Authors: Stakerized
Review: TURN ON YOUR MIND: FOUR DECADES OF GREAT PSYCHEDELIC...
TURN ON YOUR MIND: FOUR DECADES OF GREAT PSYCHEDELIC ROCK JIM DEROGATIS AND HAL LEONARD Street: 12.01.03 The widely published music critic best known for his tome Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, DeRogatis is thorough enough to describe the minimum requirements that make a given band psychedelic: a certain sound
Melt-Banana @ Urban Lounge 10.20 with Baby Gurl, Kinski
Melt-Banana uses technology, from guitar effects to synthesized drum tracks, in such a way that you aren’t aware of it as technology. Rock n’ roll was originally a live medium, and Onuki’s stage presence is riveting as she wields the game controller, using it to control the frenetic rhythms of the music, as stage prop, as mere toy, or all three? This is the music of the future, I thought as I watched her—technology becoming part of the body, almost. … read more
Fuzz, CCR Headcleaner, Night Beats, Max Pain & the Groovies...
The first time I saw Ty Segall was in 2011 at the FYF Festival in Los Angeles, and I got the feeling, immediately, that he would be one to watch in the lo-fi indie rock realm. Besides his instinct for hummable yet suitably ramshackle melodies and chord structures, he just takes a lot of obvious enjoyment in playing music, as opposed to so many twee, aloof or effete hipster bands lately. He really gets into it physically—soaked in sweat (how many bands even break a sweat anymore?). … read more
Deerhoof @ Urban Lounge 11.10 with LXMP and Palace of...
Deerhoof are a bundle of paradoxes: both tightly in control in the precision of their playing and seemingly veering out of control like a car with no one behind the wheel into the chaos of oncoming traffic—conventionally rock n’ roll, yet at moments as “out there” as any experimental group. They’re sweet and playful and, at the same time, as brutal as any heavy metal band. … read more
Bill Callahan @ The State Room 11.23 with Judson Claiborne
Bill Callahan seems like the minimalist indie songwriter par excellence, letting his lyrics, often more spoken than sung, work their dry yet poetic magic, but on stage with a full band, you realize that they are capable of a much more deep and uncanny array of tricks. They surprised from the get-go, opening with a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat,” in tribute of the recently departed Lou Reed. Callahan is perhaps the only singer who could deliver the lines more dryly than Reed. … read more
Meat Puppets @ The State Room 11.26 with Cory Mon
The remainder of the evening progressed, or degenerated, into the more Butthole Surfers’ end of the psychedelic swimming pool/cesspool. At the same time, their music, song after song, proved itself as just solid rock n’ roll that doesn’t fit easily into a pigeonhole of country, psychedelic or punk—it’s a little of all of those things. … read more
Pere Ubu House Concert 12.10
Have you ever dreamt that you were at a party in some unfamiliar house, and one of those cool, obscure bands that you admire was playing there? I found myself saying that to a friend one evening recently—one of the strangest, most singular evenings I’ve had in a long time with Pere Ubu! … read more
Farewell Transmission: RIP Jason Molina
It’s an all-too-familiar story: A brilliant rock musician succumbs to addiction, the urge to pick up a bottle or a needle, and not put it down. Those are some of the oft-romanticized rock creation/destruction myths. Rock music history is a stockpile, a wrecking yard littered with them. One of the latest casualties, March 16 of this year, was Jason Molina of the bands Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co, from organ failure due to alcoholism. … read more
A Pinch of Salt: A History of Death By Salt
There had never been anything like it: Released in 2004, SLUG Magazine’s first Death By Salt compilation offered an overview of a wide array of local musicians as never seen before.
Moths in the Moonlight
“Look at that moon!” says Eli Morrison, pointing up to the luminous body in the sky as I am about to enter the Man Vs. Music studio to interview him and his latest project, The Moths, about their impending release, titled Necromancy: Rock & Roll. It’s the smallest full moon of the year, yet seemingly immense in its implications, its portents, its power: evoking the elusive, mysteriously potent subjects of the sounds produced within these walls.
Josh Stippich and Electronluv: An Ear For Beauty
Clean in design, visually dramatic and imposing yet subtly stylish, E3—also going under his brand ElectronLuv—has its own, distinct look. … read more
A Little Help From My Friends
The idea for Aldine Presents: With A Little Help From My Friends actually sprung from another event. In August 2010, several bands from the old Salt Lake punk scene staged the Zion Curtain Family Reunion with Massacre Guys and others at the Rim Rock Inn near Torrey, Utah. … read more
