San Diego Serenade

The CityBeat cover story raises an interesting point this week: Have the Cold War Kids been dealt an unfair hand by the music press because of their Christian faith and themes in their music? The author is a fan of their music and believes that reviews from major publications such as Rolling Stone and Pitchfork have unfairly focused on Christianity, rather than the rocking-ness of their music, which he describes as:

“dirt-pan, white-boy blues” [with a singer who] channeled Nick Cave, John Fogerty and Jeff Buckley all at once.”

Author Seth Combs believes that the band has been unfairly written off by a music press and fanbase that sees

“religion as a hindrance to deep, creative thought, as if some a[sic] Christian musician sits in a studio and thinks, Gosh, would Jesus approve of this lyric? I’d better lose it.”

and more over thinks that

“religion goes against the rebellious, hedonistic and godless spirit that makes rock ‘n’ roll so appealing.”

The fictional world of music listeners that the author writes about must be consisted of two groups: either ninth graders who have just bought their first copy of The Doors “Greatest Hits” or leftover Motley Crue fans from the ’80s. These are the only two groups of people left on the planet who adhere to the cliche of “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll” as why they listen to their favorite bands. The rest of us tend to base our decisions on the more obvious and rational method of determining “Is this music awesome or not?”

Evidently the author has not listened past the two minute and twenty three second mark of the highest regarded (borderline worshipped) album by the indie rock, Pitchfork reading crowd, or he would have heard Jeff Mangum nakedly exclaiming “I love you Jesus Christ…Jesus Christ I love you, yes I do.” Rock lyrics rarely come more honest, blatant or emotionally delivered, and this one happens to be about Jesus. But this album has been embraced by the masses because of the transcendent quality and emotion of the music, religious undertones be damned. It’s the kind of record that makes even the most skeptical hipster wish that they believed in something the way that the singer does.

If the Cold War Kids have not been fully embraced by the world at large, it’s not because of the way they choose to live their lives, it’s because of the quality of their product. To have received the amount of attention and endorsement from music blogs, to a point where even Rolling Stone chooses to cover them and review their album, is more attention than 99% of their peers will ever achieve. If they happen to be relegated to the status of the latest band who you Should Be Listening To But Aren’t, it is because all the hype in the world can’t make people like something that isn’t that good. In the CityBeat article, frontman Nathan Willett is quoted as saying:

“It’s just lazy journalism, where if you don’t like a band, you pick up one thing about them and say, ‘I’m gonna write about this.’”

It seems to me to be just as lazy journalism to do that if you like the band. But they’ve sold out the Belly Up, so good for them.

Today marks the debut of a soon to be regular feature here on San Diego Serenade: The CDebate. One of the nice things about having a music blog is that occasionally things are made easy for you when an artist contacts you, rather than you having to discover them yourself. It gets difficult to give CDs the attention they potentially deserve, however, and part of the reason for this is, for me at least, that you’d like to present the music and artist in a unique and entertaining style. Hence, I have concocted the CDebate. Though it may be awkward to read and pronounce, I have faith that it will prove an interesting and entertaining way to review CDs.

The format will be that of a basic high school debate team. Or what I imagine one is like, if I had participated in one, if they still exist. There will be a “Pro” side and a “Con” side, and each side will be allowed a main argument, and then a rebuttal/closing statement. This will ensure that the coverage not be one sided, as any fawning will be tempered by a thorough pointing out of a records flaws, and any shitting-on of a CD will also accentuate the positive that may have been overlooked.

Of course, I have encouraged the participants to not refrain from personal attacks, slippery slope arguments, straw men, and hyperbole in making their arguments. MP3s can be used as evidence. We want this to be fun. To make it even more fun, each CDebate will feature one notable music blogger and one of my friends. This mix of people who write about music in their spare time and friends of mine whose musical backgrounds vary greatly will ensure a spirited CDebate. In all cases, I will deem a winner, based on their arguments and my opinion of the CD, and award the CD the coveted status of “MustCD” or the shameful scarlet letter of “CDeezNutz” status.

Without further ado, I’d like to introduce the participants in this weeks CDebate. Taking the “Pro” side is Greg, who writes the music blog Captain’s Dead. Greg and I share a fondness for Tom Waits, and he was one of the first people to link to my blog when I started it, so his blog has long been one of my checkpoints for posted tunes and unique viewpoints. Taking the “Con” side will be my friend Andrew Kilpatrick, who I’ve known since third grade. Among other projects we’ve worked on together throughout the years, Andrew is the singer in my band Re-Ree and has written well over 60 songs, and those are just the ones that I know about.

Bill

The CD in question will be the latest album “Birthday Suit” by San Diego’s own “Bill.” I was sent their album about a month ago, and figured that a local band would be a good way to start off this feature.

We begin with the Pro section, by Greg from Captain’s Dead

This brief review of San Diego rock n sway ensemble Bill’s Birthday Suit will be written not through my voice, but through the voice of a 19 year old female named Mandy.

Ok, people listen up! Bill’s new record Birthday Suit is everything I have been dreaming a record would be since I first heard Jason Mraz’s “Remedy” at the Sam Goody. I never bought that record, just the cd single, but I know that Birthday Suit is much, much better.

The opening track “It Wont Hurt” has some great harmonies and finger snapping that totally reminds me of these songs that they play on the local oldies station, only bill does it in a much cooler way. I remember my dad saying that “It Wont Hurt” reminded him of do-top or do-bop, something like that. My brother, Hunter, used to totally be into Dave Matthews Band and they remind me a lot bill. It leads me to believe that Bill must have been a big influence on Dave Matthews, because bill’s song “Sitting Duck” sounds an awful like something off of Under the Table and Dreaming. I guess imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery. I am on to you now, Mr Matthews! I love, love, love the song “Sound Scientist!” They way the lead singer can sing fast and flow just like a rapper is awesome. That’s as far I have made it listening to Birthday Suit but I know the rest is going to be just as awesome.

So, in closing, if you are looking for an awesome record to cruise around town in your VW or just chill at the beach, then Birthday Suit is so for you. My friend Hannah, who doesn’t like anything, said she is going to buy this record tomorrow! Its that great!

A strong opening salvo for the “Pro” faction. Let’s see how Andrew can shape up in the “Con“

Don’t Pay This “BILL”
A standard three-paragraph essay using a pun in the title

Bill Stevenson, Bill Haley, Bill…

The list of great musicians named bill isn’t long, and isn’t going to get any longer with this collection of mediocre songs from a band that calls itself “Bill.” I don’t know anything about them, but I am going to make some assumptions here:

Their lead singer, bill, wears a knit beanie indoors. He used to be a Christian in high school, but lapsed in college, possibly under the corrupting influence of the acapella group (all-male). He is far and away the visionary behind the band. He has had the same girlfriend for a long time. He has a “good” voice. This voice is usually boring, except when it’s annoying. Like this one song I got stuck in my head, where he sing-raps like Jason Mraz, which I guess that’s the kind of sound he’s going for. In that case, I hope he’s as devastatingly handsome as Gavin Degraw, because he is less talented.

I imagine that this band would “prefer not to label themselves,” but if pressed (like for a really big interview where they were on their best behavior) they would describe it as “jammy-funk-rock-reggae-soul-jazz with a slice o’ pop” or something that they actually spent a lot of time coming up with. But let me tell you, this shit is nothing but pop. You can tell because the songs are annoying and get stuck in your head, like that Gavin Degraw song I used to see on MTV at 5 am that goes “I don’t need to be anything other than what I been lately.” Except none of the songs on here are quite that exhilaratingly awful. I wish some of them were, because I kind of enjoyed that gavin degraw song, like you’d enjoy controlling the pain of a toothache with your own tongue. Nothing on this “bill” record rises to those heights.

And here’s one thing I couldn’t make up:

“Thoughts fall like waterfalls on an empty page…

LIKE RAIN”

Oh yeah? Waterfalls fall like rain? So essentially, what you’re saying here is that “waterfalls fall…like rain?” Take a poetry class dude. Your lyrics suck.

Andrew has delivered some hard hitting arguments for the “Con” side. Let’s see how Greg responds with his closing statement:

Listen up, Peter! You forgot Billy Ocean, duh! My dad has the cassette single of Get Outta My Dreams and Into My Car, and i love it, love it, love it! Back to bill, the band. You can use whatever cuss words you want to describe bill, but bill is here to stay! They are so freakin cute, and as a chrisitan i understand what he has gone through. My boyfriend, Brad, totally wants to do it, but you know what i say, “my body is a temple, that you shall not enter!” bill rocks, and you dont, peter!

Seems like Andrew has stepped on the toes, if assumed fictional personas can have toes, of that reviewer. Andrew no doubt has some strong closing words prepared, let’s see how he finishes:

Leadbelly said something about songwriting, something like “here’s how you write a song. First you get your words, then you get your music, then you put ‘em together. Now you got yourself a song.” That’s what Bill did. Kudos to them for writing songs. While the nay-sayers just sit there saying “nay”, the members of Bill actually wrote songs instead of just criticizing them. Or at least that’s what I think they would say if they read this review.

Seeing as how both sides have wrapped up their arguments, it is time for me to weigh them and deliver a verdict:

Greg delivers his “Pro” argument in the guise of a teenage girl, and in doing so, speaks volumes to the intended audience of this music. The production is good, the instrumentation and song styles are varied, and the lyrical subject matter and delivery are just the kinds of things that young ladies conceivably swoon for. Andrew, on the other hand, points out the faults of the record from the point of view of a discerning music listener, one with tastes conditioned towards the exact opposite of what this record has to offer.

Which brings us to the question: Did these fellas really look at my website before sending me the CD? You know, do any research, see if it was up my alley and might be worth my time. Did they note the lack of articles devoted to Jason Mraz or Dave Matthews on here? The lack of feel good, summer BBQ material? Nothing on this blog would even lead you to believe than I am a kind-hearted person, let alone someone who listens to the kind of music that would probably have been too pussy to even like back in my ninth grade DMB-fan era! Did they just see that I was a guy that talked about music in San Diego and figure that it couldn’t hurt to just send off a copy of the CD with hopes that something good might come of it? To me, the latter plan of action sounds a good deal like spam. Currently in my spam email folder, there is an unsolicited email with the subject line “Would you like your penis to be better looking than your face?” I would have to say that, in all honesty, that extremely odd spam proposition is far more intriguing to me than another email from Bill regarding their latest CD would be.

And it is for that reason, the sheer audacity of sending someone a CD that even the most BASIC research would indicate they have absolutely no interest in listening to, that I am proud to award “Birthday Suit” by Bill the first ever San Diego Serenade CDebate “CDeezNutz” Award:

That was pretty fun. We’ll hopefully be back with a new CDebate next week, pitting a blogger against another die hard music fan who probably likes music just as much, but is just too lazy to do anything about it. Until then, check out this weeks band, Bill at: http://www.myspace.com/bill

If you have a CD that you’d like featured on a future San Diego Serenade CDebate, or are a blogger that would like to participate, please contact me using the contact information at the top of the page.

UPDATE: I’ve posted the Street Scene lineup, with MP3 links, here.

You know the feeling you get as you sit in an airport waiting for you flight to take off when you have a connecting flight you have to make? You’re there an hour early, sitting in the terminal waiting. You notice the airplane hasn’t arrived yet. No matter, you’ve still got plenty of time. As long as you take off no less than an hour late, you’ll still be fine for your connection. But it gradually become a battle between optimism and reality, and as the clock starts ticking down, you come to the grim realization ten minutes before your deadline that the plane’s not coming, you’re going to miss your connection, and your vacation is ruined.

Well that’s what this past week has been like watching the Street Scene rumors trickle in. The latest, collected nicely for us at the UT’s Liner Notes, indicate that She Wants Revenge, My Chemical Romance, Yellowcard and possibly Tool are added to the lineup. The possibility of pulling off an event to rival Lollapalooza that same August weekend appears to have evaporated almost laughably quickly, and as the clock ticks down towards the Monday lineup annoucement, one can only hope that whoever is piloting the Street Scene plane pulls off some Chuck Yeager style heroics to bring the bird in safely. What is most unsettling about the whole thing is not the lack fo indie buzz bands, or major headliners, but rather that the Street Scene seems completely focused in the absolute nadir of shitty genres: the emo/punk bands.

The problem with these bands, none of which I have ever listened to and could not name a song or album by, is that they forgot something about the very basics of punk. Though the Sex Pistols were angry, and the Ramones could only play three chords, both of these bands were essentially pop music gone horribly awry. If you take away the sneering vocals, some of the distortion and slow it all down a wee bit, you’ve got a sixties pop song. Maybe take out the abortion and glue sniffing subject matter, but anyways. Bands like The Clash would further expound upon the inherent poppiness in early punk music, creating songs that build, segue, flow, you know, songs that behave like Beatles songs. I remember in 8th grade when Green Day came out with Dookie, and all the magazines talked about was the “return of punk.” I was confused then, and only now realize that what they meant was the return of punk that you can actually listen to. Nobody’s saying you have to puss out to make a pop-esque punk album. But at some point in time, I imagine that artists get a bit tired of playing unpleasant music, and decide that more ambitious goals (the long rumored fourth chord!) are worth a shot.

So as an antidote for the shitty punk/emo that the Street Scene is offering up, I present to you San Diego’s own Fifty On Their Heels. Listening to these guys the past couple days has really made me aware of the fact that a record does’t have to go by at 120 mph and be shoved down your throat to be punk. The singer has a voice that you’ll feel like you’ve heard many times before, sort of snotty, faux British. But where the band really shines is the music, which manages to never sound the same, and even accomplishes the ultimate punk coup of incorporating different musical passages and even different instruments into the same song. You know how on American Idiot, Green Day had a couple nine minute song “suites” that sounded like 6 different songs put together? Well my favorite song on the album, Occupation, pulls off a similar trick in just three and a half minutes. I hear traces of Rancid in the beginning, and Sex Pistols in the vocals, with a Strokes kind of guitar lick for the chorus and a Clash style breakdown all before it builds to an utterly triumphant, cut off too brief finale.

The guys sound like they’re having fun. Which is important. But more important, they sound like the kind of band that you could have fun going to see. Fortunately for you, they’re playing two shows in San Diego in June, and will be playing lots more all summer long. Check out the myspace page for dates, a few more streaming songs as well as info on where to get their new CD. San Diego has been on a roll with local bands lately. It’s too bad that the major summer festival looks headed in the opposite direction.

Dowload MP3 of Fifty On Their Heels - Occupation
http://www.myspace.com/fiftyontheirheels
June 13th @ The Casbah

Malcolm Gladwell introduced us all to his concept of snap decision making in his book “Blink.” He talked about experts being able to size up a situation, be it a failing relationship or the likelihood of a new product to succeed, in just a few seconds, based on unconscious analysis that even the experts themselves couldn’t understand. I think that I experience Blink moments myself with music every now and then. I can think of any number of artists, songs or records that took time to sink in, and whose brilliance was revealed gradually. Many of these musical works I disliked initially, because it’s easy to equate “Not Getting It” with dislike.

But there are other times when “Blink” type decisions occur, and within 5 seconds of a song starting up, I can tell that it’s something special. The last time it happened was with the Seeger Sessions album, and it happened again last night when I read some of the comments on here recommending some local bands. One of the suggested groups was San Diego’s Grand Ole Party. Most myspace pages play a song for you automatically when they load. This can usually be an annoyance, but in the case of this band it works as a hook. It tells you that you made the right decision coming to their myspace page, and that you’re going to want to stick around and check things out.

Both of the songs on the page, Insane and Look Out Young Son result in the rarest of myspace page phenomenoms: seeking out the “Volume Up” button rather than “frantically looking for the Mute Button with the driven purpose of someone looking for the abort button as a bomb ticks down its final seconds”. Both songs feature guitar and drums that are gloriously sleazy and dirty. They slink and lurch along, rockin all the way. The music sounds sort of like the rawness of early White Stripes like “Jimmy The Exploder,” played with the slow back alley coolness of Tom Waits at his most mysterious. But the hook is the singer, who is also the drummer, who is also a lady who can wail like Cassandra from Crucial Taunt. (Watched Wayne’s World last weekend, that chick can sing.)

In short, this band sounds like it is A) destined to get signed and release some great material, hopefully some time soon, and B) most definitely rocks live. Fortunately, there’s a chance to see them in town tonight, at what is hands the most rockin venue in San Diego that I didn’t know existed until today: Gelato Vero in Little Italy, which features Italian Ice Cream, Pastries, Coffee, Performances, Music, Art. If you can’t make it there, they’re playing both the Whistlestop and the Casbah before the month is over, on the 25th and 28th respectively.

Highly recommended, for now and to keep an eye on.

Video of the band performing at the Casbah
MP3s:
Grand Ole Party - Insane
Grand Ole Party - Look Out Young Son

Review of a show last week at the San Diego Sports Club at Cat Dirt Sez

Amplify SD is a new online radio station that the UT has started to give exposure to local artists and artists who will be coming to town. Obviously it will be a bit unfocused, and it warns:

The music on AmplifySD reflects a wide range of San Diego music and artists. Some lyrics may be offensive to some listeners. Listen at your own risk!

But it’s a good idea. You can listen live with a built in flash player or thru itunes, windows media player or real. Artists can also submit their CDs to get played on the station at the below address:

Amplify SD Radio
c/o Marc Balanky
P.O. Box 122512
San Diego, CA 92112

Online radio stations like this are always a great idea, but I think that devoting a radio station to something as all encompassing as a city’s entire music scene has its downsides. For example, the first song playing when I went to listen was Kill Me Tomorrow - Put The Time Machine In Your Mouth I, which resulted in me closing the player faster than I would have if the picture you find by googling “Lemon Party” had been sent to me by a friend at work. (and evidently there is more than one part to this song cycle). The lack of a “skip” button could prove to be a major inconvenience, since the tenuous thread of “all these bands are from the same town” is unlikely to have that devoted of a following. It’s still great exposure and a decent shot at hearing something new that you like.

After listening to a few songs, I heard one by Convoy called “Goodbye Everybody” that sounded promising but cut out after a minute, and a band called Bunky playing a song called “Baba” that wasn’t that bad. I’m signing off while Eve Sellis sings “Room at the Top.” Signing off this entry, and signing off the online player because this song is god awful and I expect the acoustic strumming to break out into full on Bonnie Tyler power ballad mode any minute. Enjoy your weekend.

Amplify SD address: http://www.signonsandiego.com/sosdradio/

Not enough local bands email me to tell me about their shows or MP3s, and I’ll be damned if I dip my toe into the uncharted waters of venturing out to venues completely blind. We’ve all been there, usually when you move to a new town, or start school somewhere. One new friend convinces you to just head out to a club where an unknown band is playing, or go see a movie that you never even knew existed. In an effort to prove your open mindedness to this free spirit, you go along, and by the end of the worst two hours of your life you are fairly sure that you never want to speak to that person again, but iyou know with absolute certainty if you ever hear the phrase “going in blind” again in your life, you will render the person saying it unable to participate in an activity in any other manner than that for the rest of their life. (If you couldn’t tell, I recently got burned going into something blind. It was a movie, and it was called Brick. You know how ignorant people look at a Jackson Pollock painting and say ‘My five year old could have done that?’ Well your average ninth grader absolutely could make a better movie than Brick. Never in my life have I regretted not chosing to go see Phat Girlz more.)

Fortunately, here I am to recommend to local bands to everyone, and just in time for some kick ass shows. First up is Firethorn, who played at the Tiki’s local showcase last week, which I missed, but also are playing at Blind Melon’s tomorrow with Vintage Honey. Firethorn I guess you could say are rooted in punk, but obviously they’re not so far into the realm of punk where I would not be mentioning them on this website. In the way that Nirvana was punk, in terms of heavy power chords, and frayed vocals, that’s how Firethorn is punk. Not shouting indistinguishably and generally making everyone miserable around them. Both Reflecting Pond and Make Me Cry on their myspace page capture this kind of spirit, and both feature promient guitar solos that hopefully wail even harder at Blind Melons.

Next is Road Noise. I met the guy front and center in this picture on National High Five Day, and as soon as I found out he was in a rockabilly punk band, I knew it couldn’t miss. This was before I even saw him in the White Suit and cowboy hat. Road Noise has four songs from their demo up on the internet, and while the recording mix isn’t the best I’ve ever heard, I think that the energy that the band undoubtedly has in a live performance is adequately conveyed through the singers voice and the spot on extended guitar solos. They will assuredly deliver the goods when they rock the Parkway Bar in La Mesa on May 13th. My favorite song is Daddy’s Drunk, but three more are available online as well, BEG, Rumble Town and Three On A Tree.

http://www.myspace.com/Firethornrock
http://www.road-noise.com
http://www.myspace.com/roadnoisemusic

David Lizerbram sent me the above picture. It’s of his bedroom. It’s probably unnecessary to say that getting emailed a picture of some dude’s bedroom doesn’t happen that often, and I pretty much discourage the practice across the board. But this was a special case. David had noticed that Bruce Springsteen was included on the National High Five Day soundtrack CD, and expressed his happiness with that to me in an email. I wrote him back, telling a few Bruce Springsteen related stories of my own, (they involve The Rising, high volume, and the destruction of a friends property.) Then David sent me that picture.

There’s a few key things that I like about it. One, it’s pretty much the only thing on the wall. You can see a fair amount of wall on either side, and there’s nary a “The Kiss” poster or a “Lifeguard May Be Used as a Flotation Device” in sight. So he’s not a man to decorate his apartment, but he puts his sparing efforts to good use. Secondly is the speed with which he sent me the picture. It arrived in my email a mere 12 minutes after my Bruce Springsteen stories were sent. This means that he read my email, found his camera, snapped the pic, loaded it up, debated about whether to really send it to a stranger, and decided to go for it, all very quickly. Thirdly, I like the fact that David Lizerbram is the bassist for a sweet band from San Diego called the Kite Flying Society.

Kite Flying Society

Did you wonder where that was going? Well if you made it here, you’ll be a better person for it. From the songs that I’ve heard, the Kite Flying Society makes music akin to those happy popsters in the Apples In Stereo. Lots of spacey background harmonies on the oohs and the aahs, some handclaps, and eclectic instrumentation that includes organ, guitar and a quite prominent glockenspiel. The songs are incredibly catchy, and stay soft without being wussy. Like, they have enough going on and are fun enough that you’d want to turn them up loud, but they would sound just as good through your headphones while you’re walking around the zoo.

David was kind enough to send me two songs to let you all download. 6000 Shipwrecks has the best backgound harmonies and is the more uptempo of the two, plus it includes the rarely attempted background harmony solo, whereas Love & Seagulls is more of a slower, bouncier track with a melody very similar to Daydream Believer by the Monkees, but just enough to reel you in before switching it up on you.

I’m pretty sure the band is named after Max Fisher’s sparsely attended club from Rushmore, and I think that the tone of the songs would be akin to the aural equivilent of Wes Anderson fare. Rushmore is my favorite movie and Anderson can do no wrong by me, so I think that this is one band that I’m going to recommend and keep an eye out, as they are currently recording their debut album. They are also playing a few shows at the Casbah, one on June 20th, and Ain’t No Cure, a Cure covers benefit show on April 30th.

Check out their myspace page for two more streaming songs: http://www.myspace.com/KFSMusic

MP3s:
6000 Shipwrecks
Love & Seagulls

For some reason, I skipped over Alta Voz when summarizing the CityBeat’s Local Music issue last week. Well actually I know the reason, it’s because there was a Death Cab for Cutie comparison in the first sentence. But looking back, it compares it to the effect-less era of Death Cab for Cutie, which I’ve never actually heard, and it follows it up with a solid Bends-era Radiohead comparison. So it’s probably worth venturing a listen towards, especially since they are playing the Casbah for the first time tonight as part of the Rookie Card Telethon/Bakesale/Rummage Sale/Comeback Show, which sounds like a pretty entertaining affair, featuring several other bands, breakdancers, burlesque, and free cd’s with your paid admission, which is only $5.

The CityBeat review described the sound as “desperately sullen” which I guess is pretty accurate. I don’t know how much the Bends-era Radiohead comment I agree with. People seem to forget that The Bends wasn’t just some mopey record. Songs like “The Bends” actualy reached hieghts of rocking that few bands have made sound as authentic within recent memory. I prefer my tunes to have a big more energy, more of that awesome three note guitar solo from the end of “The Bends”, but if there’s one particular time and place to show off just how much you rock, it sounds like it would have to be the Casbah tonight.

Alta Voz Myspace site

MP3s:

Double Our Efforts
Twilight In The Colosseum
Smile Like A Minus Sign
The Cutting Shape Of Fate

San Diego CityBeat came out with their exhaustive and excellent local music issue today. It’s full of interesting articles about local bands and local music, and it is all available on their website. Besides the great demo review project they put together, there are some more interesting musings about music in San Diego. These include:

-Obervations and predictions for ‘06. My favorite is “In an attempt to take disinterested hipster cred to new levels, someone will drag the Casbah’s Pac Man game into the main room during a sold-out show and play for the entire set without once looking up.”

-13 Local bands being asked how they came up with their name. Holiday & The Adventure Pop Collective was “Inspired by titles like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the band put together a batch of words that gave the feeling of escape.“

And then of course there is the reviews of demo tapes the magazine received. There is a Best Of section, but that is not nearly as entertaining as the Rest Of section. After sifting through not nearly as many entries for the NH5D soundtrack project, I can definitely relate to wanting to accurately and viciously describe how bad a song is. I just didn’t have the balls to put statements out there in the fashion that the CityBeat did. I mean what if at some point in time through some horrible twist of fate I actually met the person about whom I wrote:

The cheese and schmaltz remained funny until my own penis actually receded into my body. Wait. Hold on… yep, I’m a girl now. Thanks, Andy!

Or

This album came with a note announcing that, “If you’ve ever heard of the Beatles you will like this CD.” Well I’ve never heard of these Beatles guys, but if they sound anything like Weckel, then the only people who are going to like them are coffeehouse art-fags who dig bad David Bowie impressions. The aural equivalent to spilling a grande brew-of-the-day in your crotch.

That second one Definitely makes me want to hear the album, but I can’t find any info on the artist, Will Weckel. Below are a few more artists on the “Rest Of” list that sounded intriguing to me, along with CityBeat review excerpts and attempts to track down their music to sample.
(more…)

I emailed the guys in The Vision Of A Dying World a few times the past week, and I like to imagine that the guy in the band reading my emails is the guy in the bottom right corner of the above photo, and that he reads the emails with the exact facial expression he has in the picture. Anyways, they have a new banjo driven song that rules that I thought people would want to hear.

The Vision Of A Dying World - Beaver King