NO-CORE blog

Doomsday Student at 285 Kent

I caught this awesome, slightly mixed-bill show last Thursday. Doomsday Student, the sorta-resurrected Arab on Radar was the main draw for me and I’ll jump straight to the main takeaway: They’re amazing. But everyone else was great too, so let me start from the beginning.

Bananas on Strings at 285 Kent

The first act was billed as Ramble Tamble, which is Turner of Guardian Alien’s project with a drummer, but apparently it expanded to include a whole list of guest stars and became a new band called Bananas on Strings. They went straight for a deep and heavy psychedelic rock, like Acid Mothers Temple minus the rock riffs and any of the quiet parts. The lynchpin here was drummer Adam Autry (of Olneyville Sound System fame) who was able to punch through the thick sound and keep things driving ahead with rolling, off-kilter beats.

Dan Friel at 285 Kent

Then Dan Friel did his thing, which is maximally loud and distorted, but also very melodic and tuneful keyboard music. The rhythms are generally huge, crunching sounds but the lead keyboard lines are usually the type of tunes you could easily whistle while you work. There’s headbanging. 285 Kent’s sound system is booming, but not always really clear, which worked perfectly for Dan Friel.

Doomsday Student at 285 Kent

And then Doomsday Student was up. This band is most of Arab on Radar and a member of the post-Arab on Radar band Chinese Stars. Now, I don’t know the whole back story, nor is it fair to dwell on it, but Arab on Radar reunited, broke up again, and then this band was formed minus one original member. There’s a new name and all-new material, but it’s impossible to ignore that this is essentially the new Arab on Radar. So for those of us who fondly remember that band and their cathartic live performances, the main question is how does Doomsday Student measure up? I am happy to report that they are every bit as great. None of the energy is missing. Here’s some video I took of them. The sound is terrible but the video is good.

The anti-melodic guitars, the looping dance-unfriendly beats, the nasally shrieked vocals (all imitated by almost every No Wavey band since AoR). I want to compliment them on the unified look, something I like in a band. Doomsday Student all wore black t-shirts and pants and matching orange sneakers. A band in uniform says that they’re here to do a job, or perhaps go into battle. I also appreciate the stark light show, all the house lights down and 2 very bright industrial lights on the floor. It makes for great photos. (to see more of the photos I took, go to the Flickr account, starting here.)

Doomsday Student at 285 Kent

Doomsday Student at 285 Kent

After Doomsday Student was Ed Schrader’s Music Beat. I’d heard this band mentioned, but hadn’t seen them play before this.

Ed Schrader's Music Beat at 285 Kent

I was really impressed by these guys. They had very minimal instrumentation, just a single floor tom and a bass, but they managed to be totally captivating just by having really great, simple songs and a strong performance. Maybe this is what the Violent Femmes would sound like if they formed in Baltimore in the year 2012? Well, these guys seem way more punk, but I’m trying to get you in the ballpark.

Pardalince Bird at 285 Kent

Dan Deacon’s Pardalince Bird project went on last, despite originally being scheduled to go first. There were some lengthy technical difficulties getting all the 4 channels of sound working too. Then as Dan explained, this would have made a lot more sense if it had happened first since it’s really background stuff, steady synth drones with occasional moany vocals. Lots of digital notes floating up and down scales. So scheduling and circumstances conspired to make this a sort of anticlimactic finish, but I’m not going to complain when this many good acts can be put together on one bill.

Ironing in Gainesville

Just a quick note that I’m down in Miami at the International Noise Conference and I’m trying to catch some photo and video to share. You can follow No-Core on Twitter and I’ll probably be posting up some comments during the show. My own project Radio Shock plays on Saturday around midnight, surrounded by countless other amazing bands.

Mine Canary at pre-INC show in St.Petersburg

I was at a couple of the pre-INC shows in St. Petersburg and in Gainesville, and both were awesome fun with amazing acts. Mine Canary, pictured above were a highlight in St. Pete, doing hyper beats with bent electronic toys. Another highlight in St. Pete was Tree (see video) who played drums and some kind of rack mount oscillator thingamajig at the same time.

There is a set of photos at No-Core on Flickr - a few of my favorites below:

Not sure who this was at pre-INC show in Gainesville

Names Divine at pre-INC show in Gainesville

Drums Like Machine Guns at pre-INC show in Gainesville

Leslie Keffer, accomplished noise-maker and scene reporter (at her Noisebloid blog) is putting out her next LP via pre-orders on Kickstarter. I’ll admit to initially having mixed feelings about Kickstarter, but if you use it like this, then it’s a pretty cool thing. You’re basically just pre-ordering some awesome music, with lots of packages at different price scales, and with reassurance that your money won’t just disappear. You can get the mp3 version of the new album for just $5!

Sightings w Tom Smith at Death by Audio

I showed up to this show and the place was, surprisingly to me, already full. Sometimes shows that are can’t-miss line-ups of legends in my mind have single-digit attendance so I’m not really able to predict these things. But I was happy to see that these bands are apparently not just legends to me.

I completely missed the first act, which was Tom Smith and Don Fleming playing together. Don Fleming is a longtime NYC avant-rocker and Tom Smith is best known as the central figure from the post-music band To Live And Shave In L.A. Tom currently resides in Germany and was briefly in the states around the holidays, playing a few select shows. So I’m sad to have missed their performance.

The second band, Child Abuse, was going on. No photos, I was in the back of the room and they wouldn’t have been good anyway. Child Abuse are a bass drums keyboard trio who play metally brutal prog. Very technical, very tight, but with very messy and grungy sounds. It’s funny actually, most of the time the keyboard sounds like a distorted bass and the bass (run through some synth pedals I’m guessing) sounds like a keyboard. They were as great as ever.

Then the anti-rock, max-confusion band Fat Worm of Error was up!

Fat Worm of Error at Death by Audio

Notice how it’s not even clear what’s going on in this photo? That’s how they sound, but much moreso. Of course 5 people just noodling and doing separate things would be pretty boring. Okay, maybe I’d think that was pretty cool too, but what makes Fat Worm really mind-bending is the way they have a plan and they’ve really honed their own style of playing – in a way that sounds like chaos at almost every moment. Until both guitarists suddenly play the same sequence of notes exactly together and your brain twists 360 degrees in your head in an attempt to figure out what just happened. More Fat Worm photos:

Fat Worm of Error after one of a few costume changes

Fat Worm of Error, feeling it at Death by Audio

I spent a little time chatting in the back room and realized this was almost like a reunion (to me) of people from a show waaay back – at the Polish National Home, now known as the Club Warsaw. Maybe I’ll write all my recollections from that show someday, but it’s where I first met lots of the people playing or in the audience. Anyway, with all these long-time friends and acquaintances in attendance, there was definitely a very friendly and supportive vibe going on. You could tell from all the chatting and joking and cheers, but also from the huge smile on Tom’s face between songs.

Tom Smith with Sightings at Death by Audio

Mark Morgan's guitar moves

Sightings were doing their thing, sounding as focused (yet blurred) as ever. I was told there was exactly one practice for this show but it would have been hard to guess they hadn’t been playing this set for a month on tour. Everyone seemed 100% in command, holding back or cutting loose exactly when needed with no nervous or puzzled glances. It’s a pretty perfect pairing too, Sightings and Tom Smith, as they both work in a similar mode: composed but loose, planned but spontaneous. Sightings works with sound shards and Tom works with words, both of them stretching their material to the breaking point.

Sightings w Tom Smith at Death by Audio

Mark Morgan of Sightings, bending spacetime

Sightings w Tom Smith (and Pat Murano!)

Oh yeah, this fellow named Pat Murano also played with these guys. You can see him lurking behind that synth in the photo above. I can’t say too much about his playing, which is probably a good thing because it means it blended right into the Sightings vibe.

The set was short but satisfying. Definitely worth catching, but if you missed it some people seemed to be videotaping and recording so hopefully that will turn up online soon. Great show all around!

Even more photos over at the NO-CORE Flickr.

Hey. I have a blog. That means I get to do one of those goofy “best of 2011″ lists! Okay, so this is pretty much a list of every album I got in 2011, but all of these rule. More caveats: They are in no particular order. I’m sure there’s other good stuff I didn’t hear, but I’m pretty confident if I listened to anyone else’s best-of list, these would still come out on top. **UPDATE: now with links, several are free downloads**

Meager Sunlight/Skeleton Warrior split 12″

I’ve definitely listened to this record repeatedly the most times this year, just flipping and flipping it. One side dark synth jams that could have literally been major radio hits in 1988. Other side mutant synth jams part DEVO, part Oingo Boingo, part bizarro.
Get it from Hot Releases or More Records.

Unicorn Hard-On/Container split 12″

Unicorn Hard-On’s track “Persian Cats” is just about song of the year and makes this split worth it alone. the other UHO track is great too and Container does “minimal techno” or maybe “fake techno” AKA the genre that noise became in 2011.
Also from More Records and Hot Releases.

AIDS Wolf “Ma vie banale avant-garde”

Epic abstract harsh guitar tracks. Still torch-carriers of the no wave bad vibes.
Get it from Lovepump (free download by mailing SASE).

Mincemeat or Tenspeed “Games of Chance”

Best Mincemeat or Tenspeed album? More headbanging noise but freakier sounds and tighter changes. Davey (dude behind this project) calls this “fake techno” too but uh… this would definitely still be half on the noise side of the fence.
Get it from Harshnice.

White Suns “Waking in the Reservoir”

Ah, a refreshing blast of negative noise-grind-dirge to wash yourself clean from all that reverbey indie-hippie nonsense.
Get it from ugExplode.

Dead Rider “The Raw Dents”

Slick and skilled and unsettling and really kinda OFF in a weird way – all at the same time.
Get it from Tizona.

Gay Beast “To Smithereens”

As good as their last one “second wave” but this seems to have been overlooked by most people, maybe because the band split up before it came out and weren’t able to support & promote it. Compositionally ambitious prog/no wave.
Get it from Skin Graft.

Black Pus “Primordial Pus”

Rocking drum-n-noise numbers. Kind of unhinged and spontaneous compared to the Black Pus 4 album, but with more blood sweat and tears.
Get it from Load Records.

Dick Neff “Dunce Slap”

Okay, apologies to Black Pus, but I think Dick Neff one-upped him at the one-drummer-noise-band thing. Lance (dude behind this project) calls this “fake metal” and it is heavy. Triggered synth tones fight each other as he drums like a maniac and everybody wins! The heaviest metal band that’s neither metal nor band.
Get it from Lance himself, I guess whenever you see him somewhere.

Mutwawa “Mayan Mutations”

Totally ruling merger of beats, noise, samples with a sci-fi/conspiracy theme. Sinister and tense and mind-blowing awesome.
Download it free from Free Music Archive.

Skoal Kodiak “Kryptonym Bodliak”

This is like what I was hoping !!! would sound like, but didn’t. Post-apocalyptic funk played by mutants and malfunctioning robots.
Get it from Load Records.

Dog Leather “Greezy Man and Stinky Man”

So this album did seem kind of short and half the tracks felt a little like filler, but the meat of it was still great even if it’s really sort of an EP. It’s probably too much to hope that this heralds a return of the goofball pseudo-music noise bands – last heard from around the time when we had Danse Asshole, Meerk Puffy, Wolf Eyes’ first album on Bulb… But I can dream!
Get it from Ehse Records (free download available).

Satanized “Technical Virginity”

Pretty much no one else touching this caliber of complex, skilled, aggressive music today  (outside of metal).
Get it from Skin Graft.

Doomsday Student “A Jumper’s Handbook”

Most of the Arab on Radar crew reunite and make what’s basically more Arab on Radar music. Nary a disco beat in sight, just atonality, dissonance, shrill shrieky guitars and voices. Yeah, it’s been done, but it was done by most of these same guys and I kind of wish there were more people making this music so welcome back boys.
Get it from Anchor Brain.

Men’s Room tape

Like HEALTH in an AmRep world or something. Way, way blown out and effected-into-oblivion guitars with rock drums and unintelligible vocals. Sounds kind of like garage rock pushed into the red until it becomes industrial noise.
Download it free from Bandcamp.

last second entry: Bloodhuff tape

Just grabbed this tape literally yesterday! Some Providence noise girls doing something sort of like punk rock. Every once in a while something like this convinces me that maybe punk rock is still a good idea. The sound is pretty subterranean and the vocals are almost strangely prominent but the weirdness of the sound only helps. Urgent and weird and spooky. Hard to say if something I only listened to once yesterday has earned its place on a “best of” list, but I’ve got a hunch this is better than that Iceage album everyone raves about but I still haven’t heard.
Get it from Price Tapes (free download available).

In honor of CMJ weekend here in NYC, I present the final part in my series of posts (see Part 1 and Part 2) , wherein I listened to bands I’d heard “buzz” about among an airline’s “Alternative” listening selections and wrote down my impressions. (It was a long flight) These first 2 selections don’t count as indie rock I don’t think, but I had heard the names so I gave them a listen.

You Me At Six

30 Seconds to Mars

Beach House

Yeasayer

MGMT

The Hold Steady

Foot Village, the all-drumming-and-shouting-and-nothing-else band, starts an east coast tour today with their appearance at the All Tomorrow’s Parties event in Jersey! And they’ve made this fun little tour commercial:

The rest of the dates are as follows, including a Brooklyn show next weekend!

Mon 3 – Baltimore, MD @ Floristree
Tue 4 – Greensboro, NC @ CFBJ with Ear Pwr
Wed 5 – Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class with Cloud Nothings
Thurs 6 – Columbus, OH @ Skylab
Fri 7 Philadelphia, PA @ Pi Lam with Dustin Wong
Sat 8 – Providence, RI @ AS220
Sun 9 – Brooklyn, NY @ Death By Audio

I got these tour dates in my email and my first reaction was “Huh, why is this person sending this to me?” but then I thought “Oh wait, I do a blog! Maybe this is one of those promotional things!” along with “It sure would be great if all the bands I liked emailed me their tour dates so I don’t have to pay attention to Facebook.” And so to encourage y’all to do just that, I am presenting here AIDS Wolf’s fall tour dates! Several of these are with the awesome Unicorn Hard-On, whom I’ve raved about plenty before. (AIDS Wolf video at the bottom)

10/20/11 – Brooklyn, NY @ Death By Audio
10/21/11 – Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class
10/22/11 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
10/23/11 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
10/24/11 – Iowa City, IA @ Gabe’s Oasis
10/25/11 – Lawrence, KS @ Replay Lounge
10/26/11 – Normal, OK @ Opolis
10/27/11 – Austin, TX @ 29th St. Ballroom @ Spide
10/28/11 – Denton, TX @ Rubberglove
10/29/11 – Hot Springs, AR @ tba
10/30/11 – Birmingham AL @ Firehouse
10/31/11 – Athens, GA @ Farm 255

11/3/11 – Miami, FL @ Churchill’s
11/4/11 – Tampa, FL @ Crowbar
11/5/11 – Orlando, FL @ Will’s Pub
11/6/11 – Atlanta, GA @ 529
11/7/11 – Chapel Hill, NC @ Nightlight
11/8/11 – Harrisonburg, VA @ Festival Ballroom at JMU

11/10/11 – Washington DC @ Comet Ping Pong
11/11/11 – New York, NY @ 92Y Tribeca
11/12/11 – Binghamton, NY @ Pajama Kazama
11/13/11 – Boston, MA @ Church of Boston

All October dates w/ Henry and Hazel Slaughter; all November dates &
Halloween show w/ Unicorn Hard-On

And here’s AIDS Wolf playing a song at their practice space:

Yes, it continues! Though I’m not really into doing negative reviews, I decided to finish posting the rest of this. On an international flight last summer I browsed the in-flight radio’s Alternative options and listened to bands I’d heard “buzz” about, writing down my impressions. I mean, there must be something among all those hyped indie bands that’s worth checking out, right? (SPOILER: Wrong.) Here’s a link to PART 1, in which I was disappointed by Dirty Projectors, White Denim, Passion Pit, Gossip, and Grizzly Bear. As explained in part 1, this should be taken as entertainment only. Here goes:

Kings of Convenience

Kings of Convenience “Declaration of Dependence” – I feel like I’ve heard of this but not sure. The band photo looks like the guys who got beat up in high school by Simon & Garfunkel. I’ll give this a few minutes. Oh wow, it SOUNDS like the guys who got beat up by Simon & Garfunkel. This makes Scarborough Faire sound like AC/DC. They even sound bored with the music themselves. Yup, every song is the same. Next.

The XX

The XX “x” – Oh no, I think this was something like the “buzzed about band of CMJ.” I don’t know if I can do this to myself… and you just know this band wanted to name themselves ‘X’ and then was like “What do you mean there’s already a band called ‘X’? Okay, then we’ll be ‘THE X’ … There is? You’re kidding me. Okay, ‘The XX” will have to do I guess…” Here goes: Oh, come on! You’re kidding me. This is exactly the same adult contemporary alterna-rock that’s been boring since 1995. Sounds basically like 10,000 Maniacs. I had this faint hope that this would actually be a rock band and surprise me. At least it doesn’t have the faux-feeling-it falsetto vocals, but that’s about the only redeeming feature here. Painfully boring and bland.

Hot Chip

Hot Chip “One Life Stand” – Another frequently mentioned band. I thought this would at least be a synth-pop guilty pleasure like The Faint or something. No such luck. Breathy sub-crooning and basically the same soft-rock music as all the others, even if it is technically “electronic.” The songs are slightly more memorable than the rest, and so far this comes out as my “favorite” by a narrow margin. Makes The Faint look like The Jesus Lizard.

Local Natives

Local Natives “Gorilla Manor” – More promising band photo? At least one of them is smiling and the others aren’t explicitly moping. Starts with that same sparkly U2 guitar schmutz, and pretty much continues in that vein. Like we really needed a (further) watered-down version of U2. Not much different from anything else I’ve heard so far.

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend “Contra” – Not too different from Paul Simon’s “Graceland” – right down to the vocal delivery which sounds like an indie boy’s best attempt at impersonating Paul Simon.

To be continued! Yes, there’s more… I’ll be sure to post up some awesomeness and positivity before the next round.

taken at the Dog Leather show at Silent Barn

In case you hadn’t heard, the DIY music and art venue The Silent Barn has fallen on hard times. This place, located in Ridgewood, Queens (just beyond Bushwick, Brooklyn) has been the place I’ve most frequently gone to see shows. They’ve hosted some fantastic events I’ve helped organize, like 2 Int’l Noise Conference On Tour shows. They’ve been huge supporters of noise/weirdness music. It’s the venue I’ve felt most at home at.

Over this past weekend the Silent Barn was burgled, ransacked, and vandalized. They estimate that $15,000 worth of sound equipment was stolen, not including personal items. (The cats are safe!) On top of this, there are further legal challenges. As a DIY space, the Silent Barn would have to make huge investments in money and time to recover and operate as a legit, secure, fire code compliant and legal space. I am overjoyed to announce that the Silent Barn operators are NOT packing up, but are taking this opportunity to make that goal a reality. Now you can help! You can donate to the cause via Kickstarter. I INSIST that you give if you can. You can hit that link or see the widget at the bottom of this post.

…and now at the risk of getting really sappy. The people running the Silent Barn have not been doing it to make money. They are all genuinely nice people who have just wanted to create special and memorable events and a sense of community. A situation like this can be incredibly disheartening, and can make one feel like everything you’ve invested in and worked toward has been destroyed. That is not true. When you make investments in friends and community, that cannot be stolen. The Silent Barn is not just a place for kids to party, places like this make the city a richer, more attractive, and safer place to live. Mayor Bloomberg should be handing them a check every week for the service they provide. The Silent Barn is asking for $40,000. Let’s blow that out of the water. Let’s make that thing hit $100,000. It appeared this morning and as of this moment is already at almost $6,000 and accelerating! If you cannot give money but live in the NYC area, you may be able to donate supplies or manual labor. Email silentbarn@gmail.com to be placed on the “willing to help” mailing list.

Some reviews I’ve written of shows at the Silent Barn are HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.