Playlist for November 2012

These are all the albums, EPs, and demos I listened to in the month of November 2012. At the end are my notes and a list of the live performances I saw. It seems like this month didn't even happen.

11/1/12

Black Mask – S/T EP

Cowardice – “We Are Nothing”

Fielded – “Terrageist”

Indian Taker – “The Fog” EP

VITA – 2012 demo CD

Dark Haven – “Your Darkest Hour” EP

Radiohead – “Pablo Honey”

Funeral Oration – “There is Nothing Left to Laugh About” demo

11/2/12

Agression – “Grind Kings”

Sham 69 – “Punk Singles Collection”

Arrington de Dionyso & China Star – “Songs Of Psychic Fire Vol. 4”

Fifteen – “Allegra” live album

Funeral Oration – “The Godsend”

11/4/12

V/A – “Not So Quiet On The Western Front”

11/5/12

Lifetime – “Background”

Refused – “This Is The New Deal” EP

Them Savages/northAmericans – “Qualivid” EP

Motherboy – “Not Punk Session #8”

11/6/12

Battery – “Final Fury 1990-1997”

Sledding With Tigers – “Never Really Good At Sports” EP

11/7/12

This Is What Happens To Bad Robots – “Destined” EP

Just Nick – “Anti-Revolutionary”

Merit – “The One Day Demos” EP

The Depaysement – “IPOH Horg Fung”

11/8/12

Bobby Meader – 3-song album preview CD

M.I.A. – “Murder in a Foreign Place” EP

Burnt Thrones Club – “Birth Rites” EP

Gorgon Zoloft – “Disrelieft” EP

Hash – “Rock” EP

11/9/12

Hash – “Out of My Head”

Hash – 2012 demo

The Garden – “Burger Records Tape”

The Coltranes/The Garden – split EP

11/11/12

Adolescents – “Brats in Battalions”

V/A – “Almagamoreous Confections” Pink House Records compilation

Christian Death – “Only Theatre Of Pain”

Boysetsfire – “This Crying, This Screaming, My Voice Is Being Born” EP

Terrible Things – S/T

Lifetime – S/T EP

Refused – “Pump The Brakes” EP

LCD Soundsystem – “Sound of Silver”

Ripped To Shreds – “Humanflytrapmaggotfactory”

Agathocles – “1991-1994: The LPs”

M.I.A. – “Lost Boys” CD

Van Halen – “Women and Children First”

Infected Mushroom – “Vicious Delicious”

11/12/12

Desperate Living – S/T EP

V/A – “Revelation Records presents Generations: A Hardcore Compilation”

11/13/12

The English Beat – “Beat This: The Best Of”

The Vibrating Antennas – “Déjà vu” EP

11/14/12

Sabertooth Zombie – “Human Performance III” EP

Apathean – “Aggregation” EP

11/15/12

Flex – 2012 EP

Life Support – “Broken Record” EP

11/16/12

Funeral Oration – “the Godsend” demo

Media Blitz – “Burn The World”

11/21/12

Vivian Girls – S/T

Lifetime – “Somewhere in the Swamps of Jersey” Disc 1

Science Fiction Theatre/Indian School – split EP

The Sheds – “…And Now For Something Completely Different” EP

Dr. Know – “Plug In Jesus” EP

11/22/12

Calavera – “Resurrect the Dead…Celebrate the Living”

Limerent Dance Machine – “Dream a Reason Why”

UNKLE – “Psyence Fiction”

Corp D – 4-song demo CD

The Low Anthem – “What The Crow Sings”

CD Truth – “Chemically Dependent”

12/23/12

Protest The Hero – “Fortress”

Mos Def – “Black on Both Sides”

Beck – “Mutations”

Boysetsfire – “After the Eulogy”

Dr. Know – “Burn” EP

Akimbo – “Navigating the Bronze”

Boysetsfire – “In Chrysalis” EP

Oasis – “Be Here Now”

Refused – “Everlasting” EP

Black Bear – 8-song pink demo CD

11/24/12

Oingo Boingo – “Anthology” Disc 1

We Are The Union – “Who We Are”

Fifteen – “Surprise!”

11/26/12

HIM – “Dark Light”

Van Halen – “II”

Math The Band – “Get Real”

11/27/12

The New Varsity – 4-song EP

Communist Kayte – September 2012 3-song demo

11/28/12

White Murder – “Harold’s Place”/”The Tell-All” 7”

The Gravitys – “Bring You Down”

11/29/12

Crisis Arm – “Junk Drawer” EP

The Gravitys – “Bring You Down”

11/30/12

Twisted Sister – “We’re Not Gonna Take It & Other Hits”

Proletariat Youth – “Always Try To Lead (Never Will I Follow)” EP

Planet Vegeta – May 2012 Demo

Spring Break 95 – S/T EP

Led Zeppelin – “I”

Hollow – “Dead End Kid” EP

Circle Jerks – “Group Sex”

Circle Jerks – “Oddities, Abnormalities, and Curiosities”

NOTES:

-          “Pablo Honey” is vastly underrated

-          Those first couple Funeral Oration demos are just genius

-          Everything I’ve ever heard by the “new” Agression is just rubbish (same goes for Dr. Know)

-          Old school Refused is so much cooler than art-core Refused, IMO

-          The first song on that Merit demo was stuck in my head for a good couple days

-          The difference between how amazing The Depaysement is live and how middle of the road they are recorded is staggering

-          The first EP by “Hash” is some unbearable noise group from SF; the other 2 and the band I saw live are a cool garage-punk band from LA (I think)

-          Dannie Murrie is just the craziest singer

-          Boysetsfire was amazing

-          Ripped To Shreds were nice enough to send me their full length CD along with a back patch and an XL shirt back in the day, but goddamn they are just awful there is a reason I never wore that shirt beyond its size

-          The English Beat are absolutely incomparably in the ska world. First class.

-          Apathean’s new EP and Crisis Arm’s new EP are probably my favorite EPs of 2012; Limerent Dance Machine’s new full-length is better when performed live but is also up there as a favorite of the year.

-          I fucking love Oingo Boingo

I also saw Bobby Meader, Sledding With Tigers, Merit, The Mumfords, The Depaysement, Hello Penelope, A Push For Clarity, Beanvian Stalks Guava, Crisis Arm, Mouthful of Snow, North Americans, Burnt Thrones Club, Traps Ps, Hash, The Garden, The Coltranes (once as a two-piece and once at a house show), Vibrating Antennas, Creative Adult, No Sir, Sabertooth Zombie, Motherboy, Save The Swim Team, The Sheds, and We Are The Union perform live.

SHOW REVIEW: Crisis Arm/Light Light/Ancient Crux/Bronson Caves @ The Dial, 10.29.12

                I showed up at the Dial warehouse around 8:30 to the sounds of muffled metal-core coming from the small practice room where the show was to take place. The cats from Crisis Arm and Ancient Crux were hanging out in the parking lot and they explained that the guys who ‘own’ the place (although they are never ever here) were practicing in one room an recording upstairs in another. Apparently they were supposed to be done by 8 but come 9oclock the metal practice was just wrapping up and eventually they came out and listened to a song they recorded out of their truck stereo. It was like a drunken acoustic singalong, the lyrics of which I didn’t take the time to decipher, but it was kind of like the song “Rivers of Babylon” by Sublime with more amp and less soul. This is all besides the point of course, but the whole situation made the actual show start late so I thought it would be appropriate to include.

                The first band to play was Bronson Caves, all the way from Azusa. I had listened to their online demos during my lunch break earlier in the day and it was kind of fey, quiet synth-pop somewhat along the lines of bands like Tanlines but not all the way developed yet. Their live performance, however, was a standard guitar-bass-drums trio that I enjoyed much more that what I had envisioned when listening to those rough tracks. Their sound still embodied much of the new-wave/80s rock nostalgia that the Los Angeles indie scene has been obsessed with in the last few years, with an accessible yet vigorous rhythm section accented by reverd-laden riffing. It seemed like the guitarist played picked riffs almost exclusively instead of chords or more full arrangements but that’s not to say it was just tiresome wanking. They had a very full sound that, while not particularly challenging, was enjoyable and showed much potential. For one thing their drummer had a real vibed out energy going on, which is always a good thing. Considering the difference in style they displayed from their demos to their live set, it appeared that this may been an early show for them but what they performed was very well-polished. They mentioned that they were looking for a place record so I talked to the bassist about the live sessions that Not Punk Records does here at The Dial and they seemed receptive to the idea. Azusa is a long way just to open up a small indie show in a practice room, but the dudes in Bronson Caves had a great attitude and played some great tunes for us. Hopefully we’ll see’em again.

Ancient Crux

                Ancient Crux, who I had seen as the headliners for this show, played next. I thought that I had seen them perform before back in my UC Irvine days, but looking back that was Brent’s other band Trudgers. That dude has played in like 12 bands in the last few years so it can be difficult to keep track. They played as a 3-piece as well, consisting entirely of members of Brent’s OTHER band Rapid Youth. They play a somewhat odd, dark style that reminds me of early-80s “Pornography”-era Cure as well as modern dark wave bands. Although I’m not really a fan of this band, for some reason Cold Cave came to mind when I was watching this set. Brent plays keyboard patterns that are eerie in a way that doesn’t distract from the acoustic guitar and sullen vocals that frontman Travis puts on the table, although the vocals for the all the bands on this night were a bit under the mix. It was a cool, if a bit short, set with a subtle spookiness to it that went well with the Halloween spiderwebs hanging all over the warehouse.

                By the time Ancient Crux was finished it was already 11oclock and I was tired. Perhaps due to the one-way entrance into the small room that can impede movement in and out, set-up and take-down in between bands (a major pet peeve of mine) seemed to take FOREVER all night long. Seeing as how the show had already started late because of the metal/Sublime owners’ shenanigans, a somewhat dragging feel that I usually don’t experience at The Dial became a bit present. The later it got, the more I remembered my work in the morning; but there was no reason to bail out early at this point there were only 2 bands left and they were both friends. I was just being a sleepyhead.

Light Light

                The next set was by the homeboy Doug who performs under the moniker of Light Light. I saw him perform his solo guitar-loop/feedback-manipulation works a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it; much like mutual friend Kevin Greenspon, his sound-works can be at once moving, calming, and jarring. Tonight, however, he was playing with Brent and Trevor from Ancient Crux on second guitar and drums, respectively, making this the night of trios. He started with a solo song called “Breakfast” that was like the previous set I had seen: several minutes of looped distortion and swelling guitar progressions played with his typical rapidfire strumming and punctuated towards the end by cryptic, longing lyrics. The full-band arrangements did little to hamper the personal feel of his songs, which all possess a certain ethereal quality and marked emotionality. While this isn’t the best way to actually describe the actual sound of Light Light’s music, it reminds me of the duality of emotions that are hopefulness and loss. Something about the feel of the songs is imbued by those opposite yet interlocked emotions – jubilant wishfulness and an almost defeating sense of being let down. Good stuff, is what I’m saying.

Crisis Arm - I have great photo skills, I know

                Closing out the night were Dial constants Crisis Arm. These guys play here a lot and I’ve seen them so many times recently and they have become such close friends that its almost difficult to write about them now. It just seems intuitive at this point. Experimental psychedelic prog-shoegaze is quite a mouthful, I’ll admit, but I think that’s a pretty good overall description of their sound. Between the two FX-laden guitarists they can get to be pretty loud, and although I’ve seen them perform flawlessly in this small room before, it seemed like the acoustics just weren’t working out on this particular night. The P.A. problems were even more acute during this set than the preceding ones, which is a shame because they performed their cover of My Bloody Valentine’s song “Sometimes” for the first time at a live show (I believe). Unfortunately, Cameron’s already-soft vocals became basically inaudible, and the same problem occurred during the next song, a newer one that I’ve been referring to as “Sweet Time.” There are moments during that song when both Pat and Cameron are singing and for the life of me I can’t hear either one of them. That said, the music has been getting tighter in recent months and Pat has started playing his guitar through a bass amp which gives it more definition and weight. In the past I could see him totally wailing on the guitar but Cameron’s leads would drown everything he did out; tonight there was almost the opposite effect.

                It was after midnight by the time Crisis Arm finished their set and I was straight up TUCKERED OUT so I just gave everybody a hug and got a ride home. Monday night shows are often barren of crowds but everybody who was there at this one was friendly and laid back and having a good time. Hopefully the homeboys from Azusa will mob out again sometime soon because they fit right into the Dial community.

Playlist for October 2012

This is a list of all the full-length albums, EPs, singles, etc that I listened to in the month of October 2012. Its relatively short and markedly more mainstream and boring than my normal playlists but this was a pretty shitty month. At the end of the list are my notes as well as another list of all the bands I saw perform live this month.

10/1/12

Scale The Summit – “Carving Desert Canyons”

Mojo Nixon & Skid Roper – “Bo-Day-Shus”

Jewel – “Pieces of You”

The Gravitys – “Bring You Down”

The Who – “My Generation: The Very Best Of”

10/6/12

Bobby Womack – “The Bravest Man In The World”

Hear The Sirens –  “Renegade”

10/7/12

Dirty Ghosts – “Metal Moon”

Raw Power – 1983 demo

Alanis Morissette – “Jagged Little Pill”

Jeremy Fiswell performing Louis Vierne’s “Organ Symphony No. 1”

Beck – “The Information”

10/9/12

Grimes – “Visions”

10/10/12

O’ Brother – “Garden Window”

Incubus – “Morning View”

Justice - “Audio, Visual, Disco”

Metallica – “Master of Puppets”

Moon Pearl – “Pearl Jams” EP

10/11/12

“Weird Al” Yankovic – “Bad Hair Day”

Mana – “Exiliados en la Bahia: Lo Mejor de Mana” Disc 1

10/12/12

V/A – “Lost Highway” OST

Psychedelic Furs – “All of This and Nothing”

10/14/12

The Blasters – “Testament: Complete Slash Recordings 1981-1985” Disc 1
V/A – “MTV’s AMP”

The Blasters – “Testament: Complete Slash Recordings 1981-1985” Disc 2

10/15/12

Garbage – S/T

Palle Danielsson – “Contra Ppst”

Midtown – “Living Well Is The Best Revenge”

Badblood – “Slaughterhouse Blues” EP

10/16/12

Losing Skin – “I: Infinite Death”

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – “’Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!”

Sleepwalkers – “The Wolf & The Moon” EP

10/20/12

The Replacements – “Pleased To Meet Me”

10/21/12

Funeral Oration – “Shadowland” EP
Funeral Oration – “Communion”

10/22/12

Leftmore – “Dog Catcher” EP

10/23/12

Black Sheep Wall – “No Matter Where It Ends”

10/26/12

Johnathan Barefoot and the Bulrushers – “Things Found While Digging Through Trash”

10/29/12

Bronson Caves – “Raw Tracks” demo

Ancient Crux – “Stage Fright” EP

10/30/12

Typical Apache – “Slip” single

Healing – “I Should Have Killed My Roommates” EP

Merit – “The One Day Demos Vol. II” EP

NOTES:

-          This is a pretty goddamn mainstream playlist, if I do say so myself

-          I listened to songs from “Carving Desert Canyons” almost every day during my senior year at UCI

-          Between Jewel and Alanis Morissette I think the first week of this last month more than met my yearly requirement for 90s angsty girl lite-rock….O wait nevermind I listened to Garbage later on. Jesus.

-           “MTV’s AMP” was the first electronic release I ever bought and it still holds up today

-          Those early Funeral Oration 12”s are still some of my alltime favorites

I also saw Motherboy (three times), The Coltranes (five times including a cover set), Trey The Ruler, Troubled Coast, My Iron Lung, Aukerman, Life Support, Hear The Sirens, Flex, Higher Learning, Spring Break 95, Apathean, Gloominous Doom, Pure Shit, Scape Native, VITA, Beside Myself, Cash Crop, Crisis Arm (twice, once at practice) Leftmore, Seizures, Eager Sea, Indian Taker, Just Nick, JJ & Friends (cover set), The Ugly (cover set), Desperate Living (cover set), Bronson Caves, Ancient Crux, and Light Light perform live.

Playlist for September 2012

These are all the albums, EPs, demos, singles, etc that I listened to in the month of September 2012. I’ll be the first to admit, this one is pretty mediocre. At the end are my notes and a list of all the live music I saw during the month.

9/3/12

Everclear – “So Much For The Afterglow”

9/4/12

Dashboard Confessional – “The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most”

Boy Hits Car – S/T

Tiger Army – S/T

9/5/12

Devo – “New Traditionalists”

OFF! – S/T

Death Hymn Number 9 – “Smokestack Frightening” EP

White Buffalo – “Prepare For Black & Blue” EP

V/A – Jones Soda Valentine’s Day 2006 sampler CD

Two Door Cinema Club – “Beacon”

Albert Mangelsdorff –“Shake, Shuttle, and Blow”

Coldplay – “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends”

Electric Guest – “Mondo
The Vibrators – “Pure Mania”

Seedless – “Twisted Roots”

9/6/12

V/A – “Pssst!” Filter Magazine Spring 2005 sampler CD

Eels – “Beautiful Freak”

TobyMac –“Eye On It”

Motion City Soundtrack – “Go”

Sodom – “In The Sign Of Evil” EP

The Shins – “Port of Morrow”

Moebius – “Tonspuren”

Mishka – “Above the Bones”

MDC – “Millions of Dead Cops”

V/A – “Cinema Beer Buddy”

Bush – “Sixteen Stone”

Tamia – “Beautiful Surprise”

No Doubt – “Tragic Kingdom”

9/7/12

Sonny Rollins – “Saxophone Colossus”

Filter – “Title of Record”

Massgrav – “Napalm Over Stureplan”

Lawrence Arms – “Oh! Calcutta!”

Plan B – “ill Manors” OST

Vanna – “The Search Party Never Came” EP

Weatherbox – “Follow the Rattle of the Afghan Guitar” EP

Santigold – S/T

9/8/12

Kid Rock – “Devil Without A Cause”

The Orb – “U.F. Off: The Best Of”

Korn – “Follow The Leader”

Minus The Bear – “Infinity Overhead”

Sugar Ray – “Floored”

Ground Up – 2008 demo

Avicii – “The Singles”

9/10/12

The Smiths – “Strangeways, Here We Come”

V/A – “KnuckleTracks 90”

Sunny Day Real Estate – “Diary”

9/11/12

The Gravitys – “Bring You Down”

9/18/12

Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland – “Black is Beautiful”

I Never Knew You – “End of Seasons” EP

V/A – “Spawn” OST

Animal Lover – S/T EP

Alanis Morissette – “Jagged Little Pill”

Motherboy – “Not Punk Session” tape

9/19/12

Manufactured Superstars – “Freak On You”

Semisonic – “Feeling Strangely Fine”

Limerent Dance Machine – “Dream A Reason Why”

Foo Fighters – “The Colour and the Shape”

Circa Survive – “Violent Waves”

Crass – “Stations of the Crass”

9/20/12

William Kapell – “performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3”

Subhumans – “The Day The Country Died”

Midtown – “Save The Day, Lose The Girl”

Rudimentary Peni – “The EPs of RP”

2 Chainz – “Based on a T.R.U. Story”

Guns N Roses – “Appetite for Destruction”

9/21/12

The Last Years – “Get Rad!!!” EP

War From A Harlots Mouth – “Transmetropolitan”

Axwell – “Heart is King” single

PsyOpus – “Odd Senses”

Santana – “Abraxas”

Bad Brains – S/T

9/22/12

The Ramones – “Leave Home”

9/25/12

Swans – “The Seer”

Between The Buried And Me – “Colors”

Mazzy Star – “So Tonight That I Might See”

9/26/12

Sledding With Tigers – “Being Nice is Still Cool” EP

Butthole Surfers – “Electriclarryland”

Strawberry Alarm Clock – “Incense & Peppermints”

Andy Williams – “The Very Best Of”

V/A – “The Matrix: Music From The Original Picture”

Haruka – 2012 mini-disc demo

9/27/12

Yuppicide – “Shinebox”

Slaughterhouse – “Welcome To: Our House”

Agression – “Don’t Be Mistaken”

9/28/12

The Fugs – “First Album”

David Gray – “White Ladder”

9/29/12

Cannibal Corpse – “Butchered at Birth”

Metric – “Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?”

Kindness – “World, You Need a Change Of Heart”

Stone Temple Pilots – “Purple”

9/30/12

NASA Space Universe – “Beyond Ice” EP

Fuel – “Natural Selection”

-          I decided to actively listen to stuff that I was into back in my pre-middle school/punk days and see how they fared. Most of it didn’t do so well (see: Dashboard, Boy Hits Car, Filter, David Gray) That said, I won’t apologize for Everclear or Alanis. You can go your own way.

-          OFF! Is cool and everything, but the similarity to Black Flag is just too obvious and forced…I don’t know

-          My rubric for what music I will listen to in a given month really turned up some garbage this month that I can’t say that I’m proud for having listened to (see: TobyMac, Tamia, 2 Chainz)

-          For as badass as other Sodom albums are, “In the Sign of Evil” is one of the goddamn shittiest metal albums I’ve ever listened to…Just plain bad

-          The Shins have a new album. Who cares.

-          Mishka has got to be the most boring ‘reggae’-‘rock’ act I have ever heard…it takes being laid back to a totally unnecessary level

-          “The Search Party Never Came” is a classic of its genre, few of those as there are

-          I don’t see what’s so great about Santigold

-          Manufactured Superstars are okay when its just beats, fucking TERRIBLE with vocals

-          More than a decade after its release, “Bawitdaba” is still the most gloriously ignorant song ever released unto the public

-          You saw that right, in one day I listened to full albums by Kid Rock, Korn, and Sugar Ray. COME AT ME BRO.

-          The soundtrack CDs for the late-90’s motion picture adaptation of the comic book “Spawn,” and to a lesser extent, “the Matrix” predicted the current wave of dubstep-infused quasi-metal and told us “NO!”….WE DIDN’T LISTEN.

-          “Appetite for Destruction” is one of those few ubiquitous mega-smash hits that is totally deserves that distinction…classic

-          “Leave Home” is vastly underrated even amongst Ramones fans…It’s the best summation of what they were about

-          The new Swans album is long as hell, dark and gloomy, and somewhat taxing to listen to because of moments of trudging repetition…but in the end its worth it in the way a good piece of art should be…a very deep album for sure

-          I <3 “Colors”

-          Folk-punk just isn’t really my thing

-          The lineup of Sledding With Tigers, Butthole Surfers, and Strawberry Alarm Clock on 9/26 makes it look like I listen exclusively to bands with ridiculous names

-          R.I.P. Andy Williams

-          Yuppicide isn’t as good as I remember them being

-          “Don’t Be Mistaken” = greatest skate punk album ever. Nuff said.

-          I hate to admit it but “Purple” is a pretty solid album for what it is

I also saw Warpaint, James Blake, Quicksand, M83, Refused, The Allah-La’s, Maria Bamford, Papa, Nick Waterhouse, Joyce Manor, Garfunkel & Oates, Benden Walsh, Brent Weinbach, David Cross, King Khan & The Shrines, Aesop Rock, Against Me!, Lightning Bolt, Dinosaur Jr.,  Desaparecidos, HEALTH, Yeasayer, American Nightmare, Bloom (R.I.P.), Mouthful Of Snow (twice), Being As An Ocean, Weatherbox, My Iron Lung (twice), Beanvian Stalks Guava (twice), north Americans, No Paws, Rapid Youth, Naomi Punk, Limerent Dance Machine (twice), Light Light, Providence, Scarlett Avenue, Welcome To Now, A Push For Clarity, Crisis Arm, Till I Fall, Locked In Silence, Dead End Alaska, Aukerman, Sledding With Tigers, Logan Greene Electric, Hello Penelope, Slimmy Heart Project, Taurus Scott, B. Lewis, Motherboy, Animal Lover, and The Coltranes perform live.