Parkland Spawned a Monster

Aw yiss!




Shameless? Yes. Proud? Damn straight. Even some upstart music blog is pretending like they knew about this.

"Somebody would come looking for the Death master tapes"

This looks like a fun ride, in the classic story arc of "band more influential than famous gets rediscovered by a world finally ready for their music."



A Band Called Death is available now via various on-demand and download services, but it's also coming to various big screens.

We'd have made plans to see this movie anyway, but thanks to the crate-digging work of Rich at The Day After the Sabbath, we knew a bit about this band and can't wait to learn more.

Wise to the Demise

Adam "MCA" Yauch is still our favorite Beastie Boy.

Tracing the influence of King Adrock and Mike D in terms of vocals is pretty easy. Rappers from Eminem to MC Paul Barman and beyond employ the nasal delivery of those two. And Adrock especially, whose punkish, puckish delivery defines the Beastie Boys for most listeners, despite Mike D's deadpan delivery of hilarious lines.

But few emulate or approach MCA's dry howl. Even as he's helping create a false origin story for the band in "Paul Revere" his voice has a the crispness of an elder statesman. He could get at both the winking comedy of early career Beasties -- drawling as if he'd been up all night pounding brewskis and bumming smokes from your girlfriend -- and the conscious rapping/positivity of the trio's later material.

He's gone, it sucks, and he'll be missed. We're not sure how long this eulogy will be up on the landing page of the Beastie Boys site, but you should read it. That's how you spend major label money and influence.

Free Music: XII Boar and SP-33

Music distribution has changed, just in case anybody here hasn't been paying attention. Giving away singles, EPs and sometimes full albums is often the method emerging artists use to get attention in a crowded marketplace.

The viability of that model is and has been discussed ad naseum -- it's all speculation and only time and failure will reveal the best path. By then we'll have already reached a destination.

Meanwhile, three dudes from the U.K., with a deep and abiding love of Motorhead, doom/stoner metal and other heavy sounds, decided to form a band last year. They're called XII Boar and they're giving away a four-song EP titled XII.

XII Boar spew high-density sludge with moody curls of smoke filling up the spaces in between the blasts. They have a good feel for dynamics and at least one of them digs hardcore ("Train Wreck").

The EP's closer, "Skol" follows a sparse percussion break with a tonal shift in which the band does a quick variation on Blue Cheer's "Summertime Blues" trick by letting each member of the trio take two quick measures to hammer down a short solo and step back to make room for the next guy in line.

Find multiple download links for XII here. [And an enthusiastic goat's head to Angry Chairs.]
 
***
 
The Typing Monkey knows nothing of the DJ/producer/musician known as SP-33. Statistics favor a dude in his mid-to-late 20s behind the moniker but for all anyone knows SP-33 is two teenage girls. What we do know is that we've been playing SP-33's Escape from Tha Carter a couple times a day since we downloaded the free LP a week ago.
 

SP-33 chopped up John Carpenter's soundtrack from Escape from New York and spliced it with equally shredded vocals from Lil Wayne's Tha Carter discs. (Mostly from Tha Carter III.) It's standing on the shoulders of Dangermouse's Grey Album in order to reach past mash-up status and into collage territory.
 
Escape retains the desolate tone of Carpenter's compositions and often grinds up Weezy's vocals -- already treading into drain-cleaner territory -- into a coarse paste that blends well with the music's zombie-Vangelis sound.
 
Get the download here or if you want to save bandwidth play it on Soundcloud. [Wink & a nod to XLR8R.]

Atypical Girl

The news is old already, but The Typing Monkey would be fools to not acknowledge the death of Ari Up, especially given this.

So many lesser musicians owe a major debt to Up's methodical envelope pushing. Is there a better way to dismantle expectations than to just get inside the machine without asking permission? No there isn't. No manifestos or drawing attention to the fact that she was a woman making post-punk weirdo reggae/dub/pop. Up just did it.

The AV Club's obit sums her up well. We shall now retire to the lounge and listen to The Slits magnificent version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."


[As longtime Typing Monkey associate Kevan says: This news bums me the fuck out. -- ed.]

Tankcrimes Brainsqueeze

Please enjoy this advertisement for a thrash festival in Oakland, CA this October. It does reference that 17-minute infomercial for the 2010 Gathering. But if you haven't seen that, the entertainment value of the Tankcrimes Brainsqueeze ad will in no way be reduced. (Some cussin' involved, so tell the kids to go outside.)




[A neck-snapping headbang to Cosmic Hearse.]

Need a Ride?

The Typing Monkey would never tell you what to do. However, we have no qualms with nudging you in the right direction, just like a sitcom dad, and trust that you’ll make a good decision.

Now then. There’s a gentleman named Aesop Dekker* who runs a music blog called Cosmic Hearse. If you’re going to run a music blog, this is the way to do it. Straight from his site:

"It's about sharing hard to find and special recordings. It's not about taking anything away from the artists themselves. Of course if something is in print and you like it, buy it. If you have legitimate claim to something posted here and want it removed, just write me and I'll do so."

That's an invitation to LOVE -- the love of getting your brain-junk kicked repeatedly by music you didn't kow you needed in your life.

And what is that music? It’s metal of many varieties (black, death, doom, thrash, ‘70s, NWOBHM, et al.); rock of multiple stripes (hard, psych, classic, prog, Eastern bloc, etc.); some punk and hip-hop; and plenty of just plain weird stuff that you won’t find easily unless you spend too much time (and money) scouring record bins.

Aside from the bounty of amazing music at Cosmic Hearse, Dekker writes thoughtful and genuinely funny summaries, criticism and reality checks about the content. His enthusiasm for the music and his blog has pushed The Typing Monkey staff to investigate music we might have otherwise passed by anywhere else.

So quit hanging around this dump and get over to Cosmic Hearse. [Scruffs your hair and smiles] Now go on, champ.


[A belated tip of the hat to Dr. Fred.]


*Dekker also plays drums in the San Francisco black metal band Ludicra. Their album The Tenant is out now. Do check it out.

Cruel and Bewitching

Put down the taco son, there’s another holiday going on in the Northern Hemisphere today that has nothing to do with war or binge drinking. Today is Beltane, otherwise known as the start of summer for those who follow the pagan calendar.

The weather may not be very summer-like where ever you are. At The Typing Monkey’s global headquarters it’s positively autumnal … except for all the green. We’re halfway there. So to celebrate please play the following as often as you like:

The Slits
"Typical Girls"

[courtesy Nemova]

And if the word "Beltane" stirs some distant recognition in your brains, perhaps this is why.

"Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go."

If you meet them at the right point in your life, certain people retain a sort of permanent cool. Reality be damned, a strong first impression can forever shade the way you think of another person.

For me, Scott Burroughs will always be one of those characters. He was, literally, my big brother’s cool friend -- a scarecrow of a teen, months away from daring the 1979-era Tacoma, Washington population to not stare at his mohawk. Scott was a triple threat: black, punk and disarmingly sweet.

Wig Out! magazine would run a tiny cartoon of “Reverend” Scott Burroughs sometime around 1984, with text reading, “often imitated, never duplicated.” They were referring to his skateboarding skills, but those words could just as easily apply to the man himself. Even with the ‘80s in full swing, daring to be different along the Seattle-Tacoma corridor still had shock value, and Scott seemed ahead of the curve in that regard.

In the mid-‘90s I saw him in person again for the first time in years. We were crowded on the floor of a now-defunct music venue watching the first “reunion” performance of The Specials. (Still no Terry Hall, but nobody was taking any chances.) With his giant dreadlocks, colorful clothes and wide grin, it made perfect sense to see Scott there. That first Specials album can’t be separated from my appraisal of Scott Burroughs and other things that remain unimpeachably hip.

His life was not without troubles, though I know little of those. To me, Scott remained a sort of superhuman presence thanks to the power of memory. Of course, he performed in numerous bands, most recently playing bass and singing in Thankless Dogs.

The last time I talked to Scott was at a wake, oddly enough. He genially tolerated my aging father’s bad jokes and loud conversation. He was nothing if not a gentleman, and I’m sure, entirely human, no matter what I think. But I still think Scott Burroughs is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met.

Good-bye, Scott.

Kris Kendall didn't know Mr. Burroughs would be going so soon, or he might have told him this in person. Well, you never know.

Visibly Frenzied

It must be noted that Dr. Fred Beldinstein now operates out of an Arbor called Ann. He's painstakingly restored and reassembled his lab there and has resumed posting to his video blog Frenzy of the Visible. There he lets all his personal demons run free in the form of YouTube, Hulu and other online video files.

Need to see the preview of the Mexican vampire movie The Genie of Darkness? Crave some vintage concert footage of Venom? Done and done. At FotV Dr. Beldinstein posts educational films, forgotten cartoons, punk videos, schlock horror films and clips that defy easy classification.

He finds them so that you don't have to waste time looking for entertainment you didn't know you needed. We suggest you click on over there post haste.

Eluding Fame Since 1984

A happy 25th anniversary to Girl Trouble, who've been bringing South Tacoma pride to audiences around the world the only way they know how: with hip-shaking beats, partial nudity and prizes for those who aren't so drunk that they can't catch a plastic toy hurled at them from the stage.

Tacoma is like the difficult girlfriend in a French new wave film -- she's alternately cold and distant or warm and flirty, beautiful in the right light, and sometimes she kind of smells funny. Oh, and the smoking. Who could convey her particular charms better than Girl Trouble? The video's not embeddable, so here's a link to "My Hometown."

And at no extra charge (and also because a YouTube link is easier than posting an MP3) here's a dull video of a spectacular song. I bet you thought The Banana Splits couldn't be any sexier. Well, you were wrong.

["My Hometown" courtesy Kathy C. Fennessy/BVMGrungeTV; "Gonna Find a Cave" courtesy dennisvanlith.]

On the Importance of a Band Mission Statement

Thanks to abundant media and new technology, everyone on the planet is in a band.

Few modern bands, however, issue a genuine mission statement. And we're not talking about some hardcore act or politically motivated band stating political intentions. That's a manifesto, and should have been left in the early 1980s along with your shaved head and G.B.H. patch.

Go to any band's MySpace page right now. Go ahead -- we'll wait.

Now scroll down a bit to the "About us" section. Chances are it's a band bio. With rare exceptions, band bios are dull and as rote as the story arc to the average slasher film. People meet and make music all the time. Few of the "how they met/who they are" stories are interesting to anyone outside the band.

But a mission statement is an opportunity for a musician to tell an audience what to expect and charm us into paying attention. Even clumsy attempts at humor in a band's letter of intent are better than telling us that they were born and raised in a small New England farming community but life really began the first time they heard a New York Dolls record.

Here's a good example of a successful mission statement from the thrash band Annihilation Time, verbatim from the quartet's MySpace page:

Quite simply the most powerful band in the world at the moment. Forget about the once-great dinosaur bands still roaming the earth (Metallica, Blue Oyster Cult, Winger): their time has past. This planet's future lays in the hands of the mighty Annihilation Time, who day by day, are slowly creeping their raunchy rock and roll across every inch of this dying heap of shit we call a world. Standing virtually alone in sea of garbage music played by garbage people for garbage people, Annihilation Time shines as a bastion of what was once great in rock music; Sex, alcohol, drugs, loundess, filth, and destruction. Taking cues from now deceased masters like the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Thin Lizzy, and Black Sabbath, Annihilation Time sonically lays waste to your every brain cell and fiber of being. You have but two options: worship or be crushed.

Nice, huh? Is it true bravado, or self-deprecation disguised as impossibly lofty goals? It doesn't matter. The beauty of Annihilation Time's mission is in the group's directness. Move away old people and vapid entertainment, a scary group of white kids is here and they smell like sweat, beer and bong water. Also, they're loud and offensive.

Another approach to the mission statement comes from Girl Trouble's MySpace page, where they've made better use of the "influences" section by making a vow:

It is our solemn promise that we give you the most value for your entertainment dollar. In each town we will attempt to spread the goodwill of the Pacific Northwest and make sure we clean up afterwards. We sincerely hope you will enjoy our musical performance and manage to catch one of the complementary prizes that K.P. Kendall will distribute during each show. We will strive to be good citizens and obey all safety rules and regulations. Our goal is to entertain in a professional and courteous manner. This is our pledge to you!

The Typing Monkey has purchased consumer durables from paid sales staff who didn't try that hard. The Girl Trouble pledge forgoes the band's usual self-deprecation in favor of light humor and a genuine, almost church-potluck like level of sincerity. Yes, the band has a traditional bio further down the page, but it says more about them that they put the pledge as close to the top as possible.

Dear bands, combos, solo musicians and other musical entertainers: Try harder. Start by immediately removing the carefully crafted band bio you posted and replacing it with a mission statement, declaration of intent or oath. Your music is your product, and nobody wants to know how all the parts of their new sneakers came together. We just want to be assured that these shoes will help us run faster, jump higher and impress people we want to have sex with.

Now You Has Punk

If you missed this:



You can read more about it all over the interwebs, including here, here and here. [Scroll down to the 3 p.m. entry in that last link.]

The Typing Monkey's most favoritest person in the whole wide world said: "If they weren't already my favorite band, they would be now."

Hit to Death

THE FUTUREHEADS
This Is Not the World
(Nul)
This album is exhausting. But let's not count that as a complaint. After the Futureheads' self-titled 2004 debut -- a sharp jolt of starched-and-creased pop that shot far ahead of its post-punk revival peers -- the Sunderland, England quartet fell into a morose, introspective ravine with News and Tributes in 2006.

Now the band claws back out with their own label and a ferocious collection of new songs. World's first three tracks are a gleeful rocket ride, propelled by Dave Hyde's drums playing off the bass and guitar interaction to give the illusion of tempos in danger of rushing into chaos. Four songs in, "Hard to Bear" finally softens the thundering rhythms, but the pace of World never slows.

The band's strength remains: solid tunes and remarkable rhythmic precision. They're never showy, and that's the allure. Their harmonies -- never a weak spot to begin with -- soar into Proclaimers territory during "Hard to Bear" and "Radio Heart." And the Supergrass arena-rock muscle from the verses of "Sale of the Century" disguising an XTC-like bounce beneath stands out among many clever ideas.

But forty minutes of snarl and speed over-delivers what feels like a Futureheads declaration of freedom and return volley to the lackluster response to the sophomore album. Somebody must ask the Haircut 100 question: "Where do we go from here?"

Reference materials: The Futureheads have digested and repurposed all sorts of pop and rock references. They list several American musicians, but there's also a lot of The Jam, Orange Juice and Aztec Camera. Plus Barry Hyde often sounds like a scruffier Terry Hall, and when Ross Millard takes the lead vocal, there's a strong resemblence to Paul Weller.

Bonus video!
The Futureheads will never be "that band that covered a Kate Bush song" because they waited long enough into the line-up of singles from their 2004 debut to unleash their lock-step version of the wispy one's "Hounds of Love." That's smart tactics. Now get ready ... cute overload!!1!

The Monkey Reads: I Have Fun Everywhere I Go

I HAVE FUN EVERYWHERE I GO
Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World
By Mike Edison
(Faber and Faber)
If the subtitle of this autobiography doesn’t make it abundantly clear, Mike Edison confesses outright in the author’s note: He’s prone to hyperbole.

Edison -- a musician and former magazine editor, publisher and writer -- spins his overlong yarn like a sometimes-entertaining attention hog at a party where the reader is a stranger, trapped by this odd man and his ramblings.

Most of Fun chronicles Edison’s career as a writer and editor of pornography, wrestling fan magazines and eventually as the editor-in-chief/publisher of the infamous weed magazine, High Times. But he spends too many pages detailing his time in various hardcore, garage-rock and experimental rhythm & blues bands.

An early section about Edison’s childhood and adolescence spews excessive vitriol about what sounds like a fairly typical life for a child of divorce. Mom and dad fought, split up, and Edison, the oldest of two boys in a Jewish family in 1970s New Jersey, sought refuge in the common outlets of music and recreational drug use. What’s he so upset about?

His rock & roll tour diaries are repetitive and ultimately dull. Vicarious drug stories always run the risk of boring and Edison's recounting of his Homeric indulgence of booze, pills, hallucinogens and marijuana hits the wall quickly. He's also the biggest fan of his own music. While not a crime, that doesn't help move the story along.

Edison’s time served in the Kafka-esque High Times offices are a bright spot. These tales would entertain readers who’ve never worked for a magazine -- let alone those who've never smoked pot -- primarily because a poisonous job situation is a nearly universal misery.

Fun could have been an insider’s history of High Times, the world of non-WWE professional wrestling, or a sharp portrait of a life lived in the twilight of a pre-internet publishing world.

Instead it's an overwritten memoir that makes everything catalogued in the book's subtitle seem boring. Edison may have fun everywhere he goes, but does he have to take us with him?

Reference materials: If you must read Fun, The Typing Monkey warned you. Allow us to suggest an alternative: Listen to some dirty blues, ingest mind-altering substances, and watch old wrestling footage yourself. Just don't tell us about it.