-to-louder “Scottish Lad.” Indeed, the rhythmic force behind both The Fay Wrays and Fresno indie outfit Rademacher, Reyes plays his kit like he’s hotwired to the Greyhound in Speed – slow to 40 mph and bad things happen. On the other hand, the duo seemed particularly in the groove with the middling tempo of Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time.”

Speaking of big time, The Sleepover Disaster might have hit as much had they emerged from the overcast grey of Dublin or Glasgow some two decades ago. Seeing as how this is the East Bay in 2009, they’ll have to deal with the not-so-sexy tag of “shoegaze revivalist.” Never mind the window dressings. Luke Giffen, Eric Peters and Vince Corsaro are hell-bent on atoning for every single one of this godforsaken genre’s sins. Remember how disappointed you were the first time you heard Loveless? Set opener “Friend,” awash in squalling shards of feedback and that oft-neglected necessity melody, single-handedly drowned out the entire misguided ethos of reverb for reverb’s sake. These distortion-glazed compositions never settled for noise as an end in itself, opting instead for hooky verse-chorus guitar squall served up at Spinal Tap-ian levels. In the truly towering anthem “Tremble,” Giffen’s soaring quaver of a voice floated on whammy bar freak-outs and knee-buckling decibels. It’s a masterful song, skyscraping in every sense. Yeah, you’ll look down at your shoes – but only to make sure your feet are still on the floor.

-Words and photos by Robbie Hilson

myspace.com/thesleepoverdisaster

myspace.com/faywraysfresno

New music we got in the office today

Le Loup- Family
Thee Crucials- Give Me…A Keg…Of Beer
The Public Good- No. 1
MaryAnne Marino- A Little Something EP
Old Californio-Westering Again
The Lovemakers- Let’s Be Friends
Jordan Carp-Spaceman
Juanita and the Rabbit- Out of the Grave: Alive in the Fire

Noot d’Noot, Ile Tambor | The Earl | Atlanta, GA | June 20, 2009

On Saturday night, June 20, Noot d’Noot did all they could to turn the jeans, t-shirt and Converse crowd at The Earl into dancing fools with their record release show for their new 12-inch, Cash for Gold.

The night started out with their conga player’s percussion group Ilé Tambor. Clad in matching Miami white linen, they went all out throwing down tropical beats that should have had everyone doing a frenzied salsa. Only one woman danced. But she looked like she’d done this before – headbanging, stomping, shimmying, shaking – everyone knew they could not match her prowess. Everyone knew they had an excuse to continue standing around, just nodding their heads and shifting their weight from foot to foot.

By the time Noot d’ Noot played, it was 11:45 p.m., and the staff at The Earl was already having to mop up barf – clearly, the crowd was almost drunk enough to dance.

The show fell somewhere between shagadelic disco parody and funk-shaman religious experience. I don’t know how much I buy the funk shaman thing, but Noot d’Noot’s ability to translate 10 very different musicians into a cohesive collection of sounds is some sort of miracle.

Noot d’ Noot sounds kind of like what would happen if Austin Powers, Aphex Twin, a jazz band, an R&B producer, a Caribbean percussion ensemble and a couple of groovy chicks who dig singin’ were stranded in outer space with nothing but acid and instruments. As one would expect, they suffer a little from the whole “too many cooks in the kitchen” thing. Such a variety of sounds come through that none can make a really strong impression.

Regardless, the show was tight, the drinks were strong, and Noot d’Noot’s grooves were more than sufficient enough to convince the crowd at The Earl to put one foot in irony, one on the dance floor (which was just the regular floor + people actually dancing on it), and let Saturday night fever take hold.

-Words and photo by Kristen Fox

The Naked Hearts, Daniel Francis Doyle, Pwrfl Power, That Ghost | The Knockout, San Francisco, CA | June 16, 2009

To paraphrase the great Ferris Bueller, the question tonight was not, what are we going to see? The question was, what aren’t we going to see? Schizophrenic, one-man freakouts, hummable pop nuggets, threatened 911 calls from angry tenants – these were the elements in play, all in unique fashion, all in copious amount. And to top it all off, a modest young lad from Japan walked an aural high wire, dangerously stepping the fine line between gone-tomorrow novelty and unassuming genius. For now, let’s err to the latter side of this spectrum. Debate, in full, to come.

But first, undivided attention belongs to The Naked Hearts, a Brooklyn-based guitar ‘n drums duo who would give The Vaselines a run for their money with a little name checking from Kurt Cobain and a screeching dose of feedback. This of course is impossible – the band’s taught, melodic style allows no room for noise excursions.
With “Mass Hysteria,” guitarist Amy Louise Cooper and wingman percussionist Noah Linn Wheeler prematurely raised the bar for everything that followed, proving with a raw, minor-key rocker that not all people with three names (think Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, John Paul Jones) make pretentious music. Cooper, for her part, deftly fought off a few drunken catcalls from Knockout patrons with icy riffs, while Wheeler deadpanned a load of hooky harmonies that recalled a pertinent James Murphy quote: “New York I love you, but you’re bringing me down."

Thankfully, then, Daniel Francis Doyle brought with him to San Francisco an endearingly quirky charm to accompany his iron-willed, triathlon-ian exploits. You’ve seen Doyle before – in your wildest dreams. Possessing the strength of three men, the Austin go-it-aloner worked the drum kit and the mic, but only after constructing repetitive collages of guitar clatter via Bobby Fischer-like concentration and a loop pedal. Schizoid set opener “How Can You Work?” answered the pressing question – namely, how does this work? Step 1: build a wall of sound. Step 2: be seated at drums. Step 3: mentally synch percussion and catchy, vocal melody to repeating guitar lines. Step 4: bang and shout like hell. Step 5: wipe away sweat and do it all over again. He can probably solve a Rubik’s cube, too.

Since That Ghost’s cut-short set of lo-fi pop gems fell prey to continued violations of noise ordinance – dude, can’t wake the Mission natives at 2 a.m. – that leaves us with a discussion of the aforementioned Kaz Nomura, a.k.a. Pwrfl Powerful, who masterfully mastered a handful of glimmering, tongue-in-cheek guitar ditties. To gain an idea of the kind of music on display here, one need only know that many of Kaz’s songs actually have “song” in their title – “Noise Song,” “Alma Song,” “Banana Song.” You get the point. The key, however, to the seemingly tossed-off silliness lies with this man’s pick-like fingers and blazing-white six-string Fender, which taken in tandem, find a middle ground somewhere between James Taylor and Jeff Buckley.

During “Nice Jacket” and the transcendent “My Coke Dealer’s Girlfriend,” Nomura plucked notes fit for King David’s harp, all while talk-singing sweet nothings about nice jackets and his coke dealer’s girlfriend. If the witty shtick doesn’t catch on here, the Seattle resident at least has his street cred intact. He is, after all, big in Japan.

Daniel Francis Doyle performing "How Can You Work" at The Knockout in San Francisco on June 16th, 2009.

-Words photos and video by Robbie Hilson

New music we got in the office today

Love In Stockholm- Too Much Love
Grand Hallway-Promenade
Deep 6- Self-titled
Minky Starshine-Unidentified Hit Record

The Lava Children
The Lava Children

Tulsa, OK
Mixed by Dustin Bowlin, Adam Siegel and Taylor Clark | Mastered by Collin Jordan at the Boiler Room

When you are in a band called The Lava Children, you better have a sound that justifies that moniker – one that is fiery, unpredictable and damages anything that gets in its path. Magically, the couple who cloak themselves in the aforementioned name – Oklahoma natives Sherri West and Taylor Clark – have the musical quirkiness to pull it off.

On their self-titled debut LP, The Lava Children mash-up an array of eclectic sounds and melodically disoriented vocals for a record that is as atmospheric as it is sultry. While songs like “Troll” provide an immaculate backdrop for mellow days spent slumming around completely at ease (and possibly wasted) with its slow-paced rhythm and spiraling chords, songs like “Firefly” provide unabashed intensity with cascading vocals that personify the trippy feeling one would get when falling down the proverbial rabbit hole.

The duo roll the dice as they let their imagination infect every inch of the album, and the result is pure capriciousness that serves as a testament to the band’s ode to individuality. In fact, on their label’s site (graveface.com), the unfortunate manufactured nature of the industry takes front and center as music is openly described as being “treated like so much invaluable garbage to be traded and tossed about freely.” Solace from such synthetic times can be found in the spacey nature of this EP, which is saturated with lush, dreamy landscapes, allowing their sound to permeate the listener in a surreal manner. It might take several run-throughs for the genius of The Lava Children to shine through, but acquired tastes are considered the pinnacle of sophistication. (Graveface Records)
-Candace McDuffie

myspace.com/thelavachildren

The Televangelist and The Architect
There’s A Song InThere Somewhere

Cambridge, MA
Recorded and mixed in a basement in Cambridge, MA | Mastered by Doug Van Sloun at Focus Mastering in Omaha, NE

Often times we find ourselves stressed out after a long day, and it’s nice to just relax and allow yourself a few good moments to rest and let life rush past you as you live in the now. The Televangelist and The Architect must have had this in mind when they recorded their album There’s A Song In There Somewhere because it may as well be the soundtrack to your moment of rest and reflection.

The album opens with “...in the Blizzard” which begins with a piano intro with soft vocals, soon followed by the accompaniment of female vocals that lace the track with grace. The verses turn into a piano bridge that make it all the more satisfying to listen to, just for the sake of listening.

The next three songs all revolve around acoustic guitar, with aid from drums in the first two, and all are heartfelt as the lyrics feel as though they mean something and are coming from somewhere very special. “...by the Pond” feels especially anecdotal and personal, making it a stand-out track of the entire album.

Most of the album feels very downtrodden instrumentally. The closing title track has a very bouncy piano to it and a nostalgic feeling that takes the listener back through the entire album, almost as though they are re-living it, fading out into the distance of what is to come and what is remembered. There’s A Song In There Somewhere is an ambient album that allows you to think and truly live through the music, not feeling rushed or pushed into a certain sound but rather just feeling it naturally. (Undetected Plagiarism)
-Max Specht

myspace.com/thetelevangelistandthearchitect