nah pop, no style

I forgot to do the thing where I link you to the things I wrote for this week’s paper. So:

Geoff Farina/Glorytellers: I didn’t end up getting an interview in time and the show was last night so whatever, a lot of good reading that one’ll do you.  If you bother, look out for the one completely tangential paragraph in which I start to discuss lyricism in a theoretical manner. That’s good for a laugh.

Eli Keszler/Ashley Paul: This show is tonight, so there’s still a chance to go. Short article, I could’ve written more as I pulled off something of an interview for it.

Despite finding that I’m basically out of money until Wednesday, I decided to go to Jerry’s Saturday. The haul:

Jonathan Edwards, S/T.
Christian dude who plays guitar and writes really cute songs: not Sufjan Stevens, Jonathan Edwards. “Sunshine” is now being used in a Jeep commercial, apparently. Not sure why I felt it necessary to pay $7 for the German import (other than that the only other copy on the shelf that day was a $10 mint etc. etc. edition).

ELO’s Greatest Hits
A perennial Torley Street favorite that I hadn’t gotten my own copy of yet. I think there was a skip in there somewhere :( I’m not a very good record shopper.

Milemarker S/T 7″ (Image not available) (the one with the bloody wisdom teeth on the front).
I like some Milemarker: Frigid Forms and Satanic Versus both have some great tracks. This is their first 7″ and it’s kinda lame. I feel okay saying that because when my band played in Chicago, the best thing that Al had to say about us was: “That was loud.” (I told him that’s what we aimed for; he said we were successful.)

Alpha Control Group (C)/Photon Band Split 7″
Chumpire release from 2003, another record that was around at the old house but that I figured I’d pick up. There were actually a whole bunch of seven inches from the past 5-10 years of Pittsburgh rock in the new punk seven inches bins . . . Io (black vinyl), Sequoia (the original version of the band), etc. etc. Also, the entire Cynics catalog.

Born Against/Universal Order of Armageddon Split 7″
Gravity release #5, from 1993. Pretty straightforward. You know what it sounds like. Good stuff. I wish that I had instead found the Sam McPheeters-as-Patrick Henry 5″ though.

Lungfish/Tinklers Split 7″ (Simple Machines Working Holiday #2 — February)
I thought this one was a pretty cool find. It was part of a series of seven inch splits that Simple Machines put out in 1993 — others included a Codeine/Coctails split and a Bratmobile/Veronica Lake split. Lungfish offers “Abraham Lincoln” on the disc, in commemoration of the old guy’s birthday in February.

First, check my article about Artimus Pyle the punk band. They’re playing at the Braddock Elks tomorrow. Don’t believe that spot in the paper that says “Friday August 8.” Friday is really the 10th, and is tomorrow.

While we’re at it, Amoeba Kneivel and some semblance of Weird Paul’s band, only without Weird Paul, will be playing Garfield Artworks Sunday. It’s Brian Hollerin’s birthday; give him a holler. He might even be 20 now! But I’m not sure about that one.

Next week I’m writing on Geoff Farina’s new band Glorytellers (playing Club Cafe next Thursday) and on Eli Keszler and Ashley Paul (playing Garfield Artworks NEXT Friday). They are kindly young improv artists who will be worth seeing, and Rick Gribenas is playing too, if that seals the deal for you.

Any questions?

Truth: I really love the iPhone song. It’s by a schlocky indie pop band called Orba Squara, whom I call schlocky but whom, upon further listening, I’ll probably enjoy.

(Warning: the lyrical content is as sappy as, if not sappier than, the really cute melody. Proceed with caution.)

Here’ s the obligatory post where I tell you about what I wrote for this week’s paper, and what fun things I’m doing this weekend. I also owe you a theater review, but that’ll come later.

TONIGHT is Erik Friedlander, with DBL D + Gribenas opening. My feature on Freidlander here.

TOMORROW NIGHT is BREAKfAST at Roboto (it’s also Warzone Womyn’s last show ever) — article here.

But tomorrow night is also the one-off the sea, like lead show, as part of the AIR benefit at, of all places, AIR. Music kicks off at 6:00, including Life in Bed, Dave Bernabo, Spynda-Kress-Pace, etc. etc. We play last, around 11, so you might be able to catch BREAKfAST and head on over to see us, if you’re so inclined, and you’re probably not.

Last night at the favored coffeeshop, I bore witness for the first time to Galaxie 500’s cover of Red Krayola’s “Victory Garden.” My pedigree does not include a Galaxie 500 expertise, though I like what I’ve heard; therefore, to paraphrase Lucy Van Pelt, it may be obvious to you that they covered this song, but it was highly disobvious to me.

There’s something magical about the moment you hear a cover of a song the original version of which you really like, IF that cover does it justice or is somehow innovative. I’m not referring to Rufus Wainwright covering “Across the Universe Here.” This occurs when you’re not expecting to hear that cover, when you didn’t know it was coming, you didn’t know the artist ever played that song.

It happened (strangely enough) at the same coffeeshop a few years ago (probably like four) with a cover of John Cale’s “Hanky Panky No How” (I didn’t know for a long time who it was doing the cover; it was Yo La Tengo). It happened with Ted Leo’s cover of Lungfish’s “To Whom You Were Born,” on a tape from Bexxx (that one was easy, I knew the artist and song and they were right there in the liner if I needed them).

This time I wasn’t going to let it slip by — I up and ACTUALLY ASKED the people who were working who was covering the song, and the girl whose mix it was wasn’t sure and tried and tried to remember but in the end it was my mad Google skillz that prevailed and revealed that it was Galaxie 500. And it was a beautiful cover of an amazing song, and I will listen to it again when I have a chance.

Feel free to share similar stories if you got ‘em.

A couple of music-related things:

Next week’s paper will have a couple of things I will have written. One will be on Erik Friedlander, an awesome cellist who plays at Frick Fine Arts on Friday, the 27th. The other will be on the Japanese skatepunk band BREAKfAST, who play at Roboto on the 28th. That show is also Warzone Womyn’s last show.

Unfortunately, that’s on the same night as the big AIR benefit show, which my old band will be REUNITING TO PLAY. How friggin’ majestic. We’ll be on last (around 11 PM) so if you want to see WW and BREAKfAST you can probably still catch some/all of our set.

Living none too close to Paul’s at this point, and never knowing exactly when Jerry’s is open, I’ve found myself not buying any new music lately. Saturday I was in Bloomfield and fixed that (in fact, I attempted to go to Jerry’s as well, to make the circuit, but they were closed by the time I got to Squirrel Hill). So, let me tell you the things I bought:

• Oxford Collapse: Remember the Night Parties. Embarrassingly, I hadn’t owned this until Saturday. I already knew I liked it — OC have grown and grown on me since their early stuff a couple years ago. Now I sing along in the car.
• Gong: The Flying Teapot. It’s Gong. I’ve yet to reach a final decision on this one, but there are some pretty sweet jams in there.
• Daniel A.I.U. Higgs: Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot. Lots of guitar weirdness and some mouth harp from Higgs, who basically can’t go wrong by my estimation. An added plus is the booklet that comes with the LP — a letterpressed(?) tome with little mnemonic poetry reminding us how to spell things like DEATH and COITUS. Reccommended.
• The dark horse of this race Eyvind Kang’s Live Low To the Earth, In the Iron Age. Coming after The Story of Iceland but before Virginal Coordinates, and released on Abduction and not Tzadik, it encompasses more drone and atmosphere than those slightly more orchestrated albums. It’s more a rock improv record than a rehearsed neo-classical record, and my favorite album of his that I own. Go get it if you can find it! (I might add that I got this one — and Gong — on the used rack of all places. What fool discarded this?!)

- Friday, the 29th: Centipede E’est and Karl Hendricks Trio (sans Alexei) at the Brillobox. I may or may not be able to make this one, but you should if you can. Okay, Manny wasn’t inaccurate when he suggested that “Gen Y’ers view Karl like [Generation X] viewed The Clarks;” I don’t really enjoy watching KHT (or KHRB, or whatever) but regardless of how you feel on that subject, Centipede won’t be playing shows for a while (what with Jim going on tour with Midnite Snake soon), so howsabout givin’ it up for them. Did I mention at the Arts Festival they played “New Sudan”?

- Saturday, the 30th: Des Ark with Julie Sokolow, Every Monster Truck Ever, at Roboto. Article here; I’m stoked that my enlightened editorial overlord chose to run the photo of Aimee reading a huge dictionary in front of the words “FUCK YOU MOTHER FUCKER.” Also, yes, there is a band called Every Monster Truck Ever, and they’re playing this show.

- Hopefully some tennis if I have time.

- The finishing touches being put on the super-secret blog project, and its unveiling. I might actually hold off until Monday morning to unveil it in a major way (not that it’ll be unveiled in a MAJOR way at all . . .) though the official date is supposed to be the 1st of the month. Technical aspects of this have been sapping a good bit of my blogging time, itself diminished because of my lack of home internet. Back to our regularly scheduled blogging soonish.

A few quick music-related things:

• My Magic Wolf preview ran in this week’s paper. The release show is tomorrow night tonight; go there after the Joe Jack Talcum show.
• Speaking of that show, it now features 100 percent less Daddy and a bit more Amoeba Kneivel and Weird Paul Rock Band. Do please come, it’ll be a good time.
• Just finished writing a preview for next week’s paper of Des Ark. Excited for that show — it’s June 30 at Roboto, with Julie Sokolow and Every Monster Truck Ever.