"Dreaming Casually" by Thee Midniters slows me down in a good way. This song starts off all a-shimmer and just slinks its way into your brain. It's smooth, warm, like a piece of polished obsidian. Thee Midniters came out of East L.A. and are considered the first "chicano rock" band. They had a couple of hits. but like many other chicano acts that were uneasily categorized, they never hit it super big. I was listening recently to an interview with Sixto Rodriguez (I'm currently obsessed with [...]
Thee Midniters may have been just another influential, but largely forgotten early rock band; that is, if they hadn't been social pioneers. Coming out East L.A. in the 1960's, Thee Midniters blended gritty Motown sounds with the chaos emanating from those freaky English guys like the Stones and The Who. The difference with Thee Midniters is that they were not only Chicano, but they were more than happy to tell you about it. After building a deep and multi-racial fan base around L.A., the band broke nationally with a cover of [...]
It seems about time for another blast from the jukebox, so here are 5 more fun and fuzzy bits of rock's past. Pretty much straight garage fodder this week, heavy on the sneer and completely essential. [MP3] Thee Midniters - Jump, Jive & Harmonize L.A. rockers Thee Midniters work their way through the soul-blues maneuvers like old pros. A crash of rhythm and some blues harp wailing in the background all with that heavy fuzz riff holding it all together. [MP3] The Little Boy [...]
1. The Whitefield Brothers - In The Raw (Buy) Label: Now Again Whitefield Brothers - In The Raw 2.) Death - For The Whole World To See (Buy) Label: Drag City Death - Keep On Knocking 3. The Beatles - Stereo Box Set (Buy) [...]
The Girls played their wonderful fuzz-pop hooks while flash bulbs flickered and I yawned myself into a coma. I appreciate it if a band even manages to smile while playing live—something that shows they're even enjoying the show themselves. Nope, sorry, we're the Dum Dum Girls, and it's best we stay as stoic as the vocals of the phenomenal Iggy Pop album from which we swiped our name. Sister Midnight is back, and she brings us girls in too-short dresses and black tights, and it was stupid. And I quit. Good night.
THEE MIDNITERS - IT'LL NEVER BE OVER FOR ME FOR MY RAZA
I caught up with some L.A. RECORD peeps at the Echo's No Culture show last week, but not before catching up with Lucky Dragons, owners of one of my few whole-souled enthusiasms on the current SoCal scene. The rara avis duo of Luke Fischbeck and Sara Rara don't so much give performances of their Minkowski Space postrock as collaborate with the audience and they did so tonight, passing out various tone-making apparatus to rapt ones sitting semicircle on the concrete floor. They view the craft of song the same way long-gone late-'70s postpunk experimentalists the Swell Maps did—as [...]
Thee Midniters: Jump, Jive and Harmonize + Hey Little Girl From In Thee Midnite Hour (Norton, 2006) Thee Midniters: That's All From Giants (Whittier, 1967). Also available on their Greatest Hits . Since I've been in L.A., I've tried to start learning about the bands with local roots down here and one name that kept popping up was Thee Midniters. I quickly learned why: they were the Chicano rock n' roll [...]
Holy schnack there's a new Fleshtones ( myspace ) record. Take a Good Look! It's a blast, natch, the Queens-born band mixing jokes and rants and some matter-of-fact street balladry. Dropping wisdom, trou. In "Going Back to School" there's the wonderful "I gotta get me an edumacation/I gotta learn some final thing/And then I'll write a little poem for you." Peter Zaremba screeds in the title track about "living in the middle of a hipster overspill" and how the "tattoo-covered goateed sarcasm-wearing motherfucking friend" you're talking to [...]
There was a time it would have been impossible to think about a New York without Tower Records; now it’s going to be hard to miss. Yes, it’s just a chain store, and yes, it was a West Coast institution long before it got to the Village.&
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