Thursday 29
Key words: Reis, Froberg, Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Night Marchers, Obits. Kinda falls apart there at the end, huh? Not tonight, punk, as Reis’s Night Marchers goose-step into Casbah behind Froberg’s Obits. Coming from the East Coast way back then, it was an ear-opening experience listening to Reis and Froberg’s one-two punch of gut-crunching guitar punk. I mean, I wasn’t used to punk-rock bands that could actually play! And they aged well, musically, peaking, I think, with Hot Snakes and then moving on. Froberg’s in Brooklyn now, trading licks with Sohrab Habibion (Edsel) and adding some rhythmic roll to his rock on recommendable Sub Pop debut I Blame You. These are the sets to get to if you want to see some old friends, for sure, but look out below — the Obits are on a hella triple bill at the Ché Café Friday night if you just can’t quit that Thursday-night TV lineup.... And while Mr. Reis is away, his Bar Pink will play with the Cliks. (You do the math on the name.) The Toronto-based alt-rock band’s been a revolving door with one constant, Lucas Silveira, aka “the sexiest man in Canada.” Get the pic? This year’s Cliks are out to tout last year’s Dirty King.... Sleeping Peep Kenseth Thibideau will play a CD-release thing for his first solo go, Repetition. Really recommendable set if you’re into “the Can/Cluster/Harmonia/Tangerine Dream world of classic krautrock and European prog.” I listened to it while cutting the grass yesterday, and the yard looks so f--king good.... Utter mentionables: O.C. bitch-pop band (hey, they said it, not me) Semi Sweet sets up at Soda Bar with the Very, Starcrossed, and the Beautiful View...country-fried bar bands Screamin YeeHaws and Ghost Town Deputies ride into Ruby Room...God squad metalcore kids Devil Wears Prada vogue on Soma’s side stage...and Memphis MCs Three 6 Mafia put a hit out on 4th&B. In 2005, the rap tag-team won an Academy Award for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from Hustle & Flow. From their acceptance speech: “To recap: Triple Six Mafia, one; Martin Scorsese, zero.” Ouch.
Friday 30
Like I tol’ ya, the Obits list another before bailing back to Brooklyn, as Froberg & co. play the Ché with Long Beach surf-punks Tijuana Panthers and Jacob Turnbloom’s (First Wave Hello) new garage-rawk joint Mrs. Magician. Great triple bill, that.... And while we’re up there, the postrace Friday freebie at Del Mar is SoCal reggae-rock crossovers Common Sense.... Michiganders Frontier Ruckus bring their new one, the lilting but insistent Deadmalls and Nightfalls to the Voodoo Stage at House of Blues. This roostsicana band can spin a yarn, folk fan. Check ’em out: myspace.com/frontierruckus.... Brooklyn band the Beach Fossils wash up at Bar Pink. The quartet’s s/t debut is one summer-breeze single after another, with a big, fat guitar tone that recalls the summer of New Order and reverbed vox that drips like — dood, your Popsicle’s melting. It got limited release via Captured Tracks (Dum Dum Girls, Thee Oh Sees) in May but will reach your Borders August 10. Cut out the corporate, bro, go to the show, find the merch guy.... Beauty Bar’s appointment book looks full, featuring local indie poppers teamAWESOME! and Hargo and from L.A., roots-rockers the Northstar Session, out to tout their Winter Collection.... And there’s a fun one at Ruby Room, as Weezer apers Geezer join other cover crews Hey Ho Let’s Go and — sit down, Ian — Minor Talent. Is nothing sacred? There ought to be a law — “the Dischord Prohibition” or something like that.
Saturday 31
Lee Morgan’s life might write one of the sorriest stories in jazz, but local horn hit Gilbert Castellanos’s gonna try to tackle the hard-bop sidewinder at Dizzy’s Harbor Club hub downtown. Gilbert’s going to have a helluva band on hand, jazz fan, with Brian Levy on tenor sax, Mikan Zlatkovich at the piano, and Kevin Kanner on drums.... After that, just up Fifth, Artfags unite at the Tin Can, with Heavy Hawaii, Sleepover, Pure Ecstasy, and DJ Mario O spinning round sets.... Amerikana cover band Rio Peligroso will be playing their probably maybe last show at the Riviera Supper Club in La Mesa. Good time to say your so-longs to Dan B. Understand he’s moving to Maine. Someone yell out “Waterloo!”.... Southern-rock throwbacks Molly Hatchet (“Flirtin’ with Disaster”) take a swing at Ramona Main Stage. Digression alert: artist Frank Frazetta died in May. Dude was 82. He used to do that neanderthal-erotic album art for Molly Hatchet and Nazareth back when, as my cousin Paulie says, “shit was awesome”.... Soda Bar sets up NY power-pop band the Tattle Tales, which look to be seeing all the States with their new Moon Glasses. They cite the Archies as a major influence, and they have a song called “Feelin’ All Dave Mustaine.” They so win.
Sunday 1
Go West, Young Kinky. “Last of the Jewish cowboys” Kinky Friedman will be at the Belly Up Sunday night. Friedman’s a singer-songwriter-humorist in the vein of Will Rogers, or Mark Twain with a guitar. He’s a published novelist and essayist, and he came in fourth (out of a field of six) in the ’06 Texas gubernatorial election. The self-proclaimed “musician-to-beautician” is a real renaissance man. With Mojo Nixon on the bill, there’s sure to be lotsa hootin’ and howlin’ at this affair.... Eclectic sets at Casbah, as Brian Karscig’s dance-rock act Nervous Wreckords spin with local retro-rockers Scarlet Symphony, NYC indie kids Stationary Set, and solo spook-pop cat, er, wolf Vegetarian Werewolf.... L.A.’s experimental metallurgists OTEP will stack ’em up at Brick by Brick behind their new GLAAD award–nominated Smash the Control Machine.
Monday 2
Young the Giant (née the Jakes) stomps on Anti-Mondayers at Casbah. The Newport Beach band has set up a sort of summer internship at the Middletown mainstay, so we’ll be seeing a lot of these guys. They’re currently putting the finish on their Roadrunner debut. In the mean, here’s the lead freebie: mybody.youngthegiant.com/. Local faves the SoftLightes and Swim Party jump in first.
Tuesday 3
Soda Bar has YellowFever. The Austin act’s s/t debut, out now on the Vivian Girls’ Wild World! label, owes as much to Liz Phair’s Exile as to loopy surf-rock repetition and the reemergence of the girl-group aesthetic (see Vivian Girls); i.e., it’s lyrical and terminally catchy. Check it: myspace.com/yellerfever.... Not your tea? Whole bunch of Grade A folk-pop going on as Fruit Bats fly into Casbah with Jesse Elliot’s Kentucky-smooth These United States and slow-coustic Michigan trio Breathe Owl Breathe.
Wednesday 4
Mexico City indie kids Hello Seahorse! bring Bestia to Bar Pink Wednesday night. Their pink and frosty pop out-sweets your taco shop’s horchata, kiddo, but it brings the Spanish home. Great way to learn a new language. Sip? myspace.com/helloseahorse.
— Barnaby Monk
Thursday 29
Key words: Reis, Froberg, Pitchfork, Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Night Marchers, Obits. Kinda falls apart there at the end, huh? Not tonight, punk, as Reis’s Night Marchers goose-step into Casbah behind Froberg’s Obits. Coming from the East Coast way back then, it was an ear-opening experience listening to Reis and Froberg’s one-two punch of gut-crunching guitar punk. I mean, I wasn’t used to punk-rock bands that could actually play! And they aged well, musically, peaking, I think, with Hot Snakes and then moving on. Froberg’s in Brooklyn now, trading licks with Sohrab Habibion (Edsel) and adding some rhythmic roll to his rock on recommendable Sub Pop debut I Blame You. These are the sets to get to if you want to see some old friends, for sure, but look out below — the Obits are on a hella triple bill at the Ché Café Friday night if you just can’t quit that Thursday-night TV lineup.... And while Mr. Reis is away, his Bar Pink will play with the Cliks. (You do the math on the name.) The Toronto-based alt-rock band’s been a revolving door with one constant, Lucas Silveira, aka “the sexiest man in Canada.” Get the pic? This year’s Cliks are out to tout last year’s Dirty King.... Sleeping Peep Kenseth Thibideau will play a CD-release thing for his first solo go, Repetition. Really recommendable set if you’re into “the Can/Cluster/Harmonia/Tangerine Dream world of classic krautrock and European prog.” I listened to it while cutting the grass yesterday, and the yard looks so f--king good.... Utter mentionables: O.C. bitch-pop band (hey, they said it, not me) Semi Sweet sets up at Soda Bar with the Very, Starcrossed, and the Beautiful View...country-fried bar bands Screamin YeeHaws and Ghost Town Deputies ride into Ruby Room...God squad metalcore kids Devil Wears Prada vogue on Soma’s side stage...and Memphis MCs Three 6 Mafia put a hit out on 4th&B. In 2005, the rap tag-team won an Academy Award for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from Hustle & Flow. From their acceptance speech: “To recap: Triple Six Mafia, one; Martin Scorsese, zero.” Ouch.
Friday 30
Like I tol’ ya, the Obits list another before bailing back to Brooklyn, as Froberg & co. play the Ché with Long Beach surf-punks Tijuana Panthers and Jacob Turnbloom’s (First Wave Hello) new garage-rawk joint Mrs. Magician. Great triple bill, that.... And while we’re up there, the postrace Friday freebie at Del Mar is SoCal reggae-rock crossovers Common Sense.... Michiganders Frontier Ruckus bring their new one, the lilting but insistent Deadmalls and Nightfalls to the Voodoo Stage at House of Blues. This roostsicana band can spin a yarn, folk fan. Check ’em out: myspace.com/frontierruckus.... Brooklyn band the Beach Fossils wash up at Bar Pink. The quartet’s s/t debut is one summer-breeze single after another, with a big, fat guitar tone that recalls the summer of New Order and reverbed vox that drips like — dood, your Popsicle’s melting. It got limited release via Captured Tracks (Dum Dum Girls, Thee Oh Sees) in May but will reach your Borders August 10. Cut out the corporate, bro, go to the show, find the merch guy.... Beauty Bar’s appointment book looks full, featuring local indie poppers teamAWESOME! and Hargo and from L.A., roots-rockers the Northstar Session, out to tout their Winter Collection.... And there’s a fun one at Ruby Room, as Weezer apers Geezer join other cover crews Hey Ho Let’s Go and — sit down, Ian — Minor Talent. Is nothing sacred? There ought to be a law — “the Dischord Prohibition” or something like that.
Saturday 31
Lee Morgan’s life might write one of the sorriest stories in jazz, but local horn hit Gilbert Castellanos’s gonna try to tackle the hard-bop sidewinder at Dizzy’s Harbor Club hub downtown. Gilbert’s going to have a helluva band on hand, jazz fan, with Brian Levy on tenor sax, Mikan Zlatkovich at the piano, and Kevin Kanner on drums.... After that, just up Fifth, Artfags unite at the Tin Can, with Heavy Hawaii, Sleepover, Pure Ecstasy, and DJ Mario O spinning round sets.... Amerikana cover band Rio Peligroso will be playing their probably maybe last show at the Riviera Supper Club in La Mesa. Good time to say your so-longs to Dan B. Understand he’s moving to Maine. Someone yell out “Waterloo!”.... Southern-rock throwbacks Molly Hatchet (“Flirtin’ with Disaster”) take a swing at Ramona Main Stage. Digression alert: artist Frank Frazetta died in May. Dude was 82. He used to do that neanderthal-erotic album art for Molly Hatchet and Nazareth back when, as my cousin Paulie says, “shit was awesome”.... Soda Bar sets up NY power-pop band the Tattle Tales, which look to be seeing all the States with their new Moon Glasses. They cite the Archies as a major influence, and they have a song called “Feelin’ All Dave Mustaine.” They so win.
Sunday 1
Go West, Young Kinky. “Last of the Jewish cowboys” Kinky Friedman will be at the Belly Up Sunday night. Friedman’s a singer-songwriter-humorist in the vein of Will Rogers, or Mark Twain with a guitar. He’s a published novelist and essayist, and he came in fourth (out of a field of six) in the ’06 Texas gubernatorial election. The self-proclaimed “musician-to-beautician” is a real renaissance man. With Mojo Nixon on the bill, there’s sure to be lotsa hootin’ and howlin’ at this affair.... Eclectic sets at Casbah, as Brian Karscig’s dance-rock act Nervous Wreckords spin with local retro-rockers Scarlet Symphony, NYC indie kids Stationary Set, and solo spook-pop cat, er, wolf Vegetarian Werewolf.... L.A.’s experimental metallurgists OTEP will stack ’em up at Brick by Brick behind their new GLAAD award–nominated Smash the Control Machine.
Monday 2
Young the Giant (née the Jakes) stomps on Anti-Mondayers at Casbah. The Newport Beach band has set up a sort of summer internship at the Middletown mainstay, so we’ll be seeing a lot of these guys. They’re currently putting the finish on their Roadrunner debut. In the mean, here’s the lead freebie: mybody.youngthegiant.com/. Local faves the SoftLightes and Swim Party jump in first.
Tuesday 3
Soda Bar has YellowFever. The Austin act’s s/t debut, out now on the Vivian Girls’ Wild World! label, owes as much to Liz Phair’s Exile as to loopy surf-rock repetition and the reemergence of the girl-group aesthetic (see Vivian Girls); i.e., it’s lyrical and terminally catchy. Check it: myspace.com/yellerfever.... Not your tea? Whole bunch of Grade A folk-pop going on as Fruit Bats fly into Casbah with Jesse Elliot’s Kentucky-smooth These United States and slow-coustic Michigan trio Breathe Owl Breathe.
Wednesday 4
Mexico City indie kids Hello Seahorse! bring Bestia to Bar Pink Wednesday night. Their pink and frosty pop out-sweets your taco shop’s horchata, kiddo, but it brings the Spanish home. Great way to learn a new language. Sip? myspace.com/helloseahorse.
— Barnaby Monk