pôt-pot

Time to traverse some psychedelic waters with the droning sounds of pôt-pot.  Check out the Velvet Underground vibes of "Going Insane," a track that really captures my mood these days, below and download the album of same name here from Blind Head Recordings.

Daily Jam - Heavy 33

You know what was awesome? The AIDS benefit compilation album No Alternative released in 1993. That’s what was awesome.

Recorded and released at what was probably the cultural apex for the alt-rock music scene in the '90s (though 1994 was pretty rad too), the album featured a whole slew of artists who pretty much defined the era. Contributions from Bob Mould, Matthew Sweet, and Urge Overkill rank right up there with the best work those artists ever recorded, while standouts from Pavement, Mark Eitzel, and Uncle Tupelo make for an essential release. And that’s not even mentioning Soundgarden or Beastie Boys or The Breeders or an uncredited Nirvana appearance. Seriously, this album was a monster, and all for a good cause to boot. And among all of these gems lays what is probably my favorite track on the compilation, the gloomy and propulsive “Heavy 33” from New Zealand band The Verlaines, an act that at the time I had never heard of, and to be honest, am still only remotely familiar with.

After falling for the band’s contribution to No Alternative, I spent some time trying to locate their past work of which is fairly plentiful considering the group’s been around since 1981, but was no easy feat to accomplish for a teenager living in a smallish city in west Texas in the pre-internet age. It wasn’t until I was in college in Austin that I was able to procure some old albums from The Verlaines, scouring through used racks and dollar bins. And while that output was great, nothing ever captured my heart the way “Heavy 33” did. Dense and heavy lyrics atop angsty and slightly menacing music, tied together with a wonderful pleading and frustrated chorus.

This should have been an anthem. And, for completely selfish reasons, I’m glad it wasn’t. It kind of makes it mine. But I’m ready for it to be yours now too. Give it a listen.

“All the clouds keep hoarding, all their airborne oceans won’t fall.”

Beings

Beings is the new New York collective of Steve Gunn, Jim White, Zoh Amba, and Shazad Ismaily.  The quartet make a very cool, avant garde blend of jazz, folk, psych, no-wave, and pop.  Dig on "Flowers that Talk" below and pre-order the upcoming "There Is a Garden" LP here from No Quarter.

Daily Jam - You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Admittedly, karaoke is kind of lame. But also, it can be crazy fun if you’re in the right frame of mind.

The apex of my karaoke participation came a few years ago, long before we all started popping out babies and mowing our lawns on Sunday mornings. On weekend trips to Houston to visit a group of guys and girls I’ve known too long to even remember, for a stretch, we somehow managed to find ourselves frequenters of a local karaoke dive every time I came into town. And it was awesome…cheap, bad drinks and cigarettes and taking turns humiliating ourselves in front of a room of random strangers we didn’t know. And there was much aplomb and applause in this house of lost weekends, blurred vision, slurred speech, and mighty, thunderous tributes to the arts.

Yeah, we probably sucked, but we swung through all the hits.

Of all my turns at the mic, taking on songs by Bowie or The Carpenters or Erasure or whatnot, there are two tracks I regret never getting around to singing. One of those is Dusty Springfield’s “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.”

Originally penned by Italian songwriter and composer Pino Donaggio with lyrics by Vito Pallavicini in 1965, the track eventually made its way to English singer Dusty Springfield, herself a huge fan of the original Italian iteration. Released a year later, her English version, much more of a reinterpretation than a translation, still soars as one of the greatest odes to unrequited love that I’ve ever heard. It’s the sonic equivalent of tearing your heart out and holding it up for the whole world to see. It moves me literally every time I hear it.

So, naturally I want to butcher it in a dirty room in front of a bunch of drunk weirdos.

No word or hints as to when my next karaoke excursion will be, but after a few cocktails, I think I’ll be ready to perform.

And for the record, the other song is “Just a Gigolo” by David Lee Roth.

Geneva Jacuzzi

Here's some new dancy synth pop from LA's Geneva Jacuzzi.  Check out "Dry" below and download it here from Dais Records.

Daily Jam - Cum on Feel the Noize

Sometimes I just like a dumb song.

My feelings for LA heavy metal band Quiet Riot’s 1983 cover of UK glam band Slade’s “Cum on Feel the Noize” have pretty much remained consistent since I first heard the song when I was 4 or 5 years old...and that’s that it rules. The song was featured prominently on an 80’s pop rock compilation cassette I got when I was a kid (possibly the first cassette I ever bought if memory serves), and was the closing track on side A. I played that tape to death, jamming it in my Walkman repeatedly on summer vacation road trips through the south with my family, over and over again from start to finish. My affinity for Duran Duran was born with it, as was probably my penchant for digging on synthesizers. That cassette served as my gateway to a large swath of popular music at the time, much of which would fall out of favor over the succeeding years while all the while I still sang along.

I can’t not sing along to “Cum on Feel the Noize.”

And neither should you. Come on! You know the words!

The Rayvelles

Let's groove a little on this fine Sunday with the library funk sounds of UK duo The Rayvelles.  Dig on the cool as a cucumber "Return of the Soul Sabre" below and get the band's new self-titled album here from Funk Night Records.

Daily Jam - Drunk Girls

LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy is my go to example and inspiration for when I start to feel like I’m too old to attempt or accomplish something, audio encouragement for my artistic endeavors. The man was already 35 when the first LCD Soundsystem LP was released, and he was well aware of those years he had on many of his peers and contemporaries. He embraced it and continues to. In a lot of ways, his work has served as a kind of conduit for me to project my encroaching (and now current) middle age insecurities into, Murphy providing a gleaming example of aging, if not gracefully, then at least with a modicum of cool resignation to the fact and with middle fingers still somewhat in the air. As the artist is now over 50, and I brace myself for my upcoming adventures in the land of upper 40 year-olds, I wait with excited anticipation for his band’s return to the fold later this year (2017's American Dream). And based on the first two singles, “American Dream” in particular, it appears that he’ll be providing even more motivation for me.

But before all that, way back in 2010 when we all thought This Is Happening was to be his swan song, Murphy and Co. laid down an all-out party jam that belied his age, the fun, bouncing, hyperactive and indispensable “Drunk Girls.” Wound tight and released, the song combs post punk, new wave, and disco pop for a toe tapping, head bobbing aesthetic, silliness abounding and with a quick, jumpy brevity you don’t normally get from your regular LCD Soundsystem output. The band’s influences are well represented here, as they usually are, with nods to David Bowie being some of the most evident. Bowie worship can be found all through Murphy’s back catalog, and really nowhere more so than on this Lodger-esque stomper.

So, drop the needle, press play, and sing along.

Luster

Here's a little shoegaze from LA band Luster that came out earlier this year.  Get lost in the noise of "Missing You" below and get the 7" single here from Funeral Party.

Daily Jam - I Stay Away

This column was originally published in 2017.

I’ve been immersing myself in a lot of the music I grew up with the last couple of weeks. I suppose that the death of yet another one of my generation’s idols and icons has me feeling reflective. It has me feeling…nostalgic is not the word…wistful maybe, like this kind of yearning for how music made me feel when I was a teenager, the wholeness and everything of it all, the importance and the grandeur. There was this youthful excitement and immediacy to all the wonderful music I was discovering in the early '90s, from grunge to alt-rock to Britpop to industrial, punk, and metal, a cavalcade of sounds that influenced me, opened me up, defined me, and kept me warm. Kept me sane. Made me real. I would lose myself in it all. I’ve been chasing that high ever since, and despite all the new stuff I’ve found and obsessed over through the years, it’s just never been the same, like a steady supply of methadone when what I’m really craving is pure heroin.

Maybe I shouldn’t make a heroin analogy in an article referencing Alice In Chains.

As it turns out, all of that old music is still important to me…even when time has put a lot of distance between us. Chris Cornell’s suicide hit me harder than I would have expected, took me aback, and flooded my heart and soul with sadness and quiet resignation. As my friend and fellow blogger Shawn wrote at the time, it wasn’t necessarily world shattering, like when losing a Bowie or a Prince, but it has had a way of making me contemplate my own mortality. These deaths usually do.

When Layne Staley died in 2002, I remember exactly what I was doing when I heard the news. I had just loaded my car with guitars and amp, and was pulling out of my apartment’s parking lot on my way to band practice when word of the Alice In Chains singer’s overdose came over the radio waves. I had to stop my car right there and take it all in for a moment. I had to process it. Of course he died. Of course it was an overdose. And it only seemed fitting that it had taken a week or more before his body was discovered. It’s like it was always supposed to end that way. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. Another icon gone. Another inspiration turned to dust. So, I pulled my car back into the parking lot and went inside to grab some Alice In Chains to listen to. Once on my way, Dirt just felt like it would be too much, its themes and stories of addiction an all too dire eulogy to symbolically say farewell with. Jar of Flies felt better. It’s a dark and morose piece of work for sure, but it didn’t feel so steeped in an addict’s pain and struggle, a weird and growling glorification of chemical dependency. It’s more somber. Less amusing. And despite its acoustic nature, it feels so much heavier.

“I Stay Away” is the Alice In Chains song I always go back to, either in memoriam and solemnity, or wistful repose. It’s what I wanted to hear after Staley died and what gets me closest to re-feeling that teenage glow, a strange and melancholy melody that breaks apart as ominous undertones rise to the surface. It was kind of haunting back then, and is certainly more so now. Staley and Jerry Cantrell’s harmonies sound eerie and otherworldly atop soothing acoustic guitars and menacing electric ones, strings and synthesizers bubbling beneath, creating a kind of soundtrack for passing through to the other side along a dark and mysterious body of water. It’s spooky and beautiful and wonderful, and at 15 years old, it spoke to me in a way I don’t think I truly understood.

And maybe I still don’t.

But I’m listening to it now, and it’s still making me feel and still making me long for something ultimately unattainable. It’s also making me think that perhaps my generation’s rock stars and aging artists are getting their reunion tours out of the way now, as there’ll be no one left when we’re in our old age. Perish the thought.

“Tears that soak a callous heart.”