Video :: Remote Viewing :: Tyler, The Creator

Sure, sure this one's been making the rounds. Nothing new about posting it here. That's why I encourage you to just watch the whole thing on mute. And instead of Tyler sitting there on the stool, imagine it's me, and I've just been told I can't drink beer anymore because I've developed a deadly allergy. Or, plan B, watch and listen at the same time to see just why this band's been exploding lately. So much hype, I wouldn't be surprised if you called home this weekend to find out that Tyler the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt were your mom and dad now. And they will be from now on. And it won't be so bad, because you'll never be short on love. Embrace it.

News :: We Can See the Future :: John Maus

We expect this guy to come out smelling like a winner from this year's SXSW. Or at least he'll go from nobody having heard of him, to releasing a couple tracks that remind people of the 80s, and then back to releasing rarely reviewed albums for Upset the Rhythm. So, yeah, by seeing the future, we mean to say that we have watched this guy coming up for a while, and it's not so hard to guess that people will go for nostalgia with a twist anytime it's offered. But, you know what? We're suckers of the worst kind, too. Not like gotta-pay-rent-street-corner suckers, more like some happy medium between that and actual leeches.

John Maus, not to be mistaken for Maus of the Walker Brothers, lives in Hawaii where he probably sleeps with the newly wed wives on their honeymoons while the husbands are out hitting the links and hiking volcanoes. He's also spent some time with Ariel Pink and Gary War on the Haunted Graffiti project, which should all have worked to lift him over the shoulders of his peers. He travels around with a Roland sampler, groans into his microphone, and gesticulates like he's leading tent revivalists in prayer.  Oh, and his third album came out this past June. Heard of him yet?

John Maus :: Do Your Best

News :: Our Machine Watches Your Machine :: I Guess I'm Floating

Zoo Music and the blog, I Guess I'm Floating, have a ten day old mixtape up curated by Dirty Beaches. This one's made up of mostly older jamz, rap songs, and sonic graters.

It's hard to tell if the Alan Vega song classifies as tipping his hand or owning up to what we all already know about the Dirty Beaches sound. Tevs. I was definitely pleased to hear "The Night Collectors" on there from those commie hijacking Japanese, Les Rallizes Denudés, off of their Heavier Than A Death In The Family album.

Listen UP. Friday mixtape coming to your house. Hope your work machine streams--just one more thing the private sector has over guv'ment labor.

Video :: Remote Viewing :: Millionyoung x Teen Gaze

Getting my feet back under me again, and I thought I'd start out with this new video of Millionyoung and Teen Daze performing a watery cover of Pink Floyd's "Us and Them," something to celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of the flood season.

Video courtesy of yourstruly courtesy of somebody else who actually got off their ass and did something.

Review :: Psychotronic Wiretap :: Dignan Porch

Dignan Porch
Deluded
Captured Tracks

There's enough swerving guitar rock here to keep my eyes forward on the road. The singer's stair-step vocal rhythm has plenty of hook to it. And the occasional harmony just plain creeps me out the way two people who know each other way too well do. Dignan Porch hail from the UK, the land where our better-mannered cousins crouch in a thick fog, dreaming of beaches. And perhaps that explains the beauty this band builds from simple means, never really over-reaching or stepping into the unfamiliar. I feel like I'm getting soft in my age just listening to them. Makes we want to go out in the street and kick over a baby carriage or wave my knife at an old lady just to rekindle what I lost listening to this album.

Captured Tracks deserves a pat on the back for inviting these guys across the pond. They released the band's first album in 2010 and this slightly higher-fi follow-up shows even more promise, proving that with clear eyes there's more guts and glory to behold.  Go to your record store, or why not give them a week, and then demand Deluded.

Dignan Porch :: Stream

News :: Third Eye Laser Surgery :: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

The new album by the Pains of Being Pure at Heart is streaming for free over at their cleverly named website. And, BLAM, it's on our site, too, 'cause we're smarter than we look. Seriously, don't fuck with us: we photocopied your license when you left your wallet on the counter. Now we've got your address.



Belong comes out on the very respectable Slumberland Records on March 29 (of this year, you sweet stupid bastard). On first listen it's all pretty syrupy in that way that makes me want to run around in diapers barking like a dog. And if it holds up to repeated listens, then we've got a winner just like their first album.

Since their giving away the new stuff, here's some old stuff to satisfy your appetite for theft in the age of the interwebs.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart :: Come Saturday

Review :: Electronic Voice Phenomena :: Widowspeak

Widowspeak
S/T
Wack Slacks

Widowspeak :: Harsh Realm

Got some more jangly guitar rock for you. I picked up this tape while I was in Brooklyn this past weekend over at Academy Records Annex. I think my shopping companion was on her third story about puking right before a boy was supposed to ask her out, more than one pamphleteer asked me if I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart, and there was a record store cat in the window watching the passersby pass by, all of which coalesced into a wonderful sense of well-being for me. It had me hoping for the world again, and my hope for the world took the form of a $5 cassette purchase before it was spent.

When my bus crash-landed in a harsh rainstorm, the type that's full of shit and shiver, I was home in DC again. I caught the Dum Dum Girls over at Black Cat (which is all really neither here nor there, tevs), and then I put this little gem in my trusty RCA deck when I got through the door. Wack Slacks either intentionally or unintentionally, because they didn't have the connection to have it mastered, gave this EP a worn-in sound that I can dig. It's probably the latter, but who the fuck can afford to be polished nowadays? Suck it, Libya.

This one's for fans of Mazzy Star or just sitting outside alone on a summer night, thinking about but not quite succeeding in sobriety.

Thanks for the find, ECS.

News :: Upcoming Releases :: March

3/1

Dum Dum Girls :: He Gets Me High :: Sub Pop :: LP
Cosmetics: Cosmetics :: Captured Tracks :: LP
Dizzy Eyes :: Let's Break Up the Band :: Hardly Art :: EP

3/8
Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring for My Halo :: Matador :: LP
Dam Mantle :: First Wave :: Wichita Recordings :: LP
Beach Fossils :: What a Pleasure :: Captured Tracks :: Ep

3/15
Pains of Being Pure at Heart :: Belong :: Slumberland :: LP
Brave Irene :: S/T :: Slumberland :: EP

3/29
Hunx and His Punx :: Too Young to be in Love :: Hardly Art :: LP
Moon Duo: Mazes :: Sacred Bones :: LP
Toro y Moi/Cloud Nothings :: Split :: Carpark :: 7"
Spectre Folk :: The Blackest Medicine, Vol. 2 :: Woodsist :: 12" EP

News :: We're In Your House :: Kurt Vile @ Red Onion Records

News :: Upcoming Shows :: March

3/1: Future Islands, Thank You, Ed Schrader @ Red Palace

3/2: Marnie Stern @ Red Palace
       Kurt Vile @ Red Onion

3/4: Smith Westerns, Unknown Mortal Orchestra @ Rock and Roll Hotel [SOLD OUT]

3/5: Tennis, La Sera, Holiday Shores @ Rock and Roll Hotel

3/6: Dum Dum Girls, Minks, Dirty Beaches @ Black Cat

3/8: Pogues, Titus Andronicus @ 9:30 Club [SOLD OUT]

3/9: Pogues, Titus Andronicus @ 9:30 Club [tickets remaining]
       Robyn Hitchcock @ Birchmere

3/11: Wye Oak, Lower Dens @ Black Cat

3/20: Salem @ Rock and Roll Hotel

3/24: Fujiya/Miyagi @ Rock and Roll Hotel
       OFF! @ Red Palace

3/25: Pissed Jeans @ Red Palace
       Asobi Seksu, Cults @ Rock and Roll Hotel

3/26: Sebadoh, Richard Buckner @ Black Cat

3/27: Jacuzzi Boys, Fergus and Geronimo, et al @ Comet Ping Pong

3/31: Mike Watt and the Missing Men @ Black Cat Backstage