Crib Notes

Tonight’s the night of the big Dirtbombs and Spiritualized show at The Variety Playhouse, which is going to be a contender for roller coaster show of the year. But if that’s out of your price range, The Jacuzzi Boys are one of the more compelling younger rock acts to come out of Florida in a long, long time.

Their set opening up for King Khan and the Shrines over at Lenny’s on the 4th of July was pretty damn stellar, and swayed a lot of folks in attendance who had already grown weary of standing through too many opening acts.

The Jacuzzi Boys hail from the not-so-sunny side of Florida, where a sleazy blend of noisy rock and roll and melodies is a reactionary lifestyle choice. The young trio crafts hazy and angst-ridden rock songs that fall somewhere between Raw Power-era Stooges and Bleach-era Nirvana. Austell trio Mammals play a similar, though slightly more primitive take on homemade, Southern living-room punk. Atlanta newcomers the Barberries wield a gruff but refreshing balance of savagery and psychedelic melodies.

The show is $7 and the doors open at 9 p.m. The Drunken Unicorn, 736 Ponce de Leon Place. www.thedrunkenunicorn.net.

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Now that Noot ‘d Noot’s much anticipated proper debut full-length Goofer Dust (International Hits) has hit the streets the world is getting its first real look at just what Atlanta’s premier party band is all about. Drummer Mathis Hunter (A.K.A. Bimbi Smoofus) and keyboard player Rich Morris (Dream Sanitation) took time out of their day to talk about the atmosphere surrounding the record, and where it’s going from here.

Chad Radford: Did Noot ‘d Noot start as a joke hip-hop band or something like that?

Bimbi Smoofus: No, there was never really a joke. It started as a side project to Good Friday Experiment. We were learning to make beats on the MPC and were trying to use our own music as a sample source. We were using records too, but we were trying to sample ourselves.

CR: Were you doing this because you wanted to sell beats to people?

Dream Sanitation: We were doing it mostly to have fun and make music on Friday nights because the clubs in town weren’t playing the kind of music that we wanted to hear.

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After being hit off with a few hushed complaints around town about the high cost of the “(cult of) The Cemetery Flowers (mandolins version)” b/w “Walking Pneumonia” 7-inch from Philadelphia’s A Sunny Day in Glasgow that appeared in local records stores this week, I decided to do some investigating.

The Sunny Day… single is the debut offering from Geographic North, a new, Atlanta-based label launched by former WRAS DJs Farzod Moghaddam and Farbod Kokabi. According to their press release, the label “strives to to release records with the highest quality in both packaging and music alike.”

This is the first installment of a 12-month subscription series, titled “You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever.” The series is sold in 6 month installments for $36 (subscribers receive free postage and “special gifts”). All singles in the series will be pressed on various other colors of vinyl and are limited to 300 copies, which is sort of a standard M.O. for most small labels these days.

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There’s been a slowdown in the number of overseas DJs over the last couple of years, especially with the closing of clubs like Eleven50. But WETBar, the Mark — and with this event, the Glenn hotel — continue to help Atlanta party like we’re across the pond. It’s on the rooftop, and it’s free — but it’s also first-come first-serve, so come come early (10ish).

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Is it unfair to subject a cover band to the same kind of criticism that a real band would receive? Probably. Cover bands aren’t really putting any artistic girth on the line, so why should I point my poison pen at them for jamming on some of their favorite tunes just for the fun of it.

It’s a strange dilemma, and one that the Fading Captains, a Guided By Voices cover band from Atlanta, and the Placemats, a Replacements cover band from Columbia, SC outlined with their show at The Earl on Thursday, July 17^th.

Up first, the Placemats have a rather disturbing presence. If you turn your back to the stage it sounds like the Replacements… Dead on. It’s phenomenal. But if you turn around and look at them, it’s like being a parallel universe where a bunch of frat guys are phoning in your favorite Replacements songs, like “Alex Chilton” and “Waitress in the Sky.”

It was just to weird to watch them, and as much of a proponent of anti-fashion becoming fashion as I tend to be, this is one instance where I have to say that sometimes, image does matter.

If you’re going to be in a Ramones cover band, you should dress like the Ramones. If you’re going to be in a Beatles cover band, you need the wigs. And if you’re going to be in a Replacements cover band, you need to get drunk and swagger around with much more stumbling energy than these guys portrayed.

What’s more, Paul Westerberg at least held onto a guitar on stage. This guy just held onto his drink and kept begging the pretty girls in the crowd to bring him more, and he didn’t even do that as well as Westerberg used to.

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Decatur CD
356 W. Ponce de Leon Ave.
404.371.9090

For week ending 7/17/2008

1. The Hold Steady Stay Positive
2. Beck Modern Guilt
3. Alejandro Escovedo Real Animal
4. Gentleman Jesse and His Men Gentleman Jesse and His Men
5. Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis Two Men With the Blues
6. The Baseball Project, Vol. 1 Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails
7. The Homemade Jamz Blues Band Pay Me No Mind
8. She & Him Volume 1
9. Coldplay Viva La Vida
10. Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes

Moods Music
1131 Euclid Ave.
404-653-0724

For week ending 7/18/2008

1. Naked Music Re-Creation
2. J*Davey The Beauty In Distortion/The Land Of The lost
3. Ledisi Lost & Found
4. JSoul Love Soldier
5. Osunlad Passage
6. Choklate Choklate
7. Esperanza Spalding Esperanza
8. Various Artists Verve Remixed, Vol. 4
9. Dain Harris/Brandon A Thomas For The Moment/Soul Acoustic
10. Tony Remy & Bluey First Protocol

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All the Saints have secretly risen through the ranks to rise up and out of Atlanta, and position themselves as one the most likely to succeed on their own merits. The group occupies a strange and exotic place that lies somewhere between droning art rock and epic psychedelia that’s punctuated by a heavy dose of metal riffs. But make no mistake, ATS is not to be confused with a metal band. The group crafts a Southern-fried shoe gaze sound that’s carries an understated goth/dark Brit. pop sulk that gives rise to a sound that leaves plenty of room in which to roam around.

Their debut full-length, Fire on Corridor X on Killer Pimp Records is an engaging listen to be sure, but the soft production qualities choke a bit of the punch out of the songs. This is a band that crafts a fiery sound, and a much more jagged rendering would serve these songs well. But ATS on CD is a much less visceral experience than witnessing the group in the flesh. Toning down the dirge for Fire in Corridor X for this recording shows a marked leap from the production witnessed on the group’s ‘06 self-titled EP.

But the songs are good, and naturally, it goes with out saying that the best way to take in this band, especially if it’s for your first time, is to catch a live show. Conveniently they just happen to be playing at Art Opening tomorrow, Saturday July 19 at Vacation Boutique & Gallery in the Virginia Highlands. The show features the art work of former ATL resident and NYC transplant Jeremy Parker. The show is free, but donations are encouraged. Music begins at 8 p.m. and there will be free Colt 45 for everyone.

For more information click here or call Vacation at 404-875-4413.

(Photo taken from All the Saints Myspace Page)

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Today’s Air Loaf features CL’s Chanté LaGon and Chad Radford chatting about the music scene for this weekend, including Grupo Fantasma, the Julia Dream, Harmony in Life, the Barberries and the CD release party for Ricky Raw’s The Green Album.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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After twenty nine years former Atlanta folkie Sammy Walker has returned from seclusion with a collection 16 Dylan-esque life tales. The album, titled Misfit Scarecrow is set to hit the streets on June 22 from Ramseur Records.

These days Walker hides out in the hills of North Carolina, but the Norcross native first started strumming on the mean streets of downtown Atlanta. Born in 1952, Walker first appeared singing and writing original songs that drew inspiration from the likes of Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and Doc Watson.

According to a press release sent about Ramseur this month, “[Walker] began performing these songs in coffee houses around the University of Georgia in the early 70’s and in 1974, he decided to put a tape of his songs together. He sent this tape to Sis and Gordon Friesen at Broadside, where they were warmly received and subsequently published. Gordon gave a copy of the tape to Bob Fass at WBAI radio in New York City and Walker was invited to New York to appear on Fass’s show. Phil Ochs heard him for the first time on this show, and the two soon met and exchanged songs and stories.

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Atlanta’s premier space-funk party band, Noot ‘d Noot features members of the Selmanaires, Good Friday Experiment, and too many other forgotten local bands to name.

The Noots create an a cosmic blend of electro and organic beats, that expand the mind and get the party started with deep, psychedelic jams.

The group’s 2006 self-produced, self-released Goofer Dust Mix Tape, has been stepped up to legitimate LP/CD release via International Hits.

According to I-Hits co-owner Shannon Mulvaney the records and CDs should be in stores and available for purchase this evening, hopefully by 6 p.m., and the packaging of the LP is said to be lavish.

Stay tuned for more.

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David Banner represents everything I love — and loathe — about mainstream hip-hop. You can read this week’s CL cover story, “Power Moves: David Banner walks tightrope between politics and profit”, on the rapper who released his fifth solo album, The Greatest Story Ever Told, today.

There isn’t another southern rapper on commercial radio who infuses so much passion and socio-political angst into his music. Yet, he’s also quick to indulge in (and excuse) rap’s obsession with misogyny and crass commercialism.

In an interview with him last week, I asked Banner if he ever feels torn in too many different directions by making music that covers everything from explicit sex talk to sociocultural concerns? His provocative response summed up his penchant for keeping it extra real:

“I think life is a contradiction. How much Hennessy and weed do we smell Sunday morning from people coming from the club the night before? People are walking contradictions and they point so many fingers, and we don’t look at ourselves. I’m just the most honest motherfucker….

“We’re all like that. And we need to tell our kids that Martin Luther King was a womanizer. Martin Luther King liked getting pussy. I don’t know why everybody just wants to make him so perfect? That’s what makes black folks not want to be like Martin Luther King, because they think he’s too perfect…. Naw, tell ‘em that man had a weakness for women.

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T.I. has revealed the cover art for Paper Trail — his new album due Sept. 9 — and it’s actually, um, artistic.

The conceptual cover bears the rapper’s image designed from paper scraps.

“We didn’t want to just do a typical cover, especially for my sixth album,” T.I. told MTV News via email. “I wanted to try something a little more different. The illustration for Paper Trail pays an obvious homage to my rekindled affinity for writing my lyrics down as well as displays my commitment to keep my art slanted towards the abstract.”

He’s also leaked two new songs from Paper Trail. “Swing Your Rag” and “What Up” are decidedly more club/street-worthy tunes than his first single, “No Matter What” — which addresses his legal issues and mild-mannered beef with Bankhead representative Shawty Lo. Despite production from his long-time collaborator D.J. Toomp, the bluesy triumph over tragedy song hasn’t gained much traction on radio. (See video after the jump.)

But it’s nothing a club remix from DJ Klever couldn’t fix.
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