 Hellapop Festival (May 24th) ♥ Bands: The Definite Articles, Teamawesome!, iji, Tinkture, Hey Three Eyes, The Creepy Crawlies, James Rabbit, Charlie Don’t Surf!, The Paper Orchestra, The Panduhs, Old Hack, Tippy the Vegan, Music from Anteria |
Okay, so I've never been an avid calendar user (too much work!), but lately I've been organizing myself with W♥M Calendar so I know which concert dates to attend and what CDs are being release when. Since I also use Outlook for calendaring, Google does offer Calendar Sync which seamlessly sync both outlook and W♥M calendar (so I can manage offline or online).
I believe the calendar is shared among all the weheartmusic.com users by default (but you can set it to private or "friends only"), so, anyroad, I know someone will be attending Hellapop Festival (May 24). This looks really fun, and I would be there too if I lived in California.
I thought I'd mention two bands doing this festival that I thought looked interesting.
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Tinkture looks like a group of very young ladies, into DIY punk, possibly Riot. I thought "Pyrotechnics" is a very fast and feels very garagey. The vocals has a southern sound to it too. I generally like these DIY punk, as you've probably figured from my various punk articles.
I couldn't help but think of Supergrass's "Alright" when I heard "Farther Away" by Shadow Puppet Theatre. These guys looks very hip and are snappy dressers on top of that. Plus, they seem like they would hang out at all night cafes. They are from Modesto, and consists of singer/guitarist, Adam Bishop, and upright bassist, Jessica Jones.
These are only two of the many, many bands that's attending the Hellapop Festival, so be sure to check them out. That Team Awesome sounds pretty fun, as well as Charlie Don't Surf (which may have stolen their title from Apocalypse Now, but they seem too young to actually have seen that movie - so I vote for Veronica Mars).
Links: myspace.com/popsongromance
www.tinkture.com
myspace.com/shadowpuppettheatre
I've been to Amoeba Records in the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco a few times, but I haven't seen Mates of State. I did hear some intriguing rapster once while I was browsing in the fantastic store, my second favorite music store anywhere--Twist & Shout in Denver gets my nod here, partly due to it being closer to a hometown place (I still consider myself to be a Coloradoan, I say to myself, we're just vacationing in Texas for a couple years). The other reason is that I think Twist & Shout always did a better job on the presentation aspect, sensibly organizing related books along with the CDs, and having nice listening areas (including information about the CDs) at the ends of many aisles. Of course, that's all based on their old location on Alameda--the wife Kathy has been to the new one, I haven't; plus, I rarely bother visiting "hardware" stores anymore, as I moving toward digitizing my collection.
Mates of State is just fun, and cute of course. A bit of a throwback sound, and the no-longer-novelty of boy-girl duet. Kathy gets into it, as does her fun-lovin'-girlfriend back "home" in Colorado Springs.
As a die-hard Kinks fan, how could I not be interested in hearing what The Village Green sounded like? I picked up their first EP a few years ago, and thought it was pretty good. Feeling the Fall, from 2006, was another matter--this was one of those rare albums that I liked through-and-through. So, what do they sound like? Maybe mid-70s, Sleepwalker era Kinks, if you wanted to stretch the Kinks relationship, but really, they sound just like Supergrass.
Supergrass, for whatever reason, is one of those bands who seem to fall beneath everyone's radar, yet they put out five good-to-great albums between 1995 and 2005. Diamond Hoo Ha, which just came out, is their first album in three years. I've listened once, perhaps I'll post my impressions once I get a chance to go back to it a few more times.
I ran a 3-hour radio show at WMUC-FM in College Park, Maryland (I wonder, how many states have a town named College Park, College Station, or something similar?) from 1983 through 1985, overlapping some of the prime "harDCore" years. I had the opportunity to see a few of the bands, and to be honest, few of them did much for me. Minor Threat (who I didn't see), were ok by me at the time (but let's not even name MacKaye's overly self-righteous follow-up act), Government Issue, fine for the most part, but I found the bulk of the other DC hardcore bands to be forgettable or even annoying. I won't name names, but try listening to Flex Your Head, a Dischord compilation from the era, and you'll hear what I mean.
But I did like Marginal Man quite a bit. I think the bassist Andre Lee was in one of my classes at Maryland, their singer (Polcari?) hung out at my show one night, and I've exchanged emails with guitarist Kenny Inouye (yes, related to that Inouye). Marginal Man had actual songs, the singer wasn't completely unlistenable, they could play, and they seemed like good fun guys (i.e. not overly serious, unlike some guy/band I've already named).
Yes, I even know all the words and could sing along. The linked video contains some introductory messing around, but is shortly followed by "Tell Me."
| Links: Official Webite | Album Website | Sellaband | MySpace | Youtube |
Grab your helmet, check the air in your tires, and hop on your bike because in many U.S. cities, May 12 - 16 is Bike to Work Week! Six Apart has a lot of biking enthusiasts, so we're very excited to support this event by encouraging all of our employees to bike to work this week. San Francisco's Bike to Work Day is tomorrow, Thursday, May 15th, and New York's is Friday, May 16th.
Six Apart is helping out its employees by providing maps (shaded according to steepness - a must in SF!) to help everyone plan out his/her route, as well as finding first-time riders buddies to commute with. We're also supporting ALL SF riders who pass the front of our office by handing out coffee, juice and snacks from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. If you're in our neighborhood, look for the sign that says "Six Apart Supports Bike to Work Day" and stop by to say hi and get energized!
Improve your health, financial status, productivity, and happiness by joining thousands - maybe even millions - of commuters around the country who are hopping on their bikes to get to work. Visit the Bike to Work Week website to find out more about events in your area.
Support the two-wheeled way of life with the "Passing Left" theme found in "Photo-Based" in the Design Area. Planning on cycling to work this week? Let us know in the comments!
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So I got this announcement that Rob Dickinson is re-releasing Fresh Wine For Horses a second time. This version will include Nude EP as a bonus second disc.
Now, bands repackaging albums as deluxe or special editions are more commonplace, but they generally fall under a limited time frame, like perhaps an anniversary mark at five or ten years. Dickinson's original release for Fresh Wine For Horses was three years ago, a pretty odd number, but I guess he felt the time is right for another college try and planning on releasing the 2-disc set on June 10th.
The press release said that "End Of The World": "lifts shamelessly from the soundtrack to the British cult movie Withnail & I", a movie I have on Criterion DVD... Which I have to rewatch sometime. But listening to it, is it me, does the intro sounds a little bit like Laura Branigan's "Self Control"?
I have been meaning to do a write up on Catherine Wheel since W♥M started, but I felt that I'm not an expert when it comes to this band because I was so unfamiliar with their large body of work. I even had a massive Catherine Wheel fan make me compilation of their "best of" songs, but have failed to really get into it. I didn't dislike it, but I wasn't really into it, you know?
What I can tell you that I first came across this band with an edited version of "Black Metallic" from MTV's 120 Minutes. This was at a time when they were grouped (unfairly, I might add) with the shoegazing 4AD-type sound at the time.
After gaining a somewhat massive attention from the States with "Black Metallic" and "I Want to Touch You", I was fortunately enough to catch them on tour early in their career. The thing I remembered from this concert was the tiny elongated venue, the now-defunct Cadillac Club, in Fresno, California. They also made use of a smoke machine, which looked pretty awesome with lights. They also did an extra long 15 minute rendition of "Black Metallic", which I believe was the last song of the encore.
Although I wouldn't call myself a huge fan, I did like them enough to pick up Happy Days and Wishville on Yahoo Auction for about the cost of shipping, adding to my random collection of Catherine Wheel singles and promos.
Trivia: I just found out that Rob Dickinson's cousin is Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden! Both Iron Maiden and Catherine Wheel are midevil torture devices.
Links:
myspace.com/robdickinson
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