Deafheaven "Brought to the Water" encore 10 Years Sunbather Tour @ Chica...

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I Put Those Videos on Youtube

Yes, I do have a page at youtube.  If it isn't listed on the side over there to the right, here is the address:  http://www.youtube.com/crimesgalore

So there are a bunch of other videos on there too ranging back to SXSW 6 years ago and my first drive to the Los Angeles.  And wow, is it strange seeing those old videos...
It simultaneously feels like the time has flown by AND a lot has happened since then.  I don't know if those are necessarily mutually exclusive but it is totes an odd feeling.  

Digression aside, I just put seven videos from the Pharmakon, Wolf Eyes, and Marshstepper show up there.  I'll throw a  in here then go to crimesgalore at utuber for the rest.  Noisy as hell and man do I suck at filming shows....so I guess, be warned?

 So here is Pharmakon:

And Wolf Eyes:

Take it easy and be nice when possible. 

I Still Have Tons of Pharmakon and Wolf Eyes Pictures and Videos from the Chicago Show During Pitchfork Weekend

I'm having problems getting the videos to upload so here's some Pharmakon pictures for now.   

Believe the hype: she is amazing live.

So no commentary necessary...show was awesome.  Pharmakon reinforced what I thought and took me from 'meh' to fan on the strength of the performance.  Wolf Eyes learned from their run-in with T. Mahoney and stuck to playing riffs most of the time.  These were savage, monster riffs too...not some JV crap you'd get at an Undertones show circa 1984.  The new album deserves our respect and the band earned my continued admiration. 

Oh and quick side note: I'm working on some new music that I expect to have ready to post in the next week or so.  I got most of the samples and instrument tracks ready and am just trying to make early 80s no wave more exciting because I can't get the DJ out of me.  

I Have No Excuses For Why I'm Not Alerting Everyone on My Theory for Music-Loving in a Post-Record Review World

I really should've been updating this badboy lately.  That is not to say that I'm not busy.  I am busy and have a ton of stuff going on but I am also keeping track of new music.  I started buying records again and have literally added like 8 or 9 new crates to my collection in the last year or so.  At first, I kind of just bought any album I loved at one time or another regardless of the pressing or if it was new or used.  I think I bought every No Age and Microphones/ Mount Eerie album I could find right off the bat before looking around for late 80s/early 90s stuff I grew up on: just about everything available from the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Fugazi, Radiohead, Jesus Lizard, Slint, Yo La Tengo etc. Then I started working on my 70s pre/post punk (but not 70s punk; tacky) collection, followed by records I loved in college.  I loaded up on stuff from DFA, Jagjaguwar, Secretly Canadian and K records (I must've bought 25 LPs from K when they had a big sale last year), as well as (mostly) reissues of  everything from Television, the Dead Boys, the Clash and early NYC bands to Joy Division, PIL, and Gang of Four.  While at first this was done with little concern about getting a good deal or even buying stuff that would retain its value, I started paying more attention around this time and decided I was done with reissues.

I know I'm forgetting stuff here but believe it or not, this is all just prelude.

Anyway, there comes a time when you are sick of buying records you've heard a million times and that time arrived for me shortly after getting all the alt-rock and late 90s/early 00s college radio stuff I could ever want from the big labels of the 90s like Merge, Matador, and Touch and Go.   While lots of this stuff was still reissues or stuff that never went out of print, I stopped buying new records whenever possible and just started buying used albums from bands and labels I was into at the time.  No way was I going to pay $17.99 for Jesus Lizard reissues (remastered or not) when I could get used copies of the OG pressings for a lot cheaper.  

I think I need to add here that I wasn't being stupid or wasteful per se; just that I hadn't yet begun to look at records as the investments they are nowadays.  Either way, I always got good prices from the record stores in town and I never bought anything without first double-checking prices on Amazon and/or discogs to make sure I wasn't overpaying.  Further, there were plenty of good deals to be had on amazon with their warehouse deals and my prime subscription and I totes got some records way cheaper than they would've been at the stores or via the artist website.  Especially considering the absurd %10.5 sales tax in Chicago.  

Eventually, I wised up and began looking at big picture concepts like avoiding reissues when possible or waiting for stuff to show up used.  New records just aren't worth the extra money unless its an album I have been anticipating for a minute like the new Vampire Weekend album or the Var record that came out last month.  As for reissues, they're mostly bogus unless they're first time on vinyl or have been out of print for so long that they're impossible to find. 

I began scouring the newly arrived used bins at my stores of choice in town and began buying stuff I got into post-college.  While my tastes have gradually become more and more psych-rock and (later) 'darkwave' oriented,  I had one problem: RECORD REVIEWERS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO TRUST THESE DAYS.  Ten years ago, I could read a review on Pitchfork and trust it (aside from hip-hop which is funny because they used to suck at reviewing it and now that and metal are their only real strong suits these days) enough to get the album.  I was rarely disappointed and basically knew what to expect before I even listened to the album.  Last time I trusted a Pitchfork review, I ended up with that 2nd No Joy album that is mediocre at best. 

Everyone is too concerned with being contrarian so it always seems like song-craft and talent are ignored if the image isn't SHOCKINGLY NEW!  While I could list a bunch of other blogs I used to trust inherently and am now inclined to do the opposite of what they suggest, the growing inability of critics to base their opinions on the actual quality of an album doesn't bother me so much anymore.  Either way I look at the situation, I just don't have a go to place for reviews I can trust these days and googling the name of the band and record and hoping for an intelligible review is a dodgy proposition at best.

For avid music fans like myslef, it doesn't really matter what critics dream up these days.    Why?  Because the internet is vast and we can listen to at least a handful of songs from any album out there if we look around.  For me, I just do what I did when I was a punk rock 13 year old buying used cds 5 days a week: find a label you dig and explore the catalog.  Back then it was Dischord, Lookout, Recess, Vagrant, Fat Wreck, and other DIY labels I trusted enough to buy albums I knew nothing about other than the fact that they were on labels I dug.  I'm not as foolish anymore but it doesn't matter too much: in the 16 years or so that have passed, things have chanced quite a bit. Now I don't have to trust anyone: SOUNDCLOUD is a motherfuckin game-changer.  

Example?  Sure.  I liked the first couple albums by the Men and they were popular enough (at least in Chicago) for me to buy without having a 5 star review to point me in their direction.  But gee, this record sure as hell looks a lot like that Religious Knives album I randomly got on clearance at Princeton Record Exchange back when I was still compiling the ultimate 90s college rock collection.  Oh, what do you know?  Same label.  Huh, lets just search this label and wow, look at all those releases.  From that point, I just have to work my way through the Sacred Bones catalog and read all the press release type blurbs pertaining to each album while keeping track of the ones I thought sounded interesting.  Then I can go to the Sacred Bones Soundcloud page and verify that I dug the bands I thought I would.  Amen Dunes led to Psychic Ills, which led to Lust for Youth and War (now Var) before I even noticed the dude from Iceage was in War. And then it was like 'oh wait, Moon Duo is the dude from Wooden Shjips? That should be worth a shot.'  And then you find out Moon Duo had an EP on Captured Tracks so you think its worth checking them out.  A few bands later, you find another label the same way.  And then a quick dig through that label leads to another equally awesome label in the same fashion.  And just when you get sick of those labels, someone says yo check out this band on this label and it all starts over again.   


Or you know, you just go to shows and like the bands you weren't there to see. 

   

And hit me up if you want to use my stack of download cards that I never use. 

Albums I Bought and/or Enjoyed Recently

OK, I am in class right now.; but we've been debating what criteria determine which social customs are going to be legally protected in court and I've already stated and defended my point. Now my classmates are arguing what the civil war was about. Duh, state rights.

So most of you know I either download music or buy it from dollar bins at Reckless and Half Price Books. My favorite in the first category is the new Cloud Nothings album, produced by Steve Albini and one of the best albums I've heard in years. It is also further proof that Albini can easily make any album one of my favorites(see Bush, "Razorblade Suitcase"). I don't know what I would define it as, but it sounds like heavy yet harmonic indie rock perfected. I hear a little bit of Titus Andronicus but certainly it is heavier and has less of a Springsteen feel and more of a classic west coast punk feel. And by classic west coast I mean music from their hometown of Cleveland (land of the Dead Boys) and west.

Their older albums aren't nearly as thick and fuzzy as "Attack on Memory," the new album. But I'm pretty sure the main guy in the band did the first two albums by himself on garageband or something and we're all lucky he found some dudes ready to rock out. I can't help but headbang or bang on stuff when I put the album on. That would be my ranking system btw: a 10 would be like "uncontrollable spasm inducing" and a 1 would be something that makes me walk fast in hopes of out-running the crummy album.

While I am not one of those dudes that gives out whole albums on my blog, just google "Cloud Nothing 'Attack on Memory' site:mediafire.com" and you'll find it. But first check this out and make sure you agree with me: I guess Urban Outfitters bought them a video and I put it right here:

Cloud Nothings - "No Future / No Past" Official Video from Urban Outfitters on Vimeo.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the newest Pictureplane album (and remixes), thee oh sees' newest album, and I'm oddly entertained by the Weeknd's new album.
The latter is perfect urban walking music and that link is for their whole album on Soundcloud. I totally dance walk when I put it on after class and make my way home on the el.


Pitchfork still sucks by the way: every album I like is usually an 8 or lower. The 9+ albums don't even belong on a site that reviews indie rock albums, or preferably, art-rock albums. While the "indie" or "art" term is vague, the "rock" part is not. Just because someone lives in Brooklyn or Echo Park or London and appears hip, it doesn't mean their album belongs in the same category as actual independent bands that make artsy, rock and roll influenced music.

I was planning on giving you the best of the dollar bins but I'm losing patience and getting vitriolic. I think that is the right word. The best dollar bin album I copped this past week was the deluxe version of "Goo." While I've never claimed to be an audiophile and certainly can't always tell between MP3 qualities, I can safely say I prefer the "Goo" 8 track versions on disc two. Yes, Jim O'Rourke remastered them and that probably made a huge difference. But I've literally never gotten into something like 8 track demo versions of songs I grew up with. I bought the album for the extra tracks, all of which ended up as "mehs" in my book (or according to the uncontrollable dancing scale, the b sides might get me to tap my fingers on my lap or something but that is it. But for a dollar bin buy, you can't ask for much more.

More Urban Detritus on Lake Street

This street is just horrible. Like I was saying before, there are bums on every corner. Including this one: at Lake and LaSalle. A mean looking bum sits here all day and shakes a McDonalds coffee cup at passersby. I see him every time I go to Starbucks or the other office or any location west of LaSalle.

Anyway, I walked to Lake and Wells the other day and passed this guy in his usual spot with his usual cup. He was swaddled in dirty bum blankets with an assortment of bum equipment scattered around his spot on the pavement. After a short visit with Accounting, I started on my way back east. I had a red light at LaSalle and glanced back to see my man's spot vacant. Upon closer inspection, I found all his stuff gone. The only remnants were pennies scattered on the sidewalk by his spot. I thought "Are you shitting me? Who throws away pennies?" I was so angry at his wasteful ways that I went to reach for the lone dime next to the puddles he left. As I bent towards the filthy concrete, I thought better of scavenging this dude's dime and held out hope that maybe he'd been forcibly removed from his corner. Nothing worse than a choosy beggar, ya know?

I Wanna Go Tanning to Cure My S.A.D.

I finally got around to seeing Black Swan the other night. It was just about superb, as expected. Portman was a freakshow waiting to explode and I kept feeling the tension build and build as she turned the most mundane activities into psychotic episodes. Ballet may be stressful and all but then why was Mila Kunis so normal? I guess it was supposed to be Black Swan and White Swan but it was more like a regular swan (kunis) and Portman's tiger-giraffe possessed swan. I kept wanting to like smash a thick 40 bottle over her face. But the plodding psychosis made the movie: she eventually figures out that she literally has to kill her self and/or others in order to dance with a little swagger?

I guess my main (only?) complaint is that the movie was not long enough and her descent should have been more brutal and much darker. It could have been infinitely meaner and creepier and even more salacious if they had just let the characters keep doing what they were doing. Maybe a few more dark sex scenes or awkward Portman social situations, you know? Like maybe her imagining a dragon or something at the Doctor's office while she is getting her mutated foot checked out. Or maybe she rapes a subway monster or something, ya know? Yes, the film gave me the creeps a couple times (the lovely feathers), created a few visually compelling circumstances (monsters in the darkened theater), and eventually blew me away when she died for perfection. However, it should have been much darker, erotic and thrilling because when you think about it, the stakes aren't high enough when the only lives hanging in the balance are indifferent to death anyway. Was anyone actually really saddened by the ending? Does it matter what happens to anyone after the last frame? Whatever.


My roommates and I (Maureen and cousin Michael) had been trying to see Black Swan for weeks but uncompromising show times (not to mention the wicked case of S.A.D. I contracted since moving to Chicago) conspired against us ever getting to the theater. Instead of seeing the darkly erotic freak-fest everyone promised, we had been staying home in the snow and working our way through the Wire Box set. While I can quote the dialogue from every episode by heart, I still manage to notice a couple new dynamics every time I re-watch a season. For instance, Sobotka telling Carver his boss (Valcheck) is a "gaping asshole" while Carver just smokes without using any hands opened up rounds of new speculation for Michael and me this time through season 2. Is Sobotka's response believable? Is Carver a gaper too for dumbly following orders like that? Why is Carver smoking like that anyway? How come the stevedores don't put up more of a fight? I envy my brother because he is still watching the original seasons for the first time.


I hate to keep harping on the weather, but I'm really not trying to go linger and waste time at nightlife spots for no particular reason. I've had it with the whole going out just to go out mentality and unless you're as good as me at convincing people to do things they don't want to do, there is slim to no chance of getting me off my love-seat. So we watch Wire episodes. If we're lucky, the Redbox round the way will have something decent and I'll find a way to convince everyone to watch The Expendables or some crap like that while we eat takeout. And you know what? I can't figure out what's wrong, let alone how to fix it.

But there are a few bright spots. Last week, a couple movies I've been aching to see came to the Walgreens on Montrose. I rented The Town, the Social Network, and the Owl Movie I've been trying to see since it was in the theaters. (Quick side-note: I tried to take a bunch of neighborhood kids to the movies so I wouldn't feel like a freak when I went to see the Owl Movie myself. It kinda backfired though because I'm pretty sure the dads all think I'm a pedder-ass and the kids think I'm lame for wanting to see the Owl Movie).

So I paid for the Town with the Ipad app and ran up there to retrieve it, encountering the Social Network (also freshly released) while at the store in a box. I'd forgotten about it since I'd scornfully dismissed it during the round of theater previews over the summer. But I figured I'd grab it anyway so I could be the first person to rent/watch that particular copy, ya know?





I forget what we had for take-out, but I remember how horrible The Town managed to make itself after the excitement of the opening scene bank robbery quickly faded. Literally, the movie is like a TV crime drama mixed with Point Break. But instead of surf culture, they just have d-bag Boston meat-head culture to invade and latch onto. Ohh watch out, the dude from Hurt Locker is a loose cannon. And Ben Affleck is different: he's a sensitive felon...but you already knew that right? And because they had to out-Boston the Departed, the final shootout is deep in the guts of Fenway Park. Which reminds me of the very first thing I thought about this movie: if this "town" is so famous for all its bank robbers, how come I never heard of the town or a single bank robber from said town. Did they make it up? Uhh, I gotta stop thinking about it because I'm boring myself with my memories.

On the other hand, The Social Network was a lot better than I had first thought. Initially, I had no desire to go anywhere near the movie. Not only did I not ever want to see it, I decided I didn't like Jesse Eisenberg because he annoyed me in the previews. Plus I had hated the whole college aspect of Facebook since I was in college (where are the grown-ups?). But David Fincher's film was actually incredibly entertaining. It was exciting, informative, dramatic, well-structured, appropriately sinister and just glamorous enough for my tastes. Timberlake was great as the fella from Napster and he earned his 7%, unlike the rich kid who felt entitled to ride Eisenberg's coattails because he had a checking account. Seriously, he couldn't even hang out with his buddy while he was working. I mean, you at least have to stick around while others work if you yourself aren't going to work, right? Like when I made the LA STAYBAD mix-tape a few years ago, that kid Brent at least made an effort to be in the same room as me while I worked on Ableton. I didn't really notice the Reznor soundtrack so I'll have to give it another go, as I didn't notice Johnny Greenwood's superb There Will Be Blood score until the third or fourth viewing.

And I fell asleep during the Owl Movie because it was too hard to follow...I think. No wait, I remember a battle and a giant tree. I knew I couldn't get behind Owls; totally overrated woodland creatures anyway.

Well that was a long year.

So I took the last year off from a lot of things. I moved around a bunch of times trying to get my act together and I'm finally satisfied with the results. I left Los Angeles a little over a year ago and crawled across the east coast like the walking death until I finally settled down in Atlanta around Thanksgiving. I saw some doctors, worked on fixing my chest pains and just about figured out how to stop being such a psycho all the time. It really wasn't as easy as that short description makes it sound but that's fine: I don't wanna bore anyone with the gory details. Bottom line is that I've been clean and sane for almost a full year now and I haven't felt this good since high school.

I'm in Chicago, once again, and determined to last more than a couple months this time. Hopefully, I'll be attending Loyola Law School Chicago next year and in the meantime, I'm the Office Manager at American Invsco Realty and I actually enjoy getting up and going to work everyday. While I'm totally weirded out by that fact and never thought those words would leak outta my grill, I guess it just means I'm finally sick of the angsty slacker life I've been committed to since college. Or simply that I finally found a job I enjoy. Totally never thought I'd be involved with the scam real estate industry but I'm just the Office Manager and don't actually do any renting or selling. And that's why I like it: I get to do everything from marketing to research to social networking to Adobe stuff. And I like my boss. She's in a band.
I also got engaged to Maureen and we're finally moving into our bungalow in Portage Park, Chicago next week. Since we got here in August, Spaghetti and I have been stuck sleeping on the floor at her mom's house and its totally a drag. But I guess I am trying to make up for the hell I put Maureen through these past 8 years and although it has got to be impossible, sleeping on the floor at her mom's is something a well-behaved young man would do and not complain about. And if I also let her pick out the kitchen cabinet colors, then that is a huge step in the right direction too right?

So what do I do now if I'm not out raging til 10 AM every day? Kind of a good question. Well obviously I've been catching every Phillies game this Doctober. But other than that, I mostly just read a ton and play with Spaghetti. I try to play with him for at least a couple hours a night because he's stuck home alone all day with Maureen's mom and she calls him Sparky or some such nonsense and never even plays with him. So between the dog and the Phils and the job and Maureen, I have very little free time these days anyway. Maureen and I ran a 5K a few weeks ago but that is such a lame hobby. I'd so much rather play team sports or something.

I was playing a ton of piano in Atlanta but now Maureen's mom yells at me when I touch it. However, I did get my exiled computer back when I came to Chicago and Maureen watches her "Gossip Girl" and WB re-runs elsewhere now.
So hopefully I'll be able to crank out a new mix one of these days when I'm all set up at the bungalow. I had the ill studio upstairs before and I have plenty of space to rig something up this time as soon as Michael Albert gets his ass out here and we get the original Audacity lineup back together.

Oh and I found out who the impostor "DJ Tom Hanks" was and he got his cease and desist. Like I said, it was somebody I knew from Atlanta (who actually went to Fordham too) and it was actually my brother Christian that cracked the case. Obviously, he admitted he ripped it off right away and now goes by some horribly lame name.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to these days. My act is officially together and things are looking up. So I'm gonna go and hopefully figure out how to catch some of this Birds game online. Holla!