Tag: The Brian Jonestown Massacre

When I hear the sounds of Islands, I am reminded of sparkling diamonds and shattered glass.

I know that Water From Your Eyes is a reference I can look up in a second these days, but I am going to refuse to do so to leave the magic untainted.

“You missed the white crocodile,” the chipa vendor told them. The mycologist and the munitions expert gave the expected sounds of disappointment, the same as any tourist drawn to Paraguay’s Ojo de Mar would. One of them spread a blanket by the lake side while the other one got busy with entering the passcodes and unlatching the efficient-looking metal case they had extracted from the moped. Opening it once the blanket was ready, they began taking out the 3D-printed pieces from the foam molding with quick, efficient movements as the Easy Star All-Stars blared out a David Bowie song from the vendor’s portable radio.

As it happens, if yours truly has a Valentine’s gig, it’ll be followed by one on Pi Day. Except on leap years. But the point here is that I thought about doing a show themed on circles, spheres, and other such expressions of the number and decided against it, but keep your ears peeled for some future incarnation of a “Round and Round” playlist. Instead, tonight we kick things off with the sort-of eponymous track from The Nude Party’s latest release, and wrap things up with about 30 seconds of Railroad Jerk, because technical difficulties.

Why had I not heard of this Zach Hill (Death Grips, Hella) side project before? The I.L.Y.s hit a lot of my targets — noisy, harshly pop, and completely willing to blur the line between the analog and the digital. The video for tonight’s feature track is also something to behold, though I’d avoid it if you have a thing about bugs. Lots of bugs.

Kid Congo Powers has a musical resume you wouldn’t believe, and this particular outing for his talents is garage psychobilly supreme, a wonderfully uncouth expression of much-needed sophisticated boom boom.

Bill Callahan has been wandering the halls of music for quite some time now, his deep voice and aimless arrangements a constant hypnotic presence.

Well into their third decade, G. Love and Special Sauce still sound like they are in no particular hurry to get there.

They had been shot at. They had avoided countless booby traps. They had been served tiny delicate cups of the most aromatic and poisonous espresso. All of these events were framed as interrupted cribbage games. Maybe they played too much. The phlebotomist ruminated on this as they locked up their two-wheel drive all-terrain motorbikes across the street from Kirov Park. The Transnistrian passports had been excruciatingly expensive, but the ergonomist insisted it was justified, for complicated political reasons. The pieces rattled against the cribbage board and the very dangerous little notebook in the messenger bag as they strolled through the trail, looking for a man holding two empty water bottles.

They call it Hotlanta for a good reason, but I’m sure The Black Lips have enough bad attitude to have way more colorful names for their hometown.