DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH?
Dan from Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Bonus Eventus and Let’s Wrestle give us their picks of 2009 as we near completion of our Guest top 10s.
Fever Ray
Our top records of 2009 countdown continues, with our favourite singles, albums and downloads of the year. We’re now at numbers 60-41.
In the Red’s profile may have risen in recent years through releases by King Khan & BBQ, Vivian Girls and Jay Reatard, but for years the L.A. label’s been buttering your croissant with permanently cool, stylishly unfashionable garage-rawk like what this here Reigning Sound band makes.
Jay Reatard might have an eery resemblance to Meatloaf on the Watch Me Fall album cover, but you won’t find him making 12 minute rock operas with ambiguous meanings any time soon.
Finally recovering from a great Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona and we have some pictures to share. We’ve eschewed the big names like Jarvis Cocker, Bloc Party, Neil Young, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth as you’ll see that stuff elsewhere and instead concentrated on a select few for a more personal look - Aphex Twin, Fucked Up, The Horrors, Wavves, Jay Reatard and Dead Meadow (who were particularly excellent).
Despite news to the contrary, there are still record stores in America. Chains, less and less but, at least in New York, the good ones are still going. April 18 was the third annual
Record Store Day, a "celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally." Or, an excuse to get people to go out and remember just how cool and fun it is to browse and buy physical records and CDs in an actual record store. To entice people to do so, labels and bands pressed up exclusive vinyl releases that were only available that day.
Lovvers are loud. Lovvers are filthy. Lovvers have churned out a debut EP of cruddy (in the best way!) punk jams that get the likes of Jay Reatard and Wipers in simultaneous full nelsons. Does that sound like a feat of strength? It is. "Wasted Youth" is about ninety seconds of such derring do, below and free of charge. Above is the video for "Human Hair." They're kicking over trash cans in Austin this week. Catch them if you can.
Lovvers are loud.
I’ve been singing Jay Reatard all day. Easily one of my favourite sets of all time, Jay Reatard catapulted through a lightning speed set of songs mixed from his back catalog, although unfortunately seemed to pay less attention to my personal favourite, Blood Visions. Like the other crazy sweaty messes up the front I too was left hankering and hollering for Blood Visions, the title track. We were at least blessed with Greed, Money, Useless Children from the same album, a highlight song for me. Living up to his rep, the incredibly hairy Reatard simply yelled out the song title of the next song between each sweat-soaked rollercoaster track. Come to think of it, listening to Blood Visions now, you can almost hear him doing the same on the record, between Greed, Money… and It’s So Easy! The band had one of the best stage presences I’ve ever seen, EVER. His bass player was like Gene Simmons (but less creepy), pulling epic poses with his flying V that matched Jay’s, waving his head around loosely with his mouth agape so that his sweat and spit sprayed a metre in diametre. The quiet drummer was poised and perfectly fast. An incredibly talented and fun band, it was always going to be a hard one to beat.
No Age and Jay Reatard Wednesday, February 4, 2009 The Kings Arms, Auckland
iLiKETRAiNS DEMO OF THE WEEK:
ISTVAN & THE KOSMAS / DISCO CLUB IMPERIAL
DAVE: The song started out pretty promisingly, but it didn’t really develop. It could be just me! Having said...
Legendary rock photographer Steve Gullick has a retrospective at Manchester’s KRAAK Gallery running from March 12th til March 27th, featuring shots taken for NME and Melody Maker as well as his...
To accompany the review of tUnE-yArDs’ Monday gig at Cargo, a few tasty shots of Think about Life, Trash Kit and New England native Merrill Garbus aka tUnE-yArDs.
Read the review of the night...
We have collected some truly heinous examples of recent album covers, from Empire of the Sun’s Star Wars travesty to the banal evil that is Razorlight’s Slipway Fire. Discretionary...
Album art in this gallery was selected based on several simple traits: strong concept, fine graphics including creative typography and general lushness. The first three of ‘The Best Record...
Placebo pictures: just in - some photos of Placebo and Brian Molko from last week’s gig at the Glasgow SECC.
Also check out the review here
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