Tasty Barrels, Brah

Just got back from a week Hawai'i via the LAX redeye. I'm not going to brag with too many photos, but I did accomplish a life goal by learning to surf, otherwise known as 'catching tasty barrels, brah'. I even got my pic taken with longboard pioneer Duke Kahanmoku.

MK with The Duke

Check him out below by watching a technicolor video from WWII showing his gnarly moves. Then listen to a song by my all-time faves that they wrote about him while they spent time on the islands. I recommend turning down the volume on the first vid while cranking up the sound of the second. It really gives you the idea of how influential the waves can be to a group of landlocked 'murricans.

Blind Melon - The Duke

#EDAS Album Review: Thee Oh Sees, Floating Coffin

by Justin (@justasstrazdin)

Label: Castle Face - April 16, 2013

Artist-Fair Shopping: Vinyl/ DL Code

Style: Twist & Mostly Shout, Getting Comfortable, Tripping in a Hot Rod

Audience: Sweaty Folks with One Shoulder Half-Ripped off Their T-Shirts, Echoplex Enthusiasts, Derby Girls

Better Tracks: I Come From The Mountain, Tunnel Time

This is the kind of band people ought to spin at Halloween parties, in-between sets at Knights of Columbus scene shows, or at Laser Tag arenas. Overall, they're better than some near-secret pleasure of the vinylgentsia and download link bloggers. The band has come a ways from their sparser work of the past, and have hardened into a force of tight, spastic, echo-laden freak-out rock that holds down a rocket ship of a rhythm section to drive your psychic surf garage nights, you people who hold DJ nights like that. But, I feel like they said a lot with Castlemania and Carrion Crawler/ The Dream. 2011 was a huge year for Thee Oh Sees in that regard. They have a shitload of albums. Last year's Putrifiers II was good, too. With all this cranking out, Floating Coffin seems to get lost in the bustle as an average, if heavier entry that doesn't seem to add much to all the crazy hard work they put into being a live band, or making music videos, as "Minotaur" (embedded below) has delayed my artsy-fartsy statement that the music video is dead for at least a few months.

Verdict: This Band Works Hard as Shit What Scheduling Software Do They Use

Thee Oh Sees - Minotaur

GG DOOM Update. Grip Grand talks to #EDAS!

MF Doom, The Super Duper Villian

Bad news folks. After only a day or two of life for Grip Grand's newest, MF DOOM waged and won a battle, forcing a legal takedown of their unrequited collaboration, GG DOOM! But How?. I reached out to  the man himself to see what was up with the situation and I got a response later that day:

I'm in the hospital all week with my new (second) baby. It may be too late if your post is already up, but DOOM's people made me take down the album, so...my apologies. The videos are still on YouTube... for now. I expect they won't be for long. In the meantime, there's ten-plus years of other Grip Grand music to be found at www.gripgrand.com. Thanks again for the support and for listening to my music.

Peace and respect,
Grip Grand

This guy has nothing to apologize for other than being a class act and an incredibly talented artist. He's also smart... By producing both MF Doom Remixes and Babies, his catalog is diversified enough that the SuperVillian can't take it all away. Check out his robust vaults of music (I see you, Boner Jams '03) by clicking any underlined blue words in this post OR the pic of lil' Baby Grand #1 below. Once you are there, buy a bunch of his music to make sure Baby #2 gets to be put into a box full of records as well.

Baby Grand

GG DOOM - Genie in a Bottle

Cali producer Grip Grand remixes MF DOOM; Creates BandCamp Monster GG DOOM

I just came across this remix of one of my favorite all time rappers MF Doom. I don't know much about Bay-Area Producer, Grip Grand, other than he has a huge catalog and his beats are just insane. He puts Doom's cult underground-approved rhymestyle on top of old-fashioned jazzy loops. The combination is reminiscent of Handsome Boy Modeling School. GG DOOM is a great listen start to finish and it's available on a pay-what-you-want basis on his Bandcamp, shoot him some money for these dope remixes. Tons to like on this album but I'd have to say there is currently a tie for my favorite track between the third and fourth, Gonads and Bain de Soliel respectively. Listen to the rest of the album below, or by clicking Read More. 

GG DOOM (Grip Grand & MF DOOM) - Gonads

#EDAS Album Review: Dawes, Stories Don't End

by Justin (@justasstrazdin)

Label: HUB - April 9 2013

Artist-Fair Shopping: 256K MP3 or Vinyl

Style: California Rock (Ask a Journalist), Band Coming into Their Own (Ask Yourself), Tequila & Sunbeams/Gin & Raindrops

Audience: Campers, Sad Ex-Boyfriends, Girl Who Makes It to the Front of the Stage Every Time, Teens Dragged to an Eagles Reunion Wearing Headphones in the Parking Lot, Maybe My Dad

Better Tracks: Just beneath the Surface, Someone Will, Hey Lover

Taylor Goldsmith is a daring songwriter, which is to say that he writes some really dumb things and pulls them off most of the time; the lyrical equivalent of a daring circus act with the safety net retracted. See what I did, there? "I buckle in my seat belt and plug my headset in a chair/ And to the music, I watch flight attendants move/ They are pointing out the exits but it looks more like a prayer/ Or an ancient dance their bloodline reaches through." See what Goldsmith did there, on "From a Window Seat?" The success rate for lyrics like that probably rests below 5%, and to add to the risk, there's nutty 70's AM Gold leaning piano rock guiding it. And after a few listens, it totally works, and you're afraid to break up with the album once the summer's almost over.

The risk doesn't end there. Goldsmith wrote another old man song "Bear Witness" (preceded by North Hills' "Bedside Manner"), where he gambles with, "Is my granddaughter Ruthie still working at the movies?/ Does she still let all her boyfriends in for free?/ Does she still stare out of the front door as she's serving people popcorn/ And talk about how nice today was supposed to be?" Goldsmith is either a time traveler, or he sees things most of us don't, and is dedicated to writing them down. My hope is that Dawes keeps up their obsession with the past in crafting solid and risky new American rock, and that Taylor Goldsmith hooks up with Taylor Swift somehow and celebrity magazines can play with their names.

Technical Note: One detraction is that the bass in some of the mixes gets murky, which doesn't suit an album that leans toward a handful of purdy songs.

Verdict: Love It All Summer, Stay Friends in the Fall

Dawes - Someone Will

Happy Belated Record Store Day 2013

I hope that everyone survived Record Store Day. I'm sure someone got scratched fighting over the last copy of that Husker Du release. It didn't happen while I was shopping (though some guy got really bummed about it selling out), but I had my own adventure. My favorite part of this yearly retail event are the people and experiences along the way for everyone who seeks to flip through rows of records.

Earth Day 2013

"Only when the last tree has died 

and the last river been poisoned 

and the last fish been caught 

will we realize we cannot eat money" 

- Cree Indian Maxim

Happy Earth Day! From #EDAS

Thin Lizzy - Mama Nature Said

#EDAS Album Review: White Fence, Cyclops Reap

by Justin (@justasstrazdin)

Label: Castle Face - April 9, 2013

Artist-Fair Shopping: Vinyl/ DL Code

Style: New Traditional Garage Psych or Something, 4-Track Punishment, Neat-o Fuzz Licks

Audience: Easily Tricked White-Bearded Psych Collectors, Smelly Dudes Who Get Chicks, Roll One on the Album Jacket Types, Apparently These Chicks

Better Tracks: Chairs in the Dark, Pink Gorilla, To The Boy I Jumped In The Hemlock Alley

Cyclops Reap opens with the calculated nugget "Chairs in the Dark," greeting you with fuzz squeal and organ stabs, then phaser-laden clean picking -- Okay, there's nothing new here, déjà vu, man, if it wasn't such damn cool noise-making. People are listening to Tim Presley. That guy, like, made an album with Ty Segall, and tours a lot, and can't stop making albums that in brief moments remind me why I love The Kinks so much. I only mention them because White Fence's sleepy psych country numbers echo some of The Kinks' tamer moments, but in a respectable, imposter-like way, like on Is GrowingFaith's "StrangerThings Have Happened (To You)," but never as much like when The Turtles did "Dance This Dance" on Turtle Soup.

The fuzz greeting and hard panning antics on "Pink Gorilla" establish the grandchildren of Nuggets cool that Presley is so good at dialing in, but that's a minor problem, unless you pine for that stuff after 45 years of incrementally stronger weed and vinyl coming back. The feeling that a previous album may largely be the same to less discerning ears, but captured the moment better, even if that moment is a close copy of another era, shit, you can probably say whatever you want about it at that point. While Is Growing Faith may be that "moment record," perhaps Cyclops Reap needs time and spins to sink in. It's fractured, louder, and pushes 4-Track bedroom production to it's limited limits. FamilyPerfume, Vol. 2 was too scattered and this release reigns most of its problems in. But you wonder what else is out there in Tim Presley's unfinished and future work.

Verdict: Neither Rewrites Book Nor Rocks Boat, but Lock Your Smoked-Out Friends in a Room with It and See What Happens

White Fence - Chairs In The Dark

#EDAS Album Review: Kurt Vile, Wakin on a Pretty Daze

by Justin (@justasstrazdin)

Label: Matador - April 9 2013

Artist-Fair Shopping: MP3 or Vinyl/ DL Code

Style: Textbook Long-Form Rock, Space on Earth, 70's Rock Renovation, Summer Drug Days

Audience: Windows-Down Trucker Tanning Types, Flannel and Cold Pizza Types, Guys with Crappy Long Hair, Maybe Lester Bangs' Ghost

Better Tracks: Wakin on a Pretty Day, Never Run Away, Shame Chamber

It's an amazing mix of murk, haze, clarity, and time-stretching. A 9 minute, 31 second single may confuse the industry, but "Wakin on a Pretty Day" on Wakin on a Pretty Daze manages to be the vessel of a Vile that manages to merge the welcome meanderings of his earlier work with the acoustic immediacy of Smoke Ring for my Halo. The psych-cum-stoner guitar layers are well-woven in a surprisingly clear track that drifts along until the end. The album follows suit, and although there seems like there's so much that could go wrong with this kind of production, it's refreshing and flows upon its constructed layers and strong songwriting.

Vile's lyrics continue to approach weird honesty and cool detachment in equal measure, he stands high among his grimy peers with lyrics like, "I'm living all the time thanks 'cause you're mine/ You turn my dying days away/ Each day we carry on like believers and lovers/ Even though there are others who would rather run away." What's most remarkable is that someone put out an album in 2013 that runs 69:03 and isn't a soundscape of pipes clattering in an empty warehouse. If you have to clean your apartment or drive along a historic highway, Vile released your soundtrack.

Verdict: Future Top 10 of 2013 Contender

Kurt Vile - Wakin on a Pretty Day

Eternal Summers & Pow Wow! play Irving Plaza with 90's Alt-Weirdos Presidents of the United States of America on April 15th

You already know Spring has Sprung, but next Monday Eternal Summers hit NYC with some heat of their own. Nicole Yun and Daniel Cundiff started off in Roanoke, Virginny as a guitar and drums duo before adding bassist Jonathan Woods to the fold. Now their jangly, penetrating rhythms are complete and Nicole's dazey, nonchalant vocals have a strength reminiscent of Ana da Silva from The Raincoats or a more minimal, dreamier Jenny Lewis.

Eternal Summers

Their sophomore album, Correct Behavior, off Kanine Records garnered rave reviews from all over, especially on Pitchfork. This has lead to them being hand picked by Martin Van Buren, Rutherford B. Hayes and Gerald Ford The Presidents of the United States of America to accompany them on the east coast swing of their latest tour. Stops include Philly, Boston, Asbury NJ and of course, Monday night at NYC's Irving Plaza (tickets still available, somehow!).

Also on the card are local sweetiepies pow wow!. I have been a big fan of theirs since their album "Don't Stop to Look" warmed me up during the dead of winter. I challenge you to listen to their spritely melodies without bursting into a full earbud-to-earbud smile. I have not seen them live yet but I have heard such great things I'm really excited to check them out!

Wild Thing: Charles Fréger's Wilder Mann at Chelsea's Yossi Milo Gallery, April 11 - May 18

May I have the attention of Western civilization for just a moment? Kay, thanks.

Much to the chagrin of our communal elitism, and despite the automatic New York Times updates beamed directly to our iShits, we are not actually civilized. Well, not if Charles Fréger has anything to say about it. Wilder Mann, an exhibit of Fréger’s photography is set to open at New York’s Yossi Milo Gallery, April 11 and will run through May 18.

The show, which is comprised of photos of people looking “wild”—wearing anything from ceremonial garb to throwbacks to ancient folktales—essentializes the idea that no matter how many mobile, wi-fi-enabled devices we carry, or how “civilized” we consider ourselves, humankind is still much wilder than any of us would comfortably admit.

“Wilder Mann,” which translates to “Wild Man” from German, is a photographic series that explores the ancient celebrations and mythology of the primeval “wild men” that lived across Europe. The exhibit explores, among other things, totemic figures and the way they can help us understand humanity’s ancient nature—and how it may—or may not—teach us about the present.

According to the people that study this kind of stuff, the exhibit explores “Neolithic Shamanism.” That’s fancy talk to describe the people who celebrate ancient rites and celebrations of equinoxes, fertility, life, and death, symbolizing the complicated relationship between mankind and nature. It’s pre-religion; it’s part of being a human, the genetic fingerprint that, some argue, predisposes us to tend toward spirituality in its many forms.

Is this our history? It’s still happening…

Charles Fréger From the series Wilder Mann
Wilder Mann 77,  2010-2011 Inkjet Print
© Charles Fréger, Courtesy www.charlesfreger.com

…And this is our fashion sense.

Charles Fréger From the series Wilder Mann Boes, Ottana,
Sardinia, Italy, 2010-2011 Inkjet Print
© Charles Fréger, Courtesy www.charlesfreger.com

Grace Potter and The Nocturnals - Only Love: The Anti-Love Song

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ “Only Love” is not a starry-eyed love song, but with its refrain, “It’s only love, it’s only love,” it sure does sound like one. It’s a ballsy mix: one-half funk-strut hump, one-half I-just-can’t-quit-you-but-I-have-to anti-love song.

“I need to loosen my grip just a little bit/ I feel this love like a stranglehold/ But there's something stopping me from losing it/ There's nothing harder than letting go.”

I’m not going to demean Grace Potter by drawing a line between male and female singer/songwriters—especially the non-weenies that work in rock ‘n’ roll—because your sex organs have nothing to do with your level of bad-assery. Check your misogynist “Chick Rock” labels at the door.

'100 Days of Chaka Khan' begins, offers peak at forthcoming record

Always be yourself. Unless U can be @chakakhan. Then always be @chakakhan

— RuPaul (@RuPaul) March 23, 2013

OK, OK, I know that beginning an entry by quoting the Twitter account of a drag queen might be a little obtuse, but I figured the majesty of Chaka Khan required something larger-than-life to frame it accurately—especially considering that we’re now living “100 Days of Chaka.”

It’s not a national holiday—yet—but I’m lobbying my congressman to make it happen.

In case you’re wondering what 100 Days of Chaka is, well, it’s pretty simple. The premise is similar to what we do at EDAS: Every day, Chaka posts a song/video on her website. Along with the video, she adds a note about why she chose the song, how it fits into the context of her life/career/creative process, etc. It's a pretty sexy PR maneuver to promote her new record, The IKahn Project: Alive, due out July 2.

Sprung

Jon Theiss

Just as Spring brings new life into this world,

This spring brings new  writers to the EDAS team.

Please welcome our newest contributor, Jon Theiss.

Today marks the first day of spring, and it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood (at least here in New York), so here’s one of my favorite anthems that celebrates, among other things, ungluing your face from the Internet. (The irony that I’m writing this ON THE INTERNET isn't lost on me, promise.)

This ditty showcases one of Stephanie Nilles’s biggest strengths (that she can count among the many)—the slap-and-tickle “Fuck You” anthem—crystallized here in the sweet-as-candy but deceptively fanged first-track, “Fuck Off Grizzly Bear,” from the album by the same name.

Nilles, the just-over-five-foot New-Orleans-via-Kent, Ohio jazz/blues player, has a voice—literally and figuratively—that’s far beyond her years. Everybody loves a slow-burn vocal, sure, but it’s the spoonful-of-sugar-helps-the-arsenic-go-down attitude that is the cornerstone of Nilles's craft that keeps my pants tight.

“Myspace is a place where disaffected folks go to make themselves seem happy/ and Facebook is just the gateway drug to stalking/ Twitter is a port through which the self-absorbed to make bullshit references to pop culture/ The news is not the news, it’s food for the vultures.”

As a former news writer, Twitterati-obsessed Instagram-heavy Pinterester, I’m completely on board, as masochistic as that sounds. What can I say? I like a lady that can put me in my place.

So, today, this first day of Spring, “If you’re feeling like a useless piece of shit, chances are, your instincts are right/ So employ the restrictions forced upon you as a kid—unplug it and go outside.”

Check out Nilles if you like smart, well-written pop/jazz. Or maybe it's jazz/pop. Whatever, as Stephanie says, Go Outside!

Stephanie Nilles - Fuck Off Grizzly Bear