Until a few months ago I’d been seeing House Of Bricks as one of those bar/venues in decline, you know the ones that seem to book mostly the same has-been/also-ran folks repeatedly. This is the place that seemed proud of the fact that Green Jello still played there, after all. It did have some things going for it, though. For one, they have pretty good food. When I first came to Des Moines I worked a couple blocks away and would occasionally go there for lunch when I was feeling the need for something a little bit coma-inducing to be washed down with a beer. Also, they did seem to manage to bring in some fairly current metal acts, though usually none of the sort I was interested in.

Of late, the place seems on a comeback. I began to take notice when I went there for the Red Fang show a few months back. Then recently the place started showing more and more evidence of a pretty major remodel, which seems to be oriented towards adding an upper level or perhaps rooftop patio. And, it turns out, Fetal Pig has had a few pretty good gigs there lately. We even got paid for most of them, which I guess hasn’t been the case for any gig Dan had done there in several years. This is, of course, a function of turnout, and a lot of things play into making that happen. Also the staff have been very cool and friendly, the sound system is quality, and the sound man, even though he consistently shows up late and appears pretty blasé about his work, obviously knows what he’s doing and always gets a really good sound. Some recent experiences there have been fun enough to make the atmosphere of certain recent Mews trips look downright depressing in comparison.

I was unsure of how the abrasive dirty slash-and-burn grind of Cop Bar would go over, which is probably why we, or somebody (I don’t know what degree of input Dan had) hedged the bet on the bill a little bit and got Love Songs For Lonely Monsters, an up and coming local band that’s well liked and joins melodic pop-punk songwriting to bracing textural guitar sounds and light prog touches. This made for a bill with a nice variety to it, and to my delight, everything was met with enthusiasm from a sizable and lively crowd of diverse ages and appearances.

Cop Bar had just freshly assembled (literally they were slipping them into covers and writing on the discs with Sharpies there in the venue before the show started) their newest release, a split 3″ CD-R with Captain 3 Leg. Each band plays six songs in a little over four and a half minutes per band, ending with a track consisting of all the other songs layered over each other, and each section receiving an introduction from Joe Jack Talcum announcing the next band over squirrely Casio music, and all wrapped up in cover art by Manhorse. C3L are up first with recordings rebuilt from newly unearthed drum tracks from an aborted circa-2000 recording session. They have noticeably more of a death metal influence in the riffs and guitar tone than do the crustier sounding Cop Bar, who here extend much the same thing as on No Justice Just Law except perhaps with even more incomprehensible vocals. It all goes by in a bit of a blur but it’s plenty worth the three bucks. For the show Sam wore some kind of plush Godzilla head and threw his microphone around and was an all-around madman. His performing style, plus the short songs and funny song titles, seemed to win the place over easily.

I don’t remember whether Fetal Pig played next or Love Songs For Lonely Monsters did. It was I think my third time seeing them and they’ve come along way from the first one which was at DG’s in Ames opening for We Are Country Mice (who I guess are just called Country Mice now) with Why Make Clocks in the middle. One thing about LS4LM is they have quite a lot of sound, what with the combination of Nick Park’s ‘gazey use of guitar effects (a prominent feature he also brings to Wolves In The Attic) and Justin Neuenschwander’s 12-string. Add to that that lead singer Amy Badger sometimes playes a third guitar or a flute and Justin sometimes throws down some keyboards, it’s not hard to imagine that their sound could get muddy if the room or PA or sound guy isn’t the best, but this show and the last that I saw of them (at Gas Lamp, a much smaller stage and room) they’ve managed to sound nice and clear, whereas at DG’s they seemed to be new and still getting the kinks worked out. Sam dug them too. They have a split cassette EP with Iowa City electronic pop trio Datagun out which is really good, especially if you like tape hiss. Or they did anyway; they might be sold out of them by now.

Cop Bar headed up the road to Ames where they played the following night at The Space. Opening the set was Human Satan, an improvisational duo made up of Nate Lodgson on trumpet, and a drummer. It seemed a tad self-indulgent and tossed-off but they only played for about fifteen minutes so whatever. I think I drank a beer in the parking lot. Cop Bar did a pretty similar show to what they’d done at House Of Bricks but to the smaller room and crowd who dug it just as much.

CM4KT, from DeKalb, IL, were new to me despite that apparently they’re part of the GetLoFi circuit-bending community that includes the Ring Toss Twins who were on that show Brian and Ember had me up to Decorah for. In the center was a combination drummer and player of colorful circuit-bent toys and gizmos set up on shelves above his kick drum. His ability to keep the beat going while manipulating the various dials and buttons in front of him between drum hits was quite impressive. The guitarist had some homebrew electronic modifications to his guitar along with some interesting pedals and toys he held up to the pickups. I’d say their appeal went beyond just the novelty of seeing them use weird gear, though, which is a refreshing thing to be able to say about this kind of act. The gadgets added a layer of interesting psychedelic noise and whimsy over a foundation of raw primitive blues-rock. They had a recording for sale that was available only as an audio-only VHS tape, I can’t imagine they’re managing to sell many of those. I think most peoples’ VCRs bit the dust years ago and it’s near impossible to buy a new one now. (3″ CD-Rs are bad enough, the only player/drive I have that will take them is on my wife’s computer.) Their other merch item was contact microphones made out of bottle caps, which they’re currently doing a tour of hackerspaces down south, giving workshops on how to build them.

Longshadowmen wrapped up the night with another Longshadowmen show. They’re remarkably consistent so far as I’ve seen this lineup. How to describe them? Raw electric blues played loud as fuck and dripping with off-the-grid paranoia over hypnotically repetitive chord progressions and Matt Dake’s avant-jazz drum flourishes. It was announced to be Matt’s last show on drums for them, though, as he has other projects he’s looking to devote more energy to. I’m curious what those are, The Jerkles do seem to be doing more gigs than usual lately.

Next Fetal Pig went to Ottumwa to play the Music Union Hall, a DIY venue in the upper floor of the Green Street Hall Mall, an old building in Ottumwa which the Bolingers and crew bought up to house various ventures such as the Flipside piercing shop and a cool horror movie shop called Insane’s Asylum. (I bought a used CD of Morbid Angel’s Altars Of Madness for five bucks.) They also host various sorts of events in this open upper floor area, many of them related to their International Video Game Hall Of Fame. These guys are a big piece of what’s making Ottumwa cool these days, besides all the musicians. This actually turned out to be one of our coolest shows in a while, cool enough for Jeff to declare “no more bars!” When we arrived there was some sort of video game fest going on and we met a guy who saw Fetal Pig in Iowa City circa ’94 and was really excited that the band was still around, then after load-in we met Andy and Sandy and Troy for some dinner.

Broken Point Of View came on first, they were all right if you like stuff like Shinedown as much as they do. Their guitars were all run direct to the PA through Pods or something. Not really my kind of thing but the place was nicely full and people were getting really into everything, dancing around and generally having a great time. Even Spooty, the proprietor, was in good spirits despite his considerable duties coordinating and overseeing and cleaning up. Early on during Broken Point Of View’s set I perchanced to wander the neighborhood a bit in search of a cash machine, and found live music happening in no less than two other places within a couple blocks of the show — one a nearby bar where some young fellows were covering some Skynrd, and the other an Eagles hall or something of that sort where through the wall from the sidewalk I could hear some good ole boys (and gals) doing old country-western classics. I’ve told you before that Ottumwa’s got it going on.

The Mighty Accelerator were on next and the party was in full swing. The guitar leads Andy has been obligated to take on since Travis moved away he pulled off, less flashy but much better than I’d expected given how worried about them he’d claimed to be. Fetal Pig played. North To The Future were less country and more hard rockin’ than they sound on the EP but recognizably the same great songs. A+ gig, would play there again.

Last weekend’s gig at Gabe’s in Iowa City definitely seemed to be promoted as a metal show. That seems to work all right for Fetal Pig, though. Still, if this was a metal show, it was of that metal fringe scene that I dig. Metal is catching on with post-hardcore “indie” rockers who can’t quite get down with the “chill” or hippie vibes of indie shit these days and always preferred the harder edge that “alternative” forms of guitar rock had in decades past, and it’s an interesting phenomenon for both good and ill. I get the impression that that’s kind of where we fit in, and also where this show was coming from, and the show was a winner all the way through.

Starting things off was 100° Centipede, no relation. This was their first show, and as I understand it the lead singer is a longtime well known and well liked figure around the Iowa City music scene, though this is his first crack at performing. He and his band were a boatload of metallic scuz-rock fun, though. For an idea where they’re coming from, they have a song about a certain Nick the Prick, a reference that will be caught by anyone who’s hung around Iowa City enough at certain times in the past 20 years or so.

Fetal Pig were scheduled second due to expectations that some of The Mighty Acceleratör would be arriving late, but it turned out that they made it on time after all. The crowd did thin a tad after our set but was still respectable (it was quite large to begin with, I think a lot of people in town were excited about 100° Centipede) and had lost nothing in enthusiasm. Acceleratör’s performance was a bit unusual among the sets I’ve seen so far by them, in that it was a bit looser, even a bit sloppy, and Joe played a much more raucous frontman than usual, getting out in front and engaging with the audience, something Dan and I had both been wishing he’d do a bit more of. Dan turned to me during the set and said he’d got the idea that they’re going for a bit of a Murder Junkies thing.

Los Voltage sounded pretty neat though I mainly hung out manning the merch during their set. Kind of an old-school hardcore punk sound with some exaggerated guitar delay effects. Loud. Cop Bar was maybe even a little more unhinged than what I’d seen before, perhaps for the hometown crowd; Andy characterized it afterwards as like an excellent spoof of grindcore, which, let’s face it, is pretty silly music, though that’s no reason not to enjoy it. It’s those grindcore bands most willing to laugh at themselves that he and I seem to like best anyway.

The other night we went to Ames to play at The Space and got to hang out with Nathan Thrailkill, who did all our awesome artwork for the record and was in town that night. It was a low-key show and maybe we were too loud for the tight little corner of the room we were set up in but nobody complained. Forget the Times, from Chicago, opened it up as a three-piece of two guitars and a drummer doing improvised noise rock that was in similar territory to early Wrong but with a bit more post-rock groove, though I thought I maybe detected a bit of Dead C inspiration in there too. A didgeridoo was employed at some point, apropos of nothing in particular. They jammed continuously for about 20 minutes and personally, I could have used another ten or twenty because I was enjoying it. One of the guitar players runs a label called Already Dead Tapes and they had a wide assortment of recorded material for sale on cassette, offering a special of three tapes for $10 so I got both Forget The Times tapes plus one of nice meditative synth drones by somebody named Kyle Landstra. Forget The Times have an LP out too but I’m still in process of scraping together cash for a working turntable on which to play the records I already have. Donations happily accepted. They have it up on their bandcamp though so maybe I’ll snag a download sometime.

I don’t like to toot my own horn as you can tell by the lack of details I’m providing about our sets at these shows, but the crowd response to us has been really positive and exciting when I’ve been able to process it. It feels weird being in a band people like this much for a change. I want to sincerely thank everyone who came out to these shows, especially the ones that made those cheering noises.

Recent interesting acquisitions: A 3″ CD-R called Under The Cloud of Sleep by someone calling themselves Du Hexen Hase. No contact info on the package. #45 of 47. One 17-minute spaced out improvised track of electronic washes and minimal guitar. Cover art is a photo of emu against an overcast sky. No idea when it came out. And some very cool Earwigs stuff I’ll jabber more about later.

I feel like I want to get away from simply “reviewing music” here and think of it as more like an ongoing diary of a music fan, with reviews sort of embedded into the flow of just writing about what I’ve been doing and what I’ve been listening to and so on. But I’m sure that will come and go. There’s no real rules to the content and structure here, which is the way I like it.

We’ve had a really interesting and productive spate of Fetal Pig shows lately. Our friend(s) at Black Heart Booking had us out to Omaha and we played at this really interesting DIY space upstairs from a couple storefronts that definitely looked like it may have formerly been a bar but was all stripped to the bricks and sparsely populated with old thrift furniture, giving it a really cool squattery vibe as if the whole scene was built from things others had thrown away, which may be literally the case. I love this kind of thing. I felt really at home and the people associated with the venue were super friendly. True underground operation. The Sandbox, that’s what it was called.

The first act on at the Sandbox was The Thirteenth Year, some local kids doing a bass-less screamocore kind of thing. Didn’t super turn me on but it was worthwhile time spent. I think they’ve got a bright future.

Adam Goldman took the stage with one of those cheap skinny acoustic guitars, billed as Class M Planets, this gig being part of a short mini-tour he was doing along with Dan doing solo sets of Why Make Clocks songs. We’d also opened that tour with him and a full-band Why Make Clocks at the Mews. Adam is from Portland and he said so a lot during his set because for some reason it got funnier each time. I’ve only ever been in Portland once, for a night back in 1997, so I don’t know how accurate the Portlandia portrayal of it is, but I like the idea that “the dream of the ’90s is alive” there. I get the outsiders’ impression that if you miss the vibe of a Midwest college-town in the mid-1990s (and a big part of me does), Portland is the place to find it. I also get a lot of that vibe from Adam’s tunes. When I first checked out Class M Planets on bandcamp my initial impressions were that it was all a bit fey (side effects of prolonged exposure to sludge metal and power electronics, likely) and perhaps a bit dated. But the odd, elliptical rhythms and equally elliptical lyrics were intriguing.

They say don’t meet your musical heroes because it can fuck up your perception of the music by ruining your idea of the people making it. It’s not guaranteed to happen that way though; Leah’s brief in-person encounters with Jon Auer and Ken Stringellow haven’t messed with her love of The Posies. But what about hanging out with musicians you’re barely familiar with, versus how you’d see there music if you hadn’t met? Meeting Adam Goldman, not to mention seeing him play live, probably helped me get his music more. The sensitive-guy persona of the high, somewhat breathy vocals and pretty indie-folk sounds is the real guy, but it’s only one dimension of him. He’s also got a delightful wicked sense of humor. Once I got that, I started noticing it in the songs too. It’s below the surface. Besides, most things you have to listen to more than once before you can really judge them. So yeah, this stuff grew on me.

I ended up with a couple of his CDs, EP length mostly, all on Dandelion Wine Records which has the hilarious domain name totallypunk.com, each with a different band name and lineup but there’s a consistency between them such that they could be credibly represented as different works by the same band. Adam’s songs, usually in either a folk-pop or power-pop vein, frequently have odd rhythms to them that stick out more when there’s drums and things playing. It actually reminds me a bit of my old Cedar Falls compatriots A Is Jump, of the Chapel Hill area for some years now. The self-titled 2007 EP by his band thebrotheregg, which is evidently still active too (don’t ask me why the lack of capitals or spaces) had already been recommended to me by Dan. Its most straightforward tune, “Elevators”, is an instant pop gem. Elsewhere there are multiple interplaying vocal parts (especially on “Simple Love”) and verses wander kind of spacily, making the catchy choruses hit the more dramatically.

Class M Planets is more of a solo affair by Adam, and the 5-song self-titled EP released in 2010, with a few friends along on percussion, cello, and extra guitars, sticks to Adam’s more acoustic side. “Heart Thing” is wonderfully disorienting. Lastly “Freak of Illuminary”, though up-tempo, sticks to just the bare acoustic guitar accompaniment, but once it’s done spilling words, the disc still feels like it’s just getting started.

The likewise self-titled 8-song disc by Twinklelingus (what a name!) was allegedly started in 2004 but not completed and released until 2011, and is the most a loud rock record of the bunch. The rhythmic quirks that I’m now seeing as a trademark of Adam’s, together with the psychedelic guitar effects, jazzy chords, and busy midrangey bass, lend this affair an adventurous prog feel that is pretty cool.

On next after Adam’s acoustic set, during which he handily won over a crowd that had definitely come out to see louder things, came Omaha locals Super Invader. These guys don’t just play stoner metal, they seem to really live it, for better or worse. They come off as a genuine group of basement-dwellers. They had no bassist, but I get the feeling they used to and hadn’t managed to replace whoever it was. Low-tuned guitar was played out of two latter-day Kustom cabinets set up on opposing sides of the drum kit. The drummer had spray-painted all his hardware black and I don’t think his drums have ever been tuned. He had a loose pair of hi-hat cymbals on his right that he bashed on in lieu of a crash cymbal. There isn’t a whole lot of variation in their material but they played with the ferocity and conviction of guys who truly have nothing to lose, or to gain for that matter. The singer, a tall, long-haired fellow, roared imposingly about the stage and really belted out every line, even when he occasionally seemed to be singing in a different key than the guitar riff. They have a CD out, supposedly it came out like two years ago, but they had neglected to bring any copies with them to sell, and the singer cracked a joke about sometimes taking copies of it to CD Exchange when he’s hard up for cash. Everything about these guys was so real that I came to the realization that even if this sort of music isn’t your favorite, there’s no legitimate way to hate on it that doesn’t boil down to being a bit of an elitist prick. It’s a difficult style to fuck up, especially in the live context, and in some sense it’s the true sound of the American proletariat, a kind of flyover rebel folk art. Crack a beer, loosen the fuck up and you’ll enjoy it like I did.

After our set came the headliners, an amazing trio also local to Omaha called The Machete Archive. Shitting hell these guys are good. They play epically intricate and beautiful post-prog instrumental compositions, all of whose titles are simply Roman numerals. Their bassist plays a Danelectro longhorn strapped at chest-level and seems to constantly be using all of his fingers at once. I can’t even explain these guys to you. I wish there was something embeddable I could put here, but the first Google result for them is their MySpace page and that will have to do. No, Google it yourself, I’m not linking to MySpace.

By the way, here’s some stuff I’ve actually been up to recently, that’s also up on bandcamp. A.J. Herring of Velma And The Happy Campers has a series of free download EPs, by various artists, called Voices Green And Purple. The concept is each EP has to be no more than three minutes in total length, but with no fewer than three tracks. Here’s mine, and I have a second on the way:

And be sure and check out the Voices Green And Purple bandcamp site. There’s stuff by The Cryogenic Strawberries and Thunder Bunny, among others.

And here’s a streamable preview of the new Fetal Pig album:

This thing gets released middle of next month sometime on digital and an edition of 300 150-gram LPs. It’s the first recording I’ve played on ever to be released in a format other than home-dubbed cassettes or computer-dubbed CD-Rs, so it’s a landmark for me. Very excited!

Also, here’s an SK-5 noise piece I made on the occasion of the 40th birthday of Jason Warden, he of Rhonda Is A Dead Bitch. It’s going to be coming out on a 10-minute 5-way split cassette with Igloo Martian and some other people I don’t know of which there will be only 10 copies. I will have 2 of them. I can be persuaded to sell or give away one or both to suitably interested parties. You can also download this .wav file if you like it.

Jason Turns 40 by centipedefarmer

Last Saturday night April 2nd, if you’re a Des Moines music fan who wasn’t at either Gross Domestic Product, or the English Beat show at 504 Club, or seeing the classic Guided By Voices lineup at Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City, or at whatever Residents show Matthew Dake of You Are Home said he was going to, chances are you were either at home or where I was, the Jucifer show at Vaudeville Mews. Apparently that’s a few of you because it was a decent crowd.

The first thing people always think/say about Jucifer is their volume level. They bring along an epic wall of speakers for Mrs. Jucifer’s guitar, show up hours in advance of the show to set them all up and test them out, and they sit there taking up half the stage while all the opening bands play. It’s pretty impressive and I don’t envy their job lugging that gear around and setting it up night after night, but it’s easy to end up thinking that that’s pretty much all there is to them. But the experience is a draw in itself.

Longshadowmen, in the Isaac + drummer duo lineup, opened the show, Isaac bringing his Leslie and an Ampeg 8×10 bass rig to play his guitar through. Apparently he adjusts the presentation to suit what he’s booked with. This setup gave his blues riffs a sound of rusty machinery. Sad Fucks were pretty meh for me, except that something about what they seemed to be going for reminded me of the Eggnogs. But they could stand to cut loose and variate things a bit more. Their multi-color-mohawked bassist graciously lent me his bass when I broke a string on mine during Fetal Pig’s set and couldn’t get a new one installed quick enough. It was his backup though, because he had also broken a string during their set. Coincidence. After our set came Midnight Ghost Train, touring with Jucifer, who brought the southern-fried riff-crunch. I wonder if anyone at, say, The Obelisk or Meteorcity has yet turned on to these guys, they were pretty great.

I think the acoustics of the Mews favored Jucifer better than the last/first time I saw them, when The Cactus Rats opened for them at The Reverb (old location in downtown in Cedar Falls) a bunch of years ago. It was loud but not as painfully so as before, so I was actually able to make out the guitar riffs clearly enough to get that what they’re doing is actually rather musical. Being able to let one long chord ring out for several seconds and then nail the next one dead-on without even looking at each other is quite a skill too. Given that I had fully expected to be in a grouchy mood by this time, they actually cheered me up a bit and were engaging enough for me to stick around for their whole set.

Week before last had some fun goings-on in it too. Tuesday the 22nd Dan and I did a two-piece acoustic-ish version of Why Make Clocks in between Longshadowmen — this time as acoustic guitar through the house system, Longshadowlady’s ghostly backup vocals, and some dramatic/spastic guest drumming from the drummer of Spirits Of The Red City (supposedly known as a free-jazz guy from Chicago) — and the headliner Spirits Of The Red City. Next to nobody showed up so we had an intimate evening of playing music for each other. There is little “city” about Spirits Of The Red City, they come off like some plains cult based out of a remote old farmhouse, standing or seated all near each other, wearing antique clothes, talking amongst themselves, playing spooky ghost-folk, inviting the audience such as there was to sit on the stage with them. For their first number, a musical setting of this weird old nursery rhyme, they also included a puppet show, which they set up from an old suitcase with a scrolling backdrop, using marionettes made from animal skulls. These crummy blackberry phone photos probably don’t do it justice, but it was very nicely done. They turned out to be a quite friendly crew, I get the impression Isaac is old friends with them.

That Friday Fetal Pig played an early all-ages show with The Great Sabatini and Omens. Both were great. We got asked to play last, which is usually a bad sign, but not so much this time, as people stuck around. Omens is local, includes Luke Rauch of Druids on guitar, and has a little more hardcore vibe in them than does Druids but no less sludgy detunedness. The Great Sabatini were another loud stoner-doom band with no bass guitars — actually their bassist couldn’t make it, so the guitarist with the super long hair and whimsical wax-curled mustache filled in some low end with an octave pedal. They were probably one of the nicest friendliest bands I’ve ever been on a bill with, but that matters less to you as the music fan than that they rocked hard, putting up an amiable fun approach to big cosmic gloomy doom riffs.

I went back out the next night because the bill had two bands on it I love. When I’d heard locals Rhonda Is A Dead Bitch had a show coming up I was like “yeah I want to go,” and then when I later heard Pharmacy Spirits (from Lincoln) were on the bill too, it became more of a “HELL YEAH I want to go!” Opening band Kong Vs. Kong was kind of a cheezy punk rock cover band that I think I heard was basically the guys from Horseshoe Spatulas. I mean, who opens their set with “Search And Destroy?” You’d better be a Grade-A Badass to try and pull that off. Their playing was tight, but what they were doing seemed out of place. I think Betty Buzzkill already kinda does it better, or at least more believably.

Rhonda were set to go on second but someone tried to talk them into going on last. I am just so sick of this happening. Forgive me if I sound bitter, but it’s been done to me dozens of times. Basically what happens is either the headliner(s) are feeling lazy and want to finish early so they can go party or something, or there’s a particular band that they’re irrationally scared will clear the place out (if there were a “local band most likely to clear a room” title, admittedly Rhonda would be a strong candidate, and proudly so), or I don’t know what, but for some reason they have the soundman or somebody approach some little-known, ill-respected or challenging band on the bill and ask them to “headline,” which sounds to an inexperienced musician like you’re getting a kind of promotion from “opener” status, but by which they really mean, play to an empty room at 1 in the fucking morning. Maybe this happens because somebody overbooks the show in the first place. No 10PM show should have 5 acts on it and I personally think 4 is pushing it and 3 is the sweet spot; if I were booking I would require a pretty compelling reason to add a 4th act to any show. Bookers need to focus on putting together a quality show for the music fans instead of on trying to be a nice guy doing favors for every friend-of-a-friend in a band that emails asking if they can jump on some particular bill (usually one that happens to have a particularly tasty headliner). It’s also confusing for the people that come out for the show too, when the order of bands gets shuffled around at the last minute. Fucking booking guys should try being in bands and see how they like that shit getting pulled on them when they go play out of town. Rant over.

Thankfully Jason and crew stood their ground and went on second like originally intended. They could stand to work on the speed of their set-up, but we’ll just leave that there. First time I saw them I liked them because they made such an unholy racket. Then they surprised me by coming out with a record with a heavy presence of 70s electronics vibe on it, and at the release show they pulled in a tight succinct set of short guitar-noise-pop numbers. This time they were in a cosmic shoegaze mode like a mashup of My Bloody Valentine with Hawkwind. Logan, on sound, seemed to have difficulty dealing with Jason’s wall of distortion. The loud noise jams over hypnotic repeating chord progressions meandered into trying-your-patience lengths until the house lights were brought up on them, much to Jason’s delight. And, as it turns out, the room didn’t clear out after all.

I love Pharmacy Spirits’ Teen Challenge album, which they now had vinyl copies of for sale. Under better monetary circumstances I’d have likely bought one. Their lineup was down to a three-piece this show, and I’m not sure Jim Reilly is accustomed to doing the lead guitar parts, as he seemed to have an excessive predilection for just randomly flailing at his guitar making noise instead of the great melodies they usually have. They went at it with reckless energy to spare, which went over gangbusters with most of the crowd, but for me seemed needlessly sloppy and tossed-off, and as such a little bit disappointing.

Look Out Loretta did a cowpunk kind of thing and did it quite well. My friend Ben M down in Dallas would really dig them. They’re worth keeping an eye on. The headliner (official as well as actual) who went on at 1AM, but to a house that was still rockin’ with rowdy music fans, was a fellow named St. Christopher, also from Lincoln, who I guess was going to some kind of punk-bluesman thing, standing up on stage by himself in a suit playing a hollowbody guitar through a Marshall, stomping on an amplified board and shouting tunelessly about getting drunk. Didn’t really turn me on much, maybe I was tired.

No shows coming up as of now. I’d really love to get out around Iowa and play some gigs, preferably clumped into little mini-tours to make it worthwhile, but I have inadequate transportation equipment to the purpose and am ill-situated to do anything about it. If perchance I can ride along in your van for a few days, get in touch. I’ve just recorded a bunch of stuff, both Distant Trains and Chuck Hoffman material. Meanwhile, we’re mixing the Fetal Pig record in a couple weeks and we have some really trick-looking Fetal Pig t-shirts available, designed by Nathan Thrailkill and printed by Nate Fetus, and every one we sell gets us a little closer to putting out the album.

Around this time last year when I saw Druids selling their excellent Pray For Water EP on cassette at the Gross Domestic Product festival, I still thought the touted “comeback” of the cassette format was just kind of a gimmick. And it is, I suppose. But there being no dominant physical format these days, it does seem like there is certain music that cassette just seems right for. And not only have I found myself digging up some obscure gems from my vast cassette collection lately, I’ve also found that I’m acquiring a startling amount of new music on cassette as well. Here are a few:

The aforementioned Druids- Pray For Water (Ea, Lord Of The Tapes). I think this can also be found on download and CD-R and I think I heard some whisperings about a vinyl version being in the works once. This Iowa doom metal duo sounds epic even on the short fast songs (three of the seven tracks are under two minutes, although one of them is the first of a two-part suite). The longest, “Noise Forest: Ablaze” turns out to be an instrumental built around a Rhodes keyboard or maybe a Wurlitzer, that alternates between post-rock sounding sections and louder heavy parts. I probably can’t do justice in words to how heavy and awesome these guys are and this tape leaves me wanting more every time. They’re playing at Vaudeville Mews the early show this Saturday with In The Face Of War and some other hardcore stuff; Omens, another band with Druids guitarist/vocalist Luke Rauch in it, plays there in the early show March 25 with The Great Sabatini as the headliner and Fetal Pig (which I play bass in, for any of you that are new here) opening. Both are all-ages and get rolling about 5pm.

Pony Time – Pony Time Can Drink 100 Wine Coolers (Dont Stop Believin’ Records). Here’s another two-piece band, but this one from Seattle and doing a kind of sunny-yet-skewed indie pop. My old friend and former Exit Drills / Page 5 Girl bandmate Stacy Peck plays the drums and another guy named Luke (Beetham) plays a chunky-twangy overdriven bass guitar and sings. The vocals have a high-pitched chorusing on them that adds to the weird factor and makes the lyrics hard to make out at times, but the tunes are infectious. Two Billy Childish covers close out the album, and I wouldn’t even have known they weren’t originals if I hadn’t checked the liner notes, because they fit right in to their style. Download code included with tape.

You Are Home – Glacier Grains and Cage (Workerbee Records). Released both at the same time, and I ordered them both at the same time, entries 01 and 03 in Matthew Dake’s noisy, experimental, instrumental solo project’s so-named “Electronic EP Series” (I guess 02 isn’t out yet?). It seems odd to release music this synthesizer-driven on cassette. With both you get intriguing assemblages of loopy mechanized bleepy-bloopy sounds. Reminds me a bit of the early Cabaret Voltaire stuff like what’s on 1974-76.

One of my favorite things in the format is lo-fi cassette compilations. Several have found their way to me lately and I’ve heard some wonderful stuff on them. I’m beginning to think the lo-fi cassette compilation is really an indie/experimental analogue to the hip-hop mixtape.

One was included by Workerbee in the package when my order of the You Are Home tapes arrived, and seems to be an intriguing concept, the “split compilation” — one side from Workerbee and the other from Series Two Records. Series Two’s side is packed with lo-fi pop, folky and shoegazing sounds, while Workerbee’s covers those areas plus some experimental noises and some really great 60s-inspired trashy garage rock. Especially memorable tracks for me come from And Oh So Slowly He Turned, Electric Needle Room (the biographical “James Madison,” almost a lost Schoolhouse Rock song), Flannel, Mike Downey, Shannon and the Clams (awesome spooky-chick 60s rock!), Setting Sun, BAMBRA, Murzik, and The Skeptics.

Rot Box (Unread Records) was of interest for me because it has Samuel Locke-Ward, Ed Gray, and Simon Joyner on it — three midwest songwriters I like a lot and think people ought to know about. Each of them have especially excellent songs on here, and have released cassette albums on this same label as well (including Sam’s legendary Boombox By Bedside) — in fact, pretty much everybody on this comp has. I’d say Sam, Simon, and Ed have probably the best stuff on here, but I could be biased. Woods is on here too, I just don’t remember much about their song right now. Just from those names you probably know to expect lo-fi folk with some experimental twists. I also particularly remember and enjoy Caleb Fraid and Franklin Bruno’s songs. Unread has a pretty extensive catalog worth reading through, you’ll probably find some stuff you want.

I Think I Might Be Autistic (Chthonic Records) also features Sam and Ed (working with Coyote Blood both here and on Rot Box). Sam’s track here has really distorted vocals and while still pretty cool, melodically a slower cousin of “For One Cigarette,” it doesn’t shine quite as brightly for me as his Rot Box track “He’s An Evil Preacher” (possibly one of his best songs ever!). The mix of styles is broader on this than on Rot Box and maybe prevents the compilation from hanging together as a mix, but it has some killer moments. Erik Sahd’s “You Gotta Keep Tryin’” is a big favorite for me on this, a delightful electro-pop tune that gets me laughing and reminds me of Devo, Gary Numan, a little bit of Wire, and The Bassturd. Joe Brook’s “Righteous Man” is a gorgeous folk/country song that I think Why Make Clocks (which I also play bass in) should cover sometime. Gladhands’s “Refrigerator Mother” has “I think I might be autistic” as a line in the lyrics, it’s a feedback-drenched casio-rock number that sounds like it has the guy from Bush on lead vocals, I like it pretty well. Ben Trickey’s “Tangle” is another really nice folk/country tune, and there are some interesting noise pieces too. This label also just put out Sam’s split 7″ EP with Toby Goodshank (The Moldy Peaches) so you know they’re cool.

Different Paths (Greentape 57). No contact info in this one, but a Google search unearthed this. I just got this the other night when I was in Decorah to play at the Elks Lodge with Igloo Martian, Talking Computron, The Ring Toss Twins (aka Moldavite aka circuit-benders Pelzwik and Dinger — check out getlofi.com) and Seeded Plain. The only artist on this I’ve ever heard of before is Office Park, and their track is a droney one rather than a songy one so you don’t get to hear any of Ember’s beautiful voice, but it’s still pretty nifty. The rest is mostly boombox folk, some with banjo, and a couple loopy noise pieces thrown in.

Oh, by the way, that Decorah show was pretty cool. I felt weird being the act that was just playing a guitar and singing songs, and I think I played my stuff much cleaner in practice, but everyone else’s sets were really enjoyable. I did have the distinction of being the set that had people dancing. The same people started doing yoga positions or something during The Ring Toss Twins. I think their set was my favorite, kind of spooky rhythmic ambient electronic circuit-bending and casio sounds that would go over big on My Castle Of Quiet. It really got me thinking about getting my ghetto noise-rig from the early Passage Of Deformed Man Supermarket days back into play (call it a Flight Attendants comeback?). Plus they sell contact mics at their merch, which is brilliant. Talking Computron made chilly electronic sounds, Igloo Martian did a joyful performance art piece, and Seeded Plain opened with their amazing invented-instrument ambient improv (check Public Eyesore Records in the links section of the sidebar). I got one of Nick/Pelzwik’s contact mics and already used it once earlier today to sample a wooden chair and a cymbal stand with a cracked china crash on it into my SK-5. Good times. Here are some pictures:

Talking Computron

Ring Toss Twins' gear

Seeded Plain

And just because it was on my phone, here’s a bonus photo of Pink Villa at the art opening at Ritual Cafe that Why Make Clocks played at last weekend:

Saturday night January 1 at 9:30pm, come nurse the last of your hangover at Vaudeville Mews with Fetal Pig sandwiched between The New Bodies and Dresden Style. 21+ $5

It’s a rough-mix, unmastered, and I intentionally encoded it in a low-ish bitrate, but I thought it would be nice to give folks a little taste of this Fetal Pig record we’ve been working on. You’re welcome!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Dan, Jeff, and I hit the studio again on Sunday to lay down vocals and a few extra guitar parts and miscellaneous noises. Of the 9 songs we started with, 8 are basically all tracked now, and the other (“Meaningless”) we might re-take, provided we come up with another new song to throw in to make it worth the while (“Concerns” being the most likely candidate, given how it shaped up at the last practice).

Speaking of Dan and Jeff, Going To Grandma’s will be playing at Carl’s Place in Des Moines on December 18 with North Of Grand, about 9:30ish. I believe there are plans for them to do some recording. Why Make Clocks looks likely to get back on track to continue working on some version of the “cursed” Tight Dissolve album (so known because of the multiple unsuccessful prior attempts by earlier lineups of the band to record it) come the new year.

Fetal Pig are soon to head out to Flat Black Studios in Iowa City to record songs both old and new. If all goes well, we will end up with a totally insane record with no definite plans on how it’s to be released

Why Make Clocks will once again be on the bill with Mark Mallman at Vaudeville Mews, Wednesday, November 10 at 7:30 pm. So is Black Ambient Manifesto.

Unable to put the time together to rehearse with a live drummer, and not wanting to do a guitar-songwriter-folkie set, I spent money on a software drum machine to run on my laptop, meaning Distant Trains is back! I’ll be opening Rhonda Is A Dead Bitch’s‘s release party for the Laos 12″ EP, also at Vaudeville Mews, 9:30 pm Saturday November 20. You should seriously consider picking up this RIADB record they’ll be flogging, not only because it’s got good music on it (look around elsewhere on this site for videos of a couple of its tracks), but also, it has gone through hell to get to you — first the pressing plant had plates come out bad and get broken, then the first batch of the records got mistakenly delivered to Jason Warden’s now-vacant former residence, left on the front porch, where they were absconded with by persons unknown — who apparently, upon opening the boxes and apprehending the contents, graciously returned them to where they had found them the following day. A really nifty band called Golden Veins will be in the middle slot, you should definitely check them out too, they’ve got folks from Beati Paoli involved.

Speaking of release parties, there’s one coming up for the hotly anticipated Samuel Locke Ward and the Boo-Hoos/Mumfords split 7″ at the Blue Moose Taphouse in Iowa City, 10pm on Friday, November 12, and probably not long before they get the record up for mail-order.

My work continues to be busy, so I haven’t been writing a lot here, but I do manage to find time to post various links of interest to the Centipede Farm Facebook page. I figured I should pop in here quick and talk about music things I’ve been to or done lately. Leah and I went to see The Black Keys at the Val Air with busted AC, the place was packed and probably 110 degrees. I looked like I’d been in some kind of sweat-filled dunk tank. They played wonderfully though. I’ve seen some bands tend to play their songs faster live than they sound on record; the Black Keys, at least that night, played things a little bit slower, which I think suited the atmosphere of the sweltering August night. It was pretty rock and roll.

I saw the diva of mom-glam Leslie Hall, with her band Leslie And The Ly’s, bring their celebration of all things snazzy to a rainy Tuesday morning at the Iowa State Fair. Considering the weather and the early hour, they drew a respectable crowd and really pulled out all the stops when it came to silly props and between-song skits. Hanging quilts, a giant cat, and a tractor called Glitter Plow. Grace plays drums, the only live instrument they use in the show, as everything else is on a laptop other than vocals, and I can’t stress enough the level of skill it takes to be able to stay on beat with something prerecorded like that. Grace kicks ass. They’ll be at something called Inglert in Iowa City on September 16.

We did two Why Make Clocks shows this past weekend, and there were actually people at them. Saturday night’s show was at Vaudeville Mews with Noah’s Ark With A Spaceship, a great band we previously met and played with in Omaha where they’re from. They make a loud raucous guitar-noise-pop sound that I’d place in the lineage of Swervedriver. They’re on Slumber Party Records where they’re labelmates with Thunder Power and Outlaw Con Bandana among others. We got to hang out with them some before and after the show as well, and they are a fun bunch of cats. Some variation on what used to be called The Chatty Cathys opened, a group of young fellows making a Pavementy kind of racket, and they were quite enjoyable. In between was another very youthful outfit (14 to 16 years old, I believe), The Seed Of Something, which involves Dan’s wife Kim’s son Jasper and is also currently sharing drummer Will Tarbox with Why Make Clocks while they look for another. They’re really good and we’d like to see them keep at it, so if you know a kid around Des Moines who plays drums well and likes driving indie rock sounds, get in touch.

The following night both Why Make Clocks and The Seed Of Something played a double-birthday-party show at Des Moines Social Club along with The Atudes, Christopher The Conquered, and Poison Control Center. The birthdays in question were of our very own Dan, and of Pat from PCC, both of which were on Monday. Everyone put on a great show, though the sound in the Black Box Theater room of the DMSC was as usual a bit off. Friendly vibes abounded. PCC continue their “Never Ending Tour” tonight at The Slowdown in Omaha, and tomorrow night at The Lift in Dubuque , then a whole bunch of other places. I’d suggest checking the lengthy list of dates listed on their MySpace because chances are if you’re reading this, you’ll have an opportunity or two to see them in the next few months.

Finally, just last night, we did the second-ever show of the reunited Fetal Pig, opening up for the amazing Mahogany Frog from Winnipeg. MF first came to our attention when Why Make Clocks ended up playing with them at Big V’s in St. Paul. We liked them a lot and told them to get in touch if they ever thought of coming to play in Des Moines. They do mostly instrumental psychedelic prog-rock epics with lots of keyboards. It’s partly a recreation of prog circa ’72, but also very modern; I caught a lot about their set that I think fans of stuff like Battles would get into. Hell, anybody can get into stuff this good. While they were playing I kept thinking to myself they might be the best band in the universe.

Leah got me a bag of gummy centipedes!

Tonight: Ember Schrag, Pennyhawk, Ron Wax, and Nuclear Rodeo at Ames Progressive, 8pm.