The Unblinking Ear Podcast: Inspiration Minus Perspiration

I've never been a particularly prolific blogger but I have to admit the infrequency of my posts has become a bit ridiculous of late. I mean even the Siltblog has outpaced me thus far in 2010.

So, I think it's time I made just a few changes around here. I don't know if there will be an "Indie Hottie of the Day" as I prefer to keep my self-gratification fodder private.

I had some ideas the other night after smoking some pot. (An annual event for me.) The following morning, I concluded that a few of them were actually decent. Also, there seemed to less peanut butter in my home than there was a day prior.

What's that line from the Effigies song? "When things fall short of expectation, it's time to redefine." Stay tuned.

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Avant Garde Is For The Birds

Quite literally, actually...



French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot simultaneously creates something more rockin' than most of her countrymen who were actually attempting rock, and reminds me that I never should have bothered to pay money to go to the Cooler at any point during my youth.

Is It Just Me Or Can This Winter Not End Soon Enough?

This past month has been a rough one for the good guys. Between Conan losing The Tonight Show, the death of Jay Reatard, the tragedy in Haiti, the state of Massachusetts electing a right wing piece of beefcake to the Senate and our country's further devolution into corporate feudalism, this decade is shaping up to be even worse than the last one, which, by all reasonable standards, was pretty shitty. And, of course, there's the cold. Oh, the cold.

Perhaps we should all take some travel advice from the Young Canadians, who probably know from cold. Even if you can't afford a vacation to a warmer climate right now, this little slice of mildy profane pop-punk just might cure your seasonal affected depression.

The Unblinking Ear Podcast: User Friendly

I've come to realize that many of you are still not totally wise to the many ways in which one can effortlessly enjoy this podcast.

Below, I've tried to make it as easy as possible. If you click your mouse anywhere within this post, you'll probably wind hearing the podcast somehow.

This podcast is available by subscription via the iTunes store. Just search for "the unblinking ear" and will come right up. Or if that's too much trouble, you can click the picture of the friendly mailman or anywhere in this paragraph and it will open your iTunes and bring you to the Unblinking Ear page. Just click subscribe and you'll be set. Feel free to click on the little drop down menu and share on Facebook and Twitter while you're at it.

You can also download this podcast directly from its storage site. Click on this paragraph or on the picture of Sandra Bullock from the 1995 cyber thriller The Net.

Finally, each podcast is embedded in its parent post. Just click on the play button below (that's the button with the triangle pointing to the right) and you'll listening.


If you're still having trouble, please contact our customer service center. Send your e-mails to podcastproblems@unblinkingeartechsupport.com. One of our agents will be right with as soon at they are hired and agree to work for no money.

Requiem For A Reatard

When I first heard rumors of the passing of Jimmy Lee Lindsay, better known to the world as Jay Reatard, I assumed it was some nasty internet prank. With the recent Chuck Biscuits fiasco fresh in my memory and factoring in JR's propensity toward message board and Twitter feuds, it seemed like the most plausible explanation.

Sadly, the rumors turned out to be true. While many insensitively chimed in with some variance of "I'm not surprised," I have to say that I was. While the press deemed Jay Reatard as confrontational and self-destructive, I always felt that was a bit blown out of proportion for the sake of good copy. I saw him play at Cakeshop a few years back and he angrily confronted a fan, who had slam danced all over his pedals. Under the circumstances, "Get the fuck off my shit" seemed like a reasonable response. I figured that other scrapes he'd been in since were retaliations to much more pronounced baiting. I even thought urinating on his own bandmate while on stage was well within the realms of acceptable rockstar behavior.

There are certainly those more qualified than me to eulogize Jay Reatard. I didn't know the man. I'm not as familiar with his extremely prolific recording career as some. In fact, most of his formative work didn't do much for me. Upon hearing the Reatards many years ago, I was fairly unimpressed. It wasn't until a friend turned me on to Blood Visions shortly after its release that I finally recognized the guy as a considerable talent. I illegally downloaded Blood Visions upon recommendation and was instantly blown away. Mr. Reatard seemed to synthesize everything I love about punk rock in that one record, combining the angularity of Wire, the irreverence of Angry Samoans and the raw fury and velocity of bands like the Pagans and the Saints. After the album ended, I promptly got in my car, drove to the nearest shop and bought a concrete copy. I can't name another album that moved me to equal measures.

Blood Visions slowly gained momentum as a major release by a vital artist. Along with the praise, Mr. Reatard seemed to garner criticism from two opposing viewpoints. (Shot by both sides, as it were.) Some punk purists considered him a sellout, as he became more popular and his material became more melodic. Others dismissed his music outright as retrogressive trash. I can't speculate if any of these conflicts led to his demise.

What I can say is that I found his music incredibly exciting. His more recent "pop" direction may have lacked the immediate impact of his prior work but better showcased his ample skills as a songwriter. It also proved that Jay Reatard was not one content to rest on his laurels and simply churn out whatever made him famous in the first place, as so many lesser artists do.

In my review of his most recent album, Watch Me Fall, I opined that Jay Reatard had made a "reverse In Utero." I had no idea that similarly, its creator would be gone less than a year after its release. Watch Me Fall left me wondering what he'd do next. It's a great shame that the world will never know.

The Unblinking Ear Podcast: Illest Jamz '09

(One of 2009's most intriguing people)

I had hoped to complete this best of 2009 podcast sometime before, you know, 2009 ended. However, I forgot that the time off one gets for the holidays are often just as exhausting as any working week.

Despite an informal year-end round up I posted, I have yet to compile a conveniently enumerated list of my year's top albums. And I don't think I will, for reasons better explained by Ben Tausig at Dusted. However, if you really feel you need a list, I will create and send you one upon request, though I must warn you that after the top spot occupied by Reigning Sound and a silver medal for Grass Widow, the order will be fairly arbitrary.

There are some folks whom I hold in high regard that did make list and contain a bunch of records that escaped my field of vision. (Field of earshot? Auditory range?) Check them out and see how many of these stragglers wander into my next podcast:

Doug Mosurak

Henry Owings

WFMU's Terre T

WFMU's Evan "Funk" Davies

WPRB's Jon Solomon

DJ Rick

Brushback

Matador Records Staff and Artists

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Future Shock Revisited

Or best new music vs best music of all time, Part II

December... when everyone around me seems to be participating in the same end-of-year activity while I procrastinate the inevitable. But enough about Xmas shopping.

Many music writers and publications are now releasing their Best of the Year and Best of the Decade lists. I suppose sharing mine is somewhat obligatory. I already did a preliminary best of the aughts earlier this year, which I am loathe to revise and rank despite the fact it might be the only list of its kind to not include Wilco, Radiohead or the Arcade Fire. I will, however, add a new category to spotlight a handful of albums I missed the first time around:

Oldie Indies Have Fundie
Yo La Tengo And Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out
Silkworm Italian Platinum
Guided By Voices Earthquake Glue

I could probably also include a defense of the all-but-forgotten Hot Hot Heat's Make Up the Breakdown, which may have edged out the Strokes' debut for the best album of the last-night's-fucking-party, new-wave-of-the-new-wave, cocaine-and-tight-pants aesthetic so prevalent in the early 00s.

As for the music of 09, this sort of wound up the year of records I liked but didn't love. The album I (and more than a few others) were most anticipating this year was Tyvek's debut full-length. The general consensus was that its somewhat scattershot and sprawling nature was a letdown after the focused brilliance of their initial singles. I can't necessarily disagree. It's "merely" one of the best records of the year instead of the life-affirming event for which some were hoping.

The very mild disappointment didn't end there. Meth Teeth debut full-length didn't match the excellence of last year's Bus Rides EP, despite duplicating a couple of its songs. Likewise, Thomas Function, Vivian Girls and Thee Oh Sees all put out decent records that weren't as good as 2008's respective efforts. The Thermals follow up to The Body, The Blood, The Machine didn't have the impact of that record. (Though, post-Bush's America, could we expect it to?) The Box Elders debut was fine but just a little on the pedestrian side for my taste. I suppose I was expecting something a bit more "out there" after hearing the band talked up such a degree.

Nevertheless, I liked all of the above well enough and recommend that you hear them. I'll still take them over the lo-fi-approximated-for-emo-kids of Japanadroids, that obnoxious Das Racist song or whatever the hell Pitchfork winds up choosing as its record of the year.

There were some records that didn't let me down though.

Bucking the above trend, the Nothing People's second album is arguably stronger than last year's debut. The new Reigning Sound was well worth the wait. I dug the Girls album in spite of the hype. The Mayyors 12" lived up to the hype. Ditto for Kurt Vile's Matador debut. Times New Viking returned to form. Jay Reatard finally delivered a proper (and worthy) follow up to Blood Visions. The Fresh and Onlys' Woodist album impressed. Grass Widow mixed angularity and melodicism in way that never fails to charm me. Pissed Jeans dropped another impressive chunk of ugliness on the world. The new (and final?) Marked Men album delivered exactly what you'd expect, which isn't a bad thing at all. Daniel Francis Doyle and Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves both released albums that totally flew under the radar but are well worth your attention.

Well, it appears there are over 10 records above, which seems to be the minimum round number needed for an end of the year list. I don't really feel like itemizing though. Why don't you do it for me and I'll let you know how close you are? I even bolded the band names to make it easy for you.

While you're busy contemplating the 21st century, I'm going to push the clock back about 30 years. I suppose I should really stop being surprised that obscure bands from New Zealand have videos, even if no one in the US saw them at the time. The prior discovery of clips by the Verlaines and This Kind of Punishment yielded no small amount of amazement from me but you'd think they would have prepared me for the clip below. However, this song pre-dates either of those videos (and MTV, for that matter) and it's for song from 3-track single, not a full album. Plus, it's not even the A-side!



With this wealth of videos for Flying Nun bands, how come I never saw any on 120 Minutes when I was growing up and taking notes on the whole "alternative rock" thing. It would have saved me a couple of years, at least. Dave Kendall was holding out on us, the ponce.

The Unblinking Ear Podcast: It's a Bit Rich

The folks at Paste magazine have given us a real think piece in their best of the decade issue on the evolution of the hipster. This probably would have been a bit more potent had the the Hipster Handbook not already mocked these archetypes much more effectively six years ago. That's not very deck. It's also a bit ironic as I'm pretty sure that every one of their selections for the decade's best music, movies, TV shows and books are issued to one as soon as they sign a lease in Williamsburg. However, I suppose it's ultimately a brave move as they run the risk of alienating their core readership on hipsters who love to scoff at other hipsters while denying their own hipsterdom. See you all swingin' on the flippity-flop!


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Children's Crusade: Scorpio Moon EP

Doug Gillard has accumulated quite the resumé as the guitarist for Death of Samantha, Cobra Verde, Gem, Guided By Voices and many other artists. He's also the author of one of your favorite songs. (That would be GBV's "I Am a Tree.") Before any of those bands, the 19-year old Gillard formed Children's Crusade with Starvation Army's Fraser Sims. With Sims on vocals and Gillard playing all instruments, the pair recorded an 8-song cassette-only release in 1984. By the time of their second recording session the following year, the band has been fleshed out into a full lineup, but Gillard preferred to once again handle all the instruments himself. The session went unreleased at the time as Gillard joined Death of Samantha and the group faded into non-existence.

Five years later, Scat Records issued the cuts from the final Children's Crusade session as the inaugural release in their "Cleveland Archive Series." Upon listening to them, it's hard to imagine that songs as outstanding as these sat unreleased for years. The A-side, "Blue Venus Aflame," is a six-and-a-half minute epic, sounding something like rougher-edged Roxy Music. (Not a bad thing at all.) The two cuts on the flip are also remarkable: the anthemic straight ahead rock of "Your Time Is Through" and the weird Gang of Four/Captain Beefheart amalgam of "St. Jack's Bible." Though limited to only 1500 copies, the seven inch is still available from Scat and will only set you back 3 bucks.


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Out of Print Digital Relics: The Chosen Few

I've posted a handful of these Out of Print Digital Relics but I haven't done one for a while. This is because it seems like pretty much every album I've considered posting has already been posted elsewhere by someone else. (Even This Kind of Punishment.)

However, I recently was talking with some friends of mine about the recent Death reissue, and opined that if they dug that band's reworking of vintage Detriot rock action, they really needed to hear Australia's the Chosen Few. Alas, the band's mammoth The Joke's On Us EP was no where to be found on the internet. I could have sworn I had seen it before. Perhaps the Chosen Few are litigious types. (I guess I'll find out soon.)

In any case, The Joke's On Us, the Chosen Few's only release, is definitely on my list of top 10 punk rock singles of all time. (I included a cut from it on one of my all punk podcasts.) It's an absolutely vicious take on the Detriot sound, surely learned by way of Radio Birdman's Dennis Tek. It has all the nasty guitar riff-age one might expect but it's played in ferocious manner akin to early US hardcore. It's like the soundtrack to a riot erupting at the pub. The Joke's On Us is right up there with the Negative Approach single as one of the purest expressions of sonic violence ever committed to vinyl.

The EP is included in its entirety as the first six tracks on the Root & A Beer CD. The remainder of the collection is made up of never-released studio and live cuts, including covers of the similarly minded Radio Birdman, Johnny Moped and Coloured Balls. As you're listening to it, head on over to breakmyface.com to read a much more thorough history of the band.


Download The Chosen Few Root & A Beer

The Unblinking Ear Podcast: I Got Nothing

Usually when I post a podcast, I try to share some witty, often unrelated commentary along with it. This is to give you, dear reader, something to briefly read while listening to podcast, marginally increasing its entertainment value.

This time around, I don't have anything for you. Here are a few of the topics I was considering:

My attempts to enter the portmanteau "fungratulations" and the phrase "I got tarantulas in my pantulas."

The fact that I made this podcast using the Apple program GarageBand for the first time and how while trying to figure out how work it, I was lectured by this kid.

Checking out a webcam chat site on a whim and discovering that all is it is a bunch of dudes stroking their dicks. (In hindsight, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised.)

What I've decide I hate most about the Xmas season: jewelery commercials.

All were dead ends,

So here's my latest podcast. Try to find something clever to say on your own.


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I Like Things

(Photo of Grass Widow and the Brooklyn Museum taken from Flickr)

I have a propensity to gripe. A good percentage of my blog posts are complaints, in one way or another. I'm often moved to write for the purpose of offering a counter argument. I'll see something that gets the "kids" excited, such as Dirty Projectors or the Pavement reunion, but doesn't quite sit well with me for whatever reason and that's enough to get my fingers tapping on the keyboard. Am I being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian? Am I sucking the fun out of everything?

Some have told me I am on both counts. I prefer to think of it as keeping people honest. Dissent is an important thing. Ideas are not valid until they're scrutinized. Plus, I'd like to think all the negativity is actually a by product of passion. Cynicism birthed from idealism and all that. I take rock music (perhaps far too) seriously, and when it's not all it could be, I feel compelled to comment. It's my own version of electric white boy blues. ("Electric" meaning an internet connection and not amplification in this case.)

Still, there is the fear that I'm turning into the Phil Mushnick of music blogging. I actually scrapped a post on Pitchfork's review of the Girls album for fear I was repeating points I had already made. (Though I did include a bit of it in the post I eventually created in its place.) Being a crank is one thing but being redundant is far worse a crime.

Besides, there's a lot I do like and I'd much rather share the good than vivisect the bad. Of course, I do share music I enjoy every time I make a podcast but frankly, doing it via prose is much more challenging. I owe it to you, dear reader, to at least make the effort.

So, here. A bunch of things I like:

Last Saturday I managed to catch two things I liked very much. As part of a corporate-sponsored bit of altruism, I saw the recently opened Who Shot Rock & Roll exhibition as well as a performance from San Francisco's Grass Widow at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition is a real stunner, transcending cliched rock star worship. It posits the photographers who shot these musicians are artists whose work defined the image of rock n roll, perhaps even more so than the musicians themselves. It's not the biggest revelation for anybody who's been paying attention, but seeing the lot of these images in the same place, ranging from the obvious (Pennie Smith's shot of Paul Simonon smashing his bass) to the obscure (Justin Borucki's shot of unknown punk rockers S.T.U.N. at CBGBs), is a compelling experience.

Grass Widow somehow managed to be equally impressive. The all-woman trio released their self-titled debut long-player earlier this year and finally made it to New York for a series of seven or gigs over the course of a single weekend. (Lots of day/night double headers for these ladies.) The album is one of the year's best, further evidence that great musicianship and technical prowess do not have a correlative relationship. Grass Widow's songs are relatively simple but take unexpected turns, their angularity tempered by surprisingly lush three-part harmonies. The closest antecedent is probably the Raincoats but like most remarkable bands, mere comparison doesn't do Grass Widow justice. Their album has just been repressed by Make A Mess Records and is also available via iTunes. A more recent 4-song 12" EP on Captured Tracks is also recommended.

I like other new records too. A couple of months ago I noted that there were a bunch of noteworthy releases which all came out in a relatively short period. I'm slowly making my way through the pile and have found the below to be particularly ear-pleasing. (Caveat emptor: my ears are pleased by things that frighten most other humans.)

The Fresh & Onlys Grey-Eyed Girls
Second album from this group, who apparently already have a third slated for release on In The Red next year. I haven't heard the first one but I'm looking forward to the third after hearing this. Kind of reminds me of the aspect of New Zealand post-punk bands that reminds me of 60s garage. I'm not sure if that makes any sense but if it sounds appealing to you, you'd probably dig this record a lot.

Times New Viking Born Again Revisited
A return to form after last year's somewhat disappointing effort. I've wondered aloud if TNV might do themselves a favor by going into an actual studio with a sympathetic producer/engineer. I'm not saying hire Ric Ocasek like fellow hiss-loving Ohioans Guided By Voices did, but maybe someone who could replicate their live sound. In any case, the new album proves I often don't know what the hell I'm talking about. They haven't cleaned up a bit and still knock it out of the park.

Pissed Jeans King of Jeans
A terrific third album of heavy punk sludge from one of the best post-hardcore outfits going today. Often compared to mid to late period Black Flag (the good parts, I hope), I actually hear a lot of the Birthday Party in the new album. Singer Matt Korvette stretches vocals into twisted, tortured forms just like vintage Cave. The band retains their sick/wicked/juvenile sense of humor. If you don't find a cut like "R-Rated Movie" hilarious, then you probably think this past year was the best season of Curb Your Enthusiasm yet.

I like other things besides records. TV, for example. And the best show on TV right now just might be Adult Swim's The Venture Bros. Why might it be the best show in television? Well, it has the deep mythology, rich backstory and character development of a show like Lost while being just as funny as anything else on the air right now. It's really the best of both worlds. Like other Adult Swim shows, The Venture Bros get a lot of mileage out of "geek-recognition" humor (as the Onion AV Club called it). However, unlike the Family Guy/Robot Chicken school of let's-throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks gag comedy, The Ventures generally stay within their universe of "kiddie pulp" (i.e. superheroes, boy adventurers) though even other references (a Hunter S. Thompson pastiche and David Bowie himself are major characters) are fully integrated into the story. Plus, it's the best looking animation on Adult Swim by some distance.

You know what else I like? Reading. And the most entertaining prose book I've read this year is Mike Edison's I Have Fun Everywhere I Go. Subtitled "Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Ape, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World," Edison's biography details his career as a kind of lowbrow renaissance man. Edison wrote and edited for various wrestling dirt sheets, stroke books and skin mags, all while maintaining a parallel career as a drummer for a series of low-rent garage rock bands. And that doesn't even tell half the story. The book certainly contains all the drug consumption, fornication and general debauchery one might expect, but Edison's writing is sharp, involving and good-humored, transforming what might have been lurid sensationalism into literate earthiness. Even if it wasn't, wouldn't you want to read the life story of a guy who was publisher of High Times and buddies with GG Allin anyway? Oh... Evil Knievel is in there too.

My personal favorite anecdote: After Edison balked at writing a gay-oriented smut book under the premise that he simply didn't know the subject matter, his editor told him "You got a hole, and you got a pole, and that don't change. Now sit down and write your fucking book." Pure poetry.

The year's best book, sequential art division, would have to be David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp. Mazzucchelli made a name for himself in the 80s, penciling a pair of critically acclaimed and hugely popular superhero comics with Frank Miller writing: Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One. He was an in demand artist and could have had a long and profitable career drawing men with capes. However, Mazzucchelli decided to give up the superhero racket and focus on art comics. His work since has been been anything but prolific. His major works in the past 20 years have the Rubber Blanket anthology, which lasted three issues, and a graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass.

His first entirely self-penned and illustrated graphic was finally released earlier this year and I have to say Asterios Polyp was well worth the wait. It's an auteur comic through and through, as interested in the way it tells its story as much as than the story itself. Form comments on content and vice versa. Mazzucchelli does things with color and line work I've never seen done before. For example, characters are drawn in different visual styles (right down to their shapes and fonts used for their speech balloons), which represent their differing philosophies. As two characters become romantically involved and their philosophies are found to be compatible, their style merge into one. When the characters argue, they separate. It's a simple tactic that pays off brilliantly. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Mazzucchelli plays with the comics form to comment on the subjects of identity, academia, aesthetics, philosophy and fate and it would not surprise me in the least if Asterios Polyp is quickly acknowledged as one the great works of its medium. (Please read Douglas Wolk's New York Times review of the book for a more thorough analysis.) I should note that Asterios Polyp is not as heady or challenging as I'm perhaps making it sound. It's a total delight to read. I went through the whole thing in one sitting.

So there you have it. That should keep you occupied for a while. Hopefully, you'll find the works above more rewarding than the scathing dismissal I nearly wrote on New York Magazine's suckjob cover story on Brooklyn bands who take the rock out indie rock. What's the line from that Buzzcocks' song? "Now I can stand austerity but it gets a little much/when there's all these livid things that you never get to touch."