
Right now that's my favorite line on Tim Barry's new album 40 Miler. You can hear it in the title track:

I cannot tell a lie: I was a big Redd Kross fan circa 1987's bubbleglamtastic Neurotica, but I gave up on the McDonald brothers after they signed to Atlantic in 1990. Not because they'd gotten into bed with a major label—every alternative act was doing it at the time—but because I couldn't stand the over-produced record that resulted from that ill-fated union (they were dropped shortly thereafter). That said, time has been surprisingly kind to Third Eye. I knew people who liked it then; I know even more who like it now, but it was never for me.
This new Sunset Strip-in-the-'70s single, however, holds promise:
Seattle garage-psych trio Night Beats have a new song, titled "Messiah," on a split 7” with Costa Mesa, California’s TRMRS, which came out May 22 on Volcom Entertainment/Resurrection Records. “Messiah” stealthily creeps into earshot like a distant cousin of Doc Pomus' ominous R&B number "Lonely Avenue," with sporadic outbursts of razor-wire guitar snarl and lupine vox ferocity.
You can purchase the single here.
Seattle's own Beat Connection just released a single from their upcoming album, The Palace Garden. The song is called "The Palace Garden, 4am" and it sounds like a warm summer day (which is especially appreciated on a not-so-warm, not-so-summer day like today).
I've been listening to this single almost nonstop for the last week. (That's why my descriptions of everything else have been so off, guys!) The apocalypse-dawn lyrics kill:
Night of the long knives
Where life is cheaper than a dollar store sale at half price
Fukushima rap
Thyroid need potassium iodine
Or:
Just because you lead a just life and been thoroughly Romanized
Through a false sense of reasoning developed a sense of morality out of a lie
You've been tricked
Like a frontside heel flip to nose grind
Thing is, the download came with three mixes, and just when I was starting to think that remixes are total bullshit vanity/PR projects (many are), I can't get off the two for this song.
Bigg Jus - Black Roses (Bigg Jus & El-P's Brooklyn Heatwave Mix)
Bigg Jus - Black Roses (Thavius Beck's Los Angeles Beautiful Weather Mix)
To me, the album cut (embedded above) is the least good, although overall Machines that Make Civilization Fun basically smokes. That said, I usually go straight for the Bigg Jus & El-P's Brooklyn Heatwave Mix or Thavius Beck's Los Angeles Beautiful Weather Mix. The former's got that hooky descending bass line that tumbles right down into the beat, but the latter got that sinister synth grind that compliments those sinister-event horizon lyrics so well. Listen to all three and vote below.

For years now, I've been getting my new release information from the Other Music newsletter (and yes, I've been to their East Village shop, as well, although it's been over a decade). So I was pleased to hear that they'd started their own imprint in conjunction with Fat Possum. Since releasing the Ex Cops' hazy single, "You Are a Lion, I Am a Lamb," they've been prepping the solo debut from singer/multi-instrumentalist Shintaro Sakamoto. The first song, a tropicalia-infused affair, rides in on a wave of tambourine, hand claps, and sweet-voiced lovelies who sound like they must surely be wearing miniskirts and go-go boots.
As the leader of Yura Yura Teikoku, Sakamoto has recorded for P.S.F. (Tokyo Flashback) and DFA (Hollow Me/Beautiful). The Other Music description of his first full-length has me eager to hear more, "Most of the songs are built around Sakamoto’s hypnotic electric-bass grooves (he learned to play for these recordings), a crisp drum set and bubbling percussion, layered with dreamy guitars and vintage synthesizers, and topped by meticulously arranged female vocal harmonies, horns, and Sakamoto's own languid yet deeply expressive lead vocals."
Listen to Ex Cops' Galaxie 500-reminiscent B-side "The Millionaire" below.

Redefine magazine has a track available for streaming/download by Midday Veil off their forthcoming, Randall Dunn-produced album (they’re still searching for a label to put it out). One of the noisiest and most chaotic tracks in Midday Veil’s canon, “Choreia” boldly ventures into prog-rock territory. While Chris Pollina’s manic, oddly metered drums and Jayson Kochan’s staunch bass figure (think Paul McCartney’s in “Tomorrow Never Knows”) lend the song extreme gravity, David Golightly’s keyboards, Timm Mason’s guitar, Emily Pothast’s distant, valiant vocals thrust the high end skyward. As a result, “Choreia” builds incredible tension and drama, and it results in an interesting departure for the Seattle psych-rock group.
You can listen to “Choreia” here. Midday Veil's next show is June 8 at Black Lodge; it's the release party for their INTEGRATRON cassette and for Swahili's self-titled LP, both of which are coming out on the Translinguistic Other label.
You have to give them your flack e-mail address:
Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” has a distinct correlation for me to Red Grape Mad Dog 20/20. Many a night in Athens, GA, while attending University of Georgia, held the two in tandem. Perhaps too many nights. The sound of the song will forever make me taste the terrible, terrible rotgut wine. The sensory neurons from my tongue that send electrical impulses to my cerebellum (the primary gustatory region) will forever be wound like Pavlov dogs around Jimmy Page’s distorted Les Paul riff, and Robert Plant’s Willie Dixon inspired vocs: “You need coolin', baby, I'm not foolin' / I'm gonna send you back to schoolin' / Way down inside honey, you need it, I'm gonna give you my love.” The taste and smell of Red Grape Mad Dog is repulsive to me now, although I maintain devout love for the song.
Another beverage to song taste-sound coupling is Guns n Roses “Paradise City” and Busch Light Draft. Don’t ask. And the tamped, royal horns of Miles Davis “Concierto de Aranjuez” off Sketches of Spain for some reason makes me taste Kahlua and Coca Cola, and a dab of half and half, with big chunks of ice.
What songs go with what drinks for you?
What other song-drink relationships should we be made aware of?

The first track leaked from Six Organs of Admittance’s Ascent (out Aug. 21 on Drag City), “Waswasa” sounds closer in spirit to leader Ben Chasny’s other band, Comets on Fire, than it does to 6O’s more typical troubadouristic folkadelia. “Waswasa” wastes no time launching a blazing, power-chord fusilade and no-nonsense hard-rock drumming. The head of Holy Mountain Records (Six Organs’ former label) compared the track to AC/DC, and there’s some truth to that. This is the most meat-and-potatoes slab of rock that former Seattle denizen Chasny has laid down under the Six Organs handle.
Listen to “Waswasa” here and read the press release after the cut.

Seattle avant-pop bassist/composer Jherek Bischoff (ex-Dead Science, Parenthetical Girls) has collaborated with David Byrne on the track “Eyes.” It comes from his album Composed, a heady orch-pop opus coming out June 5 on the Brassland label that's loaded with impressive guest musicians: Caetano Veloso, Deerhoof's Greg Saunier, Craig Wedren, Carla Bozulich, and Wilco's Nels Cline. “Eyes” is a lush, stately processional song featuring serpentine string motifs and tender glockenspiel, and Byrne singing in his late-era heartfelt-balladeer mode.
The band says: "It's not exactly the sun-bleached summer soundtrack people anxiously await from bands around this time of year, but if you like a little spook with your carefree love making and lazy river floats, then this one will treat you well."
Who doesn't love a little bit of spookiness in their sunshine? It's all about balance. Here, hear:
I think Line Out may have "slept," as the kids say, on the new Azealia Banks track, "Jumanji," which popped up on the intertubes at the end of last week. Go listen! Azealia Banks is so so so so so much fun! More great than this new one, actually, and one I've been thinking about lately because of our lovely weather and the video's perfect summeriness, is her older song "L8R." You will probably get parts of it stuck in your head. I hope, for your sake, they're parts that are okay to accidentally sing in a grocery store, as opposed to the particularly raunchy awesomeness that will get you weird looks. Enjoy!
Would you get a load of the cojones on this 214 guy… He decided to “refix” Plastikman’s “Ask Yourself,” as if it were broken. And… well, 214 actually has done a bang-up job with Richie Hawtin’s über-creepy mnml-techno klassik, bringing more animated, pinging electro beats and bulbous Roland 303 pulsations to the proceedings.
214's latest EP, Plastic Spokes, just came out on Fortified Audio; listen to snippets of it at xlr8r.com and after the cut, along with that Plastikman refix. You may also want to check out 214's Tulum EP , which was recently issued by Seattle's KRecordings.
There isn't enough coffee in the world to energize me as much as this song does after just a listen or two:
Given yesterday's news that Tom Gabel of Against Me is in transition to become a woman named Laura Jane Grace, this line in the song "Ocean" has become especially poignant:
"If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman / My mother once told me she would have named me Laura."
Surprisingly and awesomely, the YouTube comments on the song are supportive and celebratory, praising Laura for being brave and wishing her all the best:

Seeing the enormous amount of support for her on Facebook, Twitter, in the Rolling Stone comments and even YouTube comments (which is usually the bottom of the barrel) is just making my heart explode with happiness and hope. Thanks, humanity. Sometimes you can be okay.

Over on Pitchfork, Stranger Genius award winners the Intelligence have leaked the first song from their new album, Everybody's Got It Easy But Me (out June 19 on In the Red; the track also appears on a split 7" with Kelley Stoltz). “(They Found Me in the Back of) the Galaxy” is pretty straightforward and accessible for Lars Finberg and company; it’s instantly sing-along-able, concise, and contains some of the punchiest, glam-rockingest drumming in their 13-year career while retaining their familiar shake-appeal, surf-rock riffing. After seven listens, I conclude that the ominous coda with the eerie organ drone is the song’s highlight.

I can be pretty predictable sometimes. I took one look at the artist behind this song, and thought, "I bet I'll like it." And I do! It's noisy and melodic—my favorite combination. It's just that I gravitate towards a lot of female artists who draw as much from the look of Jane Birkin and Françoise Hardy as from their sound—and that's to say nothing of actress Anita Pallenberg, the ne plus ultra of '60s cool.
So it comes as little surprise that Melody Prochet hails from Paris, although she collaborated with Tame Impala singer/guitarist Kevin Parker on her first single (Pallenberg hailed from Italy, but spent a lot of time in France, especially while her then-partner, Keith Richards, was working on Exile on Main St.). That said, Prochet doesn't cite any of these artists as influences, but rather Pram, Spiritualized, Olivier Messiaen, and Robert Wyatt (on her Facebook page, she also "likes" Unknown Mortal Orchestra). What can I say? I dig her taste, too.

This may mean nothing to non-writers, but Beak> [sic], have titled their new release >>, so...have fun with that.* I've written about Geoff Barrow's trio in the past, and Blogger had a hard enough time with the band's name in that it would delete the greater-than sign the minute I hit "publish," even though it showed up fine in draft form. (With Blogger's latest upgrade, I'm now having problems with ampersands; The Stranger publishing platform doesn't handle them well either.)
* When I tried a YouTube search (name + title), I got "An error occurred during validation."
Listen to 2009's rhythmically similar "I Know" below.