Band You Should Be Listening To - Japandroids

...and I am back from the longest sabbatical ever. No need to explain myself, other than to say over the past two months I've lacked time, inspiration, and motivation to maintain this blog. Luckily, my recent hard drive reformat (thank you, Windows Vista) caused me to reevaluate my music library and has given me some long awaited ideas.

Of course, it wouldn't feel right if I didn't make my fist post in two months about some band that likes to make lots of noise. I really know very little about Japandroids, other than they are from Vancouver, BC and they derive their lo-fi sound from the acceptance of making do with what they have.

When bands don't have any money or exposure, they are forced to take matters into their own hands. Japandroids self-recorded and distributed two EP's using nothing but a drum set, guitar, two vocalizers, and a four track mixer. So you could say their lo-fi sound was predetermined whether they wanted to sound that way or not, but it suits them perfectly.

Like LA's No Age and San Diego skate punk band Wavves, Japandroids are a guitar + drums duo whose DIY punk ideals are leading a lo-fi renaissance of sorts. Their two-step drum and cymbal rhythms and garage-punk guitar riffs evoke the heyday of the noise/skate/garage punk era of the early to mid 1990's, when labels like Sub Pop and SST were releasing classic records seemingly by the dozens. Japandroids could easily have fit in during that era, as it isn't difficult for me to imagine them blowing the doors off some run-down warehouse in San Pedro while opening for the Minutemen.

If you want to hear more of these guys, their debut album Post-Nothing is now available on Canada's Unfamiliar Records. Also, for the LA readers of this blog they are playing the Silver Lake lounge on 5/29. People up North can catch them at Seattle's annual Capitol Hill Block Party (along with The Jesus Lizard, Sonic Youth, Deerhunter and many more) on July 25th.

Japandroids
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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are an Awesome Band With a Very Stupid Name

It's very easy to dismiss a band just because their name sounds stupid. Often times it's easy to infer many things about a band based solely on their name. For example, if you came across a CD-R with the name Napalm Death written on the front in Sharpie pen it's safe to assume the music found within said CD would be very dark, aggressive and loud (with an ample amount of grunting). . .and you'd be right. Rage Against the Machine is another name that tells you right away what to expect. You get the idea.

If I were to apply this logic to Brooklyn trio The Pains of Being Pure at Heart then my expectation would be a steady dose of contrived sad bastard Emo pop...or possibly some paint-by-numbers Goth rip-off music. Thankfully, the band sound nothing like either of those things. In fact, their debut self-titled album sounds pretty fantastic.

Those of you who read this blog (whenever I actually post something) know that I have a soft spot for well executed Shoegaze music. My adoration for My Bloody Valentine, The Pale Saints, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Ride (among others) makes it easier to appreciate newer incarnations/variations of the genre like Deerhunter, Serena Maneesh, and Asobi Seksu. So, it shouldn't be a surprised that I loved The Pains of Being Pure at Heart from the very first listen.

It's fair to say these guys aren't very original at all, but originality way too subjective of a term with which to base all my musical choices. What does make TPOBPAH great is how seemingly effortlessly the drift between melodic dream pop ("Young Adult Friction", "Stay Alive"), noise drone ("Hey Paul", "Gentle Sons"), and even Brit-pop ("A Teenager In Love"). Throughout this album the music is very precise and focused, never lasting longer than it needs to.

This sounds easy, but I assure you it isn't. The mark of good pop music (and yes, this is a pop record at it's core) is the ability to convey a feeling clearly and concisely. In other words, get right to the point, make me feel good, and then move on to the next song in under four minutes. Fortunately, TPOBPAH are able to pull this off over and over again.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "This Love is Fucking Right" (from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart)


The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Stay Alive" (from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart")


The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "A Teenager In Love" (from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart")

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Band You Should Be Listening To - Abe Vigoda

Anyone who has ever spent a significant amount of time in Los Angeles knows their experience is party shaped by their proximity to the activities they like to do (good shopping, parks, bars/restaurants, etc.). Driving the freeways can be a bitch and public transit isn't exactly the badge of honor it should be for the nation's second largest city, which means if you don't live close to places you like to go to, then you wind up wasting too much time merely getting to those places and usually end up staying home (ask anyone who lives in Santa Monica to go East of the 405 during the weekend to see this theory in action). It is for this reason that I relish being living in Silver Lake and, by the same token, why it is a genuinely exciting time to be a music fan in Los Angeles.

Plain and simple, there's quite a roster of quality bands who have shaped the music scene in this part of town to one of the most dynamic in America. Peruse the blogosphere, the music festival circuit, MySpace, music mags, and indie radio and you're bound to run into at least one person raving about any number of LA-based bands like No Age, Lavender Diamond, Health, Mika Miko, or The Airborne Toxic Event. Another mainstay of the Eastside LA scene (not to be confused with East LA, which is someplace completely different) who undoubtedly deserves inclusion on that list is Abe Vigoda.

Originally from Chino (where the band met in high school), they relocated to LA a couple of years ago and quickly made a name for themselves within The Smell scene, named after the namesake downtown LA club where No Age, Health and Mika Miko also cut their teeth. While that scene isn't particularly big, the people who frequent the The Smell are exactly the type of loyal and feverishly enthusiastic fans that always seem to get the notoriety ball rolling for indie bands. Throw in the tastemaking influence of KXLU, MySpace and local publications and all of a sudden Abe Vigoda finds themselves touring across the nation with the likes of their BFF No Age and also with the equally buzzworthy High Places.

Comprised of vocalist/guitarist Michael Vidal, guitarist Juan Velasquez, bassist David Reichardt, and drummer Reggie Guerrero, many people describe Abe Vigoda's music as "tropical punk", whatever the hell that means. I think that characterization is meant to underscore how, rhythmically, their sharp guitars sound an awful lot like somebody frantically pounding away at the steel drums. The breakneck pace of their songs, with layers of throbbing bass and drumline-esque percussion (especially on the snare and cowbell) give their music a bigger and deeper sound than you'd expect from a band who typically wraps things up in 1-3 minutes.

But their style is such that nothing seems rushed or hastily planed. There's a method to this madness and often times that method results in me getting the urge to dance. I don't exactly know how I would look dancing to something like this, but I imagine whatever it is it involves a bunch of shaking and flailing of my arms. I have the feeling I would probably fit right in with 90% of Abe Vigoda's target audience, not to mention the band themselves.

Abe Vigoda - "The Garden" (from Skeleton)


Abe Vigoda - "Animal Ghosts" (from Skeleton)

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Band You Should Be Listening To - No Age

*Photo courtesy of Flickr member Charlie two hats

Admittedly, I am a little late to the party in regards to No Age since I am a Los Angeles resident. These guys play at The Smell (an all-ages indie rock venue that is ground zero for some of the most interesting music of the LA scene) all the time and I never (at least until now) bothered to pay $5 to see them on a whim? I need to stop being so lazy with stuff like that.

Anyway, No Age is an LA duo whose profile has started to elevate over the past year. Thanks to critical praise from the indie blogosphere and a print feature in none other than the standard-bearer of indie snob liberal society, The New Yorker. The exposure is warranted since their two albums are pretty damn great.

For people outside of LA (or, those of us too lazy to frequent The Smell), their introduction to No Age was probably last year's Wierdo Rippers. While not a proper album, but merely a collection of five previously vinyl-only EPs, Weirdo Rippers still manages to sound like one. It's a nice mix of distorted guitar soundscapes and good old fashioned noise punk that gives outsiders a glimpse into the chaotic and dynamic nature of the LA rock scene. You can hear elements of Sonic Youth, SST-era SoCal punk, and the Jesus and Mary Chain throughout, basically giving the listener different flavors of noise to savor.

No Age released their official debut album, Nouns, just a couple of weeks ago and already it is generating serious buzz as one of the year's best rock albums. After about six listens in three days (quite a bit for a musical ADD person like myself) I would tend to agree with that praise. Thus far, it joins Atlas Sound's debut as my favorite rock album to come out this year.

Similar to the Atlas Sound album, Nouns is a tightly constructed collection of sounds that weaves in and out of moods through a constant river of cacophony. The transition from instrumental noise drone to DIY punk noise is seamless throughout the album and never once could you accuse it of being pretentious (something that more bands think they succeeded at then actually did). Instead, No Age sees brevity as a virtue and shows that just because you can go crazy with the delay for 12 minutes doesn't mean you have to play for that long. Once again, something that bands who rely heavily on noise melodies fail to recognize.

I'm told No Age is even better in person, which doesn't make me feel like any less of schmuck for not seeing them any of the 20 or so times they played at home over the last 12 months. Better late than never, I guess.

No Age - "Boy Void" (from Weirdo Rippers)


No Age - "Eraser" (from Nouns)


No Age - "Here Should Be My Home "(from Nouns)

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Band You Should Be Listening To: Holy Fuck

I'm usually not a big fan of bands opting for band names that contain curse words. To me it just seems like a cheap excuse to use  a curse word in public, print or in person. But in the case of Toronto's Holy Fuck, I am willing to overlook this minor annoyance simply because I like their music too much.

On their self-titled debut  Holy Fuck creates nine songs of lo-fi electronic experimentation that burst out of your speakers ready for a party. Similar to The Go! Team's  brand of sample/rock/electronic mash-up sound, Holy Fuck derives it's infectious energy by using nothing but analog equipment. This means plenty of analog synths, sequencers and no shortage of effects pedal noise, while also employing unconventional non-instruments like a 35mm film sequencer (among others). Add to this a steady, but powerful rhythm section that keeps the pace of the music at a fever pitch and it becomes pretty easy to see that Holy Fuck wants you to listen to their music at full volume, preferably while moving around like you don't give a fuck.

Listen to a few selections off their debut album and see what I am talking about for yourself. Also, check out their new video for "Milkshake", which is probably the best use of animation that combines cute cuddly animals with psychedelic imagery and female masturbation (a niche genre, I know) I've ever seen.

Holy Fuck - "Frenchy's" (from their self-titled album)

Holy Fuck - "The Pules" (from their self-titled album)

Holy Fuck - "Milkshake"

*Photo Credit: flickr user bitchplz

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Band You Should Be Listening To – Working for a Nuclear Free City

Welcome to the first installment of a semi-regular (read: whenever I feel like it) feature called Band You Should Be Listening To. As you may guess from the title, the purpose of this feature is to alert you to bands/artists that you otherwise may have never heard of. There are only two criteria that will land any artist into this pace; 1) a general lack of buzz or attention from the traditional mediums of music discovery (magazines, TV, radio, popular websites, etc.) and 2) they have to make really fucking awesome music (as decided by me).

The inaugural subject of this feature series, Working for a Nuclear Free City, was actually introduced to me via the love-them-or-hate-them (or both, in my case) indie juggernaut known as Pitchfork Media. While you may think this disqualifies them from the first criteria, positive reviews notwithstanding, WfaNFC has still received very little attention from the Pitchfork crowd. Which is a shame, because the music they're making is leaps and bounds better than what I've heard from other ‘buzzworthy’ bands (I'm looking in your direction, Battles)

Their name comes from their peacenik hometown of Manchester celebrating its 25^th year of being a “Nuclear Free Zone,” yet it wouldn’t be inaccurate to describe some of their music as “radioactive.” Much of their superb self-titled debut album owes its psych-dance sound to Manchester legends like Primal Scream, 808 State and Happy Mondays, while also borrowing Slowdive’s noisy guitar drone and (at times) beats reminiscent of early Chemical Brothers.

What makes their debut album so great is how each song flows from one to the next, like the whole album is one composition with many different movements. Songs like “Dead Fingers Talking” and “Innocense” could find a home on any dance floor, while the atmospherics of “Over” and “Quiet Place” provide a perfect soundtrack to the build up and comedown of an all night outing in the city, respectively. Another standout track, “So,” shows off WfaNFC’s range by taking you on a psychedelic ride punctuated with distorted guitars and a popping beat that sounds like firecrackers being set off.

The band recently put out an excellent EP titled Rocket and is currently slated to issue their first proper US release, Businessmen & Ghosts, which is supposed to be the self-titled album plus the Rocket EP and other previously unreleased tracks. Look out for it October 6^th. Until then you can stream the entire album over at the Deaf, Dumb + Blind Records website.

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