The Domestic Life

SXSW 2008

Download
SXSW 2008 Radio (65 great songs from the SXSW website and beyond - 221 MB)
Just The Hits (Julia’s and Randy’s Top 15 songs from SXSW 2008 - 54 MB)

No, this isn’t an especially early preview of SXSW 2009. Julia and I really did take over two months to publish our SXSW 2008 review.

It was Julia’s first time, so I’ll let her summarize in her own words:

Sundrunk taco-fueled days, languid bean-fueled nights. Crowded thoroughfares, shoulder to shoulder with rock stars living the life and life stars living the rock.

Welcome to Julia and Randy co-authored review extravaganza.

Favorite Shows
Yeasayer
Bowerbirds
Best Friends Forever
Bon Iver
Land of Talk
A Place To Bury Strangers
Tim Fite

Runners-Up
Lucky Dragon
Duchess Says
Deer Tick
Ponytail
The Raveonettes
Hey Willpower

YACHT – The electrogenius behind The Blow’s last two albums who alternately channels Devo, T-Pain, and N.I.N.. Live he presses play on tape and goes into seizures.

Bowerbirds – Sparse melodies and sea shanty percussion reminiscent of dark children’s storybooks or a remote cabin in the wilderness with some birds chirping and a dash of summer rain. Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsome aren’t in this band, but you’d never know it.

The Raveonettes – So clean it’s dirty, clean as a bloody razor blade. Breathy vocals, surf guitar. A downbeat shoegaze band named like a garage band.

The Mae Shi – Blanket forts and candy tantrums. A rag-tag, electro spaz punk hive mind.

The Shout Out Louds – Like a mopier Swedish version of that part in Under Pressure when David Bowie sings “Why don’t we give ourselves one more chance?” Earnest dudes who couldn’t get in sang along through the slats in the fence.

Best Friends Forever – Sweet and sharp like hornets in your orange soda! The twee kids tried to get them kicked out of indie rock summer camp, but it backfired when they were discovered to be misunderstood geniuses. Outrageously amped like Watts at a Martin Luther King Day block party.

Soiled Mattresses – Absurdist shuffling band geeks with brass instruments and synths, shrieking like a vulture plowed down on the interstate; save it or shoot it? Muppets in a former life, reborn as autistic humans.

The Air Waves – A sparse Fender/Marshall indie rock minimal jangle with lilting vocals, as predictable but no less poignant than heartache, death, and taxes, led with an charming hesitation and insecurity.

The Black Ghosts – Snappiest drums and freshest synths, then this homeboy ambles onto the stage and busts out with the slickest soul vocal you’ve ever heard from a white dude. LA cocaine slamming electro with most of the pretension and meaninglessness filtered out.

The Dodos – This cocksure baby semi-asian knows he’s pretty enough to be a rockstar. Love lorn lyrics over hyperactive acoustic blues heavily reliant on delay pedal harmonies. His music was good, but he sure was a dipshit.

Bon Iver – A rich emotional blend of cobwebby folk, a signature crackling voice that had even more presence live. Bon Iver shares his sadness with a personal warmth.

Lykke Li – In the US this would just be cheesy teenybopper pop, but coming from Sweden it has depth, sophistication, and instrumentation with personality and subtlety. I overheard a White Southern devotee to the Gza say that he would like to ask this girl out on a dinner date.

A Place To Bury Strangers – Unchecked Brookyln gutter hipsterism unleashes a sudden torrent of post-My Bloody Valentine disaffected noise. He hunches over his guitar like a scarecrow with a broken spine. Photographers cluster like feeding mosquitoes. Leaves the candles burning all night long, and moves hot bitches like metronomes. Tightly wound and rhythmically fraught; a sensuous, frenzied, orgiastic wall of sound.

Panther – “We forgot our laptop, so we’re playing off an iphone. It’s so stupid.” Hip and grimy mood music by computer. Bad show, but awesome album – shifty soul rock.

Pig Out – Slow building techno by Electronic Garbage Pail Kids on a desert walkabout. Feels like when my fillings adhere to diamond hard candy and there’s de nada between the sugar and the nerve endings.

Tristan Perich – I met this guy before. He retrofitted a rotary phone to be his cell phone. He solders circuits to program his 1-bit-music, each board a different song. This time he was loud. He was playing drums 20’ away, and we couldn’t hear it over the amped cacophony. Silent helicopters went by overhead. You are in a cave with buzzing bees, these bees play Tetris.

Dynasty Handbag – Calling her the Danny DeVito to Peaches’s Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t do justice to her storied and disturbingly funny performance art. Think Strangers With Candy the musical. Takes on entire armed gangs with her ass!

Tim Fite – Southern Baptist Revival preacher gospel is just a hair away from hip hop bombast, as Tim Fite demonstrates by blending the two. Brought to you by “The Man With Itchy Legs.” Albums are free online, but it’s all about the live show.

RANDY INTERMISSION – IHEARTCOMIX VS. MAD DECENT AUSTIN BLOWOUT 2008 @ JELLY NYC's TEXAS GARAGE FEAT. THE NYLON/GUESS LOUNGE PRESENTED BY VIVA LA ROCK, SCION, & MONSTER ENERGY DRINK
A bizarre, Warriors-reminiscent, post-apocalyptic, sprawling party in a vast multi-tiered parking garage where 20-somethings indulged in all their vices: beer, Twister, Guitar Hero, DJing, shuffle board, popsicles, pools, fire pits, live video art, photobooths, and oh yeah hip bands. Like a combination of a Grateful Dead show and an LA after after party. It was kind of unendurable.

Deer Tick – Snaggletooth twangy folk rock band sporting plaid shirts and frizzy unkempt mops, chain smoking Winstons. Personal ballads custom made for holding your beer aloft with a stiff upper lip, like when the honky-tonk bar band catches you off guard by closing their set with something heartfelt and close to home. Lead singer totally made me do a double take. Did someone let my uncle Jerry from Detroit out on parole?

Shout Out Out Out – SXSW electro dance rock regulars who finally got what they wanted: a crowded club full of hipster dancers. Sadly they were too drunk to cement the hype with a signature solid set.

Yeasayer – Collective consciousness whipped up on the spot from scratch, with drums and harmonies sending messages up ahead along the trail deep into the forest. They capture and rework the hope of 60’s hippie jam music and inflect it with urgency and modern relevance. My spine ached for days from resonating so hard with this band.

The Virgins – An up-tempo post-coital cigarette. I thought they were this contemplative, light indie disco thing, but instead they turned out more like cheerful bar rock, with a Jonathan Richman sort of charming naivety.

Icy Demons – Their lead dude was a big burly man with fabrics and cat toys sewn into the front of his corduroys and a highly animate face. With Chicago jazz influence a la Hefty Records their infectious energy made them irresistible. Would you stop on the side of the road to give what is so obviously an escapee from the Fraggle-Rock Detainment Facility directions to SXSW? Kinda like a musical adaptation of My Side Of The Mountain, sorta like the dude crawled into a hollow tree for like fifteen years with an eight track and when at last he emerged he had one million grove raps about love, life, and socioeconomic disenfranchisement!

JULIA INTERMISSION - Hecuba
In case by some bizarre quirk of fate the aforementioned artiste happens across this review: let’s please, please, please, be friends! It is not to your discredit that you sound a bit like a feline in estrus, it is your art. Some memorable lyrics: “ I taste the red, I taste the blue, I taste the black, I taste the white, I taste the brown, I taste the Filipino, I taste the rainbow” “He is the mouse I am the cat, cover my cherry” “Money, money, money, money, money, come to me in my geodesic dome.” I am not in any way joking or telling lies, she is this awesome!

Lucky Dragons – At first he lurched around and mumbled, and we liked it but were a little worried for him. Then he invited a big group to hold rainbow knitted cords and touch each other’s skin to produce extraterrestrial, crystalline, whirring, popping, shrieking, cascading Kabuki electro harmonies. In short, we made beautiful music with our bodies. It was a lot like being under the parachute in kindergarten, but a version for angsty, jaded adults. Dear Mr. Dragon, when you start up your planned community/cult/spiritual retreat give me a call day or night.

Telepathe – A trio of cute girl dancers, they had kind of an icy cold, super spacey Kate Bush thing going on, with smooth playa-listic lead vocals.

Yellow Fever – Sprightly tomboys, wicked guitars, angular compositions, and strong feminine vocals, but not as much like late Raincoats as I’d hoped. Write lyrics about cows out to pasture and Steely Dan!

Santogold – Less lean and hungry than expected, a wink and a nod to everything edgy about her music, too squeaky clean and choreographed. American Apparel dressing room vibe. The rumor is that she’s been hand groomed through several incarnations.

Land of Talk – Cathartic release of hyper competent Fugazi girl rock merged with 90s alternative, a highly promising but previously unexplored branch of the evolutionary tree.

60 Watt Kid – The mp3s are really imaginative, but antirock freebase bullshit in a Liberace Jacket isn’t for everyone.

Half Japanese – Jad Fair looks like a melting witch and lumbers about like a shaved bear with glasses, and all his songs are about Rosemary’s Baby and getting a new bike in the third grade, as far as we can tell. Exhorted the crowd to throw all evil records on a fire and play with their piñata.

White Rabbit – Go all Great Gatsby on the hairdos and dress shirts. Tight sinister prep school rockings, occasionally lustrous.

Shy Child – Put some sexy Brooklyn boys in tight jeans and give them instruments like white Corvettes. Have them prance boisterously to aggressive keyboards and so forth.

Tokyo Police Club – Who’s the shy child now!? Acoustic only, but so sincere.

Devotchka – Slavic Chris Isack. Brut Essence Of Man Mariachi! If George Clooney had a band in a Robert Rodriguez movie, this would be it.

Die! Die! Die! – Table climbing, chair tipping, cord whipping punk rock, but more reinventive than we make it sound. Die! Die! Die! spit and kick on stage but require spectacles and reading materials for the flight back home.

Team Robespierre – The keyboards and mp3 made me worried they might be a dude with a MacBook, but turns out they were an uncompromising punk band complete with #1 fan (14 year old Korean orphan girl), all “Oy!” and songs about drinking and balls. “Legalize it cause I like it.”

Back Ted N Ted – At their best, they sound like the Shins over tight 80’s New Wave which is really something. You want to believe in them but can’t help but suspect their creativity is co-opted and they’re desperately trying to sell out.

Ponytail – It’s high time there was a band fronted by the Play Dough eater from Kindergarten where the only vocals are emotive screeching and wooing. Like this: AiiieeeeeyipyipyipiAiiieeee!!! ARRRGH AH AH AH! I believe our guttural harmonizing and singing along frightened several patrons from the establishment.

The So So Glos – We tried to see Afrobots, but since it was accidental punk rock night, and saw The Clash instead. In a good way. Why not?

Duchess Says – Frenzied sweat drenched femme punk debauchery, she crawled on the ground like the exorcist, and Julia dueted with her and broke my glasses and her microphone and it was noise core electro dance!

Hey Willpower – Indie gay Justin Timberlake? Hell yeah!

2007, My Year In Photos

I am the winner of being the latest! I bet I can post my best of lists in August next year!!

My 2007 Photo Gallery

2007, The Year In Music

What I was calling “hipster dance music” last year continued to gain momentum and monopolize my time – on the stereo, on the internet, and on the dance floors of sparkling LA clubs packed with stylishly-clad photo op seekers. I think there’s a decent chance that this genre, and the LA and NYC scenes in particular, will be regarded historically as exciting and influential little nuggets of musical culture, and for me it’s particularly great that the tense and high energy combination of pop, rock, and electronics I’ve always liked best has more presence than it’s had since 80’s New Wave, when I was, like, 7 years old.

Here’s a few of my favorite sample tracks from 2007:
Cribs - Men's Needs (CSS remix)
The Black Ghosts - Anyway You Choose To Give It (Boy 8 Bit remix)
Metronomy - Radio Ladio
Jape - Floating (Tronik Youth remix)
Bark Bark Bark - One Thing Stands
MIA - Boys (The Twelves remix)

If you want to hear more check out my DJ mixes, or these blogs…

Non stop dance tracks, mixes, and remixes :
http://this.bigstereo.net/
http://www.iheartcomix.com/
Dance but also rock and hip-hop, to ease you into it:
http://www.goodweatherforairstrikes.com/
http://www.pinglewood.com/
Less rock, more French house :
http://fluokids.blogspot.com/

Randy’s Favorite Albums of 2007
Living alone as a hyperactive bachelor in a vast, soulless, car-oriented city makes aggressive dance music resonate the most, but I had surplus time and energy for genres with a richer emotional palette.

Ghostland Observatory – Paparazzi Lightning
Perfectly crafted synth and guitar, as intense as angry sex, rife with rock swagger and the subtle, haunted loneliness of the 80’s Miami Vice soundtrack.

Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
A theatric electro, rock, and 60’s pop journal of surviving a nervous breakdown and a near-divorce during a winter in Norway, Of Montreal’s best work yet.

Snowden – Fuel of the Celebration
Demonstrates how remixing rock can sometimes make it more glossy and danceable while also enhancing its humanity.

Julie Sokolow – Something About Violins
Dry acoustic guitar and sad indie girl vocals that made me feel like I’d just heard What Would The Community Think for the first time again, only a bit more spare.

Santogold – I Believe In Santogold
Lean dancehall glowing with punk rock, like liquid blue lightning, alternately evokes No Doubt and M.I.A.. Full length this year.

Shout Out Louds – Our Ill Wills
The Cure taking some antidepressants that almost work (review courtesy Anna).

Justice – Cross
The infectious, 70’s sepia, distorted bastard sibling to Daft Punk’s glossy 80’s shimmer.

Chromeo – Fancy Footwork
Delivers the electro groove and funk that makes it mandatory material on every LA dancefloor.

Scissors For Lefty – Underhanded Romance
Hopefully after making my best albums list for 2 years in a row, you’re listening to this flirty, bright rock band.

Taken By Trees – Open Field
Playful vocal and piano driven indie lullabies by the chick who guest vocaled PB&J’s Young Folks.

Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals
Hippie groove with enough angst, edge, structure, and clarity to redeem it completely.

M.I.A. – Kala
She managed not to have a sophomore slump! Just as infectious and dangerous as the first album.

!!! – Myth Takes
Dissonant and glimmering indie dance rock attack.

Panda Bear – Person Pitch
Spacey, smart, and dreamy ambient experimental 60’s pop side project of Animal Collective.

Black Kids – Wizard of Ahhhs
Some kids from Florida who won over the internet by freely giving away 4 reverb drenched, tortured, poppy, super fresh indie rock songs.

Joan As Police Woman – Real Life
Brilliant Feist-esque, satiny, indie lounge with beautiful female vocals.

Ween – La Cucaracha
The first Ween album of the past several that is as light and energetic in its sound as its lyrics are shrewdly degenerate.

LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
A dance rock band of some renown with a rather good second album.

Feist – The Reminder
Perhaps you saw her on billboards or ipod commercials in airports.

Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
Whoops, my heart just broke listening to this lonely, cold, distant, rhythmic indie folk.

Some Honorable Mentions:
We Are Wolves – Total Magique
Band of Horses – Cease to Begin
Pinback – Autumn of the Seraphs
Calvin Harris – I Created Disco
Picastro – Whore Luck

Favorite Trashy Pop Songs of 2007

And, lastly, the radio is fun.

Lloyd – Get It Shawty
Timbaland – Way I Are
Gwen Stefani – The Sweet Escape
Will.I.Am – I Got It From My Mama
Justin Timberlake – LoveStoned/I Think She Knows
Cassie – Is It You
Keyshia Cole – Let It Go
Fergie - Clumsy
Sean Kingston – Beautiful Girls
50 Cent – Ayo Technology
Akon – Sorry Blame It On Me
Pittsburgh Slim – Girls Kiss Girls

Peace out til SXSW!

Union Station

Nestled beneath the antique skyline of downtown, cradled by twisting pedestrian streets, Union Station is an archeological testament to the Los Angeles that could have been. Its opulent architecture seems an optimistic, manifest destiny echo of Grand Central; its throne-like, art deco waiting chairs represent the ideal of community emerging from public service. The spacious courtyards are mostly empty, though, and since Amtrak is the new Greyhound, Union Station’s present fate is to be home to the shadow population of Los Angeles, those who have inherited downtown after the close of business. Stranded 15 miles from the Pacific, downtown Los Angeles was doomed from groundbreaking to fail at being the center of anything, but today it lives on as a museum of an alternate history, and a really fun place to kick it after hours.

Also, Theron and Wren are fun to hang out with.

Go Speed Racer Go!

I've never felt so popular. Everyone likes to recognize Speed Racer!
Unicron = Amanda = the best!
and now featuring: Trixie = Natalie = the best!