Review: Acid Baby Jesus – Selected Recordings

Review: Acid Baby Jesus – Selected Recordings
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Acid Baby Jesus = Brian Jonestown Massacre + Fuzz – Nana Mouskouri
  … read more

Localized: The Guard Cats

Localized: The Guard Cats
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This month’s Localized is a meeting of veterans of Salt Lake’s original punk scene and the new breed of local soundsters creating their own musical voice—the experimental, dub-influenced Muzzle Tung open. The Guard Cats have existed barely a year, but they display a diverse sonic palette. On the other end of the continuum, Gnawing Suspicion

Zine Goddess – August 2004

Zine Goddess – August 2004
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Venus Zine Magazine is one of the best zines by and about, though not just for, women. Just because it’s slick and you might (or might not) find in on your newsstand doesn’t mean it’s not edgy. Rather than ramble on about how great it is, let’s just cut to the chase and dive in

Indie Label Spotlight: Carcrash Records

Indie Label Spotlight: Carcrash Records
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Some things just grab your attention, like driving past a car crash. Sweden’s Carcrash Records produces the kind of arresting music that you can’t fail to prick up your ears to, with some of the most captivating bands that have taken the aftermath of punk-influenced music to a whole nuther level, like International Noise Conspiracy

Review: TURN ON YOUR MIND: FOUR DECADES OF GREAT PSYCHEDELIC ROCK

Review: TURN ON YOUR MIND: FOUR DECADES OF GREAT PSYCHEDELIC...
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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 @ Urban Lounge 10.20 with Baby Gurl, Kinski
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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 @ Urban Lounge 10.23

Fuzz, CCR Headcleaner, Night Beats, Max Pain & the Groovies...
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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 Buddies

Deerhoof @ Urban Lounge 11.10 with LXMP and Palace of...
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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 @ The State Room 11.23 with Judson Claiborne
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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

Meat Puppets @ The State Room 11.26 with Cory Mon
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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