Much to my chagrin (and embarrassment), before today I’d never (to my knowledge) heard any of Working For A Nuclear Free City’s music, but a recent press release about the Manchester band caught my eye, primarily because I totally love the cover of their upcoming album, “Jojo Burger Tempest.”
So I gave the single, “Silent Times” a listen, and loved it. You know I hate comparing bands to other bands, so I won’t do that: you’ll have to listen for yourself. Thankfully, there’s a streaming version available right here in this post, and I’ve posted a link to a free MP3 of the song, so you can go ahead and listen to it way too much in anticipation of the October CD release.
I’ve marked the release date of that upcoming 2 CD set on my brain, but I’m confident I’ll forget that shortly, so hopefully I’ll get my hands on a review copy before then.
If I do, I’ll be back with a review. In the meantime, take a listen here, or download the MP3 from the link below.
As if a new track from The Wrens weren’t enough (and it is, believe me), the MP3 benefit album Dear New Orleans has got 30 other tracks on it, including stuff from Steve Earle, Mike Mills with Bonerama, My Morning Jacket with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and the all powerful, bow-down-before-him, I’d-had-too-many-draft-Guinness-stouts-when-I-saw-him-in-Austin-and-didn’t-want-to-say-”hi”-and-risk-embarrassing-myself Wayne Kramer (also with Bonerama) doing “Kick Out The Jams.”
All this for a lousy $2.99 from amazon.com, and the files are all DRM-free, very high quality rips.
Two months without a post makes me a lame and I admit it.
I’m thinking this: I love writing for Bone, and I love writing for The Meatist. But when you’re as completely overwhelmed and neurotic as yours truly (see photo) it’s tough to identify what actually matters as opposed to what you think you’re supposed to be doing.
Much of which, at least in my case, at least lately, despite what some of you may think, has to do with doing shit for other people rather than myself. More than that, I can’t really explain right now, being as I’m busy trying to figure out some sort of home-brew shock therapy system for myself.
And I’m thinking this too – maybe short, hopefully interesting and not completely useless posts will at least keep my fingers tired and my mind sharp. Maybe it will start to scratch the itch in my brain and let me sleep better. Maybe it will get me back into taking interest in myself.
Then again, maybe not. Dunno. But anything beats devolving into a completely dead space, devoid of anything worthwhile (I’m speaking now of both myself and this site), particularly after I’ve dropped some stuff here I really love, even when I read it long after it was written.
Going forward, I doubt I’ll be able to pull off long-form pieces like that, at least not regularly, and this whole place may move towards music more (I’ve been a bit involved with that again lately), or it may just chronicle some of the insanity that’s been going on. Who knows?
But at least neither Bone, nor I, are completely dead. Yet.
I’ve written about West Palm Beach trio Lavola before; my article about them appears here, and I’ve posted links to videos of them playing live (like this one that involved officers of the law) as well.
Full disclosure: A little while ago (but well after I wrote the article, just so you know), they approached me and asked if I’d consider getting back into the music industry to manage them, and I said yes.
Matt Hanser
So I’m not going to pretend to be on the fence about them, and I’ll refrain from telling you how great they are (but they’re great). I will NOT, however, keep from mentioning that last night they killed it at Propaganda, a bitchin’ club in Lake Worth.
And last night, it mattered. Because last night was a showcase put on by AEG and The Honeycomb to pick a band to open for most excellent Silversun Pickups at their upcoming June 16th gig at the Sunset Cove Amphitheater in Boca Raton.
So slaying the show last night, which they did, which they always do, worked out well for them: they won the gig.
Brian Weinthal
But you know, I’m biased. So here’s a link to write up by Reed Fischer (my old music editor at New Times and a gen-u-ine music dude – though he’s wrong about one thing: there was little bombast). And here’s a link to get tickets. Because even without Lavola, this will be a great show.
With Lavola, though, it’s the balls AND the shaft.
You can keep up with Lavola (and you should, because then you’ll be able to tell everyone you knew about them before anyone else) at at iamlavola.com or the Lavola Facebook page. You can also follow @iamlavola on Twitter (twitter stream starting any second… really…).
Well, after a month hiatus from writing my column for New Times, I’ve at last put the finishing touches on the Meatist’s new site.
Karnivool digs meat. The Meatist digs Karnivool.
I’m looking at it like this: right now, at launch, it’s an online meat magazine. I’ve picked some of my favorite long form pieces to rewrite and publish, including a piece about how to make pulled pork at home, and an all new take on my hot dog comparison (part one).
I’ve also added a quick review of Wild Olives by Todd English, the star chef’s restaurant in Boca that opened late last year. Of course, I focus on the meat prospects there – hint: carpet bagger oysters + meat candy = awesome.
And then there’s the Karnivool interview. I spent some time with the Australian band in Austin recently, and they like them some meat, lemme tell you. If you read my SXSW coverage, you missed one of my favorite parts of the interview, which involved their road manager and a case of Guinness, so stop by and check it out.
All of which is live, now at meatist.com. I’ll be adding pieces daily, so I’d appreciate it if you’d stop in and subscribe to the RSS feed – I could use the support, and I’ll try to avoid suckage as much as possible (how much can it suck – look at those oysters…)
For those of you locals that love you some Lavola, and for anyone else kicking around that gives a shit about local indie bands that make worthwhile musiic, there’s a new Lavola video up on YouTube – this one of them playing the song “Masochist” during the under-the-Indiantown-Road-bridge show that got shut down by the police.
To make life extra easy for you (because after you’ve watched one, you’ll want to watch ‘em all – like collecting Tony the Tiger swizzle sticks or something), I’ve embedded the other two currently available videos from that show as well.
The next two are for “Leaving Paris” and “The Queen is Dead” respectively (the latter being the encore interrupted by local law enforcement).
And Joanna just reminded me of what a douche I am to not mention that Lavola plays tonight (Friday, May 7) at Respectable St. in West Palm Beach – five bucks gets you into a show better than pretty much anything else you could be doing (excepting some sort of sex, drugs, and whipped cream thing).
They’ll also be at the Dewar’s mega house party with like 400 other bands, two stages and constant music tomorrow afternoon (I know they aren’t listed – it’s a frigging secret, ok? Now you’re in on it).
I was getting crushed. It was 7:59 PM in Austin Texas, I was covering South by Southwest, and I was trying to maneuver my ass through the crowd and up to the stage that held the Crash Kings gear. Crash Kings, for those of you just tuning in, are a three piece out of LA: Tony Beliveau on vocals, piano, and keyboards, his brother Mike Beliveau on bass, and Jason Morris on drums. Right, no guitar. And while I’m on the topic, let me say this here and now: any music writer that claims they’re like Ben Folds Five is a lazy fucking douche that couldn’t identify a chord progression or song structure with a musical road map.
At any rate, the show was at 8 and I had, of course, gotten there considerably later than I’d intended and it was packed. No way it was I making it to the front. I settled for stage left, behind Mike’s basses, but I was bummed: this was one of the shows I was most excited about catching in Austin this year, my photo pass meant next to nothing at venues without a photo pit, and here I was arriving too late to get up front.
Yeah I know. This is the kind of photo you get when you show up late. Clicking on it makes it bigger, but not better.
Totally my fault of course. I’d been staying with friends on the other side of town, and earlier that day had made the mistake of grabbing a cab back to their house to take a shower after an aborted Rogue Wave interview. When it was time to head out again, I couldn’t find my phone, which I needed to contact exactly everyone I had to meet at SXSW.
“Oh no,” I whinged to myself (yes, even I have to listen to me), “I had too much stupid Fat Tire beer at stupid Lance Armstrong’s stupid bike shop during the stupid Rogue Wave show and I spaced the phone in the cab.”
With no land line phone in the house, and no neighbors answering my door-pounding and yelling, I was sure I was boned. And then the dude hanging out in the park next to my friends’ house chucked me a cell and said “just bring it back to me when you’re done” and went back to his conversation. So thanks, beer-drinking, dog-walking, talking-with-friends guy-from-park.
Going back inside and calling my phone located it right on a table out in the open, which makes me 100% the idiot I feel like most of the time, but at least it let me stop whimpering. Plus, I was on my way the Crash Kings show.
“No way to catch a cab,” I thought. ”I’m hitching.”
Here’s my thinking: it was Austin, it was the middle of SXSW, and I don’t have the face of a rapist. Much. So someone will give me a ride. Except they didn’t. Not the hot blond in her Porsche convertible, not the VW busload of hipster-assholes with NY plates, not anyone. I ended up walk-run-walking with my thumb out for about a mile and a half before I found a cab. I got to the show with one minute to spare, but no time to stick my head into the Clavinet to see its guts, an activity that Tony had promised me, and one that I was hella-excited about.
Because, see, it has a whammy bar. A keyboard, with guitar strings and pickups, and this one with a frigging whammy bar. Which makes it one of the single coolest keyboards ever. Ever, I tell you. Here’s a taste of the proof:
The first day I sat down to talk to the band, Tony told me the story of how he got his hands on that Clav. He’d been looking for an old Roland, a Juno 106 I think (or was it a 60?). At any rate, someone he knew thought he might have one in a storage facility, took Tony down there and they looked around. Turns out there wasn’t a 106, but they did come across the old Clav, beaten up and needing help, but complete with whammy bar. And the dude gave it to him.
So it’s like that Porsche in the barn thing, the kind of story almost too good to be true, the kind of story that usually makes me jealous as hell of the person that got lucky. This time though? Not so much jealousy. Because it’s not sitting in a studio somewhere with a “Do Not Touch” sign, it’s being lugged all over the country in the back of a Ford van, dragged onto stage night after night, and banged on like a muh-fucker at every show, just like it should be. And Tony gets that, and he can play the hell out of it, which is why I can’t think of a son of a bitch deserves to have it more.
Anyway, as cool as that video is, it’s almost unnecessary. What I mean is that their music, that shit stands on its own, very cool whether you catch it live or listen to their eponymous album. In fact, the only knock I’ve got on the record is that it doesn’t last long enough. The opening cut, Mountain Man is a grind-it out chuck of rock goodness (clavcore?) that features the whammy-Clav (as I’ve now decided to call it – or should that be a Clavi-wham?).
Mike Beliveau at the Rusty Spurs show in Austin, SXSW 2010. No, I wasn't planning on just shooting picures of his ass.
From then on out, Crash Kings deliver nine more tunes, each of which has its own identity, but which still hang together beautifully. You could cop out and claim that’s due to the slightly uncommon lineup, but that’s only a small part of it. The album works so well because of the great writing, Tony’s unique voice, and the production from Grammy award-winner D. Sardy.
From the slick pop greatness of “1985″, to the kind-of-a-ballad-but-not-remotely-boring “Come Away”, from the huge arrangement on “Non-Believer” to the distorted-base awesomeness on “14 Arms” and “Raincoat,” then right up through the closer cut, “My Love,” this record doesn’t have a throw-away, phone-it-in dog anywhere.
But that’s only half the story. Because aside from being able to write and record music well, aside from being able to bust out guitar sounds on a vintage Clav, these bitches can play. Really, really play. It’s actually kinda shocking how many people can’t you know, how many can’t even play their own damn album, and it’s always a big relief for me to find people that can. So after running halfway across Austin, then elbowing my way to a spot alongside the stage, I was hugely happy that they blew the doors off the joint.
The crowd knew it, too. Crash Kings got one of the most prolonged and boisterous rounds of applause I saw the entire time I was in Austin, and that includes all the bands I caught that came into SXSW with a hell of a lot more buzz around them than Crash Kings had.
Crash Kings were supposed to play another set on Saturday, but the weather didn’t cooperate, and they canceled it, much to my chagrin. But even that worked out, because Tony decided to do a simple set, just him and a keyboard (not the Clav this time, so still no sticking my head in it), in a tiny room lit dimly by red lights. I grabbed a bit of video with a less than stellar camera, but it demonstrates that the dude’s got skills, and balls too: there’s no where to hide here. Either you deliver the vocals or you don’t. First up, “Non-Believer”:
After his set, Tony and I were talking outside while he waited for the van to come by and load up before heading to Colorado. We’d been talking about his set, when all of a sudden he says:
“There was someone singing harmony on ‘Come Away.’ What was going on with that?”
“Oh – that was this crazy gray-haired cat lady-looking broad that was standing behind me,” I told him. “I asked her to quiet down, but she was determined.” Before the set started, she’d regaled me with stories of helping her husband move his gear around to gigs, back in the hippie days. She seemed to have a real thing for Tony now, though. Last up, a rare duet, Tony Beliveau and the Crazy Cat Lady:
By the end of the week, it was clear: Crash Kings are coming. Their record is great (and you can score the MP3 version for six bucks on amazon.com), they’re really good guys, and they actually know how to play their instruments. If you get the chance to seem them, you must: they’re a great, great show. Plus, I’m fairly sure that you aren’t going to have the chance to see them in small clubs for much longer, so I’d advise you to grab yourself some tickets if they roll by within driving distance.
Look, I’ll admit that being a bit of a vintage keyboard geek, I’m probably predisposed to liking a three piece with a keyboardist that favors a whammy-Clav, (or Clavi-wham). But even without that prejudice, I’d still be calling the Crash Kings record one of my favorites of 2009, and telling you that their live shows are worth running across town and fighting through a crowd for, any time.
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For those of you in South Florida, they’ll be playing SunFest in West Palm Beach on Wednesday, April 28th. I’m planning on dealing with that crowd just to catch their show (and hopefully finally get my head inside that Clav – I’ll let you know). For more about Crash Kings, visit their site.
In a case that’s both bizarre and incredibly disturbing, more motions have been filed in the lawsuit against the Lower Merion School District (in a Philadelphia suburb) accusing the IT department of spying on high school students via the webcams in school-issued laptops. I am crapping you negative.
Here’s how it went down originally: A few months ago, the school district disciplined a student, Blake J. Robbins, for “improper behavior in his home.” As it turns out, it’s the same improper behavior all teens engage in, but not what you think (read on and keep your mind out of your lap).
I don’t have words to describe how much it pisses me off that a school actually believes it somehow gets to dictate behavior at home (though if it did, I might have been a bit less rashy back when I was 13), but what’s even more disgusting is the evidence that the scumbag Vice Principal (not named Cheney as far as I know) used to back up the accusation: a photo taken from the web cam in the laptop the school issued Robbins.
All that happened in November of ‘09, but in February of this year, Robbins’s parents filed a class action suit against the district, charging violations under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Stored Communications Act, and the Civil Rights Act. The suit also made charges of invasions of privacy, and violations of the Pennsylvania wiretapping and electronic surveillance act.
In a letter of explanation from the school district to parents, Dr. Christopher W. McGinley (that’d be Doctor Creepy to you), school superintendent, admitted that they’d installed software in the laptops that allowed the schools to spy on people using the webcam, but claimed it was only to be used in the event of the laptop being stolen. Riiiiiiight. The letter goes on to say:
“We regret if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families.” The letter neglected to add “but we really, really want to see your 16-year-old daughter naked in her room.”
The whole disgusting mess was capped by the following interview on NBC, in which the lawyer for the family said the initial accusations were brought after the school watched Robbins eating Mike & Ike candies and mistook them for pills. Lots and lots of multi-colored, jellybean shaped pills that come in a box with a couple of doofey guys on it.
So that’s where it stood as of February, but since then, things have gotten even more disturbing. Apart from a Facebook group springing up for the parents of the high school students, in which many parents seem to be more concerned with the potential cost of a lawsuit than their civil liberties being violated (hangover from the horrible Patriot Act perhaps?), a new motion was filed that claims the school took over 400 photos of Blake in his room, “including pictures of Blake partially undressed and of Blake sleeping.”
See, the school didn’t mention those photos back when the suit was filed, because since the software was only used to track stolen stuff, they couldn’t exist. Thankfully, the the court ordered the district to preserve all the evidence on the school-issued computers. And, according to the motion filed last Thursday, the family has since found not only hundreds of photos of Blake, but thousands more taken of other students in their homes, some doing “private things” in their rooms. Those private things, I’m assuming, involved more than eating shitty candies. The school district also allegedly took screen shots of private IM conversations between friends.
To cap the whole thing off, the staff responsible for this disgusting policy was treating it like their own personal MTV Real World Lower Merion. According to the same motion, emails sent between school staff referred to the program as “a little LMSD soap opera,” to which Carol Cafiero, one of the administrators responsible for the program purportedly responded “I know. I love it.” Cafiero along with one other staff member has been placed on administrative leave.
If all this turns out to be true, and the evidence appears to be mounting that it is, it’s just the most recent, if not also one of the most egregious, examples of how in some people’s minds it’s become just fine to trample on people’s civil rights in order to get the job done.
Even if the job is rubbing one out while you spy on high school students.
If you enjoy BITF, you can also read my work at Technorati, Blogcritics, and my new site The Meatist, which is the meat blog, I've launched as an expansion of my weekly column that New Times has been running since last year (because meat matters, bitches). - bcs
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