The Only True Way to Tolerate Bill O'Reilly



Okay, so I just could not resist reposting this from Salad Days Music (who actually reposted it from another great Okie blog, Hypeful). I hate Bill O'Reilly and I love Euro-trash dance mixes, so it's win win with this sucker.

Sound Interpreting: Gold Edition





Well our melancholy pal from Minnesota, Atmosphere, has a new album out called When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold. A little long winded of a title, yes, but the album is great all the same. There is also a limited edition Gold version that comes with a childrens story that Slug wrote himself, and it's only a couple bucks extra. Right now Atmosphere is doing this cool promotional thing where you can 'Slugify' any website, as I did with Sound Interpreting above. Go to Paintthatshitgold.com and try it yourself.

I'm Back, Please, Hold the Applause...




Well as you may be aware, I haven't been keeping up with my blog lately. I know, all 8 of you are pretty bummed. Well now that finals are over I will try my best to keep posting regularly, at least throughout the sumer. Starting next week I'll get busy on that. For now be sure to check out the latest blog I did over at Oklahomarock.com about The The Uglysuit, who just got signed to Quarterstick Records, an imprint label of Touch and Go Records. Kudos to those guys! That's a nice label for sure. The fellas in The Uglysuit will be touring with none other than Iron and Wine and playing this year's Summer Camp Festival leading up to their appearance at DFest 2008.

Interview: Spindrift

Imagine yourself in a dusty, dilapidated ghost town. The year is 1856, and you are a gunslinger hired to track down and bring in the deadliest bandito in the west, dead or alive. The sun is setting over the dusky horizon, leaving a thin pink and orange glow that looms over the tops of the cracked and splintered roofs of the empty, dead town, eventually fizzling out into the deep blue sky. The dry breeze throws sand against your ankles and in the distance blows a door repeatedly into the side of the building it hangs from.

You creep cautiously through the town’s only road, your hand steadily hanging over the handle of your silver pistol. Your heart taps the inside of your rib cage with an uncomfortable determination. Now imagine you're completely freaked out on several hits of acid.

Perhaps now you have an idea of what it is like to witness the psychedelic spaghetti western ballads of L.A. outfit Spindrift.

I spoke with bassist Henry Evans about the release of their western movie ”The Legend of God’s Gun,” which is currently in post-production. Spindrift will be playing at the Red Room in Norman tonight with The Mean Spirits and The Oh! Johnny Girls.

So tell me about the status of the film.

It’s in post-production. It’s been picked up by a distributor. I guess they did Boon Dock Saints. It’s pretty cool, but I actually don’t know a whole lot about what’s happening with that. It’s gotten to the point now, particularly for me, I was in it, but now that it’s beyond me I don’t have a lot of particulars about what’s happening. I think there is still going for some film festivals, and then from that they’re going to make decisions about whether it’s going straight to DVD or if they’re going to try a limited release.

Who do you play in the film?

KP, the singer and songwriter and guitarist, he plays the main villain and I am one of his banditos.

I know a little about the plot, but can you elaborate on it for me?

It’s a little bit complicated, but it’s basically about a depraved and doomed town that becomes the local for a showdown between some villains and a gunfighter turned priest turned gunfighter. It has a crazy, psychedelic mission.

When can your fans get a hold of it?

We’re planning to bring a few DVD copies with us on our way to SXSW. We should have some with us in Norman.

It must have been a trip working on a film like this.

It was pretty crazy. Living in L.A. I have been involved in a few movies. It’s been more of a professional thing and less a labor of love on those other ones. This movies is something we have all donated our time and money to and we just wanted it to be something we thought was cool. It was a fun process. It was real interesting, and in some ways unique, because the soundtrack for the most part was pre-existing. KP wrote most of that soundtrack as an original sort of outline of what would happen in the movie years ago. In that way it was almost like an extended music video. We took music and worked backwards to create a narrative.

Did you shoot most of it in the desert?

We shot all over the place. We got kicked out of more parks than I can remember. There are laws and statutes about film making in national parks. We got kicked out of a few of them. There are a few places around L.A. County where we filmed in Pioneer Town, out by Joshua Tree. And we filmed out in the Mojave Desert, and out further west, north of Isabella. It was really cool to be able to explore all these places. Some of them had a pretty rich history of western things happening there.

It seems to me that the whole Western gnre is back on the rise lately.

It seems to me too, we’re happy to be part of that.

Do you guys feel like you are treading new ground in that respect? What I mean is, do you feel like musically you are doing something very unique or do you equate what you do as part of the current psychedelic movement?

That’s a good question. It’s a little bit of both. Everyone who is involved with creative endeavors wants to do things that are original. And I think at the same time we are involved in a scene. Particularly in L.A. there are these other bands that are around, we’re friends with them and hang out with them and play shows with them, and it is a community and we’re glad to be a part of it.

I'll Believe it When I See it...


Well apparently The Flaming Lips are going to finally unveil their long awaited movie Christmas on Mars. They were slated to premiere it at this year's SXSW Festival, but it appears they decided to go with Washington state's Sasquatch! Music Festival instead. The festival will take place on Labor Day weekend and has a line-up that includes R.E.M., Modest Mouse, The Cure, Death Cab for Cutie, M.I.A., Flight of the Conchords, Built to Spill and The Breeders. Good god I want to see The Breeders.



Here are some links I shamelessly took from Pitchfork:

The Flaming Lips: I Was Zapped By the Lucky Super Rainbow
Video: The Breeders: Cannonball [from the Last Splash LP]
Built to Spill: They Got Away / Rearrange
R.E.M.: Supernatural Superserious [from the Accelerate LP]
Video: Modest Mouse: People as Places as People [from the We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank LP]

Norman Music Festival


So I'm pretty excited now that I heard the Chainsaw Kittens will be reuniting for a performance at the first annual The Norman Music Festival. It's really great that the city is showing some initiative and taking advantage of the incredible music scene that is swelling within it's limits. Some of the best local bands will be playing, along with the likes of British Sea Power, The Octopus Project, Grupo Fantasma, and headliners The Polyphonic Spree. And the best part is that it's all completely fuckin' free! Although many people don't know it, you have local bad-ass Dylan Mackey to thank for thinking this whole thing up. So next time you see him tell him thanks for breathing a little life into Oklahoma! Main Street will be blocked off for the two stage event on April 26. I'll see you there bitches!

mmmm...downloads:

Octopus Project~I Saw The Bright Shinies
Grupo Fantasma~Mentiras
Polyphonic Spree~Hanging Around The Day
Chainsaw Kittens~Silver Millionaire
British Sea Power~Waving Flags

Evangelize me!

My buddies Evangelicals made a video for my favorite song off of their new album, The Evening Descends. It's a really rad throwback to psychedelic horror films of the 60's. Also, my interview with frontman Josh Jones is now up at Sophie Zine. Enjoy!

Midnight Vignette

Add to My Profile | More Videos

mmmm...downloads:

Evangelicals - “Skeleton Man”

Want Some Free Shit?

I recently reviewed the following three albums for the latest issue of NONzine, and hell, they're all great. So, here's your chance to make them yours, for free. Below each review is a trivia question, answer it in either a comment or by sending me an email and I will announce the winners next week. Good luck and thanks for reading!

Evangelicals
The Evening Descends


Oh, what a wonderful place Josh Jones’ mind must be, full of color and mesmerizing beauty. It simply amazes me how he manages to keep the listener on their toes, appearing completely spontaneous with each new measure, verse, and bridge. Evangelicals almost whimsical, care-free approach to song structure is so incredibly freeing and refreshing it’s no wonder the album has become and indie sensation since it’s release last month. Layers of obscure, low-grade samples, luscious guitar interludes, and, of course, Jones’ vocals that blend the faint and the powerful. Transition upon transition and genre atop genre make The Evening Descends a veritable kaleidoscope of sounds that somehow manage to get your mind’s eye involved, creating an array of imagery that attempts to embody every new sound that pops from Jones’ mind like confetti from a cannon. The album itself addresses the plight of the meager, the lonely, and the disempowered. Jones wants to tell their story to the world. Lyrics such as those in “Skeleton Man,” “So if you see me actin’ out...understand/To be left out in the snow without a coat/Can do bad things to a man,” provide a dark setting for a dark story. Jones and company juxtapose the harsh reality presented in his lyrics with their unpredictable, and very unconventional, psychedelic pop so impressively that it leaves the listener with no doubt that they are witness to something great, and something rare.

trivia: What local band inspired Josh Jones to leave Austin and come back to Oklahoma and form Evangelicals?


Rainbows Are Free
self-titled


From chaos comes beauty, from emotion comes madness, and from structure comes those who strive to deny it. So is Rainbows Are Free, forever the sculptors of anarchic magnificence, the ushers of insuppressible fury, and the wielders of the mighty power of rock. On their debut, self-titled EP the elegance that lies behind the distortion is as undeniable as the precision that flows through their instrumentation like lighting through a telephone line, lustily anticipating the melting of your ears. Brandon Kistler’s howling vocals call down the moon while Richie Tarver’s righteous guitar commands it to give you nightmares, and Justin Gallas’ simply flawless drumming makes me wonder why the hell he ever wasted his time not bringing down the hammer of Thor in an indie-rock band. Guitar work on songs “Bloodcano” and “Are You Dead” make them viable candidates for the next installment of Guitar Hero, and the progression of “Crystal Ball” would make Tom Morello proud. This album awakens the spirits of metal that have lain dormant within all rock fans since the 1980's and screams alongside them. You heard it here first, rock is back.

trivia: Between the 5 of them the members of RAF have been in almost a dozen bands. Name three of them.


Travis Linville
See You Around


On his sophomore album Linville opts to ditch the band and go it alone on his first solo attempt. While the talented and very pleasing accompaniment of Linville’s backing band has served him well, it’s his songwriting and lyricism that has always been the heart of what attracts people to his music. And luckily for his fans Linville has a lot to write about, with See You Around comprising of 20 songs. Stories of hope, longing, Oklahoma storms, the beauty of nature, and the highs and lows of life embrace Linville’s soft, acoustic guitar and spin some very tangible and comforting yarns. When listening to the songs it’s easy to imagine Linville holed up in his cabin-esque studio, tucked away in the woods that surround the lake with his guitar and harmonica. Don’t let this image misguide you though. A solo acoustic album might conjure up images of soft, folksy tunes that progress from a C chord to a G and little else. You have to remember this is Travis Linville we’re talking about. Yes, the songs can be soft and they can be folksy, but they’re always filled with the dancing of Linville’s quick fingers, plucking and hammering intricate guitar melodies that would make Charlie Christian blush. From Honky-Tonk to Folk, Old-Timey to the Blues, Linville once again shows us why he is one of Oklahoma’s fondest sons, and leaves me pondering which ancient guitar god resides in the rich wood of his acoustic guitar.

trivia: What's the name of Travis Linville's recording studio?

mmmm...free downloads:

Evangelicals - “Skeleton Man”