Download each of the past shows as well, while you’re at it. They’re each about an hour and might even be almost as good as this one:
Download Show #5
Download Show #4
Download Show #3
Download Show #2
Download Show #1
DJ La Lengua just posted her new podcast of the excellent Ribbon Around A Bomb radio show, this time 100% female-fronted punk and noise from San Francisco, and with a new interview w/ Mia and Deanna from Frightwig.
Click the link, look at the photos, download the podcast. It’s just that easy.
SPRAY PAINT’s two 45s from 2012 were so hard to track down online – both in physical and digital formats – that the only way I’d heard this song, “Spock Fingers”, from their second single was on a radio show podcast (not mine). Today their new album hit the digital shelves, and the problem is rectified. I’m planning on listening to it on the drive home today, and will provide a full scene report on it posthaste (i.e after the weekend).
It’s so rare for rock-scene-oriented friends to see me at a live show, much less one in Oakland, vs. my hometown of San Francisco. One pal of 23 years who saw me at last night’s BILL DIREEN live show at Oakland’s White Horse Inn asked me if I’d moved to Oakland. Otherwise why would I be out there on a weeknight, right? I get it. This is what happens when you hit the comfort years.
You also pay money to see guys like New Zealand legend BILL DIREEN once you hit the comfort years, a man who outdistances even me in age by at least 10 years. I’ll let you read about the man here, so I don’t have to explain his pedigree and all the weird and insular kiwi-pop/noise/art records he put out in the 80s. MUSK opened the show – a loud, livewire dirty blues/punk band in the ear-shredding Chrome Cranks/Gun Club tradition. Most pleasing to behold.
LITTLE QUEENIE, a local band whom I totally expected from their name to be some dum-dum Gearhead hot rod band singing about mopars and drag racing, were pretty much the exact opposite: A wiry, two-bass, spasmodic post punk band who came rushing on like feedtime and The Gordons, and blasted through a great pack of two-minute songs in about 18 minutes. What’s more, they sported a rare THREE-GLASSES ATTACK up front: both bass players and the singer were rocking specs. The better with which to see you, my dear. Outstanding stuff – hear more here.
BILL DIREEN, whom I saw play a similar set back around 1993 in San Francisco, stepped up and strummed solo to a somewhat befuddled crowd. His playing and his word-poetry often seemed stream of consciousness, and when he played songs we knew, it was sorta the way Bob Dylan plays his 1960s songs live. Only the words and some occasional chords give up the ghost that this is a song you’ve actually heard before. Direen certainly exists in his own world, and plays the eccentric well. I got rolling with his vibe about midway through and it all started clicking then – and only then. He’s pictured here, a rare iPhone photo of the man in the wild in the 21st century. Why he was playing in Oakland, here and now, is a mystery for the ages. I meant to ask someone.
Oh, and when you reach the comfort years, you leave before Dan Melchior’s finished his first song, because you need to get up at 5:45am to get your kid to school and yourself to work. Right?
Exciting news to kick February off in fine style. One of the globe’s most smoking bands, Austin’s SPRAY PAINT, released their new album today – and for those of you who (unlike me) weren’t willing to pay through the nose for their two out-of-print and extremely limited 45s – you can now download both the new album and both singles for $9.99 on iTunes. I just did.
Naturally, there are still options available for vinyl and even CD lovers.
SPRAY PAINT are a frantic, noisy, jittery, minimalist art/splatter/punk band who incorporate elements of The A-Frames, Urinals/100 Flowers, Minutemen and – of course – much of their own bag. I suspect that now than more than 300 people at a time can hear them, they’ll make more of the proverbial splash than they did this past year. Top up that iTunes account and check it out here.
Don Howland from THE GIBSON BROS, rocking an FMLN hat, no less. Live in San Francisco – the only time I ever saw them play – in 1991.
Photo by Nicole Penegor.
The Gories, when I interviewed them for my 1992 fanzine Superdope, turned me onto this lost Australian garage rock song from 1986. You can certainly hear the influence in the Gories’ sound, too.
THE BO-WEEVILS did a few things after this, but nothing as chugging nor as strong as this mid-tempo, minor-key scorcher.
There was an excellent time-wasting meme/hashtag on Twitter yesterday called #NBABands, in which you combine basketball players/teams with rocknroll to create “bands”. There were some good ones that had me laughing til bedtime: Right Said Faried, Durant Durant, My Alonzo Mourning Jacket, Thabeet Happening, Gasol Asylum and more.
My more esoteric choices didn’t seem to register with anyone, probably because while everyone knew the players I was referencing, no one knew the bands: Robin Lopez & The Egyptians; Boy Dirt Carmelo; Tallulah Bosh and Biff Bang Pau.
Several weeks ago I posted a moderately embarrassing June 1989 radio show that I did for KCSB-FM in Santa Barbara, CA called “White Trash”. It was my last show ever – on that station, anyway – and therefore was the culmination of four years of training, teenage toil and practice.
Now let’s go back in time over two years, to April 22nd, 1987. I’m 19 years old; I’m snarky; I’m fast-talkin’, and I’m absolutely lovin’ the noisy late 80s indie rock. This show features paranoia about an impending crackdown on what records we’re allowed to play on the station, all thanks to a minor censorship kerfuffle that was erupting that year in which the FCC gave our station a warning for playing punk rock music with naughty words. You can read the LA Times story on the incident here. My repeated paranoia about impending censorship doom during this show’s 90 minutes are testament to the limited scope and worldview, political myopia, and the affluenza common to UC-Santa Barbara students who come from nice families.
Download the 4-22-1987 show of KCSB’s “White Trash” right here, and you’ll hear gems from Pussy Galore, Squirrel Bait, Naked Raygun, Soul Asylum, Bad Brains, Redd Kross, Phantom Tollbooth, Adrenaline O.D., The Flesh Eaters, and much more.
Bill Direen and the Bilders perform ‘Do The Alligator’ at the Gladstone, Christchurch 1984.
