Gemini Cricket @ Flicker this coming Sat. Feb. 21st

At some point, when no one was looking, Gemini Cricket grew up. A band that a year ago (delightfully) sounded like the sweetest little sugary group you could ever book for your young elementary-school son’s birthday party is in the process of becoming something more sullen, if not downright dirtier & nastier than any of us ever could have imagined.

Gemini Cricket is the virile offspring of a married couple—for only a married couple could conceive of something so simultaneously wholesome & frightening—named Blake and Sara, and an eavesdropping neighbor on drums named Marie. When I saw them last year, they were all kazoos & handclaps, shy winsome smiles. Last month at the GoBar they seemed about to spontaneously combust, lost in reverb and sharp angry guitars. Check out the latest demos posted at www.myspace.com/geminicricketband if you’re interested in proving that such a thing as evolution exists. Even the most hardened creationist, darwin-hating, evangelist would throw up his hands in surrender when presented with the band’s supernatural mutation from the slide-whistling, self-deperecating, insect-mentioning, nursey-rhyming “Cricket Theme” to the stomping, filthy “Sizzle Pop”.

From childish. . . to Billy Childish.
From bagged lunch. . . to Naked Lunch.

From this...



To this...



They're also playing with Sphinxie, a band who spits genius, and a band who seems fundamentally incapable of purusing anything resembling a "career". Watching them promote themselves is like watching the shy kid at your junior high trying to get up the courage to ask someone to dance. If you see Sphinxie on the street, go up and ask them to dance. You'll be glad you did.

Gemini Cricket's new recordings are from a session they did last month with local producer Jesse Stinnard. According to this week's Flagpole, the session should result in a 7-song ep. They are playing tomorrow night at Flicker. And again at Flicker on March 6th for those of you who don't want to miss out on the Aux Festival--oddly not a french derivative of 1983's "Us Festival," a concert that should be best remembered for this guy...



I think Gemini Cricket could take him in a knifefight, along with his sissy bandmates.

On Influences: Vivian Girls (a guest blog)

To Henry Darger, the Vivian Girls were warriors. They were children with the courage of grown men. They were victims and aggressors, fighting against the notion that children were somehow beneath the dignity of adults, and represented in thousands upon thousands of exquisitely catalogued drawings and narratives. The Vivian Girls were beyond human, twin-sexed--sometimes drawn with penises--perhaps pragmatic and perhaps meaning nothing at all. But they were the only tool in Darger’s extremely devout and socially anxious toolbox to help him process his childhood of abuse and his lifetime of solitude.

In the year 2008, the Vivian Girls are a band. They are a good band. I like their record, the self titled “Vivian Girls,” but something is not quite right. They are both meaningful and meaningless, and it is hard to say why. Maybe they are meaningful because of their potential to show us something about the way artists go from listening to creating their own music.
Why meaningless?
Because who really gives a shit anyway…

Incidentally, The Vivian Girls Experience from Philadelphia is an avant-garde duo who make up songs called “kitten lemonade stand,” and who have at least had a myspace since 2005. They also have some very impressive craft and costume making skills.
http://www.myspace.com/theviviangirlsband

The Vivian girls in 2000 were a band from Melbourne, Australia, now disbanded. They list their influences as New Wave and Situationism. Now THIS, sounds like my kind of band.

Needless to say, that PBS special “In The Realms of the Unreal-the mystery of Henry Darger” sure has been getting around. That reminds me that the Public Broadcasting Corporation relies on support from viewers like you.

But this is a story about the Vivian Girls, the band. The band in 2008 made up of three girls: Cassie Ramone, Kickball Katy and Ali Koehler. A blonde, a brunette and a redhead. Not necessarily in that order. This is not a joke. Their album sounds like a hazy reflective on a whole host of bands that have in the past moved me to embrace the dual nature of destruction and creation in life, my femininity and masculinity. They have moved me because I expect the music in my life to bring about the next step in evolution. So it is natural that when I first heard the signifiers in the album:
Surfy Beat Happening guitar riffs (mmm, Black Candy!)
Vocals somewhere between Talulah Gosh and Heavenly
Vaseline’s Harmonies
heavy on the distortion, reverb on the vocals,
are you kidding me…I was excited. Especially because of how it stood out in the rotation of my local college radio, WUOG.

But after a few listens I started to notice a theme…no context. No life experience. Lyrics just added as an afterthought because songs are supposed to have words. Generic. Copied. Because its cool enough. Because its easier.

On their Myspace the Vivian girls want you to know that they are influenced by the Wipers, Nirvana and the Shangri-las. These are the bands that they want you to hear when you are listening to their music. This is perhaps more interesting then what their music actually sound like. It is interesting because they sound more like the bands that Kurt Cobain was into, than what Kurt Cobain used them to become. While Nirvana and Wipers (even though Nirvana certainly came after) seem to have evolved from a common ancestor (like Chimpanzees and Bonobos), Vivian girls seem to be a de-volved version of the two. If they are evolving from anything, its more likely a branch off of the Social Distortion evolutionary tree. Why?
Well lets take a look at some live performances:

And for a follow up, a look at some more of their recent “controversial” (if controversial means you are BORING, and having a conversation I have heard 100 times already) video interviews:

Vivian Girls: Zing!.

Vivian girls are without a doubt a band searching for a sound, but who have nothing to say about the present, let alone the future. They are not as Jonathan Richman once said, “In love with the modern world”. And even their love for the old world is suspect.

I played it for my friend at work who’s first response was “Wow, this doesn’t sound modern at all!” He was right. So it got me to thinking about what it means to produce art in 2008 and have nothing to say about the future. And more than that, what do the Vivian girls have that is uniquely their own? Are they creating anything new? I think the answer is yes and no. There are really beautiful moments on the album, like the high pitch harmonies on the song “Where do you run to” which reminds me of the Vaselines. And there is the warmth of the California sun (Which I have never experienced, but imagine often), synthesized by a certain kind of guitar tone that I don’t understand, in the song “damaged” which reminds me of one of my other favorite bands, X.
So at their best Vivian Girls owe their moments to bands from 10-20 years ago.
And this wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if they could do so with the enthusiasm and creativity of, oh lets say, another one of Kurt Cobain’s favorite’s: Shonen Knife.

I mean these ladies really were in love with the modern world. I get the feeling they liked the Ramones too.

And on second thought, the absence of a modern sound is not really the Vivian Girls’ crime either.

What about Thee Headcoats? I thought.
While in 2000, still using all of the sound signifiers of 1960’s lo-fi garage rock, Thee Headcoats still sounded like a fucking force to be reckoned with. But this is because of what was under the manifest sound. It is not a repeat of 60’s garage rock, it is 60’s garage rock from an alternate dimension. It has something new to say about the past and what it is like to deal with that past in the present and future. I suspect this is probably because of Billy Childish’s horrifying experiences of childhood sexual abuse when he was 9 years old. It was best put by the love of my life who said, “Um…I don’t think anyone ever wrote a 60’s garage song about looking at the gun in their father’s hand, or the day they beat their father up.”
Good point.

Speaking of fathers, Kickball Katie told a story about her father (Mr. Kickball? Kickball daddy?) in this interview:

Vivian Girls: What the Fuck?.

My point is, Vivian girls do not play music because their life depends on it. They play music because they want you to like them. There is a certain divining truth in music which is almost always true: If you are a boring person, you cannot make yourself anymore interesting by playing music. Your voice will reveal the truth, who you really are (or who you really aren’t). There was something communicated in Kurt Cobain’s voice that was extra-worldly. It felt as though if he didn’t get it out maybe the whole world would end. And maybe someday it will, but I do not think the Vivian Girls are anymore interested in this than they are with Sarah Palins’ fabulous million dollar haircut and debate “zingers.”

But in the end, I do like them. But I also feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for the fact that they are so emotionally young in such a big world, in such a big time. I feel sorry for the fact that they are talented musicians and have nothing to say, because there is a lot of sadness in really trying to create something meaningful for yourself and having it be meaningless to the world around you. (That would make a good song!) Listening to their recent video interviews I was reminded of hanging out with girls just like them in High School and early in college. No experience and an opinion on everything. They are not interested in anything other than repeating what has been said to them by someone they believed was interesting. They are no different from girls in Sororities, they just wear different clothes. They have different symbols but the same ritual context, the same class background. Just as it did then, it leaves me feeling utterly alone. It leaves me beginning to understand why Henry Darger chose to live his life in solitude with only his made up world to help navigate what was left of his sanity.

In many ways , the Vivian Girls are just like the naïve college girls that Jonathan Richman used to sing to from the cold sidewalks of Boston (still kind of inappropriate Jonathan…). He was pleading with them, that if only they would think for themselves, if they would only have the courage to live without the fear of disappointing your parents or having someone laugh at you, the fear of being alone, then their lives could be so full of meaning, joy and mystery. Just like how Henry Darger’s interior life was so rich, despite his ultimate fear of real human contact. So I guess why the Vivian girls’ are more of a disappointment than some band that just plain sucks is because of the stunning promise of what they could be, and that they seem to be running in the opposite direction of that promise.

Vivian girls, who cares what people say about you.
put out your cigarettes
and act like real girls.

Posted by: Lester Bang Bang on the door, Baby

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Live Review - No Age, Titus Andronicus @ 40Watt Sat. Nov. 14th

Titus Andronicus went on first, in the sense that they went on before NoAge.
Titus Andronicus went on second, in the sense that they went on after the first band.
In the sense that I didn't see the first band, Titus Andronicus was the first band I saw.

I came close to seeing Titus Andronicus play at the Squirrel earlier this summer. On the way to the 40Watt, I was trying to figure out why I didn't end up going. Once they started playing, I remembered that I had gone on their myspace page and found out that I couldn't stand them.

A fable.

Sometime in the early/mid 90's, when Gilman St. all-ages punk was still all the rage, a group of pirates abducted the young, prebubescent punk-obsesses future members of Titus Andronicus. Raised on a steady diet of up-down beats, and too much beer, the now-bearded & foul-mouthed youths were dumped somewhere in New Jersey with a house full of instruments. Left to fend for themselves and sing for their supper, they seized on the one thing everyone in Jersey can agree on--Springsteen, and spat out their influences in a giant five-personed splat.

That's what it sounds like anyway. Stage banter ran all the way from "fuck me" to "fuck you," usually settling on the latter. The songs all sounded like a testosterone-laden, sea-chanty, harmonica-blowing, Ruby Soho-sounding mess. And so it came as no surprise when the singer took issue (during a between song monologue) with something one of the NoAge guys had said the night before.

"Fuck Springsteen," said the guy from NoAge.

Mr. Andronicus let it be known that if anyone said anything like that tonight, then we would be settling it "outside in the alley with fists and knives" (which come to think of it sounds like a line from Born to Run). I'm sure the only thing that kept him from punching/stabbing NoAge the night before was his four other band members holding him down and reminding him that NoAge was the headliner of this tour, and a whole hell of a lot more well-liked than Titus Andronicus.

By the way, Titus is from Glen Rock, New Jersey--a town 20 miles northwest of New York City. Aside from the fact that it's lame as fuck to love Bruce Springsteen simply because he's from the same state as you (I'm imagining Pylon playing this week in California, and Vanessa pitching a fit because someone doesn't like The Black Crowes), it's even lamer when you live closer to Julian Casablancas than to Asbury Park. Fuck Titus Andronicus, and fuck Bruce Springsteen, the Fonzie of Rock'n'Roll.

Turns out NoAge only said 'Fuck Springsteen' as a joke because they were getting ready to cover a Misfits song, and were propping up their favorite Jersey artist by tearing everyone else's favorite Jersey artist down. Of course the NoAge guy sounds more like Jad Fair than anyone else from Jersey, and there's more that happened in this whole turf war but I'm getting tired of telling the story because it's a whole hell of a lot less interesting than what NoAge did, or at least tried to do on the stage of the 40Watt club for the sixty or so people who came out.

If you had trouble sleeping this summer because your allergies were acting up and you weren't able to breathe so you stumbled downstairs and drank a glass of emergen-c and while you waited for your breathing to return to normal you may have been lying on the couch flipping through the channels when you saw this video on Mtv--yes, the actual Mtv.



By going more ferocious, more experimental, more psychedelic, NoAge has been able to add one more chromosome to the inbred DNA of the high-pitched white indie-rock singer gene. I'm talking the Superchunk - Built to Spill - Modest Mouse- Shins voice, the thin strangled squeak-shout straining to impart knowledge & emotion. By upping the MBV and lovering the GBV, they've been able to make something fresh for the indie world.

For a band with two members and an album that sounds nearly as dense & layered as Loveless, NoAge live sounded surprisingly like NoAge on record. Modern technology is an amazing thing. The band did everything they could to fill the space, climbing on monitors & speakers, jumping down into the audience (20% of the audience was moshing, 95% of the moshers were moshing non-violently--health & safety ed.), ranting against Proposition 8--a California band's version of name-dropping Springsteen. The show was beautiful, cathartic, and loud. They went well past 1am and nobody left until they played their last note.

I wasn't bored for one second, and I can't remember the last time that happened.

Here's some footage from a show they played two weeks earlier, same song they opened with at the 40Watt.



More fun facts about Glen Rock, NJ, and by extension, Titus Andronicus.

avg. income per household - $104,192.
Pct. population below poverty line - 2.4%

Same numbers for Athens.

$28,118
28.6%

No wonder they think Bruce Springsteen is actually a real person.

TV On The Radio - Dear Science

It's only been officially available for five days. Doesn't matter. This is the best thing they've ever done.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this album a year from now, or five years, or ten years. Let's just say that TV On The Radio has finally found the perfect balance in their music between dread & anticipation, between apocalypse & redemption. Between art & pop. Music that would sound at home on radios as well as museums--95.5 The Beat & MOMA.

TV On The Radio embraces their contradictions like it's the only thing that can save them.

I could tell you the story of how they made the album, I could pick out snatches of lyric that signify & evoke. That stuff's available all over the internet wherever you look. And it's definitely worth reading, especially the band's testifying on behalf of Billy Idol's "Eyes Without a Face" and The Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian".

Instead, since this is presumably a blog about Athens music, it might be nice to mention that this band who has played all over the world played a show here in town at the 40Watt a year ago. They didn't have to come here. It was probably the smallest town, the smallest venue they played the whole tour.

Anyway, I was hanging out at the old X-Ray Cafe when the band stopped in to look around. I was having a weirdly introverted, raw-nerved kind of afternoon, so I just let them do their thing. Smiled and nodded hello whenever someone made eye contact. Listening to them chat with the store's owner, they sounded nice, funny, friendly, down-to-earth, and decent. I couldn't think of anything to say beyond thanks for coming to our town and playing this show, so I left them alone. Later, when they put on one of the most ferociously transcendent shows I have ever seen (check out this appearance on David Letterman for a taste)...



...it made me feel even better to know that these people were genuine in what they were doing.

This is an album to live with, to listen to over and over. In a time when so much that passes for culture is disposable and flat, TV On The Radio has done that rarest of things--created something that can exist in any world you want it to, even if that world is disposable and flat.

And in the process, they may end up making the world a little less flatter.

Here's the first video from the album.

Tunabunny Feature

So how did you guys all meet?
“Well I think I met Mary Jane first”.
“No, I already knew Chloe through Jesse”.
“But really, Brigette and I went to Cedar together so we met first”.
“But as far as Tunabunny went, I guess it started when you and I were working Saturday mornings together”.
“Or when we started going to sing Karaoke”.
“Okay. Really it started when me and Scott started dating”.
“When we moved in together, really, is when I think it started. Because then your dad starting bringing over his old gear”.
“And we started playing Devo and Pere Ubu songs together”.
“No, just say the band started when I met Chloe at that Pylon show and she told me she played drums. That’s when the four of us finally got together”.
“You know what’s messed up is I remember Chloe asking me if she could be in our band like, a year earlier. I remember having to tell her there was no band”.

Tunabunny has existed for anywhere from 5 months to a year, depending on how you look at it. They played their first show in April, and since then have gone from a ramshackle mess getting by on potential (and enthusiasm, and charisma) into something more purposeful and controlled. Which is not to say that they’ve lost any of their freedom, or that the songs are calmer or more tamed, it’s just that now you can actually hear the songs. Now, the band is in charge of their music, instead of the other way around.

“Well those first shows at the GoBar, we’d be sitting outside talking to people, and all of a sudden someone would say ‘you’re on’—”
“And we’d rush inside pick up our instruments and start playing”.
“Only it was so insanely dark in there that we couldn’t see a fucking thing”.
“I just remember looking down at my bass and going, ‘That’s funny, I can’t see the dots on my bass”.
“Yeah, we’d all be playing on the wrong frets for like the first three songs until our eyes adjusted”.



Tunabunny tends to finish each other’s sentences. Mary Jane and Brigette, the two singers and guitarists, went to high school together at Cedar Shoals. They’ve known each other for nearly ten years. Scott, the bass player, met Mary Jane working at Jittery Joe’s and they became quick friends though a shared love of The Breeders and Karaoke (“and beer,” adds Scott). When Scott started dating Brigette, he was shocked to find out that she already knew Mary Jane.

“Chloe was always kind of on the periphery”.
“I knew you from working at Five Points”.
“And I just knew you as Tay’s friend”.
"And that time at the old store when I asked you to turn up The Velvet Underground after that one asshole customer asked you to turn it down”.
“Oh yeah. That was totally awesome”.
So how did the four of you all start playing music together?
“Well at first it was just me and Scott, and we kept inviting people to come over and play with us. Mary Jane started coming regularly and that really clicked. But we still needed a drummer—because I didn’t want to be stuck behind the drum set. So once I met Chloe and found out she played drums, she came over and it just took off from there”.
Chloe, had you ever played drums in a band before?
“No.”

It turns out that hardly anyone in Tunabunny had ever been in a band before. Mary Jane and Brigette had both been playing guitar for less than a year. Scott had played one show with Summer Hymns before quitting—“they wanted me to play guitar, I hate playing guitar. Besides, I was having more fun playing with these guys”.



I wanted to ask you about your sound.
“What about it?”
You don’t really sound like any other band. I’m wondering how you did that. How you got to sounding the way you do.
Four sets of shoulders shrugging at once. Then Brigette takes a shot at it.
“It’s just the way we sound when we play together. It’s always sounded like that. Maybe it’s because we have such cheap equipment. I really don’t know”.
Well what are your influences?
“I always tell people it sounds like Kim Deal singing for The Fall. Either that or Kylie Minogue singing for Pere Ubu”.
“I think Electrelane is a band we all like”.
“I was really interested in shamanism and transcendental states”.
You mean like in Native-American culture?
“Well partly that. But that’s also something that exists in Patti Smith, or gospel music, or Can. You find it in all kinds of places. These sort of incantations—like Little Richard, ‘a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop’, or speaking in tongues—I was interested in those sort of ideas of freedom and breaking into the spirit realm”.
“I just want people to have a good time, to maybe feel a little bit more freer after seeing us”.
What about the knocking stuff over? And using the mic stand to play your guitar?
“That’s just fun”.
And laying on top of the synthesizer and rolling around?
“That came from Sun Ra”.
“And besides, I have to keep playing the guitar”.



I’ve seen a lot of bands toss their equipment around onstage, and I’ve seen a lot of bands abuse their instruments, but I’ve never seen a band do so with such innocence and glee as Tunabunny. Kurt Cobain, Sonic Youth, Iggy Pop, etc. always seemed to be in such anguish as their amps toppled over. Tunabunny seems more like elementary schoolkids whose parents left them in charge of the house. Hey, let’s put the toaster in the microwave. That’ll be fun!

So you’re recording an album now?
“Yeah, Jesse asked if he could record us, so he’s set up this old 8-track reel-to-reel out at our house”.
“It sounds pretty amazing”.
How many songs do you have written?
“Um, probably 13. Either 13 or 14”.
How do you write your songs?
More shrugging. “Someone just starts playing something, and then the rest of us follow”.
“Unless someone brings something in”.
“Or someone says something and we start singing it over what we’re playing”.
“Like, ‘You Can Stop If You Want To,’ We’d been playing that chord progression for like ten minutes and then Scott started singing that part over it as a joke, saying we could stop playing it whenever we wanted to. But I liked it so I wrote a bunch of words to go with it”.
What’s that song about anyway?
“Um. . . it’s about personal freedom, and how we all have the ability to make choices. But also about how scary that can be. Because when you allow others to tell you what to do then you’re not responsible for your behavior. But if you’re in control of your life, that you leaves you wide open to all kinds of self-questioning and risk. Which, you know can make life all the more glorious and beautiful”.

Tunabunny sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before. They say they have no plans to do anything with their album for now except give away CD-R’s of it to anyone who wants one. Find them.

Songs Dark Meat Should Consider Covering - Vol. 2

Steview Wonder - 'Superstition'

If you're looking for a reason to head out to SixFlags this summer, look no further than their American Music Awards rewind show taking place in one of the dark, air-conditioned auditoriums. If you like your history of music award show performers reduced to a series of 10-second clips--my heart broke when they cut off Prince in the middle of 'Purple Rain'--then this is the show for you. Featured performers include Mariah Carey, Britney Spears. Michael Jackson, and this guy.



The clip's from Sesame Street by the way, so even if you know the song backwards & forwards it's still worth a look.

Why this song for the Meat? Well aside from the horns, etc., it's got the same kind of war-watching dystopian hangover that the best Meat songs strive towards. Also, it might break them out of that white-boy up/down rhythm they're so prone to and help them learn how to swing.

I haven't found a song yet that might teach them how to sing. But the next time I'm over at Jim's house I'm going to hide all of his Mudhoney records, and the next time I'm over at any of those girls' houses I'm going to hide all of their yodeling records. They must have some seriously extensive yodel collections. It's the only explanation.

Incidentally, the guy who posted the youtube clip calls this the "ultimate feel-good song". Only if you don't listen to the words my friend, only if you don't listen to the words.