The Blind Owls (Joshua De Leon – guitar, Jesse De Los Santos – guitar, Carlos Garcia – bass, Dylan Romel – drums) return from the sunny beaches of Corpus Christi with their second full-length album All Day and Night just in time for the second half of summer. It’s full of catchy power pop hooks, rockabilly beats, and dashes of punk.
The title track opens the record, and it has everything the Blind Owls do so well – a slick bass line, good vocal harmonies, jangly rock guitars, and clockwork drumming. I like the way “Good Time” starts with a crunchy little guitar riff that becomes a fun rockabilly song with a rough edge. “Sweet Baby” reveals the band’s love of Jerry Lee Lewis, as evidenced by the pounded piano, bonkers guitar work, handclaps, and frantic vocals. It’s a barnburner.
“Nobody Else” has a great walking bass line from Garcia that you might miss if you’re too busy tapping your toes to Romel’s beats, so be sure to listen for it. “Home” is really a blues tune hidden in a bop song about a cheating girlfriend. “Better” has a bit of a Bob Dylan flair, if Bob Dylan were a bit more light-hearted when singing about love.
“Out of My Mind” drops the album into full-blown psychedelic material, which is a great switch from the power-pop. The Blind Owls switch gears on us just when we think we’ve figured out their game. “Fever” keeps up the psych-rock somewhat as it keeps a nice balance between psychedelia and 60’s garage rock. The track also makes me wonder if Dylan Romel is actually a robot, because his snare work seems to obey Asimov’s laws.
“Good to Me” is sharp bop-rock that will get you moving. “Searching For” is a fast, sweet love song, as is “If They Say.” “The Way” is another song about how great the singer’s girl is, and it has a nice early Kinks sound to it that hardly anyone is attempting anymore. “Mystery Man” is full of great rock swagger (and the organ in it is a nice touch). The closer is “Doctor,” which is a cool garage rock song that melds Buzzcocks with Black Angels.
It’s a fine record, especially if you like early 1960’s garage rock (and why wouldn’t you?). Get on the Blind Owls bandwagon. They’re going places, and you should join the trip before everyone else eventually will.
Keep your mind open.
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A good EP should leave you craving a full-length album, and that’s exactly what Ron Gallo’s RG3 EP does. It’s only three tracks, but they are all scorching rockers that portend great things to come from this psych-fuzz wunderkind.
“Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me” starts off like a forgotten Byrds classic but then bursts with a great bass groove by Joe Bisirri and Gallo’s tripped-out rock guitar as he sings about wanting to move in with a lady and her twelve cats, but he’s not sure the crazy sex is worth all the other stuff that comes with it. He rips into a brief solo immediately after name-dropping the Kensington Strangler. That alone should let you know he means business.
“Put the Kids to Bed” is a psychedelic “let’s get it on” song with a little bit of a surf feel to it in the chorus as Gallo sings about crazy sex some more and feeling the panic of a long-term relationship that’s growing cold.
“Kill the Medicine Man” is a neat mix of psychedelia, horror movie film score, and blues fuzz. Gallo’s reverbed vocals go for broke and are nicely backed with some lady chanters and his killer rhythm section (with Dylan Sevey on drums). The song seems to be a plea for us to cut through dogma and see what’s right in front of us. It’s over far too soon.
The EP is over far too soon, really. It’s just ten minutes, but it’s a glorious ten minutes. Mr. Gallo, I look forward to what you have in store for us.
Recorded at Chicago’s Hideout January 30-31, 2014, Live at the Hideout is essential for any fan of Screaming Females, rock, or quality live recordings. Steve Albini did a great job capturing the fury and power of a live Screaming Females show, and the band (“King” Mike Abbate – bass, Jarrett Dougherty – drums, Marissa Paternoster – guitar and vocals) played not only for the lucky Hideout crowd, but also apparently for everyone on the international space station to hear.
“Leave It All Up to Me” gets the album off to a fine start, showcasing Paternoster’s now-trademark shredding. “Foul Mouth” temporarily downshifts the show, with Abbate’s bass groove planting deep roots before he and his band mates take off like a nitro-burning funny car from the starting line. The band takes that nitro and uses it to almost burn the Hideout stage to the ground on “Buried in the Nude” – which is a blistering punk rock screamfest.
“Extinction” keeps the punk pumping, with Paternoster’s vocals evoking Poly Styrene. “A New Kid” has one of her best solos on the record. It moves back and forth between metal, psychedelia, grunge, and even a bit of shoegaze. “Lights Out” is one of the best metal tunes you’ve heard in a long while, and Paternoster’s solo might make you hang up your guitar.
“Sheep,” a gut punch of a song about a cheating lover, hits even harder live. “It All Means Nothing” is one of their biggest hits, and one of their best live tracks. Paternoster sizzles throughout it and Dougherty’s pulsing beat is a great foundation. His wicked beats continue on “Starve the Beat,” which has some of Paternoster’s most masterful guitar work and Dougherty and Abbate’s best clicking rhythms.
“Little Anne” is a strangely hypnotic short song that’s almost an introduction to “Pretty Okay,” which brings out Buzzcocks-like frenetic energy from the whole band. “Baby Jesus” reminds me of a spinning dynamo. It’s fiery energy that seems barely contained and could overwhelm you at any moment. Paternoster’s solo rises into psychedelic realms halfway through it and then tears into something you’d hear in a crazy anime film about starship pilots fighting Cthulu on the edge of a black hole.
The album ends with “Boyfriend,” in which the band not only topples over the edge from metal into punk rock madness, but also pulls the whole Hideout audience and anyone listening to this record with them. Paternoster screams to the rafters, Dougherty thumps on his kit harder than Chuck Norris beating up thugs in Good Guys WearBlack, and Abbate pounds on his bass with a drumstick at one point. I don’t know what will convince you that this band is a force of nature if this song doesn’t.
It’s a great live record, not only for the song selection but also for catching the power of a Screaming Females performance. If you can’t see them live, at least pick up this record. It will only make you want to see them live more or see them live again again, but that’s a good thing.
Clutch’s (Neil Fallon – Guitar and vocals, Jean-Paul Gaster – drums, Dan Maines – bass, Tim Sult – guitar) 2005 album Robot Hive / Exodus was the rock record you needed in 2005, and is still the rock record you need right now.
“The Incomparable Mr. Flannery” is pretty much a salute to their metalhead fans, as Fallon gives shout-outs to Dokken, Boston, Kansas, REO Speedwagon, and George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers.
“Burning Beard” was the big single for the album. It’s about a man losing his mind as CNN, “the power of the Holy Ghost,” and the “same three dogs looking back” at him conspire to drive him nuts (although he was probably already there). Sult shreds particularly hard on this track, giving us some of his wildest guitar work on any Clutch record.
“Gullah” seems to be about a man coming to terms with his impending doom. “Ain’t no doubt Jesus sees us acting foolishly on American Bandstand,” Fallon sings. “Ain’t no doubt Vishnu missed you, then Kali kissed you. Better get busy. Days get shorter, air get colder…” Heavy stuff with slightly reverbed space-rock guitar and a wicked beat.
The robot hive mentioned in the album’s title is entered in “Mice and Gods.” It mentions “silver women on the OMNI magazine” and calls to “engineer the future now. Damn tomorrow, future now!” The guitar work on runs between the border of stoner rock and prog rock, which is to say it’s quite good.
“Pulaski Skyway” seems particularly relevant in 2016 as it mentions “real estate moguls, Chump Towers.” Maines and Gaster team up for a killer groove on it, as Fallon pleads that we must find salvation in trying times or lose our minds to the robot hive building up around us. “Never Be Moved” is, by its title alone, another exploration of religion. “Woe be the architect in his slumber, for the Watcher never sleeps,” Fallon sings, and almost raps the second verse. The use of organ (by guest Mick Schauer) in the song is also a nice touch, giving it a southern Baptist church call-and-response feel.
“10001110101” reminds us that we are in a robot hive, but we can have an exodus from it if we choose. “The shackles of automata will shatter like their bones,” Fallon sings, and who else but Clutch could pull off a song with a title and chorus in binary? “Circus Maximus” once again reveals the band’s love of monsters and oddities, mentioning manticores, Cthulu, dopplegangers, and even a “seven-legged sow.”
“10,000 Witnesses” is another call to escape the drudgery of the robotic world we’ve created by looking inward and outward for the spiritual. “Land of the Pleasant Living” has clever lyrics about Russian cosmonauts wondering what life is like below them in the U.S.
“Gravel Road” is floor-stomping, sweaty, honkytonk country blues…if that honkytonk was lit on fire by a dropped match and spilled bourbon. I love it when Clutch embraces their love of blues and rockabilly, and the whole band cooks on this track. “Who’s Been Talking?” is another salute to their blues influences, in particular Howlin’ Wolf, and they do him justice.
To make this album even better, they included a DVD of them performing most of the songs from Robot Hive / Exodus in Sayreville, New Jersey on July 13, 2005. You can’t miss.
It’s been a good year so far for music. I’m finding excellent stuff every month. We’re halfway through the year, so here’s a quick recap of my top 10 records of 2016 so far.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard – Nonagon Infinity: Easily the craziest record of the year so far. You can play it on an infinite loop beginning with any track and it will repeat without any noticeable pauses, stutters, or breaks.
WALL – self-titled EP: WALL are currently my favorite discovery of 2016. They’ve brought back a fierce post-punk edginess that I didn’t know I was yearning for until I heard them.
Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool: One word to describe this record – Heartbreaking. Most of the songs are about the end of Thom Yorke’s 20+ year relationship with his girlfriend.
[Rewind Reviews are reviews of albums that are at least a year old by the time I hear them.]
Cosmic funk rockers / shapeshifting aliens / voodoo acid trip Golden Dawn Arkestra’s self-titled 2014 debut EP is a lesson on how to release your first record: You come out blowing minds on the first track.
“Afropocalypse” is full of fat horns, shredding guitar, echoing vocals delivering messages from the boat of Anubis…or maybe from Texas. I’m not sure. I was too stunned by the track to figure out its meaning. It’s probably planted in my head like a Zen koan that will enlighten me when I’m not thinking about it.
“Oasis (The Legend of Nathaniel Thorne)” is part-spaghetti western film score and part-space lounge jam. Imagine Django walking into a 1960’s sci-fi movie space station bar while carrying a Theremin instead of his Gatling gun and you’ll have a slight idea of what this song is like. I have no idea who Nathaniel Thorne is, but Golden Dawn Arkestra has given him a badass theme song.
“Dimensions” has a bass lick that the Crystal Method would envy and joyful flute, handclaps, and lyrics inviting us to join Golden Dawn Arkestra on their journey beyond the five senses and the nine planets. “Masakayli” is pretty much a chant used to invoke the Egyptian god of funk (which I think might be Hathor), and the funky organ and wicked drum beats help.
“Saharan Knights” has some of my favorite guitar licks on the record, mixing psychedelia with surf. I also love how the horn section sounds a bit drunk throughout it. The EP ends with a song that at first sounds like a Chemical Brothers track from the mid-1990’s, “Selemat,” but soon turns into a hot space disco jam that will have you jumping. I love that Golden Dawn Arkestra ended with EP with a track that leaves you wanting more (and, thankfully, they gave us Stargazer earlier this year).
Get on this cosmic pleasure yacht while you have the chance. Sip cocktails with ghosts, otherworldly creatures, warlocks, shamans, witches, and priestesses. Listen to Golden Dawn Arkestra.
L-R: “King” Mike Abbate, yours truly, Marissa Paternoster, Jarrett Dougherty
I’ve wanted to see Screaming Femaleslive since 2012 (when I discovered them while working for WSND), and was delighted to see they were playing barely over an hour’s drive from my house last Sunday at the Brass Rail in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They were gracious with their time and kind enough to let me interview them while sitting in their touring van. I’ll have a full transcript of that interview soon, and I’m working on an audio version that I’ll play on a future show on WSND.
The night started with the Ron Gallo 3, a fun punk trio who played a loud set of songs like “Kill the Medicine Man,” “All the Punks Are Domesticated,” and “Why Do You Have Kids?”
The Ron Gallo 3.
Up next were Ft. Wayne’s own Dead Records, who dropped a loud, fast, screaming set on the crowd of friends and new fans.
The Dead Records.
Screaming Females then got on stage for their first gig in Ft. Wayne. I’m not sure how many people there knew who was about to play, but I saw a few of us singing along within moments. Everyone else stood dumbfounded for the first three songs because Marissa Paternoster, Jarrett Dougherty, and “King” Mike Abbate almost flattened the place.
I’d seen videos of their performances, so I had a slight idea of how powerful they are live (especially in a small venue like the Brass Rail). The videos don’t do them justice. They have a chemistry that can only be created through lots of performances and deep friendships. Paternoster, who is without question one of the best guitarists today, emotes power through her vocals as well as her axe (which she straps around her waist instead of over her shoulder, giving her even more of a gunslinger presence).
As much as Paternoster wields her guitar like Clint Eastwood in A Fistful ofDollars,Dougherty hits his drums like Franco Nero blasts a Gatling gun in Django and Abbate drops his bass riffs like James Coburn drops dynamite in Duck You Sucker. The two guys in the band get into heavy grooves that make Abbate break into grins and Dougherty to go into what appears to be Zen-like meditative trances.
The fans had snapped out of their stunned state by the time the band played “Empty Head” from Rose Mountain. Paternoster thanked everyone for coming to their first Ft. Wayne gig. “Please move here!” A man yelled, echoing the thoughts of everyone in the room.
“Leave It All Up to Me” and “Ripe” were other crowd favorites, and they were cooking with gas by that point.
They closed with the powerful, stunning “Triumph,” which is a fitting end for such a set. It was a triumphant debut for them in a town they hadn’t played in before then.
A friend of former bandmate of mine, Chad, saw the show with me, and he’d only heard one song (“Hopeless”) by the band before seeing them live. He was shaking his head in a bit of disbelief by the end of their set.
“She’s not fucking around, is she?” Chad said.
“No, she’s not,” I told him.
And now I’m telling you. Screaming Females aren’t fucking around.
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Jarrett for getting me a press pass to the show, and to him, Marissa, and Mike for being such groovy cats.]
Radiohead’s newest record, A Moon Shaped Pool, is about the illusions, dreams, and perceptions we create regarding love. The album gets off to a somewhat frightening start with the sharp string instruments and dark lyrics of “Burn the Witch.” The video for it features a stop-motion animation version of The Wicker Man, a film about illusions and deception (and horror) in a remote English village. Thom Yorke sings about “red crosses on doors” and falling prey to myths as the song builds to Psycho shower scene pace and then cuts to “Daydreaming” – with synth and piano instrumentation that causes your mind to drift elsewhere. Yorke’s lyrics are backwards at the very end, leaving you wondering what the hell just happened…much like you would when returning from a daydream.
“Decks Dark” talks of “a spacecraft blocking out the sky, there’s nowhere to hide. You run to the back and cover your ears, but it’s the loudest sound you’ve ever heard in your darkest hour.” It’s bleak until the other lyrics of “It was just a laugh” come into the song. The bass line on this is wicked, and I love the angular, stabbing distorted guitar licks in it.
“Desert Island Disk” is a term coined by British DJ’s to describe records you’d take with you if you knew you were going to be stranded on a desert island. The song mentions waking up from “a thousand years of sleep” and how “different kinds of love are possible.” It’s easy to think that it’s a song about coming out of the closet, but I think it’s more about waking up from the illusions we’ve created around us. The acoustic guitars on the track are excellent as synths build and then disappear behind them.
“Ful Stop” claims, “You really messed up everything,” but also says, “Truth will mess you up all the good times.” Yorke seems to be singing about how the fantasy he’d created in a bad relationship is finally broken. Is it a good or a bad thing? Only Thom Yorke knows the answer, but the shoegaze / goth wave feel of the song leads one to believe he’s angry about it either way.
“Glass Eyes” is about the hollowness of strangers and love that’s not really there anymore. It’s a somber song with near-funeral dirge piano and synths and strings that move around like ghosts in an old church. On “Identikit,” Thom Yorke admits that he doesn’t want the illusion of false love to end (“When I see you messing me around, I don’t want to know.”). The tick-tock percussion stands out among the jangling guitars, spacey synths, and chorus that sounds like it was recorded in a big concrete bunker.
“The Numbers” is a subtle (in its instrumentation, certainly not the lyrics) power to the people song about the 99% shaking off our shackles and reclaiming happiness. “We call upon the people. People have this power. The numbers don’t decide. The system is a lie.” There’s more excellent string work. I can’t remember so many good string arrangements on previous Radiohead records.
“Present Tense” is about a man fighting for love. “In you I’m lost. I won’t turn around when the penny drops. I won’t stop now, I won’t slack off, or all this love will be in vain.” The backing vocals are a bit ethereal, making you think that voices in Thom Yorke’s head are encouraging him the whole time.
In “Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief,” Yorke lets his lover know that “all you have to do is say, ‘Yeah.’” He’s willing to embrace the illusion if that’s what it takes. It’s an excellent track with more of those great piano chords only Radiohead can seem to make work.
The album ends with “True Love Waits.” It’s a sad song Thom Yorke wrote in 1995 about begging a lover to return and being willing to do anything to make a relationship work. “I’ll drown my beliefs to have your babies. I’ll dress like your niece and wash your swollen feet. Just don’t leave.” The band’s been looking for the right album / moment to release it, and this album is perfect for it.
A Moon Shaped Pool is about how love can be a fragile fantasy. It can be a comfortable illusion that, once shattered, either delivers agony or ecstasy. Would you want to be put back into the Matrix if you were pulled out of it? Would you embrace illusion for the feeling of love, even if you knew it was false? Many would, for the risks in finding new love and a true path are frightening.
There is a Zen koan about the nun Chiyono being enlightened while carrying a pail of water:
In this way and that I tried to save the old pail,
since the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break,
until at last the bottom fell out.
No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!
Radiohead’s newest album reminds us that love can be like the moon in the water. You think it is there, but it is only there until the bottom drops out and the illusion is shattered. You can find true love past the illusion, or you can cling to it. The choice is yours.
Keep your mind open.
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If you’re unaware of the cultural significance of singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson’s 1972 masterpiece, Nilsson Schmilsson, it’s the album that produced “Without You” and “Coconut.” It also produced other tracks that should be remembered as much as those mega-hits.
“Gotta Get Up” is a funny, quirky pop song about waking up before dawn after a late night of partying and sex that skewers the 1970’s party culture. It’s still valid today. Listen to it and try not to think of club kids, Tinder hook-ups, and Las Vegas bachelor and bachelorette parties.
“Driving Along” continues the skewering, but this time the dying hippie subculture was the target (“They seem to say nothing, they seem to go farther, they seem to go nowhere.”). “Early in the Morning” is a wicked blues cut with simple, haunting organ and vocals by Nilsson. “The Moonbeam Song” could be a trippy song about getting high and watching the night sky, but it’s more about introspection (euphoric or not). The acoustic guitars and mellotron are a nice combination.
“Down” is another dip into the blues; with heavy R&B vocal influences and funky horns that only seem to exist in songs from the 1970’s. The brass section hits as hard as Nilsson’s soulful vocals on it.
No one can deny the power of “Without You.” It’s heartbreaking, especially when you consider the songwriters (Peter Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger) both committed suicide. Nilsson goes for broke on the vocals, and legendary keyboardist Gary Wright plays one of the best and saddest piano pieces of the decade. This song won Nilsson a Grammy and was on the Billboard charts for a year after its release.
I’m glad he put the equally famous “Coconut” after it to make us smile again after our hearts have had a cigarette put out on them. Everyone from the Muppets to the Homer Simpson has covered it. What most people miss is that the main theme of the song is “the cause is the cure,” as Nilsson mentions in the liner notes to the reissue. The song’s a Mobius strip. “Let the Good Times Roll” is a fun version of the blues standard, and it’s a nice set-up for the jaw-dropping “Jump into the Fire” – a rocker so good it leaves you dumbfounded the first time you hear it. It’s a forgotten Top 40 hit from the early 70’s, which is a crying shame, and the reason many promotional spots for Nilsson Schmilsson proclaimed it to be a “rock record.”
“I’ll Never Leave You” is a dark, melancholy end to the album as Nilsson pleads for a lost love to return. It’s “Without You” without any of the hope. It’s a bleak Radiohead track before Radiohead were learning childhood rhymes.
The 2004 reissue also contains a Spanish language version of “Without You,” the quirky sort-of love song “How Can I Be Sure of You,” a demo version of “The Moonbeam Song,” the short and weird “Lamaze,” the war protest song “Old Forgotten Soldier,” and an alternate version of “Gotta Get Up.” There’s also a great vintage radio spot from the album that includes interviews clips with Nilsson and producer Richard Perry.
It’s a fine record and it’s surprising Nilsson isn’t given more credit from contemporary musicians. He’s sometimes referred to as “the missing Beatle,” for crying out loud.
What do you do when you’re one of the biggest electronic acts in the world and you decide to return from a six-year hiatus? If you’re Underworld, you drop what could be the comeback record of the year – Barbara, Barbara, We Face a Shining Future.
It’s perfectly timed; because Underworld’s newest record is also one of the most optimistic records of the year. We need optimism right now in this bleak political atmosphere. “I Exhale,” the first track from the record, is over eight minutes of them telling us to take a deep breath and let go of all the molehills we’ve built into mountains. In the wake of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, it’s good to hear a song that tells us that “everything is golden” and to look toward “the light…a globe on the horizon.” “If Rah,” with its thumping beats, acknowledges that everyone suffers, but “Life isn’t shit.” It encourages us to “Have a good time.”
The opening synths of “Low Burn” could be something from a John Carpenter film score, but the dance floor percussion reminds us to “be bold, be beautiful, free, totally, unlimited.” The song bounces and soars, as if the low burn in the title references a lift-off from the planet.
The Spanish-style acoustic guitar on “Santiago Cuatro” is an interesting surprise and instantly intriguing. It borders on Middle Eastern rhythms and becomes a meditative piece with minimal percussion and odd, slightly fuzzed radio transmissions.
“Motorhome,” with its “Baba O’Riley”-like synths, gives the bluntest advice on the whole record. “What don’t lift you drags you down. Keep away from the dark side.” Life would be better for all of us if we spurned negativity and embraced compassion. “Ova Nova” is light-hearted, highly danceable, and ready for your Summer of 2016 playlist. “Nylon Strung” is a bold love song with Depeche Mode-like synths and simple, giddy-love lyrics like “I wanna hold you, laughing.”
This is a tremendous return for Underworld, and for all of us, to a world of bliss that is ours for the taking whenever we want it. We just have to be bold enough to live it.
