I skipped out on the Deafheaven/Drab Majesty/Uniform concert. Not easy to do, but yesterday was a tough day at work and I ended up exhausted and worn pretty thin. Plus, I'm seeing Drab Majesty in two weeks at my beloved Echoplex and hold out hope that, being an LA band, Deafheaven will play the 'plex or another local venue of relatively the same size. I saw them open for Ghost at the Wiltern a few years ago and the size of the room just didn't fit.
Playlist from Saturday, 8/18:
Chris Connelly - The Night of Your Life
Chris Connelly - The Tide Stripped Bare
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste
Lantlos - .neon
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss
Card of the day:
Continuing to pull a second one just because it's still tripping me out that Victory is sticking so close. The Journey The Fool refers to is a new writing project.
Sunday night Tennis System killed it at the Echoplex! We missed the opener Topographies, walking in and only hearing their final song, which was great. Tennis System came up next and swift, which was nice. I'm not one to hold up a phone for video or photos at shows, but Such A Drag is important to K and I, so I knew I was going to catch that for sure (she stayed home due to work in the morning; I had already arranged a late start). When they went straight into one of my favorite songs from the new EP afterward, I figured I'd finish what I started.
The real surprise was the headliner, Airiel. This was a Part Time Punks show, as most if not every Sunday night is at the Echoplex, and Airiel's front man Jeremy Wrenn commended PTP founder Michael Stock on bringing them out to the West Coast after a ten year hiatus. These guys were humble, and they were fantastic. If you dig old albums by The Cure, The Smiths and especially the Cocteau Twins, check them out. Here's a great place to start:
Playlist from the last two days, more or less:
Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon
Badfinger -
Tennis System - Pain EP
The Veils - Total Depravity
Write Dark Things playlist
Airiel - Winks & Kisses: Melted EP
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Tennis System - Technicolor Blind
About a month ago I put Ministry's Dark Side of the Spoon in my car with the intention of finally getting to know it as an album. I've been a Ministry fan since just after Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs came out in 1992. The Mind is a Terrible Thing To Taste will probably always remain my favorite release, line-up, and era for the band, but I stuck with them fiercely through all the changes over the years. Where some folks I knew turned away from them after Psalm, I loved Filth Pig from day one, and although I fell off briefly with Spoon, when Animositisomina hit as the follow-up, I was right back in the fold and remained there until recently. I still dig what Uncle Al does musically, I've just become less interested in following it.
At some point in the last five or six years I found a used copy of Spoon at Amoeba and figured, what the hell? But still, that grand discovery never followed. Recently that changed, and Eureka Pile is, to my ears, one of the stand-out tracks. Above is a video I found while looking for the song on youtube; I'd never come across Chemical Traces' work before, but I'm intrigued. With its labored lope and lackadaisical drawl, this is a hard song to do a video to and keep it interesting, and CT pulls it off. Also, the work is deeply personal, and that makes it doubly effective. I'm interested to see more of their work. Looking at their artist's page on Youtube I see a lot of what I'm interested in here, so I'll probably be posting some more of Chemical Traces' work here in the future.
Into the last third of Norman Mailer's The Deer Park. If you're a fan of literary prose, specifically very Fitzgerald-esque literary prose, this novel should go on your list. It drifts a bit in the middle, but I'm enjoying this walk through 1950's McCarthyism Hollywood debauchery, set in a fictional oasis in the California desert.
Tennis System tonight at my beloved Echoplex. Haven't been there in a while, and I realized it's almost two-and-a-half years since I discovered this awesome Los Angeles band opening for Eagulls at the Teragram. Here's a Flock of Seagulls cover I had never heard them do before:
Playlist from yesterday:
The Veils - Total Depravity
True Widow - AVVOLGERE
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
Ministry - Dark Side of the Spoon
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire: "When this card comes, go for your dreams - better than average chance something will pan out on a day ruled by this card."
With a cap of three-hundred something people for an audience, this is just crazy!
I suppose I should point out I was not there and thus this is not my video. Thanks to the mighty Brooklyn Vegan for posting this -- it was the first thing I saw when I woke up and it blew my mind!!!
