Liars Interview from Anthem Magazine on Vimeo.
Oh, how I love Liars. The trio is one of those bands that we all know is going to be pumping out albums for years and years to come; one of those bands that will inspire generations of future musicians; one of those bands that will always seem utterly accessible and completely alien (have you ever seen Angus and company live!?)
Four albums and a handful of EP's in, countless recording locations later, and uncanny genre hopping, Liars comes out with a curt single that has no affiliation to anything as far as we know, "Disgusting." Unlike the bulk of their last LP's work, "Disgusting" is more reminiscent of early punk cuts by, say, the Slits during their collaboration with Half Japanese that never happened. The throbbing beat and helter-skelter hook makes the tune messy; the slightly off drumming only further convolutes the thing; the piece is genius.
Now that the band is officially holed up in L.A., I'm hoping to see more of them ... don't tell me this isn't a Los Angelino tune.
"Why can't they turn on the lights? You are a man and I am a drug. It's so disgusting."
Early last month, Los Angeles exports No Age, Mika Miko, and Abe Vigoda performed at the Smell's second annual matinee performance. I'm still a little in the dark as to why they decided to hold such a stellar show during some of the hottest hours during the day and how they managed wrangle up every hipster in the great L.A. region, but -- needless to say -- the mini-festival (or whatever you want to call it) was fun.
I did this film for Anthem Online. Check out the original article and small clip here. We got footage of all three bands' sets (amazing), a solid Q&A with No Age, and a fun chat with some of the Mika Miko girls and a couple of the Abe Vigoda guys.
BBBD has always been a blog focusing most of its time to the new, the current, the hip. Keeping up with the modern is only half of the fun of listening to music, though; revering the old, the past, and the seminal is just as important -- if not more so -- as hailing the up-to-date, though, and BBBD has been deficient in remembering what once was. We proudly present you Reverse, a new column that highlights the music of before from all corners of the globe. With N° 1, we look at some older Japanese groups you all may not be terribly familiar with.
Japanese pop music -- on all levels -- has been too neatly categorized and grouped for comfort. As we all know, musical scenes, eras, and loose communities serve as a good way to make sense of the tradition of music, but not a whole lot more. Few artists -- and certainly barely any of the authentic, sincere, and respectful ones -- begin making music of a certain variety to conveniently fit into a specific genre. Such is the case with the much discussed and revered Shibuya-kei movement of the early- to mid-1990s. While Pizzicato Five, Cornelius, Fantastic Plastic Machine, and a handful of others certainly share similarities with each other, the short-lived Shibuya-kei episode of Japanese music was more complex and detailed than we're led to believe.
Citrus
The Shibuya-kei period of outrageous musical creativity was not confined solely to and rooted only in a rebirthing of the post-punk guitar-pop of the Postcard Records outfits and a rediscovery of the 1960s lounge pop. Indeed, there was a segment of creators who could more aptly be tied to the twee styles of the late-1980s ... the early bedroom pop artists and lo-fi folks of the C-86 crew. Citrus was one such band. (Néojaponisme has a great interview with Emori Takeaki -- Citrus' frontman and brain -- online now that's very worth reading through.) Their tunes are eternally rooted in the spastic early days of punk (and ridiculous and goofy crap of 1980s Boredoms), hyperactive, neon-lit streets of Shibuya, and the modest production qualities of say, Mt. Eerie. A bizarre and utterly compelling mix to say the least.
The more ignorant of us perpetually assume that Japanese composers merely ape other musical varieties. Everything is derivative of something else -- and clearly so -- and never completely unique unto itself. Listen to any of Citrus' songs, though, and you'll find it difficult to pinpoint their sound. The band sprouted in 1993 and dissolved in 2000/1 and truly served only as a predecessor to today's Japanese pop rather than another imitator that hopped on one of many fashionable musical bandwagons.
The below two songs are quite possibly BBBD's favorite Citrus cuts. "Colo Colo Meets the Stripes" represents one of Trattoria Records' crowning achievements -- a world of tense and angsty guitar-driven punk with an oddly soothing lightness and eccentricity that only a Tokyo band can deliver -- and one of the Shibuya-kei era's most significant works. Not one band in the scene today would admit to not knowing this track and it's undeniably just as important in terms of setting the stage for future generations of musicians as Y.M.O. was for electronic music or Plastics was for Japan's retort to American New Wave. Rock out.
When discussing Japan's infatuation with clean, crisp guitar-pop a la Aztec Camera and Orange Juice, Keigo Oyamada's (AKA Cornelius and the founder of Trattoria Records) outfit, Flipper's Guitar, is usually the one and only seminal group namedroped. A true shame as there were, obviously, many, many more equally exciting bands that ran in the same direction and with the same crowd and were just as intriguing. Kaji Hideki's pre-solo endeavor sextet, Bridge, is BBBD's favorite non-Flipper's Guitar ensemble.
There's not a tremendous amount of information floating around the Internet concerning Bridge, but the early 1990s band was very, very cool -- trust. The band served as the connector, in many ways, between the distinctly foreign in quality of Flipper's Guitar and specifically Burt Bacharach-esque of Pizzicato Five. Strangely, Bridge sounds like one of the most Japanese products of the Shibuya-kei movement. Mami Otomo sings in the way that any other J-Pop vocalist circa 1980 - 1990 would've, and in terms of production, Bridge sounds sparkling and shiny in a karaoke arrangement manner as opposed to a post-punk sanitary sort of way. That being said, Bridge was most definitely influenced by the sounds of Western countries -- Hideki now lives in both Tokyo and London, for example -- but erred more on the aesthetics of easy-listening J-Pop. Bridge -- which disbanded in 1995 -- brought plenty into the equation (Latin rhythms, loungey horn and string arrangements, easy-listening guitar melodies), but rarely pushed the envelope or forced native Japanese listeners to reexamine their musical preferences and likes. Listen and you'll understand.
After Bridge's 1995 breakup, Kaji Hideki traded in his bass for a guitar (or rather, added to his repertoire everything else one needs to make an de facto one-man band) and released an EP, Muscat, the following year. Hideki is very interesting for one reason in particular: he crystallized Japan's indie-pop obsession with Sweden, and never turned back. Instead of drawing primarily from the Sounds of Scotland, 1980, Hideki pulled specifically from the awesomeness that was Swedish pop, 1995. It wasn't hip to be in love with Sweden back then -- certainly not like it is today -- and the fact that Hideki brought that country's music up to a new level of admiration while simultaneously constructing his entirely unique sound is the simple and fair reason to appreciate the forty-one-year-old.
Hideki fully realized his aesthetic in the late-1990s, though, so listen to the below tracks and note the development, progression. Stunning. "You Can Work It Out" may be one of the most uplifting songs ever written. He's a new LP out now called Towns and Streets that BBBD would kill to hear ...
In BBBD's humble opinion, Salon Music is/was Boris before Boris. The duo has been recording music with some regularity since 1981 with the single, "Hunting On Paris," never settling on one specific sound or approach to creating songs. Now, they resemble more of a kraut-rock outfit with disco-infused beats and spacey arrangements, but they used to subscribe more to the shoegaze sound and at one point settled for more straightforward J-Pop in the Shibuya-kei tradition.
They moved to Trattoria Records in the 1990s, tying them to the Shibuya-kei sound by contract and affiliation, but not by much else. The pair were first noticed by Western journalists, critics, and labels, further cementing their place in the international scene rather than in the Japanese indie movements they lived through. Regardless, Salon Music is a dense and worthy addition to the body of music Japan has produced. Listen to a couple songs from two very different and distinct LPs below. Hopefully they'll come out with something new soon!
I tend to not post music videos on BBBD simply because they're too many of 'em out there, and who am I to select a couple out of the hundreds floating around in the vast Internet?
That being said, Cazals' (MySpace) latest music video for "Somebody Somewhere" is stunning and certainly deserves all the attention it can get. Not only is the song a great the-Jam-meets-the-Strokes sort of garage-rock pop cut, but it also features one of the cutest and coolest animations I've seen in a while (by French street artist André), and, duh, a beautiful French chick, dancing up and down the streets of Paris with such gleeful finesse. Love it, love it.
We're also drawing the Kitsuné Records video to your attention because we've a surprise waiting for you that'll drop in a few ... Kitsuné-themed, of course.
Typically, my memories of growing up in Cleveland is all the connection I need to the Midwest (or thereabouts -- I still think Cleveland is more akin to a coastal city than say, Boise). I stick to the coasts, as terrible as that sounds. While there are certainly good bands sprouting in the pastures and prairies of Nebraska, Idaho, North Dakato, and all surrounding States, that stuff doesn't appeal to me as much as a Baltimore group does. And, to make another terribly generalized statement, most of the Midwest's musical offerings are the U.S. version of a British pub band or the 1970s bar band transplanted to a modern age. Bland beyond conception.
That being said ... Provo, Utah's Alligators have really caught my ear. I'm a little stunned, but not afraid to admit my adoration for this quintet (I believe it's a quintet ... they have experienced a confusing number of lineup shuffles).
The Alligators are a pretty standard pop-punk indie band, but with a multitude of twists. The keyboards add a Metric-like post-punk edge; the female vocals soften the blow of spiky guitar hooks and heavy, straightforward bass lines; dueling guitars bring a complexity and layeredness that is rare.
But what would one expect from such a dynamic crew? The members met in a [high school?] film class, formed the Alligators, split because of work, a trip to Japan, and more school, but eventually found themselves all back in ... Utah and picked right back up where they left off. Check out a couple tracks below. Get more on the MySpace page.
I just got off a pretty major Kills trip today, so Portland's Magic Johnson is definitely workin' it for me right about now.
While the duo's lineup is slightly different than the above mentioned group's -- "tag team drum/guitar duo Ana and Mando" bring the noise -- they've definitely a comparable aesthetic. With more shouting, D.I.Y. punk, and brash, lo-fi noise stirred into the mix. These two are connected to the Smell in L.A., mind. In fact, their latest 7" EP, Telenovelas (they sing in Spanish!), was released on the Smell's in-house label, olFactory Records (I've said it before, but man that's a great name). Six bucks for six songs!? What would you rather purchase? A lame $.99 iTunes track or a ragin' wax-embedded powerhouse garage jam? The latter, of course!
Plus, Magic Johnson counts Mika Miko and New Bloods as friends ... so they can't be all that bad (if you're feeling like judging a book by it's cover today). Check out a couple songs below. Face melting.
There's a new garage group that's tearing up Sydney, and soon, the whole world if all goes to plan! CHAINGANG -- comprised of members from Pinky Tuscadero, V'Vaars, and Russian Brides -- sounds like the spastic, brash bar band rock that was Joan Jett or the Runaways mixed with the tribal delight of Siouxsie & the Banshees or something (remember their great drummer/Siouxsie's husband, Budgie?)
Gothic Blondie. I dunno. It's rad, it's rockin', it's flailing down the streets with pants down, it's hooting and hollering, kicking and screaming. Let me go and bang my head to this stuff -- maybe you all should follow suit. Be prepared for CHAINGANG -- they're soon to embark on a slew of shows in Australia ... hopefully America will be next!
Ima Gymnist (formerly Ima Fucking Gymnist) is a great -- if not terribly sloppy and scatter-brained -- San Fernando Valley three-piece of underage noise-punk rockers. They're pretty damn boss.
I didn't even realize that the Smell -- the notorious L.A. venue-of-our-generation (seemingly just because it's the only-venue-of-worth-in-this-area) that's received a tremendous amount of press recently, from the New Yorker to i-D -- has a record label, olFactory Records (cute, right?), but they do, and along with Mika Miko, HEALTH, and "graduates," No Age, Ima Gymnist is fostering the Smell's dynasty of spastic punk and noise that will, undoubtedly, go down in history.
The venue and circumstances aside, though, Ima Gymnist's debut 7" EP, ... So Freakin' Juicy (crammed with six tracks), is pretty rad. Tight, abrasive, gasping-for-air, and abruptly cutting it all off before it gets too late (the trio is underage, so they've had some unique experiences playing clubs). I could see these three opening for Ponytail or something -- plenty of comparisons can be drawn to them and all other short-tempered noise-rockers.
I'll have to stop by next time they play the Smell ... just a few block away for [lucky] me!
It's happened again! I've found a new band to hail unquestioningly, listen to 24/7, praise to something mightier than myself for ... Cowtown (MySpace) is the name of the band, and with all sincerity, I hope they change your world, too.
The Leeds group is a dazzling amalgamation of literally everything I love about music. There's noise-pop elements that remind me of Deerhoof, de-evolved rock that must be part DEVO, bits of crazed spastic punk that immediately reminds me of like, Melt Banana, some Red Krayola (maybe?), definitely a bit of Mark E. Smith/the Fall, too -- everything! Everything, I tell you! But it's all constructed in this fantastically wacky and skillful manner that there's no denying the band's originality and pure creative genius.
They are wonderful. Crank these tunes up, do the Malfunctioning Robot Rawk Dance (yes, I made that one up), stream the whole LP here, and buy the album! Please, go out and buy it now. Twelve mind-warping, face-melting, foot stomping jams that will hook you in and never let you go ...
Very cool video for Friendly Fires' solid single, "Paris." That weird, ethereal, mystical style popularized by Klaxons is the most enchanting part of the otherwise angular, punky track's visual compliment ... I dig.
It's sort of relaxing, every once in a while, to listen to a band that solely sings in a foreign language like Chocolat, a Quebec five-piece. You get the opportunity to listen to the music only and not be distracted by show-stealing lyrics, deep meanings, and all that fun poetic stuff (not to sound terribly stupid -- I'm a lyrics man most of the time ... and "Le Monde Est Vert" is in English and radio-ready; the Canadian response to "Up the Bracket" -- an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful song that I must, that I demand to hear someplace else that's not my computer).
Anyway, anyway. These folks are not to be missed. The eponymous Dry & Dead-released EP is a throwback, a reverent ode to proto-punkers/pub rockers (Iggy Pop, the Stooges, MC5, and Dr. Feelgood and garage rockers of old like the Kingsmen and, you know, the bands that started the whole the _____s trend nearly a half century ago.
And there's something Dylan-esque about the vocals ... maybe that's just my imagination.
You get the point. They pull from a rainbow array of influences that all fall under the harder, rockier categories, and apply the sound to a 21st century-accessible form. You really, really ought to buy the EP, just to get a kick out of boss cuts like "Johnny Depp" and "Le Monde Est Vert," but you can also just download half of the thing below. Come on, support these guys!
I Am Sound Prize Package Giveaway: Cut Off Your Hands
Just a friendly reminder here -- in case you missed the post announcing the I Am Sound prize package giveaway -- that we're still taking entries. All you need to do is enter your email address in the box below (this is required if you want to win), e-mail bibabidi@bibabidi.com with the subject IN THE NAME OF EVERYTHING HOLY LET ME WIN, and we will select a winner at the end of the week.
Today I thought it'd be good to do a spotlight on Cut Off Your Hands, the new New Zealand buzz band. With the quartet's Shaky Hands EP, they showed us how hard they can rock, how spastic they can be, how irresistibly dance-y they can be. Be prepared for a face-melter with "You & I."
Brooklyn's Blood On the Wall (MySpace) will be releasing the follow-up to 2005's Awesomer, Liferz, on January 22. So we've got a wee bit longer to wait, but as long as the Social Registry keeps throwing great mp3s at us -- like "Hibernation" -- I think we will be able to bear it.
From the sound of "Hibernation," this LP (the trio's third -- ooooh, a triptych in there somewhere! if only there were triplets) will be a little more punk, but by punk here I mean the sort of music that would be made if Thurston and Kim joined Pavement and played Nirvana covers. Maybe that's a really dumb way to put it ... Anyway, listen to "Hibernation."
Ruins is a very, very strange drum and bass duo from Japan. The duo released Refusal Fossil way back in May on Skin Graft Records (the guys who brought us AIDS WOLF, Pre, and many, many more). It's a bizarre record to say the least.
Okay, so Ruins came to life way back in 1985 or so. Tatsuya Yoshida -- a big-time Japanese underground drummer who also lends his talents to Acid Mothers Temple along with at least one thousands other prog/punk/experimental groups -- formed the band with the intention of it being a trio, but unfortunately the guitarist never showed and so he foraged on with the bass player as a rhythm-only band. When I say "rhythm only," I really mean it. These guys play real heavy, dense, and oftentimes incredibly speedy prog/metal (depending on how you look at it) fused with punk. Or something.
Tatsuya has remained the drummer for the past twenty-two years (he even showed up at CMJ this year!), but he's gone through a handful of bassists. I think he blew out their ear sockets or something ... rendered them unable to perform any more.
It's absolutely bizarre stuff, but truly mesmerizing. Check out "Etymology" below!
Ach, this new Hives (MySpace) album, The Black & White Album, ain't workin' for me.
The Hives was previously permanently ingrained in my mind as "Mick Jagger with punk swagger from today!" and something along the lines of a "real, authentic, bona fide punk group" when punk had so clearly become passe and just a produced music commodity that could never live up to the greats of the 70s and 80s again!
With this new LP, though, I doubt they'll ever be like that again. They lost the edgy edge, man ... Howlin' Pelle just sounds like a drunk Alex Kapranos for the bulk of the album. When the band does rock out, they do it with little conviction and just sort of plod through the "thrash-y" part. Additionally, they attempt to write more melodious, pop hooks but wind up failing. The Hives are not the Strokes, sorry. "It Won't Be Long" sounds like 80s prom junk fodder taken seriously. Gah.
To make sure that I'm really not down with this LP, I dug through the archives again and listened to "Hate to Say I Told You So," and yeah, it's way better. That song is indeed nastier and grittier and hey, they do have a very catchy, very simple hook. And Mr Pelle actually does howl like he means it. And their sparse synth line sounds cool because it's reminiscent of a goofy little rave pull as opposed to a dinky electro line.
I listen to this West Londoners group, Paper Cuts, and can hear nothing but Mark E. Smith poking his head out of their dense, ragged, terribly abrasive post-punk style. Which is really a little unfair on my part ... although these do hold a lot in common with the Fall and Mark E. Smith (especially vocally), there's a lot more going on beneath the surface.
First and foremost, I hear a little bit of like ... the Offspring or Social Distortion or something. There's an element of that no-nonsense Southern California punk mixed into Paper Cuts' music that sets them apart from groups you'd innately identify them with, and I think that's pretty damn cool.
Check out "82 Doo Doo Doo" and "Exit This Topic" below. They rock hard.
Hot Springs (MySpace) is what you would get if you transplanted Karen O. to Canada and cross-bred her with like, Joan Jett or something.
They're rough and angular, punky and jagged, dance-y and abrasive, melodic and noisy ... everything you'd want in a refreshingly big but down-to-earth punk rock band. Yes:
Montreal’s Hot Springs don’t want to be your Facebook friend. They don’t care about what haircut you have. They don’t care about your blog. They simply want to freak you out.
You can either grab the album, Volcano, from iTune or, if you're lucky, at your local record store as the LP came out on Quire Records a little under a month ago ...
Hey, if the late Tony Wilson endorsed 'em, I would find myself between a hard place and a rock to justify not listening to them. Such is the case with Enter Shikari (MySpace), a London-based punk quartet that Wilson hailed as "the most exciting band I've seen since the early Sex Pistols gigs back in '76/'77."
Wow.
The four guys met in primary school (which I think means kindergarten in the U.K. ... okay, bad joke), and, in 2003, formed Enter Shikari which sounds less like a punk group and more like a death metal band with a fear of thrashing too hard. But I appreciate the dudes' old-fashioned hard-working way of getting attention (unlike the spoiled London bands, Enter Shikari actually hopped in a crummy van and toured the country before being picked up).
So yeah, this post is very much unlike anything I've put up on BiBaBiDi before, but I guess that's the statement. I like where these guys're coming from, and while I'd not listen to this music ever again, to be quite frank, they're contrary to anything else we've got being pumped in our ears now, and that's something.
The punky, rocky, raunchy, terribly fun, and oh-so-sexy Canadian group, Le Nombre (MySpace), both of which were recorded with Sunny Duval -- of Les Breastfeeders -- on guitar! Quite a treat from the uh ... booming (?) Montreal punk scene.
The single will be released on the always wonderful Canadian label Bonsound (en Français!), which has quite a few more treats up its sleeve. The folks who brought you Malajube have far from fizzled out or become Malajube-centric: they're embracing a new breed of internationalism with a roster of mainly French-Canadian artists, most of whom sing in French, and all of whom play spicy, jerky, exciting, ridiculously awesome (!) punk or rock or some such vivid guitar-focused genre.
Check out one of the two new Le Nombre tracks, "Sur ton Ile" below!
