February 5th, 2010
Nick Rallo’s slang is editorial at Whale Fight.
What is this? It’s a hand sewn burlap sack jacket, with a maddeningly bright blue record inside. On the record is the blues punk of Slang Chickens, featuring the members of Wires on Fire. If the recent Avett Brothers I And Love And You record left you a little too soft and cuddly inside, than this Slang Chickens debut album will right you. “Tropics” opens like something from Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House, but kamikazes into serious punk piss & vinegar. Also, you can stream five songs from the album, here, which you should do because “Blues (Dripping Down My Leg)” is perfectly weird and sex crazy in that Zeppelin sort of way:
“I got blues dripping down my leg / I should got to the doctor but I really want to stay in bed”
And there’s a song called “Let’s Microwave.” Few things are better than that title. Oh, they’ve got lapsteel and banjos melted into a big pot that they pour over your frontal lobe. There’s no ballads or sad woodwinds or slow, weepy violin. They’re more for wave crushing, banjo sucking, and tattooing in rebellion of conservative family members. Their debut LP is out now on Pyschedelic Juadism.
Download:
MP3: Slang Chickens - “Tropics”
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September 2nd, 2009
For up-to-the-minute exclusives on aquatic mammal fisticuffs, head to Nick Rallo’s Whale Fight.
There are three things a rock-pop band is at the start of their careers: anonymous, cheap and courageous. You have to be to play music in LA and San Francisco, where a poet and a musician are never alone. But technology is changing drastically. Digital, Steve Job-sian applications are making it easier and stranger at the same time. Bands from the future (Animal Collective, etc.) are green-screening their way through the atmosphere.
No One & the Nobodies is a young band, ferocious and genuine at the same time. Grew Some Feet, their most recent, great record, was recorded live to warm, cheap 1-inch tape. They’re playing for themselves, they’re playing in San Francisco, and they’re doing it analog because the world is ending (at least, it seems, from the tone of their music). On touring, they say “you have to tour as much as you can. Some bands blow up, and some are just buzz bands for a year.” The road is what excites them. Thomas Hall, the lead singer, writer and guitarist, broke down their first live show for me: “Boise was the perfect first show, we fucked up so much. We brought an old wurlizter organ on tour and it died halfway though the set. So much shit went wrong it was perfect to feed off, because our songs are quite wrong. We had only paid 100 on Craigslist for the organ though and decided to burn it for a press photo later on (wound up running from the fire dpt. and cops, yea…)
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July 6th, 2009
Nick Rallo has stupid crazy Cetacean swag at Whale Fight.
Nobody knows the hot months better than Ray Bradbury. The cool smell of lightning, and the snug tennis shoes on your freshly socked feet: Mr. Electrico from Something Wicked This Way Comes is summer. Personally, I don’t get tired of reading about it–the same way when you’re a kid with a flashlight in the dark. You find new things. Luckily, Bradbury is still around to talk about it:
Last week, he spoke at Barnes and Noble about his new book, “We’ll Always Have Paris.” The collection focuses on his forty-year love affair with France and, not surprisingly (or cliched at all), love itself. He raised his hands to the crowd–his palms out like he was blessing us: “My hands are antennae. I feel everything. If you want to write you have to stop thinking.” These songs do that to me–they dilate the eyes and stop you from thinking–they’re good, crisp songs about a rush of feelings. It’s what this mix is about: an explosion. An overload of the senses, like the huge surging-to-the-stars twelve string guitar in “Closer to Heaven,” or the whiskey sadness in “Golden.” Bradbury wrote about it, and damn it’s true. To him, the summer was about the circus–to me it’s about music.
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June 26th, 2009
Nick Rallo runs Whale Fight, one of Los Angeles’ finest new music blogs. He has no wooden teeth, nor has he chased Moby Dick. Though he does curate the John Asparagus Zine, which you can cop at Family and Sky Light Books, among other places.
A year ago, I was up at the Echo to see the Fleet Foxes. It was their first time in Los Angeles, so there was a lengthy line queuing up. While waiting, a friend of mine pointed out a young guy riding up on cheap bike, wearing a tweed jacket and slacks - and a banjo on his back. I assumed the guy was crazy. He had an iron burn on the back of his shirt. His banjo strap was made of rope.
This was the opening act the Fleet Foxes took on the road. His name is Frank Fairfield, and you can catch him around Los Angeles if you look. He plays in old bars, Churches, and at the Farmers Market with a coffee can at his feet. He has a radio show where he plays old 78s. I would compare his music to other bands, except the kind of music he plays pre-dates the music you listen to (and inspired it.)
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