You want us to play reverb?
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Indie List Digest!
September 4, 1995
Volume 4 Number 38
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Dirty Three, Blonde Redhead, Nels Cline Trio
lida husik
ANNOUNCE: underscope magazine web site
ANNOUNCE: Papas Fritas web sites
ANNOUNCE: sliding glass (maga)zine numbers 1 and 2
ANNOUNCE: Soap Opera Names
AD: FOOTSTONE CD
AD: new klang industries stuff
in case you had been anxiously awaiting this long-awaited I-L, wait no
more. we know this is shamefully late, but we were holding out for
"scandalously late." or maybe we were just trying to get our feet on
the ground underneath us, i dunno. thanks to people for continuing to
send us stuff, we're really trying to get back on some kind of
reasonable schedule.
brief reviews, as my memory is beginning to fail:
-Saw Versus and Jale last week at the Fireside Bowl, along with local
bands Braid and Poonjab, about whom i remember nothing. Jale were
cheerfully melodic, with an energy i didn't really hear on their CD.
Versus put on a reliably entertaining performance, the last one, they
alleged, with the current drummer. nice rendition of "Crazy." nice
t-shirts for sale.
-Franklin Bruno appeared, and even played, at the Empty Bottle the
following Sunday, following Number One Cup and a very loud band of
young fellows whose name i can't remember. they were loud and played
a rather short set, and, er, did i mention they were loud? No. 1 Cup
continue to be a fun uptempo pop band. i don't know Franklin's "A
Bedroom Community" well enough to say how much of it was really
represented, but the songs seemed to follow that album's tone of
moderate, slightly downbeat songs. much self-deprecating banter
between songs, and he took a few requests. Played my fave "The Irony
Engine." whee!
-Lounge Ax this weekend featured Silkworm & local youngsters Hubcap.
Hubcap played the kind of severely repetitive, start-and-stop stuff i
don't really care for, but they were wacky as all get-out ("This is
our Billy Squier cover!"). Silkworm self-confessedly write "the
saddest songs in the world" and simultaneously rip my heart out and
make me feel better, strange to say. there should be a new single out
soon and an album, oh, someday.
thanks and goodnight,
az
As Anne was waiting to see Silkworm, I was at the Fireside, catching
God is my Co-Pilot for the first time. I was not disappointed in the
least - short short songs, manic energy, distinctly personal politics
all wrapped together in a herky-jerky, yet coherent, package. Steve,
who was my fellow traveller, was thrilled to hear their Vartinna cover
(and how many times do you get to hear a Finnish cover, anyway -
particularly in the correct language?). At times, the politics
lurched toward an oddly Big Black-esque sense, if distinctly from the
other direction of gender politics. All in all, definitely worth the
trek, and the rush to catch Silkworm (missing, to our regret, Team
Dresch).
Nights before, I made it to the Clikatat Ikatowi/Unwound/Los
Crudos/Shotmaker fest at Fireside. Clikatat Ikatowi and Unwound
inhabit a common space in my personal pantheon - this noisy,
punk-rooted West Coast (San Diego and Olympia, respectively)
consciously underschooled yet tight rock. And they were both in fine
form that night. Shotmaker played a thriller of a set, a complex and
educated rhythm of sound. Los Crudos, the draw for most of the
audience that evening, are old-school hardcore en espanol, replete
with explications of the songs that are 2 times as long as the songs
themselves. But the songs between the talk are exciting and stunning.
They're sharing the benefit bill locally with a rap band, Stony Island
soon, which should be an interesting show to catch...
Rumour of the evening - John "High School Confidential" Hughes was in
attendence, hoping to sign Clikatat Ikatowi for his label.
An arrival to our life just before we left Bloomington was an issue of
Jaboni Youth, which you may have seen announced in an IL past. It's
out, and it's a humdinger - a long (perhaps exhaustingly so) interview
with Franklin Bruno, another with Dennis Callaci, an a piece by John
Darnielle make this an Inland Special. Add to this a nifty tape comp
(which includes the above and many more) that comes with, and you've
got a nifty liitle package. Embarrassingly, I've misplaced the
pricing, but I'd expect it's about a fiver from Alec Jaboni, PO Box
200069, New Haven, CT 06520.
And for more web fun, check out the nascent Indie-List home page, at
http://www.tezcat.com/~esinclai/il/ It's in a growth state, right
now... Yeah, that's the ticket. Just call us announce central...
Administrivial Query: a couple of readers in Belgium received more
than one copy of the IL last issue - did anyone else? Before I bury
myself neckdeep in sendmail, I'd like to get some more data...
Thanks!
-es
<------------------------------>
From: David Gershwin <gershwin@hollywood.cinenet.net>
Dirty Three, Blonde Redhead, Nels Cline Trio
Dirty Three, Blonde Redhead, Nels Cline Trio
Alligator Lounge
Santa Monica, CA
8/14/95
Skipping Lollapaloser this year, I decided to catch two of the second
stagers, Dirty Three and Blonde Redhead, at L.A.'s answer to the
Austin's Continental Club.
Dirty Three, straight outta Melbourne, Australia, consisted of drums,
kick-ass electric viola, and moody, swirling guitar. As the lead
singer/viola player got into the set, he managed to kick over his
monitor, strum his Strat (and I ain't talkin' about the Fender variety
here) to the point where your earplugs didn't do any good, and hear
the older lad from down under tell some charming tales of his days of
bad, drug-hazed relationships, replete with descriptions of what it's
like to wake up with track marks on your arms every morning. Imagine
if the orchestra's crescendo in the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" were
melodic instead of cacophonous, all the while watching the drummer
shift seamlessly from brushes to soft mallets (some drummer help me
out with terminology, please) to drumsticks; there you have it -- an
impressive set, driving the audience to an enthusiastic response
usually reserved for headliners.
En Why's Blonde Redhead, heirs apparent to Sonic Youth, turned out to
give an amazingly energetic performance, considering this was their
third of the day -- playing on NPR outlet KCRW in the a.m., Lolly's
second stage in the hot August winds behind the Orange County Curtain,
and back to the West Coast's most famous pier city when I caught 'em.
Life is pain wails, using other guitars as capos, and the vocal
trade-offs made one wonder if Steve Shelley did more than merely
produce their first LP. It was also the first set of twins I've seen
on stage in a while -- while it was the drummer and the male
guitarist, you wished it was the drummer and the bassist so you could
see the tightest rhythm section ever. No matter though -- the drummer
was in my eyes the standout, punctuating the dissonant guitar licks
with a thundering fury.
Nels Cline, currently on tour with Watt, closed the evening with his
trio. I should say here that Cline put together this show, as he does
every Monday evening at Alligator Lounge when he's not touring. Hats
off to him and for the six buck cover. Entering the realm of jazz
more often than not, Cline's fretwork proved to be nothing less than
amazing, up until the point one of his transformers blew out, clearly
throwing off the improvisational energy and creative momentum that
pushes them to give us Dead-like 'spacejams' in an indie context. I
left midway through his set due to fatigue on my part -- guess that
means I'll be coming back on a Monday later this month.
--David Gershwin
gershwin@cinenet.net
<------------------------------>
From: SPRIGAN@cluster.ucs.indiana.edu
lida husik
Can I just vent a little about how little attention Lida Husik is
getting during this most recent concert tour with Chris Knox, from
mainstream and independent (and even online) presses? Even small
'zines in her former hometown of Washington, DC, (where she used to go
to art school, I hear, and was involved in Positive Force--though to
what degree, I don't know) pretty much ignored her when she played in
town last month. As one reviewer in a previous Indie-List said,
Lida's music is psychedeli-indie-folk (or something like that)...and I
guess that does describe it, but somehow I find it's hard to put
together a description of her music that does justice to the
atmospheric qualities--both light and heavy--the undertow and yet the
quirky fun of it. Her most recent CD <Joyride> has been compared to
Mazzy Star, in terms of its sound; but I think Lida H. is more her
own artist--she knows what she's doing and has more to say. She
manages to be both brooding and quirkily lilting as she sings lyrics
like "Joyride, joyride, there's no suicide...." I recommend the new CD
(on Mammoth, I think--Husik is in NY now) highly and have spent many
hours listening to her material on Kramer's Shimmy Disk label as well:
<Your Bag,> <Bozo,> and <The Return of Red Emma.> I wonder how
representative Husik's recent show in the DC area was--she and her
band were playing after driving ten hours or so, and they were playing
mostly to a crowd of former art school buddies. So there was a lot of
between-song banter, much of it risking leaving some of the audience
out. But I think Husik and her band still managed to put on a good
show, and her solo guitar extemporizing (right word?) at the end of
the set was a treat, especially when she started in about the band's
travels through the south and about being "Jews for Jesus." I would
definitely recommend her live shows. But for haunting beauty, pulling
sadness and depth, and some sweet silliness, I'd turn to the
recordings first. --Sara Prigan
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From: jiji@speed.net (jiji johnson)
ANNOUNCE: underscope magazine web site
UNDERSCOPE MAGAZINE is online.
come check out our teeny site at HALLUCINET:
http://www.hallucinet.com/underscope
we're also looking for writers and photographers in the So.California
area (actually if you have fax/email access the writer thing's more
flexible)--no dough but mega exposure and indie demos and/or signed
indie bands' stuff. clips/resumes n' music can be sent to: UNDERSCOPE
MAGAZINE P.O. BOX 1203 CORONA CA 91718-1203
peace,
jiji@speed.net
<------------------------------>
From: Keith Gendel <kgendel@isr.harvard.edu>
ANNOUNCE: Papas Fritas web sites
The band Papas Fritas has two web sites of interest:
our homepage: http://www.seeokc.com:80/woodwire/fries/fries.html our
tour calendar : http://wjh-www.harvard.edu/~kgendel/calendar.html
We'll be touring starting late August and our latest LP will be
released by MInty Fresh on October 3rd.
keith/papas fritas
<------------------------------>
From: Leslie_Kleinberg@brown.edu
ANNOUNCE: sliding glass (maga)zine numbers 1 and 2
............................................................................
the sliding glass is now out
"acoustical excellence plus aesthetic appearance"
(wordplay / poetry / graphics)
issues 1 and 2 one dollar or three stamps each
.............................................................................
no, this isn't a music zine, but if you check out issue 2, you can
play "Find the Indie Rock influence." It's there, and not so subtly.
come to think of it, it's in the first issue, too.
issue 1 is seven poems plus graphics
issue 2 is one long poem (13 pages) plus a graphic-y cover
issue 3 out soon(er or later) with full color cover
Leslie K
P.O. Box 299
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
<------------------------------>
From: "Henry H. Owings" <HOWINGS@uga.cc.uga.edu>
ANNOUNCE: Soap Opera Names *PLEASE HELP!*
You may or may not know that I do a fanzine called CHUNKLET. Well, I
do.
Anywho, in the next issue, I'm going to have a small bit where I find
out the "soap opera names" of rockers in the indie world. "Henry,"
you're asking yrself, "how do I get my soap opera name?" Well, it's
simple.
Your soap opera name consists of:
1. Your FIRST NAME would be your real middle name. If you're real
name is Billy Joseph Smith, then your soap name would be Joseph.
2. Your LAST NAME is the name of the street you've lived on the
longest in yr life. For instance, if you lived on Crestview Drive for
20 years, then yr last name would be Crestview. Now, if you lived on
a street named by number or letter (i.e. G St. or 12th Ave.) then
take either the second runner up, or use the name of the city you
currently live in.
Yes! It's that simple!
Now all I ask is that you respond to this when you can.
Also, if you'd like to forward this along to all those rockers you
know, well, then I'd appreciate the help. I guess I don't have much
else to say, so this is Henry, er, uh, Howard Chesley (!!!) signing
off. And thanks for yr support!
h20
[uh... -es]
<------------------------------>
From: dromdary@mail.gti.net (Al Crisafulli)
AD: FOOTSTONE CD
Hi. Just in case anyone was wondering, we've just released the new CD
from Footstone, "Lippy".
Just in case anyone else was wondering, Footstone play loud, punk-type
pop, kinda like Uncle Joe's Big Ol Driver or The Descendents or even
Husker Du. The disc itself is available for $11.00 ppd if you write
to the below address.
Or you could just write for our catalog which contains our stuff as
well as stuff from other great labels like Mag Wheel, Ratfish, Carrot
Top, Pop Narcotic, Harriet, Drunken Fish, Simple Machines, and more.
Thanks for your time.
-Al/dromedary
dromedary records
dromdary@gti.net
PO Box 17; Boonton, NJ 07005
<------------------------------>
From: MGANGLOFF@Gems.VCU.EDU
AD: new klang industries stuff
NEW from Klang Industries: Gospel Midgets "Side one, two" LP and Pelt
"Brown Cyclopaedia" 2 x LP. For information, e-mail
mgangloff@gems.vcu.edu with a sufficiently interesting slug line or
write to Klang at 238 S. Cherry St. Richmond VA 23220.
<------------------------------------------------------------>
Coming next issue:
News from the Netherlands
Super Friends and Jale
You?
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The Indie-List Digest is published weekly (Mondays) or more often by
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Anne Zender azender@tezcat.com
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Consultants: Mark Cornick, Joshua Houk, Sean Murphy, Liz Clayton and
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