
L. Frank Baum : 'The Patchwork Girl Of Oz'
Whee, but there's a gaudy dame!
Makes a paint-box blush with shame.
Razzle-dazzle, fizzle-fazzle!
Howdy-do, Miss What's-your-name?
(Vs.)
Lady Sovereign : "Tango"
What network are you on, ORANGE,
Colour of your bathwater, ORANGE,
Your favourite fruit must be an ORANGE,
Bitch, did you know your ORANGE,
Slap bang goes on your fake tan,
Bitch you look like the tango man,
It's the gone wrong salon.
H/T to RCSidewayz for putting me onto this!
Granted, I was wasted. So I remember very little. But Comeback last night seemed like the Comeback of yesteryear—great dancing, great out-of-town guest DJs (House of Stank, who aren't much to listen to online but who do magical things live), not too many Microsoft gays, someone dressed in two dozen white and silver balloons (no idea), a healthy dose of young freaks. Good times.
For part three of my unofficial ongoing tally of contemporary electronic musicians “caught” using Casio Tone Banks, I’d like to examine the work of freebie-offering chillraver Com Truise (named, I guess, after the star of hit films like Thays of Dunder and Rinority Meport).
At around the 2:47 mark of “Iwywaw,” from his Cyanide Sisters EP (grab it for free via Truise’s website), you can hear what is unmistakably the “twinkle echo” of a Tone Bank’s tickled plastic keys.
But beyond being a savvy vintage gearhead, Com Truise (aka Seth Haley) has knack to spare. “Norkuy,” features the made-in-heaven combo of a cornball soft rock guitar sample and salacious synth-play worthy of dubstep maestro Guy “Guido” Middleton. Needless to say, it works like gangbusters, seamlessly merging off-the-wall impulses from two different corners of the electronic music spectrum. One part The Field’s sublime “A Paw in My Face,” and one part “Cat in The Window.” Baller.
Apart from free releases, Truise also offers podcast mixes for your listening pleasure. Peep them at Myspace.
Reverie (Now I'm Fine), Spekulation
(Lo-Fi) Ahamefule Oluo had one hell of a bad year (involving family, love, and disease), and to try to feel better, he did a lot of things he shouldn't have. It's over now, but in its honor comes Reverie (Now I'm Fine), an hour-long experimental pop opera to make its debut tonight with okanomodé (the musician responsible for lyrics and vocals) and the New Seattle Brass Ensemble (a group formed expressly for this piece). Oluo selected the musicians from the worlds of classical, jazz, and indie rock in Seattle, and he could do that because he's a gigging fool around this city—chances are you've heard him, too, just never knew his name. Finally, the sideman comes up front. With Spekulation. JEN GRAVES
PizzaFest: the Mean Jeans, White Mystery, Coconut Coolouts, Fungi Girls, Indian Wars, Meercaz, Diaper and the Shitbags
(Funhouse) Last year, it was in Chicago. This year, it's Seattle. As "Pizza" Pete Capponi, a co-organizer of this year's fest, tells it, "Our friend Brian Costello from Johnny and the Limelites says to Ruben [Mendez, co-organizer of this year's PizzaFest] and me, with a mouth full of deep-dish, 'Yo, PizzaFest should be in Seattle next year...' and PRESTO!! PizzaFest 2010!" GRANT BRISSEYSee more in the preview.
Shook Ones, Hostage Calm, Made Do and Mend, Power, Open Fire!, Sixes, Cool Runnings, Cowardice, Oblivion, Swinglow, Wreck
(Viaduct) Another one bites the dust. After three years of bringing all-ages shows to Tacoma, the Viaduct is shutting its doors this weekend. But before they say good-bye, they're throwing one hell of a farewell show with Shook Ones, Hostage Calm, Make Do and Mend, Open Fire!, and several others (see calendar below).Even though the club's promoter, Brian Skiffington, says show attendance has been pretty steady, the numbers just weren't adding up for the venue. The club's five co-owners were often paying the bills out of their own pockets.
"To put it bluntly, Tacoma just wasn't ready for Viaduct," says Skiffington. "Somewhere between the location and being all-ages with no booze, it just became a bottomless pit."
This isn't the end of Tacoma's all-ages music scene, though. Skiffington says there are plans to open a new all-ages venue, with a better location in downtown Tacoma, which he'll be doing promotions for. It'll be run by Josh Brumley (one of the co-owners of the Viaduct) and Jeremy Bushnell (who has done sound at the club). But they're changing their approach a bit and hoping to have more success this time around. MEGAN SELING
Read more in Underage.
Hunting Parties: Dropdead, Brainoil, Agrimonia, Ironlung, Samothrace, Deathraid
(Neumos) This year's three-day long Hunting Parties festival (www.huntingparties.blogspot.com) looks more brutally diverse than ever. You've got doom (Samothrace), crust punk (Resist), death metal (Bone Sickness), and lots and lots of beer (but not for free, sucka). If you're not looking to make a whole weekend excursion of it, though, at least make it out to witness the wreckage of tonight's main event. If there were ever to be a Rolling Stones or Beatles of crust, Dropdead would certainly be in the running for the title. Since the mid-'90s, this poser-smashing Rhode Island d-beat crew's politically driven anthems have inspired countless crusties to sew their bold logo onto bum flaps and backpacks everywhere. Add to this the utter chaos of two-man power-violence freak show Iron Lung and you have a very loud, very frantic, must-see show. KEVIN DIERS
The New Pornographers, the Dodos, Imaad Wasif
(Showbox at the Market) A venerable indie-rock supergroup based out of Vancouver, BC, the New Pornographers can be thought of as the Avengers West Coast to Broken Social Scene's Avengers (only, you know, you'd have to call the character Captain North America). Coalescing around the fantastic foursome of singer-songwriters A. C. Newman, Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, and Dan Bejar (of Destroyer)—each respected solo artists in their own rights—when the New Pornographers come together, as on new album, uh, Together, the result is a brand of power pop (and its tangents) imbued with superheroic levels of catchiness, charm, and craft. Right from its opening run of songs, Together thankfully picks up some of the upbeat steam that last album Challengers lacked; this latest installment may not be their finest hour, but it's at the very least another day sweetly saved. ERIC GRANDY
Phosphorescent, J. Tillman, Grouplove
(Crocodile) Phosphorescent's 2009 album, To Willie, was a selection of Willie Nelson covers done up in a more countrified, full-band style than that of singer-songwriter Matthew Houck's previous albums of cracked, arid folk and ambient acoustic ramblings. Some of that sharper, twangier sound carries over onto Phosphorescent's new album of originals, Here's to Taking It Easy, on which Houck is backed by generous arrangements featuring piano, slide guitar, and even swinging brass. Still front and center, though, is Houck's whine and howl and heartsick lyrics about all the usual fare, love and loss, grasped with unusual acuity. If the instrumentals are, true to the title, taking it easy, Houck is taking it hard, as on the stunning album centerpiece "Mermaid Parade," with its wistful, angry reflections on romantic dissolution. ERIC GRANDY
Phosphorescent
(Sonic Boom Capitol Hill) See above.
Silversun Pickups, Against Me!, the Henry Clay People
(Paramount) With their second major-label album, White Crosses, Against Me! address some of the criticisms they've received over the years, as they've morphed from a group of sloppy-but-passionate, basement-playing punk rockers into a slick pop- rock machine primed for arena-sized crowds. On the song "I Was a Teenage Anarchist," a kind of follow-up to Reinventing Axl Rose's "Baby, I'm an Anarchist," frontman Tom Gabel chalks those good ol' days up to naiveté and youth, asking, "Do you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?" Which translates to: "I no longer want to set the world on fire. I'm older now. Now, I want to play shitty rock songs that sound like Gaslight Anthem because, hey, it worked for them." I for one won't be joining Against Me! for this new era. MEGAN SELING
Ripynt, Luck-One Conscious, S-n-O, Steph
(High Dive) North End rider Ripynt (and onetime Seattle Weekly cover boy, under the headline "The Great White North") flows in crackly double-time like his favorite rappers, Cleveland's own kings of hair maintenance and Eazy-E protégés, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. Rip spits, has heart to spare, and thankfully tends to avoid Bone's gothier, proto-Juggalo overtones (Ouija boards, spiritual crossroads, and stagecoaches). His best moments, though, are when he just slows the cadence down and sinks his teeth in (no Bill Compton). Luck-One Conscious is another Portland ex-pat hiphopper living and grinding in the 206 (like my partner djblesOne, Sportn' Life's "sex symbol" Spaceman, and the homey Ohmega Watts) with a dope EP under his belt and a recent turn on J.Pinder's terrific posse cut "Tougher" to bolster his rep. Expect to hear more of his focused rhyming, and soon. LARRY MIZELL JR.
And there's always more in our complete music calendar listings.
Feels like we’re all on the tail end of this big autotune kick, no? What was once merely a tool used for subtle (and sometimes less subtle) studio trickery at some point became the favored flourish of major hip-hop artists and sincere folkies alike. It’s been inescapable for years now—sometimes the autotune use was self-aware (more often, however, it wasn’t), and there was a surplus of hi-larious autotuned web junk.
Subtract the mainstream FM-dial oversaturation, and you have the same exact circumstances which surround the recent explosion of sidechain compression in blogworld buzz acts. Sidechain compression, in layman’s terms, is a method by which parts of a given song are ducked around a drum hit, effectively warping the sound, creating a “sucking,” washy quality. Sidechaining is all over Toro Y Moi’s stuff, not to mention the majority of so-called chillwave acts, from Neon Indian to Teen Daze. I’ve been detecting more and more of it lately, and—as with autotune—there’s no shortage of ballsy artists willing to take the effect about as far as they can, sidechaining their tracks until they’re nothing but a big, washy pulse.
So: is sidechain compression the new autotune?
Discuss.
Former Stranger freelancer Bill Bullock informs us that he's in a relatively new local band called Bat Country. "We have kind of a Tom Waits / Nick Cave / Neko Case / Leonard Cohen, 'Doom-Americana' thing going on musically." Bullock says with the unerring accuracy of a music critic on hiatus.
Bat Country perform Sunday August 15 at the Can Can with God's Favorite Beefcake ("the continuation of the musical aspect of the folks from Circus Contraption," Bullock explains) and the Mongrel Jews.
(Note: Do not mistake Seattle's Bat Country for Australia's Bat Country... under any circumstances.)
I'll see your "maybe the group's most honest, ambitious album in half a decade", Dean, and raise you: This is the first full Chemical Brothers album that's mattered in an entire decade. Even their stinkers have tended to spin off decent singles, but Further is just an outstanding listen from start to finish (even if I have to be in a particularly hammy mood for "Horse Power," which doubtless performs better in the live setting). And you're right, it really is one solid arc of an album, from the opening uplift of "Snow" through the accelerations of "Escape Velocity" to the last splash of "Wonders of the Deep"—easily the most narrative thing they've ever done.
In the album's sequence, "Swoon" is the flush, ecstatic afterglow to the jaw-grinding peak of "Horse Power"—so what do kosmiche disconauts Lindstrom & Prins Thomas do with that afterglow? Duh, they stretch it out, give it a little disco bump to keep it pumping, and...ah, life is sweet:
Bomb the Music Industry is a ska band. Don't be scared! They're also the fun and funny poster band for all things DIY and all-ages. They play only all-ages shows, they never charge more than about $10 a ticket (less, if possible), and they put all of their music on the internet for free.
You can see them and all their horn-laden, catchy choruses at the Vera Project tonight. It'll go a little something like this:
And this:
Bomb the Music Industry - "(Shut) Up the Punx!!!"
Bomb the Music Industry - "All Ages Shows"
Doors open at 7:30 pm and the show costs $9 at the door.
Just sayin'.
Also this evening is Moscow Disco at Monkey Loft, a Russian-oriented disco costume party with a superhero theme. DJs will play Russian pop, rock and folk mash-ups alongside underground techno. Line up includes Makedon, Kostja Ganin and DJ Gill. $10 w/ costume, $15 w/o.
The Osmonds' 1972 hit "Crazy Horses" is a thing of weird wonder. Chuck Eddy included a discussion of it in his oft-reviled tome Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe. The squeaky-clean Mormons—who surfaced as a Pat Boone-ified response to the Jackson 5—appear to have become possessed by metallic-glam-rock demons while laying down this feral stomp of a song. It reached #2 on the charts in Britain, where pop-music fans are more highly evolved than they are here, where it peaked at #14.
The philanthropists at the Public Collectors site have done the world a favor by posting the "Crazy Horses" 45 at 33 rpm, lending the tune a satanically sludgy coating of evil. Hear it here.
Below is the Osmonds' "Crazy Horses" done at its "proper" speed. (Try not watching this clip at least three times in a row.)
h/t @Holy_Mountain via Twitter
Tonight is the beginning of the all-weekend PizzaFest at Funhouse. There are like 400 punk and rock bands set up to play; there's a pizza-eating contest, and tons of cheap pizza for non-contestants.
From co-organizer Ruben Mendez of the Coconut Coolouts:
Pizzafest 2010 was started by the now defunct Johnny & the Limelites. They, us, and Rich Evans of Florida's Dying/Slippery Slopes fame came up with the idea. Last year it was in Chicago and it was like 5 nights. July 28-August 1st. It was going to be a one off thing, but then Johnny and the Limelites were going to tour the West Coast. So...we thought we'd do it here this year. Long story short...J&LL broke up..Pizzafest continues on. It is really crazy how it happened the same time as last year. I hope it happens again. Maybe next year it will be in Orlando, FLA...where Rich and the Slippery Slopes are from.
Bands that played last year...Coconut Coolouts, the Yolks, Personal and the Pizzas, CocoComa, Krunchies, Lover!, Timmy's Organism, White Mystery, Frustrations, The Butts (not to be confused with Seattles Butts), and Tyvek.Lacey, Ruben, Pete, along with the Funhouse and Post Alley Pizza really made this one come together. We are very excited about the bands we have playing. they are all really great and very special...fans of rock n roll, the Ramones, trash rock, pizza, and beer will really enjoy themselves.
Also, Derek Erdman liked Kyle Johnson's photo of Butts so much, he drew it! See Kyle's original and read more about PizzaFest here.
Remember Bangs? Take U to Da Movies? Honda's got him selling 'Yahzzes. "10 cups holder in dis car!"
Now if Honda would just throw some money at the Reh Dogg. I bet he'd sell the shit outta some scooters.
Already the third single to come out of Chemical Brothers' Further — maybe the group's most honest, ambitious album in half a decade — "Another World" seems like both a choice of excellence and mis-execution.
The song itself returns to a bunch of the building blocks that assembled 2001's seminal "Star Guitar". Hacks! Except it eases off of them with a casual smash of platinum-white piano chords that soon transform into a stutter of dubstep-inspired in/out bass as a rolling soft vocal flows over the top like a bed-sheet uncurling over a child.
You can't ignore the visuals either: organic drops crossed with nostalgic green-tinted wave-forms and a computer wire-frame face which, like the ones for "Swoon" before them, reveal both a remarkable live-show sense of design and the underlying heart and structure of the song.
Lovely as hell.
The problem is that, as another segment of the full, hour-long visual marathon that accompanies the rest of the album, it doesn't really satisfy as a single, as a piece of production that can work on its own.
Not only is the song about half the length of the original track — boo! — but it lacks the obvious context. Inside the non-stop, relentless mix of Further, "Another World" serves as a gentle break between the autobahn-suicide of "Escape Velocity" and the run-up to the bludgeoning, brilliant "Horse Power," leaving you with a sense of place and purpose.
It's easy and often outdated to go on about the appeal of songs working as a whole. With dance music, with Chemical Brothers, however, albums are blueprints for live, social events, which make brief slices-of-slices of them like this from an album without a single break feel frustratingly incomplete.
It's a catch of breath. But here, alone, without the rush.
Having just discussed Summer, "Summer Babe," and Summer Babes, I felt compelled to post this video of one of my Pavement favs. That is all.

Ugly, or not ugly?
The Soul Hole is one of those DJ nights you can bank on to bring you filler-free soul (and funk, if you ask nicely) jams from the dusty grooves of rare 7"s. The DJs can pontificate about the details of each song, should you wish to go to that geeky sphere, but they also possess the kind of gregarious personalities that suggest they have lives outside of perusing vinyl-collector blogs and memorizing catalog numbers from labels that lasted for seven months in 1971.
The lineup includes The Stranger's inimitable Mike Nipper (because who would want to imitate him?), DJ Self-Administered Beatdown (aka Scott Giampino), Greg Vandy, Miss Lilli, Chilly, Johnny Horn, and Cruddy. Seattle quartet the Basements are also playing. Plus: meat and booze. Times of goodness could most certainly roll at this thing.
Georgetown Ballroom, 5623 Airport Way S., 8 pm, $5.