By M. Tekel, on May 4th, 2012% Photo: Wikipedia
I saw Anton Newcombe the minute I walked into Crescent Ballroom. At first I wasn’t sure it was really the Brian Jonestown Massacre frontman, because I was stoned out of my mind and he looked shorter than I imagined.
In the bathroom, I also saw Matt Hollywood the guitarist, who I had a dream about getting into a fight with several months ago. I pissed right next to him, thought about telling him about the dream, but decided to say nothing.
Fuck. Here I was at the show of my dreams (literally) and I couldn’t even talk . . . → Read More: Daydreams at The Brian Jonestown Massacre Release Party Thing
By Troy Farah, on May 3rd, 2012% Reviving the Volta and a good kick to the Shins
Published on 04/26/2012 in Flag Live!
The Mars Volta
Noctourniquet
Rating: 4/5
The Mars Volta, infamous for their cryptic lyrics, songs often exceeding 10 minutes and experimental, dissonant riffs, thoroughly define modern prog-rock. Fans of the group want music that’s challenging to understand or appreciate. And, because the group does everything against the rules, they even threatened to break their own and release a pop album.
That threat was realized in 2009 with the band’s fifth album, Octahedron, which was so lukewarm, it felt curdled. It sucked in the same way catfish feed, . . . → Read More: In Rotation: The Mars Volta and Broken Bells… er, The Shins…
By M. Tekel, on March 28th, 2012% Usually, listening to a “Best of” album is cheating and means you don’t really like music, but Squeeze is an exception*. You’ll know them for their song “Tempted” which I used to hear on repeat when I worked at Sears. I would look around at all the recently divorced loners shopping for gray socks and feel sort of bad and weird, until the anonymous Sears P.A. djs changed the song to something even more depressing. Here’s a video for that song acted out by some idiots who rooted in their step-father’s closet, after the break. Laws like SOPA will make . . . → Read More: ‘Wormery: Squeeze me, squeeze me, squeeze me
By Troy Farah, on March 27th, 2012% Dark conceptual weirdness and a dulled duo’s edge By Troy Farah Published on 03/22/2012 in Flag Live
Cursive
I Am Gemini
Rating: 4/5
When Cursive played at the Crescent Ballroom in Phoenix, frontman Tim Kasher described the band’s seventh album, I Am Gemini, as “pretty weird.” Kasher’s lyrics have always evoked characters somewhere between Mark David Chapman and Willard, but now he’s gone full-blown schizophrenic.
Now, anyone with a brief knowledge of pop psychology understands the term schizophrenic is thrown around all too often, but it works here pretty well. Or maybe I Am Gemini just falls into dissociative identity disorder; the point here . . . → Read More: In Rotation: Cursive and Sleigh Bells
By Troy Farah, on March 26th, 2012%
Published on 03/22/2012 in Flag Live
(Author’s note: This article was the blood and sweat of over eight months, where it was post-poned and delayed repeatedly. I feel like I became really close with the band in that time and I’m finally glad to see it in print. Enjoy it uncensored after the break.)
It took a number of beer-pounding sessions before settling on the offbeat name Tonsil Yeti. Other suggestions thrown about were Bronson Johnson, Six Year Old Girls, Konkey Dong, Vagiant (taken, as it turns out), and Bloody Sex. But what exactly is a Tonsil Yeti? To . . . → Read More: Rock Monster: Flagstaff’s Tonsil Yeti gets by (and triumphs) with a little help from their friends
By Troy Farah, on March 20th, 2012%
An American Dream-killing diva and lucid dream pop
By Troy Farah Published on 03/01/2012 in Flag Live
Lana Del Rey
Born To Die
Rating: 5/5
Let’s talk pop. What’s more American than taking a pretty girl, placing her in front of a microphone and making her sing in between commercials for tampons and beers from Milwaukee? And with all due respect to Whitney Houston, what’s more American than getting said female addicted to narcotics until they destroy themselves, then overplaying how misunderstood and sad their lives were?
Lana Del Rey’s different—she’s still a part of the recent rash of . . . → Read More: In Rotation: Lana Del Rey and Porcelain Raft
By Troy Farah, on February 28th, 2012%
Dark soundscapes and an atmospheric soundtrack to Camelot
ByTroy Farah Published on 02/16/2012in Flag Live
Chairlift
Something
Rating: 4/5
Raise your hand if you like happy little pop songs that are secretly about violent killing sprees. “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine” by the Killers or the Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays” are great examples, and by now everyone knows that one Foster the People song is really about a school shooting.
Did you know some people have actually tried to turn “Pumped Up Kicks” into a dubstep song? It sounds terrible, like they had a radio hit . . . → Read More: In Rotation: Chairlift and First Aid Kit
By Troy Farah, on February 28th, 2012%
Multilayered songwriter Citizen Cope declares his independence and thrives
By Troy FarahPublished on 01/26/2012 in Flag Live
“You have the first moment you have a good show, the first time you make a good song in the studio and the first time people start liking it. That’s the good thing about it. Good things come along and they add to each other.”
So says Clarence Greenwood, better known by his stage name Citizen Cope, whose bluesy assortment of go-go and hip-hop beats, barefoot acoustic jams and chilled-out rock has been featured in everything from “Scrubs” to “Sons of . . . → Read More: Citizen Cope, Musical Ambassador
By Troy Farah, on February 28th, 2012%
In Rotation -Sailing the seas of cliché and pandering
By Troy Farah Published on 01/26/2012 in Flag Live
The Internet
Purple Naked Ladies
1/5
It seems like every three months, some branch of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (OFWGKTA) releases a new album. It’s getting harder to keep up, but luckily, the Internet’s Purple Naked Ladies can be skimmed over. Like other Odd Future releases, production is kept to a minimum, but it doesn’t have the charm. The opener, “Violet Nude Women,” sounds like what happens when my cat plays with my Roland digital piano, and “They Say” . . . → Read More: In Rotation: The Internet and The Big Pink
By Troy Farah, on February 28th, 2012% By Troy Farah Wed., Feb. 22 2012 at 9:00 AM in Phoenix New Times
Ambition goes a long way — just askSareena Dominguez, who signed with River Jones Music Label a scant six months ago, is releasing her debut in the spring, and is currently booking her first tour — and she’s only 19.
Raised in Gilbert, Dominguez came from a rather large family in a suburb, to her, the perfect place to focus solely on her creativity because as she puts it, “I almost had to make up my own. There wasn’t too much creativity going on where I was.”
Her deep . . . → Read More: Sareena Dominguez: “I Wouldn’t Say I’m ‘Super Folk’”
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Specialty Gunk Runner
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Last Night: The Donkeys at Yucca Tap Room 5/14/12
Originally published in Phoenix New Times’ Up On The Sun
It’s hard to tell your friends “I’m going to the Donkeys show” with a straight face. No, not some perverted freak-show in Mexico. I mean the psychedelic San Diegan blues rockers The Donkeys, who tore the Yucca Tap Room apart with their ’60s-inspired pop and ’70s-era jams, a blend that’s earned praise from indie contemporaries like The Mountain Goats and The Hold Steady. The Donkeys treated the bar and lounge like they were regulars, which is pretty close to the truth — this is hardly their first rodeo in Tempe. . . . → Read More: Last Night: The Donkeys at Yucca Tap Room 5/14/12
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Tekel’s Book of the Month Club Returns!
This isn’t some Oprah bullshit. We read kickass books and at the end of it, have a swag party with cocktails, cigars and coke. Most of all, we talk all posh about literature. It’s an incentive to read and discuss ideas rather than what’s on TV or who’s sleeping with who.
Tekel’s Book of the Month Club existed in some form as a weird Facebook group, but now it’s public. Anyone can (and should) join!
. . . → Read More: Tekel’s Book of the Month Club Returns!
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The Filthfiller Interview: Jerking-off, spider dongs and BDSM photographer Natacha Merritt
San Francisco-based photographer, Natacha Merritt, made waves in 2000 with her book Digital-Diaries, an erotic exploration of her excellent sex life as she toured the underground S&M and slut-sex scenes. The book moved over 300,000 copies, featured in everything from The Wall Street Journal to Playboy to Rolling Stone.
So what do you after your pornographic diary becomes a best-seller? Well, for Merritt, she went back to school to study biology. Perhaps that’s an odd choice, but between photographing Cirque du Soleil performers and amateur models, she was getting close and personal with arachnid genitalia. Her passion for sex . . . → Read More: The Filthfiller Interview: Jerking-off, spider dongs and BDSM photographer Natacha Merritt
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Rock Monster: Flagstaff’s Tonsil Yeti gets by (and triumphs) with a little help from their friends
Published on 03/22/2012 in Flag Live
(Author’s note: This article was the blood and sweat of over eight months, where it was post-poned and delayed repeatedly. I feel like I became really close with the band in that time and I’m finally glad to see it in print. Enjoy it uncensored after the break.)
It took a number of beer-pounding sessions before settling on the offbeat name Tonsil Yeti. Other suggestions thrown about were Bronson Johnson, Six Year Old Girls, Konkey Dong, Vagiant (taken, as it turns out), and Bloody Sex. But what exactly is a Tonsil Yeti? To . . . → Read More: Rock Monster: Flagstaff’s Tonsil Yeti gets by (and triumphs) with a little help from their friends
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Phoenix Indie-Rock Band Knesset Is Big in Japan
By Troy Farah Mon., Mar. 19 2012 at 7:00 AM in Phoenix New Times
Released last year, Coming of Age is an appropriate title for Knesset’s first album, as the band is only now starting to step up locally. Pronounced KA-NESS-ET and named after the legislative branch of the Israeli government, these locals have played in the background of Phoenix since 2007.
. . . → Read More: Phoenix Indie-Rock Band Knesset Is Big in Japan
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