year end wrap up! Part One!

So with this entry, I begin my countdown of the ten best releases of the year. I will do them one record at a time, the first one being number 10, which is "Rialto" by the Northern Virginia ex-member supergroup Verse En Coma.

Upon first listen I was blown away by this release, and believed it lived up to the pedigree of the members oft-mentioned former and current bands: Pg. 99, Darkest Hour, City Of Caterpillar, and Haram. The release particularly calls to mind the work of Malady, and from what I understand a lot of this music came from writing sessions that were intended to be new Malady songs, before they broke up in 2006. Featuring just the melodic, soaring and unconventional guitar-work that you would expect from guitarist Jeff Kane(City Of Caterpillar), laid on top of Ryan Parrish(Darkest Hour)'s relentless and pummeling percussive attack. It's good to hear him doing something else besides galloping 4/4 double bass metal shit.

One thing that makes this releases particularly memorable. the CHORUSES man, the fucking choruses. Each chorus on this album is epic as hell, with everything coming together with enough power and climactic energy to tear a new hole in the universe. Not really, but shit is enough to really catch your attention and move you. I hear a lot of influences from bands outside of the hardcore/punk genre, as the NoVa hardcore scene is known for doing. Seems that with each release that the ex-pg.99 crew puts out, they get further and further away from the Born Against/Sonic Youth thing, but I appreciate this dedication to keep pushing in new directions. Can these folks put out a bad record?

The one frustrating thing is that the lyrics are sometimes questionable and don't seem to always fit. They're written in a pretty straight forward, storytelling style, which works at points and then doesn't work at others. "DCC Cassette" is a sad tale of a friend's death, the same friend who got the vocalist into punk rock by making a tape for his brother that he then stole and changed his life from listening to it over and over again. I've always felt an essential feature of punk rock is a sense of immortality, or quite the opposite, a reckless sense of accepting mortality, as Modern Life Is War said once "death is more perfect than life, that's why we already died." So anyway, these lyrics aim well but miss the mark kind of. "the tape was for her/but i stole it away/the sticker you put on is rubbing off/but THE TAPE STILL PLAYS!!!" uhh, good idea, bad execution, bro.

I also have no idea if this band has played any live shows, or is even still a band. They have never announced any shows nor any intention to play any. It may be just a recording project, which is dissapointing, cause I know these songs could be really powerful if performed live.

Anyway, definitely give this record a shot. It was released on 10" with a digital copy inside by Robotic Empire. You can also get it on iTunes. Their myspace is http://www.myspace.com/verseencoma, if you would like to listen to mp3's.

so that's Number Ten, y'all!! Check back soon for Number Nine!!

-Andy-

you knew just how you'd been blessed...

For the last two years, I've had the privilege of following the Johnson City, TN band The Everybodyfields, quite closely. I was General Manager of WQFS Greensboro, Guilford College's radio station, when Everybodyfields fever began to kick in among our community DJ's. Their sad, slow, breathtaking and beautiful down-home country music found a perfect home on the radio shows of the community DJ's, many of whom had been living in Greensboro for years, and had seen country acts come and go. WQFS and The Everybodyfields began forming a close relationship, with us booking two shows for them on campus, and placing their newest album at the top of our charts for three months straight, while vocalist/singer/songwriter Sam Quinn wrote the theme song for one of our DJ's radio shows, a song which they still play live frequently. I had the privilege of getting to hang out with them most times they came through Greensboro or Chapel Hill. One night, my friend Carra and I spontaneously drove to see them in Chapel Hill and stayed up all night with them, driving back home to Greensboro as the sun was coming up.

Fortunately, the band are still hard at work, and better than ever. Today they just posted two new songs on their myspace site, "City Noises" and "Mardi Gras." These songs, in addition to three other new ones they recorded for Daytrotter.com. After years of burning through accompanying musicians, the central songwriting duo of Sam Quinn and Jill Andrews have finally found a lineup that works, with Josh Oliver (keys, guitar), Tom Pryor (pedal steel) and Jamie Cook(drums), the drummer being the most recent addition, and seemingly the secret puzzle piece that sealed the deal.

The band still seem to work much like they used to, with Sam and Jill splitting songwriting duties, the writer playing guitar on whatever song is next in the set. I have posted a lot of videos below, so I will let their music speak for itself. I have so many memories associated with this band, having been to see them over 15 times in the last two years. The Everybodyfields kind of supplied a soundtrack to my life in Greensboro, from settling in to calling the city home to coming to terms with leaving it, their music as equally applicable to the bright times as it was to the dark times of my life in that city. It makes me so happy to see them writing the best music of their career.

Basically, check this band out, download the songs from the links posted above, watch the videos before, and hopefully your roommates won't mind the mess when you melt into the floor.


their spot on, nearly better than the original cover of Neil Young's "Harvest Moon"


another new song, "Another Man." one of my favorite of their recent batch of new ones


"A Way Out," another one of my favorite new ones

HOT JAMS

So, Ingrid are a sick fucking band, let's start with that. Originating in the Washington D.C. area, the band is made up of Ashley Arnwine(Mass Movement Of The Moth, Des Ark) on the drums, and Joey Doubek(Mass Movement Of The Moth, Danke, Bear And The Butterfly) on the guitar. Combining crusty d-beat hardcore, the jazzy math-core of Tiny Hawks and USAIsamonster, and even the alternative rock sounds of the Smashing Pumpkins, every moment of their new 8 song tape is a treat for the ears. They waste no time on this record, building up to epic climaxes on each song, which only seem to last long enough for you to wrap your head around the sheer, well, epic-ness of it all. One of the most impressive things about this band is that in Mass Movement Of The Moth, Ashley played guitar and Joey played drums. Just when you thought they could do it all, they switch instruments and create another devastatingly brutal yet tastefully different band.

The lyrics touch on a variety of topics from queer visibility, environmental issues, death and illness, to mental health and suicide. Joey takes care of most of the vocals, not without Ashley's help, whose moments on the mic are some of the best on the record.

You can hear all of the mp3's on their website, and you can order their tape from my dear friend Will's label website, Cosmic Debris.

My personal favorites: "Heron," "Triangle," "What Makes you," and fucking all of the others, for real.

I'm back

Hello everyone/no one, my name is andy and I have returned to the music blogging world with more of a whimper than a thud. I have spent the last few months rambling around the southwest and west coast, working at a summer camp and visiting family and friends in the bay area. But now I am back on the east coast in my hometown of Washington D.C.!

I am about to head back south for a little while to work on a farm outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Then I am headed to New Orleans to visit my dear old friend Jacob Mazer. I'm bringing some clothes and my guitar, so hopefully I'll get to playin' on some street corners here and there for money, like i have had the unoriginal fantasy of doing for quite a while.

This summer, my music interests consisted mostly of singer/songwriters. Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Gillian Welch songs were in heavy rotation in late night singalongs around the campfire circle. There were a lot of oldies but goodies, but my main discoveries of the summer consisted of Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, and the late bloomer choice of Bob Dylan. Yes, that's right, Dylan never really hit me until now, but it's all good because his records Blood On The Tracks and Time Out Of Mind are hittin' me like a ton of bricks.

I'll write more on these later, for now I have to go meet up with my sister. Good to see you all again!

-Andy-

Citified

It has been a great six months for new releases from Greensboro bands, and The Meeting After The Meeting by a band called Citified, gives us proof that the best is always yet to come. Just released on Eskimo Kiss Records, Meeting is a collection of seven songs each tremendously beautiful and written by singer/songwriter Chris Jackson, who recorded the group’s last record in 2005 pretty much all on his own, recording all the instruments and using drum machines for his rhythm section. While that was a refreshingly listenable and gorgeous record from beginning to end, The Meeting After The Meeting improves upon the band’s original vision by leaps and bounds, with live instrumentation from each member, guitarist Franklin Kane, drummer Eric Ussery, and bassist Diego Diaz, giving the record the bonus of the full band sound. One can tell each member’s musical vision makes this record in better an improvement in every way. With seven songs, the record is over before you know what hit you, and leaves you wanting more and more.


Combining influences from R.E.M., The National, Ride, to Echo and the Bunnymen, Citified clearly have a love for the melancholy and the autumnal in their music. The first line of the first song entitled “Weddings”, gets to the point pretty quickly. “Open bar/Means I’m safe.” Citified are probably not the first band to suggest the only good thing about weddings is the free booze to warm your own loneliness as a pensive indie rock musician, yet the honesty rings true and continues throughout the record. The high end melodic guitar lines present over Jackson’s voice are drenched in reverb and delay pedals, making the listener feel as if they are floating in a sea of fantastic guitar tone. Many critics have pegged Citified as a Shoegaze band, a term coined by a British music journalist who observed that this style of spacey, reverb drenched music required so many effects pedals, that the musicians spent the entire time looking at the floor for which pedal they had to press next, standing motionless and captured by the music.

British Bands such as Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, and Ride were some of the frontrunners of this musical movement, and their influence seeps through every pore of this record. The swirling guitar lines of the song “Read Like A Number” calls to mind the sound of another British band, who go by the name Radiohead. The reflective melancholy present in each song seems to give voice to small town-anxiety, the feelings that come from living in a place where everybody seems to know everybody, and the same few people occupy the same bars night after night. If anything, this record comes off as a soundtrack to Greensboro life in the cold winter months.


Most of the songs clock in under the four minute mark, and with only seven songs, each one ends somewhat abruptly. The restraint and structure present in each song show a sense of discipline lacking with many bands today. The strength here is songwriting, and the band’s ability to transpose that strength into something real and powerful, on a full band scale, is truly awe inspiring. They don’t overdo it, they know exactly when to quit, so as to leave you wanting more rather than bored and looking at the clock. They fill their songs with tasteful and beautiful parts without being too busy, leaving plenty of room for the listener’s mind to fill in the rest with their own nostalgia and memories. This is certainly a perfect record for the end of winter, a reflective album that may help you gain enough perspective to move forward into the spring. Once you’re done with your first listen, don’t be surprised if you find yourself listening to it again and again. Citified are playing in Greensboro several shows around North Carolina in the coming months, so be sure to catch them whenever you can. http://www.myspace.com/citified.

top five jamz

without further ado, top five records of the year n' shit.

5. Des Ark/Ben Davis-Battle Of The Beards



Besides being a DJ at WQFS, getting to see Des Ark play numerous times a year has been far and away the most rewarding aspect of the music scene in North Carolina. Aimee Argote, the voice behind the quietly vicious, and devastating music of Des Ark, has played a WQFS show each year I have been at Guilford, and getting to know her has been lots of fun. I was not really into half of this record, that being the half that she didn't write (Ben Davis' side). Yet her five tracks here are five of the most simultaneously somber, hungry and powerful songs I've heard all year, and by any artist, ever. Pitchfork Media compared her to Bright Eyes, and I was like, what the fuck? Her lyrics are dark, but far more articulate and honest than anything Conor Oberst could ever touch. I don't think I've ever been to a Des Ark show where half the audience didn't start sobbing. I also don't think I've ever heard of a band that lost its entire rhythm section, didn't bother to replace it, and made an instantly classic album like this one. It came along at a time when I really needed it in my life, and I am really thankful for it. It's perfect for spending night after lonely night, spinning it, sitting on your roof and smoking cigarettes, like I did this summer.

4. Radiohead-In Rainbows



I haven't really listened to Radiohead since I was 14, and with this record I was able to fall in love with them all over again. Don't get me wrong, Kid A, Amnesiac and Hail To The Thief were great records in their own right, but they just didn't really hit me like their earlier stuff. Different writers have claimed In Rainbows to be their most "accessible" record since Ok Computer, or the sign of their "coming back to earth." While I think claiming that a record sucks because it is too weird, there is something to be said for a certain level of accessibility. This record allows you to get out of it what you put into, where as with their last three records, I felt like there was sort of something you had to "get" when listening to them. This is Radiohead back to their ambiguously alienated, brooding, yet user friendly self, while still remembering that the last three records they made were incredibly innovative, and they need not abandon the blueprints they created. It's the sound of a band who reached the peak of a sound they were working with, and managed to find a brand new road to go down. And the music is good, too.

3. Explosions In The Sky-All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone



So I know a lot of people hate on Explosions In The Sky, especially this record, but seriously, I really think they are one of the best bands in the world. The beautiful cover art serves as the perfect introduction to this record, appropriately considering that their music is kind of like a painting. Each note, crescendo, crash and silence seems to represent another gorgeous brushstroke in their quest to make...uh, some kind of sweet painting. Anyway, from the lost in the flood/searching in the dark cover art that certainly brings to mind images of Hurricane Katrina, or just the sad and disconnected state of humanity, you know from the start that they are trying to get something across to you. It may be hard to notice if all of this instrumental bullshit sounds the same to you, but here they have abandoned everything that made their previous albums work so perfectly, and have come up with something else entirely that is somehow also pretty much perfect. They have songs under the five minute mark. They're kind of done with the basic soft/crescendo/loud/quiet structure they working with, a structure that spawned dozens of lousy imitators with no ear for melody. Instead, they succeed more than ever in writing songs so fitting and colorful that there is absolutely, positively, more assurance than ever that a vocalist would be useless here. The music itself fills the void, and then some. Unlike their previous work, these songs don't necessarily work as individual songs. This album requires a focused listen from beginning to end, a target that unfortunately may miss the mark for people who don't have the time or energy for that kind of thing. I first fell in love with it driving around the highways and backroads of their homestate of Texas over spring break. I have found few albums more perfect for a long, lonesome car ride than this one. A great record for a time of transition, loneliness, reflection, heartbreak, and eventual catharsis.

2. The Everybodyfields-Nothing Is Okay



This year I discovered, or re-discovered, my love for country music, and the band that singlehandedly did the most for me in this process was Johnson City, TN's The Everybodyfields. My first interaction with them was smoking pot with guitarist/vocalist Sam Quinn at the Shakori Hills bluegrass festival last fall. We talked about playing heavy metal and "Jungleland" by Bruce Springsteen, and I suppose it was all set from there on out. They describe their songs as being about "leaving, losing, and home." I think that about sums this record up perfectly. Sam and Jill Andrews, the other half of the band, used to date very seriously, and broke up shortly before the release of their first record, Halfway There: Electricity and The South. Subsequently, they have a consistent track record of writing and performing country music in a way that only ex-lovers could: passionately, regretfully, and honestly. The recording process of this album was particularly hard on the band, as the tension between Sam and Jill had escalated to such a level that, at several points, they were near canning the whole thing. This whiskey-induced desire to give up and go home to their lonely beds seeps through every pore of this record. It's haunted by the ghosts of the american south, the ghosts of country music of old, all the Johnny/June and Gram/Emmylou combinations there ever were, and many, many, empty handles of Jack Daniels. Musically speaking, it brings to mind the influence of 1970's, Comes A Time, Harvest era Neil Young, as well as Gillian Welch and The Band. This is certainly a record you can spend many lonely nights with, if you want to.

"I combed my hair, it looked just right. And went out to go to these places, I go."

1. The National-Boxer



Sometimes that perfect album comes along at the time in your life right when you need it most. Boxer was that record for me this year, perhaps the last two or even three years. I first saw them open for the Arcade Fire in may. I was really stoned and had great seats, and they started playing as soon as I sat down. I remember very little about their set except for how in awe i was, and how severely they blew the Arcade Fire out of the water that night. While this record did not hit me at first, in due time, it turned out to be exactly what I needed for a time where depression, happiness, deep reflection, and transition were hitting me all at once. There is as much variety within the lyrics of each song on this record, which is one of the many things that makes it so perfect. If you funneled all the decades of American folk, punk, alternative and indie into one band, that would be The National. In fact, if I could think of any one band right now that might be the perfect American band, it would be The National. They explore themes of alienation, aging, losing friends, falling in love, basically concepts involving both the triumph and downfall of the American dream.

The romanticization of the monotonous happenings of everyday life, the detailed descriptions of seemingly irrelevant place, weave in and out of these songs, bringing to mind the early music of Bruce Springsteen. While there's no Crazy Janey, Mission Man, or Wild Billy in any of these songs, each song describes interactions between anonymous American characters in anonymous American places, allowing the listener to put themselves into the song perhaps more easily than Springsteen allowed for. They can make a song about staying indoors and listening to records ("Apartment Story," the single of which features a gorgeous b-side cover/re-interpreation of Springsteen's "Mansion On The Hill") sound just as heartfelt and dying for empathy as any Springsteen song ever did. They turn the seemingly boring details of everyday life into poetry, assuring the listener that they, just as much as anyone, have a story to tell. It is so easy to listen to this record, and so easy to get out of it exactly what you want from it. This year, I have spent many mornings, afternoons, and nights with this record, and I have written so much about it that, at this point, all I can say anymore is just how fucking important it has been for me. Almost in such a way where, if you listen to it, I would be kind of embarassed as to what you might think of me.

his camera is a phone...

8. Pissed Jeans- Hope For Men



I had always thought this band was some bunch of jaded hipsters playing post punk somewhere on the exterior of the DC punk scene, until I found out their new record was coming out on Sub Pop. This shouldn’t really mean anything, but if it’s Sub Pop, and it’s heavy, I feel rather inclined to trust it. Instantly, any photograph of this band will catch you off guard. They don’t look like the kind of band that would be playing heavy music, but at the same time they seem perfect for it. Four unassuming, normal working class dudes from Allentown, PA, made what seems like the best hardcore record of the year, a record that is itself an anti-hardcore record. Combining the sludgey, filthy sounds of Flipper with the anthemic loserdom of early Nirvana, with the sarcasm and humor of Black Flag, all the while taking out any element that would make it seem even remotely desirable to commercial exploitation, this is perhaps the most unique record of the year.

With a brooding sense of sarcasm and apathy throughout, singer Matt Korvette takes you to town on being sad and eating ice cream, guys with funny accents in his “Fantasy World,” and brings us a seething indictment of white collar liberal-ass mother fuckers, on the five minute, one tempo “People Person.” Pissed Jeans may be the first hardcore band to write an angry punk song without guitars, drums, or bass, as present on “The Jogger,” where all they do is recite a list of characteristics that tend to apply to any trust fund hipster who just used his grandparent’s will to move to Williamsburg after he graduated from Vassar. Whole foods…retirement plan…entertainment unit…and somehow you’re captivated throughout the entire song. Drummer Sean McGuinness is one of the sickest drummers on the planet, and he surprisingly holds back quite a bit here, all the while forming the essential backbone from which Pissed Jeans rip your face off. Hope For Men may be incredibly sarcastic, but somehow I felt sincere empathy seeping out of every pore of this record.


You can’t fuck with this band at all. There’s no real point in hating on them, they hate on themselves so much already it doesn’t really matter.