"Sounds of Sebring" is taken from 1996's They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons , Swirlies ' most dynamic work ever. Kind of appalling how overlooked the band became in the mid-1990's. Fun fact: Damon Tutunjian produced Mew's debut album, A Triumph For Man .
No better way to spend a Sunday night than grilling cheese dogs and brats with friends on Mt. Washington, drinking someone's home-brewed chocolate stout. I defy you to cap your weekend in a more enjoyable fashion. Holy shit I'm flying home tomorrow! That's awesome! What the fuck am I going to do first? Breakfast burritos [...]
The Trashies are a shambolic Seattle rock band with a singer who squawks like a bird and the kind of guitar riffage that'd work great with pounding beers and mooning short buses full of the elderly. They're album Space Jam is coming out July 26 on 24/7 & Minor Bird Records. The Trashies, "I Wanna Destroy" The Trashies, "Free Form War" The band's about to head out on a west coast tour with Shannon and the Clams, and will appear at Seattle's Pizzafest,...

>> Hotly tipped London indie duo Big Deal have disclosed at long last that its debut full-length, Lights Out , will be issued by Mute Oct. 11. The release will be preceded by a single for the song "Chair" Aug. 30. The barely year-old pairing of Kacey Underwood and Alice Costelloe arrived on the scene last fall with the desperately beautiful and delicate acoustic single "Homework," released by Records Records Records. The new, 12-song long-player was co-produced by Mr. Underwood and a fellow named Dean Reid, which is interesting to note because we reported here [...]

>> [PHOTO CREDIT: Brad Searles ] That distant rumbling you half-hear and half-feel can only mean that legendary chimp rock superheroes The Swirlies are powering up for an indeterminate span of time. We caught wind of the activity via a well-informed Facebook friend Tuesday, and confirmed this afternoon that, yes, in fact The Swirlies will play Philadelphia's Johnny Brenda's Saturday July 23rd . Curiously, the gig will be a matinee. We can't find other dates, not even at The Swirlies' web dojo , but we did notice that the [...]

Man einhver eftir hljómsveitinni Swirlies ? Ekki ég. Þessu bandi virðist ég alveg hafa misst af á sínum tíma en þau voru upp á sitt besta circa '90 - '95. Bandið hefur reyndar aldrei hætt þannig lagað, og spilaði nokkur gigg í fyrra, en lítið hefur farið fyrir þeim að öðru leyti seinustu árin. Í árdaga sveitarinar var mikið að gerast í Bretlandi, Britpop og Shoegaze tröllréð öllu, og Swirlies voru einskonar mótsvar Bandaríkjanna við breska skóglápinu. Vissulega er einnig margt sem minnir á öðlingana í Sonic Youth, og bara plötuumslagshönnunin ber keim af því eins og sjá [...]
Hey man, it's officially summer! I mean I think it was "official" a few weeks ago, but once you get to free Slurpee day at participating 7-11s you pretty much know it's summer for real. I didn't get a free Slurpee today because the only flavor I ever enjoyed was Coca Cola, and after two full weeks of not drinking soda I didn't want to tempt myself and fall off the wagon. So...no free Slurpee for me this year. Still, it's fucking summer now! Let's have a party! Okay, enough exclamation points. Instead of speed-writing excitedly [...]

Swirlies The Whole Music Club Minneapolis, MN 5/14/96 By request, here's the Swirlies set from their show in Minneapolis back in 1996. I had the foresight to drag my tape recorder to the club on my bike in order to record it. I knew this show was going to be one that warranted the effort to get a soundboard recording. There's also a video circulating of the same show which you can see a clip of if you dig around in the archives. Setlist: 1. In Harmony New Found Freedom [...]

Which is kind of crazy. A number of years ago, just before my 18th birthday, I put on a show at my Dad's "farm" that featured some of the earlier Slumberland-related acts like Lilys, Swirlies, and Small Factory. When the label was based in D.C. It lasted two of the hottest days in July. Hundreds of people showed and my father regretted his decision to let me try my hand at show promotion when someone almost burnt down a few trees with fireworks. I'd wanted to book Velocity Girl, but for some reason it hadn't worked out. They were probably [...]

In celebrating the 20th anniversary of Slumberland Records we contemplated listing the label's best albums as we've already done for Matador and Merge earlier this year, but we realized that Slumberland's tradition is built more on the 7" release than it is on the full album. Since they started the label has put out more 7" singles than anything else and they've all been a magnificent mix of styles and sounds. Bands as varied as caUSE co-MOTION! , Stereolab , the [...]
![Review: Fleeting Joys | Occult Radiance [MP3]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/1972343_lg.jpg)
We've been talking about it for more than a year, but the sophomore record from Fleeting Joys is finally here. The elephant in the room when discussing the superlative Northern California-based shoegaze duo is the similarity between its music and the most well-known and inflential portion of My Bloody Valentine 's body of work. It bears mentioning and is a useful shorthand, but we expect Fleeting Joys ' John Loring and Rorika grow weary of the obvious comparison (they list MBV first among their influences at MySpace ) even as they are gratified [...]

Fuck Boston! And Aerosmith too while we're at it! Fuck them, to hell with New Kids on the Block, The Lemonheads can blow me, and don't even get me started on their Celtic punk bands ('cause I actually enjoy them quite a bit). The Boston music scene has thrived for years, whether shilling to drunk folks of Irish ancestry or fawning over the latest college rock wonder they have always had a rich musical history. With my beloved Yankees heading into to town once again it seems like as good a time as any to countdown the 10 greatest bands [...]
I drank way too much last night. After seeing the opening of Nicci's play I headed over to co-worker Mark's birthday party in West Hollywood. I don't remember if I said "Hi" before the first tequila shot, or if I just walked in and found my way to the beverage table and rounded up a group of people to drink with me. A few Makers and Cokes and a few more tequila shots later...I was wearing high-heeled shoes around and making an ass of myself. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it was a typical night out for [...]

Continuing the Contraband series, showcasing various finds and older, often out of print, records that deserve some ink in the blogo lol osphere, today we discuss Swirlies and three albums - Blonder Tongue Audio Baton, What to Do About Them , and They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons very worthy of your attention. Swirlies served as a Yankee response to the Thames Valley-centric shoegazing movement, though it could still be argued that Swirlies didn't necessarily fit nicely in that box either. The group masterfully amalgamated both dream and [...]
News of the Swirlies' reemergence from a lengthy hibernation for three strictly East Coast (sneaky flute) shows a few weeks back was a more than welcome surprise, and was instantly one of my most anticipated musical happenings of the new year. I'd seen the Boston-based band many times back in the day ("the day" being the early-90s), but somehow not once after the release of what would become my
It's been all contests and little actual content here on the 'Nac lately, and for that I do apologize (well, I'm not sorry for giving away free stuff, but still). Hoping to fix that imbalance over the weekend, but the prospect of warm weather may dash those hopes. We shall see. Here's a quick few info fixes before I'm off...Firstly, congrats to Almanac reader Penny from Cambridge, who will
>> So the big sold-out, Swirlies not-reunion show at the Middle East Upstairs Saturday was incredibly satisfying, although we were almost too tired to derive enjoyment from it. Clicky Clicky has been in Swirlies overload of late, and we didn't shoot any decent pictures Saturday night (well, early Sunday morning), so we are going to dispense with a proper review and simply say that we welcome the idea of a resuscitated Swirlies with open arms. Like Steve Perry . Anyhoo, our old-guyness aside, the band -- playing as a quintet for most of the evening [...]

Word from our operative MGrooves, who attended last night's kick-off of The Swirlies ' mini-not-reunion tour at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia, is that the show was awesome. The band opened with "Bell," and The Swirlies apparently were in such fine form that there was no noticable rustiness despite it being five years since their last shows. They played for 90 minutes! The set leans heavily toward Blonder Tongue Audio Baton and They Spent Their Wild... , but there were some tracks from Cats Of The Wild in the mix as well. The [...]

>> We're getting excited for chimp-rock standard bearers The Swirlies ' show Saturday night at the Middle East, and it would seem the Internet is also in the grips of a minor bout of Swirlies-a-mania. No fewer than three outlets previewed the upcoming shows Thursday, including Philebrity and Boston's Weekly Dig and Bostonist publications. We have an operative based in San Francisco who flew east to catch two of the shows, last night's set at Johnny Brenda's in Philly -- apparently The Swirlies ' first show in five years -- and the [...]

Nooooooooooo!!!!! An intense ice storm swept over Louisville this week. Something like a quarter million people around Louisville are still without power. Things are apocalyptic. And my car has a branch on it. It makes you think. I can remember, lucidly, what he was like before he had a huge fucking branch on him. He's a 1996 Toyota Camry. He's got four doors that open, as well as close. The "y" is missing on the rear end, so when you ghost ride up from behind, my automobile [...]