Crib Notes

ATLAS SOUND: Bradford Cox

This year marks the tenth installment of the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, and they’ve cobbled together quite an impressive group of performers: everyone from the newly reunited Pavement and Sunny Day Real Estate to Wilco, Shellac, Broken Social Scene, Grizzly Bear, Diplo and beyond.

But that’s not all! Included in the lineup are four — count ‘em — bands hailing from our fair state. Atlas Sound and the Black Lips will represent Atlanta, while Athens will send both Circulatory System and sunshine punks Nana Grizol overseas. Good on those guys — the band’s relatively young, though its members are all Athens scene vets, and it’s a huge but welcome surprise to see them bustin’ out like this.

Primavera tickets are on sale now for 150 euros, which is a little over 200 USD.

(Photo courtesy Kristin Klein)

Bookmark to:

This week the Village Voice posted its 2009 Pazz & Jop critics’ poll. No major upset and no real surprises this year. Animal Collective dominates the list with 1,794 points.

Of the 1,934 albums to chart, Atlanta represented pretty hard. Highlights include:  Mastodon’s Crack the Skye coming in at no. 18 with 447 points. Atlas Sound’s Logos took the no. 49 slot with 207 points. The Black Crowes‘ Before the Frost…Until the Freeze took no. 72 with 162 points. Gucci Mane’s The Burrprint:  3D showed up at no. 195 with 68 points. Black Lips‘ 200 Millions Thousand showed up at no. 378 with 33 points and Manchester Orchestra’s Mean Everything to Nothing arrived at no. 462 with 26 points. Lotus Plaza’s Floodlight Collective showed up at no. 446 with 29 points. R.E.M.’s Live at the Olympia showed up at no. 491 with 25 points. T.I.’s Paper Trail showed up at no. 1321 with 10 points. The Pinx’s Look What You Made Me Do showed up at no. 1727 with 5 points. Bobby Ubangi’s Inside the Mind of Bobby Ubangi came in at no. 1,775 with 5 points.

Since Raekwon now counts himself amongst the ATLiens, he deserves a mention as well since Only Built For Cuban Linx… Pt. II took the no. 8 slot with 857 points.

Blue Record by Savannah’s Baronness claimed no. 19 with 437 points, and Kylesa’s Static Tensions settled into no. 71 with 162 points.

Chad Radford’s Pazz & Jop ballot

1. Thee Oh Sees, Help 25 points
2. Bear in Heaven, Beast Rest Forth Mouth 15 Points
3. These Are Powers, All Aboard Future 10 points
4.Ty Segall, Lemons 10 points: 10
5. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion 10 points

Continue reading…

Bookmark to:

Click to download Ben Eberbaugh: A Rockin' Tribute

Shortly before 3 a.m. on Sun., Dec. 1, 2002, the Black Lips’ 22-year-old guitarist Ben Eberbaugh was killed when a motorist driving the wrong way on Ga. 400 slammed into his vehicle. According to a Fulton County police report, Jennifer Dawn Swierzynski, 29, was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes when her Toyota Camry crashed head-on into Eberbaugh’s Ford Explorer. Both drivers died on impact.

Ben’s death greatly affected everyone who knew him, and in Aug. 2003, Coco Art proprietor David Matysiak, who at the time sang and played guitar for Athens’ post-grunge foursome Jet By Day, spearheaded a memorial compilation in Eberbaugh’s honor. The 21-track CD features a sundry list of artists ranging from his friends, fellow band mates and heroes, including everyone from J Mascis & the Fog to Tilly and the Wall, as well as the Black Lips, Some Soviet Station and El Caminos.

Chad Radford:  Who was Ben Eberbaugh to you?
David Matysiak:  To me he was an older brother, and he was like that for a lot of people. He lived it all the way, and for him there was no stone unturned. When I think “Who was Ben Eberbaugh?” I think of moments in my life where I would look over and he would be there hanging out on the couch, or like driving around with him on the last day of high school listening to Dinosaur Jr. Ben Eberbaugh was the guy that you always knew was there to have a good time and he didn’t judge you. He was sensitive but he was a hard-ass and that’s a rare breed. He was everybody’s buddy and everyone protected that memory of him being this cool friend that you had. Whether you were getting into trouble, or just hanging out playing music…

I don’t want to paint him out to be an angel, because he wasn’t, and everybody knows that. He would party and get crazy. He was the guy who would smash everything to pieces and go ‘Oh…. mmph…”

(more…)

Bookmark to:

26.) Noot d’ Noot Cash for Gold 12-inch (Shakedown Records)

25.) All Night Drug Prowling Wolves Self-titled (The Colonel Records)

24.) Chickens & Pigs See Through Soul (Self-released)

(more…)

Bookmark to:

NEW BLOOD: Allen Taylor (left) and David Mansfield of local indie label Double Phantom Records

In the summer of 2007, three ragtag college students – history major David Mansfield, musician Philip Frobos, and visual artist Allen Taylor – spent long hours hanging around their Georgia State dorm rooms. They were busy plotting, as Frobos puts it, “to take over the world.”

Of course, the world as they then knew it could pretty much be boiled down to Atlanta’s insular rock scene. But there was a problem with their plan. Frobos, the vocalist and bassist for Chainestereo (pronounced shin stereo), couldn’t book a show to save his life.

It was a few months after the release of Deerhunter’s second album, Cryptograms. Black Lips’ Good Bad Not Evil was about to drop, and Atlanta indie labels Rob’s House, Die Slaughterhaus and Douchemaster Records were pumping out a steady stream of local 7-inch singles. The scene was strong and tight-knit, and breaking into it would prove nearly impossible for a group of young newcomers.

“I tried to book shows anywhere but the responses always felt like, ‘Get away from me, you annoying kid, you’re bothering me!’” Frobos says. “For months I was obsessed with Rob’s House. And seeing people that I knew from other bands like the Coathangers and the Selmanaires getting their records put out was really inspirational. I was determined to get a Chainestereo 7-inch out on Rob’s House.”

So Frobos harassed the label’s co-owner Travis Flagel, but to no avail.

“When Philip started hitting me up, we had eight or nine singles waiting to be pressed,” Flagel says. “We were busy, but I also thought they were a little tame compared to what we were doing.”

By the time Flagel met with Mansfield and Frobos to offer advice on building connections via the Internet to help spread the band’s name, Frobos had already reached his breaking point. “One day we were sitting around and I said, ‘Goddamn it, we’re never going to get a 45 released by anyone because we’re too young and people think we’re lame!’”

That’s when Mansfield chimed in. “We don’t need someone to do this for us, why don’t I do it?” And so in November 2007, with the release of its first 7-inch – Chainestereo’s “Anchors” b/w “Airplanes” – Double Phantom Records was born.

Continue Reading “Double Phantom Records goes on the haunt”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

Bookmark to:

Remember Deerhunter? Not the Deerhunter, mind you, of Brooklyn Vegan hype or Pitchfork Best New Music fame, and not the Spike Jonze/Trent Reznor-hanging Deerhunter, but Atlanta’s Deerhunter. Remember when they gigged tirelessly, I mean, all the damn time, at the Drunken Unicorn here in town, or at the sweaty, dank Caledonia Lounge over in Athens? Above all, do you remember Turn It Up Faggot? Yeah, the one with a Black Lips’ dick on the cover. Notoriously effusive frontman Bradford Cox would just as soon have you purge it from memory — he’s trashed the band’s grimy, lo-fi debut in interviews, citing, among other apparent pratfalls, the band’s musical immaturity at the time.

While it’s definitely true that the songs on Turn It Up Faggot lack a certain cohesiveness aptly displayed on Deerhunter’s following recordings (say what you will about Cox and his occasionally impish ways, the guy knows how to put an album together), there exists throughout the record a gnarled, raw sort of furor that is nowhere to be found on, say, Cryptograms. Chalk it up to artistic evolution, if you will — obviously, a band must grow, mature, change; if not, you’re Kiss. With all the best groups, though, there’s usually a good deal of intrigue, if not all-out enjoyment, to be found by examining and absorbing their earliest work. In this case, TIUF, ugly scabs and all, contains some revelatory stuff. (more…)

Bookmark to:

I went to the Wavves show at the Earl and all I got was this crappy iPhone pic

Despite Nathan Williams’ insistence on the phone a couple of weeks back that drummer Zach Hill would not be playing with Wavves when they came through Atlanta, Hill was most definitely holding the sticks last night. The Hella drummer who once broke his hand beating his kit at Echo Lounge several years back still hits with helicopter speed and precision — which makes an unexpectedly brilliant counterpoint to Williams’ loose strumming and ooohhh wwwooo wwwooos.

No, there was no drama at the show, as all parties involved in the Black Lips scuffle from last weekend give off the appearance of having moved on; everyone aside from the meat heads in the audience who pissed and moaned about it after the show.

Precautions had been taken to prevent any sort of incident nonetheless. There was a cop stationed in the parking lot keeping watch over Wavves’ van, and the bartender looked a bit sheepish while pouring bottles of beer into plastic cups saying, “Sorry, but I’m not allowed to serve out any glass bottles tonight because they’re afraid somebody might throw one at one of the bands …”

Really …

(more…)

Bookmark to:

MAKING WAVVES: Nathan Williams loves the attention.

As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad press, and Nathan Williams, the guitarist/vocalist behind San Diego’s noise-pop duo Wavves, has learned it’s true. After an onstage temper tantrum at the Primavera Sound Fest in Barcelona last May, Williams became the man that bloggers love to hate. He even took a public lashing from Black Lips singer/bassist Jared Swilley, who suggested he stop playing music altogether. (See more on their ongoing beef.)

“It has legitimately helped,” Williams humbly admits regarding the criticism. “I’m new to this, so it’s a trip to see how these things work.”

Williams’ hissy fit caught the music world’s eye, but his sloppy California pop melodies and distorted coos have kept people’s attention. He is by no means a virtuoso, but his songs are fun, hypermanic, no wave dust devils that unwind in loose, chaotic motion, usually alongside drummer Ryan Ulsh (who will play with Wavves in Atlanta), or more recently Zach Hill of Hella.

Wavves “Cool Jumper” mp3

“Continue reading “Wavves’ Nathan Williams just wants to have fun”

(Photo courtesy Shore Fire Media)

Bookmark to:

JARED SWILLEY OF BLACK LIPS

In case you’ve missed the excitement, Buddyhead.com has a pretty entertaining run-down of the ridiculous brawl that came to a head this weekend between Wavves’ manager and Jared Swilley of the Black Lips.

The whole situation is just plain annoying, not to mention Swilley’s comments in the interview reinforce some pretty gnarly, negative stereotypes about southerners. In the interview with Buddyhead, Swilley admits to approaching Nathan Williams of Wavves (whom he has publicly dissed) at Daddy’s Bar in New York and saying, “You’re that faggot from Wavves and I don’t like you!” — sounds like fighting words to me.

Swilley also issued the following warning to Williams: “He’s coming to Atlanta October 3rd [4th] and we’re gonna get ugly on him. We’re gonna destroy their van, we’re gonna destroy their faces, we’re gonna get crazy on em’. Nasty style.”

NATHAN WILLIAMS OF WAVVES

If I were Williams, I would take heed. Truth be told, the Black Lips are like a gang. If you mess with one of them, you mess with all of them, and Atlanta is their turf. Then again, it sounds like the Wavves crew rolls the same way. Looks like Oct. 4 is going to be a legendary night when Wavves plays the Earl.

(Top photo by Chad Radford)
(Bottom photo courtesy Wavves)

Bookmark to:

The second song from the forthcoming All Mighty Defenders album (featuring Black Lips, King Khan & BBQ), due out Sept. 22 via Vice Records, hit the internet this week. The song is titled “Cone of Light” and it falls on the heels of “Bow Down and Die.” Click below to hear them both.

“Cone of Light”

“Bow Down and Die”

(Photo by David Waldman)

Bookmark to:

Word spread a few weeks back that the house at 54 Moreland Ave., where directors Brendan Canty ( Fugazi) and Christoph Green filmed Burn to Shine Atlanta, had finally come down after leaving the project in limbo for two years.

But there is still much work to be done before the finished product will materialize.

Chad Radford:  Where does Burn to Shine Atlanta stand now that the house has come down?

Brendan Canty:  We still have a lot of work to do with this thing. Touch & Go went out of business so we’re trying to find a home for the project, but we think we know where it’s going to go. It won’t delay the release, but I honestly don’t think that it will come out until the Fall. That’s the best hope. November, but realistically speaking maybe even January.

Why did you pick Atlanta for this project?

There are so many factors that go into making one of these:  One of them is having a house that’s going to be torn down, but also having somebody who really wants it to happen on a local level. In Atlanta our Friend Lee Tesche was saying let’s do this, this is great. So we kind of went on his energy. In Chicago it was Bob Weston in Portland it Was Chris Funk, and in Seattle it was Ben Gibbard. Credit has to be given to these guys for being ground troop organizers. All of those guys were really into it and they had the bands together. That kind of energy carries us a long way.

On top of that there are a bunch of bands that we love Atlanta. I mean really, I love Deerhunter, I love Black Lips, I love Mastodon. Atlanta is just such a great music town. Do you feel like you were undeserving?

(more…)

Bookmark to:

After almost two years of waiting in limbo, Burn to Shine Atlanta is back on. The house at 54 Moreland Ave., where the Atlanta installment of directors Brendan Canty (Fugazi) and Chrisoph Green’s Burn to Shine series was filmed on July 29, 2007, came crashing down at 9 o’clock this morning.

In a nutshell, Canty and Green’s Burn to Shine works like this: They find a house in a city that is on the verge of being demolished in the name of urban progress. They fill it with as many of the strongest bands from the local music scene that they can round-up, film them playing in said house, and when all is said and done they document the house’s destruction. Atlanta is number six in the series and falls on the heels of Washington D.C., Chicago, Portland, Louisville, Ky., and Seattle.

Bands who performed for the Atlanta shoot include the Liverhearts, Selmanaires, Shannon Wright, Deerhunter, Black Lips, Delia Gartrell, Mighty Hannibal, Coathangers, Carbonas, All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, Snowden and Mastodon.

A gallery of photos from the sweltering, sweat-soaked day spent in the Hepatitis factory of a house can be found at chadrad.blogspot.com

Over the two years that have passed since they filmed in Atlanta, Canty and Green have fully edited the audio and video from whole day, and now that the house has been demolished they hope to have the DVD released by the end of the summer.

(Photo by Lee Tesche)

Bookmark to:

From Vice:

This morning, Stereogum premiered the first slab of lo-fi gutter gospel from super group The Almighty Defenders, a meeting of might between Atlanta garage goblins the Black Lips, Berlin-based soul punker King Khan, and Mr. BBQ himself, Mark Sultan. Conceived during the Lips’ Berlin exile (after their VBS-documented ejection from India), the band’s self-titled debut is a madcap, liquor-drenched revival, a blissfully fucked up realization of one of garage rock’s most fitting collaborations. “Bow Down And Die,” the “booming, chivalrous third song,” is an off kilter, beer-swilling chant-along that borrows just as much from choral church music as it does from skuzzball rock n roll.

The Almighty Defenders “Bow Down and Die” mp3

Bookmark to:

This week’s CL cover story, “The Life & Times of Bobby Ubangi: How Atlanta’s garage rock mascot saved himself before dying,” chronicles local music fixture B Jay Womack’s battle with cancer. The video montage was created by We Fun director Matthew Robison and Zack Wilson.

The following mp3s cover musical output from the Lids on up to some of his most recent songs that appear on Inside the Mind of Bobby Ubangi.

The Gaye Blades “Bobby is a Lover”

The Lids “Something to do”

Bobby Ubangi “That’s Alright”

Bobby Ubangi “Not My fault”

The Soft Spots “Can’t Get her Off”

Bookmark to:

The phone call interrupts dinner around 6 p.m. on a Thursday. It’s my girlfriend’s birthday and our meals have just been served up at her favorite Italian restaurant. Normally, I wouldn’t answer at a time like this, not even for my own mother. But the picture of B Jay pops up on my phone’s screen, his arms outstretched like Mr. Bill when he’s about to get squashed. I have to answer.

For the last nine months, Benjamin Jay Womack has been soldiering through terminal lung cancer that has spread to his brain, liver and God knows where else — at the age of 34. I answer, expecting to hear his voice on the other end asking for a ride to get something to eat or a pack of cigarettes. But it’s his roommate Jessica. “I had to put B Jay into hospice care today,” she deadpans. “His hips gave out and he’s having a hard time walking. We’re filling out paperwork with a social worker right now and B Jay wants to know if he can put you down for power of attorney.” I answer yes, envisioning the worst-case scenario as a wave of denial sweeps over me.

One year ago, the man best known by his stage name Bobby Ubangi was a rebel without a pause, partying like a rock star and working as the grouchy door guy at the Drunken Unicorn off Ponce de Leon Avenue. Long considered a mascot of sorts for the Atlanta music scene that nurtured such bands as Deerhunter, Black Lips and Gentleman Jesse, B Jay was a founding member of Carbonas before he got kicked out because he didn’t like to practice. He went on to play guitar and sing in such local garage-punk outfits as the Lids, the Gaye Blades, and Bobby and the Soft Spots. “B Jay is omnipresent around here,” says Jared Swilley of the Black Lips. “He’s been around forever.”

Continue reading “The life and times of Bobby Ubangi”

(Photo by Chad Radford)

Bookmark to:

Ever since that whole debacle went down with the Black Lips having to flee India to avoid going to jail, I’ve been getting daily phone calls from the Mighty Hannibal asking me if I know anything about the Black Lips and King Khan teaming up to cover one of his songs for a new record they recorded while exiled in Berlin. The answer has been a categorical no until yesterday when Vice announced that it will be releasing the self-titled debut LP by the Almighty Defenders, a new collaboration between the Black Lips, Khan and his longtime cohort BBQ, or as his friends call him Mark Sultan. It’s important to note that no track list has been revealed yet, but Hannibal assures me that they’ve covered what he calls a “bad ass damn version” of his song “I’m Coming Home.”

“They really did it up right and it teaches me something about my own song,” Hannibal says.

The album, according to Vice, is “brimming with soul, earnest shouts, cries and hand-claps over post-modern gospel-rock anthems.” The whole thing was recorded at Khan’s Moon Studios and will be released on LP and digitally via Vice Records on Tues., Sept. 22.

Almighty Defenders @ Amsterdam Brewery from NOW Magazine on Vimeo.

(Photo by David Waldman)

Bookmark to:

Starting this Friday, director Matthew Robison’s Atlanta music documentary We Fun will be playing on Pitchfork.TV for one week and one week only. Inside sources tell us that this will be a slightly edited version from what screened last month as part of the Atlanta Film Festival.

To get specific about it, the much ballyhooed flaming vagina scene has been trimmed considerably.

Bookmark to:

It’s official, both the Black Lips and Deerhunter are playing at 529 Thurs., April 2. Doors open at 9 p.m. Cover is $20. The show is a benefit for Bobby Ubangi, a.k.a. B Jay Womack, who was diagnosed last year with stage IV small cell lung cancer.

There will be no pre-sale tickets for this show. Admission will be granted on a first come, first serve basis. Barreracudas open the show.

Black Lips “Short Fuse”

Black Lips “Starting over”

Black Lips “I’ll Be With You”

(more…)

Bookmark to:

… and if you’re still lurking around after Ricky Powell’s DJ set at Criminal Records, the Black Lips are sitting up for a 5 o’clock in-store to celebrate the release of 200 Million Thousand.

When they’re done, Austin, Texas high-concept rockers …Trail of Dead will play an in-store at 7 p.m. Both shows are free.

Bookmark to:

Earlier today Crib Notes reported that the Black Lips had to flee India to avoid going to jail over allegations of indecent exposure on the television show, “Campus Rock Idol.”

Vice magazine caught up with drummer Joe Bradley to get his account of what happened.

What happened in Chennai? Who got “indecent”?
Well, we hadn’t had a chance to get even the slightest bit drunk the entire time we were in India, so Jared bought a bunch of whisky before the show. The venue was some weird, shitty auditorium at a college. Things were uncomfortable to begin with; no eating inside, no smoking outside or anywhere really. The show was sponsered by Nokia, Honda, and VH1 and they had these crappy production projections on advert screens on either side of the stage. The college had these wireless mics though, so Jared got jazzed up on whisky and started pumping up the crowd by cursing at them, getting them to repeat things like “When I say ‘weak-ass’, you say ‘bitch’! Weak ass?” “BITCH!” “Weak ass?” “BITCH!” The crowd was eating it up but I think we only ended up playing like, seven songs. Eventually things got really energetic and Cole mooned the crowd then proceeded to kiss Ian while Jared continued ramping up the crowd, which eventually led to him taking a running dive into the audience. Really, our tour manager was the only one freaking out. No one tried to put a stop to the show. We even told the crowd “Remember! there’s only 4 of them (security) and 150 of you.”

Read the rest of the post on Vice.

(Photo by Nick Gazin)

Bookmark to: