Dan Kern THE HOWLING HEX Wilson Semiconductors Drag City Drag City tries to market the Howling Hex as "the New Border Sound." And I wish that were a bit more true—Neil Hagerty's decade-old project does occasionally dip into the Tex-Mex stylings of, say, the Sir Douglas Quintet or Sam the Sham, but never with the transformative enthusiasm of the Stones adoration he preached during his Royal Trux days. On this album, he's pared down the Howling Hex lineup to just guitar, bass and his voice (though I swear there's [...]
Neil Hagerty continua imperterrito a fare la sua cosa, fottendosene altamente di critiche e stroncature. D'altronde, ad un ex (?) tossico che vive nel deserto del Messico cosa gliene può importare di una bocciatura su Pitchfork? Neanche ce l'avrà la connessione internet. Per chi non lo sapesse – e se non lo sapete che peste vi colga – stiamo parlando della figura maschile (quella femminile è Jennifer Herrema , anche lei fuori col suo nuovo progetto Black Bananas ) degli ormai defunti Royal Trux , terroristi sonici che provarono a riscrivere – riuscendoci – il r'n'r [...]
The Howling Hex are an irregular, long-winded band. Good luck predicting where the guitars go next. The Howling Hex like to play with guitars, mashing together and overlaying different patterns of notes that can appear at times only tangentially related. Their new album, Wilson Semiconductors, contains little percussion and only occasional vocals. The singing - more of a place holder between guitar bouts than anything else -- is often limited to repetition of simple phrases. At four songs and around 33 minutes, the album doesn't have much structure, with songs starting...
Neil Micheal Hagerty, erstwhile Royal Trux man, here convenes a pared down unit to experiment and chase the tail of noodly bizarro rock. It's an odd confection – part Zappa wilful difficulty, part genuinely outsider remnant. Four long rambles constitute this LP, and while it hasn't inspired reams of love around here, it does have a resonance, nay, even a charm. Hegarty appears to be one charming cat, one that will make you laugh while picking your pocket. It reminds us of some of the stuff coming out on Shimmy Disc twenty years ago, and that stuff just doesn't date. [...]
Every day, Daily Downloads offers 10 free and legal mp3 downloads, plus free and legal live sets from around the internet. Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: The Howling Hex : "Apocryphal East North Text" [mp3] from Victory Chimp, a Book (out June 22nd) search for more Howling Hex posts at Largehearted Boy Idiot Glee [...]
Here's what hit the Bloggins newswire this weekend... According to his Twitter , Neil Hamburger was forcibly removed from the Reading Festival after only 12 minutes... for his own safety. The crowd didn't take kindly to Hamburger's meta jokes, and Reading, supposedly, was close to a riot (of the non-laughter variety). Glad I'm not a betting man, because I wouldn've put my money on the riots happening at the I Have a Nightmare rally in DC this weekend, not a Neil Hamburger variety show. Expanding CVs and MOs, Lightning Bolt [...]
Feb 26, 2010, 12:12pm
MBV
Born Ruffians - "Sole Brother" My grandfather is a bit senile and will often call me up and just start singing. Huge long songs that have no discernible consistency, no melody that I can follow, the one thing they are for sure is impenetrable. He barely takes a breath, there's no room to speak on my end at all. So after a few minutes of singing, I will get bored, and either join in, or just talk over it, shout over it, anything to try and break through. He often just sings on oblivious, but one time [...]
Too many good shows Friday to name, but we'll hit up the highlights. If you don't see live music in Austin on Friday, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore. Really. Bonnie Prince Billy , Howling Hex @ The Mohawk - Tickets Animal Collectiv e DJ Set @ Waterloo Records @ 5 PM - Free Animal Collective, Black Dice @ Stubbs - [...]
The spookiest day of the year is here, and since there's no upcoming Batman movie to hype (yet), I'm gonna recommend a novel. Richard Brautigan's The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western is not necessarily more spooky than Trout Fishing in America or Sombrero Fallout , but if you've recently read Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree , why not? It's as much a Western as it is a Horror novel, but it's not really either in anyway that fevered [...]
I'm a week late with this post. I get so absorbed with trying to listen to everything that's sent my way..... Noteworthy Albums Released on 9/23/08: Records I've Heard: Brightblack Morning Light : Motion to Rejoin (Matador) – They don't seem to play LA ever since his meltdown at the Troubadour a couple of years ago. No loss, the music's average, neo-hippie stuff that we have our fair share of. MP3: Oppressions Each [...]
This month seems to just improve significantly from week to week in terms of new releases, as once again we're overwhelmed with some great albums. Many of which come from some well known names including TV on the Radio's latest, Dear Science ; Jenny Lewis' second solo effort, Acid Tongue ; Mogwai's The Hawk is Howling , and Blitzen Trapper's Furr . There are also a couple of albums from some lesser known bands that have piqued my interest after hearing a couple of songs [...]
A partial list, anyway. I forgot to do this last week. Shame on me. Shiny popsters All Girl Summer Fun Band finally follow up 2003's 2 with one called Looking Into It . The laid-back, jammy sounds of Brightblack Morning Light return on their third record, Motion to Rejoin . Low-fi pop dude Owen Ashworth, aka Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is putting out a mostly instrumental soundtrack entitled Town Topic . Badass strutters Cold War Kids come back for a second round on [...]
There is perhaps no other time in a man's life when he so scrutinizes the stuff his idols are made of than when he's making a list of potential names for his firstborn child. We've come to an informal agreement that I'm in charge of coming up with male names, and Nicole's handling female names. It might seem a little sexist on the surface, but, y'know, Nicole didn't spend the better part of her pre-adolescence thinking up names she'd rather be called than Emmet *. Well, I hope she didn't. That would be kinda disturbing if she did. [...]
Another year , another new Howling Hex record! This one's called Earth Junk , and it's a ten track affair chock full of waltz time signatures and a Southwestern sound informed to an extent by the Austin, Texas locale in which it was created. It's due September 23 from Drag City . The Hex are curiously without any forthcoming tour dates, though you can see the band in a Neil Michael Hagerty-directed film tomorrow evening (September 13) at New York's Millennium [...]
Earth Junk is the name of the album, due out on the 23rd of this September-y month. Drag City 's got a track up, get it while you can. They don't usually leave mp3's up for more than a month. It's been about a year since their last LP, XI , which is a long time between releases for Neil Hagerty. For the last ten years or so, going back to the Accelerator album from Royal Trux, NMH has routinely let loose two, sometimes three releases per [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: David Grubbs : "An Optimist Declines" [mp3] from An Optimist Notes the Dusk (out September 23rd) other David Grubbs posts at Largehearted Boy The Donkeys : "Nice Train" [mp3] from Living on the Other Side (out September 9th) The Donkeys : "Walking Through a Cloud" [mp3] [...]
I've already said a ton about the Howling Hex and their new album XI , so I'm gonna shut up now. Except to say that if you like the riff from "American Woman", or hate it, you'll dig "FDJBG". mp3: " Fifth Dimensional Johnny B. Goode " by the Howling Hex If you're still trying to get your holiday shopping done, and I--or someone who thinks like I--happen to be on your list, here's some ideas. [...]
I've actually got a recording of what it sounds like outside my window, but when I had to retool my computer, I lost the software I needed to y'know, upload my recordings. I wasted a whole afternoon looking for it, but with no luck. I'll find a way though. I always do. All the same, you can probably get an idea of what it sounds like outside my window . As you can see, it's not raining today. That makes it a good day. If you know my sister, call her and wish her a happy birthday! [...]
Strange Eyes by Sunz Of Man, 12 O'Clock & Blue ( buy ) Never Say Never by Queens of the Stone Age ( buy ) Pause by Sudden Ensemble ( buy ) My Painted Tomb by Sun City Girls (Out of Print) Who Will Be The One? by Bill [...]
Strange Eyes by Sunz Of Man, 12 O'Clock & Blue ( buy ) Never Say Never by Queens of the Stone Age ( buy ) Pause by Sudden Ensemble ( buy ) My Painted Tomb by Sun City Girls (Out of Print) Who Will Be The One? by Bill [...]
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The Corner Laughers “Poppy Seeds”
