Throwback Thursday : Desechables

This '80s crusty Spanish garage-punk trio Desechables is the perfect companion piece to The Cramps. SO GOOD!

Eight Bells : Stronger than Steel

A potent three piece band is a thing of beauty. Each member owns a huge and powerful piece of the audio real estate. This set up allows each member's playing technique and style to shine through. They can be as dense or as minimal in their attack of the song as they see fit but whatever the choice, all three sides of the triangle offer a necessary side to the structure.

Eight Bells approach heavy music as an atmospheric chorus soaked in fuzz and delay, They lead me to believe that if Lemmy had remained in Hawkwind, this is perhaps what we could have expected. Their atmospheric dirge is illuminated by two voices that together paint a dramatic landscape filled with contrast and beauty.

Landless is the second album from this Portland, OR trio featuring Melynda Jackson formerly of SubArachnoid Space, Haley Westeiner, and Ray Amitay of Immortal Bird. I was recently introduced to the band as one of the openers on the current Voivod tour; another metal band that expands the boundary of what defines heavy music through experimentation. Silk is composed of a prism like fibers that comes across as reflective, sleek, and flexible yet it is also the strongest of all the natural fabrics. Pound for pound when the threads are weaved together, it is stronger than steel. This is the music of Eight Bells, exactly.

 

Here is a live video of the band from the show I saw at Strange Matter in Richmond, VA.

Why I Am Heading to Athens, GA in 24 Hours

I never had the opportunity to see the mighty Pylon but this show sounds like a respectable plan B. Pylon vocalist Vanessa Brisco Hay is performing her songs with Athens musicians dubbed the Pylon Reenactment Society with Dressy Bessy as the opening band. Road trip!





And this first video was my introduction to them in high school.

Throwback Thursday : A.C. Temple

Here is a little something I wrote about the band back in 2008.

Artist - A.C. Temple

Catalog
Songs of Praise 1987  - Further / Mute
Blowtorch - 1988 - Torso
Sourpuss - 1989 - Blast first (Jon Langford produced)
Belinda Backwards - 1991 blast first (and I am sure I am missing some!)

Singles :
Band of Susans split 7" 1989 - Blast First
Wedding Present split flexi 1993 Ablaze! Magazine insert

Hometown- Sheffield, UK

They are a perfect blend of so many genres and bands I love…only A.C. Temple was doing it before many of these newer groups. I was undeniably an old school emo indie rocker kid (still am I suppose minus the kid part) so my point of reference here is the early to middle years of Dischord Records. Some of the great guitar bands to come from San Diego like Pitchfork and Drive Like Jehu. The classic Chicago / Touch and Go sound. American and British variations of Riot Grrrl. Anything Sub Pop from the late 80’s up until the mid 90’s. UK and US 90’s shoegaze and last but not least the more slightly dissonant noisy groups like Sonic Youth.

In high school I didn’t know about groups like Lilliput, Kleenex, Delta 5, The Slits, The Au Pairs,Th' Faith Healers, The Raincoats….but I have discovered these artists between 1988 and now and still I wonder how A.C. Temple records didn’t make their way into my collection sooner. This band and their catalog of music is equally as poignant and pertinent as any of these other groups yet for some reason A.C. Temple never made it to the underground music hall of fame.

Does A.C. Temple really fit into the same musical family as ALL the groups mentioned above?

YES! (I suspect for some people this group might sound a little too derivative of that decade but they were ahead of their time damn it so be nice!)

Summer Twins Busy All Year

Phew! These southern California born sisters Chelsea and Justine Brown are busy. Let me try to map it all out here.

First we have Summer Twins which matches something like She & Him aesthetically (but She & She) as well as musically IE highly stylized and with a '60s vintage guitar pop sound. They released a brand new album towards the end of last year entitled Limbo.

They are also members of the Honey Power music and arts collective of ladies who DJ, make zines, host events, and release mixes.

They work at a family owned business called Dee-Lux and as you might guess, they are a vintage clothing store which makes the sisters fashion sense all the more special because of the connection to their parents.

Justine has been known to play bass in the shoegazey Samira's Infinite Summer.




Justine also plays in the garage pop band Michael Rey and the Woebegones.

Throwback Thursday : Tomorrow Come Sunday

In 1969 Peter Howell and and his musical partner John Fernando (prolific writers) recorded and released a private press album that was a soundtrack for an underground film entitled Tomorrow Come Someday, limited to less than 100 copies. The musical comedy is based around the idea of a town "threatened by a motorway expansion, and the efforts of short skirted guitar-slinging young painter Emma Stacey and a local boy to save the day". Light in the Attic is offering a re-release of this LP along with the DVD debut of the film as a double disc set that also carries a nice sized booklet with lots of photos that tell the full story of this film and recording.

Musically speaking, imagine the kitchen sink tales of The Kinks as told by Vashti Bunyan or Nico.

Fresh Snow Featuring Carmen Elle

Currently I am sitting in a New Jersey hotel room watching the finest of snow make its way down. It looks like the sky is giving us a dusting of powder sugar for breakfast. This soft early morning winter light has me thinking of the Toronto band Fresh Snow. While they are a band of 4 gents, there is one song that features Carmen Elle (Army Girls / Diana) on vocals. I love the ominous John Carpenter soundtrack feel with a Pop overtone. It makes my skin crawl and yet I want to dance too.