Video: At The Drive In – “Call Broken Arrow”
From in•ter a•li•a, out now on Rise Records.
I’ve gotta admit I still hold a grudge at this band for breaking up and bankrupting Grand Royal. But that was a long time ago and maybe it’s time to get over it. Maybe not though.
At The Drive In is playing Riot Fest at 7:40 PM on Saturday, September 16.
At The Drive In: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
Video: The Cribs – “Rainbow Ridge”
From 24-7 Rock Star Shit, out now.
The Cribs have somewhat improved their haircuts and got back to being a three-piece after a short stint with Johnny Marr in the band. They also seem to have discovered Nirvana recently. So there. Dig it.
The Cribs are playing Riot Fest at 6:20 PM on Friday, September 15.
Video: The Orwells – Vacation
From Terrible Human Beings, out now on Canvasback/Atlantic.
I heard a song by these guys on satellite radio and it sounded good. You might think they were British from listening to them, but nope, they’re just a major label rock band from the west suburbs of Chicago. They might not be changing the world, but if you’re missing the Strokes this’ll do.
Could be a better a way to right these wrongs
Than drinking heavily and playing songs
The video was filmed at the world famous Hala Kahiki Tiki Bar in River Grove, Illinois.
The Orwells are playing Riot Fest at 3:00 PM on Sunday, September 17.
Video: Prophets of Rage – “Living On The 110”
From Prophets Of Rage, out September 15 on Concord Music.
This sounds so nineties, it’s almost painful. But I can never resist Chuck’s voice. And B-Real doesn’t sound as annoying here as he usually does. They take on poverty and homelessness on this jam and encourage you to make a contribution to WhyHunger, a leader in the movement to ending hunger and poverty.
Prophets of Rage play Riot Fest at 7:40 PM on Sunday, September 17.
Prophets of Rage: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.
Video: Skating Polly – “Louder In Outer Space”
Featuring Nina Gordon and Louise Post of Veruca Salt. From the New Trick EP, out now on El Camino.
Can you hear that harmony?
I can hear it in my sleep.
I can hear it even louder in outer space.
Right on! This video’s been out for a few months, but I just stumbled across it. Not as spooky as their previous video, but I like it more. It’s definitely more Veruca Salty.
Skating Polly plays Riot Fest at noon on Friday, September 15.
Video: Steve Earle & The Dukes – “Goodbye Michelangelo”
From So You Wannabe an Outlaw, out now on Warner Bros.
A tribute to Earle’s mentor, Guy Clark, who died last year.
I’m bound to follow you some day
You have always shown the way
So we knew where we had to go
Goodbye Michelangelo
I had never really listened to Guy Clark before. But since watching this video, I’ve been checking out Old No. 1, Clark’s 1975 debut. Dang, what have I been missing? Why have I not got into this guy before? I think maybe I was confusing him with Roy Clark from “Hee Haw,” who always seemed corny to me. I can now fully recommend Old No. 1 if you dig outlaw country or Cosmic American music or whatever you want to call stuff like Willis Alan Ramsey, Paul Siebel, Nashville Skyline, and Michael Nesmith’s First National Band. Now I feel like an idiot for waiting this long.
Bandcamp: Wilco – “All Lives, You Say?”
Proceeds will go to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in the memory of Jeff Tweedy’s father, Robert L. Tweedy (1933-2017).
“My dad was named after a Civil War general, and he voted for Barack Obama twice. He used to say ‘If you know better, you can do better.’ America – we know better. We can do better.” – Jeff Tweedy
This gesture, of course, takes on pointed connotations in light of the deplorable events in Charlottesville and our orange fuhrer’s tepid reaction.
When sitting in a chair in my dentist’s office—I mean the chair that brings Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man to mind—the ambient audio system is always playing a lite rock station. Most of the music is of a sufficient sweetness to engender even more cavities in one’s molars. But it is a temperate drone behind the whining of the drill that sounds like it is about to shatter that porcelain spit bowl to my immediate left. Over the years I have spent far too much time in such a chair. I am confident that I have helped put my dentist’s children through dental school. I have heard a lot of that music.
Which brings me back to Marathon Man and the scary things that can happen with sharp implements, as it leads to a recent study conducted on surgeons by Spotify.
Specifically, the research was on what music surgeons listen to while performing their work in operating rooms.
It isn’t soft rock.
The number-one genre among the surgeons for their OR time is rock.
Over 700 responses came from surgeons who are registered with Spotify.
And looking at the top 10 list makes me shutter and hope that I don’t need anyone slicing into me—not that I dispute, wholly, their taste in music, but just that it seems that the nature of the music that they prefer has beats that might make things go somewhat awry should the doctors become too deep into the sound.
Video: The Bombpops – “Be Sweet”
From Fear Of Missing Out, out now on Fat Wreck Chords.
Cute power pop from California. Sounds like mid-period Weezer. I like the chorus:
Sneaking off and making out
You’re around, I’m never down
Nights like this should never end
Getting rad with my boyfriend
The Bombpops’ Jen Razavi told Alternative Press: “We drew inspiration for the video from the line in the song: ‘The jukebox played our favorite song / You said you put it on for me.’ It made us think of two kids in the ’60s falling in love. From there, we thought it’d be fun to do the video like an old Ed Sullivan Show performance. While the concept had done before, we felt that it was a solid fit for the song. We really got into it too, channeling the excitement of what it might have felt like to perform on television back in the day.”
The lyrics were written by Teenage Bottlerocket’s Brandon Carlisle, who died in 2015. The title is a nod to Carlisle’s catchphrase, according to Brooklyn Vegan.
Via Punknews.
Video: Father John Misty – “Things It Would Have Been Helpful To Know Before The Revolution”
From Pure Comedy, out now on Sub Pop.
While we’re all thinking about nuclear armageddon and waking up every morning to check to see if Guam still exists on the map, FJM treats us to a little glimpse of our post-apocalyptic future where the ravaged planet is littered with protest signs, skeletons, and abandoned iPhones. Good morning, beautiful!
“Things It Would Have Been Helpful To Know” is a piano ballad with gorgeous strings and horn arrangements (by Jacob Cartwright and James King, respectively) that works as an effective background to Tillman’s snarky descriptions of an unplugged life. “My social life is now quite a bit less hectic / The nightlife and the protests are pretty scarce.” “The obscene injunction to enjoy life disappears as in a dream.” “We all get a bit restless with no one advertising to us constantly.”
This all reminds me of the great Hugh Brown Shu spoken word piece, “A Real Talk Show,” where the little girl with no arms and no legs confronts the narrator who has attempted to force Geraldo to dig beneath the surface. “If it’s so bad, Mister Hugh Brown Shu, why don’t you end it all right now, huh? You’ve got the gun. It’s all pain, it’s all anger, oh it’s so terrible! So why don’t you just shove that piece in your mouth and end it all? Do us all a favor: get rid of yourself! Do you think you’re helping us by walking in here? What are you, some maverick agent of truth?”
I think about that a lot in these days of constant commentary and outrage porn. Josh Tillman likes to point out how shallow our lives are. But as the little girl with no arms and no legs says, “To what ends? Yes, the show’s shallow. Of course it’s shallow. That’s why we watch it. Wow, what a fucking crusader you are!”
Father John Misty is the crusader we deserve.
