
Oh good, glad to see you like my illustration. Yeah, I had some downtime and wasn't feelin' too creative or too much in my graphic design game as far as doing something special for The Decibel Tolls year-end list. So Lana and I started talking, and it came to us that it would be hysterical to do a college with people like Bradford Cox eating that Ezra Comma dude from Frankenstein Weekday or whoever, and Franz Ferdinand... stuff like that. I didn't have time to add Lil' Wayne. And then I had to make, like, the fuckin' universe [...]
Nem era preciso haver o festival de Dezembro a forçar o conceito. Ele já acontece por razões naturais: Por exemplo, na sexta-feira, como é que alguém que goste de ver um bom intérprete de guitarra dedilhada, na escola do "primitivismo americano" de Fahey, vai decidir entre o Ben Chasny, dito Six Organs of Admittance, na Caixa Económica Operária, ou o miúdo maravilha inglês James Blackshaw, na
05.11 - These Arms Are Snakes, Russian Circles @ Porto Rio, Porto 07.11 - Sugar-High Toddlers, by Kraak [DJ-Set] @ Bar do Bairro, Lisboa07.11 - Six Organs of Admittance, Sic Alps, Wooden Shjips @ Caixa Económica Operária, Lisboa07.11 - The Strugglers @ O Meu Mercedes, Porto07.11 - James Blackshaw @ ZdB, Lisboa08.11 - Joan as Police Woman @ Centro Cultural Vila Flor, Guimarães08.11 - Six Organs of

Bologna shitgaze Nelle ultime settimane ho sentito la parola " shitgaze " almeno venti volte al giorno. A Bologna sta forse arrivando la moda dell'anno scorso ? Comunque sia, dopo aver visto i No Age lunedì , ieri sera era la volta dei Sic Alps all' XM24 e devo dire che è stata tutta un'altra musica. Nonostante l' AMG descriva il loro ultimo album U.S. EZ come "amateurishly experimental" (ma la recensione è più che positiva), [...]
29.10 - Cansei de Ser Sexy, X-Wife @ Teatro Sá da Bandeira, Porto30.10 - A Silver Mt. Zion @ ZdB, Lisboa30.10 - Róisín Murphy @ Coliseu dos Recreios, Lisboa30.10 - The Legendary Tiger Man @ Santiago Alquimista, Lisboa31.10 - Róisín Murphy in Clubbing @ Casa da Música, Porto31.10 - Sean Riley & The Slowriders @ Alla Scalla, Campo da Vinha, Braga01.11 - Peter Murphy @ Coliseu de Lisboa, Lisboa01.11

I should be releasing my best of 2008 list next month at this time. As a preview, you can bet that San Francisco's Sic Alps will be firmly planted in the northern latitudes of the list. This isn't your father's unwashable, filthy, no-fi psychedelic rock scuz - Sic Alps twist, creak, and thump, taking you on a cosmically damaged romp through west coast good vibes and future shock trepidation. Why I didn't czech out the group earlier is a mystery to me. Their debut Pleasures and Treasures was released on Animal [...]

So, one song my ipod keeps choosing to play of late is by Canadian lofindierockers Women . It is one of the harder tracks on their newish eponymous album. It is all beats and recorder grot. Oh, and that buried guitar line will probably get stuck in your head (in a good way), but only if you listen for it. Downloadable: "Lawncare" (box.net mp3) Jagjaguwar is here . Flemish Eye is here . eMusic page is here . ptw (RIP) 'single file' is here . [...]

WFMU presents Selected Sounds from the Free Music Archive Vol. 2 . Coated in a cool wintry blue, this second volume features an all-new set of sounds from Silver Jews, Vivian Girls, The Ex+Getatchew Mekuria, Old Time Relijun, Indian Jewelry and more. The compilation includes tracks off some of our favorite commercial releases, as well as previously unreleased exclusives from the WFMU live room and Free Music Series. These are just a few of the thousands of tracks that will be freely available under Creative Commons licenses when the fully [...]

I make a lot mixes for my friends' video store and the most recent was turning out really good, so I thought I'd reinstate the seasonal mixes with a slightly adapted version. Expect more of these, but not on a weekly basis -- they're too time consuming -- but there will probably be another before October is over. (I'm thinking a Classic Goth Halloween.) Hope you like it, this one turned out pretty well. And like my Summer Fridays series , the songs actually segue together, so no shuffling please. Spooky cover art, once again, adapted from [...]

A sweaty, awesome night of three Bay Area garage rock bands playing variations on a theme. And I do mean sweaty. I thought the last time I saw Sic Alps at Death by Audio would've been the hottest show of the year, but actually Sunday night rivaled it, mainly due to 100% humidity thanks to Day Three of a Noreaster that had settled over the Tri-State area. You'd think that storm might keep the crowds away, but it was a packed house -- mainly there to see Thee Oh Sees . It was [...]

The Alps are a San Fran collective consisting of members of Tussle, Tarentel & Arp . They've got some exquisite sounds, their new LP 'III' is chock full of them. Get it here . The Alps- A Manha Na Praia (Z Share) ( YSI ) Speaking of Tussle , we had the Prins Thomas remix of 'Night of the Hunter' on these pages a few weeks ago. Time to check the original, it's pretty special. New record 'Cream Cuts' is out [...]

Videos from Description of the Harbor: mp3: Sic Alps - Bathman from U.S. EZ Buy "Description of the Harbor" from Animal Disguise Buy "U.S. EZ" from siltbreeze Info: Sic Alps

I said I was back and then I don't post for two weeks. I've been too busy wasting time setting up a facebook profile. I hate facebook. I tried to wait it out, but I lost. Why isn't that totally over yet? Anyway, the next three nights I will not be lurking about the internet and I will be at all of these events even when it isn't possible: Thursday 9/11/2008 You know we love Doug and Thursdays at the eagle (I think, since that last post he finally got Carol's load out of his [...]

A.M. 180 is reinstating its weekly blogscan, except I'm doing things slightly different this time. Instead of re-hosting all the mp3s, I'm zipping them up in a file so you can download them all at once. If you want to download songs separately, there will be links to the excellent blogs where I found them. This way I get to glorify great music and the blogs that feature it, while saving time (you have no idea) and bandwidth. It's genius. (not really) + download all songs in zip file (left-click) [...]

I spent most of the summer in a new music funk, disappointed by the quality of the releases invading my headspace, and turning to neglected records from the past to comfort me in my disillusionment. The tide seems to be turning, though I'm not sure what it's connected to. Perhaps the sustained temperate air of New York's unusually generous August? Maybe I just looked a little harder for some, and then the blogosphere rewarded me for my efforts by spitting out the rest? It matters little. As I have in all the melted months since I've been associated with MS, [...]

Sic Alps are a strange group. A sort of amalgam of harsh lo-fi production pressed together with the more traditional tropes of late-50s and early-60s rock and roll. It's grating at times, so brutally rough around the edges, that the pop aspects sort of submerge into experimental murk. Yet, when you stumble across a song like "Gelly Roll Gum Drop" the oil-and-water combo of pop and fuzz seems to change, evolve, morph into a well-balanced chemical equation. Mike Donovan and Matthew Hartman are able to grab control of their often times wild static crackles and aimless distortion noodlings, and craft [...]
No, it's not from the movie . Did that sound like Christine Baranski? Sick." -- Tom, assuring everyone that he played the legit ABBA version of "Does Your Mother Know" "Oh, absolutely not ." -- Spike, informing Tom that John McCain is not running as a Democrat "Trust me, you want to convince people in Oklahoma to vote for Barack Obama, don't send a bunch of New Yorkers out there, people from the East Village going door-to-door." -- Tom, persuading Cynthia not to ruin the election by invading [...]

Fucked Up Year of the Pig (2008 Matador EP) Matador Records Over the course of a year, Fucked Up's more epic than epic, 18 minute, political, progressive punk statement, "Year of the Pig" has gone from a give 'em credit for their ambition type of song to one of the essential songs of this decade, worthy of the expanded reissue treatment provided by Matador's recent Year of the Pig EP. Here, all 18 minutes of the original "Year of the Pig" are included along with three 7" edits and four b-sides. With [...]
"Uh, maybe you've heard of The Battle of Shaker Heights ? Anyone? Hello?" - Tom, refreshing Spike's memory on the early Shia LaBoof classic [More to come.] "I want you to think about Dogmo before you say anything else you might regret at some point, okay?" -- Dr. Fred Meyers, urging caution as Tom enters his Joyspace "And this Gabby from Winnipeg? You just let her go like the instant she didn't fit your needs. This is terrible." -- Dr. Meyers, discovering that Tom is not [...]