Happy Halloween

Alice Cooper will get you into the mood.



I'm going to be Toki Wartooth from Metalocalypse. Maybe I'll post pics if any good ones are taken! Go forth, eat candy and DIE!

I Love the Dead

The Mummies Really Must Be Undead

These photos are from the legendary Mummies' double reunion shows this past Saturday night at both Bottom of the Hill and Thee Parkside in San Francisco. You would never be able to tell that these guys are well into their forties; they kicked every other band that played Budget Rock's ass and made grown men and women salivate and travel all the way from places like Seattle to see it all go down at these two back-to-back shows. Oh yeah, and I'm ragingly jealous of those two Bingo "winners" who scored Mummies records. I'll find you.


Vocalist Trent Ruane and guitarist Larry Winther




Bassist Maz Kattuah



Trent Ruane





I still can't believe I was fortunate enough to get into even one of their shows. I got word that over a hundred people were already lined up at each venue at 7 p.m. The Mummies are San Francisco gold.

From A Few Nights Ago

These iPhone babies were taken at the most recent Kurt Vile show on Wednesday at a sold-out Hemlock Tavern:








It must seem to you that the majority of my posts are about this guy. That is because I think he is completely and utterly brilliant, and the guys he jams with in the Violators are like Vile's four extra limbs. His band brought the heat just as I was told but they also let Kurt do his own thing, especially near the end when he played both "Heart Attack" and "Dead Alive", two of my favorites, off his new album. And the live version of "The Hunchback" didn't disappoint either. Vile's show are all about scraping over new territory to annihilate what he's done before.

A Glimpse into the Future

With Kurt Vile's newest record Childish Prodigy (Matador), it's as if we're looking into a glowing crystal ball in order to see what lays ahead. It's also like being bashed over the head with the crowbar of greatness; this LP is a near-perfect synthesis of Vile's heart-rending, echoey fingerpickers ("Blackberry Song", which moved me to tears), penchant for sprinklings of vocal and electronic effects, and his ability to unleash wailing jams at a moments notice. Indeed, he effortlessly takes seemingly arcane or hackneyed things such as old-school fingerpicking, as in "Heart Attack" or thick effects ("Overnite Religion"), and makes them completely new, completely ear-opening.

In my August interview with the guy, he gushed about the workings of the album, talking about how he had thrown together his older albums in a rush, but had really pieced this one together and fleshed it out:

"It’s just my ultimate album. I’d say it’s my first ALBUM album, it wasn’t just compiled. There’s a lot of layers and you can keep uncovering stuff in there. . .it's definitely more tripped out. . .it’s the closest thing I have so far to my masterpiece."

You can hear all of that. It's the most realized thing he's made; it looks forward while existing as an ode to everyone and everything who's influenced him. One thing I also like is Vile's fearlessness when it comes to reworking songs over and over and letting everyone HEAR the process. On his March release The Hunchback EP (Testostertunes) with his band the Violators, Vile made the title song into a majestic, Neil Young-inspired tune that could've extended until forever. On Prodigy, he's gutted the tune and made it rough around the edges, choppy, and plodding. Somehow, it still works as an almost punk version of the former tune. He sneers and jeers like never before; suddenly it sounds like a completely new song.

He's playing a show at Hemlock Tavern on October 21, and it's with the Violators. This, no one should miss, because I hear they absolutely kill on stage.


Dead Alive
Blackberry Song
Heart Attack
Inside Lookin' Out

Braggadocious

SOMEONE got linked on the Matador Records blog. Indirectly, yes, but can't I just be proud for one moment in my life?