Wes Eisold Drops Ye Olde Maids LP on Art Fag Records

Wes Eisold: Ye Olde Maids, Cold Cave etc.


Teen favorite/impressario Mario Orduno has dropped his latest Art Fag release and it happens to be an LP by ex-Some Girls current Cold Cave member/originator Wes Eisold.

You can buy it right here, and I would quietly urge readers of this blog, home or abroad to purchase it. If even one reader buys the record, then I will obtain a deep sense of personal satisfaction. I myself am buying several copies.

Here is a sample MP3 Ye Olde Maids Cocoa Cherub (Yousendit)

Description of Track: drum machine, simple keyboard, layer of noise/fuzz distortion, muffled female(?) vocals.

List of Top Four "Most Read" News Stories on Pitchfork

1. Wavves Self-Destruct in Barcelona
2. Wavves Apologizes for Breakdown
3. Wavves Cancels European Tour
4. Wavves Cancel First Post-Meltdown Show

CD Review: Grizzly Bear "Veckatimest"

Show of the Week: LOVE IS ALL, So Cow, Christmas Island @ Casbah SAT.

Christmas Island band Fruit Bat from Christmas Island.


Love is All (Artist Page on Pitchfork)
Still Flyin (Myspace)
So Cow (myspace)
Christmas Island (myspace)
DJ Mario Orduno (Art Fag Recordings)
@ The Casbah/21+/ $12-14 at door

Show notes: So Cow is a favorite of Mario Orduno; Love is All has their own blog? Christmas Island was featured in that Rolling Stone article this month. Also: I haven't seen Christmas Island live yet, and this fact embarrasses me.

It will be interesting to see if I like the first two bands or the second two bands more. Shout out to What's Your Rupture? Records. I need to be blogging about everything they do.

The San Diego County Fair: Selected Musical Event Listings

County Fairs: Supersaturated colors, harsh lighting, fried foods and acne.


If there is one thing I love, it's county fairs. (But See David Foster Wallace, "A Supposedly Fun Thing That I Will Never Do Again./") I'm looking forward to seeing the B-52s- they never should have left in the first place! Also, do you know how many cd's American Idol artists have sold in the past five years? Like, 50 million (Kelly Clarkson 10 M; Carrie Underwood 9.2 M; Clay Aiken 4.8; Chris Daughtry, 4.4; Ruben Stoddard 2.5. Total: 31 M from top five artists.) Think about that statistic for one second and consider that a top 10 record means less then 100 K sales in a week.



Main Stage

06 17 Bret Michaels
06 18 David Cook !
06 19 Loretta Lynn @ $
06 20 David Archuleta !
06 25 B-52's $
06 26 Switchfoot
07 05 Kelly Clarkson !

Chevrolet Paddock Concert Series (2nd stage)

06 18 Super Diamond #

Coors Light Rock On Stage

06 26 Politik (Tribute to Coldplay)
07 24 Mishavonna !

! American Idol Artist
@ Hipster Alert
# Douch Bag Alert
! Recommend

flyer

che0725, originally uploaded by catdirtrecords.

Warp 20 (Box Set)

The Warp 20 (Box Set) looks amazing. (BLEEP)

The Limits of Amateur Music Enthusiasts

The limits of amateur music enthusiasts extend along to dimensions- the first is for new artists i.e. each enthusiasts can only "sponsor" a limited number of acts. The second is within and between styles/genres.

The relationship between music industry professionals and amateur music enthusiasts is that of a selecting mechanism for further review. This happens in ways that are familiar to readers of this blog, and ways that most denizens of the 'indie' acts wouldn't even comprehend (the process by which Radio Disney selects it's artists.) Amateur music enthusiasts are not in any way coterminous with 'indie' fans- the two largest groups of amateur music enthusiasts are 1) watchers of american idol and 2) kids who watch the disney channel.

In fact, it is in these two categories that you can see a very explicit demonstration of the dimensions outlined above. American Idol watchers: How many of the contestants do the fans actually buy? Do they buy compilations? How long do they follow the artists? Here we're talking about a low number of albums being bought over the course of the year. Do American Idol watchers/buyers/enthusiasts buy other types of records? Unlikely but possible.

From a music industry professional stand-point you are looking for amateur music enthusiasts who score high on both dimensions to evaluate new artists, but in terms of generating enthusiasm or response for any specific act, you want low value enthusiasts. But you still want music enthusiasts. These people- whether they be disney channel pre-teens or pitchfork reading hipsters, generate "word of mouth" which induces passive listeners to buy.

The Yurok Indian Tribe

This is an indian "native american" tribe I've been reading about in AL Kroeber's Handbook of the Indians of California it seems to me wherever you live there should be an understanding of the people who lived there before, even if they were different types of folks. It's just fact that indians lived in California for thousands of years without fucking it all up, which we managed to do in a generation.

One of the central theses of Kroeber's handbook is to praise the Yurok, who literally lead off he first chapter, and whose supremacy is reaffirmed nearly 700 pages later after surveying every major and minor indian culture in the state of California.

A central fact that almost all the high northern california tribes shared was that their society was focused around living on the river. They all live in river valleys and not so much on the coast. They really only travel up and down river. They comprise one significant portion of an ethnic group shared with their neighbors, but also border territory with a tribe that speaks the western most off-shoot of the algonguin language family. The Yurok displayed a high degree of what Kroeber identified as materialism: they were very interested in property and money and were among the few tribes of the area to keep "slaves"- in quotes because it sounds like a pretty benign institution. Basically they fished in the river and had a religion that centered around witch-woman shamanism, the female puberty ceremony and 10 day long dances of a repetitive nature.

It's hard not to read some kind of matriarchical structure into their various rites and rituals, but nowhere does he posit that argument.

The final point I want to make about the Yurok Indian tribe is that their lifestyle was extraordinarily stable. We tend to think of all native american cultures as having a "timeless" or "ageless" culture, but in truth pre-contact native american live was as tumultuous as it was in Europe, just in a different way. The tribes of Native California had only limited contact with other native cultures but maintained themselves for many generations.

Listing for 07 25 Che Cafe Show: All Leather, Rapid Youth, Made in Mexico, Kevin Greenspon

Exterior of the Che Cafe.

San Diego's CHE CAFE presents:

All Leather (San Diego, CA.)(Dim Mak Records)
Made in Mexico (Providence, RI.)(Skin Graft Records)
Rapid Youth (Murrieta, CA.)(Family Time Records, Lost Space, Paradise Vendors Inc.)
Kevin Greenspon (City of Industry, CA.)(Bridgetown Records, Family Time Records)
ALL AGES/SLIDING SCALE ADMISSION
DOORS ARE AT 8 SHOW STARTS AT 9 PM

Set order: Rapid Youth, Kevin Greenspon, Made in Mexico, All Leather

Family Time Music Announces Summer Releases: Via Myspace Blog Of Course

I really can't say it enough: myspace is back. I spend more productive time on myspace checking out band "work rate" then any other single source. It's so "one stop shopping" except for the music itself which always sounds terrible.

Here's what Family Time Music says they've got in the "pipe-line" as they say:

JUNE PROMISE!!!
1.pink priest-endless love--cs & cdr
--------this is dreamy, not in the way that your seeing hearts in gym class but in real dreams that you have no control and the main thing consistent is the feeling of general emotions. no confusion. i am excited to put this out for many reasons but mainly i really like the song sleep ranger on this.

2.norse horse-swamp trotter--cs & cdr
---------ryan is a friend of mine who lived in riverside up till october of 2008 when he moved to korea to spend a year teaching. he only spent 7? months there because he didn't enjoy it but while there he started norse horse. and made some of the songs that are on his debut swamp trotter. these jams are warm in a very sincere way. i am finding it hard to write about his music so you should just check it out.:P

3.mikura suzuki-punished by the nina--cs
---------mikura suzuki is brent w. of the amazing rapid youth. brent is the most recent addittion playing bass in rapid youth. like all the other rapid youth side projects mikura is not reflective of his contribution to rapid youth but seperate altogether and amazing the same. this is a split release between myself and hi shadow.

JULY
1.no paws-don't be afraid of where you live--12"
---------this will happen in july, it has to happen

2.ancient crux-interracial coupling--cd reissue
---------this came out in edition of 150 in january and sold out in march. this just makes sense.

many more but that is all of the for sure stuff right now

The post Barcelona Wavves back lash to the back lash has begun

Prefix mag identifies a nascent back-lash to the back-lash against Wavves so-called Barcelona "melt-down." The piece also references a similar piece on Drowned in Sound (June 4th, 2009.) (Prefix)

My observation is that if your first harshly critical comment about Wavves came AFTER Barcelona you are a pussy because anyone that hates Wavves and heard his record should have immediately said that the record was crap.

Show Review: Crystal Antlers @ The Casbah 06 09 09

Crystal Antlers singer, Jonny Bell

This article is 511 words.

I just wanted to give a prefatory shout-out to my homeboy Reid @ Inflightatnight who was the first to blog about Crystal Antlers in October 2007.

In their April 6th, 2009, Pitchfork adequately summarized the narrative on Crystal Antlers during the conclusion of their recent full length release on departed(?) indie-stalwart Touch and Go Records:

Whether or not Tentacles is considered the jumping off point for a promising career or a jumping off point for bandwagoneers, there's a weight on it that goes beyond mere expectation: It will likely be the last new release on Touch and Go Records. It felt like such a great fit-- what better home for loud, yet accessible bands that fell just shy of Sub Pop or Matador or Merge middlebrow? But even Crystal Antlers have a substantially brighter outlook than that of Touch and Go, both are still in the same place as of now, plotting the course for a future that just got muddy more quickly than expected.

(Pitchfork)

I think Pitchfork is wrong here: based on their positive press else-where and a very high "work rate" combined with a tour strategy that pairs them with anthemic indie rock acts (Cold War Kids, The Constantines) my position would be that the Crystal Antlers are poised to continue ascending. Given the fractured nature of the music industry even the failure of a label like Touch and Go represents a small hickup in their trajectory. In a present where a "major label deal" actually means "one album released on a major label" viable acts simply aren't relying on a single label to raise their flag. Such a strategy is foolish. Instead, bands ascend through a matrix from the lower-levels of self release and regional indie, to national indie, to major label distribution. So for Crystal Antlers its: self released, Touch and Go, ???.


The show I saw last night was very strong. The "focused" feel of the record transformed into a kinetic live atmosphere. The crowd, who looked like an anthemic indie rock crowd, responded to the performance (on a tuesday night, against stiff local competition) working up a sweat and quite literally making it hot in the room. Like the Nelly song.

After the show I had a chance to meet the singer/bassist while buying merch and he seemed like a together guy despite the hair-in-the-face performance style.

Let's add to the fact that they have solid booking (billions) and a cool manager: Phil Hoelting (f yeah fest la) and you've got an attractive package. Could this band open for the Decemberists or Shins on tour? You bet. They almost occupied a dance rock space. Probably the touring is their strongest element right now since I could see them added as support on a national tour w/ 5000+ venues. It's a real easy sell.

Unlike the pitchfork reviewer, I see the Crystal Antlers on a much more positive path, and less impacted by the demise of Touch and Go. I mean, out here, in Southern California? Touch and Go existed but it wasn't a huge local player.

And how great is that free agent status?

report from narm 2009

I went to the presentation given by nielsen ratings about the state of the music industry and they talked alot about how expensive video games are at best buy. Also, vinyl sales are up 80% last year and projected to go up 50% this year, but comprise less then one percent of the total market for music.

I was listening to a meeting between a guy who works for an online ad sales network and he was talking about how to attract passive listeners and I was like- oh my god- what did you say? And then he said "passive listeners" and then I was like wow- do you talk about passive listeners? And he was like yeah and then I was like- what does that mean to you? And he kind of shrugged.

So I wanted to link to my post Observations About Passive Listeners because I know nobody really read it the first time around and now that this music industry professional was talking about it during a sales meeting I feel pretty vindicated.

Crystal Antlers Tonight @ The Casbah

Check out Crystal Antlers @ the Casbah Tonight.

Crystal Antlers (myspace)

NOT

Crystal Stilts (myspace)

Not

The Antlers (myspace)

Not

an Antler spoon. (Ebay)