Revolver Related Shows This Week (5/7 - 5/13)

MONDAY MAY 7TH
DIRTY BEACHES - Northampton    MA    Iron Horse    w/ Xiu Xiu       
LA OTRACINA - Bremen    DE    Stubnitz           
SIC ALPS - Cologne    DE    King Georg           
MARK SULTAN - Denver    CO    Hi-Dive           
UNSANE - Dallas    TX    Trees     w/ The Melvins
   
TUESDAY MAY 8TH   
ALLO DARLIN'- San Francisco     CA    Rickshaw Stop           
CHRISSY MURDERBOT - Pawtucket    RI    The Met   
COLOSSAL YES -     San Francisco     CA    Hemlock Tavern   
DIRTY BEACHES - Portland    ME    SPACE Gallery     w/ Xiu Xiu       
JUCIFER - Geneva    CH    Le Kab Usine           
QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT - Toronto    ON    Silver Dollar            
TY SEGALL - Minneapolis    MN    7th Street Entry     w/ White Fence        
SIC ALPS - Paris    FR    La Mecanique Ondulatoire           
STRANGE BOYS, THE - Nashville    TN    The End            
UNSANE - Santa Fe    NM    Santa Fe Brewing Company    w/ The Melvins               
ZOMES - Miami Beach    FL    The Fillmore Miami Beach     w/ Beach House

WEDNESDAY MAY 9TH       
A STORM OF LIGHT- Berlin    DE    Berghain    w/ Sleep       
ALLO DARLIN' - Chico     CA    Origami Lounge           
CHRISSY MURDERBOT - New York    NY    Irving Plaza           
DIRTY BEACHES - Montreal    QC    La Sala Rossa    w/ Xiu Xiu       
LA OTRACINA - Stockholm    SE    Mother           
TY SEGALL - Madison    WI    High Noon Saloon     w/ White Fence        
SIC ALPS - Lille    FR    La Malterie           
SPITS, THE - Goteborg    SE    Truck Stop Alaska            
STRANGE BOYS, THE - Bloomington    IN    The Bishop            
UNSANE - Santa Ana    CA    Galaxy Concert Theatre     w/ The Melvins               
ZOMES - Orlando    FL    Beacham Theater     w/ Beach House

THURSDAY MAY 10TH       
A STORM OF LIGHT     - Leipzig    DE    Conne Island    w/ Sleep       
ALLO DARLIN' - Portland     OR     Mississippi Studios            
CHRISSY MURDERBOT - Boston    MA    Paradise           
JUCIFER - Prague    CZ    Klub Final            
LA OTRACINA - Goteborg    SE    Koloni           
PURLING HISS - Fayetteville    AR    Arkansas Music Pavilion     w/ Wilco       
QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT - Detroit    MI    Lager House             
TY SEGALL - Chicago    IL    Lincoln Hall    w/ White Fence, The Strange Boys        
SPITS, THE - Stockholm    SE    Vielles Montagnes                   
MARK SULTAN - Brooklyn    NY    Knitting Factory           
TERRY MALTS - San Francisco    CA    Slim's           
TORCHE - Chapel HIll    NC    Local 506               
ZOMES - Jacksonville    FL    Free Bird Live     w/ Beach House   

FRIDAY MAY 11TH   
A STORM OF LIGHT - Prague    CZ    Lucerna Music Bar    w/ Sleep       
ALLO DARLIN' - Seattle     WA    The Vera Project      
BLACK TWIG PICKERS - Birmingham    AL    Secret Stages Festival           
CHRISSY MURDERBOT - Baltimore    MD    Sonar           
DASH RIP ROCK - Macon    GA    Hummingbird Bar & Taproom           
DIRTY BEACHES - Ottawa    ON    Mavericks     w/ Xiu Xiu       
GENTLEMAN JESSE - Asheville    NC    Emerald Lounge    w/ Barreracudas       
JUCIFER - Halle    DE    Reilstrasse 78            
LA OTRACINA - Copenhagen    DK    Mayhem           
PURLING HISS - Birmingham    AL    Sloss Furnaces            
PYGMY LUSH - Philadelphia    PA    First Unitarian/Side Chapel           
QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT - Cleveland    OH    Horrible Fest

TY SEGALL - Detroit    MI    Lager House     w/ White Fence, The Strange Boys              
SULTAN, MARK - New Haven    CT    Cafe 9           
TORCHE - Atlanta    GA    5 2 9        
ZOMES - Birmingham    AL    The Bottletree     w/ Beach House

SATURDAY MAY 12TH           
BLACK LIPS    5/12    Atlanta    GA    Terminal West at King Plow Arts Center           
BLACK TWIG PICKERS - Birmingham    AL    Secret Stages Festival           
BURNING IMAGE - Bakersfield    CA    Riley's Backstage           
CHRISSY MURDERBOT - Harrisburg    PA    The Abbey Bar           
DIRTY BEACHES - Toronto    ON    Lee's Place     w/ Xiu Xiu       
DUCKTAILS - New York    NY    Terminal 5            
GENTLEMAN JESSE - Washington    DC    Black Cat    w/ Barreracudas       
NATE HALL - Johnson City    TN    The Hideaway    Record Release Show       
JUCIFER - Berlin    DE    Magnet Club           
LA OTRACINA - Malmo    SE    Get Daun Festival           
MV & EE - Jamaica Plain    MA    The Whitehaus           
PURLING HISS - Jackson    MS    Thalia Mara Hall            
QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT - Chicago    IL    Empty Bottle           
TY SEGALL - Toronto    ON    Horseshoe Tavern    w/ White Fence, The Strange Boys        
SPITS, THE - Aarhus    DK    Woxhall               
MARK SULTAN - Boston    MA    PA's Lounge           
TORCHE - Orlando    FL    Will's Pub               
ZOMES - Athens    GA    The Georgia Theatre     w/ Beach House

SUNDAY MAY 13TH           
CHRISSY MURDERBOT - Buffalo    NY    Soundlab           
GENTLEMAN JESSE - Brooklyn    NY    Knitting Factory    w/ Barreracudas       
JUCIFER - Slupsk    PO    Motor Rock Club           
MV & EE - Brooklyn    NY    285 Kent    Record Release Show       
QUINTRON AND MISS PUSSYCAT - Milwaukee    WI    Cactus Club           
TY SEGALL - Montreal    QC    IL Motore             
SPITS, THE - Venice    IT    Guilty Boat Party                    
ZOMES - Asheville    NC    Orange Peel     w/ Beach House

Woodsist Festival 2011.

DAY ONE

Saturday July 30th @ Fernwood
Doors at 9pm- live music from 9:15pm - 12:30am

Nodzzz
Art Museums
Ducktails
Woods/Fresh & Onlys Big Band

DAY TWO
Sunday July 31st @ Henry Miller Memorial Library
Gates at 1:00 PM- live music from 2:00 PM till 10:30 PM outdoors

Real Estate
Thee Oh Sees
Fresh & Onlys
Woods
Sic Alps
Sun Araw
White Fence

Sonic Youth & Sic Alps Fillmore Photos.

Sic Alps
Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA.
Sunday 01/10/10

Sonic Youth
Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA.
Sunday 01/10/10

A Couple Sic Alps Live Shots.

I left me skull in San Francisco - Sic Alps playing with Ty Segall on drums at the Hemlock Tavern last night (07/23/09). Photos from Mike Doyle's trusty iphone.

Multiple Siltbreeze Radness From Your Flesh.

Taken from Sewers Of Mars #14 by a fellow named James Jackson toth on the Your Flesh site.....

OK, I realize that this is just getting embarrassing now, but I just hafta tell you that U.S. EZ , the new Sic Alps album on Siltbreeze is easily their definitive work; More on this next month, and probably every month here on after. But speaking of Siltbreeze, dude’s been on a roll lately. To be quite honest, I was starting to wonder a bit after a run of fairly mediocre albums by xNo BBQx and the inexplicably fawned-over Psychedelic Horseshit, but three recent releases in particular have confirmed that Siltbreeze is still the greatest indie since, err…Zapple? Fabulous Diamonds are a frisky guy/ girl duo from Melbourne, Australia playing skeletal drone pop reminiscent of long forgotten greats like Beyond The Implode or perhaps a more ‘screwed and chopped’ Palais Schaumburg. The absence of guitars in lieu of all manner of percussion, dubby synth stabs, and saxophone, makes the band distinctive enough, while the bratty playground taunts that pass for vocals will certainly make fans of anyone who digs Lilliput, ESG, or Julie Ruin. Very brief (but not too brief), this eponymous album manages to encapsulate the gloomy stoicism of no-wave without that genre’s predictable ‘confrontational’ bent. Good job. Naked on the Vague, on paper, sound like a sister band to Fabulous Diamonds—also co-ed, also from Australia (this troop from Sydney), also working within the parameters of ‘space dub’ and largely ignoring rock and roll’s favored instrument—but Naked on the Vague, on their debut LP The Blood Pressure Sessions, possess a more sinister, apocalyptic edge that likens them more to Young Marble Giants or something Andrew Eldritch might have recorded had he horded Messthetics comps. I also give them the slight edge because Naked On The Vague essentially do what Fabulous Diamonds do, but then take things even further into the ether. For instance, “The Horse, He’s Sick,” all woozy synths and chanted vocals, would fit comfortably on Fabulous Diamonds LP, but only until the creepy, gear-changing chorus. Also especially great is “Mother’s Footsteps,” which simultaneously reminds me of Huggy Bear, Crass, The Knife, and Sonic Youth. Oh yeah, and Naked on the Vague writes great lyrics: “I know nothing of God or the devil / And I know nothing of heaven or hell / All I know is that I wake up breathing...” Post-post-punk? Lastly, Eat Skull follows two massive singles with Sick To Death , a snottily canorous journey into the psyches of these creeps, who also play in The Hospitals (see Sewers #13). As for the sound, pre-sheen Guided By Voices is an obvious touchstone, as on “Survivable Spaces” which conjures GBV anthems like “Quality of Armor,” while the pensive, melancholy “Fade To Smoke” could pass for an outtake from Alien Lanes. Don’t mistake this for Magnet fodder, though—the band alternately rawks as ferociously as Electric Eels on tracks like the fittingly titled “Punk Trips,” and the Count Dracula cackle that concludes “Puker Corpse” is the best chorus-that-isn’t-a-chorus since I don’t know when. While Sick To Death is certainly something Trouser Press would call ‘lo-fi,’ there is a clarity and attention to detail here that makes it lo-fi like Kriminella Gitarrer and not lo-fi like, say, Sentridoh. Stellar.

Sic Alps Review On Pop Doug.

Pilfered from the lovely Population: Doug blog.

SIC ALPS TAKE FLOWER POWER TO NEW HEIGHTS

As much as I really wanted to love Sic Alps last year, after the all the hype that snowballed into the Description of the Harbor breakthrough near the year's end, I must admit their recordings weren't marriage material for me. Astute readers will note that I placed the "Strawberry Guillotine" single on my best-of-07 list. Well, looking back, it's not all that great of a 7", and I'll admit to listing it because of the incredible live set I had seen a few weeks before that list was pieced together. I liked Sic Alps and thought they were brilliant live, and Harbor was nice enough, but let's just say I wasn't head over heels for the band's records.

Enter U.S. EZ on, you guessed it, Siltbreeze. Leave it to Tom Lax to get the best effort out of his athletes. I've seen him during practice and the man is nothing short of a drill sergeant. You know Sgt. Hartman, from Full Metal Jacket? Well, Lax makes that character look like Beetle Baily. But his teams know that all the hard work pays off. They sign on the Siltbreeze dotted line, endure training camp and eventually hole-up in a studio until a masterpiece is ready for the boss.

Mission accomplished. Sic Alps have eased into a recorded sound all their own, one that is noticeably more loose than their contemporaries but packs no less of a punch. Their live shows are some of the loudest I've seen in the past few years, but this record relies less on the volume of their sets (and previous records) and puts on a pedestal their brilliant song-craft. The palette is simple and pure: guitars, drums, voice, some bits of piano. The warmth of the recording tells me not a whole lot of overdubs were used. I could be wrong. It just feels like the rooms they record in are a member of the band, as they implement echo, distortion and feedback into the recordings as meticulously as (sometimes more so) any note struck.

The songs alone are surprisingly original creations, surprising because this genre of music usually relies on a structure put in place over forty years back. Take the minute and a half-long "Bathman", which begins as an acoustic Lennonesque echo-laden lullaby, until, thirty seconds in, a transitional burst straight out of Who Sell Out sets into motion frenetic pounds and squawks for the next minute. Then comes "Everywhere, There" a song as beautiful as leaves falling or clouds drifting, but is taken to new heights with their fuzzily loose execution. That it rivals the heart-wrenching renditions The Band performed of Dylan songs says enough. Songs this sweet have never graced the Siltbreeze racks. And there's the whimsical "Gelly Roll Gum Drop" a nod to the classic '66 psychedelic era in Britain, with it's stuttering word-play and one-note piano clanging along, it would make Kevin Ayers proud.

That time and place, mid-60's Britain, is obviously their inspiration for much of U.S. EZ, right down to the newspaper headline-themed artwork found inside. Tin Pan Alley on acid in Autumn is the feel, and you could very well file it next to such classics as Something Else or Soft Machine Vol. 1. But filing this one away is not on the minds of anyone who's heard this magnificent record, which when it's all said and done, is likely the best album you'll hear all year.

Upcoming Sic Alps live dates:
09/16 Los Angeles, CA @ The Smell
09/17 San Diego, CA @ Bar Pink Elephant
09/18 Phoenix, AZ @ Trunk Space
09/19 Albuquerqu, NM @ Stove Gallery
09/21 Austin, TX @ Beerland
09/22 Austin, TX @ Club 1808
09/23 Dallas, TX @ The Lounge
09/24 Shreveport, LA @ Mini-Cine
09/25 Memphis, TN @ Gonerfest
09/27 New York, NY @ Awesome Vistas Festival
09/28 Poughkeepsi, NY @ Vassar College (early show)
09/28 Brooklyn, NY @ Death By Audio
09/29 Philadelphia, PA @ Broad Street Ministries
09/30 Annandale-on-Hudson, NY @ Bard College
10/01 Montreal, QC @ Pop Montreal Festival (w/ Blues Control, Pink Reason, Psychedelic Horseshit)

The Alps Get Dusted.

Dusted Reviews
Artist: Sic Alps
Album: U.S. EZ
Label: Siltbreeze
Review date: Jul. 24, 2008
Original Review

The recent media emphasis on “lo-fi” as a re-emerging genre feels more than forced these days. After all, low-fidelity recordings have existed as long as musicians have deigned to make a few bucks off their craft. What differentiated 1980s and ’90s practitioners from any number of skuzzy Nuggets clones or DIY progenitors from decades past was a base ironic detachment that rested on a willful subversion of the expected norms of music production. To claim any sort of rebirth here is to deny the fact that crappy microphones and cheap methods for recording music continue to propagate each and every day.

In a way, though, this renewed focus on an aesthetic like lo-fi was almost an inevitability, a response to be expected from musicians and listeners less and less interested in indie rock’s increasing approach of traditional major label values and marketing strategies coupled with desperate grabs for ever-shrinking pieces of market share pie. Even still, while lo-fi’s break represents somewhat of an alternative from the way things currently are, it still brings with it another set of troubling orthodoxies: ridiculously small pressings of records, a seller’s market on eBay, bands who use cardboard boxes for drums, and a resigned expectation of terrible live sets.

California duo Sic Alps have been lumped pretty haphazardly in with this new class, thanks in part to the tinny quality of some of their recordings and a few overt moves to dialogue with their forbearers (going so far as to cover kindred spirits like the Strapping Fieldhands). In addition, the fact that they’ve had a few vinyl-only releases disappear in a matter of weeks hasn’t done much to sever that association. And though it might have made sense on recordings past, with U.S. EZ, Mike Donovan and Matthew Hartman’s first full-length for the Siltbreeze label, Sic Alps lay bare the fact that their primary interest isn’t in dissociating methods or recorder grot, but rather in pure and simple songs.

More so than any other of their supposed contemporaries, Sic Alp’s tunes place the personalities and the methods a distant second to Donovan and Hartman’s simple guitar and drum patterns, building blocks for songs that call to mind a distinctly multi-generation approach that has as much to do with garage pop and vintage psych as it does modern wave weirdo punk. “Bathman” starts out with a forlorn acoustic strum, for example, but quickly segues into a cascade of rolling drums and a thundering riff. Later on, “Mater” comes on like a punched-up version of the Clean, albeit one cut with stronger percussion and a better sense of vocal harmony. Best of all here, though, is “Gelly Roll Gum Drop,” an ascending vocal paired with insistent drums and honky-tonk moves that manage to take the music of Sic Alps into a wholly new realm.

Now, this group exists in some perfect middle ground, one in which great songs can be had without all the muss and fuss that strips them of their personality. Building on the strength of the still fresh singles collection, U.S. EZ is another great record by a pair of folks who seem to crank them out at ever increasing speeds with an alarming efficiency. You can call this stuff “lo-fi” as much as you’d like, but more than anything else, when the record stops or the show ends, you’ll remember the songs you heard first and foremost and not be left, weeks later, with the nagging feeling that you’ve had the wool pulled over your eyes by some burnout.

By Michael Crumsho

Mike McGonigal's Rave Review of Eat Skull On Pitchfork.

Eat Skull:
Sick to Death
[Siltbreeze; 2008]
Rating: 8.3
Original review

On their first album Sick to Death, the Portland, Ore., band Eat Skull mashes together almost everything that's great about trashy art-punk, weirdo fuzz-garage, skuzzy punk-pop, Kiwi garage-rock and off-kilter bedroom-strum. If you adore the weird songs on the Not So Quiet on the Western Front album as well as the Urinals, Raincoats, Gordons, Swell Maps, Homosexuals, Tronics, Desperate Bicycles, Television Personalities, Axemen, Guided by Voices, Chain Gang, those Messthetics comps, and very early Pavement, then meet your new favorite band. You should know, though, that this record sounds like it was mastered by a deaf person. It's all super-distorted and in the red; even the "folksy" numbers are louder than fuck. But once your ears adjust, you realize that it's all killer, no filler.

Lots of acts are mining similar territory these days. To name the most obvious adherents, Sic Alps, Times New Viking, Psychedelic Horseshit, No Age, and Tyvek have each hit upon their own twisted formula for reinventing noisy art-pop. For some reason, all these groups have decided that the best way to record is if all your songs sound like they were taped on a thrift-store answering machine using its built-in condenser mic, in a tiled bathroom, when you're really high. Was there some sort of convention held where it was decided this is how records are supposed to sound now? Does Tom Lax of Siltbreeze have nude photos he'll release of all these band people if they ever set foot inside a proper studio? And who came up with the "shitcore"/ "shitgaze" term for this stuff? That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. I personally wouldn't mind being able to hear more of what's going on in some of these songs-- ironically, you can catch the distinct parts of the music way better when you go see these bands live.

Arguing against this approach is useless, and if I do it any more I'll turn into Andy Rooney. You might as well walk up to your favorite Scandinavian death metal act and asking them to please write paeans to puppy dogs. Some things are just genre conventions, and you deal: in this corner you get songs about burning churches, and in the other you have more distortion and hiss than Slay Tracks. You'll notice I have not yet used the phrase "lo-fi" in this review. That's because I greatly dislike that term. In its 1980s/90s heyday, "lo-fi" referred to such a wide variety of acts-- Daniel Johnston, Dead C, Sebadoh, Supreme Dicks, Grifters-- that it was functionally useless right from the start. At most, "lo-fi" defines an alleged method of capturing sound, similar to the way that "indie rock" refers to a supposed distribution method and nothing else (aside from "rock"). I am reminded of Jean Dubuffet's quote, that "there is no art of the insane any more than there is an art of dyspeptics, or an art of people with knee complaints." Um, but I digress.

Unlike the current army of Anglophiles rocking the basements across the land, this quartet is as in love with American punk as they are the Commonwealth stuff. They shamble into a muffled memory of U.S. hardcore on songs like the Nervous Gender-ific "Beach Brains" or the wonderfully incomprehensible "Stress Crazy". But there's a surprising amount of variation between sounds and songs on Sick to Death; at times it seems like a various artists comp rather than one band. Here they are channeling GBV and the TVPs on the acoustic lament "New Confinement", while "Puker Corpse" is what the Gun Club would have sounded like if they only made soundtracks to haunted houses. The organ-driven shoutalong "Punk Trips" is a glorious pop song that pits multiple melodic hooks against one another, each of them competing for your heart. I dare you to not get it stuck in your head for days.

- Mike McGonigal, July 14, 2008

Upcoming Eat Skull live dates:
07/15 Davis, CA @ Delta of Venus
07/18 Portland, OR @ Slabtwon
07/27 Portland, OR @ Rottue (PDX Pop Now Festival)