Rivethead - Cheap Wine Of Youth

Hey, do you guys (not gender specific) remember when "industrial metal" sounded like a cool idea? I actually don't, which is funny, because I was into some really shitty music that occupied the same microcosm in my proto-high school years. Fortunately nu-metal only sounded good as a 14 year old who had exposure to approximately nothing but shitty 70's rock and radio bullshit, so I don't feel much shame in admitting that - especially since I was over dung like Korn and Slipknot by the following year. Why am I writing this as an intro to Rivethead? Well, no good reason, just the fact that there's apparently an industrial metal band with the same moniker sharing a page on last.fm. For a few golden minutes, I thought the not-terrible Rivethead was touring again, but it turns out tattooed dorks with goatees and Ministry-fixations are still writing and performing tuneage for 13 year old angst buckets.

Rivethead’s a band I only got into through exposure to the member’s current/recent projects, and if you look at the list (Banner Pilot, Off With Their Heads, Dear Landlord, The Gateway District, etc), you'll instantly understand why giving this a spin was unavoidable. Cheap Wine Of Youth is their 2003 final statement, unfortunately, and the too-short follow-up to the similarly great 2001 EP, City Sound Number 5. Rumor has it the band actually concluded with a split with a band called Caulfield I've never heard, but it never saw the light of day.
Rivethead were a great, somewhat short-lived unit from Minneapolis, MN that played one of my favorite stylistic variations on pop-punk - Drunkscreechingweaselwithbeardscore. You know the kind; high-paced, sorta simple, super catchy songs with raspy, gruff vocals and tons of interplay/harmonies, and heavy, crunchy guitars that still retain that sweetness we all love as bubblegum chewing, Chuck Taylor brandishing youths. As I noted, this band's sound is definitely indebted to Ben "Complete Piece Of Shit" Weasel's classic-era Screeching Weasel, especially in regards to the clever use of multiple vocalists, but fortunately there's no "wuh-oh"s or early 90's girl-crazy, quasi-misogynistic lyrical cheese to be had.
Cheap Wine Of Youth is 9 classic tracks of 20-something angst, idealism, anger, and just enough sentimental imagery in the lyrics to make me wanna just get drunk and break into abandoned buildings. I guess this is more of a 12“ EP than a full length LP, but hey, if we can consider Gridlink’s Amber Gray a full length, then pretty much anything passes - the point is, despite the short running time (just over 20 minutes), this is a totally fulfilling listen, with awesome, fist-pumping songs like “48 Double Stack”, “Past Days”, “Traffic Street”, and “In My Heart A Warehouse Burns For You”, the very former-most of which is among my favorite songs in the pop-punk galaxy. Most importantly, the very latter contains the line "I love you just as much as I hate the man". Punk rawk.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1qmzfdz4tzm

If you dig these guys sound as much as I do, the next best thing you can do is pick up some Dear Landlord. I wouldn't say I like it quite as much as Rivethead, but it's stylistically the closest of the preceding projects, and just generally kicks the veritable ass. And hey, if you already dismissed the band's full length, Dream Homes, following the insurmountable fortress of hype built around it prior to it's release, give it another shot with expectations only for a solid, straightforward and catchy-as-shit pop punk album and you should enjoy it.

P.S. Eliot - Introverted Romance In Our Troubled Minds

Hey guys, I'm back.

I may or may not have mentioned this, but I've been traveling/reinventing/mixing things up, so to speak. Did I have time for maintaining this blog? Yeah, probably, but well, I've never been one to not suck at almost everything... extra emphasis on adhering to a self-imposed schedule for creative expression. I mean, c'mon... who needs to actually express themselves through a selected medium? Isn't it always better to just ignore all impulses to create out of apathy/fear of failure until they've built up into black tumors of stress twisted throughout my psyche?

Of course it is.

This is normally the part where I'd give a brief bio of the band... as far as I remember, at least. It's been a while since I wrote anything here, so my old M.O.'s not so fresh in my mind anymore. Unfortunately, there's either close to no biographical information available online, or I'm just incapable of locating any. Basically, though, lead vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Katie Crutchfield teamed up with her sister Alison and one or two more instrument yielding human specimens and formed P.S. Eliot in '07 or '08. Or maybe it was just the sisters on the demo? I guess it doesn't really matter since we're (RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE) not talking about the demo. Speaking of which, P.S. Eliot has released one fuzz-guitar demo called The Bike Wreck!!!, this here LP, an EP called Living In Squalor, and as of April this year, a 2nd LP called Sadie. Also, apparently Katie and Alison were in a band called The Ackleys I just found out about (and now desperately need material from), and currently operate in the adorable fuzzed-out pop punk band, Bad Banana, as well as Katie's acoustic project, Waxahatchee.

Likely uninteresting information aside, the band plays, in my mind, a perfectly balanced blend of lo-fi 90's indie rock and pop punk brimming with incisive, wordy, and somewhat nostalgic lyrics and that special brand of down-to-earth beauty that permeates throughout every aspect of their sound. In other words, this is one of those albums - the kind that I end up flogging for months on end and bullying it onto any friend of mine who'll listen. For your information, this list also includes The Sidekicks' Weight Of Air, Defiance Ohio's Share What Ya Got, and Common Rider's Last Wave Rockers - all near perfect and completely infectious albums you totally need.
The opening track of their hometown's namesake, "Tennessee", is a gorgeous low-key number that sounds like it was written specifically to be played on a foggy, heavy-hearted drive home at night through a shitty sound system. It's one of those songs that sound like they should go on forever. The rest of the album is more upbeat, but it's somewhat murky quality and the non-laughable English Major angsty-ness keeps it from floating too far into the cheery pop-punk realm. It never becomes a downer, though, and while tracks like "Sore Subject" and the amazing harmonica punctuated "Incoherent Love Songs" feature themes of realistic, dull, pain, they still end up on the "uplifting" end of the spectrum.

buy it here: http://www.salinasrecords.com/
try it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?yyxwn44znrt

Sadly, the band just announced they're throwing in the towel after 4 years of activity and a relocation to Brooklyn. I still haven't had the opportunity to see them yet, so there's no way in hell I'm missing their final show in the city this December. If you end up liking this, definitely check out all the aforementioned projects and releases - every one of them is worth a listen, and for the record, Bad Banana killed it at Plan-It-X Fest this year.

Also: Good to be back. Expect regular updates again from now on.
Tentatively.

Andrew Jackson Jihad - Issue Problems

More polk-funk for the completely uninitiated. I guess I'm trying to set up a basic grouping of current, talked-about bands before I go into the obscurer stuff. So far I've touched on Against Me! (albeit not a folk-punk release of theirs), Defiance, Ohio, Ghost Mice, and... that might be it as far as my memory serves. Oh, I guess twoeyes did a Tim Barry/folk punk rant, too. Alright fine, I just came up with the idea to make this a progression into less familiar territory. Fuck you.

Andrew Jackson Jihad are a two-piece guitar & stand-up bass band from Phoenix, Arizona with a penchant for ridiculous, satirical lyrics and making stoned college kids laugh. Their earliest work (Candy Cigarettes & Cap Guns, Issue Problems, and Only God Can Judge Me) is very sparse, but People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World saw them fill out their sound with lots of additional instruments, and 2009's Can't Maintain had them "bringing it all back home" (ie electrifying their sound). Fortunately for all their fans, the changes they've made over the years haven't spoiled their core values at all. These guys tend to appeal to people who actually hate folk punk, too. Or at least, they had a big audience on the Mitch Clem forum - a dreadful cauldron of hoodlums and villains that didn't really dig the whole off-key wailing 20 somethings scratching on an acoustic. While I dig all of their stuff in relatively equal measure, I find myself listening to their first EP more than anything else - hence the review.
Issue Problems is basically a continuation of their debut LP, and is even more bare and rehearsal quality. It's only about 10 minutes long, and contains 6 songs, 5 of which were re-recorded for their second LP. The song "Powerplant" is the only one who got the boot, but still ended up snuggly on the split with Ghost Mice. The songs are all pretty simple, and apparently all recorded in one take, which lends it kind of a manic energy especially evident in whatshisname's warbly voice, spewing ridiculous, dark, and earnest lyrics in a way that's still somehow emotionally resonant. Maybe I just have a tendency to get "moved" too easily, though. Actually, there's really no maybe about it... "People" is definitely the highlight for me, which is just as paper airplane-simplistic as the rest of the tracks, but instantly accessible. I guess it's the joyous, realist view on how wonderfully, excitingly shitty everyone is that gets to me - a little more relateable than a first person account of slaughtering a family, for example.

If you're only familiar with the versions of these songs that were re-recorded and "beefed up" with additional instruments/tempos/etc, they might come across as a little barren and underwhelming. I don't really know how to remedy that, I guess, but for the record, I prefer them in this incarnate. The urgency and simplicity of these first takes is perfect, and the revisions seem to soften their impact. I think I'm in the minority, but give it a shot:

http://www.mediafire.com/?zfmngyoyy4y

Dead Kennedys - Plastic Surgery Disasters

Okay, so the vegetarian thing is working out pretty well so far. I've gone down about 10 pounds unfortunately, but damn do I look good in a skimpy, sheer negligee for my gentlemen callers. Also, I'm a faux-veggie. I forgot to mention that, likely because no one on the entire planet cares so I wasn't feeling much pressure: basically, I'll eat meat on the basis that animals tend to eat meat, but not corpses bloated with antibiotics and force-fed mono-crops conducive to a slew of illnesses. Either way, that's my irrelevant intro this review.

This album is amazing. I know a lot of people tend to lean towards Fresh Fruit... and Frankenchrist when picking favorites, but for me, this is the single best album the Dead Kennedys ever released. I'm not gonna go through the history again, but basically I transitioned from death metal and grindcore to powerviolence and crust punk to anarcho and theeeeeennnn... good buddy Steve (I'm one of 4 Steves) lends me this album and the progression finally hits the roots. Plastic Surgery Disasters was the second LP length release by the band, and a total embrace of the hardcore velocity they hinted at with their debut. As such, the ur, "musicality" is taken down a notch in order to crank up to jet-speed, but the songwriting is just as memorable as ever. Plus, the B-side is all slower songs if that's what drew you in on Fresh Fruit... assuming anyone has ever been drawn to a punk band by the relative slowness. I dunno. I'm not really feeling too focused on honing the literary elements of this review, today.
The production on this album has garnered some complaints over the years for being as tinny and rough on the ears as it is, but I for one think it's the cornerstone of appeal. The raw, messy, but coherent sound is the stuff of legends, and the kind of production style I found loads of affection for through countless grindcore/hardcore/early death metal listening benders. Apparently it was intentional, though, as Jello revealed in some old interview that they wanted the sound to be just as paranoid and ear-trashing as the lyrics and vocal histrionics. Fucking heroic stance. The band's musicianship shines through as great as ever, though, with tons of catchy riffs, melodies, and creative hooks - it's just noisier than most people are used to when approaching a classic hardcore/punk album.
I'm not sure I could really pick highlights from here since this album actually makes my top 10 albums of forever list, but if you've never heard it for some reason, downloading "Well Paid Scientist", "Halloween", the epic "Riot", and the surprisingly pleasant "Moon Over Marin" probably won't make you curse your ears for not being vestigial. Every track is gold, though, so you may as well just grab this linky below:

http://www.mediafire.com/?oy0jemvyjej

I just stole this link from google, so I have no idea whether it's the original master or not, or whether the In God We Trust Inc. EP is tacked on the back, but there 'ya go.

Ghost Mice - Europe

Alright, time to showcase some more folk punk that really doesn't need any additional attention. I've honestly been wanting to write up some reviews for Hail Seizures, The Taxpayers, Blackbird Raum, and Dandelion Junk Queens (among others), but fuck promoting unfairly ignored bands, let's talk about Ghost Mice.

So yeah, I'll be covering those bands later on.

Ghost Mice is a two piece acoustic unit composed of Chris Johnston (aka Chris Clavin) and Hannah Jones, who play guitar and violin, respectively. They were involved in a bunch of bands I've never really dug, such as Operation: Cliff Clavin, The Devil Is Electric, I Like Japanese Hardcore, and Disarm (who I've never actually heard), but decided to strip down to their folk side in 2002 and form this here 2-piece. Apparently, it was an effort to cast off the stressful bullshit intrinsic with a being tear-ass'ing rawk 'n' rowl demolition unit (ie: the need for a tour van, lugging heavy instruments and amps around, being dependent on gas and cash to spread their wares, etc...). Fortunately, they struck some gold with this decision, because... I like Ghost Mice but not those other bands, I guess. That wasn't very well said. If you have a low tolerance for the cliches floating around this recent influx of folk-punk bands, it'd probably be wise to stop reading now, because these two embody most of, if not all of them. They can definitely get cheesy, and the loud whine of the vocals can get sorta grating if you're not in the mood, but here's the thing: I've found that a lot of the bands I've made a really deep connection with over the years embody an earnesty that overcomes all the technical stuff. If it can seep through the clunky vocals, overstated crescendos, and lyrical obtuseness, I'll probably love it regardless of it's flaws.
Anyway:
Europe is a concept album that details the band's 3 month trip across it's continental namesake without much cash, planning, or solid contacts to choose from. Every song details their experiences in different countries (including two nautical ones) and all the hardships and beauty they witnessed along the way. I know that an album is typically something you focus on musically first, and lyrically second, but this is one of those rare exceptions. The music is catchy and enjoyable enough - the typical sweet acoustic strumming and violin stuff - lacking most of the uptempo punkiness of their earlier work, but acts like more of a backdrop to the story being told than a guide. There's definitely cohesion and prosody at work here, but the focus for me has always been the story - primarily due to the effect it had on me when I first heard it. It just has a mesmerizing way of interjecting it's plot driven structure with this warm imagery and focus on the freedom inherent with non-committal travel. I know how dopey a statement like this can come across, especially if you really can't stand this kind of music, but it really only took one listen to convince me to enact my own backpacking trip through Europe. Moreover, the tag-team with Defiance, Ohio's Share What Ya Got got me restless enough to quit my job and go traveling a year ago. Folk punk ruined my standard American existence.

http://www.mediafire.com/?n2udm5ojyyq

Here's something that made me smile last week: a new friend of mine was telling me about her 4 month stay in Europe, and how great the experience was, and I ended up responding with the same mock-able statement I made above. Oddly enough, she listened to this same album on the way back and apparently drew a ridiculous amount of similarities between her stay and Ghost Mice's. I guess there's not much more to this story, but I thought it was cool that this album helped kick off my wanderlust and found her at the end of the same journey.

Terrible Fucking Songs

If you're on facebook, you've probably seen some asshole like me participating in the 30 Day Song Challenge thing. It's vaguely amusing, and an excellent chance to post songs no one will listen to, so I hopped on board about a week ago. When I reached the second day, which asks to narrow down the myriad of songs I hate to a single representative, there wasn't a moment's hesitation. This song is like a lightning rod for my storm of hatred:

Natasha Bedingfield sucks. No, more like "suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkssss". Just a particularly putrid example of modern pop music. Of course, after posting that, I couldn't help but unleash the list. Since I started working in Key Food back in 2005, I've been slowly cataloging all the songs I've grown to hate through constant exposure in the work environment. Take a look:
Marc Anthony - You Sang To Me
The Mamas And Papas - California Dreamin'
Donovan - Sunshine Superman
Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight
Enya - Sail Away
...Depeche Mode - Wrong
Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl
LFO - Summer Girls
Carrie Underwood - Just A Dream
Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked
Jamie Foxx - Blame It On The Alcohol
Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
The Ting Tings - Shut Up And Let Me Go
Stereo Total - I Love You Ono
Sweet - Little Willy
Three Dog Night - One
Hoobastank - The Reason
Lisa Stansfield - Around The World
Ryan Cabrera - True
Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten
Jars Of Clay - Flood
Seether - Careless Whisper (Wham! cover)
The Bee Gees - Tragedy
...Peter Cetera - Glory Of Love
Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
Kelly Clarkson - Undo It
Stacey Q - Two Of Hearts
Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
Rob Thomas - This Is How A Heart Breaks
Clay Aiken - Invisible
Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination
Leann Rimes - Can't Fight The Moonlight
Frankie Valle & The Four Seasons - Who Loves You
Vanessa Williams - Sometimes The Sun Goes Round The Moon
George Harrison - Got My Mind Set On You
David Cook - Permanent
Katy Perry - California Girlz
Katy Perry - Firework
...Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
Tal Bachman - She's So High
Trace Adkins - Honky Tonk Badonkadonk
Trailer Choir - Rockin' The Beer Gut
Sugarland - Stuck Like Glue
Alanis Morissette - Hand In My Pocket
Eminem - Not Afraid
Soulja Boi - She Got A Donk
Vanessa Williams - Save The Best For Last
Fergie - Fergalicious
Fergie - Big Girls Don't Cry
One Republic - All The Right Moves
Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved
Justin Timberlake & One Republic - Apologize
No Doubt - Don't Speak
Orianthi - According To You
Paula Cole - I Don't Want To Wait
Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On
Don Henley - Dirty Laundry
Nickelback - This Afternoon

Also: 50th post. Whoooo!

Indian Summer - s/t

Note: this has only been an emo-heavy month because I've been so lazy, not because I'm wallowing in self-pity and introspection. I'm actually doing purty swell emotionally, fyi. Most of these bands' sounds, however, have been permanently etched into my brain through prolonged exposure in high school, so it doesn't take me much effort to describe them or how they impact me. Fuck yeah, truckin' on through the apathy.

Indian Summer were a super-influential second wave emo band from Oakland, California who somehow made a major impact on the "genre" despite existing for virtually no time at all. The band never really toured, performed for less than a year, and only released 9 scattered tracks in really low quantities (hence the "collector prices" abounding). I guess it could be testament to how self-contained the scene was at the time, or how eager the kids were to seek out this kind of band, but it's really just the hindsight that blows my mind. If a band this low-scale could be so affecting, why have so few bands blown minds recently with the advent of the interbutt? Well... maybe they have, actually. It's probably hard for me to notice since I essentially grew up with it's reinvention of information sharing. Regardless, Indian Summer are now considered a staple band who can be name dropped amongst bands like Rites Of Spring, Moss Icon, and Sunny Day Real Estate, and it's baffling to think little they really did in a physical sense.
While the emo scene was already getting pretty dynamics-centric, and crescendos were a device for emotional payoff at the end of slow build-ups, Indian Summer's careening between twinkly, soft, guitar parts and loud, cathartic bursts was definitely a step up on both fronts. This self-titled EP from '93 is easily the band's most essential document, and contains my (and admittedly, a lot people's) two favorite songs. The opener, "Aren't You Angel", is one, and showcases especially well the exaggerated dynamics the band utilized. The song starts off quietly with whispers and a dark bassline before bursting into a crushingly blunt, driving, angular riff. Mid-song, the band begins to stutter the central riff with pauses of barely audible picking before stopping completely. The song restarts at the same super-delicate sound before finally delivering a big, gripping crescendo with a melody that makes you soil yourself super gross.
That last part was self-sabotage. Isn't it a BLAST to slog through descriptions of song structure? WHEEEEE!!!!

The shorter "Millimeter" is mostly centered on the angular, post-hardcore simplicity that dominates the first half of "Aren't You Angel", and is a great track despite living a "hard knock life" ie being sandwiched between their two most developed songs. The EP closes with "Angry Son", which is easily the band's most revered track, and often gets referred to as the essential emo song. It really is, though. It's still one of the most powerful songs I've ever heard, and often times it gets my eyes watering like a sissy*. It starts off with a quiet, lo-fidelity clip of some vocal jazz song before coming in slowly with an extremely pretty and soothing little riff that sounded incredibly nostalgic even the first time I heard it. When the whispering and twinkling finally break through into the heaviness, it's really moving. From there, the song resumes the first quiet riff as the vocalist softly speaks, this time accompanied by additional twinkly bits before finally exploding into an upgrade of the first instance of loud-dynamic complete with screaming and tears leaking out of your headphones. When I'd walk through the halls with this song playing, I always imagined all the lockers bursting open whenever the crescendo hit, and being surrounded by loose papers floating through the air. I know it's dumb, shut up. The song ends pretty much how it began, with the old record playing quietly. It's just an incredible song, and had/has a real effect on me, before and after discovering the lyrics.
You pretty much require this if you have any interest in emo before it got bastardized.

(I'll post this later)

For some reason, there was a text document with this list in it on one of my old zip drives. If you're interested, it's a list of the emo songs I thought would make a perfect introduction to the uninitiated back in the day.
In no particular order:

1.) Rites Of Spring - For Want Of
2.) Indian Summer - Angry Son
3.) Moss Icon - As Afterwards The Words Still Ring
4.) Don Martin Three - Connection
5.) Native Nod - Tangled
6.) Cap'n Jazz - Basil's Kite
7.) Constatine Sankathi - I'm An Android
8.) Republic Of Freedom Fighters - Calypso Syngenor Method
9.) Embrace - Dance Of Days
10.) Reach Out - Wall Street
11.) Honeywell - You And Me
12.) The Hated - Two People Blue
13.) Merel - The Guest
14.) Dag Nasty - Circles
15.) Sunny Day Real Estate - Song About An Angel
16.) Christie Front Drive - Turned On 8

*LOL @ a generalized put down of non-masculine men through self-deprecation