(maybe)Don't Bomb The MoonFest Recap

this saturday's "Don't Bomb the MoonFest" had a really good flier. It had a really good line up and a hilarious premise: to stop NASA from bombing the moon. It pretty much had me sold by the time I uncrossed my eyes and read that little slip of paper.

The actual event however was a little wishy-washy. The curator of the event Jarret Mitchel, stood up before the first act and took the microphone and began to speak of his longtime love affair with the moon...since july...when he heard someone was going to bomb it.

"If there's one thing I know about the moon," he proclaimed, "Don't fuck with that motherfucker!" LOOKS LIKE HIS CAUSE JUST FOUND A SLOGAN.

anyways, after this he rambled on for a while about john lennon, the US government, moon cycles, and how you should buy his art which was for sale in front. Not exactly a super convincing argument for not bombing the moon, but he seemed nice enough.

The first act Famous Techno, a newish project from two local jammiez, started off the night with a good if underdeveloped leap into the world of noise house. filtered but aggressive beats bled out of the amps, coupled with theremin hits and various other noise oscillations. I'm excited to see what they do next as they keep playing together. I don't know what their names are because it turns out googling "Famous Techno" doesn't really get you anywhere in the name game. well, maybe next time my social skillz will be sharpened and I'll figure it out. Who knows. second from the top of this there's a picture of them ripping.

After Famous Techno, another round of anti-moon bombing marketing, then Work came on. I saw Work this august in wisconsin in the middle of the day, they ripped pretty hard then with a "it's not loud enough unless your ears are bleeding" mentality. Sarah Bernat brings half the heat with some guitar savagery, banging out power chords and letting them ring. Erin Allen bangs on a floor tom and a snare filtered through hecka effects. The result is a super loud liquid jammer that is like Buzz Meeks hanging out with Sword Heaven. Bernat's vocals are like an angrier Pukers, and the music sounds like if the Pukers didn't just want to puke on you. When Bernat screams "I woke up, covered in blood. What have I done?" I can't help but recall "Why are you crying?" from the LA band. maybe theyre buds, who knows. But Work still slayed harder than almost anyone Saturday so check them out if you get a chance. The top picture is them!

After Work there was Piles. Piles is Eric from Numbers new jammer with aaaalaadddyyyyyyypILeS AND WORK HAVE A SPLIT AND IT WAS PRETTY OKAY.

Erase Eratta were not good. i have more to say about this. but not at this juncture. i will elaborate in the future in an essay i am working on. I GOT REAL DISTRACTED AND HAVENT POSTED IN A BIT. ALSO, WE ALREADY BOMBED THE MOON. it didn't mess anything up yet, and we didn't find anything. I'm sticking with this event that I was writing about was really just a scam for this dude from Portland to sell his silkscreens. That's what the internet is for buddy! Not the moon!

okay. more soon. i got a job. feeling better. gonna write more sooooooon. working with wholphin to help produce one of Lena Dunham's next projects. it's going to be hilarious.

Don't Bomb the Moonfest

today at area 51(1667 jerroid@3rd in Hunters Point) @ 4pm: Erase Errata, Copper Club, Brian Glaze, Kaia Wilson, Piles, Famous Techno, and Work all band together to just say no to bombing the moon.

should be a serious jammer. lots of good tunes and also one of the most insane plots from NASA i have ever heard of.

review of the show to come! stay posted...

Review: PEAKING LIGHTS "IMAGINARY FALCONS" LP/cassette (Night People/Not Not Fun 2009)

Spring Green, WI's Peaking Lights is Aaron Coyes (Faceplant, Rahdunes) and Indra Dunis (Numbers, Rahdunes).  Released this spring Imaginary Falcons (Night People/NNF) works as a whole piece, functioning not just as a series of songs (which many of them stand extremely strong on their own) but as a portrait of a time in the lives of the artists and their friends.  Recorded after their relocation to Spring Green, WI from San Francisco, and during their first year of marriage, the record encapsulates a year in love and the extraordinary blessing of moving away from city lights to a place where they have a little more room to stretch their legs.  The swelling guitar lines and analog synth tones that Aaron Coyes weaves from hand crafted machines mingle effortlessly with Indra's hushed melodies and casio tones.  The songs speak to feelings of isolation, deep connections, and distant messages (both astral and earth-bound).  

Much has been written recently about the duo's dedication to analog and lo-fi processes and aesthetics.  Some people saying things like "despite the lo-fi recordings" or "emerging from the fourteenth tape dub" imply these as shortcomings, but it is within these aesthetics that Peaking Lights are able to conjure the magic within their sound.  Every tone, each fuzz, a deliberate brush stroke on the aural landscape.  

Within this cohesive recording there are a few stand outs that remind me of the best times I had this summer.  Sitting in the sand with my friends beside the Wisconsin River, all kinds of smoke and light, blaring select tracks from Falcons mixed in with all our old favorites out of a broken boom box.  The perfect scenario for tunes that make you wish you lived on that river, just as Coyes and Dunis do.

Peaking Lights- Owls Barning

-one of my favorites from the record.  sit outside while it is still warm out under your favorite tree and soak this one up.  (thanks to Raven Sings the Blues for hosting)

 

 Each season has a magick all its own.  We all feel it, season to season, smell to smell, sound to sound; we create our own little vision that we will keep with us for our whole lives.  Every once and a while, an artist can assist these seasons and the fabric by which we craft our memories.  Peaking Lights have this magick and with Imaginary Falcons they have draped whoever hears it in a soft light and a loving tone.  

So go and pick this up.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.  You can get the LP direct from Shawn Reed at Night People (Reed also did the amazing cover art) or the cassette from Not Not Fun.  This recording can be your guide through the rest of indian summer.  Stay tuned for new jammerz from these two that they debuted on their recent east coast tour.  heavy dubby lovey dovey.

SIDE NOTE:

check out aaron and indra's rad store The Good Style Shop on the corner of Hancock and East Washington in Madison, WI.  tons of rad clothes, accessories, AND TONS OF TAPES AND RECORDS AND HECKA IN STORES.  the best shows in madison happen here and the best people in madison make it happen.  

goodbye summer, hello summer? ENDLESS SUMMER

some days you wake up and stumble upon something that completely changes your mind about the day.

after reading all about the equinox yesterday and feeling a little bummed what with summer being over and the days getting shorter,

i remembered that it doesn't get truly cold in california. it is basically summer all the time, but like a cold summer that you have to stay inside and play

board games with yr grandma even though you don't want to. But then you wind up having a ton of fun because your grandma cheats and then makes

you an ice cream sundae even though it's cold out.

billy stewart basically just blew the roof off this jam and has made me ready to go to the grocery store, clean my room, try to become gainfully employed,

and generally make myself a better person. He also has an amazing hat, and his scat style will make you get so jazzed up you might pee.

so look out dudes HERE COMES SUMMER FOREVER.

ps sorry this looks funny.
still don't really know what a "blog" is.

Autumn Equinox

Sept. 22 2009 is our Autumn Equinox. A new age dawning dudes!

"At autumn equinox, an awareness of the relationship between self and other becomes important: summer has ended, and nature is beginning to batten down. Increasing darkness and cold, not yet serious, but making its presence felt, is impinging on nature and people, making them aware that they are part of and affected by a larger wholeness, which at this point is asserting its primacy. Individual entities must respond and adapt. This realisation of the need to explore our relationships with all that is around us is actualised at the autumn cross-quarter...The ancients held a fire ceremony at Samhain to recognise that, while the solar light is dying, the light within is reborn: this is a time of death of the old, yet within it is the eventual promise of rebirth of the new. It is a time of forced adjustment (like death, something we must accept when it comes). Once accepted, it reveals a new set of possibilities, a new power in life – the power to survive and make something good by being a part of something larger."

SHiT IS REAL. LeT'S START A FIRE AND HUG EACH OTHER. UH OH!

My Name is Julia Ross @ the Roxie Columbia Noir Festival

Last night I went to the Roxie Theater on 16th street in the Mission for a double feature of their Columbia Pictures screenings. They apparently have dug up twenty two original 35mm prints from Columbia's stock of Noir from the 30's through the 50's. Last night was a double feature of films by stable director Joseph H. Lewis ("Gun Crazy", an episode of "Bonanza" who knew?).

The first film was "So Dark the Night" (1946) a 71-minute mystery which was mildly compelling however a little unfortunately dry and predictable. A famous Parisian detective takes his first vacation in eleven years to the french country side. There he falls in love with a pretty farmer's daughter, who happens to be engaged to a ruggedly handsome and apparently murderously passionate farmer ("I'd rather kill her than see her with someone else!", rad approach buddy. Don't let anyone tell you what's what!) After the deaths of the two youngsters, and after the girl runs out on the detective whom she has recently betrothed herself to, the local village decides it is a good idea to hire the detective to solve the case. Good one gang. Nothing like a good conflict of interest to immediately make your story obvious.

The true highlight of the night however was the second feature, "My Name is Julia Ross". The short but extremely compelling feature almost immediately threw the audience into a olden day craigslist killer horror story. After answering an ad in a london paper for a secretary job and winning the position with an old, strange woman, Julia Ross (Nina Foch) is immediately drugged and told she is someone else after waking up in a room that overlooks an ocean onto a murderously dangerous seascape. The rest of the film documents her attempts to escape from the clutches of a demented family. Nina Foch's performance is really what made this movie stand out, playing a trapped woman almost always on the verge of suicide for the full 61 minutes of the picture. A Twilight Zone episode made into a feature, with less Sci-Fi and more mystery.

I'm going again tonight to see some Fritz Lang and a drifter frame-up picture. Should be a lot of fun from an already impressive line up of noir from the Roxie. The theater itself makes the experience even better. One screen, sticky floors, cheap candy, and good movies. Can't ask for much more.

welcome to the lonely moutain

a document of adventure through music mooovies noise curio and culture. i still am not exactly sure how to "blog" but hey man why not. san francisco is my new home and i want to tell you about it. apparently.