eminem - the marshal mathers lp

Hearing this album a decade after all the endless controversy is an incredible experience, in more ways than one.

First off, this is nothing less than a classic hardcore rap album. "Kim," "Way I Am," "Stan"--these are examples of rap at its absolute greatest. All hype aside, all Slim Shady posturing ignored, these are brilliant tracks, and they still would be if Eminem had never broken the mainstream. The album itself is a marvel of hip-hop storytelling, a credit just as much to Dr. Dre's production than Eminem's performances. The finished work as a whole is stunning.

Second, in hindsight, even Eminem's edgiest moments really aren't that edgy. There were rappers pushing well beyond these same boundaries a decade before "Stan" managed to become a hit. The murder of his wife documented in "Kim" is still a harrowing listen, and his violent raps can still unnerve you from time to time, but this is hardly the kind of stuff that would incite middle-class America to revolt and take to the streets, knocking down their white-picket fences on the way out.

The fear and revulsion exhibited by virtually every public figure in office in the late-90s seems silly now. But more importantly, the reason behind their reactions and the controversy in general is painfully clear now: He's white.

If violent lyrics are the issue, there a much, much more extreme examples everywhere you look. Hardcore gangsta rap existed for decades before Eminem came around. Wu-Tang Clan, 2pac, and Notorious B.I.G. arguably brought it to the mainstream by the mid-90s, with lyrics every bit as gratuitous as Eminem's. Groups like Gravediggaz brought the horror branch of hip-hop to life, with themes that make "Kim"s end sequence sound laughable.

The only difference here is race, pure and simple. Eminem is white. To politicians, this makes him easier to fear, because they perceive him as being closer to their reality, or their existence at least. The only reason they ever heard of him to begin with was because record companies saw the benefits of publicizing a white rapper, which came true exponentially. Wu-Tang was rapping with the same basic themes for ages (in rap terms) before Eminem came around, but I don't remember anyone giving Raekwon shit for what he raps about.

Another factor is Eminem's talents as an MC. I honestly can't think of another rapper who could have made "Kim" sound as gritty, real, and utterly terrifying as he did. He's a storyteller in the purest sense. He convinces you of what he's trying to express, and gives you no choice but to agree. And that's scary to people, especially if they're using the word "faggot" and talking about killing people.

The good thing is that all that shit is passed. Eminem was on 60 Minutes this week, for fuck's sake. He's no longer the end of upstanding white society as we know it. He's a rapper. He's a musician. And this is just an album. A great album, but an album nonetheless. So listen to it with all that Grammy controversy nonsense out of your mind, and you'll be reworded in spades.

virgin mobile freefest 2010

I'm torn as to how to approach writing about Virgin Fest this year. It was a lot of things--good and bad, great and horrific, life-changing and soul-crushing, often simultaneously. I guess I'll just start from the beginning.

I had been to Virgin Fest in 2007 and 2008, both at the Pimlico Race Track, a large, open venue with plenty of free space to move around and tons of room for all the vendors, stages, and tents they felt like putting up. Since 2009, the year I was too late to get tickets, Virgin Fest has been at Merriweather Post Pavilion, a venue I know very well at this point. I was there for the last HFStival in 2006, I went to several Warped Tours, and saw R.E.M., Modest Mouse, and the National a few years ago. I'm probably missing a few, but you get the point--I've been there a lot. I remember laughing out loud when I heard Animal Collective had named an album after it.

This place is not festival material. It's just not. For a single concert, it's fantastic. Between the pit, pavilion seating, and elevated lawn seating, there's not a bad seat to be had. But for a constantly shifting audience, numerous headlining acts, and multiple stages, it's a disaster area. The place was congested everywhere you went by 1 pm. The wooded area offered some respite from the crowds, but even there it was a madhouse by the late afternoon. Just too much. It's hard to call that kind of environment a festival--it was just a really big concert.

The pit was a disaster area. We arrived early, met up with some friends, and came up with a traditional festival plan: we would get up front early for the opening band (Brite Lite Brite--they need to stop making music immediately), stay for Jimmy Eat World, who we kinda wanted to see, and snag great spots for Edward Sharpe. Right after the opening band came off, however, the pit was emptied by a crew of security guards, and a new batch of people were allowed to go in.

So imagine this scene: You've just sat through a horrendous DJ/female vocalist duo waiting for the next band. They leave, and you're suddenly told to go back up the stairs, filing past a line of people who got to the pit after you did, and get in line behind them. Two minutes later, the line is allowed back into the pit, and you're ten feet behind your original position. I don't think I've been more frustrated in my entire life.

I was pissed. Here's what I furiously sent in to Twitter at the time:

"The crowd setup at Merriweather for Virgin Fest is truly scary. This has disaster written all over it."

"30k people and they're trying to clear the pit after every set, without letting people out through the pavilion seating."

"Meanwhile people are already lining up for the next band. People running to get into the pit while an entire crowd is being pushed out."

"This is Who seating on steroids."

Obviously I was overstating with that last part, but it very easily could have turned bad. I definitely ended up trampling somebody on my way to grabbing a spot for Pavement, but to the best of my knowledge no one was seriously injured as a result of the system. Still, it was fucking ridiculous and completely against the nature of music festivals. It's common practice to wait in line at the opening gates, sprint to the main stage as fast as you can, and stand there the entire day waiting for your favorite band to play. Hell, it's a tradition as old as music festivals themselves. If you don't get there early enough to see your favorite band upfront, too bad. Plan further ahead next time.

As a result, people were frequently lining up hours ahead of performances to get good spots. We were in line for about two hours to see Pavement, and even then, we were a good 20-30 people back in line. For people who didn't understand the system or didn't see it early enough to plan ahead, they were screwed. Oh well. Go to a real festival next time.

The entire venue was saturated in advertisements. It was disgusting, especially after going to a festival like Whartscape, where they didn't even sell brand name beverages, let alone have advertiser-funded vendor stands at every corner. There were some cool elements to it, like the Ferris wheel, or the beds and tents set up in the forest (the tee-pees were hotboxed instantly, no doubt), but even then it was THE KYOCERA MOBILE DANCE FOREST or whatever they were calling it. And yeah, I know the whole thing was free, I'm not that naïve, I know there's going to be advertising to pay for it, but I still ended up spending $70 on food and beer, so forgive me if paying $8 for a Shock Top distracted me from the kindness of Virgin Mobile for paying attention to my needs at a time of economic hardship, or whatever bullshit they were selling us.

And then there's the fact that the show wasn't even entirely free. Merriweather roped off the better part of the pavilion seats and charged $50 for them, but a bare fraction of them were sold, leaving them empty for the vast majority of the festival. During LCD Soundsystem's set, the last of the day, James Murphy said something to the likes of "it's the end of the day, so thank you to the organizers for letting the kids come into the pavilion seats." What he didn't realize was that people had been allowed to sit in the upper pavilion seats all day, and that they were still stopping people from coming down from the lawn. Why, I have no idea. There was no money left to be made, there was only an hour or so left in the festival, why not let them come down? It was just disgusting to watch, honestly.

In the end though, it's hard to complain. I paid a shit-ton of money on beer, but I got to see some great bands. Mainly I got to see Pavement. Like the Pavement. The real reunited line-up and everything. It was tremendous. The only downside was the horrible scheduling between the two main stages, meaning I had to miss Yeasayer, M.I.A., Ludacris, Sleigh Bells, and a ton of other Dance Forest bands I would've loved to check out. But that's just classic Virgin Fest right there--I had to miss out on TV on the Radio, Bob Dylan, Stone Temple Pilots, the Black Keys, Kanye West, and a lot of other acts because of similar problems. but let's get to the bands I did see.

8. Brite Lite Brite - Good fucking lord were they awful. It was a DJ and a female vocalist. Apparently a lot of people voted for them. No one I know did. He was a pretty great DJ, all things considered. I was digging the beats. But she was completely tone-deaf. It was hard to sit through. And since we had to leave our spots after their set, it was all for nothing.

7. Matt & Kim - This is a tricky one. I love "Daylight," but I absolutely hate every other song they have. We forced to sit through them during our wait for Pavement, and when they played their original music, it was truly painful to watch. But as a live band, they're pretty damn good. They know their audience--energetic tweens who love that crunkcore ironic bullshit--and they gave them what they wanted to see. They took the stage to "Where Brooklyn At" by Biggie, jumping around the stage and hyping themselves up. I even got a little excited for them, I'll admit, but then they started playing their own god-awful shitty hookless synth music and I was lost. They frequently stand on their instruments, lead the audience in fist-pumping sessions, etc., etc., all corny attempts at getting the crowd into it that completely worked. They were the most energetic crowd their. It was astonishing. When they played a short instrumental cover of "Let Me Clear My Throat," the place went absolutely insane. And I'll admit it--when they played parts of "Just a Friend," I got into it. They got me.

6. Neon Indian - This is a very solid sixth place. There was nothing wrong with them at all. They were mesmerizing to watch live, really. We just didn't stay very long for them. If you get a chance to see them live, do it.

5. Thievery Corporation - I'm one of the countless people who only know this band from the Garden State soundtrack. I'll admit it. But their performance made me want to really get into them. They have a bassist, guitarist/sitarist (I'm almost 100% it was the same guy who played sitar with Edward Sharpe at this show), two DJs, a saxophone, trumpet, and percussion player, who created a steady stream of flawless funk/jazz/dub/reggae/rock as guest vocalists came in and out between songs. It was fantastic festival music, stuff you could enjoy from half a mile away with a beer in hand. Which I did.

4. Jimmy Eat World - They were great, in the sense that they played lots of great songs with a great band sound, but man do they lack in stage presence. Lead singer/guitarist Jim Adkins sends every ounce of angst riveting through your body as he performs, but the other guys just do nothing. But they played a bunch of songs I love, and I had a blast seeing them. Side note though: the crowd was atrocious. There was a mosh pit running during the opening of "23." "23." Quite possibly the most depressing song in their catalog. That was a real buzzkill to watch from afar.

3. LCD Soundsystem - They might've gotten bumped up to #2, but several factors came into play about half an hour into their set. 1) I was drunk. 2) My companion/D-D was very, very sober. 3) We still wanted to party when we got back on campus. 4) They played "All My Friends," which was the song we both desperately wanted to see. So we left early. Their stage setup was simply incredible, creating a multi-tiered setup of 7 musicians surrounding James Murphy, who guided them through each song. They were tight as hell, never missing a beat, and the songs were catchy and fun as always. I'd love to see them again.

2. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros - I'm not going to top what I wrote about them here, so I won't try. They were great, again. The crowd was terrible though, and I missed a great deal of Alex's wonderful monologues because of the endless screaming of the pre-pubescent girls who wouldn't know what to do with Alex even if they got him. He was delightful as always, walking on the crowd barrier, getting as close to the audience as (I'm guessing) Merriweather would allow him to. Jade was subdued, which was disappointing, but the rest of the band was a vibrant as ever. This time around, however, I came to the conclusion that I really don't like any of their songs beyond "Home." They're still incredible live though.

1. Pavement - Not the greatest show I've ever seen, but definitely one of the most memorable. I mean it was fucking Pavement. Stephen Malkmus was everything I ever thought he would be live. The band was just as sloppy as I had dreamed they would be. I knew every song they played, and I knew at least the choruses of 90% of them. They played "Summer Babe [Winter Version]," "Cut Your Hair," "Two States," "Stereo," "Grounded," "Gold Soundz," "Shady Lane," and so many more amazing songs. It was a brilliant greatest hits show. Knock this one off of my bucket list. I can die a little happier.

arab on radar - #1 9-12-98

After a few beers, I listened to this song on repeat a couple times and posted this on the song's Last.fm shoutbox. I'm fairly proud of it, all things considered.

the only real way to listen to this song is drunk, wearing headphones, volumes cranked up way above healthy levels, hands moving in a constant, frantic fashion that's one part air guitar, one part masturbatory homage to the evening you saw them play at whartscape, when they opened with this song, when you heard those first ringing, screaming, crying notes of polarizing noise moving through the air, and you yelled out as loudly as you could with a pure, unadulterated acknowledgment of the fruitless noise they were about to make, the sonic abomination you love and desire with every fiber in your body, and when those drums kick in and the second guitar chimes in on beat and the vocals taunt you with a sound that's half-menace, half-three-stooges-hysterics, you stare up at the entire scene and take it in, mouth wide-open, eyes unblinking, your body pushed effortlessly from body to sweaty body, eyes taking in every last movement before you. that's how you listen to this song.

flipper - sex bomb baby

I love shitty music. I really, truly do. You throw a bunch of chimpanzees in a room with a dozen bottles of banana rum, some live guitars hooked up to Marshall stacks, and a few microphones, I'll buy their album.

Chances are that album would sound something like Sex Bomb Baby by Flipper, only with less attitude and slightly worse lyrics.

The only thing stopping the chimpanzees is that whole language barrier, which is a shame really. As great as primitive screeches and howls would sound on record, it just wouldn't be able to match the poetic genius of a chorus like "Sex bomb baby, yeah"--which also happens to be the only lyric in the entire song, repeated over and over until the song finally craps out five minutes later.

This is advanced stuff right here. Hell, even the Stooges wrote verses and bridges, and they became the blueprint for everything once the world finally caught up. But in the wake of Flipper, that shit just sounds overproduced.

Thankfully, we weren't forced to wait another dozen years for the rock world to pick up on their genius. Unlike Iggy and his crew, these guys were instantly realized for the living legends they were, and within a few years they had an entire army of like-minded savants carrying on their vision, demolishing everything in their path and making every other band in the world sound like the insignificant pieces of shit they really were.

Sex bomb baby. Yeah.

kings of leon - youth and young manhood

If I ever realize my far-off dream of becoming a respected, influential music writer, my first order of business will be to completely rewrite the critical interpretation of the Kings of Leon.

For some reason, rock critics love to hate this band. Sure, they look like they came straight out of a 70s arena rock wet dream, and their music isn't exactly innovative, groundbreaking stuff, but goddammit, this is good music. Even publications like Allmusic, which celebrate the redeeming quality of mindless pop music (a stance I defend for the most part, but not to the point of giving Paris Hilton's album a 4-1/2 star review), still refuses to acknowledge that this band holds any merit.

I suppose it's understandable on some level. If you grew up listening to bands like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, bands who became superstars by absolutely pillaging American blues and playing it a little heavier and a lot whiter, you might object to hearing a group of 20-somethings rip off second-generation blues-rock bands to similar effect. Kings of Leon never come close to what those guys did to Robert Johnson or Chuck Berry, but hey--I'll bite. Wolfmother gets a similar rap for recycling Sabbath riffs, which leads me to believe this is a real, widespread response to these bands.

I get it. It's bullshit, but I get it. I'll admit to having comparable reactions to the neverending wave of teeny-bopper punk-pop assholes trying to be blink-182, even though in the back of my mind I fear I'm being just as irrationally dismissive of a real musical movement.

I just can't hate this music. In fact, I can't help but completely love it. It's catchy as hell, it's got attitude absolutely seeping from every note and downbeat, and fuck you, rock writers--the lead singer is an irresistible hunk of pure rock 'n roll bravado. You guys helped build up that pedestal, don't cry now that it's reaching its final conclusion.

The ultimate sadness in this story is that after three (okay, two and a half) albums of fantastic Southern blues-rock, they stopped doing coke and resigned themselves to becoming the next Coldplay. Place any song on this album (which, admittedly, is vastly inferior to Aha Shake Heartbreak, and maybe even Because of the Times, but still) next to "Sex on Fire" or "Use Somebody," those pseudo-rock chart-toppers that blanketed every media form in existence for years on end, and it's hard to believe they're the same band. I mean for fuck's sake, "Use Somebody" is just plain awful. There's nothing fun about it, there's nothing good about it, just the same shitty chords on repeat with a few angsty repeated bullshit lines about being lonely and a cheap two-note stadium vocal melody that gave every music editor in the world a collective orgasm and had every movie, TV show, sporting event, and celebrity death punctuated by the same echoing call of false emotion and plastic sentimentality that permeated our culture like a fucking virus and will probably follow me to my grave. The funeral driver will have that song playing in the front seat of my hearse as he leads a procession of friends and family down whatever cheap hellhole of a city I'll have decided to lay my sorry ass down for the rest of my days, no doubt spent prattling on endlessly about how Kings of Leon used to be something real and true, and how John Darnielle was a better songwriter than Bob Dylan. Which would be just fine by me. As long as I get a few kids to give Aha Shake Heartbreak a listen, it'll all be worth it.

drive-by truckers - decoration day

What is this netherworld that the Drive-By Truckers inhabit?

These are guys (and gal) who play unapologetic three-guitar Southern rock that worships Lynyrd Skynyrd while somehow managing to pay more homage to grimy, down-home country than any bar band their rocker image suggests. And while Van Zant and company were busy slighting Neil Young or churning out stadium anthems, the Truckers have been writing a decade's worth of music that captures the real American South better than any quintessential "Southern" band ever could.

There's no better document of this than their fourth LP, the ambitious concept album Southern Rock Opera, which finds the band filtering the Lynyrd Skynyrd legend through the razor sharp wire screen of daily Southern life in the 1970s, emerging with a record that's ultimately just as much about racial turmoil as it is rock 'n roll. But for an album that truly highlights the group's stunning abilities as Southern folk songwriters, Decoration Day is king.

The Truckers tip-toe the fine line between honky-tonk charm and redneck overkill with impressive finesse. Songs like "My Sweet Annette," which tells the story of a factory worker leaving his wife at the altar for her bride of honor, should by all accounts be far, far across that line, yet guitarist Patterson Hood manages to do the exact opposite, dragging us deep into this seemingly alien conflict and even making the listener feel sorry for the wayward groom. Similarly, "Outfit" takes the voice of a father lamenting over a life that could've went beyond painting houses for his old man, as he lists off advice for his own son, including the most brilliant description of the Southern ego I've ever heard: "Don't tell them you're bigger than Jesus / Don't give it away."

The majority of the album follows similar themes of regret, loss, and pain. It's a dark album to be sure, one that gets truly hard to listen to once you let the lyrics and images fully sink in. From the opening track's tale of consensual incest to stories of divorce, suicide, and being stuck in a nameless shithole town, nobody escapes this album unscathed, and you find yourself with plenty of strange bedfellows along the way.

Somewhere into the second half of this album, it dawned on me what this album and the Drive-By Truckers were really about. They aren't a Southern band, nor is this a Southern album. They're an American rock band, pure and simple. Every song on this album could've been placed in any town, city, dirt road, or asphalt slab in the country, and it would've still rang just as true. Don't let the steel guitars and Georgia accents fool you. These aren't Southern stories: these are American stories.

broadcast - tender buttons

Broadcast are just one of those bands. You know the ones. The kind of band that could take a shit on an LP and make it sound cool. The kind of band that seemingly can't do wrong even when they put out albums that really aren't that great.

Tender Buttons is just one of those albums by one of those bands.

Haha Sound, Noise Made By People, and even Future Crayon are all head and shoulders above this album, so if you're wondering what all the fuss is about, start literally anywhere but here.

The entire album is sparse musically, but manages to avoid those annoying minimalist tendencies by the sheer power of the fuzzy dissonant keyboards they love oh so much and the dreamy shoegazer vocals of Trish Keenan, which float along effortlessly in the background, giving their sound an eerie touch that puts it somewhere between Stereolab's more tender moments and the vaguely unsettling sonic effects of Black Moth Super Rainbow.

Sounds awesome, doesn't it?

Because it is.

Just not that awesome.

So don't say I didn't warn you.

the remains - the remains

The stereotype of 60s garage rock bands is that they were all made up of a bunch of teenagers who could barely play their instruments, kids who just wanted to make noise and managed to stay in tempo long enough to mash out one or two singles that were the talk of the neighborhood before fading off into obscurity and the occasional post-Nuggets burst of trendiness. And for the vast majority of these bands, that's completely true. Which is why we love them. Who can resist a band like the Rats, who pounded out three shitty chords for five minutes straight, repeated the word "rats" over and over with scattered meaningless lyrics about how they are, in fact, the Rats, and then cut it in half to make up both sides of a single? That's pure rock 'n roll right there.

But then there are the anomalies. Some of those no-talent, one-off teenage outbursts actually had some talent *gasp* and released some damn good records. The Shadows of Knight, the Standells, the Count Five, and so on. Some of those bands are actually really, really good, to the point that they left marks on the music world far greater than mere compilation footnotes. The Seeds, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Monks, hell even Paul Revere & the Raiders fit that category.

And then there's the Remains.

This is a band that should've been huge. These guys had the garage rock attitude down to an art form, but they did it all with a tightness and precision that you just can't find amongst their peers. They were just as ugly as the Stones, if not uglier, and their Boston swagger topped everything those wannabe badass schoolboys had to offer. And they had the songs to boot--nothing anywhere close to the Stones' seminal singles, but you could easily place their only studio album against any of the early Stones albums. Just as the Stones grew into their skin and stopped releasing albums made up almost entirely of Chuck Berry covers, these guys too would've grown into a monstrous rock 'n roll force over time. They just gave up too soon.

And who can blame them, really? The Remains would sell out every show they played in the New England area, with fans lining up halfway through the city to see them in Boston, but they still couldn't get an ounce of recognition outside of their home turf. Not to mention, if I was in a band still covering songs like "Diddy Wah Diddy" and I heard Rubber Soul for the first time, I'd want to give up too. They were a Beatles opening band and didn't seem destined for much else as long as those Liverpool assholes were parading around with their goofy hair and pseudo-reckless drug use and groundbreaking pop songwriting.

The Remains were stuck somewhere between the instant super-stardom of the Beatles and the trashy underground appeal of every other garage band in America. They never recorded their "She Loves You" or "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," but "Don't Look Back" is still miles beyond anything the Rats could've spat out.

So are the Remains really "America's Lost Band"? Sure. Would they really have become America's answer to the Rolling Stones or the Beatles? Probably not. But would I have still loved to hear their sophomore album? You're goddamn right.

hanatarash - live at zabo kyoto, december 16 1984

I feel like the recording I just spent forty minutes of my life listening to may some day prevent me from getting a job.

"Mr. Golinski, it says here that you once scrobbled a forty minute live recording of some vaguely angry Japanese men throwing steel barrels around a room, breaking large pieces of glass, and creating various other means of noise in front of an audience in an apparent attempt to make music. Is this true?"

"Yes, yes it is."

"Get the fuck out of my office."

Beyond that even, I feel like the action of listening to such music may one day be made illegal.

"All rise for the honorable Judge Cowell."

"Is this the fucker who was listening to a recording of one of those goddamn Jap Satanist cults throwing beer bottles at an orphanage while audio of the CNN 9/11 broadcast ran through Marshall stacks pointed at a local Church?"

"Yes, your honor."

"Guilty as fucking charged."

That wouldn't be too harsh of a sentence, really. I imagine the sounds of prison would make just as great a soundtrack as any low-grade Hanatrash bootleg.

Which this isn't, by the way. There's nothing more exhilarating than listening to people just break shit purely for the creation of that immaculate sound shit makes when it breaks. Which is exactly what this is, recorded at remarkable quality, considering the fact that maybe a few hundred people total ever actually saw Hanatarash live, let alone attempted to record what they were seeing.

I love noise. I love the chaos of it all. I love the freedom that comes from hearing normal, sane people grab hold of everyday objects and just destroy everything around them for the sheer penetrating thrill of making noise in the heart of the soulless banal continuity society puts forth for us to revel and slowly die in.

Hanatarash were a pretty infamous band that was known for wild, violent live performances. There is a rumor that you drove a bulldozer through the wall of the club where you were performing. Is that true?

Eye: Yes. It was the dinosaur kind. With the back hoe scooper. Just drove it into the club.

Was the club owner happy with you destroying the walls of his club?

Eye: Hmm. We pretty much destroyed... ruined that club. I was planning on throwing Molotov cocktails but the bulldozer I was driving tipped over and gasoline spilled out. If we threw the Molotov cocktails, we would have set the whole place on fire.

Is that the same show where you had a circular saw strapped on your back and
accidentally cut your leg?

Eye: That was a different show.

Those are the words of a sane person who drove a bulldozer into a club on a whim, and almost cut his leg off with a circular saw strapped to his back on the other show. This is what I love.

whartscape 2010, a.k.a. loud amps save lives, a.k.a. "dan deacon's got mad swag"

I've never put as little preparation into anything as I did going to Whartscape 2010. I was recommended the festival on Last.fm, saw Arab on Radar on the top of the line-up, and bought a megapass the day they went on sale. Nevermind that I had work Thursday and Friday, or that I would be turning 21 on the last day, or that I didn't know anyone who would be going or could be convinced to go--it was happening no matter what.

I guilt-tripped my friend Mandy, a high school friend I hadn't talked to in several years, into coming with me at the last minute. She had fifty bucks to blow and my musical recommendations were generally up her alley, so she figured why not. I had several vague offers to crash at apartments in Baltimore, but overall wasn't entirely convinced I wouldn't be sleeping out on the street. I had no idea where this place was, what exactly Wham City was, or if there would be any kind of accommodations. We just kinda showed up.

After paying $6 for parking (an absolute steal considering I paid $20 to park at the 9:30 Club just a week before), we made our way to the address listed on the Wham City site, only to find a few buildings and absolutely nothing that hinted a large underground music festival was nearby. What we did find was random strips of colored duct tape pointing us down the sidewalk. So we followed that, eventually running into the guy putting the tape down, apparently to lead people from the main outdoor site to the afterparty. He was gracious enough to point us in the right direction, and half a block from where we started, a construction paper sign reading "Whartscape this way" lead us to the entrance.

We arrived at Whartscape at 11:30 am, half an hour before the scheduled opening. A wall of barbed wire fencing covered in children's sheets, ranging from Winnie the Pooh to nursery rhyme graphics, marked a huge square in between two very Baltimore-esque burnt out buildings. There were small groups of people waiting to get in, though no line had even begun to form. From outside we could see various gazebos and stands, with two stages covered in large tarps being setup by a frantic group of volunteers.

We took a seat on the glass and gravel-laced ground beside an abandoned building covered in street art, where we would remain until roughly 2:30 pm. In that time, our location eventually turned into our place in a line that stretched around the block. The crowd that trickled in was unabashedly hip and trendy beyond belief. Everyone fit into one of about a half-dozen images: the Dan Deacon beard-glasses-tacky 80s shirt look, the bandanna-glasses-tight pants look, the shorts-shoes-high socks-gym t-shirt-looks like I don't care but I totally do look, and so on. It was a crowd of people from the same scene trying to conform to the looks of the cool kids while still incorporating some random element of their look that still preserved their individuality. That guy's wearing thick-rimmed glasses, an Orioles hat with the brim flipped up, AND red pants?? What a trendsetter!

When we got inside, the format for the event became instantly clear: one band played one stage, while another band setup on the unused one. One band stopped, another went on almost instantly. And it worked brilliantly all weekend. You almost never had to wait for bands to setup, unless you were staying at one stage while the band you wanted to see got ready. You saw one band, walked ten feet over to the other stage, and instantly heard another band. When you got tired or hungry, you could go to the food booths or sit down at the far end of the lot, where you had clear view of both stages. The main stage sat across the lot from the entrance, while the second stage sat in the entrance to an alley. The main stage offered a better chance at getting close to the band, while the alley stage had a glorious crossbreeze that was well-needed all weekend.

Did I mention that it was hot? Because it was really, really fucking hot. Friday and Saturday were at or above 100 degrees, with Saturday's forecast calling for a heat index of 110. It was the talk of nearly everyone at the festival, observers and bands alike. (All except for Arab on Radar's lead singer, who stated quite bluntly "I'm not gonna talk about the fucking heat.") Thankfully, the crowd managed to stay hydrated all weekend, thanks in large part to an open policy regarding bringing in water bottles and an open hose to refill them. All in all, it only became an issue when you started bouncing around in a large crowd. Dan Deacon's set was goddamn unbearable because of it.

Friday and Saturday went without real issue. Great bands, great performances, and aside from some ticket trouble that Dan Deacon solved because he's awesome, everything was fine. Sunday was a completely different story.

The day began ominously when the first band of the room, In Every Room, had their gear knocked off the stage after the tarp came unhooked from the left wall. It was seemingly minor problem, however, as they got the tarp re-tethered and bands kept going on to about 3 pm. Then all hell broke loose.

A storm was seen moving toward the site, leading vendors to stop selling and lock down all their stuff, but it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Maybe some rain, but it wouldn't be a big deal.

Then the storm hit.

The wind whipped through the lot and damn near destroyed the place. Vendors held down gazebos to keep them from flying away. Papers and random items went flying. The tarp over the main stage caught a huge gust of air and completely tore down from from the left and back, shredding the tarp and covering the stage, knocking over all equipment setup. Random people scrambled to grab the tarp and hold it down while staff rushed to setup a ladder to detach it from the right building. A worker over the PA asked for any locals to bring tarps from home, offering full refunds for their help.

Then the storm picked up once more, moving into full-blown monsoon levels, bringing down the alley tarp as well, which was destroyed in the crossbreezes that had blessed the stage all weekend. Volunteers and onlookers alike once again scrambled to hold down the tarp. As both stages were tended to, rain began to pour, completely drenching stages, equipment, people, everything in its path. Gazebos covering electrical gear and soundboards were brought to the ground to prevent damage. People ran for cover under food gazebos, fallen tarps, buildingsides, umbrellas, anything they could find. A second tarp was outstretched to cover the main stage, while the alley stage was covered in people simply trying to hold the tarp in place and save any equipment beneath it. In minutes, the third day of the festival was brought to a grinding halt.

In the midst of the chaos was Dan Deacon, the heralded local electronic artist who headed the Wham City collective and masterminded Whartscape itself. He wasn't simply curating this event from his mighty hipster throne--this man was everywhere at once all weekend, fixing ticketing, sound, electronics, crowds, stage setups, everything. When the storm hit, he came dashing through the rain to unfold tarps and ensure all-out madness was stopped.

When the stages were properly covered and accounted for, there was still the rain to be dealt with, which kept falling until roughly 4:30 pm. It was a cold rain, sending the majority of the crowd running for cover, but there was the select few of us crazies who stuck around to enjoy it. And we had a blast.

One couple recited a Shakespearean dialogue and danced through the rain reenacting their scene, garnering applause which, I can honestly say, I started. I felt good about that one. Then there was the sun dance, started by a few brave, unorthodox souls. A circle of about a dozen people formed in the middle of the lot, and repeated cries of "SUN" and "CLOUDS BE GONE" were chanted with an air of pure lunacy. Incredibly, it seemed to be working, with brief glimpses of sunlight peeking through the clouds Then, in a moment of pure genius, a member of Little Howlin' Wolf jumped into the circle, screaming "RAIN" at everyone chanting. And the rain began to fall harder than ever before. So he won.

Around 4, the Wham City staff started letting people into the Current building, where we sat around in collective cold, wet misery. Dan Deacon came out and announced that there would be no more outdoor shows today (not that he needed to), and promised to do his best the reschedule festival without canceling any of the bands. He told us to come back at 4:15 for further news, which was pushed back to about 6, when he announced that the remaining shows would be scheduled for 6 pm at Sonar. With that news, we rushed to get to Sonar.

The line wrapped almost entirely around the building, but eventually we got in. The remaining bands played as promised, with the exception of Beach House, who was reportedly cut off after four songs, and I got to drink on my birthday after all, so everything worked out splendidly in the end. Woo!

Oh yeah, the bands. They were great. All of them. Some were lightyears away from others, but I don't think I saw anyone I would consider "bad." It was all enjoyable to a tremendous degree. It wouldn't make sense to go through all 150+ scheduled bands, since I didn't get to see them all anyway, so I'll give you my top 15 instead. It was kinda hard to keep up with all of the bands, since half of them didn't give their names and the schedule was very inexact, so bare with me. Chances are I saw some truly amazing bands that I simply can't recognize from the lineup now.

15. Plural MC - White dreadlocked rapper. Enough said. He absolutely killed, in that "oh wow he's actually serious" kind of way. Once you stopped laughing it was incredibly entertaining.

14. Javelin - Dance pop with a bit of an edge. Apparently they're a pretty big deal around Baltimore, which I get. It was insanely catchy and great to watch. No complaints at all.

13. Needle Gun - Man I loved this band. My friend tells me I was the only one. As in people openly sat down and walked away from the stage while they played. They played dangerously truthful post-punk, complete with two different noisemakers, an off-beat bass, random drumming, and sections involving kazoos and recorders played directly into microphones and laced with feedback. It was a bunch of kids who had listened to PiL and This Heat and wanted to do something about it.

12. Scottie B - Straightforward Baltimore DJ, but goddamn was he good. He announced a dance contest offering $200 to the winner (probably false, though I'm not actually sure), which turned the entire crowd into a dance party. At one point he sampled "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and a legitimate mosh pit formed. One of the most fun performances by far.

11. In Every Room - What Animal Collective could be if they didn't suck so bad. The heavy keyboard use and dream-like chants and vocals bring AC to mind in a big way, but they have what AC lacks: a backbone. The bass work was incredible, and the sparse tom drumming fit in perfectly. Very young band that could easily go somewhere.

10. DJ Dog Dick - This guy was visibly insane, or at the very least had a loose grasp on society. He played extremely raw electronic dance with heavy noise throughout, accentuated with his tortured screams and unsettling vocals. It was loud, very very loud, and I loved every painful second of it.

9. Dope Body - On paper, this is a band that shouldn't have worked. Lead singer trying to be ATDI-era Cedric, guitarist with denser effects than Kevin Shields, and a drummer just trying to keep up. But it worked amazingly. The guitar and drums work at times reminded me of Lightning Bolt in terms of sheer tightness and flow. The singer was a madman who brought you right to the edge with him.

8. We Used to Be Family - Electronic cello is the first thing that comes to mind looking back at this band. Which was awesome, don't get me wrong, but they were so much more than that. The only thing I can come up with is electrified roots rock. Nearly all their instrument usage was unorthodox, but it didn't matter. The cello and violin work blended flawlessly into a sound so unique I'm struggling to even describe it. Look them up.

7. Thank You - I loved this band, a lot. One part Arab on Radar guitar noise, one part Holy Fuck keyboard drone, combined with a constant thundering drum line. Incredibly polished live sound, every song knocked me off my ass. Definitely looking for their next show.

6. Child Bite - I'm not sure why these guys aren't famous. Noisy punk rock somewhere between At the Drive-In and Murder City Devils. Insane live show, just energy bouncing off every member in every direction until the audience just feeds off it. Also at one point the lead singer uses a joystick to make music.

5. Wye Oak - This is one of my new favorite bands. Just a drummer/keyboardist and a guitarist/vocalist. The guitarwork is incredible, moving from shred to shoegaze droning tones in a heartbeat, the keyboards and drums work flawlessly considering one person is playing them both at the same time, and overall they sound like a band twice their size. Just incredibly enjoyable stuff.

4. Double Dagger - Okay, honesty time. I was not in a good place chemically when this band came on. I pushed my way to the front of the stage because I thought they were Arab on Radar. (They didn't go on for several more hours.) Incredibly loud post-punk with just a bass/drums band, but the bass is so fucking loud that they sound like a full band. The lead singer is a genius, the prodigal son of Iggy Pop in nerd form. He crawled across the stage bellowing into his microphone, interacting with the audience the entire time, jumping into the crowd on several occasions, where he got shoved and roughed up right along with everyone else. Just great, great stuff.

3. Dan Deacon Ensemble - The most purely enjoyable show I've ever seen in my life. The music is pure electronic bliss, raised by Deacon from the ground up until the band explodes into incredible climaxes that have the entire crowd moving as one. The crowd interactions weren't as great as I had imagined, but they were still fun. At one point the crowd divided in two and people were sent dancing down the middle, while another song had people on one knee imitating somebody in the middle of the crowd. Pure fun.

2. Health - Health is an incredible live band, period. I've written about them fairly extensively, so look up that post for a description I'm probably not going to top here. They were slightly less impressive than when I saw them in Dublin, but the crowd was infinitely better, really moving and shoving and jumping and getting into the music. They sound amazing, they look amazing, but their set was only four or five songs long, probably due to Celebration playing a huge set and Beach House following them. Beach House was cut off four songs into their set, which hints that time issues pushed Health to finish early. They sure didn't look happy about it.

1. Arab on Radar - The hype is real, a million times over. I was looking forward to seeing this band more than I've ever wanted to see anybody live, ever. I readied myself for disappointment but was completely blown away. The sound is perfect. The guitars are in perfect sync with one another. The drummer just blasts away the entire time. The singer is a demented lost Stooge, fucking insane and glaring and bobbing around stage with his face contorted in a puffed out smirk, his vocals crying out over the guitars and seemingly taunting you with their sarcasm and fearlessness. It's like watching four schizophrenics play perfect noise rock. (There wasn't a bassist--according to Wikipedia they haven't had one since 1999.) I will have images of each of these men ingrained in my soul forever. Nothing compares to being up against the stage watching them play. Absolutely nothing.

Notable Omissions:

1. No Age - We skipped them to get better spots for Arab on Radar. They sounded decent enough, but I didn't see them.

2. Lightning Bolt - I was extremely excited to see these guys. The bass apparently had serious electronics problems, since it took them 15-20 minutes to get started, but we couldn't tell, because it was so unbearably loud it smothered out any minute effects issues. I know it sounds stupid to say Lightning Bolt was too loud, but they were. We were about halfway into the crowd, and I wouldn't have went any closer without earplugs. And I'm a seasoned concertgoer who's lost plenty of hearing over the years. When the bass was working, it overpowered the drums 90% of the time--only the snare was loud enough to punch through it. We left after the third or fourth stoppage to fix bass issues, so they may have fixed it and had a great show, but I didn't see it. There was no way they were gonna compare to Arab on Radar anyway. Plus I was turning 21 in a few hours. Priorities.

3. Beach House - We stayed for half a song, but they sounded like crap so we left. Apparently we ended up seeing about 1/8th of their set anyway. We were bitter as hell because Health was cut so short, and when the fire department showed up, we started praying that they cut the show short, which they did. So that made me happy. Also from what I've heard, they're really not that special live, so who cares in the end.

4. Xiu Xiu - He apparently canceled at the last minute. Major bummer.

5. Lil B - He was so godawful I can't wholeheartedly describe what he gave as a performance. Not really a 'notable omission,' just wanted to point that out in case this guy actually gets famous--he fucking sucks live.

Edit: Fun fact--I'm in that top picture. And no, I'm not the guy screaming at Eric. That guy was a complete dick. The pictures below this are all mine, horribly unprofessional and posted an eternity after the actual event. Still cool though.

edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros - live at the 9:30 club, 7/21/10

I walked into this concert knowing absolutely nothing about Edward Sharpe and/or the Magnetic Zeros. My companion, who scored the tickets at a questionable price through a shady Asian reseller, informed me before the show that Edward Sharpe isn't even a real person, so that took care of that. I knew they had a song called "Home" that was pretty popular, but I had never heard it. So armed with this lack of knowledge, I marched into the venue and positioned us three feet from the stage, where we remained the entire night.

The show began precariously, to put it lightly.

The stage was littered with instruments, including a full drum set, an array of vehicles of percussion, a dozen guitars of every shape, keyboards, a piano, and a sitar. Most of these would remain unplayed for several hours.

An opening band was scheduled that night, but from the chatter around the fans I gathered that, according to the Internet, they didn't exist. The stage time for this non-existent band came and went, with little more than random members of the Magnetic Zeros tuning various instruments, until the keyboard player staggered onstage in a haze and announced that he would be playing a song for us.

After a perfectly adequate song on his well-worn wooden piano, the rest of the band came out to join him--or most of them, anyway. Jade, who was the lead singer and one of the main focal points for the group, was somewhere backstage without a phone, and they couldn't find her. So great. Nothing more reassuring than news that band has lost one of its members in the heart of DC.

The band looked wholly unready for live performance--and by that I mean they were really high. The guitarists both seemed tired and slightly agitated that they had to play their instruments. The keyboardist stood in a stoic, offputting stance that would've made Nico proud. The percussionists both seemed equally as dead, almost confused as to why they were there.

The band slumped through a couple songs, complete with the lead singer sitting on the stage playing offbeat bongos intermittently, until the trumpet player knocked out a cord for his keyboard, sitting off sharp waves of digital noise. The aforementioned piano player laughed at this for about ten seconds, before finally stopping the band and asking, in pure stoned fashion, "What was that, man?"

Shortly after, the AWOL Jade joined them onstage, sprinting up the stairs and leaping across the stage, taking time for a brief conversation with each member of the band. She had an incredible bounce and energy to her, eerily equivalent to that of a toddler discovering the world for the first time. Her contribution to this first string of songs consisted solely of crappy vocals and offbeat handclaps, all in a druggy haze that put the rest of the band to shame. After another half-hearted song, the band announced they were taking a short break, and would be right back, man, we promise.

At this point I turned to my friend and announced that this was the worst concert I'd ever been to.

The band returned a full twenty minutes later, and their second set couldn't have been more different from the first.

The lead singer was on his feet and conscious, introducing himself as Alex and apologizing for the delay, because they too had thought there would be an opening band. It was then that I realized what I had witnessed earlier: a band with a single album, struggling to sober up and play an impromptu set without repeating anything from their normal show. From that standpoint, their first few songs were downright miraculous.

The entire band had an energy that simply did not exist before that point. They were actually happy to be there--except for Nico, who smirked maybe three times the entire show, trying desperately not to let down her guard.

Alex is easily the best showman I've ever witnessed live. He's a shaman Iggy Pop, prancing across the stage in a daze, telling the crowd about topics ranging from "Inception" to the importance of apple juice to his five-year old self. He touched and/or made eye contact with at least half the room that night--myself included. And from personal experience, I have never seen more passion and energy in the gaze of another human being in my entire life. He repeatedly dropped into the crowd and took hugs from everyone who wanted one, including one girl who have him such a great hug, he let her sing the first verse of one of their songs. (She sang it infinitely better than Jade possibly could have. "Lucky pick," my friend remarked.) Anybody who raised a hand to the stage had it shook. Anybody who shouted a comment or request between songs had it answered to some degree. On one of his trips into the audience, one lucky fan had Alex's head shoved into the neck of his t-shirt and was dragged around behind him for several minutes. In the complete antithesis of Iggy Pop audience confrontation, Alex gave him a high-five when he got back onstage. This man, and the rest of this band, are absolutely for real, not a fake bone in their bodies.

I kept waiting for the show to disintegrate into what the first few songs had been, which was a bunch of hippie bullshit. But it never happened. At some points it seemed like they were trying, especially when they brought out their local sitar-playing friend for an extended jam, but even that was more magical than anything I've ever witnessed a concert. Every song felt like an encore. Every song had an incredible energy and presence that was simply astounding. The percussionists were powerful and perfectly in tune to the movements of each song. The guitarists played off each other perfectly. The keyboardists and trumpet added perfect flares to the main sound. And Alex and Jade are the most perfect live couple in music today.

When the opening notes to "Home" finally rang through the club, I realized that I did actually know the song, though only from a cover version by a honky-tonk band I had seen a few days prior in West Virginia. (Luke and the Lovelys. They do shows in Frederick and Hagerstown. Check 'em out.) The call and response lines between the two were the most painfully adorable thing I'd ever witnessed. At times the band dropped down to a near murmur as the two had conversations with each other, riffing off the lyrics without missing a beat as the rest of the band looked on longingly.

The encore was more brilliant than anything. The band returned onstage and Alex announced a new song called "Man on Fire," with a refrain to the tune of "I want the whole world to dance with me." (It's gonna be fucking huge.) So, to celebrate this song, he dropped into the crowd and got everybody in the room to dance with him. And they did. They really fucking did. The entire 9:30 Club crowd, after three hours of standing, danced to a song that the vast majority of them had never heard.

After a short trip back to the stage, he decided to see "how far this cord will stretch." So he hopped offstage once more and made a beeline for the center of the room, talking to everyone he met on the way ("Hey, new friends!"). After finding himself standing barefoot in a puddle of beer, he decided to sit down. "This isn't too bad. Why don't you guys have a seat with me?"

And with that, the ENTIRE FUCKING ROOM SAT DOWN. EVERYONE IN THE 9:30 CLUB SAT DOWN. ON THE FLOOR. ON LAPS. ON THE STAGE. ON WHATEVER THEY COULD FIND. AND THEY FUCKING SANG A SONG TOGETHER.

If you've been to the 9:30 Club, then you know what an achievement this is--not just because of the size of the room and crowd, which is pretty damn large, considering they sold out, but because of the copious amounts of beer and alcohol that flood this place every single night. Every inch of the floor was coated in beer, cans, bottles, cups, and general debris, yet the audience still sat, because at that point we would've done absolutely anything he asked of us. At that point we were all the same person. He united everybody in the venue to a degree that my pessimistic, downer ass never would've thought possible. It's was truly incredible.

After the show, destroying any notion that his stage presence had simply been an act, Alex remained in the crowd, talking and hugging and kissing and shaking hands with anybody who wanted anything from him. He was still there when we finally made our way out of the building.

jon spencer blues explosion - damage

Get out your calculator slide rule
No matter which way you fold and bend, turn
Boy you never gonna top us
You're never gonna beat us
Can you dig my band?!

Takin' orders from a higher power
Ladies and gentlemen
I got a bad feeling, but right now
It feels so good.

I don't know what exactly Jon Spencer is selling, but I'm buying.

If his next album is a single track detailing the location of a secret cult gathering where he'll scream into a microphone hooked up to a set of Marshall stacks and preach the Gospel of arsenic-laced Kool-Aid as a herd of ghost-faced robe-donned sinners fight for the first cup of death, you better fucking believe I'm high-tailing my sorry ass to join him in the promised land.

The man's a huckster for sure, a dirty son of a bitch playing some angle, trying to fuck me over somehow someway for some reason, just like he did with every Pussy Galore album that I eat up with reckless abandon and a joyless misery that purifies my soul just as it withers it away, but goddammit all to hell my wallet is still wide fucking open.

I'm a macaroni man stick like spaghetti
Snap crackle in the rock and roll heat

This is rock 'n roll. This is pure fucking soul. This is everything anybody will ever need ever. THIS MAN WILL SAVE YOU. THIS MAN, THIS HERO, THIS GOD AMONGST MEN WILL LEAD YOU ASTRAY AND TURN YOU INTO A BELIEVER OF THAT HOLIEST OF GOODS THAT THE LORD HIMSELF WOULD FALL PREY TO IF HIS DIVINE BODY WAS EVER BROUGHT DOWN INTO THE PRESENCE OF THIS PROPHET, NAY, THIS SAVIOR, THIS SAVIOR OF ROCK 'N ROLL, OF MUSIC, OF THE GOOD OF YOU AND I AND EVERYBODY ELSE LOST IN THIS GOD FORSAKEN EXISTENCE WE CALL THE STOPPING POINT. THIS IS IT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. THIS IS WHERE IT ALL BEGINS AND ENDS. RAISE YOUR HANDS AND BE HEALED.

I got the blues alright
I feel so bad
People, we gotta get on up
And shut this down
Cuz it ain't right
And I know I know
That there's something better
Out there
Cuz baby, I love you
And see the sky outside open up
And everything turn blue.

This is not just what rock music has been missing--this is what life has been missing. We could ALL learn something from Jon Spencer.

Give me some of your stink
I'm gonna put my stink over your stink
Get that sweet stink
Ain't gonna help ya, ain't gonna help ya at all
You got that fat lip baby let's have a ball.

Let's have a fucking BALL. Let's overlap our fucking STINKS and let it all just fucking HAPPEN. Why overthink it? We've all got our stink, and our whole fucking lives are spent just trying to lay it down on another person and get ourselves high off the sweet sweet stench of it all. Did Jesus tell you that? No. Jon Spencer told you that. Now tell me that isn't more fucking PROFOUND and REAL than anything you can conjure up out of the Gospels. I fucking dare you.

Good evening ladies and gentleman, it is an honor to be here tonight with you everybody.
I wanna say hello and welcome to the party.
We are Blues Explosion and wanna play some rock 'n' roll.
Now ladies and gentleman this is not the devil's music but it feels like the devil’s time.
We are not in the service of the devil but sometimes I feel his sick breath on my behind.
Said I feel so bad sometimes.
I wanna sing about it in my song, I want everybody, I said I want everybody…

I want someone to help me with these blues
I'm gonna hang up my rock 'n' roll shoes
Take one in the head and one off the wrist
Won't you help me, please help me Miss...

These words were written in 2004. 2004. On the ninth track of the album. It took fifty years for somebody to come out and describe rock 'n roll, to truly put into words what all this shit is about, why anybody cares, why anybody bothers to keep punching out those chords day in and day out, why it's still fucking here when people were calling it dead before the fucking Beatles were out of their Huggies, and this man has the balls to call it our with a grandiose GOOD EVENING LADIES AND GENTLEMEN two-thirds of the way through the record. If that don't convince you he's the end-all source of wisdom in this world I don't know what will.

There is a devil. There is a devil in us all. The devil in me sure as fuck isn't a red guy with a pitchfork, and if that's your devil than you have more issues than Jon Spencer could even begin to deal with. But it's in us. It takes a different form every time, it affects us all in its own sick fucking way, but it's there. And playing rock 'n roll is about as close as you can get to the fucker without succumbing to him.

That's all rock 'n roll really is in the end, isn't it? Tip toeing the line between you and the devil, and dragging anybody around you just as fucking close to that line as you'll dare to get. Some people take that extra step and get sucked down over the edge, God only fucking knows how many bodies are littered down at the bottom of that trench, but that fear, that irrational chance taken staring down the face of pure evil and pain and agony lying not so deep within you is what makes it all okay, it's what keeps you from bowing down and snapping and just roaring out in acceptance of the torment within us all, or even worse, giving it a different name, turning it into a red fucker with a pitchfork, or denying it all together, and in the process denying yourself, denying everything about you, rejecting your fucking humanity for a false sense of stability and reconciliation that screams out day after day "THEY'RE THE BAD ONES, NOT ME, I HAVE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IN MY SOUL, THE DEVIL CAN DO NO HARM TO ME."

Well guess what. I have Jon Spencer in my soul. And he could kick your soul's ass any fucking day of the week.

Get up and greet the brand new day
Feelin' so good
Everything's comin' up our way
Baby, you got on that favorite dress of mine
You lookin' so good now baby
Oh I can see everything
In all that mess with the sunshine
You're so fine, more than fine
The smile in my eye
I said you're blowin' my mind.

Don't complicate things. It doesn't get much deeper than this. Enjoy it all for what it is.

the raincoats - the raincoats

The Raincoats are post-punk at it's absolute finest. Angry, powerful, fierce, experimental, and incredibly original, all while championing the female rock band without the image's pitfalls. This album belongs in the same category as This Heat, the Pop Group, and the countless other abrasive acts that flourished in the wake of British punk's searing double-edged impact of violent Sex Pistol angst and smart Clash rebellion.

Where other post-punk bands took their music in a deliberately chaotic direction, the Raincoats are based thoroughly on their punk roots. Their sound brings to mind the Slits, in large part because of Slit drummer Palmolive's trademark uneven style, but also for the vague reggae influence found throughout the album. Yet where the Slits were drenched in their overproduced, unnecessary reggae sound, the Raincoats don't allow themselves to be pigeonholed so easily. The dense, antagonistic violin work of Vicky Aspinall that makes an appearance halfway through the album completely derails any solid Slits comparison, blatantly copping John Cale's screaming viola sounds a la "Heroin," yet never pushing it to the forced degree that their post-punk contemporaries tended to. (Or that John Cale tended to, for that matter.) The guitar work throughout is far from pristine, yet hardly brings to mind the sheer lack of talent that haunted the Slits. The band as a whole is uneven without any fear of complete derailment, flawed without coming off as amateurish, and ultimately pulls off one of the most ideologically sound punk performances I've ever heard.

It's here that the music becomes so impressive: it's post-punk with restraint. It's miles beyond the three-chord punk from '77, yet doesn't descend into the droning noise and obnoxious anti-pop tendencies that characterized post-punk before no-wave took it to the logical extreme. It's smart, it's primitive as hell, and it's startlingly defiant, without having to make it so damn obvious. The Slits could've learned a thing or two from them.

mission of burma - the obliterati

Bands aren't supposed to do things like Mission of Burma does them. Especially not post-punk bands. They played out their career as planned, releasing one classic album among a string of impressive EPs, and then called it a day. Normally you'd chalk it up to drugs or suicide or a freak accident, but hearing loss works fine too. And that's it. Done. Sink back into the forgotten halls of post-punk one-off's that could've really been something and join a supergroup with a member of Blondie or the Talking Heads.

But no. These guys reunite, a dozen years after Vs. 12 years. This is not supposed to happen. But whatever, it's fine, let them put out their little shitty comeback record and have their day in the sun. Which they did.

Only Onoffon was fucking good. Like really good. Like you'd be forgiven if you were listening to it for the first time and couldn't tell it apart from Vs. Bands don't do repeat their glory days after a 12 year hiatus.

So they broke the mold, interrupted the routine, that's fine. One good album and a trip around the festival circuit back they go into obscurity and all is well with the world.

No. Then they release The Obliterati. And it's really, really fucking good. I mean this album is better than Vs. It's better than any album anybody put out in the wake of punk, and these guys are fucking old now.

You can't play angry abrasive angsty music when you're past your thirties. You just can't. (Unless your name is Steve Albini, of course.) But these guys do. The last track on the album is called "Nancy Reagan's Head," for fuck's sake. Who the hell do these guys think they are? This is not how the world works. Somebody should write a letter.

death funk - funk riot beat

Death Funk is the alter ego of Alec Empire, the seminal electronic artist responsible for the often maligned but never ignored brand of Digital Hardcore. There's no more death in it than can be found in Destroyer or Intelligence and Sacrifice, though by Empire's standards, this shit is funky as hell. The album employs his characteristic breakcore sounds, with those trademark Destroyer beats clammering in increasingly manic directions, constantly flipped and turned and made even more chaotic by the brilliant man at their helm. Yet throughout the album you get the feeling that this isn't quite an Alec Empire record. It can only be described as an angry German anarchist's idea of funk. There's the same breakbeat sound, but there's more behind it this time around, a use of more heavy bass and prodding beats mixed in with Public Enemy and Wu-Tang samples. Any given track on this album has more musical depth to it than all of Destroyer--whether or not that's a good thing, I'm not sure. But in the end, no fan of early Alec Empire or Atari Teenage Riot can afford to pass this one up.

girls - album

It takes exactly three listens to discover how truly terrible this album is, because the first two are mostly spent trying to recover from "Lust For Life," which is one of the best opening tracks to come out in a long, long time. On that third listen, you come back down to Earth and realize the truth.

Music doesn't get more unoriginal than this. This is "indie" at it's fucking worst. This is what's killing music in general. Take a bunch of semi-obscure influences, sing in an ironically terrible voice, throw a vague West Coast surfer sound over it all, and give it an incredibly overused band name. (Allmusic alone cites eleven bands named Girls.) Bam. You've got yourself a hipster phenomenon.

Some of these songs are downright awful. "Summertime"? Listen to that song again. There is absolutely nothing likable about it. The chorus is terrible and you know it. "Hellhole Ratrace"? Seven minutes of the singer whining about living the life of a sad bohemian, despite the fact that his underground stardom is completely based off of this image. It's all just horribly transparent bullshit tailor-made for people who want something trendy and easy to digest.

And yet "Lust For Life" is simply fantastic. What a song. Just goes to show you how far a good hook will take you. Hell, it fooled me into liking the whole damn album for months now.

compulsive gamblers - crystal gazing luck amazing

If you listened to Jerry Lee Lewis' Live at the Star Club and thought "This guy's a pussy," this album is for you.

One part insane Memphis blues, one part perfect Chuck Berry rock 'n' roll licks, and one part manic punk energy, this is one hell of an album, pure and simple. It takes the mythical speed and tenacity of Jerry's mythical "Mean Woman Blues" performance and pounds it down your throat one song after another, all with a level of control and sheer noise that the Killer himself could never have dreamed of.

Howling vocals, screaming guitar notes, quivering organs, and pounding drums, all churning out perfect tunes simply unmatched by any other garage revival band out there. No other band can put out this level of gritty power with this level of perfect nostalgic songwriting. The Oblivians and the Mono Men and a million others may have the noise part down, yet under inspection it all crumbles under the kind of shoddy musicianship that's nowhere to be found on this album.

This is pure rock 'n' roll spirit that'll kick your ass, make you dance, AND have you singing the hooks for days on end. Simply unmatched among a sea of like-minded peers.