"Future Sounds" Yesterday Todd from OESB sent over this exclusive Ducktails outtake from the Landscapes sessions. This one takes a particular detour from the Departmentstore Santa's cover GvB posted, and a lot of the Ducktails catalog, and finds Mondanile channeling minimal techno, mechanical krautrock riddims and a sort of ambient wash that'll clear your sinuses, sort of like a neti pot. Oh, yeah, and its called "McGuire in the Ocean," which sounds about right to me. Thinking about heading to Mantoloking tomorrow, anybody wanna join?
Buy Landscapes, and all other OESB releases, here.
"House of Mirrors" (Big ups to Mimoun of Family Portrait/UP for Poster Art) The first time I went to Monkeytown I knew I'd have to throw an event there. And now the time has come. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my extreme pleasure to unveil the first of a few Chocolate Bobka CMJ shows. If you've ever been to Monkeytown (peep rad pic here), you know one thing is up; straight chilling. Therefore, it felt pretty logical to call up my favorite super chillerz and see if they would come down to cool out, play some tunes and trip out to some tweaker visuals. And that's exactly what we'll do on Tuesday October 20th 2009. I'll be honest in noting that I basically curated this lineup for myself. Just bands that I want to see while 'laxing out on some of the most comfortable couches in New York, while visual masterminds Richard Law, Alice Cohen and Todd Ledford space my face on the four massive, wall sized projection screens. A little run down of the evening.
Stoked? Me too! If you've ever been to Monkeytown, then you probably know the drill. Besides the inevitable straight chilling, the venue also offers some of the choicest food in NYC, just take a peep at their Fall Menu. (Different types of Sliders: Elk curry chimichurri, Ostrich bbq’d garlic relish, Venison juniper shallot jam & Wild Board Apple Chutney--are you freaking serious?!) The show will cost a measly $7, and as with all Monkeytown shows, there is a $10 minimum, which means you have to have at least 2 beers. If you don't plan on having at least two drinks, well, this probably isn't your type of show. In order to gain access to the show, which is unofficial CMJ (aka no badges), one will have to make reservations with Monkeytown. (Do so here.) This event will sell out fast, so I encourage you to get on this asap. Peep below for some choice media from participating artists.
"Look to Find Direction But All You See is Your Reflection"
After filling the room with light rays, Matt Mondanile stood up from his loop station, grabbed his guitar and took us to the screened in porch. While Ducktails is known for its loopy take on tropical psych, "House of Mirrors," which is probably the most introspective song in the Ducktails canon, is a particularly solemn existential ballad. It's a standout, not just because its based around a quiet, very-straightforward chord progression, but due to its ability to seep into your psyche and help in the examining of life, love, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. "In a house filled with mirrors, it's not easy to see where your going" may feel like an obvious use of the mirror metaphor, and it sure seems that way in retrospect, but without self examination, one would never truly know thyself. It takes a hint, or a house filled with mirrors, in order to delve beneath the surface of everyday existence. It's not easy, and it can be extremely painful, but, like the end of this tune, which finds Matt moving forward and ripping like an everyday Steve Hillage, when one does finally confront the subtle demons, deeply rooted hangups and other mental obstacles, the rest of life is, as Q-Tip said, "strictly butter, strictly butter, baby."
"Hypnagogic Pop" never sounded as good as it did Saturday night at the Underwater Peoples Late Summr Showcase. The festival, held at the Market Hotel, featured an ebb-and-flo of punky no-fi, jangly folk, psychotropic tropicalia, dark folk, surf psych and jungle fuzz pop, lending it a true musical melting pot vibe that even Lady Liberty could vouch for. In between running sound for bands like Big Troubles and Frat Dad, scene leader Matt Mondanile crept on stage as Ducktails for a hypnotic journey to the outer reaches of the milky way galaxy. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently axel's new camera picks up the color of aura's. Matt's is pink.
A Pink Aura indicates that the person achieved a perfect balance between spiritual awareness and the material existence. The most advanced people have not only a yellow halo around the head (a permanent strong point in the Aura) but also a large pink Aura extending further away. The pink color in the Aura is quite rare on Earth and appears only as a temporary thought, never as a strong point in the Aura.
"Walk Next To You" Real Estate jamming in a backyard in New Jersey at dusk is exactly how you want to hear their blissful tunes. After morphing from the Julian Lynch band into Alex Bleeker and the Freaks, the group took the stage as Real Estate, with Samuel Franklin (Frat Dad, Fluffy Lumbers) replacing Etienne on drums, for a mini-sesh captured by C.Axel. "Green River > Suburban Beverage," or, what in typical Dead head fashion I've dubbed, "Green Beverage," begins with the sun slowly sinking behind the tree's of the Garden State as Martin Courtney waxes lackadaisically about the joys of taking a stroll by the river side. By the time, "Green River" ebbs and flows into "Suburban Beverage," night has fallen. Lightning bugs were lighting up the backyard. 9+ minutes of sheer groove.
"Searching On The Phone"A no-brainer on the Friday night lineup of the Northside Festival, Real Estate's set at Death By Audio proved why they are one of the most exciting young bands around. When I arrived at DBA they were shoo'ing away badge holders, however, a mere five seconds later they let me in and all was good. Free Ice Cream, Free Beer...what more could you ask for?! Well, in this case, it was a fluid, super tight set of seaside jams courtesy of NJ's finest purveyor's of stoner-shore rock. The band was in good spirits, especially drummer Etienne Duguay, who got the crowd into it real early by pointing, raising the roof and slugging beers during breakdowns, only to return, point on, into the beat. John Norris was there, was impressed and bobbed, knodded and weaved along with the rest of the audience, which for a NYC/BK indie rock show, showed an exceptional amount of movement. (Norris also and interviewed the band for the L Magazine.) While Real Estate played almost all of their catalog, particular highlights including "Pool Swimmers" and "Beach Comber", two winding pop jams that were birthed to be played while driving over the Perth Amboy bridge on a Saturday morning, the salt water ripe in the air.
"Extended Jam" I've posted about this DucktailsWFMU performance before but this morning the "Extended Jam" from Matt Mondanile's Christmas Eve live set on Marty McSorley's radio show came on shuffle and literally eased any sense of ill will in my mind. Like some sort of cosmic wave, it seemed to transcend the red brick walls of my apartment, as if it were seeping from the sun dazed clouds lofting above Greenpoint. I make allusions to music soundtracking life/nature rather often, but I'm 100% convinced that Ducktails "Extended Jam" was a curious case of nature soundtracking life, as if Matt Mondanile had found his way into Professor Coldheart's Freeze Machine and rid the world of darkness by showering the planet with sun-washed acid rays and mystical pellets of ease.
"Carry Me Back To Sweet Jersey" Sequestering the hallucinogenic power of a Grateful Dead "Space Jam" into a tightly knit pop structure, Real Estate meandered through a set of stoney, lackadaisical and utterly refreshing lo-fi pop last night. Playing to a small crowd at Glasslands, their short set, which included a few power outages and soon-to-be bored kid anthems "Suburban Beverage" and "Fake Blues", felt more like a Thursday night at the local teen center than an evening at a performance art space in industrial Williamsburg. Fittingly, the band exuded a sort-of carefree teenage attitude, no qualms or pretensions to their sound, simply four guys who really like playing music together, as if they were still just bored kids practicing in basements and smoking weed from apples and Coke cans behind the shed when Mom left to drop little brother off at soccer practice. With the uncanny ability to sum up the anxieties of suburban life in a three minute pop ditty ("I don't want to live at home"), something tells me we are going to be hearing ALOT from the Real Estate camp in the coming months. Oh, and any band that projects clips from the animated Hobbit behind them is A-OK with me. Real Estate will be back in Brooklyn on Saturday for a show at Dead Herring.
"Swimming Beneath the Power Lines" This evening NJ/BK/QN/JC lazy surf quartet Real Estate will be playing at Glasslands. The group, which features the ever prolific Matt Mondanile of Ducktails, has been picking up a lot of steam lately with a sound Matt Kimmel of Acid Marshmallow described as "Galaxie 500 mixed with the Grateful Dead." Totally on point, Real Estate exude the smokey blah of hazy suburban late nights in basements, on porches, in forests and next to ponds, friends strumming, slightly singing, getting stoned, throwing beer cans in the fire and, eventually, passing out. "Suburban Beverage", for which they've released a 7", sums it up in one line: "Budweiser, Sprite, do you feel alright?" Take it from me, this is exactly what bored Summer days and nights in Northern Jersey sound like.
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