This 45 arrived sandwiched between a sleeve made from a map of Brazil and Africa with a skull hovering over a pair of hairy legs in pink—the slightly uneven sides where scissors had cut along the western border of Chile and Madagascar were a personal, handcrafted touch. Collapsible Mammals is a mish-mash of sampling and what sounds like a spontaneous approach to instrumentation. They’re adept at creating soundscapes that appear to border the haphazard and strange. A member of OJO, head-mammal Chris Avitabile has been creating piecey “soundtrack-like” jams like these since 2006, after he returned inspired from his own travels to put his odd collection of instruments and records to use. Travel Themes, his third such labors of love and experimentation under the Collapsible Mammals banner, is a perfectly titled release, evoking exotic journeys, mutation, and mechanical whirring. In it, you can hear Avitabile’s affinity for hip hop with some thrown-in bits of noise and a lounge-like feel. It makes for excellent late-night adventure music because it has a particular background-music laxness and a contempt for the predictable. The tracks are simply titled “Travel Theme 1” and “2.” “Travel Theme 1” has a spacey throb laid over an almost too-simplistic drum machine, and then gradually earns your interest. I found the second “Travel Theme” to be more interesting, with its components coming together in an improved and natural approach to modern elevator music.

-Lauren Arevalo

UPDATE: Discount RSVP closes at 5! Email rsvp@larecord.com subj KOOL now to get $5 off! DISCOUNT RSVP CLOSED!

So… Kool Keith just rolled into town and grabbed after us to do a show, and we knew a spot and so … here we are! The halfmanhalfweirdaliashalfblackelvis himself appearing live at Dark Horse a.k.a. Bordello at 901 E. 1st St. downtown with support from L.A. wordmutilators and L.A. RECORD alums Nocando and Busdriver! Plus DJs Denis Deft, Yeti Beats and Zane from Killing Spree!

$20 gets everyone else in BUT since you are reading larecord.com we can get a little better—just RSVP to rsvp@larecord.com with subject KOOL and you will get $5 off and get in for $15.

And if that is not better enough? OK—then email rsvp@larecord.com with subject KEITH and a YouTube of something you think should inspire the next Kool Keith album and the koolkeithiest will win two tickets! (And we’ll add all contestants to the $15 list so you can still get in cheaper even if you don’t win!)

Is THAT not better enough? OK—first prize will win TWO TICKETS and a vinyl LP of Critical Beatdown, the first LP by Kool Keith’s first band the Ultramagnetic MCs, courtesy of Chris having an extra in his collection. (It’s in very nice shape, don’t you worry, nerdos.) And second prize will get the two tickets only.

That good? Get to emailing and see you Saturday!

L.A. RECORD PRESENTS KOOL KEITH WITH NOCANDO AND BUSDRIVER PLUS DJs DENIS DEFT, YETI BEATS AND ZANE (KILLING SPREE) ON SAT., JULY 9, AT DARK HORSE, 901 E. 1ST ST., DOWNTOWN. 9 PM / $20 / $15 WITH RSVP TO RSVP@LARECORD.COM AND SUBJECT “KOOL” / 21+.

Download: True Widow “Skull Eyes”

True Widow tumbled out from the heart of Texas with a knack for the reverberatory arts. Their ‘stonegaze’ sound, as some call it, sounds a bit like a cool soothing rockslide. Their newest album—the improbably titled As High As the Highest Heavens and from the Center to the Circumference of the Earth—was released on Kemado and they will play the New Weird America Fest this Saturday at Nomad. Win tickets here! They speak to us from deep within a mineshaft somewhere in the land that cellular service forgot. This interview by Matt Dupree.

I know people want to know how you came up with the band name, but I’m not going to ask that. How’d you get the name Slim?
Slim Starks (drums): That’s older than the band name! I used to run around with a guy named Richard, when we were like, 15 or something. This really close friend of mine, who still has this habit of nicknaming everybody, he dubbed us as Rico and Slim. So we ran around as Rico and Slim and it just evolved from that. That was when I started getting into rock music, so everybody that met me knew me as Slim. The same guy that gave me the nickname, we’ve got a screenprinting business that’s been going since ’99. Everybody that’s met me via that’s known me as Slim. It’s just stuck. When we started doing press releases and all that shit for Kemado, it was just one of those things. They all knew me as Slim.
What’s your given name?
Timothy! Yeah, how bout that? But we’re all fans of nicknames. Nicknames are a part of life. We’ve all got ‘em—different nicknames for different situations. Like if I get too drunk, and I’m fin’ to get agro, they call me ‘Slam.’ Nicole’s got an alter-ego named ‘Lala’ when she’s loaded. Dan’s got a few alter-egos, depending on what kind of intake he’s on. Keeps it fresh! And who wants to be calling somebody’s name all the time, anyway? Like, my parents call me that. I collect all sorts of nicknames. My friend from L.A. came to visit me at the print shop I live at—it has the business and everything, it’s all in the same warehouse. I never really go out much when I’m home. They dubbed me the ‘Print Troll.’ So I’ve got that. I’ve got ‘Wizard’ from a few people.
Is that the beard?
The beard, the hair. I don’t know—I like magic!
You guys got a pretty sick write-up in Pitchfork. Did you feel suddenly more legitimate the day afterward?
Hell no! We weren’t expecting anything like that, or at least that kind of attention that fast. But it doesn’t really have any bearing on us either way, man. This is our little pet project. It’s more about what we wanna do and how we feel about shit than how people are responding to it. But fortunately people have been responding to it good, so we’re able to get out and play this shit live and come see you guys!
You’re gonna be playing with some pretty heavy acts. Is that unusual for you?
We’ve been fortunate that we’ve really been able to mix it up. We’ve done heavy shows before—our buddies Saviours, we played with them a few times on some really heavy lineups. And we’ve done shows with MV & EE, who are really mellow stuff. So we’re kinda all over the place. It’s a blessing and a curse as far as that goes. But it’s been really cool, man—we don’t get stuck listening to the same type of opening bands everywhere we go. Seems like everyone who’s putting these shows together has a different idea of what they think would be the best thing for us. It’s been pretty cool to just sit back and see how it plays out, you know? Sometimes people are WAY fuckin’ off, but usually it makes for a good night.
Is that because some people think you’re a drone act that’s slower? And others think you’re more of a shoegaze act with crazy, sludgy riffs?
That’s the sense I get. They go for one or the other—there’s no middle. When we go home we try and mix it up. We’ll have a guy open a show that does old bluegrass—mountain music—and then have a metal band play after him and then kinda bring it back down at the end of the night. It’s just fun to mix it up. A lot of bands don’t have that, or aren’t afforded that opportunity. And the coolest thing is that we in the band all have our own taste in music, although we all appreciate a lot of different shit. For some reason, with the True Widow project, we’ve all been able to play with bands that we’ve admired in the past of all different sounds. Every night, at least one of us is stoked on who we’re playing with.
Have you gotten really good at nodding along to people trying to explain your music to you?
Ha ha—yeah, I’m pretty much to that point now. It didn’t get like that on the first record, but there wasn’t nearly the attention. Honestly, certain stories get run and re-run and … yeah, so… you just get to that point. But it is cool to listen to people just take the time to vocalize their thoughts. Some people will surprise you—you might get turned on to a new band. I’ve listened to so many bands now because people thought we sounded like them. Bands that I’d heard of but never listened to, so we’ve actually found some cool music that way. It has gotten a little weary, just because it seems like there are lot of people that are adamant in their opinions on True Widow. If they don’t like it, it’s the worst thing ever. If they do like it, its because it reminds them of a mashup of these two favorite things or whatever.
It’s like a Rorschach test.
Yeah—looking back at yourself.
Or an exercise in poetically describing a sound.
Yeah—the gauge of the strings and the hotness of everything. There’s definitely been some of that surrounding us. It’s fun to see where people go with that. Most of the stuff is detuned to some degree, so its pretty loose and sludgy sounding. Live it’s even more so than the record. There’s no filters there—it’s just raw. But none of us take it that seriously. When we see people getting amped up about little things like you’re talking about its like, ‘Really? I turned a knob on a string. That’s all I did.’ But that person had a deep connection with the music that allowed their mind to wander and go to deep places. On that level, I think its pretty cool when people start to rant about little things. It’s like ‘Wow.’ Part of me thinks you gotta have something better to do but part of me is like it must’ve really struck a chord. There’s been a lot of questions about tuning. A lot of questions about the song ‘Skull Eyes.’ The beginning of ‘Skull Eyes’ is actually a guitar. Everybody just assumes it’s a bass when they review the song just because it’s so heavy. Then when they find out its not a bass but a guitar they really freak out. Especially if they were already interested in the specifics of all that, then they really go apeshit. Its weird—it’s not like we’re in some mad scientist’s lab creating this shit. It’s way more haphazard. Get ripped and see what we can put together that might not or shouldn’t go together, and then if it works try and do something with it. We let shit fall where it does. Then after the fact you get all these inquiries: ‘What were you doing to make this sound?’ I don’t know, man, it’s the only pedal we had! We only had one cord, so we couldn’t plug anything else in! No grand plan there!
Speaking of grandeur, you came up with possibly the most epic title for an album… ever.
Yeah, it’s pretty beastly. We all have a light side and a serious side. That album title resonated for all of us on both levels. Part of it was there was a genuine interest in what that title means and how it works toward what we were trying to do with this record. Aside from that, it’s just been a blast seeing how people respond to it. All the press shit having to type it out over and over, its almost become comical.
Is this another example of you guys going with your instinct and getting a really unexpected response?
People can research it and find out what it means or just take it for what it is. A lot of people think its just another inside joke, which we do have a few of, but that’s our style. It’s cool, it has meaning, and it makes us laugh. I don’t think we’re going to win any awards for longest album title, though.
You’re gonna be playing with Red Sparowes—I think they’ve got you beat on length.
That lineup is killer! We’ve got friends in Night Horse. We’re looking forward to partying with them. California’s been really tough to get to, which is why we were glad when this show came around. We’ve got a lot of friends out there through the band so we were just happy to get a chance to come out and see everybody even though we weren’t going to be doing a bunch of shows. It’s looking like we’re gonna be pretty busy for the next year. And where we’re at with the band, we really just want to get it out in front of people, you know? That’s making itself a reality, so we’re just gonna roll with that and see what happens.

L.A. RECORD PRESENTS TRUE WIDOW WITH RED SPAROWES, NIGHT HORSE, RADIO MOSCOW, THE FUCKING WRATH, IDES OF GEMINI AND SPECIAL GUESTS ON SAT., JULY 2, AT NOMAD GALLERY, 1993 BLAKE AVE., LOS ANGELES. 2 PM / $10. TEEPEERECORDS.COM. WIN TICKETS AND A SPECIAL TEE PEE VINYL PACK HERE OR BUY TICKETS HERE.

UPDATE: Now win A TON OF FUCKING VINYL as well as free tickets to the New Weird America Fest! Read on!

Tee Pee and L.A. RECORD are teaming up again to wreck your mind with the all-day New Weird America fest.

First prize: two tickets AND an exclusive pack of Tee Pee records vinyl! Including records from Night Horse, Ancestors, The Fucking Wrath, The Atomic Bitchwax, Priestess, Quest For Fire and a copy of the super limited edition Naam “Nirvana Covers” 7”.

Second prize: two free tickets! And you can buy some of that killer vinyl at the show!

To win, email rsvp@larecord.com with subject WEIRD and the weirdest thing you can find on YouTube! The WEIRDEST WINS! We can take it if you can! (You can also get tickets here!) Now on to the rock!

THE RED SPAROWES (JUST ADDED!)

Really nuanced, detail-oriented instrumental post-rock from one of the best bands in Los Angeles. Prepare for transport.

NIGHT HORSE

Night Horse is killer 70s rock, and not that mellow AOR borderline rock shit either. AC/DC + Rose Tattoo. Singer Sam Velde will climb anything and then plummet fearlessly on to anything else.

RADIO MOSCOW

Blue Cheer meets Sir Lord Baltimore to become … LORD CHEER. Or also Radio Moscow. Acid guitar—hallucinogenic AND corrosive!—and riffs you can live on for days.

TRUE WIDOW

The video looks like it’s going to be for like Royksopp or something but it’s not so don’t bail after five seconds, dear ADHD-addled readers, because it’s awesome. They call it Stone Gaze and we hear and obey.

THE FUCKING WRATH

“No one here is fucking here to fight”, it says in the beginning of the video. And no, they are not fucking here to fucking fight, they are fucking here to make ribcage-rattling reverb-drenched music that will fucking crush you. None will be left standing!

IDES OF GEMINI

Dream doom? Black metal? Don’t know. We just call it “awesome.” The new L.A. band that will absorb you like the Smog monster.

L.A. RECORD AND TEEPEE PRESENT THE NEW WEIRD AMERICA FEST ON SAT., JUL 2 AT THE NOMAD GALLERY, 1993 BLAKE AVE., FROGTOWN. 2 PM / $10/ 18+. GET TICKETS HERE!

Chicago’s Permanent Records is coming to L.A.! Specifically, Eagle Rock, the new home of their second shop. The grand opening party is this Saturday, and they’ll be hosting performances by the Cosmonauts, Francis Harold and the Holograms, and Amanda of Not Not Fun (DJ set). We spoke with Permanent co-owner Lance about what’s in store. This interview by Lainna Fader.

What’re you gonna carry in Permanent L.A.?
It’ll be real similar to what we have in the Chicago location—new, used, rare vinyl, CDs, 45s, DVDs, cassettes, zines, a few books here and there.
How’d you find the right spot for the shop?
We were just in town visiting, scouting out different locations, and we were having a bite to eat at Fattie’s in Eagle Rock and stumbled across this empty storefront. We inquired, and the landlord is this super cool guy. We signed a lease that week we were here. We weren’t really planning on it.
What do you have planned for the grand opening this Saturday?
So far we’ve confirmed Cosmonauts, an Orange County garage-psych band, Francis Harold and the Holograms, a weird punk band from Huntington Beach, and then we have Amanda and Brit from Not Not Fun DJing. And some other special stuff, to be announced.
Got any secret killer records you’re gonna drop just for opening day?
We may unload some out of print Permanent rarities—a few test pressings—loads of used records that I’ll be selling from my personal collection—I’ve collected over the last ten or fifteen years—lots of rare and out-of-print stuff and a bunch of new releases, stuff we’ve been digging in the Chicago store. Lots of goodies that have never been for sale before, all available at the same time.
Is crate digging culture in L.A. different from in Chicago?
No, I think it’s the same across the planet. Once you get bit by the vinyl bug, you’re in for life! There’s rabid record collectors here, just as much as anywhere else in the world, especially major metropolitan areas. Aside from the fact that there’s probably a lot more people who spend a lot more time indoors in Chicago, it’s probably about the same as L.A. We’ve already run into loads of people who’ve popped in to the shop and said how stoked they are that we’re moving into the neighborhood. We figured L.A. was great anyway and Eagle Rock’s an awesome shop to have a store. I don’t think there are any major differences but that remains to be seen—I’ve only lived here for three weeks!
If you had an unlimited budget, who’s record collection would you buy for the shop?
Oh wow—I’ve never considered that before. Johan Kugelberg is a notorious collector who comes to mind. Byron Coley—he and Thurston Moore both have crazy collections that span four or five decades. Those two guys and Kugelberg. Clint Simonson from De Stijl records has bitchin’ collection. I’ve never thought in those terms though cuz I bet you those guys wouldn’t sell their records for anything. But if money was no thing, and those guys were willing to sell, those are the guys I’d approach first.
What collector in L.A. do you most want to meet?
I don’t know a whole lot of guys in L.A. It’s such a great distance between Chicago and L.A. and I’ve only been to a handful of record fairs out here and haven’t really reached out or gotten acquainted with too many collectors here yet. I know the Shaws live here, Greg and Suzy from Bomp, and I bet their record collection is amazing.
What record in your personal collection are you most proud to own?
Oh wow, that’s a really good question. Shit. I own thousands of LPs and thousands of 45s. I think I should keep it simple and say the test pressing of the very first release we put out on our label—Warhammer 48k’s An Ethereal Oracle. I own lots of rare records but really, that’s the one I’m most proud of. The first thing I ever did on my own, as far as the label’s concerned, and that record just means a whole lot to me in general. I’m really good friends with all those guys and I have been for, shit, ten years? Fifteen years now? Let’s call it ten years; I’m not that old!

PERMANENT RECORDS L.A. OPENS THIS SAT, JUN. 4 AT NOON AT 1583 COLORADO BLVD., LA. VISIT PERMANENT RECORDS.

Since I did pretty good on exclusives last year—Dengue Fever/Chicha Libre split, Sonic Youth/Beck split and This LP Crashes Hard Drives, among others—I thought I would post my shortlist of 2010 Record Store Day exclusives that I’ll be looking for early Saturday morning. The full list is here if you wanna look, and if I actually get some of these, maybe I will splat ‘em down at Big Freak and try them out.

—Chris Ziegler

Budos Band/Sharon Jones & The Dapkings “Day Tripper”/”Money” 7” (Daptone, pressing details unknown)
I already have a few soul 45s that do Beatles songs—actually, “Daytripper” but by the Vontastics—and that’s how I know this will at least be good, and since it’s Sharon, the Dap-Kings and the Budos Band, I know it will actually be great.

Daedelus Righteous Fists of Harmony LP (Brainfeeder, pressing details unknown)
If I do nothing else, I will get everything Brainfeeder puts out on vinyl.

dios “we are dios” 7” (Buddyhead, pressing details unknown)
Been waiting so long! The new dios album is one of the best records I’ve heard for a long long time. Until the whole thing hits vinyl, this will heroically hold the line.

Fela Kuti 10” EP (Knitting Factory/MRI)
Four early Fela tracks—“My Lady Frustration” / “Wayo” / “Lover” / “Eko”—recorded in L.A. in 1969. Good from every possible angle and for every possible situation.

Happy Birthday “Shampoo” b/w “Alien” (Sub Pop, 750 made)
Wild Kyle from King Tuff’s new band. Saw ‘em break amps in Texas and wanna hear more! Sparks / Milk ‘n’ Cookies / Only Ones goof-glam with ambitious falsetto.

John Fahey The Yellow Princess LP (Vanguard)
I need some nice new Fahey, even though he translates pretty well on furry bottom-of-the-new-arrivals-box rescue LPs. But this one will never be left to suffer like that. Guitar how a guitar wants to be played, if you haven’t heard this.

John Lennon 3 x 7” box set (individually numbered, w/3 7” singles, 3 postcards, 24 X 36 poster, and custom 45 adaptor hub; Capitol, 5000 made)
“Mother” b/w Yoko Ono “Why” and “Imagine” b/w “It’s So Hard” and “Watching The Wheels” b/w Yoko Ono “Yes, I’m Your Angel.” Only if this is kinda gently priced, but it’s a nice thing to have hanging around the house.

Mississippi John Hurt Today LP (Vanguard)
Another in the fancy Vanguard reissues series. It’ll be hazed by all the thick scratchy Folkways records filed alongside it.

The Rationals Rationalism 7” (Ace Records, 1000 mades)
Cool early Detroit soul ‘n’ roll. You can play Bob Seger System next to Stax stuff and you can probably work that with the Rationals, too.

Rodriguez “Inner City Blues” (recorded live in the streets of Paris) b/w “I’m Gonna Live Til I Die” (live cover of Frank Sinatra song) 7” (Light In the Attic)
Got into Rodriguez long after he’d had his first moment but before Light In The Attic did the good work of reissuing him, which is why my pre-authorized Rodriguez LP is on vinyl that flops around like a tortilla. Tuff folk from a real sweetheart.

V/A Fragments From A Work In Progress (4AD)
Live Ariel Pink and Haunted Graffiti (“Menopause Man”) plus Gang Gang Dance, Blonde Redhead and unreleased Big Pink and tUnE-yArDs who I should check out, I think.

V/A Radio Galaxia (B-Music / Finders Keepers)
My psychic suspicion to be this year’s This LP Crashes Hard Drives, which was last year’s one-stop for revelatory rippers. (Worth it for Monks and Pisces alone.) Also has the words GASLAMP KILLER on the cover, which in English means BUY THIS RECORD.

 Download: The Champagne Socialists
“Blue Genes”

(from “Blue Genes” 7″ available now from Slumberland Records)

The new Champagne Socialists “Blue Genes” 7” is only two songs, but the band maximizes their six minutes of bouncy, punk-infused ’60s pop. It’s just sugary enough, and the lazy-slash-sunny California tinge eliminates any pretension that tends to bog down a lot of Spector wannabes these days. The simplicity is deceiving too, in that the tone of the mics and the amps really acts as another member of the band. A-side “Blue Genes”—a stomper with a funky bassline—is the happier track of the two and should be included on any of your fall dance mixtapes. The teenage love-lust of the B-side, “The Young Runaways,” is a typical subject, but it still manages to paint a neat picture of misunderstood youth in a time long passed. Slumberland has found a sharp little band with these guys. I’ll be excited to hear a full-length when it’s time.

—James T. Cartwright

Download: The Burger Basher! Mixtape

(from the Burger interview here!)

Our old pals at Burger have further conglomerized the powerful Burger brand and opened a brand new real-deal record store to go with their real-deal record label! If you’re in the cholesterol-coated heart of Orange County, be sure to stop by to see Audacity and thee Makeout Party! perform and get first pick on a sure-to-be-staggering collection of used vinyl and of course the legendary Burger cassette collection!

BURGER RECORDS GRAND OPENING SHOW WITH AUDACITY AND THEE MAKEOUT PARTY ON SAT., OCT. 3, AT BURGER RECORDS, 645 S. STATE COLLEGE BLVD. UNIT A, FULLERTON. 7 PM / FREE / ALL AGES. MYSPACE.COM/BURGERRECORDS.

Stream: Kim Fowley “Underground Lady”

(from One Man’s Garbage available this October on Norton)

We here at L.A. RECORD are diligent students of L.A.’s Animal God of the Streets and so we are happy to learn that Kim Fowley’s classic ’60s output (as producer, musician and fearsome inspiration) will be corraled on two separate LPs for the unstoppable Norton this October—One Man’s Garbage and Another Man’s Gold! Huge news for all reality seekers, and if you’re reading this and you didn’t get that Black Randy reissue, you best … get right. Details below:

ONE MAN’S GARBAGE IS ANOTHER MAN’S GOLD!

Norton presents a Golden Decade (1959-69) of Kim Fowley’s elusive, previously properly unheralded mega genius escapades that reinforce the fact that Kim is… GODHEAD! Posh gatefold LPs feature extensive liner notes from Mr. Fowley, presented in his own inimitable MEGA GENIUS steeltrap-memory way. Stand now and salute the man, and each of these great records which blast right today as they did back when the chicken was the egg!

KIM FOWLEY – ONE MAN’S GARBAGE (Norton 355)
BRUCE AND JERRY – I Saw Her First/PATTERNS – Late Late Show/U.S. ROCKETS – Bodacious/RITUALS – This Is Paradise/DONNIE AND THE OUTCASTS – Big Fat Alaskan/RENEGADES – Charge/PLAYERS – The Rebel/KIM AND THE SKIPPERS – Daybreaker/MO AND JO – The Yo Yo Song/JOHNNY C AND THE BLAZES – Inferno/KIM FOWLEY – Music Is The Magic/BLUE BELLS – Moccasin/ALTHEA AND THE MEMORIES – Dedication Time/KIM FOWLEY – Underground Lady/KIM FOWLEY AND MARS BONFIRE – Surf Pigs*/ALTHEA AND THE MEMORIES – Worst Record Ever Made (* = previously unissued)

KIM FOWLEY – ANOTHER MAN’S GOLD (Norton 356)
RENEGADES – Geronimo/KIM FOWLEY – Big Sur, Bear Mountain, Ciro’s, Flip Side Protest Song/GAMBLERS – Teen Machine/VAQUEROS – Vaquero Beat/PLAYERS – Memories Of A High School Bride/ASTON MARTIN AND THE MOON DISCS – Fallout/COVER GIRLS – Gone But Not Forgotten/DAYWINS – Heartbeat/RITUALS – Surfers Rule/BONNIE AND THE TREASURES – Eleventh Commandment Of Love*/RENEGADES – Ghost Train*/ HOLLYWOOD ARGYLES – Long Hair, Unsquare Dude Called Jack/DONNIE AND THE OUTCASTS – Bounty Hunter/ALTHEA AND THE MEMORIES – Daddy Said/U.S. ROCKETS – March Of The Siamese Children/RITUALS – Gone (* = previously unissued)

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