Crib Notes

Eyedrum is hosting its First Annual Ear Ball All-day music and sound-art event to showcase the diversity of the long-standing Atlanta art and music gallery’s programming today, Sat.,  Nov. 14.

Eyedrum will host an all-day extravaganza on two stages, and at site specific locations throughout the building. The First Annual Ear Ball was originally conceived as a fundraiser for Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery, the 11 year old Atlanta arts organization that narrowly averted closing this past summer. The event has since grown into “a celebration of the diversity of music and sound art that Eyedrum has presented to Atlanta audiences over the years,” says Allen Welty-Green, the chair of Eyedrum’s Board of Directors, and organizer of the Ear Ball.

Eyedrum’s Earball kicks off at noon. Sat., Nov. 14. $5-$20 (pay what ever you can). 290 MLK Jr. Drive SE. 404-522-0655.

Click below for a tentative list of acts performing.

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Let’s say you’re a Nick Cave fan. Maybe not even a “fan,” but someone who owns and likes a couple of his records. You might not listen to him much anymore. If someone asked you why you like him, you might talk about that inimitable Australian voice of his. Or you might talk about his songwriting (which has bordered on story writing for most of his career) and the enduring cast of characters he has born – murderers and witnesses and bystanders to the scenes.

Or, if you’re the story-telling type, you would talk about the first time you really listened to a Nick Cave album. It was Tender Prey and you were single at the time, so no one was around to tell you to turn it down. You pulled a bottle of Bushmills out of the cabinet and listened to it over and over again, turning up the volume a little each time until you realized that Nick Cave just sounded best at 10, blaring so loud that your speakers were in a vague sort of danger. You don’t remember how many times you listened to the album that night, but you can recall how the repetition of songs like “The Mercy Seat” were every bit as intoxicating as the Bushmills. You remember waking up the next day with a splitting headache and the needle skipping at the end of the record.

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Those weerdos are at it again. Apparently this is what you get when you combine two ’09 CL Best of Atlanta winners (Hollyweerd, SMKA) with a featured artist from CL’s ’09 Music Issue (A. Leon Craft).

“So What”

A lyrical romp over haunting strings and 808 bass, “So What” is the second leak from SMKA’s highly-anticipated (thanks to this track) re-up, The 808 Experiment Vol. 2.

And the execution is killer — from 808 Blake’s track to A. Leon’s hook to Tuki batting clean-up on the last verse. It’s always good to see MVPs from the same scene come together and score.

Suggestion: Do not dare press play unless you’re prepared to be stuck on rewind for the rest of the night.

Vol. 2 is due in January. In the meantime, check out SMKA’s recently released full-length collaboration with Trimm (Trimm Meets SMKA).

(Illustration by Corey Davis of Mach 5)

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The funeral for Maserati drummer Jerry Fuchs will be held at the Catholic Church of St. Ann in Marietta on Tues., Nov. 17 at 7:30 p.m.

Fuchs died in the early hours of Sun., Nov. 8 after suffering a fall down an elevator shaft in Brooklyn, NY. He was 34 years old.

Earlier this week WNYC posted a tribute to Fuchs.

(Photo courtesy www.myspace.com/7549671)

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More than one member of the band The Sunglasses sports a fading, blue-green, prison-style tattoo of the letters F.I.D. Drummer Ray Fleming wears it on his arm, while the others don them on less visible parts of their bodies. When asked about it, they give each other a shifty look before Fleming sheepishly offers, “It stands for ‘Fuck It Dude.’” While that isn’t necessarily the Atlanta-based band’s philosophy, it’s a credo that drives the brash and arty post-hardcore rhythms of its newly released debut album Bad Happy (Trans Ruin/Dark Wolf Records).

It isn’t easy to describe the sound that Fleming, along with drummer Daniel Deckebach, bass player Zach Rivers and vocalist Josh Lyner have concocted. Songs such as “100 Names,” “Chut Brittany” and “Smoke It” swing wildly between noise rock, grunge and drug-damaged pop, with math rock leanings. “I usually try to come up with the stupidest riff I can think of and morph it into a nasty pop song,” Deckebach explains. By stupid, he means unorthodox. “I can’t really shred on guitar so I’ll think, what sounds really ridiculous and doesn’t make sense with these weird-sounding chords, but then have it tie the whole song together.”

Continue Reading “The Sunglasses get Bad Happy“

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Jay-Z's camp tapped Goose's talents as a producer, but ultimately passed on his tracks.

Welcome to CL’s annual catalog of impotence: the 11 Least Influential. You’ll meet folks who tried to achieve an ambitious goal, but fell short (or, in Goose’s case, more than made up for the difference); people who’ve devoted themselves to a personal mission in near-total obscurity; and ordinary Joes who can’t get anyone to pay attention to them. Every day until the full issue hits the streets on Nov. 11, we’ll bring you a new story of failure — some noble and heroic, others abject and pathetic.

Subject: Alex Goose
Failing: Can’t get any play from Jay-Z

Atlanta-based music producer Alex Goose has big dreams, and bigger gonads.

After being contacted this summer by a New York-based A&R rep working closely with Jay-Z, the burgeoning producer jumped at the chance to submit beats for the legendary MC’s album-in-the-making, The Blueprint 3.

He says the A&R rep was so impressed with his work for such Atlanta-based artists as Brittany Bosco and Danny! that he came to Atlanta to hear what the Goose was cooking. “He was telling me, ‘I’d love to get some of these [beats] to Jay, for sure,’” recalls Goose, who estimates he submitted 20 to 25 tracks for consideration. “A few months later he hit me up and was like, ‘Hey, I got word back from Jay that he didn’t really hear anything that he wanted to use for the album.’”

With such name-brand producers as Kanye West, Timbaland, the Neptunes and No I.D. getting first dibs at the highly-anticipated release, a virtual unknown just didn’t have the pull to earn himself a placement.

“You know it kinda sucks,” he says. “Jay would say, ‘It’s politics as usual.’”

Continue reading “11 Least Influential Countdown: No. 8 — Alex Goose”

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By Mark Hibbard

Over the past few years our nation’s love affair with beer has grown considerably. Pubs are now tap houses and the beer aisle is constantly swelling and expanding, threatening to encroach upon the noble wine racks that have held sway over discerning palates. As far as trends go, this is a good one. It has opened up a new market for enterprising drunkards and has forced even the king of beers to rethink their model. Wimpy light beers no longer rule the roost, and the mighty hop’s relevance is getting stronger by the day.

In a city that has deemed happy hour unsavory, going to one of the local breweries is a great way to get an early buzz on the cheap. The initial plan was to hit up Sweetwater, but for the third time in six months I was reminded after the fact that it is best to get there early. (more…)

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Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, better known as Lubbock, Texas’ hard luck country legends the Flatlanders play Smith’s Olde Bar tonight (Tues., Nov. 10) in support of their latest record, Hills and Valleys.

The first time around, Jimmie Dale and the Flatlanders’ self-titled 1972 debut, which only appeared as an 8-Track, was the big bang of the alt. country universe.

Since it’s 1990 CD reissue, dubbed More A Legend Than A Band, the Flatlanders have basked in their mystique, and since ‘02 have been continually churning-out solid, Lone Star State tales that swell with personal and political turmoil and a songwriter flare that recalls a more elegant time for country music.

The Flatlanders play Smith’s Olde Bar tonight. $30. 7 p.m. (early door). 1578 Piedmont Ave. 404-875-1522.

Hills and Valleys mp3 sampler

(Photo by Will Van Overbeek)

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This week Of Montreal’s Jamie Huggins, a.k.a. James Husband, released the video for “Window,” from his solo debut, A Parallax I via Spinner.com. The album was released Oct. 20 via Polyvinyl, and is the culmination of 12-years worth of song writing, and was recorded between 2003 and 2008.

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BRAVO DARLING: Kandi Burruss' star is brighter than ever.

When Kandi Burruss reveals, during a recent telephone interview, that her favorite expletive is “motherfucker,” it’s almost too cute to bear. As if we really needed another reason to root for the Atlanta native, come to find out she likes to cuss up a storm, too.

“My mouth is bad sometimes,” she says, smiling through the phone. “I have to wash it out with soap. Luckily y’all don’t get to see that ’cause you can’t really say bad language on TV.”

It’s probably one of the few character wrinkles of Burruss’ that wasn’t excessively ironed out over the course of Season Two on “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.” While NeNe Leakes transgressed from fan fave to villain with a vengeance, newbie Burruss stole the hearts of viewers with her down-to-earth, charmed demeanor and an off-screen plot line that earned an outpouring of sympathy.

Considering all the tribulations and B.S. Burruss has publicly endured in recent months — from the gossip blogs that initially made a mockery of her relationship with former fiancé Ashley “A.J.” Jewell to the shocking tragedy that claimed his life before the season finished airing — it almost seems as if her decision to be on the show was cursed from the start.

Continue Reading “‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’ star Kandi Burruss revels in the gift and the curse with Fly Above“

(Photo Courtesy Tremedia)

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I’ve always been a sucker for sweet, simple harmonies, and especially those of the male/female variety. Maybe it was this predisposition that suckered me in, or perhaps it was the Chomp and Stomp-driven Sweetwater haze, but whatever it was, the Honey Dewdrops moved me.

Hailing from Scottsville, Virginia, the rootsy duo, consisting of vocalists Laura Wortman and Kagey Parrish, passed through Atlanta this past weekend for only the second time in the band’s several-year long existence.

“One of the players in Peachtree Station, Steve Schaaf, found us and suggested we play [Chomp and Stomp]. Since we were going to be down there for another show that was canceled, we went ahead and booked the show — so glad we did,” the band explains via email.

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WITHIN THESE WALLS: Times New Viking gives Born Again Revisited the business.

Noise rock has never been mainstream; instead, it has historically targeted a narrow base of dogmatic fans and been released via small boutique labels on home-dubbed cassettes. In recent years, however, a larger crowd has taken notice, and as goes the crowd, so go those who want to sell ‘em stuff. In 2004, for example, indie giant Sub Pop released Burned Mind, a harsh, uncompromising record by Michigan trio Wolf Eyes. Concurrently, such tastemakers as Pitchfork began to pay closer attention. It all seemed to signify a paradigm shift: Noise, it would appear, was the new big thing.

Continue Reading “Noise innovators Times New Viking raise the roof”

(Photo Courtesy Michael O’Shaugnessy)

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CL was saddened to learn that Jerry Fuchs, drummer for Athens’ band Maserati, as well as the Juan Maclean, !!! and Turing Machine, died in the early hours of Sun., Nov. 8 after falling down an elevator shaft in Brooklyn, New York. He was 34 years old.

According to a New York Times report:

At about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Mr. Fuchs, 34, who had attended a benefit party on the building’s seventh floor, was stuck on a freight elevator between the fourth and fifth floors, friends and the police said. He had been trying to jump out of the stalled car when his jacket got caught on something, causing him to fall to the bottom of the shaft. Another man, who was not identified by the police, was riding with Mr. Fuchs in the elevator but safely jumped to a fourth floor hallway.

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Bob Weston Self-portrait

Mastering Engineer at Chicago Mastering Service Bob Weston (Shellac, Mission of Burma) discusses what made the reissues of the Jesus Lizard’s Touch & Go records, Pure, Head, Goat and Liar sound better and louder.

Chad Radford: Did you have any reservations about whether or not the Jesus Lizard’s records should be touched-up?

Bob Weston:  Well, “no” is the simple answer. But the question is wrong. We didn’t “touch them up.” That implies that we took the mastered versions from the original mastering jobs and made some changes to those. Instead, we did an entirely new mastering job from scratch… Like the records had just been recorded and mixed the week before we started.

There have been major improvements in analog to digital conversion quality, and in digital audio level metering in the years since these records were first mastered. Simply playing the stereo master tapes back through modern mastering-grade analog to digital converters will immediately make the CDs sound a lot better. And then the ability to properly meter the digital audio as it is being converted allows us to take advantage of all the headroom allowed in the digital audio domain. Whereas in the past, engineers needed to be more conservative with digital audio levels in order to prevent any digital “overs” (which would cause the Master CD to be rejected by the pressing plant).

Even if we had done nothing different from the original mastering sessions in terms of processing the sound with equalization and compression, these new masters would immediately sound better and louder.

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Mac McNeilly (right)

Chad Radford:  You’re a local guy, or you used to be.

Mac McNeilly:  Yeah, I grew up in Atlanta and have a lot of really fond memories of hanging out there, but ever since ’89 I’ve been making Chicago and the Chicago area my home.

How did you make the jump from playing in Atlanta bands like 86 and Phantom 309 to the Jesus Lizard?

Well, 86 played a show in Austin, Texas, and I met David Yow. He and David Sims were at the club where we played. We introduced ourselves to each other and I said ‘I like the way you sing and I like Scratch Acid,’ and he said ‘I like the way you play drums.’ So we both said something like maybe some day we can do something together musically. It was one of those things where you say something that would really be a great thing to do, but don’t think anything will come of it. We traded numbers anyway and I got a call from David Yow a couple of years later. He said ‘we’re putting this thing together in Chicago and we have an EP that we’ve done with a drum machine. I can send you a tape because we want to put a live drummer in there and actually be a band.’ When they did the EP it was just a recording project. I don’t think they had any plans to make a rock band out of it, but they changed their mind and I went up in the summer of ’89 to try out. I was playing bass in Phantom 309, but I’m not a bass player and it was a way for me to get back to playing drums. David sent me a tape of the EP and I really liked what I heard. It was the kind of music that I could really adapt drumming to so I went up and it clicked right away.
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First the Nobel Peace Prize, now this. Forget the haters, it’s the lovers that Prez Barack Obama can’t seem to shake. (more…)

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Metalocalypse creator Brendon Small

The almighty MASTODON returns to its old stomping grounds to cap off a lineup of extreme metal mayhem. Converge and High on Fire also play blistering sets of soul-crushing riffs. But these are all paltry mortals who have been summoned to simply clear the stage for DETHKLOK, stars of Adult Swim’s “Metalocalypse.” Animated metal madmen William Murderface (bass), Nathan Explosion (frontman), Skwisgaar Skwigelf (lead guitar), Toki Wartooth (rhythm guitar), and Pickles (drums) will appear live, in the flesh — led by creator Brendon Small — to shred through such classic originals as “Bloodrocuted,” “Murmaider,” and “Hatredcopter,” as well as some new cuts from their latest, Dethalbum II. $34.50. 6:30 p.m. Tabernacle, 152 Luckie St. 404-659-9022. www.livenation.com.

For the purposes of this interview Brendon Small did most of the talking, but I was allowed one question with each member of the band.

Chad Radford: What goes in to putting on a live Dethklok show?

Brendon Small: We have a gigantic LCD screen behind us and we play to an hour-long animated show, and that’s the real star of the live show. Me and the musicians are kind of like the pit orchestra. The drummer has a click track running through his headset and he counts us in to all the tracks. The end result is that we’re supposed to sound like Dethklok, but we’re not supposed to look like Dethklok. We’re pretty much in the shadows so you can’t really see our faces, but there’s a really cool light show going on at the same time and we’re playing to picture. It’s almost like live scoring but every single downbeat is coinciding with a cut. It’s very systematic and very integrated.

You’re playing with real metal bands; Mastodon, Converge and High on Fire. I imagine that most metal heads have a good sense of humor, but have you encountered anyone who just doesn’t think that the show is cool or funny?

They usually don’t get as far as me — they usually don’t show up. If metal heads don’t get it, that’s cool and I’m fine with it. But honestly there’s nothing much to get, because we’re not making fun of metal with the show, that’s the big thing. If they don’t get that then I’m just confused. If they just don’t like the show that’s something that I can understand. If they don’t understand the joke than they probably don’t have much of a sense of humor at all — not that I’m saying our show is funny. We’re trying to be funny, and if it isn’t, I get why people don’t like it.

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COYOTE BONES: A band that feels your pain.

David Matysiak jokes that if Bruce Springsteen’s brooding Midwestern odysseys Nebraska and The River were meant to be part of a trilogy, the third installment is Coyote Bones’ Niobrara. Along with Jordan Noel (drums) and Heather Kemp (percussion), the former Jet By Day singer/guitarist has crafted an album that flows with unnerving tales about death, stifling religion, lost love and change. “It’s a really personal record for me; one that I had to make,” Matysiak says. “I was going through so much at the time that I became possessed. The record wrote itself.”

Songs such as “Piece of My Spine” and “Out at the Bar” are the ruminations of a damaged man coping with the death of his father and a crumbling relationship amid a new sense of self-discovery.Niobrara is a far cry from the clumsy, basement art party that Matysiak spearheaded with Coyote Bones’ 2007 debut, Gentleman on the Rocks.

Continue Reading “A river runs through Coyote Bones”

(Photo Courtesy Coco Art)

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Please note that the Wilke Family will be performing tonight at Eddie’s Attic.

Maverick string band the Wilkie Family singers (lead by King Wilkie) are playing at Eddie’s Attic tonight (Wed., Nov. 4).

According to the Wilkie Family’s Boston-based label, Casa Nueva:

The disk is a beguiling concept album, purportedly written and recorded by the dysfunctional Wilkie family as part of a music therapy program spearheaded by the mysterious Dr. Art… musically, it mixes early American stringband styles (from parlour ballads to old-time and bluegrass) with more contemporary influences — chamber-pop, brass-band music, and much more. Special guests on the disk include Robyn Hitchcock, Peter Rowan, David Bromberg, John McEuen, Abigail Washburn and Sam Parton (of Be Good Tanyas)… Their music has slowly evolved from hardcore traditional bluegrass to something quite undefinable.

“Videotape” (feat. Robyn Hitchcock) mp3

For more information contact Eddies Attic. 515 N. McDonough St. in Decatur. 404-377-4976

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Athens’ psychedelic indie rock outfit Twin Tigers have made their latest release, titled the Automatic EP, available as a free download.

In the meantime the band recently completed work on its debut full-length, Gray Waves, which is due out on the Brooklyn-based Old Flame Records in 2010.

Grey Waves‘ first single, “Automatic”

Click below to see their remaining November tour dates.

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