Interview with small screamo kids Rolo Tomassi for Vice Magazine.
Rolo Tomassi
Small people playing in bands are cute. They hit you right in the ah shucks spot. “Look how big that guitar looks on his little body!”, “Hahaha, he can hardly see over his drum kit!”. That sort of thing. Stop and think about it. Prince, Kylie, Phil Collins, guy who plays bass in SSS: all cute, endearing, talented, tiny scamps who the world has taken to their collective music-loving hearts. Apart from guy who plays bass in SSS. I think that’s just me.
The thing is that all of those guys are just small people, adults who happened to be littler than other adults. The recent fetishising of bands simply because they are young had a pretty creepy side to it. We’re not saying the whole music press is made up by Chris Langham’s but you know, it is kind of weird that so many bands are being feted simply because they aren’t old enough to buy a packet of cigarettes. Have you actually listened to any of the music? A lot of it is pretty basic. And not basic in a Ramones we-only-play-three-chords kind of way. More like basic in a this-isn’t-very-good kind of way.
Rolo Tomassi strike the perfect balance between people who are small and look funny while they play music voyeurism and borderline obsession with kids who are young and can still somehow make coherent-ish songs. The fact that they make a unique and ridiculously accomplished mess of grindcore, screamo and post-hardcore while they are mostly still too young to legally drink and have been playing DIY shows for three years already makes them both pretty hilarious and pretty amazing. Oh, and that deaths-head banshee howl that’s coming out over the all the blastbeats and guitar tapping is coming out of a cute-as-a button 17 year old girls mouth. Wow.
VICE: So, how did a bunch of 14 year olds in the ass-end of Sheffield decide it would be a good idea to play something that sounds like Indian Summer raping Napalm Death?
James Spence (keyboards): There was actually a really healthy scene in our village. There were loads of kids who were into the same stuff as us, loads of shows in the village hall. I sort of miss not playing there every week actually.
Joe Nicholson (guitars): Everyone was into the same sort of thing. Just heavy stuff, some suspect bits but never as bad as Walls Of Jehrico or anything. Once we heard the Murder Of 7” we knew what we wanted to do.
You are almost all too young to even technically be in this bar. Have you ever had shit from promoters about playing?
Joseph Thorpe (bass): All the time. Even now.
Eva Spence (vocals): It is worse for me because I look really young. They always think I am one of their little sisters. Well, I guess I am but it’s pretty annoying.
Edward Dutton (drums): When we played with These Arms Are Snakes in Birmingham me and Joe were 18 so they let us in and we set up onstage while they did the bass, keys and vocals from outside. That was pretty fun.
How do you sing like that Eva? Do you just pretend that you really really don’t want to do your homework?
Eva: Not really. I just think about the words and sing It actually comes pretty naturally.
Rolo Tomassi are named after Guy Pearce’s alias in L.A. Confidential and have an EP available on Holy Roar Records next month.
www.myspace.com/rolotomassi
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Micicles
News piece for Vice Magazine.
Micicles!
Ever been driving along the motorway bleary eyed, tired and hungover and pulled into services hoping to be magically lifted back to health and wellness by something to eat that tastes like it’s been shat out by the god of good food? Us to. The only problem is that nine times out of ten you will end up paying 7 pounds for a sausage roll that ends up making you feel like you have a limp, dead, battered mouse in your mouth. Spare a thought then for the drivers of Malawi where the roadside services consist of kids running along selling you actual limp, dead, battered mice. But on sticks. Yup, no Ginsters in Lilongwe just good old fashioned mice popcicles. Mmmm. We spoke to the photojournalist Abbie Trayler-Smith who was so into the drive by rodent-batons that she sent us millions of pictures of them in all of their furry, skewered glory.
Vice: So, what were you up to when you ran into this local delicacy?
Abbie Trayler-Smith: I was travelling to Blantyre in South Malawi from Lilongwe where I had been researching a piece on Malawian cuisine for the Observer Food Monthly. We were driving along and as soon as we pulled over the sticks holding ten mice apiece were shoved through the window.
I am guessing that the mice-kebabs didn’t make it into the Observer piece?
No. The smell was overwhelming. They were poached in mango juice and I felt pretty ill immediately. They are a speciality of the region though and the kids kept telling us “you must eat with fur on” over and over again.
So, the big question: how far down the pole did you get?
I couldn’t bring myself to sample the goods. I was travelling with Alex Renton who is a well respected international food critic. He’s eaten fried tarantula before in Asia and he lost his nerve as well so I didn’t feel so bad. I just purchased two bottles of water instead.
Micicles!
Ever been driving along the motorway bleary eyed, tired and hungover and pulled into services hoping to be magically lifted back to health and wellness by something to eat that tastes like it’s been shat out by the god of good food? Us to. The only problem is that nine times out of ten you will end up paying 7 pounds for a sausage roll that ends up making you feel like you have a limp, dead, battered mouse in your mouth. Spare a thought then for the drivers of Malawi where the roadside services consist of kids running along selling you actual limp, dead, battered mice. But on sticks. Yup, no Ginsters in Lilongwe just good old fashioned mice popcicles. Mmmm. We spoke to the photojournalist Abbie Trayler-Smith who was so into the drive by rodent-batons that she sent us millions of pictures of them in all of their furry, skewered glory.
Vice: So, what were you up to when you ran into this local delicacy?
Abbie Trayler-Smith: I was travelling to Blantyre in South Malawi from Lilongwe where I had been researching a piece on Malawian cuisine for the Observer Food Monthly. We were driving along and as soon as we pulled over the sticks holding ten mice apiece were shoved through the window.
I am guessing that the mice-kebabs didn’t make it into the Observer piece?
No. The smell was overwhelming. They were poached in mango juice and I felt pretty ill immediately. They are a speciality of the region though and the kids kept telling us “you must eat with fur on” over and over again.
So, the big question: how far down the pole did you get?
I couldn’t bring myself to sample the goods. I was travelling with Alex Renton who is a well respected international food critic. He’s eaten fried tarantula before in Asia and he lost his nerve as well so I didn’t feel so bad. I just purchased two bottles of water instead.
November Vice Record Reviews
November Vice Reviews
Pinch
Underwater Dancehall
Tectonic
8 Although dubstep has rapidly morphed into ’03 clownstep drum&bass all is not totally lost. Here Pinch rolls out ten measured, glacial pieces of 130bpm perfectness. He’s even been kind enough to include a second disc of instrumentals in case all the yelling about burning down Babylon or whatever gets a bit much.
Boxcutter
Glyphic
Planet Mu
4 The guys on the cover of this one look like that funny little Cyclops thing Ed Templeton used to draw all over old Toy Machine videos. Shame the stuff inside sounds like being trapped in Bristol at 7am regretting that last bump of ketamine.
The Warlocks
Heavy Deavy Skull Lover
Tee Pee
0 Have you read the title of this album? I don’t even care that it’s on Tee Pee. When did being a stoned BRMC rip off band become acceptable anyway? One of the guys from Klaxons once told me that it’s really just apple juice in the BRMC guys Jack Daniels bottles onstage.
Bobb Trimble
Iron Curtain Innocence
Secretly Canadian
10 Could this lost gem be any better? Nobody knows about it, on the cover you get the lost child of Arthur Lee and Tim Buckley smiling at you with an SG in one hand and a Tommy Gun in the other and on the back you get this: “Dear John, Paul, George and Ringo, if I am a good boy and work real hard, may I please be the 5th Beatle someday. Your friend, Bobb”.
Six Organs Of Admittance
Shelter From The Ash
Drag City
8 Ben Chasny has become the anti-Banhart. For every stupid, belly-dancing, boat-top photo call Devandra pulls Ben pops up like some free-folk Jack Bauer out of nowhere with another wonderful, dream-like trip through electro-acoustic niceness to make everything OK again and banish the urge to kill all hippies on sight. Thanks Ben!
Talibam!
Ordination Of The Globetrotting Conscripts
AZD
7 This is either the most joyous, good times, noise freakout since ‘Vision Creation Newsun’ or a big mess that sounds like Ornette Coleman leading the Magic Band while they play saxophones out of their asses like those Monty Python cartoon guys. Either way it is pretty good.
Moving Units
Hexes For Exes
Metropolis
2 The punk-funk party was dead on arrival in 2003. Now it’s so bad that even the jumpy up and down guy from !!! has quit. What chance do these guys have? They only had two songs on the last one and nothing whatsoever going on here. Better than Foals though I guess. Those guys look as though they could so with some Imodium.
Mooken & Keswickelmon
Ono Achew!
Ono
9 Mix CD’s are a tricky one. Unless you have a great concept like the Villalobos thing where all the tracks have never been heard on the planet anywhere before then for a mix to shine it has to consist of a pretty special selection that makes the whole a sum greater than its parts. Yawn. This one does just that though. I bet you a Chomp you’ll never see the Human League successfully shacked up with Terry Riley and Maurizio anywhere else ever again.
Oren Ambarchi
In The Pendulum’s Embrace
Type
8 The only Australian to ever get into one of Sunn O)))’s cowls rumbles out three shimmering low-end drones that don’t go anywhere too fast. Which is sort of the whole point.
Electric Wizard
Witchcult Today
Rise Above
7 I went see Pagan Altar the other day. Electric Wizard aren’t quite the South London Sabbath but they are as close as we’ve got so it’s nice of them to release something every now and again just to remind everybody that they are still here.
Soul Jazz Records
Singles
2006-2007
5 The record collectors record label rounds up another year’s worth of 12” releases. If you are the sort of person interested in this kind of thing then you probably have them all already. If not you get ‘Conference’ by Digital Mystikz and you can now legitimately claim to own something by the guys who are on the back cover of the Wire every month. Which is handy if you end up at ATP with a bunch of strangers or something.
Yeasayer
All Hour Cymbals
We Are Free
7 Something from Brooklyn that makes you happy. Like Gang Gang Dance or little old people saying “Fugheddaboudit”. But with more major key bits.
Shy Child
Drop The Phone
Wall of Sound
7 Guess what? Shy Child are still making fun party music that you can dance to and all the girls will love and the guys will secretly love too. Even if they won’t admit it and just go on about only being at the show because the guy used to be in El Guapo.
Celebration
The Modern Tribe
4AD
5 Half of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and all of TVOTR go cross keys with ex members of Birdland and Lovelife. It basically sounds like all of those things played out under a dreamy 4AD gauze of shimmer. Which sounds very exciting. Except that they did it all already two years ago.
Mlle Carro & Franck Garcia
Always You EP
Buzzin Fly
7 While the woozy, melancholy original cut skips and meanders along pleasantly enough the secret winner hidden on this tidy 12” for Buzzin Fly is the Ewan Peason refix which dips the sadness in amber and crystalises sorrow in a minimal space capsule of joy.
Pinch
Underwater Dancehall
Tectonic
8 Although dubstep has rapidly morphed into ’03 clownstep drum&bass all is not totally lost. Here Pinch rolls out ten measured, glacial pieces of 130bpm perfectness. He’s even been kind enough to include a second disc of instrumentals in case all the yelling about burning down Babylon or whatever gets a bit much.
Boxcutter
Glyphic
Planet Mu
4 The guys on the cover of this one look like that funny little Cyclops thing Ed Templeton used to draw all over old Toy Machine videos. Shame the stuff inside sounds like being trapped in Bristol at 7am regretting that last bump of ketamine.
The Warlocks
Heavy Deavy Skull Lover
Tee Pee
0 Have you read the title of this album? I don’t even care that it’s on Tee Pee. When did being a stoned BRMC rip off band become acceptable anyway? One of the guys from Klaxons once told me that it’s really just apple juice in the BRMC guys Jack Daniels bottles onstage.
Bobb Trimble
Iron Curtain Innocence
Secretly Canadian
10 Could this lost gem be any better? Nobody knows about it, on the cover you get the lost child of Arthur Lee and Tim Buckley smiling at you with an SG in one hand and a Tommy Gun in the other and on the back you get this: “Dear John, Paul, George and Ringo, if I am a good boy and work real hard, may I please be the 5th Beatle someday. Your friend, Bobb”.
Six Organs Of Admittance
Shelter From The Ash
Drag City
8 Ben Chasny has become the anti-Banhart. For every stupid, belly-dancing, boat-top photo call Devandra pulls Ben pops up like some free-folk Jack Bauer out of nowhere with another wonderful, dream-like trip through electro-acoustic niceness to make everything OK again and banish the urge to kill all hippies on sight. Thanks Ben!
Talibam!
Ordination Of The Globetrotting Conscripts
AZD
7 This is either the most joyous, good times, noise freakout since ‘Vision Creation Newsun’ or a big mess that sounds like Ornette Coleman leading the Magic Band while they play saxophones out of their asses like those Monty Python cartoon guys. Either way it is pretty good.
Moving Units
Hexes For Exes
Metropolis
2 The punk-funk party was dead on arrival in 2003. Now it’s so bad that even the jumpy up and down guy from !!! has quit. What chance do these guys have? They only had two songs on the last one and nothing whatsoever going on here. Better than Foals though I guess. Those guys look as though they could so with some Imodium.
Mooken & Keswickelmon
Ono Achew!
Ono
9 Mix CD’s are a tricky one. Unless you have a great concept like the Villalobos thing where all the tracks have never been heard on the planet anywhere before then for a mix to shine it has to consist of a pretty special selection that makes the whole a sum greater than its parts. Yawn. This one does just that though. I bet you a Chomp you’ll never see the Human League successfully shacked up with Terry Riley and Maurizio anywhere else ever again.
Oren Ambarchi
In The Pendulum’s Embrace
Type
8 The only Australian to ever get into one of Sunn O)))’s cowls rumbles out three shimmering low-end drones that don’t go anywhere too fast. Which is sort of the whole point.
Electric Wizard
Witchcult Today
Rise Above
7 I went see Pagan Altar the other day. Electric Wizard aren’t quite the South London Sabbath but they are as close as we’ve got so it’s nice of them to release something every now and again just to remind everybody that they are still here.
Soul Jazz Records
Singles
2006-2007
5 The record collectors record label rounds up another year’s worth of 12” releases. If you are the sort of person interested in this kind of thing then you probably have them all already. If not you get ‘Conference’ by Digital Mystikz and you can now legitimately claim to own something by the guys who are on the back cover of the Wire every month. Which is handy if you end up at ATP with a bunch of strangers or something.
Yeasayer
All Hour Cymbals
We Are Free
7 Something from Brooklyn that makes you happy. Like Gang Gang Dance or little old people saying “Fugheddaboudit”. But with more major key bits.
Shy Child
Drop The Phone
Wall of Sound
7 Guess what? Shy Child are still making fun party music that you can dance to and all the girls will love and the guys will secretly love too. Even if they won’t admit it and just go on about only being at the show because the guy used to be in El Guapo.
Celebration
The Modern Tribe
4AD
5 Half of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and all of TVOTR go cross keys with ex members of Birdland and Lovelife. It basically sounds like all of those things played out under a dreamy 4AD gauze of shimmer. Which sounds very exciting. Except that they did it all already two years ago.
Mlle Carro & Franck Garcia
Always You EP
Buzzin Fly
7 While the woozy, melancholy original cut skips and meanders along pleasantly enough the secret winner hidden on this tidy 12” for Buzzin Fly is the Ewan Peason refix which dips the sadness in amber and crystalises sorrow in a minimal space capsule of joy.
November Vice Literary/DVD Reviews
November Literary
Eighty-Eight Shades Of Grey 14
The North of England is a depressing place. We know this because people keep telling us in pretty much every medium possible ever. Even though it is probably not intended this little zine from Chester fills you with a good old-fashioned dollop of dread. It’s kind of heart warming though in a fear-yourself-fitter way. Eighty-Eight Shades Of Grey consists of a bunch of pages tacked together in black and white photocopy. It’s so basic you kind of have to react. Seeing a torn image of Lemmy next to a playing card depicting a feral pigeon next to a list of different names for female genetalia might even make you question something. I’m not sure what. But something.
To get a copy mail these miserable guys: 12 Watertower View, Boughton, Chester CH23EA UK
Among The Living 2-3
Skateboarding in the UK is all about triumph over adversity. Shitty weather conditions, poorly maintained parks, spots getting nobbed, members of the public laughing at you for being in your 20’s and still riding around on a little piece of wood with wheels stuck to the bottom. The Among The Living Guys are here to celebrate the triumph and have a party and a road trip all at once. And then take photos and write scribbly words about it in a big boadsheet zine. Tonnes of original art, board graphics, moody shots of windswept bowls and even a guy with a massive ‘Real Life’ tattoo. We’re sold!
www.myspace.com/amongthelivingprojects
McSweeny’s 24
We know we have gone on about McSweeny’s a bunch before but it really is one of those amazing things that is so good that as soon as it turns up you want to go off and sob quietly in a corner because you know that secretly you will never be quite there no matter how hard you try. We wouldn’t bring it up again other than this one is so everything-else-eclipsingly amazing that they had to come up with a whole new method of book binding just to contain it, gave it a Rachell Sumpter illustrated cover and got a bunch of people like Ann Beatie and David Gettes to write original thoughts on Barthelme. Did They Might Be Giants ever write a song for your shitty zine? Nope. They did for McSweeny’s.
www.mcsweenys.net
Vanessa Del Rio: Fifty Years Of Slightly Slutty Beahviour
Uh oh, it’s the Latina Foxy Brown who loves to put out on camera! If you want a book that’s covered in Leopard-skin print so kitschy it looks like the inside of one of those Soho stroke joints you could never quite bring yourself to walk into and you really can’t get enough of big, untamed 70’s bush shots, floppy tits and floppier penises then Taschen have really come up with goods here. Vanessa is a reminder of an innocent pre-AIDS age where fucking as many people as possible on camera was just seen as having a healthy appetite. Like wanting to eat steak and potatoes for dinner every night or catch the game on Saturday or whatever. She was so good at the ol’ give-an-receive that even Snoop Dog is moved to admit that: “she could really take one”.
www.taschen.com
R. Crumbs Sex Obsessions
If you are not familiar with Robert Crumb at this stage it might be time to re-figure things. Like your path in life and what you do on a daily basis. After the last couple of collected outings from the worlds greatest borderline maniacal, compulsive, workaholic, gonzoid, weirdo illustrator which featured his illustrations of his country, blues and bluesgrass heroes this one focuses on another of his obsessions: big women. Yup, big asses, overweight-child bearing hips and tits that can suffocate a guy in seconds all float Crumb’s boat. As creepy as being party to some of his twisted inner-monologues can get you can’t really beat a guy who thought-bubbles stuff like “I am currently inventing ways to make your wonderous body my personal playground”. He’d probably loose it at a Gossip show completely.
www.taschen.com (again, big month for Taschen eh?)
DVD’s
Slayer
The Unholy Alliance
This is a live Slayer DVD. It was recorded on 06/06/06. They play ‘Angel Of Death’, ‘South Of Heaven’ and every other track that makes them indisputably, irrefutably the greatest thrash band ever. Kerry’s head looks really shiny. And you even get Mastadon bonus footage. It’s one of those things that you have on pre-order. Basically this little, shiny disc of fun is pretty essential and probably the most excited I have been about seeing Slayer perform since the first time I actually saw them in sweaty, beer-drenched real life. Except there is no red-button footage of a guy getting his eyebrow ring yanked out mid-crowd surf which did actually happen that time at the Astoria.
I Hate Music
Output Recordings 1996-2006
They can’t of hated music that much. They set up a label and put the stuff out for ten years. Or maybe they didn’t before but having suffered industry slings and arrows for a decade they now do? Boo hoo. I’m not sure. Life is pretty confusing sometimes. Output was a label run by Trevor Jackson which broadly released electronic dance music. Although he is not quite as good as Jackson the chap with the Computer Band, Trevor is a pretty good Jackson. Output released a bunch stuff that paved the way for electroclash and people dancing to songs with guitars in like Playgroup, DK7 and the Rapture as well as stuff like Fridge for you to sit around and listen to after all the disco burgers. It is no coincidence that in the early days of the DFA, Output distributed their records in Europe.
Ultimate Reality
Ultimate Reality treads a pretty fine line. I might have to sit on the fence with this one. It consists of a 40 minute psychedelic montage of Schwazeneger films cut up with piercing kaleidoscope colours and strobing neon laser rays created by Baltimore artist Jimmy Joe Roche. The whole thing is soundtracked by fellow Wham City alumnus and current worldwide party starting fat guy Dan Deacon’s freakout electropop. These elements combined could constitute either a weapon of mass enlightenment or a streamlined bullet of pure fear and asthma-attack inducing paranoia. I guess it depends upon what you’ve ingested before viewing.
Eighty-Eight Shades Of Grey 14
The North of England is a depressing place. We know this because people keep telling us in pretty much every medium possible ever. Even though it is probably not intended this little zine from Chester fills you with a good old-fashioned dollop of dread. It’s kind of heart warming though in a fear-yourself-fitter way. Eighty-Eight Shades Of Grey consists of a bunch of pages tacked together in black and white photocopy. It’s so basic you kind of have to react. Seeing a torn image of Lemmy next to a playing card depicting a feral pigeon next to a list of different names for female genetalia might even make you question something. I’m not sure what. But something.
To get a copy mail these miserable guys: 12 Watertower View, Boughton, Chester CH23EA UK
Among The Living 2-3
Skateboarding in the UK is all about triumph over adversity. Shitty weather conditions, poorly maintained parks, spots getting nobbed, members of the public laughing at you for being in your 20’s and still riding around on a little piece of wood with wheels stuck to the bottom. The Among The Living Guys are here to celebrate the triumph and have a party and a road trip all at once. And then take photos and write scribbly words about it in a big boadsheet zine. Tonnes of original art, board graphics, moody shots of windswept bowls and even a guy with a massive ‘Real Life’ tattoo. We’re sold!
www.myspace.com/amongthelivingprojects
McSweeny’s 24
We know we have gone on about McSweeny’s a bunch before but it really is one of those amazing things that is so good that as soon as it turns up you want to go off and sob quietly in a corner because you know that secretly you will never be quite there no matter how hard you try. We wouldn’t bring it up again other than this one is so everything-else-eclipsingly amazing that they had to come up with a whole new method of book binding just to contain it, gave it a Rachell Sumpter illustrated cover and got a bunch of people like Ann Beatie and David Gettes to write original thoughts on Barthelme. Did They Might Be Giants ever write a song for your shitty zine? Nope. They did for McSweeny’s.
www.mcsweenys.net
Vanessa Del Rio: Fifty Years Of Slightly Slutty Beahviour
Uh oh, it’s the Latina Foxy Brown who loves to put out on camera! If you want a book that’s covered in Leopard-skin print so kitschy it looks like the inside of one of those Soho stroke joints you could never quite bring yourself to walk into and you really can’t get enough of big, untamed 70’s bush shots, floppy tits and floppier penises then Taschen have really come up with goods here. Vanessa is a reminder of an innocent pre-AIDS age where fucking as many people as possible on camera was just seen as having a healthy appetite. Like wanting to eat steak and potatoes for dinner every night or catch the game on Saturday or whatever. She was so good at the ol’ give-an-receive that even Snoop Dog is moved to admit that: “she could really take one”.
www.taschen.com
R. Crumbs Sex Obsessions
If you are not familiar with Robert Crumb at this stage it might be time to re-figure things. Like your path in life and what you do on a daily basis. After the last couple of collected outings from the worlds greatest borderline maniacal, compulsive, workaholic, gonzoid, weirdo illustrator which featured his illustrations of his country, blues and bluesgrass heroes this one focuses on another of his obsessions: big women. Yup, big asses, overweight-child bearing hips and tits that can suffocate a guy in seconds all float Crumb’s boat. As creepy as being party to some of his twisted inner-monologues can get you can’t really beat a guy who thought-bubbles stuff like “I am currently inventing ways to make your wonderous body my personal playground”. He’d probably loose it at a Gossip show completely.
www.taschen.com (again, big month for Taschen eh?)
DVD’s
Slayer
The Unholy Alliance
This is a live Slayer DVD. It was recorded on 06/06/06. They play ‘Angel Of Death’, ‘South Of Heaven’ and every other track that makes them indisputably, irrefutably the greatest thrash band ever. Kerry’s head looks really shiny. And you even get Mastadon bonus footage. It’s one of those things that you have on pre-order. Basically this little, shiny disc of fun is pretty essential and probably the most excited I have been about seeing Slayer perform since the first time I actually saw them in sweaty, beer-drenched real life. Except there is no red-button footage of a guy getting his eyebrow ring yanked out mid-crowd surf which did actually happen that time at the Astoria.
I Hate Music
Output Recordings 1996-2006
They can’t of hated music that much. They set up a label and put the stuff out for ten years. Or maybe they didn’t before but having suffered industry slings and arrows for a decade they now do? Boo hoo. I’m not sure. Life is pretty confusing sometimes. Output was a label run by Trevor Jackson which broadly released electronic dance music. Although he is not quite as good as Jackson the chap with the Computer Band, Trevor is a pretty good Jackson. Output released a bunch stuff that paved the way for electroclash and people dancing to songs with guitars in like Playgroup, DK7 and the Rapture as well as stuff like Fridge for you to sit around and listen to after all the disco burgers. It is no coincidence that in the early days of the DFA, Output distributed their records in Europe.
Ultimate Reality
Ultimate Reality treads a pretty fine line. I might have to sit on the fence with this one. It consists of a 40 minute psychedelic montage of Schwazeneger films cut up with piercing kaleidoscope colours and strobing neon laser rays created by Baltimore artist Jimmy Joe Roche. The whole thing is soundtracked by fellow Wham City alumnus and current worldwide party starting fat guy Dan Deacon’s freakout electropop. These elements combined could constitute either a weapon of mass enlightenment or a streamlined bullet of pure fear and asthma-attack inducing paranoia. I guess it depends upon what you’ve ingested before viewing.
Millenial Reign
Press Release that I co-authored with Andy Capper about Damian from Fucked Up's new project Millenial Reign. All the recollections are Andy's.
Millennial Reign- Bones, Dust, Nothing EP
‘Bones, Dust, Nothing’ by Millennial Reign is one of the most brutal hardcore records you will hear in a long time. Guaranteed. It harks back to the glorious, crushing days of Clevo hardcore that trod the fine line of sounding like metal played by punks or punk played by metalheads. Think Ringworm, Confront, Die Hard and above all Integrity: the band that directly caused Millenial Reign to come into being.
The band was formed by Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham and No Warning’s Jordan Posner as a way of making flesh their teenage Integrity fantasies and exult the work of Dwid Van Hellion to the ears, hearts and souls of a new generation of children, some of whom remain bizarrely unaware of the existence of one of the greatest bands to exist in hardcore or in music.
I remember singing along to Integrity songs in my kitchen in London with Damian a few months back. We were arguing about the five best hardcore vocalists of all time and the only one two we agreed on were Brannon and Dwid. We played our favourite Integ songs to each other for hours, miming and trying to sing like Dwid. It was extremely gay but also one of funnest nights of the year so far. Some of the ideas behind the vocal lines on this seven-inch came from that night, but most came from Damian working with Jordan and producer Greg Dawson.
‘Bones, Dust, Nothing’ is the first chapter in Millennial Reign’s recorded legacy and takes the Integrity template of crushing riffs, blasting drums and apocalypse obsessed vocals with an added Maiden and Cro Mags obsession to create a new, fearful tomorrow for right now. The EP was recorded by Greg Dawson at BWC Studios with Jesse Labowitz (ex-No Warning) on drums and Chris Colohan from the Cursed guesting on vocals. It contains four raging, behemoths that will slay every other seven inch you hear this year. What you hold in your hand here is the first episode of what promises to be a very bloody and brutal reign. A Millennial Reign, you motherfuckers.
Millennial Reign- Bones, Dust, Nothing EP
‘Bones, Dust, Nothing’ by Millennial Reign is one of the most brutal hardcore records you will hear in a long time. Guaranteed. It harks back to the glorious, crushing days of Clevo hardcore that trod the fine line of sounding like metal played by punks or punk played by metalheads. Think Ringworm, Confront, Die Hard and above all Integrity: the band that directly caused Millenial Reign to come into being.
The band was formed by Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham and No Warning’s Jordan Posner as a way of making flesh their teenage Integrity fantasies and exult the work of Dwid Van Hellion to the ears, hearts and souls of a new generation of children, some of whom remain bizarrely unaware of the existence of one of the greatest bands to exist in hardcore or in music.
I remember singing along to Integrity songs in my kitchen in London with Damian a few months back. We were arguing about the five best hardcore vocalists of all time and the only one two we agreed on were Brannon and Dwid. We played our favourite Integ songs to each other for hours, miming and trying to sing like Dwid. It was extremely gay but also one of funnest nights of the year so far. Some of the ideas behind the vocal lines on this seven-inch came from that night, but most came from Damian working with Jordan and producer Greg Dawson.
‘Bones, Dust, Nothing’ is the first chapter in Millennial Reign’s recorded legacy and takes the Integrity template of crushing riffs, blasting drums and apocalypse obsessed vocals with an added Maiden and Cro Mags obsession to create a new, fearful tomorrow for right now. The EP was recorded by Greg Dawson at BWC Studios with Jesse Labowitz (ex-No Warning) on drums and Chris Colohan from the Cursed guesting on vocals. It contains four raging, behemoths that will slay every other seven inch you hear this year. What you hold in your hand here is the first episode of what promises to be a very bloody and brutal reign. A Millennial Reign, you motherfuckers.
LA
LA scene report for Gaurdian Unlimited Blog in unedited form.
“This Is Boston Not LA”
So sang The Freeze in 1982. A period when L.A. burnt so brightly that other American regions felt the effect of the areas thriving musical growth so fiercely it became both an epicentre and a powerful galvanising force. The Freeze sang out of defiance but also out of realisation and acceptance. Los Angeles had become the benchmark and for a brief moment, New York, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle and pretty much anywhere just looked stagnant and irrelevant. Progression into challenging and innovative new realms of both music itself but also of the very means by which music was consumed and distributed had come about as a direct form of reaction.
This cause and effect dialogue is a natural manifestation of musical evolution. Just as the Sex Pistols and The Clash razed the excess of Floyd, Old Grey Whistle test bucolic rambling and Prog frippery to a new ground zero in mid 70’s London so the late 70’s and early 80’s hardcore punk movement in L.A. that Fear and The Germs began and Black Flag continued railed against the skinny tied, cocaine fuelled New Wave bands that had succeeded in destroying all sense of purpose and integrity.
A quarter of a century later this binary is repeating itself in eerily similar circumstances. Black Flag, The Minutemen and The Circle Jerks were railing against new-wave mediocrity and Reaganite repression at DIY shows in venues like the infamous ‘Church’ in Hermosa Beach while releasing affordable 7” records on labels like Greg Ginn’s own SST. Innovation came musically by playing at greater tempo’s and with more anger than had been witnessed up until that point in time thus simultaneously subverting the status quo and innovating from within.
After years of enduring bland Red Hot Chili Peppers funk, awful Papa Roach style nu-metal and in a political climate of fear, corruption and Bush administrated lies a group of bands have emerged in Los Angeles centred around the West Hollywood all-ages venue The Smell and leftfield record, clothes and general make-your-life better shop Ooga Booga all of which is chronicled by the movements own newspaper the LA Record < http://www.myspace.com/larecord >.
By sidestepping the daily socio-political strife and distractions and operating through the traditional punk-rock DIY channels that their early 80’s forebears created a scene has slowly been allowed to develop around and has been nurtured by putting on shows that anyone of any age can attend and self-releasing records through small independent labels like Post Present Medium and Ol Factory .
The most exciting development is of course the music that this support network has allowed to come into being. Buoyed by a sense of artistic security, freedom and support a diverse and innovative array of bands and artists have emerged over the last 18 months to create what Angus Andrew described in a recent Pitchfork interview in very excited terms: “I am excited about what's going on in L.A. right now. I hate the word "scene," but it's a good community of artists making interesting music. Bands like No Age and Mika Miko, and of course the Smell being the genesis of all that. I've been in L.A. a lot recently, and I've noticed a lot there, and I hope it gets more attention.”. It was the stifling effect of formulaic musical structure that rent the original LA hardcore scene asunder. The flexibility that the openness of the current scene offers allows such divergent musical exploration to positively effect and improve the overall quality of the scene’s output. The juxtaposition of Mika Miko turning a Misfits song into a 2 minute junkyard Rrrriot Grrrl rant and Health creating loops of impossible to replicate ever again sound is the kind of refreshing variation that can only breed further creativity.
Arguably the most well known of the current L.A. crop are No Age who recently made the leap from the comfort of DIY to what in comparison seems a corporate blood sucking major in the form of independent label Sub Pop. The band comprises Dean Spunt and Randy Randall, formerly of arty, noise-hardcore party starters Wives who would end shows in blows on a regular basis. Sonically No Age acts as a continuation of Wives in an instrumentally stripped down but musically fleshed out fashion. Ideas that would have been battered to death in a minute and half in Wives are played out with in an almost Krautrock sense of repletion by No Age. The bands debt to the early 80’s scene is immediately clear from their name, the title of an SST compilation. Dean also sees the band as “the fulfilment of my childhood Husker Du fantasy. Now I get to sing and play drums all at once just like Grant Hart”. The band’s adherence to DIY is unquestionable: Dean runs Post Present Medium out of his bedroom and their debut CD Weirdo Rippers is in fact a compilation of five vinyl EP’s released on five different independent labels in five different countries. The UK leg of the EP was released by London DIY promoters and label Upset The Rhythm . Chris Tipton general UTR impresario commented that: “they are one of the most exciting bands we have ever been involved with in any capacity”.
Of the rash of bands that have followed in No Age’s wake possibly the most exciting are Mika Miko. They manifest the early 80’s aesthetic of bands like Reagan Youth or The Urinals but inject the raging framework with the nihilism of The Germs and The Wipers and perhaps most excitingly the sheer shake yourself danceability of ESG or Liquid Liquid. Much is made of the fact that they are all girls, this however is something that “we couldn’t give less of a shit about, it only ever even gets us shit in like the Midwest”. Live the band represents a thrilling proposition: microphones are substituted for telephones, saxophones wail and everybody dances. It’s pretty much impossible not too. In a just world they would be filling the hearts and ears of kids everywhere who are rotting themselves from inside wasting their time listening to New Young Pony Club and CSS.
Although both of these bands have, to some extent, broken out of the close-knit L.A. Smell based scene it is the strength in depth and variety of the other bands vying for attention and creating in a communally creative environment that mark a movement as opposed to flash in the pan. From (deep breath) Brendan Fowler’s dialogue obsessed, spoken word set to music project Barr to the wondrous rolling psyche garage of Abe Vigoda http://www.myspace.com/abevigoda. The spooked experimental free noise freak-outs of Pocahaunted sit
alongside the Silver Dagger’sscatterbrained, skronk no-wave, Lavender Diamond’s delicate, melody-infused pop, Carla Bozulich’s synth spookiness and the Mae Shi’s screamed art-punk. Got your breath back? There is basically a lot going on and no two things sound the same. An accusation that could never be leveled at London’s consistently derivative creative axis.
The story of Los Angeles musical past is one of innovative swings and barren roundabouts. The area offers a soulless expanse that allows a blank canvas of such magnitude that any vision can be realised yet this freedom equally engenders the power to quash dreams and aspirations in an instant. Saturated as it is with the false facade of Hollywood the city’s size and the superficial embrace that it offers can eat as many young, talented prospective musicians alive as it does motivate others to the point of creation. By operating within a viable alternative network the current L.A. scene has to some extent woven its very own Los Angeles allowing talent to be nurtured, developed and set free to soar in whatever direction it chooses. For this brief moment in time I would far rather be in L.A. than Boston.
Neil Richard
“This Is Boston Not LA”
So sang The Freeze in 1982. A period when L.A. burnt so brightly that other American regions felt the effect of the areas thriving musical growth so fiercely it became both an epicentre and a powerful galvanising force. The Freeze sang out of defiance but also out of realisation and acceptance. Los Angeles had become the benchmark and for a brief moment, New York, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle and pretty much anywhere just looked stagnant and irrelevant. Progression into challenging and innovative new realms of both music itself but also of the very means by which music was consumed and distributed had come about as a direct form of reaction.
This cause and effect dialogue is a natural manifestation of musical evolution. Just as the Sex Pistols and The Clash razed the excess of Floyd, Old Grey Whistle test bucolic rambling and Prog frippery to a new ground zero in mid 70’s London so the late 70’s and early 80’s hardcore punk movement in L.A. that Fear and The Germs began and Black Flag continued
A quarter of a century later this binary is repeating itself in eerily similar circumstances. Black Flag, The Minutemen and The Circle Jerks were railing against new-wave mediocrity and Reaganite repression at DIY shows in venues like the infamous ‘Church’ in Hermosa Beach while releasing affordable 7” records on labels like Greg Ginn’s own SST. Innovation came musically by playing at greater tempo’s and with more anger than had been witnessed up until that point in time
After years of enduring bland Red Hot Chili Peppers funk, awful Papa Roach style nu-metal and in a political climate of fear, corruption and Bush administrated lies a group of bands have emerged in Los Angeles centred around the West Hollywood all-ages venue The Smell
By sidestepping the daily socio-political strife and distractions and operating through the traditional punk-rock DIY channels that their early 80’s forebears created a scene has slowly been allowed to develop around and has been nurtured by putting on shows that anyone of any age can attend and self-releasing records through small independent labels like Post Present Medium
The most exciting development is of course the music that this support network has allowed to come into being. Buoyed by a sense of artistic security, freedom and support a diverse and innovative array of bands and artists have emerged over the last 18 months to create what Angus Andrew described in a recent Pitchfork interview in very excited terms: “I am excited about what's going on in L.A. right now. I hate the word "scene," but it's a good community of artists making interesting music. Bands like No Age and Mika Miko, and of course the Smell being the genesis of all that. I've been in L.A. a lot recently, and I've noticed a lot there, and I hope it gets more attention.”
Arguably the most well known of the current L.A. crop are No Age
Of the rash of bands that have followed in No Age’s wake possibly the most exciting are Mika Miko
Although both of these bands have, to some extent, broken out of the close-knit L.A. Smell based scene it is the strength in depth and variety of the other bands vying for attention and creating in a communally creative environment that mark a movement as opposed to flash in the pan. From (deep breath) Brendan Fowler’s dialogue obsessed, spoken word set to music project Barr
alongside the Silver Dagger’s
The story of Los Angeles musical past is one of innovative swings and barren roundabouts. The area offers a soulless expanse that allows a blank canvas of such magnitude that any vision can be realised yet this freedom equally engenders the power to quash dreams and aspirations in an instant. Saturated as it is with the false facade of Hollywood the city’s size and the superficial embrace that it offers can eat as many young, talented prospective musicians alive as it does motivate others to the point of creation. By operating within a viable alternative network the current L.A. scene has to some extent woven its very own Los Angeles allowing talent to be nurtured, developed and set free to soar in whatever direction it chooses. For this brief moment in time I would far rather be in L.A. than Boston.
Neil Richard
David Shrigley
Here is something that I wrote about David Shrigley's 'Worried Noodles' project for the News section of Vice Magazine.
David Shrigley- Worried Noodles
I would really love to not like David Shrigley. In case you have been asleep since 1992 David is that Glaswegian artist guy who doodles his every waking thought, no matter how weird, in these tiny crappy looking sketches with a bit text knocking around somewhere in the general vicinity of the tiny crappy looking sketch. It should be so easy to hate him. The drawings look like a 5 year old did them and as soon as you mention him to anyone else ever they start gushing praise like you just told them that you have found a way of curing their chronic halletosis problem (what is going on with all the bad breath right now, ever heard of gum guy?). The problem is that his work is so resoundingly, brilliantly funny and profound in a completely unassuming and ego-less way that you have no other option than to agree with smelly breath over there and love him with all your heart forever. I even have one of his sketches right here by my desk. It’s about the law of straightness and it keeps me calm when I am loosing it spectacularly from all sides. Like a little oasis of positivity in a day that might otherwise crush me.
Last year the German record label Tomlab commissioned Shrigley to create whatever he wanted for them. He came back with something called “The Missing Sleeve”. It was a 12” record sleeve that contained no record but instead a liner notes booklet for a tonne of the sort of songs that Shrigley probably has knocking around his head all day. “The Missing Sleeve” sold out pretty much before it went onsale and it was kind of inevitable that Tomlab would get someone to record these sketches. And so “Worried Noodles” came to be. It is a measure of how much love there is for this guy’s work that the double CD is rammed with a lineup of musicians that would give your average Pitchfork reader full blown wood on sight. Deerhoof, Phil Elverum, Trans AM, Liars, Hot Chip and even the much missed Les Georges Leningrad all cut tracks for the project. It is good that Les Georges chose “Manager & Coordinator Of Prostitutes” as one of the last things they ever released. Fitting.
We spoke to David, Aidan Moffat who used to be in Arab Strap and the guys from Psapp about “Worried Noodles” mainly as an excuse for me to talk to people we like.
Vice: David, how did the decision to record the songs come about?
David Shrigley: I guess it was probably logical. Either the music industry is full of hyperactive people or maybe there’s just too many of them because the whole thing seemed to happen in about a week and everyone got in arguments about who got to do what track. It was nice though. Once the songs were recorded it was like meeting an old friend at an airport that you hadn’t seen for so log that you had forgotten what they look like.
What attracted you guys to the project as musicians:
Aidan Moffat: He asked me in the pub. You cannae say no to a request from a gentleman in a pub.
Carim Classman (Psaap): I just though that the line “Peter just called to say he saw a slug eating a chip” was the best line I had ever heard.
Aidan Moffat: He’s just weird but really funny. That is what I have been striving for and failing to achieve with my music for years. That creepiness but with a bit of a laugh round the corner. It’s harder than it looks you know.
David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors): Yeah, I didn’t really know his stuff from before but now I think it rules like anything. It’s so odd and yet jubilant. That song I chose “Come Forward” just seemed like the oddest and most jubilant of the lot.
Did you consider recording any of the songs yourself David?
David Shrigley: I do have a band but we are pretty rubbish so not really.
Worried Noodles will be available as double CD or triple vinyl package accompanied by a hardback 106 page book on Tomlab Records from October 23rd.
There will be a special performance by a selection of the artists featured on the compilation at Cargo in London on Sunday the 14th of October. We imagine that it will be pretty great.
www.worriednoodles.com
David Shrigley- Worried Noodles
I would really love to not like David Shrigley. In case you have been asleep since 1992 David is that Glaswegian artist guy who doodles his every waking thought, no matter how weird, in these tiny crappy looking sketches with a bit text knocking around somewhere in the general vicinity of the tiny crappy looking sketch. It should be so easy to hate him. The drawings look like a 5 year old did them and as soon as you mention him to anyone else ever they start gushing praise like you just told them that you have found a way of curing their chronic halletosis problem (what is going on with all the bad breath right now, ever heard of gum guy?). The problem is that his work is so resoundingly, brilliantly funny and profound in a completely unassuming and ego-less way that you have no other option than to agree with smelly breath over there and love him with all your heart forever. I even have one of his sketches right here by my desk. It’s about the law of straightness and it keeps me calm when I am loosing it spectacularly from all sides. Like a little oasis of positivity in a day that might otherwise crush me.
Last year the German record label Tomlab commissioned Shrigley to create whatever he wanted for them. He came back with something called “The Missing Sleeve”. It was a 12” record sleeve that contained no record but instead a liner notes booklet for a tonne of the sort of songs that Shrigley probably has knocking around his head all day. “The Missing Sleeve” sold out pretty much before it went onsale and it was kind of inevitable that Tomlab would get someone to record these sketches. And so “Worried Noodles” came to be. It is a measure of how much love there is for this guy’s work that the double CD is rammed with a lineup of musicians that would give your average Pitchfork reader full blown wood on sight. Deerhoof, Phil Elverum, Trans AM, Liars, Hot Chip and even the much missed Les Georges Leningrad all cut tracks for the project. It is good that Les Georges chose “Manager & Coordinator Of Prostitutes” as one of the last things they ever released. Fitting.
We spoke to David, Aidan Moffat who used to be in Arab Strap and the guys from Psapp about “Worried Noodles” mainly as an excuse for me to talk to people we like.
Vice: David, how did the decision to record the songs come about?
David Shrigley: I guess it was probably logical. Either the music industry is full of hyperactive people or maybe there’s just too many of them because the whole thing seemed to happen in about a week and everyone got in arguments about who got to do what track. It was nice though. Once the songs were recorded it was like meeting an old friend at an airport that you hadn’t seen for so log that you had forgotten what they look like.
What attracted you guys to the project as musicians:
Aidan Moffat: He asked me in the pub. You cannae say no to a request from a gentleman in a pub.
Carim Classman (Psaap): I just though that the line “Peter just called to say he saw a slug eating a chip” was the best line I had ever heard.
Aidan Moffat: He’s just weird but really funny. That is what I have been striving for and failing to achieve with my music for years. That creepiness but with a bit of a laugh round the corner. It’s harder than it looks you know.
David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors): Yeah, I didn’t really know his stuff from before but now I think it rules like anything. It’s so odd and yet jubilant. That song I chose “Come Forward” just seemed like the oddest and most jubilant of the lot.
Did you consider recording any of the songs yourself David?
David Shrigley: I do have a band but we are pretty rubbish so not really.
Worried Noodles will be available as double CD or triple vinyl package accompanied by a hardback 106 page book on Tomlab Records from October 23rd.
There will be a special performance by a selection of the artists featured on the compilation at Cargo in London on Sunday the 14th of October. We imagine that it will be pretty great.
www.worriednoodles.com
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