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drawn by Karen Aragon
Back at Christmastime, 2008, before I was listening to Ducktails, Matt Mondanile recorded a live session with Real Estate member and friend Martin Courtney at WFMU in Jersey City. The set has been floating around the past two years, and is regarded as a crystalline portrait of how something great started. Listening to the set now, it’s exciting to think about the careers of these two musicians, and all they have done since then.
The set is being released on wax by Inflated Records and the release party is tonight at Glasslands. Come down and hear Ducktails as well as Julian Lynch, Campfires, Big Troubles and La Big Vic. DJ Marty McSorley, who hosted Ducktails on WFMU, will DJ. Talk about full circle. Doors at 830.
Here’s a taste, “The Mall.” Mondanile’s voice, all coated in effects, announcing who he is, who Ducktails is and even who Real Estate is, shoots a shiver up your spine. It’s a short jaunt-but it bursts at the seams with heavy feelings. Mondanile and Courtney cover “Let’s Rock the Beach” directly after “The Mall.” You’ll hear some of that too.
Ducktails: The Mall (Live on WFMU)
Hypnotic indie rock beats. Swoon-inducing, soaring vocals. This is Winks.
“Weed Makes Sex Weird” doesn’t sound like a weed-inspired song or a sexy song. Instead, it’s a dramatic yet almost stoic sounding meditation– heavy on the vocals and featuring simple instrumentation and guitar strings that ring sharply. This, to me, is desert music. All the sounds ring out and would sound intoxicating reverberating down vast stretches of hot land. Is it desert-like in Baltimore, where Winks hails from? I don’t think so…
Winks is Chase from INEVERYROOM and Adam from Weekends. This song is off a tape just released by Friends Records, a label also putting out Winks’ second album this fall.
Get the Winks tape.
Winks: Weed Makes Sex Weird
Collagé Party, Vancouver dopamine, shimmering, shuffling pop. “Be Yourself” wanders between two different headspaces: the one fit for dozing and the one fit for ambivalent introspection. What does that mean? It means that this song doesn’t inspire clarity on social issues, but does inspire the desire to look inward. Whether you’ll discover anything or not… who knows?
As with much hypna-dream-pop of late, Collagé Party’s music will help you blow off steam. It won’t necessarily teach you anything about yourself, but that’s ok sometimes. This song manages to move without being dance oriented, which lends it an added layer of seriousness.
This is the project of Canadian dream pop artist Eric Calder.
Collagé Party: Be Yourself
via No Fear of Pop. xxoo.
taken at MICRO-PIXEL-RITES, sxsw2010
Campfires is making its first trip to NYC as a band this week. And on Friday we’re lucky enough to have them on the bill at Glasslands. Jeff Walls, who also designed the flyer for the show, whatta guy, says this about “Eastward, God Damn It!”:
Not a full song, but more an inspired burst, the song is, “just a fun little jam that was recorded specifically as a give-away for this mini-tour,” said Walls. ” I recorded it on my own during the sweltering heat last week.”
Well, Jeff, I guess productivity and heat can go hand in hand, because this song is a major kick in the bum. Get up and get em!
Campfires also plays tomorrow night at Shea Stadium, so if you’ve got something else going on on Friday…
Campfires: Eastward, God Damn It!
The aptly named Virginia band Eternal Summers has been making what they call “dream punk” for a while now, and on September 28 they are releasing their debut on Kanine, Silver.
“Dye” finds Eternal Summers picking up where they left off– riding a mountain high, along a ridge built of good times and weathered wood. This song actually feels weathered, like it’s been floating around in the atmosphere of band members Nicole Yun and Daniel Cundiff’s heads for some time. Committing it to tape was likely a relief.
In the style of atmospheric pop bands before them, Eternal Summers’ music is jovial and full of bounce. Their songs remind of both times past and fun times ahead, which is an intoxicating mix. There’s nothing like combining the experience of recognizing something, with the possibility of further exploration.
Eternal Summers: Dye
See Eternal Summers with another two-piece band in a similar vein, Reading Rainbow, on August 12 at the Pyramids in Williamsburg or at the Cake Shop on August 13.
TONIGHT
The National and Beach House at Prospect Park, 6
WEDNESDAY
La Otracina, Telecult Powers, La Big Vic at Coco 66, 10
Built to Spill at Irving Plaza, 8
Willie Nelson and Levon Helm at Radio City, 8
We Are Country Mice, Futurebirds, Blair at Cake Shop, 8ish (Stark Presents)
THURSDAY
Gary War, Amen Dunes, Coconuts, Prince Rama at Coco 66, 9
Lemonheads at Knitting Factory, 8
The Music Slut 5th Anniversary: Javelin and Keepaway on the Rocks Off Cruise, 7
Campfires, Sleep In Sundays at Shea Stadium, 9
FRIDAY
Julian Lynch, Ducktails, Campfires, Big Troubles, La Big Vic at Glasslands, 9 (MME Presents)
SATURDAY
Warm Up at PS1 with Animal Collective (DJ Set), Blondes, Oneohtrix Point Never, CFCF, Babe Rainbow, Prince Rama, 2
Sonic Youth, Grass Widow, Talk Normal at Prospect Park, 7
SUNDAY
St. Vincent, tUnE-YaRds, Basia Bulat at Central Park Summerstage, 3
Steve Gunn & Johnny Truscinski, Title TK, Noveller, La Big Vic at Glasslands, 8 (BOMB Magazine)
Julian Lynch at The Delancey, 8ish
Jelly Pool Parties Block Party at Brooklyn Bowl, 2ish
MONDAY
Wavves, The Smith Westerns, Total Slacker at Bowery Ballroom, 7ish
Truth is born from the beauty of simplicity. That is definitely the case with New Zealand’s Surf City, a band that takes a basic idea, a pop song, and gives it a nostalgic, shoegaze attitude. “Crazy Rulers of the World” sounds like, amazingly, how the movies of my youth made me feel. Is it memory or is it emotion through music? First, I felt like I was in 16 Candles, the scene at the dance when Molly Ringwald is in the hallway. The next, I remembered how it felt to relate to Corey Haim in License to Drive. He really wanted to drive! I wanted to drive! (See the pic- remind you of two dudes with the same first name?!)
This track is off the band’s debut LP, Kudos, out in November on Fire/Popfrenzy.
Surf City: Crazy Rulers of the World
via RQ. xxoo
“I’m Alone”
“I Wish I Was Someone Else”
“I’m Too Shy”
Happy Birthday just released another MP3 from their totally incredible self-titled LP. If this song doesn’t convince you to pick this album up, then really, you should think long and hard about your tastes and the pliability of your heart. It’s a muscle!
This is such a sad, sad song, but in the perfect way that some pop bands can pull off. The desperate lyrics, the melody that’s tightly wound up in hope, the crunchy loud cacophony– all of that makes “Too Shy” a catchy pleaser.
“Too Shy” reminds me of an early Orca Age, ie: Jeff Patlingrao song, when he was calling his project The Lonely Robots. Love, yearning and acceptance are the themes here.
Happy Birthday: Too Shy
If this isn’t the funniest video i’ve seen…. well, I don’t know. Check it out, it features Ducktails at Fort Tilden! Hipster alert! There’s a hippie there too, with dreads.
Also, come see Ducktails sans ocean and dreaded guy (i think) on Friday night at Glasslands.
Friday, July 30, Glasslands, 830 doors
Julian Lynch, Ducktails, Campfires, Big Troubles, La Big Vic
Ducktails: Apple Walk
Get the Mirror Image 7″ on SHDWPLY.
Here’s another straight-up rock jam from Funny/Not Funny Records, that little analog label with a lot of Southern charm. Ben Schlabach‘s music has the same earthy feel as label header Matt Leech‘s does… it’s a refreshing sound to my Northern ears. The picture for Schlabach‘s 7″ pretty much epitomizes what life may feel like down there… You dress up because you’re respectful, it’s hot but you’re ok because there are plenty of shade trees, you keep a beard because that’s just what you do.
“Comes In Nines” is a rollicking church stomper. Schlabach’s begging, “We’re ready to listen this time!”, is not for repentance. He’s asking his Grandpa how to party like it was 1929… Drink a whiskey and stamp your foot?
Ben Schlabach: Comes In Nines
