On August 18, Matador will be releasing the long-anticipated new LP/CD/digital album from Jay Reatard, ‘Watch Me Fall’. Excepting last year’s pair of singles comps for Matador and In The Red, this is Jay’s first album since 2006’s ‘Blood Visions’, and it’s a self-produced full-length that more than lives up to the sky-high standards previously set. Earlier this year, Jay described the making of ‘Watch Me Fall’ to labelmate Andrew Earles :
“This new album has been challenging. It’s the first time I’ve written and recorded an album specifically because a label wants to release it. I’ve never made a record for a record label. I’ve always finished my recordings and then a label is decided on. When I made ’Blood Visions’ I had no idea that it was going to see the light of day. And I’ve never made a record in which the label heard the songs, or anyone heard the songs, before the album was finished, so that’s kind of intense. That’s what singles are for; I always considered my singles as a glimpse between the albums. Labels always had the previous single as an example of where I was going at the time, or of what the next album might sound like. In this situation, people at the label are hearing the songs before the album has been finished, but I try not to let it distract me, I’m trying to go about this process in a way that’s the closest to how I would have done an album in the past. A lot of bands these days, they approach the making of an album like it’s collecting songs, they don’t think about how all of the songs are going to work together. They sequence their albums on iTunes, wondering what songs sound best next to each other rather than putting them together as they were written. That’s not an album.”
During the 1990s, Pajo played with King Kong, The Palace Brothers, Stereolab, Royal Trux, The For Carnation, Matmos, Tortoise and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.
If you the thought 3-chord punk couldn’t be simplified any further, then you’ve been misled. Pajo takes punk’s musical manifesto and turns it into very simple lo-fi acoustic jams. Pajo follows the chordal tonality of each song, then turning the power chords into natural chords more suitable for the tenderness of plucking and finger picking. Pajo’s feeble vocals could bother some, but I found them to be pleasantly human.
You’re not going to find a whole lot of progressive jazz riffs, piercing harmonics, spastic time signatures or anything else that made Pajo a Louisville legend, but there is a great way to enjoy this album: build a camp fire deep within your local wilderness destination, crack open a few cold ones and indulge in one of the most epic sing-a-longs courtesy of Pajo, and of course, Dr. Glenn Danzig.
Taken from: decrepittapes.com
The Cramps were an American garage punk band formed in 1973. Their line-up rotated much over their existence, with the husband and wife duo of lead singer Lux Interior and lead guitarist Poison Ivy as the only permanent members. Guitarist and drummer Pam Ballam rounded out the first complete lineup in April 1976.Bryan Gregory.
They were part of the early CBGB punk movement that had emerged in New York. By being the first known band to blend punk rock with rockabilly, The Cramps are widely recognized as innovators of psychobilly, as well as garage punk.
On January 10, 2001, Bryan Gregory died at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center of complications following a heart attack. He was 46.
On February 4, 2009 at 4:40 AM PST, Lux Interior died at the Glendale Memorial Hospital from a pre-existing heart condition. He was 62.
Your attention please. WHITEY is a sort-of solo project by N.J WHITEY. He is a misanthrope that spends most of his time skulking in dark corners. When he plays live he is accompanied by the following friends and associates- Wildcat (drums/sequencers), Scott X. Fairbrother (guitar/bass) and Shah (guitar/keys). For the first year guitar was also Patrick Walden (Babyshambles)… however the bright lights/hot pipes enticed him away. The fifth secret member is Robert Harder, a mysterious Bavarian who operates the mixing desk. Over the past two years WHITEY and his live sidekicks have played over 200 shows alongside (amongst others) Undertones, Buzzcocks, LCD soundsystem, New Order and Iggy Pop. There have been sessions for XFM and Radio 1. It was a lot of fun, but now they are having a lie-down. They will be back with a live XFM broadcast in late May. WHITEY is currently finishing his second album, GREAT SHAKES. It draws on a delirious range of influences, and features the live act as guest musicians. Its very good. You should hear it, really. This album is a follow up to the 2005 album THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL IS A TRAIN (1234 Records). This made many critical ‘Best Of Year’ lists. You should listen to this too, if you can find it.
After remixing the likes of Tom Vek and those neon, new rave tykes Klaxons for the past few years, Jens Moelle and Ismail Tuefekci, aka Digitalism, are aiming their own robotic house-rock at the dancefloors of the world. The perfect move, considering cats such as Simian Mobile Disco and LCD Soundsystem thrive as healthily as any sub-Libertines trilby-rockers. Indeed, ‘Idealism’ is dusted with the kind of metallic house glitter caking LCD’s ‘Sound Of Silver’, and, just as promisingly, the title track could have been carved from Daft Punk before they decided they were human after all. Elsewhere, synth-punch ‘Pogo’ thwacks like a double uppercut from The Chemical Brothers - just one of the block rockin’ feats here.
The duo of Handsome Furs began as an idea in the winter of 2005, comprised of Vancouver residents Dan Boeckner (Wolf Parade) and his fiancée, Alexei Perry. Dark and minimal while noisy and earnest, the point was to be as sparse and repetitive as possible with the help of little more than vocals, guitars, and a new drum machine. Through this, songs of earthbound captains, eggs made of gold and iron, and sleepless bodies were born. Boeckner’s disenchanted vocals thinly resonate while cloaked in a frenzied undertone of fear and uncertainty, all punctuated by bare drum machine beats. Through the course of each track, a deep-seated sense of longing struggles with staunch realism as a restless disdain for both urban life and smaller towns collide. Handsome Furs toured Europe before writing any songs. They have since opened for the likes of David Cross and Modest Mouse before releasing a proper record. Recorded at Wolf Parade’s studio, Mount Zoomer, in the heart of December, Plague Park is their debut. It is a record of melancholic tendency and heartfelt desire; a stripped-down symphony roaming between city and country, and made for ears of either side.
