The Unblinking Ear Podcast 1/24/13

Here tis. The first Unblinking Ear podcast of 2013. And the first in over a month! I do apologize for the delay and the lack of a best of the year podcast (which was kind of a dumb move as they're usually my most listened-to podcast of the year). However, I do hope any of the three WFMU fill-ins I did in the intervening time (including a best of show) kept you satiated. If not, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe I'm just not the rock music guru/obsessive/nerd/creep for you.

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Ten for '10: The Unblinking Ear's Year in Rock

The Village Voice Sound of the City panel recently asked if 2010 was the best year for music ever. I try to shy away from hyperbole myself but even if one ignores most of their (and, it seems, every other music critic's) picks (LCD, Vampire Weekend, the ubiquitous Kanye), 2010 was indeed a rather good year. In compiling the list below, I found myself with about six or so "definites" and 20 or so "could bes." That's a lot more than usual.

2010 was also the year we lost Jimmy Lee Lindsay Jr., better known to the universe as Jay Reatard. Though gone, his influence on the rock underground remains. It's been four years since he released his watershed solo debut Blood Visions. Also released the same year was Times New Viking's debut album and these two records cast a long shadow. The first few years of the 21st century yelled "Return of the Rock!" as loudly as possible but whatever moderate commercial success was achieved by demi-raw garage or post-punk revivalists fizzled by the middle of the decade. Of course, the music biz answer to failure is always "slick it up" and suddenly rock was in short supply once again.

While it's debatable on whether or not Reatard and TNV kickstarted the new lo-fi/DIY movement, they certainly seemed to remind many of the purifying, primal thrill noise and volume can bring to a pop song. Good records by interesting bands have been coming at a fairly steady clip ever since. Punk was finally (if only partially) reclaimed from the shopping mall and rock was not dead after all.

Or is it? This year, the Official Arbiters of Music Taste for the Young, White and Privileged seemed relieved that the lo-fi "trend" had run its course and it no longer had to pay lip service to a sector of the underground it didn't care for or understand in the first place. Evidence can be found in their dismissive, middling reviews of Woven Bones, Wounded Lion and Thee Oh Sees. Others found it difficult to distinguish what should be obvious sonic variety in different bands using the same basic rock vocals/guitar/bass/drums set up. At times, I feel like a teenage metalhead who can easily pick out the nuances between his favorite bands. Whereas to most people, it all sounds like the same unlistenable racket.

In any case, below is a list of the best rock music going right now. To my ears, anyway. Listed more or less alphabetically to free myself and the artists from the indignity of ranking. Accompanying each pick are either excerpts from past reviews or new text if I had not reviewed them previously. I'm sure some of you are going to download all of these at once. My advice: Pick the one that sounds most interesting you and try just that one. Music is a lot better if you take the time to enjoy it.

Casual Victim Pile compilation (Matador)
If Casual Victim Pile wasn't the record of 2010, then 2010 was the year of Casual Victim Pile. Released back in January, this collection of bands from Austin, TX was like a harbinger for the year to come. Many of the bands on the comp released good to excellent albums this year: The Young, Woven Bones, Dikes of Holland, Tre Orsi, Harlem, The Golden Boys' John Wesley Coleman. Others like Kingdom on Suicide Lovers and The No No No Hopes contributed standout tracks that have me looking forward to their future releases. Casual Victim Pile served as notice for every other scene to step up their respective games. Frankly, it might be one of the best regional comps ever. And Rayon Beach isn't even on it!

Grass Widow Past Time (Kill Rock Stars)
Rather than provide direct hooks to hang your hat on, Grass Widow invite you to luxuriate in their singular sound. Their voices (the band's harmonies are top notch) and instruments weave in and out of each other. Each element is distinct and sometimes oblique yet they seamlessly form a whole. That may read as being challenging and it can be but Grass Widow is also stealthily inviting. They prove that rock music doesn't need to loud or noisy to be uncompromising. Nor does it need to be traditionally catchy to burrow its way right into your brain's pleasure center. (Originally posted: 8/25/10)

Mantles Pink Information EP (Mexican Summer)
San Francisco's Mantles first came to my attention via their cut Woodist's excellent Welcome Home/Diggin' The Universe compilation. This made me feel like a fool as they had already released a handful of 7"s and a full length on Siltbreeze of which I was totally ignorant. I did manage to get my hands on this 5 track EP though. And, lucky me, it totally smokes. The Mantles have gotten the requisite VU/Paisley Underground/NZ comparisons but I heard healthy dose of Richard Lester Myers-style swagger and weariness in there as well. And really, you can never have too much of that.

Nothing People Soft Crash (S-S)
Their debut, Anonymous, made my best-of list for 2008. Their second album, Late Night, was in some ways even better and surely would have made my best-of list for 09 had I bothered to make a proper one. Soft Crash, their third album in as many years, is better still. Such prolificness is impressive in and of itself but the substantial growth they've shown with each release in such a short period is simply astounding. (Originally posted: 6/30/10)

Reading Rainbow Prism Eyes (HoZac)
Reading Rainbow's stronger melodies easily distinguish themselves. Songs like "Wasting Time," "Always On My Mind" and the title track are some of the most infectious of the year, outclassing most of band's peers among the new naive. (Originally posted: 11/23/10)

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists The Brutalist Bricks (Matador)
The Brutalist Bricks is not any kind of departure from Leo's trademark sound. Rather, it distills his greatest strengths and offers some strongest melodies of his career. And it sounds fantastic, sporting crisp production with each element clearly pronounced in the mix. (Originally posted: 3/9/10)

Tre Orsi Devices + Emblems (Comedy Minus One)
I may have given the impression that Tre Orsi is merely some revivalist act. This is not the case. If they wanted to go that route, they could simply drive headfirst into cliché, which they thankfully avoid. Rather, the trio uses their influences as a foundation for their own style, simultaneously muscular and melancholy. That they could reclaim the soft/loud dynamic from nearly 20 years of terrible post-grunge and spin it into something distinctly their own on a song like "Best Kind of Failure" is nothing short of remarkable. (Originally posted: 6/8/10)

Tyvek Nothing Fits (In The Red)
This is the Tyvek album you've been waiting for. Though chaos is an essential part of Tyvek's approach, here they focus all the clamor and weirdness that sprawled all over their prior LP into their songs. The result is an unrelenting attack. Songs pummel you one after the other, never allowing you to catch your breath. (Originally posted: 11/9/10)

Wounded Lion s/t (In The Red)
Wounded Lion are not dissimilar to fellow Californians Nodzzz in their mix of rough simplicity and unrelenting catchiness. Actually, the band(s) I was reminded of most when listening to this platter were Big Dipper and the Embarrassment. Songs like "Hunan Province" and "Belt of Orion" seem to have inherited their sense of melody directly from Bill Goffrier's old bands, sources that are both fertile and infrequently replicated. (Originally posted: 4/27/10)

The Young Voyagers of Legend (Mexican Summer)
More than once I've seen the Young likened to the Replacements, probably because of singer Hans Zimmerman's passing resemblance to Paul Westerberg in voice and phrasing. It's a pretty erroneous comparison as the Young's music is wide open and exploratory, whereas the only thing the Mats were interested in exploring was the bottom of a Bud can. However, the false identification becomes easier to forgive when one realizes the Young don't have any easy precedents to reference. Are they the loosest post-hardcore band around or the tightest psychedelic trash? Live, I might say the former, on record probably the latter. It ultimately doesn't matter how one identifies them, of course, only that they're treading some exciting sonic territory that at once seems strange and alien yet undeniably, concretely rock. If you're only going to check out one album from this list from a band you've never heard of before, make it this one.

Honorable Mentions:

Best Coast Crazy For You (Mexican Summer)

Bottomless Pit Blood Under The Bridge (Comedy Minus One)

Dikes of Holland s/t (Sundae)

Fresh and Onlys Play It Strange (In The Red)

Idle Times s/t (HoZac)

Myelin Sheaths Get On Your Nerves (Southpaw)

Parting Gifts Strychnine Dandelion (In The Red)

Super Wild Horses Fifteen (HoZac)

Ty Segall Melted (Goner)

Welcome Home/Diggin' the Universe: A Woodsist Compilation (Woodsist)

What Was Great in 2008

Besides, you know, the obvious.

Instead of a very extensive year-end list like I did last year, I decided to simply give a list of 10 records which came out this year that I am very, very happy I purchased. I'm not going to pretend this is a "best of" list as I'm sure there are more than a few worthy records I missed in the past 12 months. As more year-end lists trickle in, I'll hopefully get myself caught up.

Still, none of the below albums are crying out to be usurped. It took some trimming to get it down to ten. In no particular order other than the order they occurred to me:

1 Thomas Function Celebration (Alive)
Here's what I wrote on this blog after seeing Thomas Function back in April:

On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of seeing Thomas Function perform at the Annex here in New York in front of a crowd of maybe three dozen or so. Lately I've been verbalizing to anyone who will listen that I think bands should only do 20 minute sets. This probably started shortly after seeing Jay Reatard, who blasted through a set of about a dozen song in about that time. I get bored easily I suppose and usually about halfway though many bands' sets I become restless and wonder if I couldn't be spending my time better elsewhere. But damn me if Thomas Function didn't keep my attention for the duration. So much so, that without hesitation I plunked down $20 for their LP and both 45s they had for sale (All on colored vinyl! Take that, digital age!) despite the fact that I have about $25 in my bank account until my next payday. Hell, if that's not a recommendation, I don't know what is. I've seen the band compared to Television and the Modern Lovers but that's really only telling half the story. They're nowhere near as punctilious as the the former or as coy as the latter. Thomas Function play their off-kilter pop songs with an unabashed enthusiasm that's won that them a following with the usually suspicious of anything cleaner than scuzz garage crowd. I know it's only April but the band's debut album Celebration is going to be hard to beat for record of the year.

I can't say for certain whether or not Thomas Function retained the title for '08 but when it came time to list the best of the year, Celebration was the first record that came to mind

2 Prisonshake Dirty Moons (Scat)
The world waited 15 years for Prisonshake's followup to The Roaring Third and, unlike Chinese Democracy, it wasn't a huge disappointment. Dirty Moons is not the tight, leave-no-fat-untrimmed affair that The Roaring Third was. It's loose, expansive and filled with ideas, befitting a band whose released a box set(!) as their debut album. There's pummeling straight-up rock tunes, tender ballads, mini-rock operas, a 5-song suite, tossed-off minute-long jokes, tunes that stretch past the five, six and ten minute marks, and what feels like everything in between. And yet, it all holds together quite well. For all their ambition, Prisonshake still comes off like the band who could take the stage at your local bar and rock the shit out of the place as effortlessly as if they were tying their shoes. Robert Griffin remains one of the best guitarists to ever come out of the American independent underground, gorgeously lyrical at one moment and bringing the noise the next. I don't know if Dirty Moons is going to win Prisonshake any new fans, but the world is much richer for its presence. It's good to have you back, boys.

3 Thee Oh Sees The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In (Castle-Face Records / Tomlab Records)
John Dwyer's most famous project, the Coachwhips, never really did it for me either way. His new (side?) project, Thee Oh Sees, is another matter entirely. Primitive? Sure. Retrogressive? Hardly. The issue I have with a lot of neo-garage (or neo-whatever) acts is that they're all too often content to simply recreate the sounds of a bygone era, offering little in the way of innovation or even individuality. Drenched in reverb, Thee Oh Sees recall primal rock without ever sounding revivalist or particularly derivative. You can hear bits of everyone from Billy Childish to the Scientists to the Red Crayola in their sound but, like a master chef, they use these ingredients to create something entirely their own. Plus, there's as much emphasis on songwriting as there is on sonics. Making a cool noise is fun and all but unless one is using it to shape good songs the appeal is limited. Dwyer and company never loose sight of that and the result is one of the best records of the year.

4 Meth Teeth Bus Rides EP (Sweet Rot)
My favorite 7 inch of the year. Here's what I wrote about it back in April:

If you told me these guys began life as a Beyond the Implode tribute band I might be forced to believe you. Meth Teeth revel in the static like many of today post-Messthetics bands but there's a creepy, almost Barrettesque psych vibe going on here. Brings to mind early SPK covering Skip Spence or perhaps the Strapping Fieldhands doing likewise with the Mudhutters. Very impressive. Apparently only 500 copies pressed so don't sleep on it.

Full-length is supposedly in the works for '09. I'm looking forward to it tremendously.

5 Vivian Girls s/t (Mauled By Tigers/In the Red)
Yes, there's been a wave of hype about this Brooklyn-three piece and, of course, the inevitable backlash. (In fairness, being interviewed by John Norris will harm anyone's cred.) Who knows what the future holds for Vivian Girls? Are music biz-type assholes tripping over themselves to snatch the band up and turn them into the Pussycat Dolls for the Pitchfork set? Will the band ditch their inspired amateurism for professional sheen? Will they collapse under the pressure of the position in which they suddenly find themselves? Do they even have another good record in them under any circumstances? Did it stop being fun a long time ago? All valid questions but when the needle hits the wax on this baby, none of it matters. For the 21 minutes that Vivian Girls is playing, their magnificent DIY-pop renders all flavor of the month concerns irrelevant.

6 Oxford Collapse BITS (Sub Pop)
Nearly every review I read for Oxford Collapse's 2009 album, BITS, seemed totally off the mark, whether trying to lump them in with some kind of lo-fi reaction against orchestral indie rock (a valid point but not the best place to make it) or displaying general cluelessness. Perhaps the reason the crits find the OxC difficult to review is that they can't be easily pigeonholed. They're a band that follows their muse, not trends. When they first began performing earlier in the decade, it seemed that every band in New York was co-opting the angular sounds of British post-punk. Gang of Four and Joy Division soundalikes were more common in the city than service interruptions on the N/R line. The Oxford Collapse, however, were mining the less celebrated but no less fertile territory of US post-punk, taking cues from innovative but virtually unremembered acts like the Embarrassment, Pylon, and the Urinals. While this meant that the band was overlooked in the post-Strokes major-label signing frenzy, fast forward a few years and most of the post-punk revival pack is gone and/or forgotten while the Oxford Collapse have released their fourth and most consistent album yet. They may well be doomed to languish in the same semi-obscurity as their heroes but anyone with a taste for adventurous indie rock would do themselves a service by picking up BITS. The OxC's other 2008 releases The Hann-Byrd EP on Comedy Minus One and "Spike of Bensonhurst" 7" on Flameshovel are also highly recommended.

7 Hank IV Refuge in Genre (Siltbreeze)
I liked the Hank IV's 2006 debut, Third Person Shooter, well enough that it made my list of best albums for that year. On their second platter, they've really upped the ante, stripping away any traces of hobby band silliness for a potent dose of stomping, howling punk rock. Singer Bob McDonald has got to be one of the best frontmen in rock music today. His voice sounds like equal parts Brian Johnson and John Brannon and on stage his antics shame men half his age. This is definitely a band you should experience live. Just pick up Refuge in Genre first as you'll most certainly want to be able to sing along. You just try and resist yelling "She's got!/Dirty poncho!/Drop dead gorgeous!" whilst pumping your fist in the air.

8 Eddy Current Suppression Ring Primary Colours (Goner)
Sometimes it's hard to explain exactly why a band stands above the pack. Eddy Current Suppression Ring plays garage punk, plain and simple and lean and mean. There's no angle. No bells and whistles. Nothing to make blogger/critic/hype machine-types to perk up their ears and say "Oh, isn't that interesting!" So what makes ECSR better than the rest? It's that's indefinable quality called... I don't know... talent? For example, how did ECSR know that dropping out all instruments besides guitar in the middle of "Which Way to Go" before bringing them all crashing back in would up the intensity tenfold? Or how did they know to have singer Brendan Suppression croon over the jangly "Wrapped Up" instead of his usual Mark E. Smith-style declarative recitation? Or that the slow burn of "Memory Lane" followed by the crash-and-bash "Sunday's Coming" would be the perfect way to kick off the album? Beats me, but I suppose that's why they're a fantastic rock band and I'm sitting in front a keyboard struggling to tell you that you'd be a fool to pass on this album. The best Aussie rock band since the Saints? Okay, that's a bit of an overstatement but it got your attention, didn't it?

9 Nothing People Anonymous (S-S)
The name Nothing People conjures images of a Manson family-esque cult of hippies. Instead of preaching the good vibrations of peace and love, they've adopted a philosophy of nihilism, as if they spent a bad acid trip staring into the void and never fully came back. I know nothing of the Nothing People's living habits but their music is nearly an aural equivalent of the above: a twisting and snarling psychedelic maelstrom intent on producing tension. And as befitting a cult, this record comes in innocuous yet oblique packaging and in a very small pressing of 600 copies, LP only. If you can't find one at your local record shoppe, write the fine folks at S-S Records and see if they can sign you up for reprogramming.

10 The Lines Memory Span (Acute reissue)
I pride myself in knowing a thing or two about the British DIY scene of late 70s/early 80s. I was bugging dealers at WFMU Record Fair looking for Homosexuals records when you were still trying figure out how Thom Yorke gets his hair like that. So how did I totally miss the Lines? The short answer is that they were obscure in even for a genre that was in and of itself obscure. That's why I'm thank the creator everyday for people like Dan Selzer and his fantastic Acute label. Memory Span compiles all the Lines' singles and EPs along with a pair of unreleased demos to paint a portrait of a remarkable band. Their first single, the stunning "White Night" sounds at least 10 years ahead of it's time, like something a Creation-label shoegaze-y outfit would be proud to call their own. The remainder of the collection is equally impressive. Even at their most jagged, the Lines are melodically rich and inventive. Try to imagine Robyn Hitchock backed by Grotesque (After the Gramme)-era Fall for an approximation. About a month ago, Acute also released Flood Bank, which collects both of the Lines full-lengths. I have yet to pick it up. Now you know what to get me for Xmas. (Ed. Note: I was planning on posting this list before December 25th.)

A podcast containing songs from the above (as well as more than a few honorable mentions) is coming soon.

In the meantime do check out the '08 lists of the below from folks whose opinion on musical matters I respect probably a lot more than yours:

Nate Knaebel
Doug Mosurock plus Still Single Best of Podcast
WFMU's Terre T
WFMU's Evan "Funk" Davies
WPRB's Jon Solomon
Matador Records Staff and Artists
More to come.

The Best!!!

In light of many saying that I'm totally negative misanthropic asshole (a half truth at best) I thought I'd compile a list of people, places or things I think are the best. Not that might be the best but are the best, indisputably. Please read and enjoy. You may comment with a contrary opinion if you wish but serve to display your ignorance or lack of taste.

The best band with a really terrible name: The Bassholes
The best syllable to begin a word: "imp"
The best Arnold Schwarzenegger one-liner: "Let off some steam, Bennett!!" from Commando
The best show on WFMU: The Best Show on WFMU
The best way to appreciate 80s hair metal: as a moment of mass cultural retardation
The best punk rock song about statutory rape: La Peste "Better Off Dead"
The best punk rock song about the inability to ejaculate: The Sniveling Shits "I Can't Come"
The best comic book to read while you're sitting on the bowl: Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comics
The best free masturbation fodder on the Internet: http://www.americanapparel.net/
The best Simpsons episode, episodes 201 and up: Pray Anything
The best taking head on VH1's Best Week Ever: Paul F Tompkins
The best band on Matador, circa 1996: Silkworm
The best reason to commit a homicide: Jerk sitting behind you on the bus is yakking it up on his cell phone and won't quiet down no matter how many dirty looks you give him
The best way to irritate a David Bowie fan: Mention Tin Machine*
The best way determine a person is not in the mafia: They say they're in the mafia
The best Cosby kid: Theo
The best argument for Tim Burton not being all that great: Planet of the Apes
The best side of Sandinista!: 3
The best Alan Moore comic, post-Watchmen: Top Ten
The best album of the 1990s that nobody talks about: Prisonshake's The Roaring Third
The best time to take a nap: Whenever you're sleepy
The best name for a character played by Tony Danza: Tony
The best season, New York Mets, Bobby Valentine era: 1999
The best fake trailer in Grindhouse: Don't
The best television show not currently legally available on DVD: Get a Life
The best Mr. Show sketch: Pre-Taped Call In Show
The best band to release a dud of a live album as their debut: Hüsker Dü
The best band to release a dud of a studio album as their debut: The Go-Betweens
The best way to enjoy the Staten Island ferry: When you're not taking it to and from work everyday
The best advice no one ever gave Kurt Cobain: You should stick with that Mary Lou girl
The best sign that a rerun of Roseanne isn't worth watching: New Becky
The best form of birth control: Turning the lights on in a bar at closing time
The best way to pointlessly fill space on your blog: stupid lists
The best: You. Just for being you. (awwwww)

*I'm aware that I've mentioned Tin Machine in 3 of my past 9 posts. I'm sorry. This won't happen again until I find their self-titled LP in a used bin for a buck and review it for "Paleontology for Dullards." Probably.