Jul 15 : "Dogs (Live)" - Aloha Machine (Harrison + SUNY Purchase)

After work last Wednesday I went to Bushwick to hear some good music. Bushwick is getting to be the new pattern! This time I went to Alphaville, my first time there. Up first was Harrison NY ("SUNY Purchase is our home") band "Aloha Machine". This loud surf-rock psych-rock three-piece was a good way to start the night. It was my first time seeing them and I'm putting them on the list to see them again. ... Not quite the same in real life as they are on the web, but their music is good both ways.

The band has a couple albums out. Their December 2015 album is titled "Live! at the Destructo Disc". In this album I like some of the juxtaposition of lush guitar work with scrappy lyrics. The first song on the album is "Dogs (Live)" :::

The Aloha Machine is going to be doing a show tonight at Bushwick Public House, so stop what you're doing right now and go there! If you can't make it, you can always keep tabs on the band by following them on Facebook. Here is the click to their Facebook page ::: Aloha Machine on Facebook (CLICK HERE).

Jul 03 : "Follow Me Home" - The Mystery Lights (Brooklyn)

New Music / Freshly Written & Recently Released (June 24)

The Mystery Lights always do a good show. I've heard The Mystery Lights play all over, both in Philly and New York, and I think their show at Kung Fu Necktie last week was one that was right up there at the top. They were the reason I headed to Kung Fu on June 22. I have new developments to report.

Getting ahead of myself, the bands biggest news is that, with their collaboration with Wick Records, a subsidiary of Dapstone records, they just released their debut full-length album, "The Mystery Lights". The release date, party, and show was actually on June 24 at Mercury Lounge, two days after the Kung Fu show.

The sound work was great at Kung Fu last week. I could hear all the components, vocals and instruments, all individually as well as all together as one. The sound work allowed for more texture and nuance (which was also a big plus for "The Snails", which I wrote about in my previous posting).

And this was the right time for the better sound work at Kung Fu because The Mystery Lights has a lot of new songs and a number of new arrangements of some of their standards, and this venue was the ideal showcase for such an effort. A lot of the music the band played at Kung Fu is the music that's on the new album. Some of the songs had appeared before, either on ep or just streaming on the band's online platforms, but some of the songs are completely new.

So what's new in the new arrangements? Maybe a little more organ, for one thing. (The band calls it an "organ", not "keys". This is probably the true garage terminology). We can hear that at the beginning of the updated and revised "What Happens When You Turn the Devil Down?" as well as a very pronounced organ intro in the new "Follow Me Home". While the band's music as a whole is a rock explosion, there have also some changes in tempo, including a little slowing down of "Before My Own". In this song, there's also a unique guitar tonality.

So the music in the new album has more songs with pronounced individual stylings and characteristics, and at the same time, the arrangements are done in a way so that each component, the vocals and each instrument, have a chance to individually shine. This was a perfect match with the excellent sound work at Kung Fu last Wednesday night.

Their new album marks a big step forward in their writing, their arrangements, and their performance. You should listen to this album. Here is a sample. This is "Follow Me Home", which is the album's second track :::

If you like what you hear and you want to see them live, you're in luck. The Mystery Lights is coming back a week from Friday (July 15) to do another show at Kung Fu. In the meantime, you can go hear this album on their Bandcamp page ::: The Mystery Lights on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE) and you can keep up with their tour dates on Facebook ::: The Mystery Lights on Facebook (CLICK HERE).

Jun 30 : "Strong Foundation" - The Snails (Philly)

Philly Music!

TENUOUS POSITIONS

Last week I went to Kung Fu Necktie and this was the first time I heard Philly band "The Snails" perform. I liked their sound. What stood out was the different textures in the music. They describe themselves as "an eclectic act specializing in various forms of Jamaican music, blended with ragged 50's rock "n" roll and the sweet sounds of American soul." This comes across in their performance as always refreshing always unexpected in what comes next.

They have a sizeable amount of music on their web page, and when I started to look and listen more closely to their lyrics, I thought more about the tenuous positions in life in which we frequently find ourselves; a large undercurrent in the band's lyrics is about life's uncertainties and the decision about which way to go, to keep moving along the same path or try something new and what kind of foundation do you need to make that move.

Perhaps the most explicit description occurs in their song "Walking Down Broad Street" where we seem to have started walking as if we have some purpose but realize we can or should do it for only "so long", which is repeated multiple times. Maybe this is a metaphor for doing something over and over again until the action that once had meaning no longer does.

"Liberty Street Lights" talks about the changes that occur through the span of one's life and where to go from here:

"Give me the bricks and the mortar
I'll build this wall around my heart
And as I'm growing up older
I'll watch this wall fall apart
...
"I've been climbing up this mountain for years
And I still haven't reached the top
Should I struggle to find all my fears
Or look for something I have not got"

And probably the song that has the most uncertainty as well as the most choices is "Many Roads", which appears shortly after the middle of the album "Songs From The Hydrogen Jukebox Vol 1 & 2 ".

But all this leads up to their album's final song, "Strong Foundation", which tells the broad brush strokes ways of dealing with the tenuous positions previously described. Here is "Strong Foundation":

If you would like to hear The Snails live, they will be back doing a show at Kung Fu on Aug 18. Here is the click to their Facebook page so you can keep track ::: The Snails on Facebook (CLICK HERE). And if you want to check out more of these songs along with their lyrics, here is the click to their Bandcamp page ::: The Snails on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE)

p.s.... I like it when bands print the lyrics.

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8/2/16 - - - UPDATE : The band took down that whole album from their page. Strange! So there is now no link to the featured song.

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7/5/20 ::: UPDATE : The band seems to have deactivated all its pages that I can see.

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Jun 28 : Gold Sounds Pink Mexico ?

Earlier this month after work one night I stopped off at Gold Sounds, a new venue in Bushwick. (They've only been open a few months.) A nice place, friendly bartender ("Chris", if I remember), who has friends in West Philly along one of the green lines, and good drinks (He was "inventing" a new drink to feature as a special and I got to be one of the lucky test subjects).

And the venue has quite good sound.

The night I visited was not going to be an all-nighter, but I was just staying out to see however much music I could squeeze in til the 10:38p / last cheap NJTransit / SEPTA connection back home.

The night didn't go exactly as planned because the bands arrived late. First in the lineup was supposed to be the band "Pink Mexico". But the outfit turned out to be a solo act. Was this actually Pink Mexico? It didn't sound like either Pink Mexico or any of the web music of the other acts that were scheduled in the lineup that night. However, I REALLY liked this artist's sound. He was talented and quite creative. I might have liked to have seen him perform again. The only problem was that he never bothered to tell the audience who he was. WHOA! That's weird. ... My musician friends tell me how hard it is to sometimes land gigs, so why on earth would you play at a good venue and not tell people who you are? Are you thinking that only people who've previously heard you and know you count? And, any listener new, well, they'll have to go and like some other band because you're a secret agent band whose identity is on a need-to-know basis? This happens from time to time and it's so weird and so incomprehensible.

The next act to play also didn't bother to identify themselves at least by the second song, which was when I wound up having to leave for Njt. (It might actually have been Pink Mexico, but I can't be sure.).

So, in short, it wasn't a bad night. Good drinks, good conversation, nice venue, great sound, great music, .... except I didn't know who was playing. ... :)

Jun 21 : "brOKen" - 185668232 (Philly)

New Sounds / Freshly Written & Recently Released

Philly Music!

I knew my friend, Iam, would not have the strongest turnout at his recent Lava Space show as soon as I heard the weather report. Rain! And not only rain but Wind! And not only rain and wind, but a Midweek night! That's a recipe for crowds staying home. But it's also a recipe for a more personalized show with more of a back and forth with the artists and other concert-goers.

This evening at Lava Space was a release party for 185668232's new album, "!​*​%​^​^​*​@​#@". In addition to Iam's performance doing his music and noise, there were two video artists projecting their work on screens to either side of him, while Iam's own video work was projected behind. All coordinated. Surround sound and surround video! This was a very unique event. It was easy to see a huge amount of work went into this.

Here is 185668232's own description of the night, pre-event on their page ::: : "185668232 has been working tirelessly on the 11th album !*%^^*@#@ for 3 years and will be officially releasing it on May 30th with the videos made specifically for the album with the help of some earthlings when it seemed impossible to accomplish DiY. (This album has been tested on many crowds and will be toured in June around the perimeter of the USA then in Europe in September as well as already sent out to university radio stations.) -//- This live performance will be part of the DVD/file.

Dynamic-Noise Music + Glitch Video Projections + Avant Activism (designed by 185668232).

We are creating 3 walls of motion images together!"

One of the tracks on the new album is titled "brOKen". And "brOKen" refers to the damage in people's individual lives as well as in society as a whole. The piece touches dynamics of personal relationships, saying that we should act like we're all in this together, as well as taking a broad-brush-stroke swipe at some of our country's larger problems, e.g., prisons and exorbitant tuition.

It projects an attitude of making the best of things now but has a more hesitant amount of hope for humanity's long-term existence. "There's no need to compete because we would have to collaborate to survive". "School is for everyone who is breathing". But the most jarring statement that occurs both towards the beginning and towards the end is "Trust others as best you can while preparing for the end of the world". Iam has great compassion. The spelling of the title reminds us that it's "OK" to be "brOKen".

This is the outfit's 11th album, and there is a lot more complexity and versatility when compared to some of the work just a few years back. In this piece alone, Iam shows off quite a range of talent in riffs from various genres. You should take a listen. Here is "brOKen", one of the tracks on 185668232's new album "!​*​%​^​^​*​@​#@".

185668232 is on a cross-country tour right now and who knows when he'll be back. Here is the click to more music on Bandcamp including the new release: 185668232 music on Bandcamp (CLICK HERE)

And here is the link to the interview we did a few years back. 185668232 The Interview (CLICK HERE).