Live reviews

KARP: KILL ALL REDNECK PRICKS DOCUMENTARY @ CINEFAMILY

I don’t buy into this concept of “music scenes” dying. There’s always gonna be young people and they’re always gonna be kids doing rock and roll and the only people thinking it’s dying are dying old farts. Call me a revisionist but I can’t help but notice all those people who say that “death of the scene” crap were the “first wave” of these rock and roll acts and they simply count their prime in audience attendance the real “height” of whatever was going on. It’s like punk rock senioritis or something where they snub younger acts that sprang up and just basically smack them in the face and ignore their achievements. It’s bullshit. Don’t trust old people. Fuck them.

ZIG ZAG WANDERER: BLEAK END AT BERNIE’S, FMLY FEST, NYE FLOOD

It was three in the morning, the music had long since stopped, but the night was deliciously warm and even the automatic weapons fire up in the Heights had dwindled to sporadic. Here and there, a thinly clad single or couple capered in the empty streets, dancing madly a few hours before the dawn of yet another apocalyptic year.

THE HAPPY HOLLOWS + EASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS + GOTHIC + TROPIC @ THE BOOTLEG

The Happy Hollows’ guiding genius was as wound-up giddy as ever, leading the veteran art-rock trio through a set of mostly new songs that I’m glad to report are as warm and wobbly as their entire output from 2006’s Bunnies and Bombs EP to date. She’s turned into something of a guitar wizard in the past few months, fingertapping expertly and looking momentarily nonplussed when a string broke. “I think I’m handling this crisis well,” she giggled, while tuning up trusty guitar # 2 for its public debut.

MILAGRES @ PARK PLAZA

What Milagres has done (which only occurred once, I bet, in the brilliantly warped Japanese movie Funky Forest: First Contact) is set to music the precise feeling of sinking into a mossy clearing in the woods at 4 a.m., on purpose.

JIMMY CLIFF @ TIM ARMSTRONG’S SECRET PRACTICE SPACE

I pride myself on being able to capture the sound of music in words, but there really is no way to convey what came out of that man’s throat and into our hearts Friday night. The closest I can get is to say that he sounded effortless and full of love, like butter melting slowly over Mom’s pancakes. He sounded awake and alert, classy, not cluttered in Rastafarian claptrap but “transcendent” in as close to a literal meaning as an atheist like me can believe in.

Album reviews

ARRICA ROSE AND THE …’S: LET ALONE SEA

Arrica brings powerful personae to the work as well with snippets of Patti Smith, Fiest, Catpower, Karen Carpenter and the range to do much more. It is Indie Rock by strict definition, but she’s sanded off the edges and set the whole show in a 1970′s Topanga Canyon dream. The music has a perspective and while she nods to different styles Americana, Pop, and Indie Rock…she’s always coming from her place. Let Alone Sea isn’t flawless certainly, but the misses are minor.

LOOPOOL: BREAK. BROKEN. BROKE.

For fans of noise, you can’t go wrong with “Lost in the Murk,” which has squeaky hinge noises straight out of David Tudor’s “Rainforest” backed up against what sounds like someone breathing angrily. This may not be your cup of tea, but the emperor does wear clothes.

CORRIDOR: REAL LATE

Corridor’s music is dense, in a good way, full of virtuosic instrumentation that is played deliberately dark. This is not lightweight pop. He’s the only cellist in rock and roll whose performances are worthy of playing air cello to.

QLUSTER: FRAGEN

It sounds like King Crimson.

THE LOVE ME NOTS: THE DEMON AND THE DEVOTEE

At its core the album’s pointy-toed shoes toe the garage rock line, like on the track “The End of the Line,” which starts with Walker laying down some particularly stellar guitar work over a rhythmic intro, and the aptly named party tune “Let’s Get Wrecked.” On other tracks however, the quartet creates a sound distinctly their own—and it’s all about Laurenne playing those amazing tones on the Farfisa organ.